Scraped from here.
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
Right. Well as a foreword i...
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
Right. Well as a foreword i...
Devil Bringer of Zero [FOZ/TM! crossover]
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Xicree
Murder.Malice.Might
Scraped from here.
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
Right. Well as a foreword i guess I'll say that I finally decided to post this first chapter of my story here at SB. If anyone doesn't mind playing prereader for me then PM.
But beyond that. Let the show begin.
Chapter 1: No need to heed the call!
"Louise of house Valliere. It is time," spoke a voice gentle and firm, its balding, bespectacled originator nudging his staff in her direction.
Her mind had been wondering in circles for the entire day. And now that she was here standing on the precipice of her task, it was all that Louise could do in order not to choke upon her own bile. Tension knotting muscles tightly, teeth grinding with a subconscious force, as the youngest scion of the house Valliere valiantly… futilely... attempted to calm herself in the face of this the task before her.
~"Will she manage?"~ The murmur of the crowd.
After all, this was only the most important day in her entire career as one of the magi. What happened at this ceremony would only go on to define the entirety of the rest of her life. Success or failure allowing her freedom of choice and validation or the confinement of one doomed to be little more than a laughing stock, and if lucky be able to retire from public view as breeding stock till the end of her days, unremarked upon, unknown, forgotten...
...no pressure...
She felt like crying.
~"I'm just curious to see if she can actually summon anything."~ A physical echo to the doubt which already pierced her.
She was going to fail. And it was all that she could manage to keep her hands from acting upon the turbulence which she felt here at the edge of her impossible task.In that even court yard itself seemed leer at her. The brilliance of the sky's one eyed gaze looming over her in cold anticipation, its dire implications at odds with the tranquil beauty of the grassy court yard. Panic was rapidly setting in and ill omens seemed to sprout from every corner.
At the moment only the constant memory of her mother's stern decorum kept her backbone stiff, the dire understanding that failure was NEVER an option to be expressed kept her from breaking down in front of her peers. Win or lose, pass or fail, she would not dishonour the Valliere name with anything less than her best showing.
~"Zero will probably just screw up again... like always."~ The jeering verbal stabs of her peers pressing into already open wounds.
Grimly her teeth clenched.
She needed this time to be different. It HAD to be different. Louise Francois le Blanc de la Valliere couldn't bear the thought that it might not be different, that her dire nickname would continue to haunt her every facet of life with ruthless abandon, Louise the Zero.
Zero ability, Zero success, Zero hope.
"Valliere, after all your talk yesterday, I'm sure you can summon something more amazing than this child here, right?"
A voice rang from a few paces away; its red headed owner's teasing tone a savage affront to the young Valliere's senses, a foe both as a matter of family and personal pride, Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst. The sight of her knelt right next to her newly summoned Salamander as she spoke was a further poke in Louise's eye. Her rival's playful grin as she ran her hand over the proof of her own success was a further stab in Louise's side.
Anger coursed through Louise, galvanizing her to her task. For where need alone was insufficient, when combined with the inky red haze of the determination to prove wrong those who would decry her, the young woman would find herself forgetting about all else but the task. Stubbornness was very much a family trait which Louise exemplified. And so she forgot her nervousness. The red eyed rage of determination rapidly replaced the imposing pressure of near crippling self-doubt as she pressed onward to her task like a charging beast.
Composing herself she began, wand held stiff in a starter's position, she sought the words which in turn reached for her power.
"In the name of Louise Francois le Blanc de la Valliere, I beg of you!"
Power. She could feel its weight upon her, feathery soft. Here she spoke, almost a whisper. Now her words were forged into Magic.
"By the Pentagon of the five powers Elemental!"
Her words reached out ever louder by the syllable, forging her will into effect,the familiar tingle traveling down though her arm as limb moved in time with chant, the wands motions weaving speech into spell.
"My servant, who lives somewhere in the universe!"
A sudden jolt shocked its way through her; she'd almost dropped her wand in the process. It felt as if she had cast out a line into the sea with all her might, hoping desperately to troll the deepest depths for her catch. This alone left her arm feeling leaden, but all the same almost pushed her into the next motion.
"Oh my sacred, beautiful and strong familiar!"
She could feel it, in a way unlike no other spell she had ever cast, she could feel it working. The power which flowed from her congealed itself into the mold as set by her wand motions.
"From my heart, I plead to you my deepest of desire!"
She could not keep the need from her voice, its dire echo feeding will to magic and enforcing the shape of her power. Then suddenly she could feel it, a tingling grip, a sublime answer to her call, a pouring force which almost drove the breath from her, compelling her to inhale to complete her final shouted exaltation.
"Heed my Summons and come forth, MY FAMILIAR!"
...then as all too often her world exploded in a wave of white.
*************************************************
"My servant, who lives somewhere in the universe!"
Ancient eyes cracked open, a baleful yellow blazing from the dark crevices of its mask. For the first time in seven centuries it tingled with sensation, the shallow pool of its prison rippling with its movements... also for the first time in centuries.
Seven hundred years, of dreamless sleep and sleepless dreams as its prison restrained even reason. But such was to it a familiar prison even before its long time shackles were set. Deep here in the heart of its dungeon, the roots of its jailer pierced unfeeling flesh, draining nutrient and power in exchange for its traumas. Slowly the poison of thousands of years seeped from its heart, drained by roots of light. The irony of it all being that the very power which it had used to devastate, was being fed to its jailer to keep it imprisoned.
Still, though it had heard the call, this did naught but to stir it to wakefulness.
Servant?
To follow the errant whims of an uncaring master once more?
To subject itself willingly to the rape of its will?
Never.
The ancient almost closed its eyes once more, to ignore the summons, and wrap itself again in solitude, a preferable alternative to slavery. Better imprisonment of body, than the binding of its will.
"From my heart, I plead to you my deepest of desire!"
Raw emotion poured in.
The psychic echo of a need bordering despair kindled a rare flame of empathy within the wakened beast. The desire of its caller wasn't of destitute slavery, but one of partnership, love and naked necessity. The warm intensity of feeling reminding the enlivened ancient of those times which it was allowed to slip its bonds ever so slightly, and project its power. The waiting smiles of love and fellowship with the one being it had come to cherish, but knew like all other things, would come to dust.
The instinct of a guardian, the fires of a destroyer, the love of a nurturer, the tender hand of a creator... like a ghost in the dark lay there to await it, everyone of them a path it could choose if only it would accept this one small thing.
To give service rather than to be bound in slavery. Distinctions which till even now in its long existence the ever young ancient had never pondered, but knew intrinsically on instinct.
And thus while reason slept... the monster chose to wake.
"Heed my Summons and come forth, MY FAMILIAR!"
***************************************************
Slowly the world faded back into view.
Yet another explosion... now the grandest of disappointments.
Resigning herself the scion of Valliere began to crack open her eyes, her small body laying prone upon her back, driving herself onward in dim hope beyond hope Louise would spy that the grand nature of her explosive spell had spilled over, rocking back the entire crowd, save one blue haired staff wielder, who had found it prudent to climb upon her own newly summoned familiar, away from the potential chaos...
...familiar...
...no...
The dimming light of hope dying as every spot of what now looked like a minor warzone was examined. All others lay groaning and or rising from the grass in a pattern which radiated from what had been her original position, the alert eyes of her balding teacher pointing toward the centre of the explosion, Louise's eyes followed suite.
That is where she saw it.
In the exact centre of the explosion it knelt.
A corpse.
The almost completely naked, mummified remains of what was once a person rocked back upon unmoving knees in a stiff mockery of prayerful reverence, its masked face searching upward toward the sun in seeming of worshipful adoration. Slick wet hair hung down behind its mask as its wrinkled hands faced palms up. And between its legs an egg of deep purple sat.
"No... no... no…" Louise whispered, an icy feeling prodding at her toes.
That sick sensation climbed until it rammed Louise in the gut, a bitter wrenching sensation which forced tears of frustration and defeat from her lavender eyes. A horrifying and grisly actuality, here destiny spoke to her in clear tones. It's cruel mockery of her culminating in this its most of spiteful jokes. Bitter bile washed up her throat as the idle consideration that maybe she HAD in fact reached her perfect familiar, alive and intact... only to kill it in the process of summoning it to her, clawed at the back of her mind.
"Louise... what have you done?" Zerbst spoke, hesitant horror burning at her lips. The newly summoned salamander curled about her and tensed in hissing defiance toward the desiccated remains.
Louise stared on in mute horror, she could almost scream.
Only the long years of having lived with her mother, the duchess Karin Desiree de la Valliere, allowed her to note the sharp alarm which suddenly radiated from her balding teacher at the corner of her eye. His hand clenching about the staff which he carried and the sharpening of his eyes reminding her of her mother's own hawkish looks when something was amiss. Small evocations of preparatory flame issued from his mouth, while his demeanor smoldered with the embers of potential action. This was not the professor Jean Colbert with whom she had become familiar, the slightly doddering, over enthusiastic educator. This was almost as if another man was standing there, wearing his skin. But, for the life of her Louise could not string together a why for the abrupt transformation. Maybe she had damaged him also in the blast, it morbidly occurred to her. One more sign that maybe she should give up on magic forever.
But even as she wallowed in her misery Louise turned her eyes back toward the shriveled figure of her failure. Strange motes of light hung like fireflies in the air around her, almost unremarked upon by her already shell shocked brain... a shell shocked brain which was just noticing that the corpse which had sat in the center of her disaster was now, first on hands and knees then struggling onto impossibly thin limbs to walk upright, shambling towards her. A growl of menace echoing hollow from its mummified throat, its hand full of far too thin fingers reached towards her in grim anticipation... and all the Valliere youth could do was watch in numb horror at this newest development advanced upon her.A yellow gleam shone out from the darkness of the mask's eyeholes. The horrific march of time seemed to slow as the abomination fell to its knees over Louise's waist, its shriveled hands reaching to grip her lovely face in a tender caress.
"Tenchi..." a creaky, yet feminine voice groaned so softly Louise thought that she might have imagined it.
The mask creaked and rocked upon its face as it leaned over Louise's prone form with all the tenderness of a lost lover. The strange horned, red mask first hung loose, then fell away from its face uncovering its shriveled facial features, the most prominent of which were the eerie yellow eyes which shone a feral gold against its sunken face, and far more importantly the large tapering ears which seemed elven for their great length but at the same time wrong in the way in which they terminated into square shapes. The limp still wet mane of cyan hair framed and accentuated its crumpled facial features.
And in an instant everything went to hell
"E... eh… e... ELF!" Someone in the crowd stammered, "It's an undead ELF!" the cry transmuting a current of shock as to an unknown into panicked, full-blown naked TERROR. Almost the entirety of the student body panicked as a single spooked animal, all but climbing over each other in attempt to run as far away as fast they could and forgetting in some cases that they could even use magic to help them escape the threat.
A ball of flame exploded into action just above the terror frozen form of Louise, knocking the frail figure of the undead elf from above Louise and flinging it back away from her. It was to her shock to feel an arm hook itself around her own, dragging her to her feet, and a greater alarm to see who the arm belonged to.
"Montmorency?" Louise questioned weakly, the blonde girl with spiraled tresses dragging and pulling her up onto her feet and trying to pull her into a run, away from the direction in which her summoned disaster flew.
Next to them a nervous Kirche readied herself with another spell to launch in case the thing got back too close. She had expected that her attack would only distract at best, be Countered at worst, but good fortune was to be embraced and if needs be, she would repeat. She had committed to the attack without even thinking about it, animosity toward Louise or not, she couldn't stand by and let the thing do whatever it was that it had intended to Louise and now committed Kirche the Ardent would not back down from the charge. Though it helped immensely to have a friend with a dragon, however newly summoned beating its wings nearby as a rapid means of escape.
Still she was otherwise worried. The motes of light which had been gathering since the mummified elf appeared seemed to be slowly collecting and growing in intensity, the separate embers merging together and flowing almost fluidly toward the…. Oh no.
A horrific scream of primal power shook the air, almost itself feeling of an evocation. The monster was alive, upset and charging down upon them in a flurry of motion. Worst yet, the glowing motes of light were flowing towards it gathering in its hands while its feet were not touching the ground as it rapidly propelled itself towards them.
"... rrRAahahhEEEEEEEEEEEEEE..."
The sound of impact sang out across the field, its sound matched only by the retched screech of the beast, as professor Colbert evoked fire with but a sharp jab of his staff. For a mage of his skill and power, no words were needed for the most basic of technique, the obedience of one's primary element as bound to one's will. Explosive force rushing forth at his soundless command, only motion was needed to evoke, to command.
"Please get back, children. I will cover your escape. Get the rest of the faculty staff, now HURRY!" he spoke, never once did his gaze waver from the crater which he'd created, one with the would-be familiar at its centre.
******************************************
With quiet determination he faced off against the snarling incarnation of death.With struggling limbs it rose again growling from the makeshift grave which he'd put it into,as it then charged once more. At first he'd waited. After all some truly dangerous things had been at times be summoned by his students, more often that he'd like to admit over the many years which he'd been teaching at the Tristain Academy of Magic. It had been his hope that this could be resolved with the simple meeting of Summoner to Summoned, and when the undead thing had taken no overt moves against the Valliere girl; he'd simply prepped himself and prepared a Flame Sniper spell, in case he was in fact needed. But before he could call out to Louise and recommend that she bind her familiar to herself, panic broke out amoung the students.Discovery of just what kind of mummy that it might be had driven them into an orgy of fearful panic.
"Can you hear me?" He asked it, "Can you understand what I'm saying?" The snarl which he'd gotten back in reply had been disheartening at best, "Please calm yourself. We meant you no harm," he spoke in a vague hope of resolving the issue, his arms outstretched and away from his body in a show of his intent not to attack.
Unfortunately his words seemed to fall to onto unyielding ears. He had hoped at least that Louise had somehow summoned some form of sensate dead, but the mindless fury of the creature's howl told him that there was no one at home inside. With a sad sigh, Colbert prepared himself; the creature would need to be subdued before it could get to any of his retreating students.
Again he pounded it with another explosive evocation, this one aimed to spin it on its guard and disorient. The trick only half worked. Upon impact the monster spun with the force of the blow, but he had underestimated severely just what kind of punishment was needed for disorienting the beast as it barreled down upon him. For in its spin one clawed hand took hold of several nodes of light which had begun to gather about it and used the force of its spin to throw a grenade of light almost directly onto the professor's feet. Colbert's experience on the battlefield and sharp combat instincts were all that kept him intact, having already begun his movements upon the moment of realization that there had been flaw in his old plan he'd switched over to a new one immediately.
With swirls of motion and intent, the warrior professor spoke of flame. The deadly dance of the white blaze matching his own motions, as the unforgotten steps came to him still so naturally after almost terminal disuse for so very long. Step, to counter step, trails of ragged white against streaks of uniform red flowed from act to act. To an outsider this would not appear a struggle, but as a thing of choreographed beauty.
Once again the ground exploded in shrapnel of light and earth right where his feet used to be, but Colbert had no time to take interest in something as trivial as that. Ignoring the sting of dirt and shards of rock as they impacted against his legs Colbert finished yet another evocation while performing a spinning thrust with his staff toward its solar plexus.
"Flame Shock!" it was one of his nastier small scale combat evocations, made to create a flame which sought to burn only things which were directly similar to its point of first contact, using them directly as fuel to persist and quicken the act.
This was a quick and easy evocation utilizing a very low amount of will power to start though it would quickly begin mounting up as the mage held the effect and it consumed more resources. A negligible issue, if the target were an enemy's skin. Touching skin almost always resulted in immediate third and fourth degree burns all across a target's body, flaying them alive with fire. Back when he'd been a more ruthless person he'd found it a useful tactic against powerful water mages, who could effectively guard themselves against even his hottest of flames, the pain and massive trauma quickly putting them down before they could put up much of a fight. In undead targets it was usually effective at quickly forcing them to fall apart. Besides that most undead had an utter fear of flame that retarded their reactions when set alight.
In every case he had ever utilized it would result in complete incapacitation, if not immediate death to the target, then at the very least an agony so intense that no other action were permitted. Only those immediately attended to by powerful square class water mages themselves had ever recovered completely. That number could be counted on half of one hand. And undead beasts not to have recoiled in existential dread, numbered zero. Thus when his blow struck solid and his spell raged true that his inhuman foe had not even flinched as its very skin set alight; it was surprise which coloured the Professor's face. A moment of hesitation as plans were reformulated to include its complete pain immunity and lack of concern to its own burning flesh into the equation would cost him, as the creature took hold of his staff during said flash of uncertainty, and brought down a glowing palm toward the good professor.
Only narrowly did he manage to avoid the explosive impact of its glowing hand, releasing the staff and reaching immediately for his backup wand as he slid backward from the last scene of confrontation, small gouts of flame exploding from beneath his feet. The wet slick of blood and a brief stinging pain would warn him of a gash which had opened up above his eyebrow even as the flame beneath his boots consumed the blackened trail of grass. A careful moment was taken to mop the blood from his brow to ensure that the bleeding drip would not reach his eyes. All across his body bruises ached from the explosive wash of power which he'd narrowly avoided. Even indirectly it was quickly racking up the damage on his body.
"EXPLOSIVE BARRIER!" he cried out, a frugal mixture of desperation and pragmatism prompting him to create obstacles between himself and the beastial power which bore down upon him. His salvation risen, in the form of burning barriers of explosive force.
The small breathing room which his shields had given him allowed him the luxury of standing back to assess the condition of his overly vital foe. The pounding which he had subjected it to was indeed showing. Bone and flesh shifted in what looked like an uncomfortable manner across its body, rent flesh hanging loose from several long tears in its limbs... but the burnt segments of its parchment dry skin seemed to be regenerating rapidly as more motes of light gathered to and caressed its body. More than that, the limbs seemed to be growing fuller and the wound flesh twisting back into place with a slow, but noticeable regularity. He could thus far overpower the threat... but he quickly concluded that he would not be able to outlast it.
It would be vital that he hold focus, but thus far the spells he had been low will power consumers, geared toward quickly striking and the enemy with vital damage and continuing on to the next one. What he needed instead here was artillery geared spells with which he could put it down quickly, despite the heavy willpower penalties which such evocations imposed. But without his staff he wasn't sure that he could get the specific motions necessary to the heavy nature of the evocation just right to pull it off with a low enough cast time to be effective.
All in all, the humble wand was dreadfully unsuited for what he needed. But it did give him another option. An option it seemed, that would be augmented with the supporting fire a rain of exploding Icicles launched from afar, and driving the beast back from its prey without exposing the caster to easy retaliation.
Colbert watched dispassionately as once more the beast made her berserker's charge, dodging her way through the deadly explosive crystal rain,getting back on top of the Professor's defenses then shattering the last of the shaped-charge flames which he had been using to buy himself time. Pushing his glasses up against his nose, the professor would begin a simple evocation, his wand sweeping about in grandly unique gestures as he created a personalized version of a very common flame trap spell. The original spell was a construct made to surprise foes with a pillar of flame, cutting them off and giving them light to moderate burns in the process. But Colbert was a man of study, even though he had been good at war; it had been his passion to apply his academic's mind to the process of creation. In this case the creation of spell variants.
"Infernal Cage!"
It was a very simple spell, the inverse really of the barrier which he'd been using to keep her off of him. Her charge once more with savage glowing fists would bring her right on top of the spell location activating a twisting shell of flames which she would drive her powerful explosive fists right into. The ringing sound of a barrier of implosive flame collapsing upon its target sang music to his ears. The cage variation to the Inferno Trap was required quite a few extraneous motions which made it distinctly unsuitable for staves and rods, but with his wand, he had been able to cast the initial trap, and then layer it multiple times. The implosion of flame was designed to use the force of the attempts to struggle free of it to further fuel itself, only a water mage could fully counter and free their selves completely and easily from its constricting grip.
With but a wave of his wand, a quick bout of telekinesis retrieved him his staff. Quickly with staff once more in hand he would repeat his initial evocation, the one which he'd begun when first he'd laid eyes upon the undead summon of young Ms. Valliere. He'd discovered a long time back that a specialized version of the Flame Shock spell could be used to prime the air around him itself, using the consumptive properties to remove and concentrate substances found in the air he could effectively modify and control the intensity of his flames far beyond any regular will powered effect.
An old brother at arms from before Colbert had turned from that life, Bunsen who had been obsessed with creating a flame of the most intense heat and purity, had stumbled into the method by utilizing a clever combination dot class fire and wind spells to prepare an area for the mechanics of furthermore powerful fire spells to come. Despite only being Line class, his colleague had earned himself the Runic name of 'The Burner' and went on to become a feared name in Magical Combat, casting with triangle class power using only Line class magical ability. It was with the guidance of his friend that Colbert had established his own technique which allowed his spells to burn beyond their class.
"Burn Havoc!" He extended the field of his burning touch, using his flame to gather and shape the air itself, the spell would manage the act of concentrating the flow of air to absolutely maximize the power of his flame. He was ready to burn this threat to ash.
Allowing his head to droop in dire concentration he could only vaguely note when mid-way through it, that the final barrier had been broken faster than anticipated by once more burned and regenerating monster, the condition of which spoke of it having found its way out without taking further damage from the trap. Idly he noticed that it had somehow gained a hole straight though the left side of its chest. But he'd managed to put the fear of him into it at least, and no longer did it blindly approach, not recognizing that this was finally the instant which it should have rushed him the beast circled, motes of light gathering to its body ever faster as it seemed swell in repair of damage so very long done. Only near the end of his chant, had the undead thing seemed to have caught on, though it was seeming less and less like one of the dead by the second, and more and more like a lovely, if feral, and very naked elf maiden. Even its tactics seemed to be changing, as instead of making a full on charge, the creature began to careful approach, allowing some of the gathering motes of light to congregate in its palm once more, but this time in a surprising twist it seemed to squeeze them into what became a recognizably sword-like shape of blazing red while the other hand seemed to continue gathering and compressing the motes into a radiant intensity. Its actions had become ever more lifelike in nature, the uncanny quality of its very sway seeming to soften into the rhythms of a living creature.
But he couldn't see how it could be anything at all that was fully alive, not after its continued function after all that he'd subjected it to, and the plain reminder of its ragged chest wound... besides if he started thinking of it as anything less than a monster now he didn't know if he could bring himself to do what it took to finish the fight. His killer instinct had been abandoned years ago.
Steadying himself Jean Colbert, would wait. The cold gleam of intellect burned brightly within his eyes, as he swallowed his reservations at the possibility of killing another person.With a dour smile he spoke to himself, She's going to make me cut this close, then stopped himself as he realized something. In his thoughts, he'd already declared her a possible person. But it was too late to do anything else but carry through with his dire evocation.
Almost in exaggeratedly slow motion, Jean Colbert would bring down his staff and cry out for the greatest weapon in his arsenal, a chain of delayed evocations meant to devastate earth work entrenchments as almost a single mega spell.All starting with his signature spell, that for which he had earned his runic title.
"Come FLAME SERPENT!"
************************************************
The lonely beast wept. Pulled from the dark confines of her ancient prison, too weak to stand, too weak to move, she could only tilt her head upward staring at and feeling the gentle warmth of the sun. The simple beauty of a planet side view moved something within the creature as she remembered. Between her legs sat a familiar egg of royal purple.
Free.
FREE.
Free, free, free, free, free!
No rational though could breach the surface of her mind, yet... even the deepest core of instinct could feel it, for the first time in time over 2000 years; she was free in body, in mind, in spirit.
Almost automatically she began to gather the power needed to form a false gem. Even without the benefit of thought, her body knew what to do. Leaching energies from higher dimensions, it would begin to force them into a format which her three dimensional body could utilize. Motes of photonic energy gathered at the points of conversion from the higher dimensional barriers into three dimensional space.
She would need the energy gathered as a jump start for her anti-matter based energy extraction organ, a compromise between the carbon-based life form and the exotic-material beings from which she had been engineered. These would provide her a great boost in energy, but were none the less useless without even a fake gem to help with energy distribution and prevent localized overloads.Without the gems the risk of its utilization usually was just too much beyond the rewards.
"Louise... what have you done?" a noise rumbled though the air like many others made by the crowd, but this noise was different, this noise reminded her.
That first noise amid the rest of the noise string, a familiar sound, it was the noise of choice into freedom. And suddenly she knew. Like a sunflower tracking the sun, her face came pointed in the direction of her savior, watching the exotic spikes of energy which felt as gentle and welcoming as the visage of that boy, now so far away.
With a grand effort, with a body not yet repaired enough for even any of the basic vigours of living, she tried to get closer.First crawling, then in a stumbling unsteady gait she approached, a thought less need driving her steps, the caller of demons moved with all haste, with every bit of strength that she could muster toward the siren song of her savior. Her longing gaze drew a juxtaposition of all desire, all need, and all gratitude upon the youth who had given her freedom, whose own pure desire had drawn her across worlds.
With a tender smile upon hidden lips, ancient hands caressed the face of youth while gently uttering the most calming noise which she knew.
"Tenchi…"
And from her face the mask fell. A moment of perfect tranquility shattered.The fearful noise of gibbering beasts all too familiar surrounded her, and then was followed by the slam of impact, heat and consuming flame upon her face. Instincts shifted gears and the red haze of rage coloured her eyes as fight or flight instincts fought their way back up to the surface.
She couldn't have said what she did in that combat rage which had been invoked, only that she hurt and had been hurt in turn. That she had become fury incarnate, countered again and again as she lunged like an animal towards her goal, to destroy the one before her. But no intellect guided her hands. No mind guarded her motions. And at every step she had been coldly countered, frustration and damage mounting as brute force struggled to keep up with scholarly guile.
Once more confined.
The final straw.
The ancient beast raged itself raw... Raw enough that the young woman could rip herself free.
Pain flared, as a young woman groaned into wakefulness.
Her last memories were a jumble.
A duel, across planets, across the stars... against a young bastard of heaven...
A gentle smile and hopeful innocent eyes that melted her,far too long, cold heart...
The passion of an eternal perfect moment of connection, knowing her hope, her need...
Relentless, smoldering, passionate eyes directing the steps in a dance Macabre....
"Ugghhh... what hit me? Yosho?" words reached her mouth, as bidden. Thoughts begun to flow, assessments were made, and a lifetime of combat experience came to once more inform her actions, and words.
"Goddamit! Why am I ON FIRE!?"
Though it wasn't a common state for her, despite the many hazards of her original occupation,as an ex-space pirate it wasn't exactly an unknown state to her either. Still it had been a while since the last time she'd turned off her alcohol immunity. Longer still since last she'd blanked out in the middle of a drunken brawl after trying to enjoy the simpler pleasures in life, booze and beating some bozo's brain's out. But here she was, and she ached. She hurt like mad in her... well everywhere. What wasn't burnt was battered, and what wasn't battered was bruised, and what wasn't bruised seemed to hang limp from the rest of her flesh.
Her energy reserves were shot to levels she didn't know she could get so low to, and the ragged hole in her chest suggested the destruction of her most difficult to regenerate organ. It seemed only by virtue of basic energy gathering techniques which were second nature to her from wearing the 3 gems for most of her life, was she able to free up enough energy from nearby higher dimensional space and utilize that to keep from falling apart. Even her regenerative abilities were at the most sluggish she had ever felt them, the fire retardants and reparations only just NOW starting to kick in, and without the gems she couldn't even create any higher dimensional backups of her brain. Hell simple systems like her ability to phase shift and short range teleport were shot to shit. She could have almost shuddered at the fact that this was closer to death that she had ever been in her lifetime.
Even the fight with Yosho had never brought her this far down. Though to be fair, it was mostly because he was powerful enough to keep her subdued without needing to bring her any lower. The simple fact was, the antimatter engine which had powered her though the fight had simply exploded due to heat stress and shock damage, thankfully it was designed to mostly contain such an event though in the process of doing so it completely ruined any chance of quickly salvaging its parts for future use, having vented the energy output in its final moments directly in its dense neutron molecular structure vapourizing the organ completely into a cloud of plasma and streaming the vented mass though the newly minted hole in her chest. Without her gems it could take months or even years for her body to transmute dense enough materials to forge a new one, compared to that, loosing limbs was a bloody cake walk. Unfortunately, loss of that organ had severely limited her combat options because she would now have to enforce recovery periods to make up for any excessive energy outputs, and with her now embedded in the heat of combat, she would probably need to waste much of the energy she had already gathered for the creation her false gems in fighting once she sprung herself free.
"Yosho, when I get outa this bloody cage I'm gonna skin you," golden eyes closed with a sigh, then reopened in the light of concentration.
"Alright, let's see what this stupid thing is. Ow, owowowow..."
Newly reinstalled pain sensors screamed out, the unnatural state of system wide damage adding to the pain. Sticking her damaged fingers in her mouth, she quickly continued to look at the structure of forces involved in holding her captive.
It was a fairly primitive force array, but the design was impressive. It was created to explode inward and shift so as to redirect the energy utilized on the barrier itself as a part of the attack. It was bloody clever, in a technical manner of speaking, for something as simple as utilizing an electromagnetic shell to contain a hot plasma wall.But the space-pirate though was not one to be impressed, and even less of one to think about the information which she almost instinctively could pick apart with a close look at her prison.
What she knew was simple.
Direct.
Brutish.
What she knew made her smile.
The fire shell extended into the ground which she stood upon, but gave her enough room to move about without bumping directly into it. A human may well have fainted by now, either from the oxygen being eaten up by the room of flames, heat exhaustion, or having been concussed by triggering the trap itself. This was of little concern to her, only that the ground gave material for her use. The real issue with the barrier, she'd realized, was the mobility of the deflective forces it employed. Strike any single place and the barrier moved with the blow, setting up for and multiplying its explosive effects. The spell was useful for keeping an enemy from concentrating enough force to crush the barrier without devastating his or herself in the process. But the ex-pirate knew how to defeat this. And all it took was a little math, and a bit more dirt.
Attempts to rate the ex-pirate's skills at mathematical analysis would for the most part be bound for failure, her mind did not work with the symbols which others called numbers, though numbers it did express, and her attention would not be held for long enough for her to work her way into being able to show what she knew almost by instinct. But advanced senses and a mind capable of instantly assessing and utilizing variables at an intrinsic level gave rise to an immediate solution. All she needed was to disrupt the forces which allowed the barrier to work at multiple key points simultaneously,utilizing spikes transmuted from the dirt about her, each disruption setting up a resonating echo with the rest, forcing the barrier to explode in an imperfect shaping of its energetic charge and crack itself wide open, allowing her at that point to use force against force.
She REALLY liked the last part of that. And with a howl of victory her fist struck true.
She freed herself just in time to witness her opponent deep in concentration, probably some sort of psychic, readying himself for his next strike. Unbidden, memories of their fight trickled in in flashes between moments of blind rage. Caution was warranted against this one. At this low ebb in her power he was actually a match for her, and maybe more.
********************************************************
The fight raged before her eyes, disbelief warring with deep feelings of responsibility and uselessness. But one such as Louise the Zero could only gaze on, while the two titans fought. One wreathed in flames of white, the other bathed in motes of light.
"Come."
The word was punctuated with deathly finality, as the blue haired Dragon rider descended to meet her closest friend and Louise, to convey them both to safety. But this was a word spoken at no expense to concentration, the young warrior waited with staff in hand to support their battling teacher the instant that a clear shot was provided.
The already tight grip upon her own staff grew tighter still as she witnessed the disarmament of her balding teacher. Forced to switch from Staff to wand his combat potential had been effectively halved.
Because of the short nature of the wand all evocation points corresponding to it were arcing sweeps and stabs, effective for short spells which the wand's expressive nature would allow nuance to flourish. Combat evocation tools were divided into Staves, Rods and Sword-wands. Staves were the most versatile of the combat tools, able to both perform the motions of artillery and simpler combat efficient evocations while sturdy enough to be utilized as directly physical weaponry as the need arose. Rods were thin switches of wood or metal, capable of Moving with the flexibility of a wand but the length needed for heavier evocation type motions. Sword-wands, which included dagger-wands were implements of melee combat meant to be utilized more as melee weapons than evocation tools, and while Artillery class spells were generally limited to them for the same reasons that they were a regular wand, it carried the additional benefits of a wand in evocation refinement. Few however mastered the range of skills needed to make complete effective use of the sword-wand, and the entire demi-evocation, demi-martial style which came with it.
Cold blue eyes flared, and shifted. Advantage would come soon. She just had to wait for it.
Louise glanced on toward the hawkishly watchful, ice blue eyes of her peer with a brief wondering of what went on beneath their usually placid surface. Tabitha had ever been a mystery to Louise. She was an apparently mousy, quiet child who never seemed to be without a book for every occasion of truly festive anti-sociality. Louise herself knew of a few attempts to bully and brow beat her by older students wishing to assert their own power and choosing the naturally quiet girl as their target of choice. After ignoring them quite pointedly several times, they decided that a more private session with the uncommunicative waif of a young woman would be more productive toward the results which they desired. The next day saw several boys with broken teeth, the only things not quickly fixable by simple evocation, no one could ever get them to speak of that night, though they were always noted to cringe when need placed them anywhere near her.
Tabitha's blue dragon cooed almost cutely, tilting its head to a side in a birdlike manner that would have been adorable if it weren't on a half a ton of apex predator. Still entangled in her arm, the blonde hair of the Montmorency heiress bobbed in Louise's face as the other girl attempted to pull her up onto the dragon mount.
"I know we don't get along to well Louise, but it's just not safe here. We have to go!" the blond spoke with grave urgency etched into her voice, the small frog familiar which she'd summoned earlier peaking from its resting spot within the unused hood of her cloak.
Behind her the worried figure of Kirche paid no heed to the two, watching the intense matchup with an equally intense stare, wand gripped tightly in her hand, almost to its snapping point.The combat between the two was almost godlike. Intense gouts and swirls of flame danced deadly with motes and orbs of light both leaving swaths of rent earth and burning, black grass with nary a pause in motion. Struggle, passion, strength all there pressed into service for combat....
It was awe inspiring.
It was glorious.
It was all she could do to force herself to look away, feeling like a moth caught on the draw of the flame... knowing how it ached to burn. Forcing herself not to look back Kirche turned her immediate attention to a matter closer at hand.
Her rival.
Louise just could not bring herself to abandon everything, to abandon the teacher who fought for her, and to abandon what was one of her greatest responsibilities, that of a Mage to their familiar. Before things had gotten out of hand she could have sworn even though her own fear, there had been a tenderness, before the inertia of the moment had schemed to steal her away, Louise had been on the edge of taking her wand to the task of finishing what had been started with the creature's summoning. She could not shake the feeling that if she ran now she might never have the chance again. At her side her small fist clenched around her wand with a grip so tight that crescent wounds formed where finger nails pressed to flesh.
Kirche watched Louise of house Valliere closely, it had become almost a hobby of her house to choose a target amoung the Valliere broods and learn them. A long tradition of this pastime had yielded some of the best entertainment possible for generations of Zerbst. Learning to annoy the stoic family line of Tristan, with whom so much blood both was shared and spilled together that they were practically one family across two countries, had long granted the Zerbst a proper vantage point from which to view the moods and mannerisms of the Valliere. And it was as much to annoy as it was a statement of respect that they made a habit of stealing away the male brood of the Valliere family as potential husbands as well as those who were deemed worthy to be welcomed into the family. It was as a result of these insights, that Kirche was prompted to take notice when she saw the stubborn light come alive in Louise's eyes. That was the look of a determined woman of the Valliere line readying herself to do something potentially very stupid. That was a look that spoke of passion and drive, and though the Zerbst scion could tell that it meant trouble, it was a trouble which she could never steer anyone, least of all herself, clear of. For when passion burned, Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst fueled its flames!
"I need to go back," thus when Louise spoke these words Kirche could not help but to nod in agreement, even as Montmorency shrilled in shock as to the insanity of the 'Zero'. Tabitha's quick downward glance would be the only expression of her own surprise, another glance cast towards her closest friend would galvanize her into action.
"Finish the ritual," two faces would turn towards her in shock and one in agreement. That Tabitha decided to suggest what had been dancing at the edge of Louise's mind rocked the young Valliere. Kirche merely walked over to her rival, taking in hand and straightening her cloak in an almost familial manner.
"It's ok Louise, we understand," the wide eyed look of her rival at the unexpected acceptance brought a smile to Kirche's lips.
Louise hesitated, and then turned a haughty look in Kirche's direction while attempting to shrug off the mothering being lavished upon her person.
"It is the duty of a Master to quell their familiar. No less could be expected of house Valliere," her mother's Rule of Steel danced about her head. Duty was an ABSOLUTE. She would make her name proud, her mother proud.
Kirche grinned sardonically at this declaration, so very typical of the Valliere scion. It was a trait both endearing and frustrating when dealing with her.
Then nodding to Tabitha she asked, "So. What's the plan?"
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Fire filled the air. Murderous and ravenous the spectre of inferno loomed large. A serpent of Flame painted the sky with a pure white blaze as it coiled about its creator, ready to strike. It was his masterpiece of spell work, much like the golems of earthen mages; his serpent had been the result of relentless perfectionism and studious mastery of his craft, though a good many hints had come his way from his old comrade, Bunsen. Long hours of studying the spell mechanics of advanced golems and tweaking, adapting them to something with a completely nebulous form had paid off, spectacularly. He had cribbed more than a few notes on golem crafting in creating the cognitive engine for his creation and had invented an entire crypto-graphical key to shorten the evocation needed for its summoning. A chain of Bound Evocations, key words to which a mage could symbolically link to longer spells allowing their rapid execution, allowed him to summon it with all the speed and effort of lesser spells. Though, the costs in will power on the initial summoning were fairly steep as the act of calling up an evocation binding in itself caused the spell to cost more than it usually would.
And with the calling of this his most famous spell work, just two more spells needed to be unleashed. One a simple two stack evocation of Twisting Flame, it was the simplest one of them all. The other was a full four stack alchemical mixture of rare metals which would allow it the flame to reach a level of intensity unknown to anything thing else in the world, he called it Sun Fire. While not it would not cause wide devastation like his Flame Bomb, the Sun Fire spell could burn its way though several feet of solid steel, and with the twisting motion of the Twisting Flame motivating it into a drill of explosive forces which he would have as his sword. With the Flame snake as his shield, he would hold finally the power to put down the menace before him. With that synergy of spell crafting he would be able to overcome its incredible regeneration and put it down.
The young ancient Devil-caller grimaced.Before her was no mere fiery show of forces, it was a full on programmable construct of balanced bubbles of hot plasma and EM-fields. Together they formed what seemed to be a surprisingly complex computation able machine capable of receiving input, and creating outputs, in the form of movements. And with her lowered state of health, avoiding its deadly embrace long enough to take down the mage behind it was paramount to her success. This was especially so now that she would not be able to depend on her regeneration as extensively as she had before. She'd boosted her current condition to push all the necessary structures to top combat efficiency. It had consumed a fair chunk of the energy which she would not be able to recoup too soon... but would give her the edge.
Colbert too grimaced on his side of the battle field. The flame snake was his most deadly weapon. The snake's presence on the field gave him options and bought him time to finish his evocation chain. Without needing to do anything else but maintain it with his will, he could simply set it orders and rules to follow, allowing it free reign on the battle field. After the intensity of the combat, he could feel his will as it slipped lower. But his mind was none the less steel, tempered in the flames of his own desire to protect and nourish. He would endure until this deed was done.
One step. Eyes locked.
Two steps. One foot fell before the other, settling into a bounding leap.
Three steps. His mouth stirred, spinning utterances into fire. The holy power of the word made manifest.
Four steps.Guardian and Aggressor clash, fire and light once more dancing freely in a field of green streaked black.
No steps left. The deadly elfin girl danced though the weaving flame, accepting damage where it touched her now pale flesh to advance upon her target. The Warrior professor allowed her ever closer, weaving a path as vital to his purposes as the words which flowed from him in a stream of utterances.
With no space between them but the clash of wills,
With Sword of light and Serpent of flame as the last defense,
With all else stripped away but each other and the heat of the thrill.
The bright glow of the gathered light in her left hand pulse ever faster while her right hand struck out and parried blow after blow. The final words hung in the air as a grim eye of swirling white flame formed above him while about him the serpent of flame circled ever closer shielding blow after blow.
Then suddenly, so suddenly she could not see it coming. Should not have seen it coming, the white flame switched from defense to offense, wrapping itself about her. They both knew that this was only restraint of the moment, even the white heat and forces which constrained the body of the serpent would not hold for long against the strength on who had broken the Explosive Barriers of earlier. But it would give him a vital moment and with his final words.But he flinched. A life lay in the balance, but only the surety that her rampage would bring harm to those who were in his care moved his lips for the final evocation.
He called down the fire!
Straight down the column of twisting white flame came, searing and rending its way right though solid earth without stopping. A strange noise barely audible above the roar flame went unnoticed. Relief blossomed through the professor's features, it was over. He'd done it. He'd ended th... a vicious swipe to the back put him down into the ground.Only barely singed the elf maiden stood above him with a triumphantly, savage fanged grin. She swayed with a visible effort to stand, the hole in her chest still leaking smoke.
"I win," for the first time he'd heard her speak anything beyond animal growls and inhuman wails.
"H... how...?" Colbert groaned. The question key to both how she'd escaped the final trap, and how it was that she now seemed like a rational being, where before was only howling madness. She knelt before him, half in her exhaustion, half in order to reach his face and pick him up by the front of his collar, his face meeting hers. His long shattered glasses hung down loosely from his nose. Idly he noticed that she was still naked as a jay bird.
Anger lit her yellow eyed gaze, "Oh no, you don't get to ask the questions buddy. Now where are we, Who are you... and WHERE THE HELL IS THAT BITCH YOSHO?"
"Yosho?" he groaned in confusion.
"Gaahh... what are you, dim or something?" she replied, shaking him roughly as she spoke. She'd never been the patient sort, and the act of interrogating her victims after a drunken rampage had always been one her less stellar abilities. Also waking up in a place completely different from the one where she'd last been conscious always made her cranky.
"PROFESSOR COLBERT, Get away from him You MONSTER!" the cry brought the heads of both former combatants in uniform turn toward the swooping contingent of students one of which was the Valliere girl.
"Who the hell are you calling a MONSTE... AAHHHH!!!" the demonic woman began to object. A cry which was unfortunately for her interrupted most rudely, the girls did not wait for her splutters of outrage to properly begin before Louise utilized a failed spell to flash bang the yellow eyed woman in the face, knocking her over and effectively separating her from the fallen professor. Where she'd fallen shards of ice pinned her to the floor, a momentary distraction as the fallen professor Colbert was scooped up into the forepaws a rapidly moving blue reptilian beast, which promptly flew off. On its back the professor was drawn up by two riders, the blond of whom quickly set busily to work on healing his battered body.
Louise sent a quick thank you prayer to the Founder, she'd been aiming for the creature's shoulder with that failed fireball spell.
With all due haste Louise approached, wand flickering in hand as she excitedly put it though each motion while saying the words to the most important evocation of her life.
"Pentagon of the Five elemental powers,
Grant your blessings upon this creature,
And bind it as my familiar."
It was a haste which proved to be of necessity, for the ice pinning the demonic woman down had crumbed before her struggles. And even as Louise managed to close the damming gap between her own and the demon's lips, it would prove not to be enough. An impossibly strong grip clenched her throat but a second after the final word. Only that her wand itself had been still free had she gotten in the assigning tap which needed to proceed the final step of the contract.
"Now little girl, maybe you'll tell me what the hell is going... on..." a look of confusion crossed her amber-gold eyes, "...why do I know you?" the ex-space pirate asked. Louise had no answer for her.
"Why do I feel like I should know you?" she asked again, this time more slowly. Still Louise had no answer.
"Are you the one who came for me? Did you take me from the dark?" there were tears leaking from the woman's golden eyes. A sudden wave or recollection washed over her as she loosened her grip on the girl's throat.
"I was in that damp, dank hole a long, long time. It was dark... and lonely in there... 700 years I was lonely. No light anywhere. It was you wasn't it, you gave me my way out?" this time she spoke again, crying, pleading. Her grip on Louise completely loosened... but the young Valiere was herself entranced by the sound of sobbing, pleading. Each of her cries digging deep into the young girl's heart like a ballista bolt through light tin.
"There was Tenchi for a while, I dreamed about him coming to me, freeing me. But he never did. I can't even remember how old he was when he stopped being there. Or did I imagine that he was there in the first place? For a while I had my light in the darkness but it flickered and died...and then… and then... there was you," Louise did not understand even as brief fragments of information entered her mind. And to her chest she found herself cradling the other woman in a position bizarrely like that of a mother or caretaker. Her hand stroked its way through spiked cyan tinted silver hair, which for all its straightness felt like the softest feather down beneath her fingertips.
"You gave your heart to me, I remember now. Down in the cold and the dark you wanted me, you called me to freedom in your service," Louise stood stock still at that; all breath had caught in her throat at that declaration. Her throat grew dry as she considered the thousand and one things that she ought to reply with. Nothing came to her blank mind but the sadness when she spoke of her prison, the blunt panic at the idea of going back, and the pure joy with which Louise found herself being thought about. Even if she had had no plan before of taking the woman as her familiar, Louise would not now be able to abandon her for the world.
Unbidden Louise's lips moved, "And if you are to be mine, if I'm to complete your freedom," Louise spoke as if entranced, loosing herself in those golden eyes, "then tell me. What is your name?"
Gold eyes met pink with an intimacy deeper than either cared to express, "I am Ryoko, the Devil Caller. Scourge of the galaxy. And you?"
"I am Louise Francois le Blanc de la Valliere… I... I am Louise," she replied, a hesitancy crawling through her voice, "I... am nothing," her own tears began to fall, the feedback of Ryoko's own raw emotions pushing her over the very edge of control.
"No," Ryoko replied, her naked form pulling itself up face to face with the Valliere scion, one hand reaching to caress her delicate face. The tears in her amethyst eyes were adorable, a plain honesty of emotion which surpassed even the link they shared. Ryoko could only stare as Louise's eyes laid all bare before her.
"You are Everything!"
No other words were spoken as the Commander of Devils and her Summoner drew each other into a deep kiss.
For a few minutes they stayed that way, locked to each other in promise of better times to come. Only to pull away blushing at their moment of mutual pleasure. When the fires of pain came as the runes being etched were forging the link between their two spirits and minds, far stronger than it was before, the dire feedback began to loop between them both. Thundering pain echoing ever louder with each wave until neither could stand it any longer.
Both new master and familiar crumpled together as one, the cries of several approaching members of the facility washing uselessly over them on their way to the ground.
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
Right. Well as a foreword i guess I'll say that I finally decided to post this first chapter of my story here at SB. If anyone doesn't mind playing prereader for me then PM.
But beyond that. Let the show begin.
Chapter 1: No need to heed the call!
"Louise of house Valliere. It is time," spoke a voice gentle and firm, its balding, bespectacled originator nudging his staff in her direction.
Her mind had been wondering in circles for the entire day. And now that she was here standing on the precipice of her task, it was all that Louise could do in order not to choke upon her own bile. Tension knotting muscles tightly, teeth grinding with a subconscious force, as the youngest scion of the house Valliere valiantly… futilely... attempted to calm herself in the face of this the task before her.
~"Will she manage?"~ The murmur of the crowd.
After all, this was only the most important day in her entire career as one of the magi. What happened at this ceremony would only go on to define the entirety of the rest of her life. Success or failure allowing her freedom of choice and validation or the confinement of one doomed to be little more than a laughing stock, and if lucky be able to retire from public view as breeding stock till the end of her days, unremarked upon, unknown, forgotten...
...no pressure...
She felt like crying.
~"I'm just curious to see if she can actually summon anything."~ A physical echo to the doubt which already pierced her.
She was going to fail. And it was all that she could manage to keep her hands from acting upon the turbulence which she felt here at the edge of her impossible task.In that even court yard itself seemed leer at her. The brilliance of the sky's one eyed gaze looming over her in cold anticipation, its dire implications at odds with the tranquil beauty of the grassy court yard. Panic was rapidly setting in and ill omens seemed to sprout from every corner.
At the moment only the constant memory of her mother's stern decorum kept her backbone stiff, the dire understanding that failure was NEVER an option to be expressed kept her from breaking down in front of her peers. Win or lose, pass or fail, she would not dishonour the Valliere name with anything less than her best showing.
~"Zero will probably just screw up again... like always."~ The jeering verbal stabs of her peers pressing into already open wounds.
Grimly her teeth clenched.
She needed this time to be different. It HAD to be different. Louise Francois le Blanc de la Valliere couldn't bear the thought that it might not be different, that her dire nickname would continue to haunt her every facet of life with ruthless abandon, Louise the Zero.
Zero ability, Zero success, Zero hope.
"Valliere, after all your talk yesterday, I'm sure you can summon something more amazing than this child here, right?"
A voice rang from a few paces away; its red headed owner's teasing tone a savage affront to the young Valliere's senses, a foe both as a matter of family and personal pride, Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst. The sight of her knelt right next to her newly summoned Salamander as she spoke was a further poke in Louise's eye. Her rival's playful grin as she ran her hand over the proof of her own success was a further stab in Louise's side.
Anger coursed through Louise, galvanizing her to her task. For where need alone was insufficient, when combined with the inky red haze of the determination to prove wrong those who would decry her, the young woman would find herself forgetting about all else but the task. Stubbornness was very much a family trait which Louise exemplified. And so she forgot her nervousness. The red eyed rage of determination rapidly replaced the imposing pressure of near crippling self-doubt as she pressed onward to her task like a charging beast.
Composing herself she began, wand held stiff in a starter's position, she sought the words which in turn reached for her power.
"In the name of Louise Francois le Blanc de la Valliere, I beg of you!"
Power. She could feel its weight upon her, feathery soft. Here she spoke, almost a whisper. Now her words were forged into Magic.
"By the Pentagon of the five powers Elemental!"
Her words reached out ever louder by the syllable, forging her will into effect,the familiar tingle traveling down though her arm as limb moved in time with chant, the wands motions weaving speech into spell.
"My servant, who lives somewhere in the universe!"
A sudden jolt shocked its way through her; she'd almost dropped her wand in the process. It felt as if she had cast out a line into the sea with all her might, hoping desperately to troll the deepest depths for her catch. This alone left her arm feeling leaden, but all the same almost pushed her into the next motion.
"Oh my sacred, beautiful and strong familiar!"
She could feel it, in a way unlike no other spell she had ever cast, she could feel it working. The power which flowed from her congealed itself into the mold as set by her wand motions.
"From my heart, I plead to you my deepest of desire!"
She could not keep the need from her voice, its dire echo feeding will to magic and enforcing the shape of her power. Then suddenly she could feel it, a tingling grip, a sublime answer to her call, a pouring force which almost drove the breath from her, compelling her to inhale to complete her final shouted exaltation.
"Heed my Summons and come forth, MY FAMILIAR!"
...then as all too often her world exploded in a wave of white.
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"My servant, who lives somewhere in the universe!"
Ancient eyes cracked open, a baleful yellow blazing from the dark crevices of its mask. For the first time in seven centuries it tingled with sensation, the shallow pool of its prison rippling with its movements... also for the first time in centuries.
Seven hundred years, of dreamless sleep and sleepless dreams as its prison restrained even reason. But such was to it a familiar prison even before its long time shackles were set. Deep here in the heart of its dungeon, the roots of its jailer pierced unfeeling flesh, draining nutrient and power in exchange for its traumas. Slowly the poison of thousands of years seeped from its heart, drained by roots of light. The irony of it all being that the very power which it had used to devastate, was being fed to its jailer to keep it imprisoned.
Still, though it had heard the call, this did naught but to stir it to wakefulness.
Servant?
To follow the errant whims of an uncaring master once more?
To subject itself willingly to the rape of its will?
Never.
The ancient almost closed its eyes once more, to ignore the summons, and wrap itself again in solitude, a preferable alternative to slavery. Better imprisonment of body, than the binding of its will.
"From my heart, I plead to you my deepest of desire!"
Raw emotion poured in.
The psychic echo of a need bordering despair kindled a rare flame of empathy within the wakened beast. The desire of its caller wasn't of destitute slavery, but one of partnership, love and naked necessity. The warm intensity of feeling reminding the enlivened ancient of those times which it was allowed to slip its bonds ever so slightly, and project its power. The waiting smiles of love and fellowship with the one being it had come to cherish, but knew like all other things, would come to dust.
The instinct of a guardian, the fires of a destroyer, the love of a nurturer, the tender hand of a creator... like a ghost in the dark lay there to await it, everyone of them a path it could choose if only it would accept this one small thing.
To give service rather than to be bound in slavery. Distinctions which till even now in its long existence the ever young ancient had never pondered, but knew intrinsically on instinct.
And thus while reason slept... the monster chose to wake.
"Heed my Summons and come forth, MY FAMILIAR!"
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Slowly the world faded back into view.
Yet another explosion... now the grandest of disappointments.
Resigning herself the scion of Valliere began to crack open her eyes, her small body laying prone upon her back, driving herself onward in dim hope beyond hope Louise would spy that the grand nature of her explosive spell had spilled over, rocking back the entire crowd, save one blue haired staff wielder, who had found it prudent to climb upon her own newly summoned familiar, away from the potential chaos...
...familiar...
...no...
The dimming light of hope dying as every spot of what now looked like a minor warzone was examined. All others lay groaning and or rising from the grass in a pattern which radiated from what had been her original position, the alert eyes of her balding teacher pointing toward the centre of the explosion, Louise's eyes followed suite.
That is where she saw it.
In the exact centre of the explosion it knelt.
A corpse.
The almost completely naked, mummified remains of what was once a person rocked back upon unmoving knees in a stiff mockery of prayerful reverence, its masked face searching upward toward the sun in seeming of worshipful adoration. Slick wet hair hung down behind its mask as its wrinkled hands faced palms up. And between its legs an egg of deep purple sat.
"No... no... no…" Louise whispered, an icy feeling prodding at her toes.
That sick sensation climbed until it rammed Louise in the gut, a bitter wrenching sensation which forced tears of frustration and defeat from her lavender eyes. A horrifying and grisly actuality, here destiny spoke to her in clear tones. It's cruel mockery of her culminating in this its most of spiteful jokes. Bitter bile washed up her throat as the idle consideration that maybe she HAD in fact reached her perfect familiar, alive and intact... only to kill it in the process of summoning it to her, clawed at the back of her mind.
"Louise... what have you done?" Zerbst spoke, hesitant horror burning at her lips. The newly summoned salamander curled about her and tensed in hissing defiance toward the desiccated remains.
Louise stared on in mute horror, she could almost scream.
Only the long years of having lived with her mother, the duchess Karin Desiree de la Valliere, allowed her to note the sharp alarm which suddenly radiated from her balding teacher at the corner of her eye. His hand clenching about the staff which he carried and the sharpening of his eyes reminding her of her mother's own hawkish looks when something was amiss. Small evocations of preparatory flame issued from his mouth, while his demeanor smoldered with the embers of potential action. This was not the professor Jean Colbert with whom she had become familiar, the slightly doddering, over enthusiastic educator. This was almost as if another man was standing there, wearing his skin. But, for the life of her Louise could not string together a why for the abrupt transformation. Maybe she had damaged him also in the blast, it morbidly occurred to her. One more sign that maybe she should give up on magic forever.
But even as she wallowed in her misery Louise turned her eyes back toward the shriveled figure of her failure. Strange motes of light hung like fireflies in the air around her, almost unremarked upon by her already shell shocked brain... a shell shocked brain which was just noticing that the corpse which had sat in the center of her disaster was now, first on hands and knees then struggling onto impossibly thin limbs to walk upright, shambling towards her. A growl of menace echoing hollow from its mummified throat, its hand full of far too thin fingers reached towards her in grim anticipation... and all the Valliere youth could do was watch in numb horror at this newest development advanced upon her.A yellow gleam shone out from the darkness of the mask's eyeholes. The horrific march of time seemed to slow as the abomination fell to its knees over Louise's waist, its shriveled hands reaching to grip her lovely face in a tender caress.
"Tenchi..." a creaky, yet feminine voice groaned so softly Louise thought that she might have imagined it.
The mask creaked and rocked upon its face as it leaned over Louise's prone form with all the tenderness of a lost lover. The strange horned, red mask first hung loose, then fell away from its face uncovering its shriveled facial features, the most prominent of which were the eerie yellow eyes which shone a feral gold against its sunken face, and far more importantly the large tapering ears which seemed elven for their great length but at the same time wrong in the way in which they terminated into square shapes. The limp still wet mane of cyan hair framed and accentuated its crumpled facial features.
And in an instant everything went to hell
"E... eh… e... ELF!" Someone in the crowd stammered, "It's an undead ELF!" the cry transmuting a current of shock as to an unknown into panicked, full-blown naked TERROR. Almost the entirety of the student body panicked as a single spooked animal, all but climbing over each other in attempt to run as far away as fast they could and forgetting in some cases that they could even use magic to help them escape the threat.
A ball of flame exploded into action just above the terror frozen form of Louise, knocking the frail figure of the undead elf from above Louise and flinging it back away from her. It was to her shock to feel an arm hook itself around her own, dragging her to her feet, and a greater alarm to see who the arm belonged to.
"Montmorency?" Louise questioned weakly, the blonde girl with spiraled tresses dragging and pulling her up onto her feet and trying to pull her into a run, away from the direction in which her summoned disaster flew.
Next to them a nervous Kirche readied herself with another spell to launch in case the thing got back too close. She had expected that her attack would only distract at best, be Countered at worst, but good fortune was to be embraced and if needs be, she would repeat. She had committed to the attack without even thinking about it, animosity toward Louise or not, she couldn't stand by and let the thing do whatever it was that it had intended to Louise and now committed Kirche the Ardent would not back down from the charge. Though it helped immensely to have a friend with a dragon, however newly summoned beating its wings nearby as a rapid means of escape.
Still she was otherwise worried. The motes of light which had been gathering since the mummified elf appeared seemed to be slowly collecting and growing in intensity, the separate embers merging together and flowing almost fluidly toward the…. Oh no.
A horrific scream of primal power shook the air, almost itself feeling of an evocation. The monster was alive, upset and charging down upon them in a flurry of motion. Worst yet, the glowing motes of light were flowing towards it gathering in its hands while its feet were not touching the ground as it rapidly propelled itself towards them.
"... rrRAahahhEEEEEEEEEEEEEE..."
The sound of impact sang out across the field, its sound matched only by the retched screech of the beast, as professor Colbert evoked fire with but a sharp jab of his staff. For a mage of his skill and power, no words were needed for the most basic of technique, the obedience of one's primary element as bound to one's will. Explosive force rushing forth at his soundless command, only motion was needed to evoke, to command.
"Please get back, children. I will cover your escape. Get the rest of the faculty staff, now HURRY!" he spoke, never once did his gaze waver from the crater which he'd created, one with the would-be familiar at its centre.
******************************************
With quiet determination he faced off against the snarling incarnation of death.With struggling limbs it rose again growling from the makeshift grave which he'd put it into,as it then charged once more. At first he'd waited. After all some truly dangerous things had been at times be summoned by his students, more often that he'd like to admit over the many years which he'd been teaching at the Tristain Academy of Magic. It had been his hope that this could be resolved with the simple meeting of Summoner to Summoned, and when the undead thing had taken no overt moves against the Valliere girl; he'd simply prepped himself and prepared a Flame Sniper spell, in case he was in fact needed. But before he could call out to Louise and recommend that she bind her familiar to herself, panic broke out amoung the students.Discovery of just what kind of mummy that it might be had driven them into an orgy of fearful panic.
"Can you hear me?" He asked it, "Can you understand what I'm saying?" The snarl which he'd gotten back in reply had been disheartening at best, "Please calm yourself. We meant you no harm," he spoke in a vague hope of resolving the issue, his arms outstretched and away from his body in a show of his intent not to attack.
Unfortunately his words seemed to fall to onto unyielding ears. He had hoped at least that Louise had somehow summoned some form of sensate dead, but the mindless fury of the creature's howl told him that there was no one at home inside. With a sad sigh, Colbert prepared himself; the creature would need to be subdued before it could get to any of his retreating students.
Again he pounded it with another explosive evocation, this one aimed to spin it on its guard and disorient. The trick only half worked. Upon impact the monster spun with the force of the blow, but he had underestimated severely just what kind of punishment was needed for disorienting the beast as it barreled down upon him. For in its spin one clawed hand took hold of several nodes of light which had begun to gather about it and used the force of its spin to throw a grenade of light almost directly onto the professor's feet. Colbert's experience on the battlefield and sharp combat instincts were all that kept him intact, having already begun his movements upon the moment of realization that there had been flaw in his old plan he'd switched over to a new one immediately.
With swirls of motion and intent, the warrior professor spoke of flame. The deadly dance of the white blaze matching his own motions, as the unforgotten steps came to him still so naturally after almost terminal disuse for so very long. Step, to counter step, trails of ragged white against streaks of uniform red flowed from act to act. To an outsider this would not appear a struggle, but as a thing of choreographed beauty.
Once again the ground exploded in shrapnel of light and earth right where his feet used to be, but Colbert had no time to take interest in something as trivial as that. Ignoring the sting of dirt and shards of rock as they impacted against his legs Colbert finished yet another evocation while performing a spinning thrust with his staff toward its solar plexus.
"Flame Shock!" it was one of his nastier small scale combat evocations, made to create a flame which sought to burn only things which were directly similar to its point of first contact, using them directly as fuel to persist and quicken the act.
This was a quick and easy evocation utilizing a very low amount of will power to start though it would quickly begin mounting up as the mage held the effect and it consumed more resources. A negligible issue, if the target were an enemy's skin. Touching skin almost always resulted in immediate third and fourth degree burns all across a target's body, flaying them alive with fire. Back when he'd been a more ruthless person he'd found it a useful tactic against powerful water mages, who could effectively guard themselves against even his hottest of flames, the pain and massive trauma quickly putting them down before they could put up much of a fight. In undead targets it was usually effective at quickly forcing them to fall apart. Besides that most undead had an utter fear of flame that retarded their reactions when set alight.
In every case he had ever utilized it would result in complete incapacitation, if not immediate death to the target, then at the very least an agony so intense that no other action were permitted. Only those immediately attended to by powerful square class water mages themselves had ever recovered completely. That number could be counted on half of one hand. And undead beasts not to have recoiled in existential dread, numbered zero. Thus when his blow struck solid and his spell raged true that his inhuman foe had not even flinched as its very skin set alight; it was surprise which coloured the Professor's face. A moment of hesitation as plans were reformulated to include its complete pain immunity and lack of concern to its own burning flesh into the equation would cost him, as the creature took hold of his staff during said flash of uncertainty, and brought down a glowing palm toward the good professor.
Only narrowly did he manage to avoid the explosive impact of its glowing hand, releasing the staff and reaching immediately for his backup wand as he slid backward from the last scene of confrontation, small gouts of flame exploding from beneath his feet. The wet slick of blood and a brief stinging pain would warn him of a gash which had opened up above his eyebrow even as the flame beneath his boots consumed the blackened trail of grass. A careful moment was taken to mop the blood from his brow to ensure that the bleeding drip would not reach his eyes. All across his body bruises ached from the explosive wash of power which he'd narrowly avoided. Even indirectly it was quickly racking up the damage on his body.
"EXPLOSIVE BARRIER!" he cried out, a frugal mixture of desperation and pragmatism prompting him to create obstacles between himself and the beastial power which bore down upon him. His salvation risen, in the form of burning barriers of explosive force.
The small breathing room which his shields had given him allowed him the luxury of standing back to assess the condition of his overly vital foe. The pounding which he had subjected it to was indeed showing. Bone and flesh shifted in what looked like an uncomfortable manner across its body, rent flesh hanging loose from several long tears in its limbs... but the burnt segments of its parchment dry skin seemed to be regenerating rapidly as more motes of light gathered to and caressed its body. More than that, the limbs seemed to be growing fuller and the wound flesh twisting back into place with a slow, but noticeable regularity. He could thus far overpower the threat... but he quickly concluded that he would not be able to outlast it.
It would be vital that he hold focus, but thus far the spells he had been low will power consumers, geared toward quickly striking and the enemy with vital damage and continuing on to the next one. What he needed instead here was artillery geared spells with which he could put it down quickly, despite the heavy willpower penalties which such evocations imposed. But without his staff he wasn't sure that he could get the specific motions necessary to the heavy nature of the evocation just right to pull it off with a low enough cast time to be effective.
All in all, the humble wand was dreadfully unsuited for what he needed. But it did give him another option. An option it seemed, that would be augmented with the supporting fire a rain of exploding Icicles launched from afar, and driving the beast back from its prey without exposing the caster to easy retaliation.
Colbert watched dispassionately as once more the beast made her berserker's charge, dodging her way through the deadly explosive crystal rain,getting back on top of the Professor's defenses then shattering the last of the shaped-charge flames which he had been using to buy himself time. Pushing his glasses up against his nose, the professor would begin a simple evocation, his wand sweeping about in grandly unique gestures as he created a personalized version of a very common flame trap spell. The original spell was a construct made to surprise foes with a pillar of flame, cutting them off and giving them light to moderate burns in the process. But Colbert was a man of study, even though he had been good at war; it had been his passion to apply his academic's mind to the process of creation. In this case the creation of spell variants.
"Infernal Cage!"
It was a very simple spell, the inverse really of the barrier which he'd been using to keep her off of him. Her charge once more with savage glowing fists would bring her right on top of the spell location activating a twisting shell of flames which she would drive her powerful explosive fists right into. The ringing sound of a barrier of implosive flame collapsing upon its target sang music to his ears. The cage variation to the Inferno Trap was required quite a few extraneous motions which made it distinctly unsuitable for staves and rods, but with his wand, he had been able to cast the initial trap, and then layer it multiple times. The implosion of flame was designed to use the force of the attempts to struggle free of it to further fuel itself, only a water mage could fully counter and free their selves completely and easily from its constricting grip.
With but a wave of his wand, a quick bout of telekinesis retrieved him his staff. Quickly with staff once more in hand he would repeat his initial evocation, the one which he'd begun when first he'd laid eyes upon the undead summon of young Ms. Valliere. He'd discovered a long time back that a specialized version of the Flame Shock spell could be used to prime the air around him itself, using the consumptive properties to remove and concentrate substances found in the air he could effectively modify and control the intensity of his flames far beyond any regular will powered effect.
An old brother at arms from before Colbert had turned from that life, Bunsen who had been obsessed with creating a flame of the most intense heat and purity, had stumbled into the method by utilizing a clever combination dot class fire and wind spells to prepare an area for the mechanics of furthermore powerful fire spells to come. Despite only being Line class, his colleague had earned himself the Runic name of 'The Burner' and went on to become a feared name in Magical Combat, casting with triangle class power using only Line class magical ability. It was with the guidance of his friend that Colbert had established his own technique which allowed his spells to burn beyond their class.
"Burn Havoc!" He extended the field of his burning touch, using his flame to gather and shape the air itself, the spell would manage the act of concentrating the flow of air to absolutely maximize the power of his flame. He was ready to burn this threat to ash.
Allowing his head to droop in dire concentration he could only vaguely note when mid-way through it, that the final barrier had been broken faster than anticipated by once more burned and regenerating monster, the condition of which spoke of it having found its way out without taking further damage from the trap. Idly he noticed that it had somehow gained a hole straight though the left side of its chest. But he'd managed to put the fear of him into it at least, and no longer did it blindly approach, not recognizing that this was finally the instant which it should have rushed him the beast circled, motes of light gathering to its body ever faster as it seemed swell in repair of damage so very long done. Only near the end of his chant, had the undead thing seemed to have caught on, though it was seeming less and less like one of the dead by the second, and more and more like a lovely, if feral, and very naked elf maiden. Even its tactics seemed to be changing, as instead of making a full on charge, the creature began to careful approach, allowing some of the gathering motes of light to congregate in its palm once more, but this time in a surprising twist it seemed to squeeze them into what became a recognizably sword-like shape of blazing red while the other hand seemed to continue gathering and compressing the motes into a radiant intensity. Its actions had become ever more lifelike in nature, the uncanny quality of its very sway seeming to soften into the rhythms of a living creature.
But he couldn't see how it could be anything at all that was fully alive, not after its continued function after all that he'd subjected it to, and the plain reminder of its ragged chest wound... besides if he started thinking of it as anything less than a monster now he didn't know if he could bring himself to do what it took to finish the fight. His killer instinct had been abandoned years ago.
Steadying himself Jean Colbert, would wait. The cold gleam of intellect burned brightly within his eyes, as he swallowed his reservations at the possibility of killing another person.With a dour smile he spoke to himself, She's going to make me cut this close, then stopped himself as he realized something. In his thoughts, he'd already declared her a possible person. But it was too late to do anything else but carry through with his dire evocation.
Almost in exaggeratedly slow motion, Jean Colbert would bring down his staff and cry out for the greatest weapon in his arsenal, a chain of delayed evocations meant to devastate earth work entrenchments as almost a single mega spell.All starting with his signature spell, that for which he had earned his runic title.
"Come FLAME SERPENT!"
************************************************
The lonely beast wept. Pulled from the dark confines of her ancient prison, too weak to stand, too weak to move, she could only tilt her head upward staring at and feeling the gentle warmth of the sun. The simple beauty of a planet side view moved something within the creature as she remembered. Between her legs sat a familiar egg of royal purple.
Free.
FREE.
Free, free, free, free, free!
No rational though could breach the surface of her mind, yet... even the deepest core of instinct could feel it, for the first time in time over 2000 years; she was free in body, in mind, in spirit.
Almost automatically she began to gather the power needed to form a false gem. Even without the benefit of thought, her body knew what to do. Leaching energies from higher dimensions, it would begin to force them into a format which her three dimensional body could utilize. Motes of photonic energy gathered at the points of conversion from the higher dimensional barriers into three dimensional space.
She would need the energy gathered as a jump start for her anti-matter based energy extraction organ, a compromise between the carbon-based life form and the exotic-material beings from which she had been engineered. These would provide her a great boost in energy, but were none the less useless without even a fake gem to help with energy distribution and prevent localized overloads.Without the gems the risk of its utilization usually was just too much beyond the rewards.
"Louise... what have you done?" a noise rumbled though the air like many others made by the crowd, but this noise was different, this noise reminded her.
That first noise amid the rest of the noise string, a familiar sound, it was the noise of choice into freedom. And suddenly she knew. Like a sunflower tracking the sun, her face came pointed in the direction of her savior, watching the exotic spikes of energy which felt as gentle and welcoming as the visage of that boy, now so far away.
With a grand effort, with a body not yet repaired enough for even any of the basic vigours of living, she tried to get closer.First crawling, then in a stumbling unsteady gait she approached, a thought less need driving her steps, the caller of demons moved with all haste, with every bit of strength that she could muster toward the siren song of her savior. Her longing gaze drew a juxtaposition of all desire, all need, and all gratitude upon the youth who had given her freedom, whose own pure desire had drawn her across worlds.
With a tender smile upon hidden lips, ancient hands caressed the face of youth while gently uttering the most calming noise which she knew.
"Tenchi…"
And from her face the mask fell. A moment of perfect tranquility shattered.The fearful noise of gibbering beasts all too familiar surrounded her, and then was followed by the slam of impact, heat and consuming flame upon her face. Instincts shifted gears and the red haze of rage coloured her eyes as fight or flight instincts fought their way back up to the surface.
She couldn't have said what she did in that combat rage which had been invoked, only that she hurt and had been hurt in turn. That she had become fury incarnate, countered again and again as she lunged like an animal towards her goal, to destroy the one before her. But no intellect guided her hands. No mind guarded her motions. And at every step she had been coldly countered, frustration and damage mounting as brute force struggled to keep up with scholarly guile.
Once more confined.
The final straw.
The ancient beast raged itself raw... Raw enough that the young woman could rip herself free.
Pain flared, as a young woman groaned into wakefulness.
Her last memories were a jumble.
A duel, across planets, across the stars... against a young bastard of heaven...
A gentle smile and hopeful innocent eyes that melted her,far too long, cold heart...
The passion of an eternal perfect moment of connection, knowing her hope, her need...
Relentless, smoldering, passionate eyes directing the steps in a dance Macabre....
"Ugghhh... what hit me? Yosho?" words reached her mouth, as bidden. Thoughts begun to flow, assessments were made, and a lifetime of combat experience came to once more inform her actions, and words.
"Goddamit! Why am I ON FIRE!?"
Though it wasn't a common state for her, despite the many hazards of her original occupation,as an ex-space pirate it wasn't exactly an unknown state to her either. Still it had been a while since the last time she'd turned off her alcohol immunity. Longer still since last she'd blanked out in the middle of a drunken brawl after trying to enjoy the simpler pleasures in life, booze and beating some bozo's brain's out. But here she was, and she ached. She hurt like mad in her... well everywhere. What wasn't burnt was battered, and what wasn't battered was bruised, and what wasn't bruised seemed to hang limp from the rest of her flesh.
Her energy reserves were shot to levels she didn't know she could get so low to, and the ragged hole in her chest suggested the destruction of her most difficult to regenerate organ. It seemed only by virtue of basic energy gathering techniques which were second nature to her from wearing the 3 gems for most of her life, was she able to free up enough energy from nearby higher dimensional space and utilize that to keep from falling apart. Even her regenerative abilities were at the most sluggish she had ever felt them, the fire retardants and reparations only just NOW starting to kick in, and without the gems she couldn't even create any higher dimensional backups of her brain. Hell simple systems like her ability to phase shift and short range teleport were shot to shit. She could have almost shuddered at the fact that this was closer to death that she had ever been in her lifetime.
Even the fight with Yosho had never brought her this far down. Though to be fair, it was mostly because he was powerful enough to keep her subdued without needing to bring her any lower. The simple fact was, the antimatter engine which had powered her though the fight had simply exploded due to heat stress and shock damage, thankfully it was designed to mostly contain such an event though in the process of doing so it completely ruined any chance of quickly salvaging its parts for future use, having vented the energy output in its final moments directly in its dense neutron molecular structure vapourizing the organ completely into a cloud of plasma and streaming the vented mass though the newly minted hole in her chest. Without her gems it could take months or even years for her body to transmute dense enough materials to forge a new one, compared to that, loosing limbs was a bloody cake walk. Unfortunately, loss of that organ had severely limited her combat options because she would now have to enforce recovery periods to make up for any excessive energy outputs, and with her now embedded in the heat of combat, she would probably need to waste much of the energy she had already gathered for the creation her false gems in fighting once she sprung herself free.
"Yosho, when I get outa this bloody cage I'm gonna skin you," golden eyes closed with a sigh, then reopened in the light of concentration.
"Alright, let's see what this stupid thing is. Ow, owowowow..."
Newly reinstalled pain sensors screamed out, the unnatural state of system wide damage adding to the pain. Sticking her damaged fingers in her mouth, she quickly continued to look at the structure of forces involved in holding her captive.
It was a fairly primitive force array, but the design was impressive. It was created to explode inward and shift so as to redirect the energy utilized on the barrier itself as a part of the attack. It was bloody clever, in a technical manner of speaking, for something as simple as utilizing an electromagnetic shell to contain a hot plasma wall.But the space-pirate though was not one to be impressed, and even less of one to think about the information which she almost instinctively could pick apart with a close look at her prison.
What she knew was simple.
Direct.
Brutish.
What she knew made her smile.
The fire shell extended into the ground which she stood upon, but gave her enough room to move about without bumping directly into it. A human may well have fainted by now, either from the oxygen being eaten up by the room of flames, heat exhaustion, or having been concussed by triggering the trap itself. This was of little concern to her, only that the ground gave material for her use. The real issue with the barrier, she'd realized, was the mobility of the deflective forces it employed. Strike any single place and the barrier moved with the blow, setting up for and multiplying its explosive effects. The spell was useful for keeping an enemy from concentrating enough force to crush the barrier without devastating his or herself in the process. But the ex-pirate knew how to defeat this. And all it took was a little math, and a bit more dirt.
Attempts to rate the ex-pirate's skills at mathematical analysis would for the most part be bound for failure, her mind did not work with the symbols which others called numbers, though numbers it did express, and her attention would not be held for long enough for her to work her way into being able to show what she knew almost by instinct. But advanced senses and a mind capable of instantly assessing and utilizing variables at an intrinsic level gave rise to an immediate solution. All she needed was to disrupt the forces which allowed the barrier to work at multiple key points simultaneously,utilizing spikes transmuted from the dirt about her, each disruption setting up a resonating echo with the rest, forcing the barrier to explode in an imperfect shaping of its energetic charge and crack itself wide open, allowing her at that point to use force against force.
She REALLY liked the last part of that. And with a howl of victory her fist struck true.
She freed herself just in time to witness her opponent deep in concentration, probably some sort of psychic, readying himself for his next strike. Unbidden, memories of their fight trickled in in flashes between moments of blind rage. Caution was warranted against this one. At this low ebb in her power he was actually a match for her, and maybe more.
********************************************************
The fight raged before her eyes, disbelief warring with deep feelings of responsibility and uselessness. But one such as Louise the Zero could only gaze on, while the two titans fought. One wreathed in flames of white, the other bathed in motes of light.
"Come."
The word was punctuated with deathly finality, as the blue haired Dragon rider descended to meet her closest friend and Louise, to convey them both to safety. But this was a word spoken at no expense to concentration, the young warrior waited with staff in hand to support their battling teacher the instant that a clear shot was provided.
The already tight grip upon her own staff grew tighter still as she witnessed the disarmament of her balding teacher. Forced to switch from Staff to wand his combat potential had been effectively halved.
Because of the short nature of the wand all evocation points corresponding to it were arcing sweeps and stabs, effective for short spells which the wand's expressive nature would allow nuance to flourish. Combat evocation tools were divided into Staves, Rods and Sword-wands. Staves were the most versatile of the combat tools, able to both perform the motions of artillery and simpler combat efficient evocations while sturdy enough to be utilized as directly physical weaponry as the need arose. Rods were thin switches of wood or metal, capable of Moving with the flexibility of a wand but the length needed for heavier evocation type motions. Sword-wands, which included dagger-wands were implements of melee combat meant to be utilized more as melee weapons than evocation tools, and while Artillery class spells were generally limited to them for the same reasons that they were a regular wand, it carried the additional benefits of a wand in evocation refinement. Few however mastered the range of skills needed to make complete effective use of the sword-wand, and the entire demi-evocation, demi-martial style which came with it.
Cold blue eyes flared, and shifted. Advantage would come soon. She just had to wait for it.
Louise glanced on toward the hawkishly watchful, ice blue eyes of her peer with a brief wondering of what went on beneath their usually placid surface. Tabitha had ever been a mystery to Louise. She was an apparently mousy, quiet child who never seemed to be without a book for every occasion of truly festive anti-sociality. Louise herself knew of a few attempts to bully and brow beat her by older students wishing to assert their own power and choosing the naturally quiet girl as their target of choice. After ignoring them quite pointedly several times, they decided that a more private session with the uncommunicative waif of a young woman would be more productive toward the results which they desired. The next day saw several boys with broken teeth, the only things not quickly fixable by simple evocation, no one could ever get them to speak of that night, though they were always noted to cringe when need placed them anywhere near her.
Tabitha's blue dragon cooed almost cutely, tilting its head to a side in a birdlike manner that would have been adorable if it weren't on a half a ton of apex predator. Still entangled in her arm, the blonde hair of the Montmorency heiress bobbed in Louise's face as the other girl attempted to pull her up onto the dragon mount.
"I know we don't get along to well Louise, but it's just not safe here. We have to go!" the blond spoke with grave urgency etched into her voice, the small frog familiar which she'd summoned earlier peaking from its resting spot within the unused hood of her cloak.
Behind her the worried figure of Kirche paid no heed to the two, watching the intense matchup with an equally intense stare, wand gripped tightly in her hand, almost to its snapping point.The combat between the two was almost godlike. Intense gouts and swirls of flame danced deadly with motes and orbs of light both leaving swaths of rent earth and burning, black grass with nary a pause in motion. Struggle, passion, strength all there pressed into service for combat....
It was awe inspiring.
It was glorious.
It was all she could do to force herself to look away, feeling like a moth caught on the draw of the flame... knowing how it ached to burn. Forcing herself not to look back Kirche turned her immediate attention to a matter closer at hand.
Her rival.
Louise just could not bring herself to abandon everything, to abandon the teacher who fought for her, and to abandon what was one of her greatest responsibilities, that of a Mage to their familiar. Before things had gotten out of hand she could have sworn even though her own fear, there had been a tenderness, before the inertia of the moment had schemed to steal her away, Louise had been on the edge of taking her wand to the task of finishing what had been started with the creature's summoning. She could not shake the feeling that if she ran now she might never have the chance again. At her side her small fist clenched around her wand with a grip so tight that crescent wounds formed where finger nails pressed to flesh.
Kirche watched Louise of house Valliere closely, it had become almost a hobby of her house to choose a target amoung the Valliere broods and learn them. A long tradition of this pastime had yielded some of the best entertainment possible for generations of Zerbst. Learning to annoy the stoic family line of Tristan, with whom so much blood both was shared and spilled together that they were practically one family across two countries, had long granted the Zerbst a proper vantage point from which to view the moods and mannerisms of the Valliere. And it was as much to annoy as it was a statement of respect that they made a habit of stealing away the male brood of the Valliere family as potential husbands as well as those who were deemed worthy to be welcomed into the family. It was as a result of these insights, that Kirche was prompted to take notice when she saw the stubborn light come alive in Louise's eyes. That was the look of a determined woman of the Valliere line readying herself to do something potentially very stupid. That was a look that spoke of passion and drive, and though the Zerbst scion could tell that it meant trouble, it was a trouble which she could never steer anyone, least of all herself, clear of. For when passion burned, Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst fueled its flames!
"I need to go back," thus when Louise spoke these words Kirche could not help but to nod in agreement, even as Montmorency shrilled in shock as to the insanity of the 'Zero'. Tabitha's quick downward glance would be the only expression of her own surprise, another glance cast towards her closest friend would galvanize her into action.
"Finish the ritual," two faces would turn towards her in shock and one in agreement. That Tabitha decided to suggest what had been dancing at the edge of Louise's mind rocked the young Valliere. Kirche merely walked over to her rival, taking in hand and straightening her cloak in an almost familial manner.
"It's ok Louise, we understand," the wide eyed look of her rival at the unexpected acceptance brought a smile to Kirche's lips.
Louise hesitated, and then turned a haughty look in Kirche's direction while attempting to shrug off the mothering being lavished upon her person.
"It is the duty of a Master to quell their familiar. No less could be expected of house Valliere," her mother's Rule of Steel danced about her head. Duty was an ABSOLUTE. She would make her name proud, her mother proud.
Kirche grinned sardonically at this declaration, so very typical of the Valliere scion. It was a trait both endearing and frustrating when dealing with her.
Then nodding to Tabitha she asked, "So. What's the plan?"
********************************************************
Fire filled the air. Murderous and ravenous the spectre of inferno loomed large. A serpent of Flame painted the sky with a pure white blaze as it coiled about its creator, ready to strike. It was his masterpiece of spell work, much like the golems of earthen mages; his serpent had been the result of relentless perfectionism and studious mastery of his craft, though a good many hints had come his way from his old comrade, Bunsen. Long hours of studying the spell mechanics of advanced golems and tweaking, adapting them to something with a completely nebulous form had paid off, spectacularly. He had cribbed more than a few notes on golem crafting in creating the cognitive engine for his creation and had invented an entire crypto-graphical key to shorten the evocation needed for its summoning. A chain of Bound Evocations, key words to which a mage could symbolically link to longer spells allowing their rapid execution, allowed him to summon it with all the speed and effort of lesser spells. Though, the costs in will power on the initial summoning were fairly steep as the act of calling up an evocation binding in itself caused the spell to cost more than it usually would.
And with the calling of this his most famous spell work, just two more spells needed to be unleashed. One a simple two stack evocation of Twisting Flame, it was the simplest one of them all. The other was a full four stack alchemical mixture of rare metals which would allow it the flame to reach a level of intensity unknown to anything thing else in the world, he called it Sun Fire. While not it would not cause wide devastation like his Flame Bomb, the Sun Fire spell could burn its way though several feet of solid steel, and with the twisting motion of the Twisting Flame motivating it into a drill of explosive forces which he would have as his sword. With the Flame snake as his shield, he would hold finally the power to put down the menace before him. With that synergy of spell crafting he would be able to overcome its incredible regeneration and put it down.
The young ancient Devil-caller grimaced.Before her was no mere fiery show of forces, it was a full on programmable construct of balanced bubbles of hot plasma and EM-fields. Together they formed what seemed to be a surprisingly complex computation able machine capable of receiving input, and creating outputs, in the form of movements. And with her lowered state of health, avoiding its deadly embrace long enough to take down the mage behind it was paramount to her success. This was especially so now that she would not be able to depend on her regeneration as extensively as she had before. She'd boosted her current condition to push all the necessary structures to top combat efficiency. It had consumed a fair chunk of the energy which she would not be able to recoup too soon... but would give her the edge.
Colbert too grimaced on his side of the battle field. The flame snake was his most deadly weapon. The snake's presence on the field gave him options and bought him time to finish his evocation chain. Without needing to do anything else but maintain it with his will, he could simply set it orders and rules to follow, allowing it free reign on the battle field. After the intensity of the combat, he could feel his will as it slipped lower. But his mind was none the less steel, tempered in the flames of his own desire to protect and nourish. He would endure until this deed was done.
One step. Eyes locked.
Two steps. One foot fell before the other, settling into a bounding leap.
Three steps. His mouth stirred, spinning utterances into fire. The holy power of the word made manifest.
Four steps.Guardian and Aggressor clash, fire and light once more dancing freely in a field of green streaked black.
No steps left. The deadly elfin girl danced though the weaving flame, accepting damage where it touched her now pale flesh to advance upon her target. The Warrior professor allowed her ever closer, weaving a path as vital to his purposes as the words which flowed from him in a stream of utterances.
With no space between them but the clash of wills,
With Sword of light and Serpent of flame as the last defense,
With all else stripped away but each other and the heat of the thrill.
The bright glow of the gathered light in her left hand pulse ever faster while her right hand struck out and parried blow after blow. The final words hung in the air as a grim eye of swirling white flame formed above him while about him the serpent of flame circled ever closer shielding blow after blow.
Then suddenly, so suddenly she could not see it coming. Should not have seen it coming, the white flame switched from defense to offense, wrapping itself about her. They both knew that this was only restraint of the moment, even the white heat and forces which constrained the body of the serpent would not hold for long against the strength on who had broken the Explosive Barriers of earlier. But it would give him a vital moment and with his final words.But he flinched. A life lay in the balance, but only the surety that her rampage would bring harm to those who were in his care moved his lips for the final evocation.
He called down the fire!
Straight down the column of twisting white flame came, searing and rending its way right though solid earth without stopping. A strange noise barely audible above the roar flame went unnoticed. Relief blossomed through the professor's features, it was over. He'd done it. He'd ended th... a vicious swipe to the back put him down into the ground.Only barely singed the elf maiden stood above him with a triumphantly, savage fanged grin. She swayed with a visible effort to stand, the hole in her chest still leaking smoke.
"I win," for the first time he'd heard her speak anything beyond animal growls and inhuman wails.
"H... how...?" Colbert groaned. The question key to both how she'd escaped the final trap, and how it was that she now seemed like a rational being, where before was only howling madness. She knelt before him, half in her exhaustion, half in order to reach his face and pick him up by the front of his collar, his face meeting hers. His long shattered glasses hung down loosely from his nose. Idly he noticed that she was still naked as a jay bird.
Anger lit her yellow eyed gaze, "Oh no, you don't get to ask the questions buddy. Now where are we, Who are you... and WHERE THE HELL IS THAT BITCH YOSHO?"
"Yosho?" he groaned in confusion.
"Gaahh... what are you, dim or something?" she replied, shaking him roughly as she spoke. She'd never been the patient sort, and the act of interrogating her victims after a drunken rampage had always been one her less stellar abilities. Also waking up in a place completely different from the one where she'd last been conscious always made her cranky.
"PROFESSOR COLBERT, Get away from him You MONSTER!" the cry brought the heads of both former combatants in uniform turn toward the swooping contingent of students one of which was the Valliere girl.
"Who the hell are you calling a MONSTE... AAHHHH!!!" the demonic woman began to object. A cry which was unfortunately for her interrupted most rudely, the girls did not wait for her splutters of outrage to properly begin before Louise utilized a failed spell to flash bang the yellow eyed woman in the face, knocking her over and effectively separating her from the fallen professor. Where she'd fallen shards of ice pinned her to the floor, a momentary distraction as the fallen professor Colbert was scooped up into the forepaws a rapidly moving blue reptilian beast, which promptly flew off. On its back the professor was drawn up by two riders, the blond of whom quickly set busily to work on healing his battered body.
Louise sent a quick thank you prayer to the Founder, she'd been aiming for the creature's shoulder with that failed fireball spell.
With all due haste Louise approached, wand flickering in hand as she excitedly put it though each motion while saying the words to the most important evocation of her life.
"Pentagon of the Five elemental powers,
Grant your blessings upon this creature,
And bind it as my familiar."
It was a haste which proved to be of necessity, for the ice pinning the demonic woman down had crumbed before her struggles. And even as Louise managed to close the damming gap between her own and the demon's lips, it would prove not to be enough. An impossibly strong grip clenched her throat but a second after the final word. Only that her wand itself had been still free had she gotten in the assigning tap which needed to proceed the final step of the contract.
"Now little girl, maybe you'll tell me what the hell is going... on..." a look of confusion crossed her amber-gold eyes, "...why do I know you?" the ex-space pirate asked. Louise had no answer for her.
"Why do I feel like I should know you?" she asked again, this time more slowly. Still Louise had no answer.
"Are you the one who came for me? Did you take me from the dark?" there were tears leaking from the woman's golden eyes. A sudden wave or recollection washed over her as she loosened her grip on the girl's throat.
"I was in that damp, dank hole a long, long time. It was dark... and lonely in there... 700 years I was lonely. No light anywhere. It was you wasn't it, you gave me my way out?" this time she spoke again, crying, pleading. Her grip on Louise completely loosened... but the young Valiere was herself entranced by the sound of sobbing, pleading. Each of her cries digging deep into the young girl's heart like a ballista bolt through light tin.
"There was Tenchi for a while, I dreamed about him coming to me, freeing me. But he never did. I can't even remember how old he was when he stopped being there. Or did I imagine that he was there in the first place? For a while I had my light in the darkness but it flickered and died...and then… and then... there was you," Louise did not understand even as brief fragments of information entered her mind. And to her chest she found herself cradling the other woman in a position bizarrely like that of a mother or caretaker. Her hand stroked its way through spiked cyan tinted silver hair, which for all its straightness felt like the softest feather down beneath her fingertips.
"You gave your heart to me, I remember now. Down in the cold and the dark you wanted me, you called me to freedom in your service," Louise stood stock still at that; all breath had caught in her throat at that declaration. Her throat grew dry as she considered the thousand and one things that she ought to reply with. Nothing came to her blank mind but the sadness when she spoke of her prison, the blunt panic at the idea of going back, and the pure joy with which Louise found herself being thought about. Even if she had had no plan before of taking the woman as her familiar, Louise would not now be able to abandon her for the world.
Unbidden Louise's lips moved, "And if you are to be mine, if I'm to complete your freedom," Louise spoke as if entranced, loosing herself in those golden eyes, "then tell me. What is your name?"
Gold eyes met pink with an intimacy deeper than either cared to express, "I am Ryoko, the Devil Caller. Scourge of the galaxy. And you?"
"I am Louise Francois le Blanc de la Valliere… I... I am Louise," she replied, a hesitancy crawling through her voice, "I... am nothing," her own tears began to fall, the feedback of Ryoko's own raw emotions pushing her over the very edge of control.
"No," Ryoko replied, her naked form pulling itself up face to face with the Valliere scion, one hand reaching to caress her delicate face. The tears in her amethyst eyes were adorable, a plain honesty of emotion which surpassed even the link they shared. Ryoko could only stare as Louise's eyes laid all bare before her.
"You are Everything!"
No other words were spoken as the Commander of Devils and her Summoner drew each other into a deep kiss.
For a few minutes they stayed that way, locked to each other in promise of better times to come. Only to pull away blushing at their moment of mutual pleasure. When the fires of pain came as the runes being etched were forging the link between their two spirits and minds, far stronger than it was before, the dire feedback began to loop between them both. Thundering pain echoing ever louder with each wave until neither could stand it any longer.
Both new master and familiar crumpled together as one, the cries of several approaching members of the facility washing uselessly over them on their way to the ground.
Xicree
Murder.Malice.Might
You may be right there. I'll have to recheck it again about that. The pains of not having prereaders I guess...SmallTips said:
Thank you.imperial90 said:
Heh, yep no Tenchi in sight.Croux said:Seems interesting. So far no Tenchi, that's great!
I'm interested in what sort of response Ryoko will have to her "station" in this new world.
Yeah... I actually don't really dig shipping, there's actually a reason for all of what happened there. Though to answer the last question yes, it was a harsh feed back loop initiated by the runes being inscribed, so paingasm. (Hey... I figure if a little pain's got to be shared, then Louise can have some this fic around.)RazorSmile said:... Specfuckingtacular! That is without a doubt the most badass version of Colbert I have ever seen, not to mention a crossover I'd never have thought of in, let's say, 700 years.
I hope this isn't going to turn into Ryoko/Louise shipping though. And was that some kind of paingasm at the end there?
And thanks about the Colbert fight.
Ah thanks, I'll try to ease on the info dumping in the future. Still trying to find my stride as a writer at this point.NightmareSyn said:
Also thank you, At least it served the purpose to which it was intended. Though still i probably do need to ease up a bit on the info-dumping while world building.imperial90 said:
Best Badass! Colbert ever. ( applause).
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
She does actually have a few moments of introspection and self-reflection in the Anime, though she mostly hides them from others. The one time she didn't hid it was when she got a little bit tipsy and opened up to Ayeka, and Ayeka stomped all over her.Darth Artemis said:
She has poetry in her soul, but she knows it runs counter to how others see her, and so she hides it.
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
That was set up at the beginning when they had that ultra empathetic moment while summoning and rigth after summoning. Ryoko was going through hell. Tis perfectly natural for her to act that with her rescuer who came for her when she realized who it was. Especially after being abandoned by tenchi chan.X18999 said:
Did Ryoko need a proper jewel to call Ryouohki? Or are you leaving the cabbit and every thing out to prevent lol stomp? Are you gonna switch hit the familiars? Will there be a spaceship as the Rainment? Or will that whole arc be gutted. Who's picking up Derf? Will Ryouko be using hax Genius analysis to help kinda teach Louise?
Xicree
Murder.Malice.Might
Good point there, I may either have to alter and add that in or with hold it for later potential.Larekko12 said:
Shhhhh!biigoh said:
Heh, thanks alot, there's allot more merging that immediately apparent. But some of it should come up soon.warlock7 said:
Thank you very much, that's the whole reasoning behind having the information there. (I too am a sucker for good magi/technobable that helps to show clearly the Whys of a world setting, and isn't just used as a one time this looks awesome... what I'm saying is expect more to come from any info I drop.)Noctum said:HOLY CRAP! That was one of the best magic fight scenes that I've ever seen. Now that is what a square rank fire mage is capable of. Nice background info on Colbert's spells, they feel more like a real thing than just a plain fireball. I'm a sucker for good magi/technobable.
Never seen TM before, but this looks like it's worth reading.
World building is my first passion, story telling lets me show it off LOL.
X18999 said:
Croux said:
Well first thing I actually don't see tenchi as worthless so much as i see the whole of Tenchi Muyo as having created a Massively awesome world setting and characters then doing a grand total of Nothing with them but cycle them though the same situations. I pretty much love all of the cast from the Original OVA.Deathsheadx said:
But with that said any more would be spoiling things.
X18999 said:
Croux said:
Doomsought said:
Yep, it is an OOCish moment, but A) I was setting it up from the start there, and B) As far as the series goes she DOES tend to take on a tone like that when she was remembering her time in the cave and buzzing around young Tenchi in the original anime, though maybe a little less poetic, I modeled that piece of introspection from the tone of that memory scene.Larekko12 said:
And yes, she was more than a little bit projecting the memory and IDEAL of Tenchi onto Louise, because in her crazed state Tenchi is the same thing as Saviour.
Yes Ryoko needs a proper gem to Wake and call Ryo-Ohki.... or maybe.... ^_^
~Classified~
~Classified~
~Classified~
~Classified~
Thank you.Phalanxone said:
It's the only way to make a REAL MAN'S Sword(tm) laddie!Rathmun said:
Shhhhhhhh!X18999 said:
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
Wasn't there gratuitous yuri in the novel?TakamachiFeito said:
dragonx99
Actually Satan
Wow, I clicked on this because I thought it might be interesting, but clearly I underestimated just how AMAZING it would be! Badass Colbert with wonderful spell descriptions. Beautifully emotional scenes. Ryoko demanding to know why she is on fire! I've barely watched any TM stuff (and that was years ago) and yet I can not subscribe to this thread hard enough!
In the OVA Ryoko actually managed to...well..summon some sort of devil made from fog from the hot spring they were visiting. Despite being made of fog the beast was more then able to lay most of the hot springs to waste. Fun fact: one of her jewels is enough to call the beasts, but she needs two to actually control them.
And some of the poetic speech is actually from the very first episodes. "It was dark and lonely" etc. In the manga there were some flashbacks to her imprisonment in the cave where it shows a lot of introspection on her part. So the poetic speech was actuall in character. Nice going there, now we just have to see how this goes.
Definitely subscribed and waiting for more.
And some of the poetic speech is actually from the very first episodes. "It was dark and lonely" etc. In the manga there were some flashbacks to her imprisonment in the cave where it shows a lot of introspection on her part. So the poetic speech was actuall in character. Nice going there, now we just have to see how this goes.
Definitely subscribed and waiting for more.
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
Um a 7/8 of the crap that happened in canon will be nonexistant due entirely different interpersonal relationships. Louise and Ryoko have a good foundation of friendship to build off of. Ryoko is a Girl. Ryoko is loyal. Ryoko was going head to head with what is now obviously a Square mage while 9/10 dead. Ryoko first action was to attempt to hug her. the emotiona; kisssing scene.Jans said:
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
Well she would be if she wasn't a hax calculator who can see the matrix of a spell and thus be able to tell louise how her Tac nuke army buster spells work and how to modify them.justbrowsing said:Ryoko said her antimatter reactor/organ was destroyed by the shot that put the hole in her chest, so she might actually be de-powered enough for the first few arcs to be balanced. A great angle to take this in, since it leaves open the chance for her to recover and regain some of her roflstomp.
Subscribed like mad, yo.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not to mention that, as Tenchi's the avatar of God born to finally give a heads-up to the Choushin, He will probably find other ways to ensure the message gets through, Washu is freed and Tokimi calms down.X18999 said:
Xicree
Murder.Malice.Might
biigoh said:
justbrowsing said:Ryoko said her antimatter reactor/organ was destroyed by the shot that put the hole in her chest, so she might actually be de-powered enough for the first few arcs to be balanced. A great angle to take this in, since it leaves open the chance for her to recover and regain some of her roflstomp.
Subscribed like mad, yo.
Actually the Anti-matter organ/reactor overloaded from the massive general trauma and heat damage she was taking (Being bounced around with the force of HER own blows + the massive heat damage happening just from being in the trap AND the implosive backwash). So the organ set itself off in a controlled detonation which by DESIGN forced the resultant explosion to be vented in one direction, out of her chest instead of letting the possible further damage mount up and make it explode in a way that might actually cause her real lasting harm.Larekko12 said:
And also, the disruption was on the physical level of what the spell was doing, not the 'magical'. Ryoko couldn't even begin to tell you how he Motivated the forces into action, only the configuration which they took.
Ryoko is basically a ridiculously well built flesh droid, taking every advantage of purely physical rules. Which means she ALWAYS works even when magic doesn't. On the other hand she then has the 3 gems which take everything she is then Magnifies it to BULLSHIT levels of Hax. Everything she does EXCEPT for her dimension short-cutting teleport she can achieve without resorting to her gems or the copies.
But with that said she still has command over some extra dimensional forces and reality warping abilities (mainly the ability to exaggerate her base abilities) but without the True gems she cant really do them at the levels which leave planets crying in her wake. The false gems reinforce these more magic like abilities, but there's only so much she can do on her own to magnify her power though them.
Now to all of you guys thus far, I want to thank you all. I really didn't expect this kind of response when i first put up the story.
Most story will be coming fairly soon.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The living god avatar thing means that he's bound to start having Interesting Times eventually, and when he does, Ayeka is going to hear reports of somebody using Jurai Royal-like powers near the last known location of Yosho and will come running.Jans said:
Xicree
Murder.Malice.Might
RazorSmile said:
Actually the way i planned it, nothing will be useless or redundant, ROFLstomps wont be as common as some might think... Though to be honest they wont be absent either.femanon said:
Xicree
Murder.Malice.Might
Devil Bringer Of Zero Chapter 2
Well as usual all disclaimers apply.
Thanks again guys for all your support, hope you enjoy chapter 2 even though the pace is definitely slower than that of the first chapter.
Again, if anyone wishes to help in prereading just PM me. And any ideas you wish to share, one can do the same, or just talk about them here. well now...
"ONWARD!!!"
Chapter 2: No need for the Stars!!!
Louise had never been one to waste her time staring up at the stars. She had always been too busy just trying to pull herself from the depths of mediocrity. Long hours she'd studied the mechanics of spell crafting, the philosophy of spell crafting, and even the rhetorical aspects of spell theory. Days, months and years of choking on the smoke and dust of failed spells, hour upon hour upon frustrated hour spent buried in the heart of her books, on a purely theoretical level she was probably leagues ahead of her peers. Not that it made one wit of difference to the explosive forces of practicality. To look at the strange lights of the sky in wonder was almost beyond her, earth bound as she was by the cares which weighted her down.
That is why it had been so strange when the dreams began. So very bizarre it was when she found herself amid the jet black of night, surrounded on all sides by a sea of stars, and confronted by a globe of shifting blue, white and green, like a living active version of the oh so common moons of her world. She could not have imagined such a scene which all at once left her breathless to its beauty yet confused her so utterly as to its nature. It was a scene deeply alien to her experiences.
It would not stay foreign to her for long.
Again and again she would find herself plunging. Hurling headlong from unending skys the master of Ryoko would learn that these great spheres; of blue and white, and green and brown, and sometime other colours as vibrant and vivid as could be imagined, and a great many more which could not, were each worlds unto themselves. She would learn that each point of light in the sky was another sun. That so many of these worlds bustled with vibrancy and lives far beyond her ken... that so many, many more of them were so completely, starkly without that even the spectre of death seemed to shy away.
It was here in dreams where she was forced to watch death looming, the doom of worlds, of continents, of countries, of villages, of people... the pillage of a thousand worlds. And all the while to hear the mad cackle of a chained beast, the hellish howling laughter that was all with which it could imprison the tears of frustration at its own restraints. All this desecration of life directed by the unrestrained curiosity of a single scholarly seeming man, a man with the most uncaring eyes she had ever met. And like a butterfly pierced right through by a collector's pin she could feel those eyes, black in yellow, serpentine and cold, stabbing right though her.
Louise awoke screaming.
But she could not remember why...
Only the cold twinkle of apathy set in the coldest of eyes.
*************xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**************
Louise had come to wake in a screaming fit, which sent her residing attendant into a near panicked flurry.
"Ms. Valliere, you're awake," a kindly face set in usual jet black hair loomed over her, a certain mixture of anticipation and panic in her voice, "Is there something the matter? Are you all right? Shall I call the physician?"
Louise simply laid there sweating. Eventually she calmed from the hyperactivity which had been induced by the bad dream which she almost completely could not remember. In her stupor the young woman shook violently, feelings of horror coursed through her. Her stomach felt ill.
"Excuse me, Ms.Valliere?"
Louise jumped. She'd forgotten about the maid who'd been at her side for the last minute or two. As shaken as she was it would not be proper to appear so before a commoner servant.
"I am... fine. I'm fine," she spoke, trying to shake herself of the feelings which had wormed their way bone deep. Louise's eyes narrowed, "... wait a moment, what are you doing in my room?"
"Ahh... Miss, I have been... assigned to your side until you are well," the maid kept her eyes down cast at all times, a proper show of deference.
Her noble pride supplicated in the act, Louise calmed visibly, "I passed out didn't I. I only rememb... Oh founder!" the sudden flush of crimson on Louise's face puzzled the maid, "I… my familiar, what news have you of her?"
"Well Ms, there hasn't been much in the way of talk about the Elf woman save idle gossip. Only thing sure which I've heard at all was that they were keeping her bound under several seals, as directed by the Headmaster," the maid spoke with an unsure formality to her voice.
Louise sighed, it was to be expected after the ruckus that her familiar had caused that they would take extra precautions in dealing with her, but the thought of her bound lonely in the dark made Louise shiver in sympathy. She needed to rectify this. She needed to rectify this right now.
The reaction was immediate unto the decision, as Louise threw off the tangle of bed sheets and tried to swing herself down into immediate action on the floor. This plan however met the enemy, and broke upon contact. A weakness she didn't even realize she'd felt, until after her first toe collided with the floor, overcame her and Louise tumbled forward, face first, at the floor. The watchful maid however had been well aware of her circumstances having spent the last few days tending to the sleeping scion of house Valliere. She moved immediately though catching Louise in mid fall it was all the maid could do, herself toppling beneath the over balanced weight of her charge.
"Ms Valliere, please restrain yourself. You are not well and I do not wish to explain to your physician that I allowed you to hurt yourself so soon after you've managed to recover your wits," the maid spoke sternly, then a moment later looked both mortified and abashed at the very idea of having told off a noble without thought, "forgive my familiarity Ms Valliere... I did not mean to overstep propriety."
Louise's mouth opened to form her own reply, when in mid motion the sound of her room's door opening cut her short.
"Hehehe, My, my Louise. You certainly seem to have a way with the ladies. The rumors might well have some substance to them."
"Zerbst..." Louise growled.
"Still, Little Louise, passion is passion," Kirche smirked, head poking from the doorway with a raucous grin plastered across her face and a signal of approval formed on hand, "even if does take on such a deviant bend."
Louise could do little more than splutter in indignation at her rival's accusations, face so red that it surpassed her brilliant pink hair in hue.
"W... w... w... w… WHAT!"
Kirche slunk into the room with nary a care, wide smile doing its best to become ever larger as she teased and poked the spluttering Louise, "I know, I know, you don't want anyone to be witness to your illicit liaisons. But you really must consider locking the door before you start such a tryst. Take it from me; it's just one small step that really does help in keeping romantic encounters on track and distraction free."
Louise boiled and shifted upon the black haired maid's lap, her angered twitching and shifting continued in a futile attempt at righting herself, paying no heed to the equally red faced servant below her. Her struggles would continue for a moment only to be thwarted when she was overcome once more with a bout of weakness which, to Louise's ongoing misfortune, landed her face first into soft tide of the maid's ample bust.
"Miss Valliere!" the maiden squeaked, her own mortification at this moment peaking till she was as red as a tomato.
"Mhmmm, mmmmhh!" Ms Valliere managed to burble out, drowning in a tide of soft flesh, and struggling like one out to sea without a life raft.
"HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!" the scion of house Zerbst cackled out whilst doubled over, no longer able to hold in her laughter.
Eventually Louise managed to struggle her way out of the marshmallow palace and face first, as seemed her new paradigm, into the hard floor. She managed to squeak out an oddly cute onomatopoeia for pain in the process. Kirche would forever treasure the stark look of mixed embarrassment and indignation which etched itself upon her rival's face as she scrubbed at her sore nose. It was nothing short of Adorable!
But that had been enough of the farce which found itself playing out before her, thus Kirche raised her hand in supplication to peace, though it seemed that Louise wanted to have no such thing.
"Heh... ok, ok. Louise, get dressed. I came to check up on you and see if you wanted to come see your Familiar. The head master sent me to fetch you. Your Familiar is awake and he sent me to see if you had also wakened and was strong enough to move."
"Then get out Zerbst, and let me get dressed," Louise frowned as she attempted to regain some semblance of poise and dignity, "Uh... servant, escort our... guest... outside. Then come back over and dress me."
"Planning on some last minute hanky-panky? Oh, how very scandalous!" Kirche's grin widened with every word, "We should switch your calling from Louise the Zero to Louise the Risqué."
The poor girl just twitched. Louise did also.
Kirche smiled, "I'll just wait outside," she managed while chuckling heartily.
Without waiting on the stunned pair, Kirche glided from her position straight out of the door without so much as a pause. Louise could barely even bring herself to look at the now skittish servant girl as she rushed about the room gathering Louise's garments, and after Kirche's barrage of accusations when it came to undergarments both young women attempted to avert their eyes, to the result of further embarrassment, a tangle of limbs, with the dark haired maid this time ending up on top of the mostly naked Louise. That of course was the exact moment which Kirche choose to stick her head right back in.
"You know you two should hurry if you want to play," she said in a most matter of fact tone, "I can't wait outside here forever and the headmaster is expecting you."
Tear's welled up at Louise's eyes as she fumed one final time. With but a word she all but shoved the maid from atop of her then grabbed her wand from its place on the nearby table pointing it with wild eyed fervor at the Germanian noble woman. With a quick eep, the Zerbst heiress leapt back outside, narrowly avoiding the explosion which formed at the door, slamming it in with forceful finality.
The red in Louise's face never lessened as she stood before the maid, who herself was fussing over minor details in Louise's clothing as she stood being dressed, her own face suffused with a crimson blush as she studiously attempted to avoid eye contact with her charge. The lingering embarrassment which hung about the room stifled all further communication save for silent commiseration.
And an unspoken vow to get even with the red headed witch.
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Boldly the red-haired maiden escorted the other two as they both attempted to set her a fire in truth with evil looks, their own cheeks still aflame after her indecent suggestions. She wore a smile as big as the first day she'd discovered boys, having gotten such a big one over her rival. To have pushed her right past bluster and into stony silence was beauty of accomplishment all in itself, having pushed past even the put on hauteur which the young Valliere used as her shield leaving that crimson of embarrassment painted upon her cheeks to overmatch her hair. There was a certain beauty in stroking flames till they burned as high as they could fly, and Kirche seldom missed a chance to revel in such an event.
Still, as fun as it was to tease and fret Louise, Kirche was genuinely glad to see that she had recovered from her role in the ordeal. It had been worrying at best to find her passed out, intertwined with the long eared demon which Louise had made her familiar, the two having collapsed holding each other what looked like a lover's embrace. Thus it surprised her to hear Louise speak up as they traveled to the headmaster's office, light on haste.
"Servant, you've been assigned to me and I do not know your name," this was a noble's question, i.e. none at all. The almost subtly demanding command did however carry an undercurrent of uncommon courtesy. It was sad to say, but most nobles would have simply ignored the young maid with the raven hair, never once glancing back in the young commoner's direction unless they had… other interests... in her. But the pink haired youth whom she'd spent most of the last week caring for had spoken, and seemed to be awaiting an answer. After all, if it were not a thing worth knowing, it would not have been worth bringing up in the first place.
"I am named Siesta, Miss. I hope I do not presume too much," she spoke with her eyes down cast, all the same watching her charge's feet for any residual unsteadiness. She trailed behind her charge and her bawdy noble friend as was proper.
"Hmm... you know, I think I've seen you around as part of the kitchen staff," Kirche spoke congenially, "Just what were you doing looking after the shrimp?" Kirche smirked at the irritation to cross her rival's face.
"It was mere coincidence Miss," she said, eyes still low, "I happened to be serving with the infirmary staff as a fill in since a few of their regulars were ill. When Ms. Valliere came in I was simply there tending to the room, and thus the duty of caring for her was passed to me. The headmaster thought it might help her to be in a more familiar setting when she awoke since there was nothing wrong with her physically, so she was taken to her room and I assigned to watch over and take care of her until she woke."
"You did your duty well," Louise spoke with a curt nod, using her best imitation of her mother. Good service should be acknowledged as her father would say, but one should ensure that it was just that, an acknowledgement of what should have been anyway, as would say her mother. The maid's polite thank you ended the matter in Louise's concern.
"... I... how is professor Colbert?" Louise asked hesitantly. It was after all her familiar who had brought him down and thus to her own mind, as good as having hurt him herself.
"Darling is just fine, handsome and manly as he ever was. A little water magic and two days' rest and now he's as right as rain. Darling has a remarkable constitution," Kirche gushed. That brought an instant tilt to Louise's eyebrow.
"Darling?" Louise blurted as if in that one word she'd questioned Kirche's well-being, sanity and taste in men all at once. Which, of course Louise did.
"Yes, Darling," Kirche retorted firmly.
"To speak frankly, he doesn't seem your type," Louise said, genuine puzzlement in her voice. After all, even with yesterday, this was boring old Colbert. He was a dreamer and a balding middle aged man who was obsessed with strange contraptions that no one could see the use of. Though out in the field he'd shown a side to himself which strongly made her think of her mother. Louise shuddered at that mental comparison.
"After what happened... I thought I knew passion and fire, but he burned so brightly, so beautifully... I just knew. He was the one. All those other boys, all those flings were nothing, not even a spark in his presence. He DANCED with fire Louise; spoke it with command and brilliance. All but sang his fire and passion into existence," the crimson red-head shivered with audible delight, "Love knows no boundaries. And passion will not be denied!"
There was a weird note of wonder in Kirche's voice which Louise had never heard before, a tone which spoke of the fervor to which her red headed rival professed at ever chance. Even her eyes seemed to burn with a strange light of desire. Almost all at once a pool of pity settled in Louise's stomach, a strange sympathy toward their unassuming professor. Kirche was little if not relentless, and well-practiced at wrapping men around her little finger.
"Righhhhttttt..." the look on Louise's face spoke her doubts far more effectively than any words.
Forgetting herself for a moment, the maid who trailed behind the two of them, for the most part disregarded, tittered musically for all to hear. A moment later she looked forward, stricken and unsure as to how the young noble would take her laughter. It was to her relief that the red head cast a kind eye toward her, and chimed in with her own laughter, quite willing to share the moment with her companions.
Siesta smiled brightly, this she had not been expecting from nobles. It was rare for a commoner to be treated as anything more than furniture in a noble's presence, and all too often as less than garbage. It was of little surprise that she knew the professor which they spoke of by both name and look, after all the staff of any establishment were expected to know the intricate running's of who was who when nobles were about. It was easy for a commoner to lose out on an exchange with a noble for having forgotten who he was. Some took offense in the unpleasant extreme, and there were few punishments for such an event. Short of murder they could get away with anything. And ever with murder they usually could get off with little more than heavy fines for the crown treasury.
Colbert was one of the few staff that she could say was mindful of the commoner staff as more than smart golems running about doing what they were meant for. Though for all that he was strangely polite to everyone, his head was often cleanly situated in the clouds and not particularly interested in anything outside of his own dealings, it was seldom that he interacted with anyone save colleagues who could give critique on his constant tinkering with his strange devices.
Siesta's thoughts wondered over her own experiences with nobles. Especially after leaving home to both make some extra money for her family, for serving staff at the academy were nothing if not well paid, and having gotten away from the potential attentions of a less than stellar nobleman.
Still walking before her maid, Louise pondered her own problems once the laughter had ended and the careful walk towards the headmaster's office continued. For one thing, she could feel the ghostly whisper of the familiar runes, as if they had been branded into her own skin, a weird tautness and ache in the skin which left her expecting to see something every time she looked back at the back of her hand. She'd never heard of such a thing happening between Summoner and Familiar before, but then again she'd never heard of anyone bonding an elf... or whatever her familiar was... before either. It was here as her mind drifted in wondering about the strangeness which her familiar had brought that she began to overhear faint strains of conversation as others spoke in hushed tones as she passed.
~"... summoned an ELF of all things…"~
~"... I'm telling you she sicked the dammed thing on Professor Colbert."~
~"I was watching, and that kiss was lurid... Zero, didn't summon a familiar she called up a lover..."~
~"... up you idiot, you want her to send her pet elf after you?"~
~"... maybe she pulled something worse than an e...Elf. It seemed more like a demon too m..."~
The halls were abuzz with gossips plying their information. Only long histories of disregard had left a good few with free tongues while she passed, the others still would completely clam up and pretend to either be talking of something completely different, or simply stopped talking. In all cases however, their eyes never left the petite pinkette. In each case what little she did catch as the trio rounded corners and passed cliques left her wishing she hadn't heard anything at all.
But there was one point which did stick out in her mind, a contention which brought her worry as she thought about it more. Her familiar said that it had been imprisoned, 700 years it had been bound and Louise was the one who had broken its bonds. This worried the young Valliere, after all its... no her... imprisonment may well not have been unjust, especially in the light of other information given straight from her mouth. Ryoko, the Devil Caller, Scourge of the Galaxy. Whatever the 'galaxy' was she wasn't sure, though she did remember it having something to do with stars. But even disregarding that bit, the name devil caller implied something ever more sinister, and possibly heretical in nature. They would need to figure some way around that if needs be. Her familiar would listen to her she was sure, hopefully it would be enough that Louise would be able to keep her obscured from the church's scrying even if every negative proved true.
Louise specialized in wishful thinking.
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Ryoko the space pirate; Envy of the great pirate guilds, Raider of ten thousand worlds, Slayer of armadas, Destroyer of planets (26 to be exact, and 69 colonies), Highest bounty offered by the galaxy police themselves and a multitude of other worlds for proof of her demise, and the ONLY creature to have successfully raided the heart of the Juraian empire itself was bored. Worse than bored, she was outright insulted. Since she had come to this place, called here by a mere slip of a girl, she had been almost defeated in life or death single combat for only the second time ever, and imprisoned as well for what was also only the second time in her life.
It had not been a good week.
Not to say of course that she'd been awake for most of it, another fact that grated on her immensely. A little thing like pain had put her down for the better part of a gal-standard cycle, at least that's what her temporal senses were telling her, Ryoko was not pleased. With her mind inactive and overloaded from the sensory fugue between herself and her Summoner her body had stopped the process which allowed her to forge a new false gem. And now wrapped in a primitive power sink, she could not properly draw upon and convert the higher dimensional energies which powered the formation of a new gem. The primitives of this little stink-hole had managed to trap her, a feat only carried out once before and by a being far greater than they. Damaged and more vulnerable than she had ever been before anyone save two individuals in her past, both of whom she'd rather forget about, Ryoko did what she did best when her back was against the wall.
Attack.
"GET ME DOWN FROM HERE ASSHOLE AND LET ME GO!" she snarled with ferocious intent, once again.The beastial sound coming between grunts of exertion.
At the very least they had not left her in a dark cold place. That would have been too much. As it stood, all that she could do was to get angry. It staved off the nervousness which boiled within her belly.
A stray wondering as to the state of her Summoner came, only to surprise her with an actual reply reading out her vitality in much the same way she had always been able to with Ryo-Ohki. That came as almost enough of a shock to stop her constant tirade against those who held her captive. It probably wasn't a wise idea, raging at them like this, but it was all she had.
"She's been like this for at least an hour Headmaster," the balding man spoke wincing slightly, he was still sore from the fight a few days back despite the relatively light injuries he had taken, "She alternates between threatening me personally, and then the castle... and then our world."
A thick eyebrow lifted upon an ancient scowl as fingers raked though thick white at the chin, "A wild cat caught in our trap maybe?"
The balding professor shook his head, "No, more like a manticore held by the tail. She is dangerous Headmaster... and I can't really stress to you how much."
The elder nodded, if reluctantly, "Over the last five days I've had our best water mages examine her. They were baffled. On the outside she looks completely human and normal... but on the inside she is anything but. They all felt her... disturbing... and almost subtly so. Whatever liquid courses though her, one can hardly call it blood as we know it, is viscous to the extreme and cold to the touch and she doesn't have any distinct organs that we can figure out what their function is save her brain and stomach. They could not identify what were the substances comprising her bones either, even in collaboration with earth mage alchemical experts on staff. Frankly they were quite perplexed and excited at everything about her."
The balding man frowned but also nodded, "It just does not make any sense... Even elf corpses have been recorded show the natural attributes. Viscera, blood, bone, all in the same structure as our own."
"Colbert, I all my years, both as an adventuring lad and as Headmaster of this establishment, I've never seen anything quite like her. Even amoung the stranger forms of supernatural beasts she presents an anomaly. The closest thing to her strangeness I've ever found record of that we have encountered would be demons. And it has been a long, long time since the last demonic gate was opened. And even then it doesn't match; she shouldn't be so... real... if she were a demon in disguise. A demon's corporeal form is supposed to be similar to that of an elemental, made of cobbled together substance with no real rhyme or reason to the insides. She actually does have an internal order," the old man spoke with the quiet conviction of a scholar. His youth may have been spent adventuring, but he was widely read in his advanced years.
"I'm unfortunately unsure of just how safe it would be for us to allow her free," Colbert looked up towards her face, as she spouted an ever growing string of curses against his lineage while struggling as she had from the beginning. She never seemed to tire. A prospect which scared him deeply having fought it before, if he'd tried to hang back and wear her out at all in the field... it was all too likely that he might have been dead.
"I know Colbert. But if Ms. Valliere can prove herself able to handle her familiar and keep it from causing harm, then we will have to. Honour and tradition dictate this," the Headmaster nodded to himself, hand combing through his beard in habit, "and besides, it seemed to calm in her presence even after the fight you had. It would be a crime to keep a mage and familiar, who have managed to bond so well, apart."
"I advocate caution sir..."
"Yes and caution I do intend to take," the headmaster spoke sharply, a bit more so than he'd intended, with a much softer tone he continued, "I do not begin to dodder in my old age Colbert. I know you have the utmost concern of the student's well-being at heart, but I must consider this matter in all fairness. Besides, this here is the familiar of a member of the House Valliere, even if no one wants to speak it the fact is that at any time word may reach the heads of that household and they may feel displeased at the treatment of their daughter. It pains me to say, but we have to keep an eye on such matters especially with a family in such good odor with the crown, they could do much damage both to the school as a whole and each of us involved in this directly. Caution is currently the only path to take, as danger lurks in certainty upon all others."
"...yes. I suppose I do understand," Colbert spoke, shaking his head.
"Still it was good that I had an experienced veteran on hand when the incident occurred. Else wise things could have become very ugly. Indeed that that man happened to look quite a bit like one of my senior staff members may well be a thing easily forgotten, after all the only witnesses were panicked children," the headmaster spoke absently, his eyes wondering about the place in that look he got when pretending to have lost his wit.
Colbert recognized it for what it was, the headmaster was throwing him a bone in all this madness, an out in case anyone started probing deeper into the professor's history after his display of magical combat. Without the headmaster covering for him, word would leak out quite quickly, luckily for him he'd begun his fight after most of the second years had been fleeing to safety and only a small fraction of the second year's had actually seen him in all clearness. Those who did had been instructed personally by the headmaster at the possible wisdom of not speaking of the event too loudly, or in too much detail. Rumour would still leak out, still spread... but hopefully in such a slowed, diffused manner that the details would be lost soon enough to keep his name being amoung them from sounding like anything but another farfetched version of the events.
Still he was concerned deeply about the issue of the elf-like woman, but the headmaster's experience and authority ruled, and beside that the voice of curiosity had settled upon Colbert as he noted the familiar runes which covered its right hand. There was a weird familiarity about them which bothered his researcher's soul. He would need to look them up the first chance he got in the library. He was pretty sure they had been in overlooked by those here, so much more focused on knowing what the elf like maiden was rather than the magics which now invested themselves upon her body. This train of thought was momentarily broken as the old headmaster's secretary spoke up from at the door to the inner vault.
"Headmaster, Professor Colbert, Louise de la Valliere and Kirche von Anhalt Zerbst have arrived. Shall I send them into you?" an innocuous green haired head poked in at the door, primly styled hair leaving a few loose strands to brush against her glasses.
"Yes, thank you Ms Longueville," the head master nodded, "please, do send them in."
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Louise grimaced as a cold feeling swept over her. Her familiar was close by and the feelings sympathy and connectivity had flared again. This time though only for a brief instant as she felt almost as if something had 'touched' her. A feather soft press, non-specific in location it felt familiar and all too foreign all at once. And suddenly she knew. Her familiar was on the brink. Closer to the edge of destruction than she'd ever before experienced. Louise knew it. Right down into her bones, with a certainty which she could not explain.
This is what it's like to experience a connection with one's familiar... right?
Apparently the Headmaster had decided to utilize the castle dungeons to hold and examine her familiar. Like some common criminal. Louise of course was not in the least bit pleased with the insult given by that. Worse, was the condition of her familiar, Ryoko was damaged. Louise could only imagine the things they were doing to her to bring her so close to the brink of destruction. Very visibly she bristled.
Man-handle my familiar, will they! Her face contorted in evident rage. Next to her worried looks were given as both Siesta and Kirche wondered silently just what was going through Louise's mind.
Louise's staggered attention kept her from noticing when they'd arrived at their destination.
"Ladies, you may enter," spoke the headmaster's secretary as she returned from announcing their arrival, her green haired bun bobbing with her head as she nodded to herself. The scowl slid from Louise's face, leaving a faint trace of confusion and embarrassment at her unaware state.
Looking up at the entrance, the dungeons though so named, were in fact quite a furnished and surprisingly well kept area, and the particular place in which the ever more familiar throb of presence which Louise was coming to identify with her own familiar, was practically as well furbished as the medical wards.
"Ah, Ms Valliere, Ms Zerbst," the headmaster greeted as they filtered into the room, "and the lovely servant I assigned to Ms Valliere. Come in, come in."
Louise looked nervously about the room, an outer reception chamber, her eyes sliding restlessly towards one particular wall every few moments, her companions looking distinctly worried as her expression grew tighter and tighter.
"Now, my dears would you enjoy some tea? Something nice and soothing…"
"My familiar," Louise interrupted her small hands clenching about handfuls of pleated skirt, "I want to see her."
"Ms Valliere? Is there something wrong?" the head master quirked an eyebrow inquisitively.
"She's right there," the young mage pointed, straight though the wall directly at the bound Ryoko. The headmaster's expression sharpened, while mages and their familiars did share certain bonds the nature of the chamber in which the elf-like maiden was bound as well as the various spells which bound her should have kept her mage from having even an inkling of her presence and location, even if they were just a few feet away.
"I want to see her right now. It is my right as her summoner," Louise drew herself up, into her proudest pose, an imitation of the woman whom she molded herself after in all things.
Old Osmund scrubbed at his white beard as was his habit. The girl was right of course, as a mage her familiar was considered legally an extension of her own will, any actions which it carried out both positive and negative were seen as being hers. As such it was a criminal offense to keep a mage and familiar apart, especially when it didn't warrant anything less than a charge of possible treason or heresy.
On the other hand though, considering the power and hostility of her summoned partner, there was a real risk of someone being killed if the situation was even slightly mishandled. Still the request was just to see her, which alone couldn't do too much harm. But the sooner the two met, the sooner he would have to make the decision of whether or not to free the elf-like beauty from her suppressing wards. Also, the closeness of her resemblance to the ancient enemies of mankind would not be something to remain mere rumour if her freedom was allowed. The headmaster frowned, that was something yet for the future, but another worry none the less. With a grave nod and a gesture from his staff, he opened the door into their captive's current cell.
Louise didn't know what she expected to see, but this was not it. Within the refurbished cell rune script was scrawled all across the room, binding spells of all forms written into chains and brick then suspended against a wall holding the nude form of her familiar suspended and spread eagle against the wall. She recognized each of the enchantments, things which were spoken about in her books of deep theory, some of which would have been deadly to anything human. There were wards here for binding greater dragons, demons, and all manner of immortal and mortal First Born, some of which were truly insidious in nature. From what she was seeing, Ryoko should have been writhing in pain, unable to focus on anything but the magic of her own nature being twisted against her flesh. Instead her familiar looked and even more importantly felt, merely annoyed and angry at being suspended within this array. There was also there a hint of fear, buried beneath the anger, but not so deep that it did not flash to the surface ever so often in Louise's head.
Louise goggled. How dare they... HOW DARE THEY! The indignity of her familiar spread bare before her as the teachers within the room bustled and prodded utilizing advanced spells of scrying to examine this and that before them. Her familiar's nudity only the tip of the invasive actions which carried on even as Louise entered the room watching in shock. The look on her face and tightening grip upon her wand must have given it away, because in that moment she spun, evoking the power of a fireball upon the array of ensorcelled bindings, but her red headed companion was already in motion grabbing her hand and redirecting the blast of magical energy towards the floor.
The sound of desperate detonation filled the air, as Kirche struggled with the now wild Louise over control of her wand while the dust still settled across the room. A quick spell from the headmaster and several other staff members swiftly levitated and bound both girls in an upright position. Colbert muttered to himself in surprise, not at the young Valliere's impulsive act so much as at the damage which she'd done to the vault level reinforcements which strengthened the stone of cell. Where in the floor her spell had hit, the stone split open almost a full 40 centimeter's though.
With a sigh the headmaster rubbed a hand across his eyes, he'd expected strong resistance and demands from her, with her record of what many teacher's called her 'bull-headed nature', but he never expected something like this as it contradicted the other part of reports on her, the strong lean towards following authority. His own brief meetings with the young girl due to the numerous times which she had been remanded into punishment for acts of wonton destruction, acts which were always as she claimed due to mistakes in her own casting, were always of a sedate tone, the inbred respect for his authoritative position keeping her docile in the face of her 'mistakes'. Now in the grasp of a levitation and wind binding the amethyst eyed youth struggled and cried out.
"LET HER GO! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT! LET HER OUT!!"
A glance towards the familiar also shocked him, as the fury of a moment ago was replaced by a look of almost wonder and definite surprise. He'd just endured several hours of her... worldly abuse, but the single act of her magus had quelled her tongue to nil. What she said next, froze him in place.
"Calm down Louise, don't get a heart attack I'm fine, I'm fine," Ryoko soothed from behind her wall of bindings.
Osmund paused and assessed, enthrallment and glamour were not out of the window, but from what he could tell and spending several hours in the company of the creature before him she was not a being of guile. She'd never once even tried to trick them into undoing her bonds or even getting closer, beyond threats of bodily harm. She did not seem to have such a thing in her. No she was all aggression and intensity. Her summoner's attempt at freeing her seemed to be genuinely shocking. But on the other hand this was an inhuman creature wearing the guise of a woman, and it would always pay to be wary of those beings which clothed themselves in human flesh, one could not always read them in the same way one could a person.
On the other hand, Ms. Valliere was all too easy to read. Despite the conflict between report and current reality, the core of the disparity was one easily deduced. Louise seemed as straight forward as her familiar, and her sense of propriety had been badly breached by the state of her familiar, so much so that it overrode her usual responses to authority. That the rampaging familiar was now the calming voice struck him as a certain irony. Oh he could understand her plight, if his cute little Motsognir were to come under such a threat as she saw her own familiar under, he did not know if he would be able to restrain rage with reason. Still he was Head-Master here; taking charge was a part of his responsibilities. With a judicious banging of his staff against the floor he drew attention to himself.
"Ms Valliere, do I need to point out to you the damage you familiar caused when she was summoned? She was placed here in these seals in case she awoke from the slumber into which you both fell, in the feral state she'd woken up in before then. And afterwards these threats which she has been calling out have done nothing to disprove the danger which she represents to the life and health of my students. Including you," his tone was unusually firm.
"Alright look, I take it back alright, I won't blow you all up if you let me down from here," Ryoko spoke, her voice resembling cordiality, somehow, "Hell I don't think I'll be able fight another fight like that one for at least another week," she admitted, both a concession and offering to her seemingly well-meaning captors, "Just cut the kid a break."
"I am not a child," Louise declared with a petulant pout, still floating bound in wind. Ryoko flashed Louise a reassuring grin.
"Yes I can see that we all started on the wrong foot here Ms. Ryoko, let us try this again from scratch," Osmund spoke, he was still not sure, but he was close to taking the risk. It didn't hurt that there were two square classed, at least 3 triangle classed, and a few dot classed mages working within the area in case she tried anything immediately, "What I want from you Ms Ryoko is very simple. An oath upon something you hold sacred, that you will not attack anyone within the grounds of my school so long as they do not physically or magically assault your person."
Ryoko's brow creased with effort. Something she held scared? Looking like she had bitten something bitter when she opened her mouth the first time, she closed her eyes then nodded with a look of resignation.
"An oath, huh. And what happens if I break this oath?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Then I will hunt you down with every resource at my disposal and lock you away until none remember that you ever existed," his shining purple eyes never veered from her own, a quality ice cold and hard creeping farther in with every word.
"And it wouldn't be nearly enough. But that's ok little man, I'll promise. And I'll even keep my promise. I swear it by Louise's life and safety," the elf-like woman grinned as she spoke, sharp teeth like those of a predator shone pearly white, "Now let me down. You're keeping me from regenerating properly."
The headmaster nodded slowly, signaling all of the current staff arrayed in the study of her behind him to be alert to his intentions. Then with a sudden slash of his staff he began to chant. Words flowed with alacrity and power, every utterance part of a greater key to which each chain was tuned, and with each word the locks and chains loosed themselves, until there remained no more than physical restraint.
"HA hahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FINALLY!" all were taken aback by the loud but casual snapping of chains which ensued. Ryoko ripped away her bindings with great mirth painted across her face, "Man that was embarrassing, spring one jail and get caught in another."
As she spoke wisps of light formed about the room each one reaching some preordained critical point before streaking towards her and gathering within a ball in her hand. The ball swirled and pulsed growing ever brighter, for several minutes they stood, staring as it pulsed and coalesced into a red Pearline gem. But only for a moment it seemed. At the final swirling of formation the entire thing seemed to collapse upon itself breaking down once more into motes of crimson light.
"Shit," Ryoko cursed. She was still too weak to even form her false gems, unable to track all the points in its formation and the correction of flaws in its higher dimensional construction and the reshaping of gathered matter into a proper dimensional capacitor. This would change with the passage of days, but that was far too slowly for Ryoko's tastes. After 700 years of powerless captivity, she wanted to feel the fires in her blood as completely as she could... and no others would ever take them from her again. In frustration she snarled, she didn't like the vulnerability which she felt operating with so few resources. Even the relatively small boost of power flow and energy management from the false gems would a far cry from her current state.
"That was most impressive, Miss Ryoko, but I'm assuming it was not meant as a failed breach of your oath?" the headmaster spoke with calm solemnity, one backed up by the pointing of every wand and staff in the room at the elf-like creature before them.
"Ehh... Wha? Relax. If I still wanted you dead I'd be killing you all now," she spoke as if distracted, golden eyes focused on some far away task. Slowly a curving smile creased her lips once more exposing uncomfortably sharp teeth, "Ryo-Ohki came with me. That's good, but only her core came along for the ride..."
"Familiar, what are you muttering about?" Louise spoke, still slightly in shock at actually having gotten what she'd demanded. She had been released from her binding spells even before Ryoko was, and held steady on her feet by the maid who watched the entire affair as a peasant should, with eyes open and mouth shut.
"My ship, she came with me!" the self-proclaimed 'space' pirate seemed genuinely happy to exclaim.
"Your ship?" this time Colbert spoke.
"Anyone remember seeing a purple egg lying around the place?" Ryoko asked.
Osmund looked thoughtful, "I believe I left it in the artifact vault. Don't worry Ms. Ryoko, I will hand it over to you at a later time. The vault has many protections on it and a few of them are time specific. We can regain what is yours later on in the week once the vault resets."
Ryoko nodded in agreement. She didn't mind, just knowing that Ryo-Okhi was safely away from others was fine with her. Besides even in egg form there was little which could permanently harm the central control module. At least little that wouldn't prompt Ryoko to investigate anyway.
"Though I am curious as to how it qualifies to being your 'ship' as you call it?" Old Osmund spoke, stroking his beard as he did.
"'She'," Ryoko emphasized, "Is a living critter. She's made of crystals and junk. Never really thought too much bout how she works but she's been with me for as long as I can remember, probably even earlier. We've been everywhere and back together. She's always the way that I fly off into the sunset."
"Ahh! So she is an Air ship then!" Colbert cut in, sounding suddenly intrigued.
"No, she isn't some measly atmospheric affair, she's a Space Ship," Ryoko replied, annoyed at the implication. Pride flared hot within the link between herself and Louise.
"Space... ship?" Kirche joined, her own voice chirping in, if only to pull some of the attention back to her for the moment. Of course real curiosity coloured her question as well, but...
"Jeez, forgot I was dealing with dammed hicks," annoyance crossing her face, "It's a ship that flies, between the stars, from world to world. Without her I'd be stuck here till you guys worked a proper space program. And I do NOT plan to spend the next thousand years or so dirt side."
Ryoko felt the link grow quiet, as if a big reset button had been pressed in her Summoner's head. Then a low lingering sensation of questions left untouched haunted the link.
"World to world...? Oh my... founder..." It seemed the rest of the room reacted with similar amazement, save one. This being, whatever she was. Not only came from another world it seemed, but regularly moved from world to world.
The headmaster nodded slowly, "I see. I think I may wish to show you something's once you come to collect your 'Ryo-Ohki' from the vault."
Ryoko's interest seemed to peak then settle, Louise found it strange how she was getting used to the link. It might even seem normal to her in a short time.
"Sooo... anybody got some spare clothes? I would have just made myself some but my powers are still playing the fool," the gold eyed woman spoke plainly and without the slightest ounce of shame, even taking time to emphasize her state of undress by a judicious cupping of her breasts, then turned towards Louise and started laughing as her Summoner turned red all at once, wobbling on her feet as Siesta continued to support her.
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Colbert's eyes narrowed as he examined the woman before him. The hole in the right side of her chest almost completely sealed, quite rapidly since the moment she was freed. He wanted to trust her, but with something of her power it was hard not to wonder whether allowing her free to fully regain strength after managing to match and defeat a square class mage in direct mortal combat while still in what was admittedly a highly weakened state. The elflike woman did not seem a fool yet she gave pieces of information like that, things which could be used to hurt her or at least would array the mages of the Academy against her. Of course there was always the idea that it could be all careful lies, but trust had to come somewhere, and they were dealing with the familiar of a mage as obtained though the sacred summoning ceremony of Brimir. To question the founder's wisdom was in itself a blasphemy that worried him.
"Darling," a voice behind him half moaned, half whispered, "Thinking naughty thoughts about her naked body?" light amusement flowed in with a voice silk smooth.
When did I let her get behind me? The professor thought to himself as she wrapped her arms about his waist and chest. This had been the biggest fallout of the entire event thus far. Or rather these... which rested softly upon his back, reminding him that he were as much a man as he was a scholar, though he'd neglected that aspect of himself long since discarding his military trappings.
"Don't worry darling," Kirche spoke softly into his ear, looking for the entire world as if she were simply trying to molest him as usual, "I'll keep a nice close eye on her for you."
The professor coughed and tried as always to slip from her constricting grasp, "I cannot condone you putting yourself in danger like that. I mean as your teacher, I cannot."
Kirche smiled, "Colbert darling, it's alright, Louise already has her chains on the beast. She won't be too careless with those reigns, especially if she has a few people keeping an eye on her," she added an extra squeeze in a sensitive place to emphasize the point.
"Ms. Zerbst," Colbert all but squeaked at the impropriety of it. Kirche of course grinned, letting go of the professor before anyone else in the room began to pay them much attention.
"Don't worry darling, one day I will make you mine."
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It was the first night which they would spend together, master and familiar. The peculiar silver spikes of her familiar's hair now gathered into a single tuft with the rest drawn tight against her skull. Siesta had stayed with them for most of the time after Ryoko's release, insisting on grooming the golden eyed familiar as a courtesy to her master, while Kirche too had stuck around providing clothing that would fit the tall woman. Now the familiar wore a loose white blouse which seemed to show off her bosom more than it hid, a pair of black pants which hugged her curves in a manor almost indecent, and a pair of light black boots. The odd combination of clothing and styled hair seemed weirdly to suit the wild woman. Despite the more masculine cut to the clothing, none would mistake her for anything but female. But even so, she looked strangely dashing.
Louise could hardly help but to watch her in pure fascination. In the brief time they had spent in each other's company she could tell how different from each other they were, how wild, how free of all rule and restraint that she was. If not for the power she'd displayed and her elf like features, Louise conceded to herself that she might have mistaken for a mere commoner.
"Except... that freedom is an illusion isn't it," Louise muttered to herself, memories and feelings of helplessness, of subjugation in its most raw flooded her. Though she could not quite remember her dreams, she knew the emotions behind them and of whom she'd dreamed.
"So you guys in this place are the nobility, eh?" her familiar spoke in her usual rough tones, as the last of the workmen filed out from Louise's room. Louise merely nodded in return. She had heard her familiar's take on nobility earlier as the tall woman strolled next to herself and Siesta and their conversation veered around the various facts of the world in which she now resided.
"So what you're saying is that you guys come here to learn how nobles do crap?" her voice carried to an unfortunate volume, crass and uncaring of propriety.
"The nobility is necessary to the survival and thriving of the people of the lands. Without us nobles, commoners would not be able to ensure healthy crops, disease and sickness would run rampant though out the lands without water mages, the land would lack for couriers able to move messages about with any true rapidity. We do anything the commoner's can, only faster, more efficiently and with far less necessary ensemble. Nobles do not do CRAP," Louise twitched, the whole time since they had been getting to know each other Louise had been trying to restrain herself. It seemed almost as if everything her familiar did or said since their freedom had been a calculated jab trying to make her loose her temper.
"So basically nobles are best at doing the dirty work?" Ryoko asked innocently.
"Yes... wait, I mean No!" Louise could feel her amusement flooding down though their link, just as the evil pirate could feel her own irritation.
"Stop that. You are provoking me on purpose. I don't like being prodded," Louise finally lost her temper, shouting and shaking her wand at the woman across from her. Her cheeks puffed in the cutest manner.
The gold eyed pirate simply smiled. For her it was a game she played, poking, prodding, and breaking the things most precious to others. The thrill of an antagonistic confrontation never failed to make her truly Feel, to push at the boundaries of her leash via the use of her targets. The stronger they reacted to her teasing the better. And her new 'master' was a fireball in pink just waiting to explode.
Still she should probably ease up a bit on the teasing.
The second bed which was just installed in Louise's room to accommodate the familiar in her master's quarters was a tiny affair in comparison to the master bed of the room. A nice gesture, Ryoko thought, but wasted on me. She never did like sleeping on the ground much, where others had easy access to her person. The instincts of 5000 years of pirate life dominated, and the best place to sleep was always somewhere out of the way of everyone else, whether friend or foe. Luckily the room had a nice set of rafters which along with a nice pillow would suit her fine, and allow her to keep an eye on her charge. Also she'd gathered enough energy that expending a little in simple low grade hovering wouldn't be too much of a detriment to her recovery. Besides, when she'd first begun to casually float about as was her habit, the look on Louise's face was priceless. Even better was the jealousy which Ryoko could practically taste emanating from the young girl.
A weird sense of satisfaction filtered lightly down the link.
The link between them seemed to be settling, their awareness of each other becoming more muted as time passed in each other's company. Louise supposed it a good thing really. Her familiar seemed to shift from emotion to emotion with an unrelenting verve, passionately embracing each state as if it were something precious. Even the vicious teasing which she engaged in seemed as if backed by a certain inexorable hunger, like a starved man gorging himself on rich foods. But even now, the link still gave form to feelings shared between them, understanding growing faster than without.
"Ryoko," Louise spoke, her voice gentle as she settled down on her bed in her sheer night gown, "You know... this thing between us, I've never even heard of it in my theoretical magic books. The familiar runes shouldn't be doing anything like this, not without actual spells to start it up."
"That's because runt, they aren't the reason for it," Ryoko flexed her hand. The runes which skittered across it tended to shift and skew with her flesh. It was the first time she'd actually had anything like a tattoo stay on her skin for more than a few hours. Her body would cleanse it away too efficiently for her to keep any regular ones, "I don't know how, but you got into my psychic info-sphere, my link between me and Ryo-Ohki. Somehow I can feel you in here like I would her. When the runes were applied, the link got stronger, but I don't really know why."
"You really love her don't you? I mean when you spoke about her just now, it was just all warmth and affection whenever you say her name. But she's just a ship?" Louise questioned.
Ryoko's gentle smile was a complete surprise.
"She's my sister," the space pirate spoke, her words bringing a puzzled crease across Louise's face.
"Sister? I thought you said she was a ship?"
Ryoko, grinned, "I wasn't going to give it away until we got her back tomorrow. But Ryo-Ohki is a living breathing creature, alive like you and me. I don't remember much from when I was a child... assuming that I ever was, but I do know I've always had her by my side. And even when she gets hurt, I know that she can recover and be with me again."
The space-pirate then frowned, "I don't even know why I'm telling you this crap."
Louise bit her lip. The feeling of something intense and private invaded the link, as well as a sense of unease. Ryoko, it seemed, did not like thinking too hard on her past.
"You're a space pirate right, Ryoko? So you've seen other worlds right?" Louise asked trying to feel innocent about the probing question.
Ryoko's silence answered her, but the emotions which filtered across their link spoke of affirmation.
"I had a dream," Louise's started, "I don't remember all of it well. But I do remember that I saw these great spheres, like globes of spun glass. Each one sat in inky blackness like the night sky. And as you got closer you could see everything roads, forests, buildings... people. And everywhere the people were different. And so many of them..."
Ryoko stayed silent. But her presence and attention filtered in just as strong as if she'd spoken.
"I've never had a dream of anything so bizarre before in my life. But the dream made it seem so real..." Louise trailed away, unwilling to make any more of a fool of herself before her familiar.
"Planets," Ryoko spoke, head never leaving the comfortable pillow on her high perch, "Those are called planets. They are what a world looks like from far enough in the sky," she her amusement at this filtering in, "You really are a backwater hick."
Louise exhaled sharply and ignored the insult for once, the information it had been tacked on to blew her mind wide open. The dream had been true. It was a prospect which both terrified and inflamed the young girl's curiosity. It had never occurred to her that the pretty lights in the sky might hold mysteries greater than anything she'd ever imagined. That each point represented a world or several huddled together in the night sky. The thought made her feel small. The idea of it blew her mind.
And here on hand was someone who not only knew of these things, but was so enmeshed with them that she though them little more than common place.
And for the first time in her life Louise wondered about those brilliant points of light which hung in the night sky. Just the glimpse she'd seen gave lie to the explanations of the few scholars whom she could think of speaking to said topic. And within her something broke open. A desperate need to wonder... WHY?
"Tell me Ryoko..." she spoke then hesitated, sapphire pink eyes sparkling with questions which bubbled below their surface as she addressed the golden eyed woman, who had turned on her perch to meet Louise's own sapphire pink eyes. Their eyes met from across the room... but it felt as intimate as if they stood face to face.
Louise banished her hesitance and spoke, "...tell me about... the stars."
Her familiar faltered. A million things running through Ryoko's head as raw curiosity and genuine wonder coursed through their link.
Ryoko found her tongue moving unbidden.
"Yes Louise," she spoke, surprising herself in the process, "I'll tell you about them. Everything you want to know."
With that the floodgates opened.
Wonders invoked from the twist of tongue, minds filled with distant Suns.
They stayed awake for most of the candle light, sharing the heavens and earths.
Well as usual all disclaimers apply.
Thanks again guys for all your support, hope you enjoy chapter 2 even though the pace is definitely slower than that of the first chapter.
Again, if anyone wishes to help in prereading just PM me. And any ideas you wish to share, one can do the same, or just talk about them here. well now...
"ONWARD!!!"
Chapter 2: No need for the Stars!!!
Louise had never been one to waste her time staring up at the stars. She had always been too busy just trying to pull herself from the depths of mediocrity. Long hours she'd studied the mechanics of spell crafting, the philosophy of spell crafting, and even the rhetorical aspects of spell theory. Days, months and years of choking on the smoke and dust of failed spells, hour upon hour upon frustrated hour spent buried in the heart of her books, on a purely theoretical level she was probably leagues ahead of her peers. Not that it made one wit of difference to the explosive forces of practicality. To look at the strange lights of the sky in wonder was almost beyond her, earth bound as she was by the cares which weighted her down.
That is why it had been so strange when the dreams began. So very bizarre it was when she found herself amid the jet black of night, surrounded on all sides by a sea of stars, and confronted by a globe of shifting blue, white and green, like a living active version of the oh so common moons of her world. She could not have imagined such a scene which all at once left her breathless to its beauty yet confused her so utterly as to its nature. It was a scene deeply alien to her experiences.
It would not stay foreign to her for long.
Again and again she would find herself plunging. Hurling headlong from unending skys the master of Ryoko would learn that these great spheres; of blue and white, and green and brown, and sometime other colours as vibrant and vivid as could be imagined, and a great many more which could not, were each worlds unto themselves. She would learn that each point of light in the sky was another sun. That so many of these worlds bustled with vibrancy and lives far beyond her ken... that so many, many more of them were so completely, starkly without that even the spectre of death seemed to shy away.
It was here in dreams where she was forced to watch death looming, the doom of worlds, of continents, of countries, of villages, of people... the pillage of a thousand worlds. And all the while to hear the mad cackle of a chained beast, the hellish howling laughter that was all with which it could imprison the tears of frustration at its own restraints. All this desecration of life directed by the unrestrained curiosity of a single scholarly seeming man, a man with the most uncaring eyes she had ever met. And like a butterfly pierced right through by a collector's pin she could feel those eyes, black in yellow, serpentine and cold, stabbing right though her.
Louise awoke screaming.
But she could not remember why...
Only the cold twinkle of apathy set in the coldest of eyes.
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Louise had come to wake in a screaming fit, which sent her residing attendant into a near panicked flurry.
"Ms. Valliere, you're awake," a kindly face set in usual jet black hair loomed over her, a certain mixture of anticipation and panic in her voice, "Is there something the matter? Are you all right? Shall I call the physician?"
Louise simply laid there sweating. Eventually she calmed from the hyperactivity which had been induced by the bad dream which she almost completely could not remember. In her stupor the young woman shook violently, feelings of horror coursed through her. Her stomach felt ill.
"Excuse me, Ms.Valliere?"
Louise jumped. She'd forgotten about the maid who'd been at her side for the last minute or two. As shaken as she was it would not be proper to appear so before a commoner servant.
"I am... fine. I'm fine," she spoke, trying to shake herself of the feelings which had wormed their way bone deep. Louise's eyes narrowed, "... wait a moment, what are you doing in my room?"
"Ahh... Miss, I have been... assigned to your side until you are well," the maid kept her eyes down cast at all times, a proper show of deference.
Her noble pride supplicated in the act, Louise calmed visibly, "I passed out didn't I. I only rememb... Oh founder!" the sudden flush of crimson on Louise's face puzzled the maid, "I… my familiar, what news have you of her?"
"Well Ms, there hasn't been much in the way of talk about the Elf woman save idle gossip. Only thing sure which I've heard at all was that they were keeping her bound under several seals, as directed by the Headmaster," the maid spoke with an unsure formality to her voice.
Louise sighed, it was to be expected after the ruckus that her familiar had caused that they would take extra precautions in dealing with her, but the thought of her bound lonely in the dark made Louise shiver in sympathy. She needed to rectify this. She needed to rectify this right now.
The reaction was immediate unto the decision, as Louise threw off the tangle of bed sheets and tried to swing herself down into immediate action on the floor. This plan however met the enemy, and broke upon contact. A weakness she didn't even realize she'd felt, until after her first toe collided with the floor, overcame her and Louise tumbled forward, face first, at the floor. The watchful maid however had been well aware of her circumstances having spent the last few days tending to the sleeping scion of house Valliere. She moved immediately though catching Louise in mid fall it was all the maid could do, herself toppling beneath the over balanced weight of her charge.
"Ms Valliere, please restrain yourself. You are not well and I do not wish to explain to your physician that I allowed you to hurt yourself so soon after you've managed to recover your wits," the maid spoke sternly, then a moment later looked both mortified and abashed at the very idea of having told off a noble without thought, "forgive my familiarity Ms Valliere... I did not mean to overstep propriety."
Louise's mouth opened to form her own reply, when in mid motion the sound of her room's door opening cut her short.
"Hehehe, My, my Louise. You certainly seem to have a way with the ladies. The rumors might well have some substance to them."
"Zerbst..." Louise growled.
"Still, Little Louise, passion is passion," Kirche smirked, head poking from the doorway with a raucous grin plastered across her face and a signal of approval formed on hand, "even if does take on such a deviant bend."
Louise could do little more than splutter in indignation at her rival's accusations, face so red that it surpassed her brilliant pink hair in hue.
"W... w... w... w… WHAT!"
Kirche slunk into the room with nary a care, wide smile doing its best to become ever larger as she teased and poked the spluttering Louise, "I know, I know, you don't want anyone to be witness to your illicit liaisons. But you really must consider locking the door before you start such a tryst. Take it from me; it's just one small step that really does help in keeping romantic encounters on track and distraction free."
Louise boiled and shifted upon the black haired maid's lap, her angered twitching and shifting continued in a futile attempt at righting herself, paying no heed to the equally red faced servant below her. Her struggles would continue for a moment only to be thwarted when she was overcome once more with a bout of weakness which, to Louise's ongoing misfortune, landed her face first into soft tide of the maid's ample bust.
"Miss Valliere!" the maiden squeaked, her own mortification at this moment peaking till she was as red as a tomato.
"Mhmmm, mmmmhh!" Ms Valliere managed to burble out, drowning in a tide of soft flesh, and struggling like one out to sea without a life raft.
"HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!" the scion of house Zerbst cackled out whilst doubled over, no longer able to hold in her laughter.
Eventually Louise managed to struggle her way out of the marshmallow palace and face first, as seemed her new paradigm, into the hard floor. She managed to squeak out an oddly cute onomatopoeia for pain in the process. Kirche would forever treasure the stark look of mixed embarrassment and indignation which etched itself upon her rival's face as she scrubbed at her sore nose. It was nothing short of Adorable!
But that had been enough of the farce which found itself playing out before her, thus Kirche raised her hand in supplication to peace, though it seemed that Louise wanted to have no such thing.
"Heh... ok, ok. Louise, get dressed. I came to check up on you and see if you wanted to come see your Familiar. The head master sent me to fetch you. Your Familiar is awake and he sent me to see if you had also wakened and was strong enough to move."
"Then get out Zerbst, and let me get dressed," Louise frowned as she attempted to regain some semblance of poise and dignity, "Uh... servant, escort our... guest... outside. Then come back over and dress me."
"Planning on some last minute hanky-panky? Oh, how very scandalous!" Kirche's grin widened with every word, "We should switch your calling from Louise the Zero to Louise the Risqué."
The poor girl just twitched. Louise did also.
Kirche smiled, "I'll just wait outside," she managed while chuckling heartily.
Without waiting on the stunned pair, Kirche glided from her position straight out of the door without so much as a pause. Louise could barely even bring herself to look at the now skittish servant girl as she rushed about the room gathering Louise's garments, and after Kirche's barrage of accusations when it came to undergarments both young women attempted to avert their eyes, to the result of further embarrassment, a tangle of limbs, with the dark haired maid this time ending up on top of the mostly naked Louise. That of course was the exact moment which Kirche choose to stick her head right back in.
"You know you two should hurry if you want to play," she said in a most matter of fact tone, "I can't wait outside here forever and the headmaster is expecting you."
Tear's welled up at Louise's eyes as she fumed one final time. With but a word she all but shoved the maid from atop of her then grabbed her wand from its place on the nearby table pointing it with wild eyed fervor at the Germanian noble woman. With a quick eep, the Zerbst heiress leapt back outside, narrowly avoiding the explosion which formed at the door, slamming it in with forceful finality.
The red in Louise's face never lessened as she stood before the maid, who herself was fussing over minor details in Louise's clothing as she stood being dressed, her own face suffused with a crimson blush as she studiously attempted to avoid eye contact with her charge. The lingering embarrassment which hung about the room stifled all further communication save for silent commiseration.
And an unspoken vow to get even with the red headed witch.
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Boldly the red-haired maiden escorted the other two as they both attempted to set her a fire in truth with evil looks, their own cheeks still aflame after her indecent suggestions. She wore a smile as big as the first day she'd discovered boys, having gotten such a big one over her rival. To have pushed her right past bluster and into stony silence was beauty of accomplishment all in itself, having pushed past even the put on hauteur which the young Valliere used as her shield leaving that crimson of embarrassment painted upon her cheeks to overmatch her hair. There was a certain beauty in stroking flames till they burned as high as they could fly, and Kirche seldom missed a chance to revel in such an event.
Still, as fun as it was to tease and fret Louise, Kirche was genuinely glad to see that she had recovered from her role in the ordeal. It had been worrying at best to find her passed out, intertwined with the long eared demon which Louise had made her familiar, the two having collapsed holding each other what looked like a lover's embrace. Thus it surprised her to hear Louise speak up as they traveled to the headmaster's office, light on haste.
"Servant, you've been assigned to me and I do not know your name," this was a noble's question, i.e. none at all. The almost subtly demanding command did however carry an undercurrent of uncommon courtesy. It was sad to say, but most nobles would have simply ignored the young maid with the raven hair, never once glancing back in the young commoner's direction unless they had… other interests... in her. But the pink haired youth whom she'd spent most of the last week caring for had spoken, and seemed to be awaiting an answer. After all, if it were not a thing worth knowing, it would not have been worth bringing up in the first place.
"I am named Siesta, Miss. I hope I do not presume too much," she spoke with her eyes down cast, all the same watching her charge's feet for any residual unsteadiness. She trailed behind her charge and her bawdy noble friend as was proper.
"Hmm... you know, I think I've seen you around as part of the kitchen staff," Kirche spoke congenially, "Just what were you doing looking after the shrimp?" Kirche smirked at the irritation to cross her rival's face.
"It was mere coincidence Miss," she said, eyes still low, "I happened to be serving with the infirmary staff as a fill in since a few of their regulars were ill. When Ms. Valliere came in I was simply there tending to the room, and thus the duty of caring for her was passed to me. The headmaster thought it might help her to be in a more familiar setting when she awoke since there was nothing wrong with her physically, so she was taken to her room and I assigned to watch over and take care of her until she woke."
"You did your duty well," Louise spoke with a curt nod, using her best imitation of her mother. Good service should be acknowledged as her father would say, but one should ensure that it was just that, an acknowledgement of what should have been anyway, as would say her mother. The maid's polite thank you ended the matter in Louise's concern.
"... I... how is professor Colbert?" Louise asked hesitantly. It was after all her familiar who had brought him down and thus to her own mind, as good as having hurt him herself.
"Darling is just fine, handsome and manly as he ever was. A little water magic and two days' rest and now he's as right as rain. Darling has a remarkable constitution," Kirche gushed. That brought an instant tilt to Louise's eyebrow.
"Darling?" Louise blurted as if in that one word she'd questioned Kirche's well-being, sanity and taste in men all at once. Which, of course Louise did.
"Yes, Darling," Kirche retorted firmly.
"To speak frankly, he doesn't seem your type," Louise said, genuine puzzlement in her voice. After all, even with yesterday, this was boring old Colbert. He was a dreamer and a balding middle aged man who was obsessed with strange contraptions that no one could see the use of. Though out in the field he'd shown a side to himself which strongly made her think of her mother. Louise shuddered at that mental comparison.
"After what happened... I thought I knew passion and fire, but he burned so brightly, so beautifully... I just knew. He was the one. All those other boys, all those flings were nothing, not even a spark in his presence. He DANCED with fire Louise; spoke it with command and brilliance. All but sang his fire and passion into existence," the crimson red-head shivered with audible delight, "Love knows no boundaries. And passion will not be denied!"
There was a weird note of wonder in Kirche's voice which Louise had never heard before, a tone which spoke of the fervor to which her red headed rival professed at ever chance. Even her eyes seemed to burn with a strange light of desire. Almost all at once a pool of pity settled in Louise's stomach, a strange sympathy toward their unassuming professor. Kirche was little if not relentless, and well-practiced at wrapping men around her little finger.
"Righhhhttttt..." the look on Louise's face spoke her doubts far more effectively than any words.
Forgetting herself for a moment, the maid who trailed behind the two of them, for the most part disregarded, tittered musically for all to hear. A moment later she looked forward, stricken and unsure as to how the young noble would take her laughter. It was to her relief that the red head cast a kind eye toward her, and chimed in with her own laughter, quite willing to share the moment with her companions.
Siesta smiled brightly, this she had not been expecting from nobles. It was rare for a commoner to be treated as anything more than furniture in a noble's presence, and all too often as less than garbage. It was of little surprise that she knew the professor which they spoke of by both name and look, after all the staff of any establishment were expected to know the intricate running's of who was who when nobles were about. It was easy for a commoner to lose out on an exchange with a noble for having forgotten who he was. Some took offense in the unpleasant extreme, and there were few punishments for such an event. Short of murder they could get away with anything. And ever with murder they usually could get off with little more than heavy fines for the crown treasury.
Colbert was one of the few staff that she could say was mindful of the commoner staff as more than smart golems running about doing what they were meant for. Though for all that he was strangely polite to everyone, his head was often cleanly situated in the clouds and not particularly interested in anything outside of his own dealings, it was seldom that he interacted with anyone save colleagues who could give critique on his constant tinkering with his strange devices.
Siesta's thoughts wondered over her own experiences with nobles. Especially after leaving home to both make some extra money for her family, for serving staff at the academy were nothing if not well paid, and having gotten away from the potential attentions of a less than stellar nobleman.
Still walking before her maid, Louise pondered her own problems once the laughter had ended and the careful walk towards the headmaster's office continued. For one thing, she could feel the ghostly whisper of the familiar runes, as if they had been branded into her own skin, a weird tautness and ache in the skin which left her expecting to see something every time she looked back at the back of her hand. She'd never heard of such a thing happening between Summoner and Familiar before, but then again she'd never heard of anyone bonding an elf... or whatever her familiar was... before either. It was here as her mind drifted in wondering about the strangeness which her familiar had brought that she began to overhear faint strains of conversation as others spoke in hushed tones as she passed.
~"... summoned an ELF of all things…"~
~"... I'm telling you she sicked the dammed thing on Professor Colbert."~
~"I was watching, and that kiss was lurid... Zero, didn't summon a familiar she called up a lover..."~
~"... up you idiot, you want her to send her pet elf after you?"~
~"... maybe she pulled something worse than an e...Elf. It seemed more like a demon too m..."~
The halls were abuzz with gossips plying their information. Only long histories of disregard had left a good few with free tongues while she passed, the others still would completely clam up and pretend to either be talking of something completely different, or simply stopped talking. In all cases however, their eyes never left the petite pinkette. In each case what little she did catch as the trio rounded corners and passed cliques left her wishing she hadn't heard anything at all.
But there was one point which did stick out in her mind, a contention which brought her worry as she thought about it more. Her familiar said that it had been imprisoned, 700 years it had been bound and Louise was the one who had broken its bonds. This worried the young Valliere, after all its... no her... imprisonment may well not have been unjust, especially in the light of other information given straight from her mouth. Ryoko, the Devil Caller, Scourge of the Galaxy. Whatever the 'galaxy' was she wasn't sure, though she did remember it having something to do with stars. But even disregarding that bit, the name devil caller implied something ever more sinister, and possibly heretical in nature. They would need to figure some way around that if needs be. Her familiar would listen to her she was sure, hopefully it would be enough that Louise would be able to keep her obscured from the church's scrying even if every negative proved true.
Louise specialized in wishful thinking.
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Ryoko the space pirate; Envy of the great pirate guilds, Raider of ten thousand worlds, Slayer of armadas, Destroyer of planets (26 to be exact, and 69 colonies), Highest bounty offered by the galaxy police themselves and a multitude of other worlds for proof of her demise, and the ONLY creature to have successfully raided the heart of the Juraian empire itself was bored. Worse than bored, she was outright insulted. Since she had come to this place, called here by a mere slip of a girl, she had been almost defeated in life or death single combat for only the second time ever, and imprisoned as well for what was also only the second time in her life.
It had not been a good week.
Not to say of course that she'd been awake for most of it, another fact that grated on her immensely. A little thing like pain had put her down for the better part of a gal-standard cycle, at least that's what her temporal senses were telling her, Ryoko was not pleased. With her mind inactive and overloaded from the sensory fugue between herself and her Summoner her body had stopped the process which allowed her to forge a new false gem. And now wrapped in a primitive power sink, she could not properly draw upon and convert the higher dimensional energies which powered the formation of a new gem. The primitives of this little stink-hole had managed to trap her, a feat only carried out once before and by a being far greater than they. Damaged and more vulnerable than she had ever been before anyone save two individuals in her past, both of whom she'd rather forget about, Ryoko did what she did best when her back was against the wall.
Attack.
"GET ME DOWN FROM HERE ASSHOLE AND LET ME GO!" she snarled with ferocious intent, once again.The beastial sound coming between grunts of exertion.
At the very least they had not left her in a dark cold place. That would have been too much. As it stood, all that she could do was to get angry. It staved off the nervousness which boiled within her belly.
A stray wondering as to the state of her Summoner came, only to surprise her with an actual reply reading out her vitality in much the same way she had always been able to with Ryo-Ohki. That came as almost enough of a shock to stop her constant tirade against those who held her captive. It probably wasn't a wise idea, raging at them like this, but it was all she had.
"She's been like this for at least an hour Headmaster," the balding man spoke wincing slightly, he was still sore from the fight a few days back despite the relatively light injuries he had taken, "She alternates between threatening me personally, and then the castle... and then our world."
A thick eyebrow lifted upon an ancient scowl as fingers raked though thick white at the chin, "A wild cat caught in our trap maybe?"
The balding professor shook his head, "No, more like a manticore held by the tail. She is dangerous Headmaster... and I can't really stress to you how much."
The elder nodded, if reluctantly, "Over the last five days I've had our best water mages examine her. They were baffled. On the outside she looks completely human and normal... but on the inside she is anything but. They all felt her... disturbing... and almost subtly so. Whatever liquid courses though her, one can hardly call it blood as we know it, is viscous to the extreme and cold to the touch and she doesn't have any distinct organs that we can figure out what their function is save her brain and stomach. They could not identify what were the substances comprising her bones either, even in collaboration with earth mage alchemical experts on staff. Frankly they were quite perplexed and excited at everything about her."
The balding man frowned but also nodded, "It just does not make any sense... Even elf corpses have been recorded show the natural attributes. Viscera, blood, bone, all in the same structure as our own."
"Colbert, I all my years, both as an adventuring lad and as Headmaster of this establishment, I've never seen anything quite like her. Even amoung the stranger forms of supernatural beasts she presents an anomaly. The closest thing to her strangeness I've ever found record of that we have encountered would be demons. And it has been a long, long time since the last demonic gate was opened. And even then it doesn't match; she shouldn't be so... real... if she were a demon in disguise. A demon's corporeal form is supposed to be similar to that of an elemental, made of cobbled together substance with no real rhyme or reason to the insides. She actually does have an internal order," the old man spoke with the quiet conviction of a scholar. His youth may have been spent adventuring, but he was widely read in his advanced years.
"I'm unfortunately unsure of just how safe it would be for us to allow her free," Colbert looked up towards her face, as she spouted an ever growing string of curses against his lineage while struggling as she had from the beginning. She never seemed to tire. A prospect which scared him deeply having fought it before, if he'd tried to hang back and wear her out at all in the field... it was all too likely that he might have been dead.
"I know Colbert. But if Ms. Valliere can prove herself able to handle her familiar and keep it from causing harm, then we will have to. Honour and tradition dictate this," the Headmaster nodded to himself, hand combing through his beard in habit, "and besides, it seemed to calm in her presence even after the fight you had. It would be a crime to keep a mage and familiar, who have managed to bond so well, apart."
"I advocate caution sir..."
"Yes and caution I do intend to take," the headmaster spoke sharply, a bit more so than he'd intended, with a much softer tone he continued, "I do not begin to dodder in my old age Colbert. I know you have the utmost concern of the student's well-being at heart, but I must consider this matter in all fairness. Besides, this here is the familiar of a member of the House Valliere, even if no one wants to speak it the fact is that at any time word may reach the heads of that household and they may feel displeased at the treatment of their daughter. It pains me to say, but we have to keep an eye on such matters especially with a family in such good odor with the crown, they could do much damage both to the school as a whole and each of us involved in this directly. Caution is currently the only path to take, as danger lurks in certainty upon all others."
"...yes. I suppose I do understand," Colbert spoke, shaking his head.
"Still it was good that I had an experienced veteran on hand when the incident occurred. Else wise things could have become very ugly. Indeed that that man happened to look quite a bit like one of my senior staff members may well be a thing easily forgotten, after all the only witnesses were panicked children," the headmaster spoke absently, his eyes wondering about the place in that look he got when pretending to have lost his wit.
Colbert recognized it for what it was, the headmaster was throwing him a bone in all this madness, an out in case anyone started probing deeper into the professor's history after his display of magical combat. Without the headmaster covering for him, word would leak out quite quickly, luckily for him he'd begun his fight after most of the second years had been fleeing to safety and only a small fraction of the second year's had actually seen him in all clearness. Those who did had been instructed personally by the headmaster at the possible wisdom of not speaking of the event too loudly, or in too much detail. Rumour would still leak out, still spread... but hopefully in such a slowed, diffused manner that the details would be lost soon enough to keep his name being amoung them from sounding like anything but another farfetched version of the events.
Still he was concerned deeply about the issue of the elf-like woman, but the headmaster's experience and authority ruled, and beside that the voice of curiosity had settled upon Colbert as he noted the familiar runes which covered its right hand. There was a weird familiarity about them which bothered his researcher's soul. He would need to look them up the first chance he got in the library. He was pretty sure they had been in overlooked by those here, so much more focused on knowing what the elf like maiden was rather than the magics which now invested themselves upon her body. This train of thought was momentarily broken as the old headmaster's secretary spoke up from at the door to the inner vault.
"Headmaster, Professor Colbert, Louise de la Valliere and Kirche von Anhalt Zerbst have arrived. Shall I send them into you?" an innocuous green haired head poked in at the door, primly styled hair leaving a few loose strands to brush against her glasses.
"Yes, thank you Ms Longueville," the head master nodded, "please, do send them in."
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Louise grimaced as a cold feeling swept over her. Her familiar was close by and the feelings sympathy and connectivity had flared again. This time though only for a brief instant as she felt almost as if something had 'touched' her. A feather soft press, non-specific in location it felt familiar and all too foreign all at once. And suddenly she knew. Her familiar was on the brink. Closer to the edge of destruction than she'd ever before experienced. Louise knew it. Right down into her bones, with a certainty which she could not explain.
This is what it's like to experience a connection with one's familiar... right?
Apparently the Headmaster had decided to utilize the castle dungeons to hold and examine her familiar. Like some common criminal. Louise of course was not in the least bit pleased with the insult given by that. Worse, was the condition of her familiar, Ryoko was damaged. Louise could only imagine the things they were doing to her to bring her so close to the brink of destruction. Very visibly she bristled.
Man-handle my familiar, will they! Her face contorted in evident rage. Next to her worried looks were given as both Siesta and Kirche wondered silently just what was going through Louise's mind.
Louise's staggered attention kept her from noticing when they'd arrived at their destination.
"Ladies, you may enter," spoke the headmaster's secretary as she returned from announcing their arrival, her green haired bun bobbing with her head as she nodded to herself. The scowl slid from Louise's face, leaving a faint trace of confusion and embarrassment at her unaware state.
Looking up at the entrance, the dungeons though so named, were in fact quite a furnished and surprisingly well kept area, and the particular place in which the ever more familiar throb of presence which Louise was coming to identify with her own familiar, was practically as well furbished as the medical wards.
"Ah, Ms Valliere, Ms Zerbst," the headmaster greeted as they filtered into the room, "and the lovely servant I assigned to Ms Valliere. Come in, come in."
Louise looked nervously about the room, an outer reception chamber, her eyes sliding restlessly towards one particular wall every few moments, her companions looking distinctly worried as her expression grew tighter and tighter.
"Now, my dears would you enjoy some tea? Something nice and soothing…"
"My familiar," Louise interrupted her small hands clenching about handfuls of pleated skirt, "I want to see her."
"Ms Valliere? Is there something wrong?" the head master quirked an eyebrow inquisitively.
"She's right there," the young mage pointed, straight though the wall directly at the bound Ryoko. The headmaster's expression sharpened, while mages and their familiars did share certain bonds the nature of the chamber in which the elf-like maiden was bound as well as the various spells which bound her should have kept her mage from having even an inkling of her presence and location, even if they were just a few feet away.
"I want to see her right now. It is my right as her summoner," Louise drew herself up, into her proudest pose, an imitation of the woman whom she molded herself after in all things.
Old Osmund scrubbed at his white beard as was his habit. The girl was right of course, as a mage her familiar was considered legally an extension of her own will, any actions which it carried out both positive and negative were seen as being hers. As such it was a criminal offense to keep a mage and familiar apart, especially when it didn't warrant anything less than a charge of possible treason or heresy.
On the other hand though, considering the power and hostility of her summoned partner, there was a real risk of someone being killed if the situation was even slightly mishandled. Still the request was just to see her, which alone couldn't do too much harm. But the sooner the two met, the sooner he would have to make the decision of whether or not to free the elf-like beauty from her suppressing wards. Also, the closeness of her resemblance to the ancient enemies of mankind would not be something to remain mere rumour if her freedom was allowed. The headmaster frowned, that was something yet for the future, but another worry none the less. With a grave nod and a gesture from his staff, he opened the door into their captive's current cell.
Louise didn't know what she expected to see, but this was not it. Within the refurbished cell rune script was scrawled all across the room, binding spells of all forms written into chains and brick then suspended against a wall holding the nude form of her familiar suspended and spread eagle against the wall. She recognized each of the enchantments, things which were spoken about in her books of deep theory, some of which would have been deadly to anything human. There were wards here for binding greater dragons, demons, and all manner of immortal and mortal First Born, some of which were truly insidious in nature. From what she was seeing, Ryoko should have been writhing in pain, unable to focus on anything but the magic of her own nature being twisted against her flesh. Instead her familiar looked and even more importantly felt, merely annoyed and angry at being suspended within this array. There was also there a hint of fear, buried beneath the anger, but not so deep that it did not flash to the surface ever so often in Louise's head.
Louise goggled. How dare they... HOW DARE THEY! The indignity of her familiar spread bare before her as the teachers within the room bustled and prodded utilizing advanced spells of scrying to examine this and that before them. Her familiar's nudity only the tip of the invasive actions which carried on even as Louise entered the room watching in shock. The look on her face and tightening grip upon her wand must have given it away, because in that moment she spun, evoking the power of a fireball upon the array of ensorcelled bindings, but her red headed companion was already in motion grabbing her hand and redirecting the blast of magical energy towards the floor.
The sound of desperate detonation filled the air, as Kirche struggled with the now wild Louise over control of her wand while the dust still settled across the room. A quick spell from the headmaster and several other staff members swiftly levitated and bound both girls in an upright position. Colbert muttered to himself in surprise, not at the young Valliere's impulsive act so much as at the damage which she'd done to the vault level reinforcements which strengthened the stone of cell. Where in the floor her spell had hit, the stone split open almost a full 40 centimeter's though.
With a sigh the headmaster rubbed a hand across his eyes, he'd expected strong resistance and demands from her, with her record of what many teacher's called her 'bull-headed nature', but he never expected something like this as it contradicted the other part of reports on her, the strong lean towards following authority. His own brief meetings with the young girl due to the numerous times which she had been remanded into punishment for acts of wonton destruction, acts which were always as she claimed due to mistakes in her own casting, were always of a sedate tone, the inbred respect for his authoritative position keeping her docile in the face of her 'mistakes'. Now in the grasp of a levitation and wind binding the amethyst eyed youth struggled and cried out.
"LET HER GO! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT! LET HER OUT!!"
A glance towards the familiar also shocked him, as the fury of a moment ago was replaced by a look of almost wonder and definite surprise. He'd just endured several hours of her... worldly abuse, but the single act of her magus had quelled her tongue to nil. What she said next, froze him in place.
"Calm down Louise, don't get a heart attack I'm fine, I'm fine," Ryoko soothed from behind her wall of bindings.
Osmund paused and assessed, enthrallment and glamour were not out of the window, but from what he could tell and spending several hours in the company of the creature before him she was not a being of guile. She'd never once even tried to trick them into undoing her bonds or even getting closer, beyond threats of bodily harm. She did not seem to have such a thing in her. No she was all aggression and intensity. Her summoner's attempt at freeing her seemed to be genuinely shocking. But on the other hand this was an inhuman creature wearing the guise of a woman, and it would always pay to be wary of those beings which clothed themselves in human flesh, one could not always read them in the same way one could a person.
On the other hand, Ms. Valliere was all too easy to read. Despite the conflict between report and current reality, the core of the disparity was one easily deduced. Louise seemed as straight forward as her familiar, and her sense of propriety had been badly breached by the state of her familiar, so much so that it overrode her usual responses to authority. That the rampaging familiar was now the calming voice struck him as a certain irony. Oh he could understand her plight, if his cute little Motsognir were to come under such a threat as she saw her own familiar under, he did not know if he would be able to restrain rage with reason. Still he was Head-Master here; taking charge was a part of his responsibilities. With a judicious banging of his staff against the floor he drew attention to himself.
"Ms Valliere, do I need to point out to you the damage you familiar caused when she was summoned? She was placed here in these seals in case she awoke from the slumber into which you both fell, in the feral state she'd woken up in before then. And afterwards these threats which she has been calling out have done nothing to disprove the danger which she represents to the life and health of my students. Including you," his tone was unusually firm.
"Alright look, I take it back alright, I won't blow you all up if you let me down from here," Ryoko spoke, her voice resembling cordiality, somehow, "Hell I don't think I'll be able fight another fight like that one for at least another week," she admitted, both a concession and offering to her seemingly well-meaning captors, "Just cut the kid a break."
"I am not a child," Louise declared with a petulant pout, still floating bound in wind. Ryoko flashed Louise a reassuring grin.
"Yes I can see that we all started on the wrong foot here Ms. Ryoko, let us try this again from scratch," Osmund spoke, he was still not sure, but he was close to taking the risk. It didn't hurt that there were two square classed, at least 3 triangle classed, and a few dot classed mages working within the area in case she tried anything immediately, "What I want from you Ms Ryoko is very simple. An oath upon something you hold sacred, that you will not attack anyone within the grounds of my school so long as they do not physically or magically assault your person."
Ryoko's brow creased with effort. Something she held scared? Looking like she had bitten something bitter when she opened her mouth the first time, she closed her eyes then nodded with a look of resignation.
"An oath, huh. And what happens if I break this oath?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Then I will hunt you down with every resource at my disposal and lock you away until none remember that you ever existed," his shining purple eyes never veered from her own, a quality ice cold and hard creeping farther in with every word.
"And it wouldn't be nearly enough. But that's ok little man, I'll promise. And I'll even keep my promise. I swear it by Louise's life and safety," the elf-like woman grinned as she spoke, sharp teeth like those of a predator shone pearly white, "Now let me down. You're keeping me from regenerating properly."
The headmaster nodded slowly, signaling all of the current staff arrayed in the study of her behind him to be alert to his intentions. Then with a sudden slash of his staff he began to chant. Words flowed with alacrity and power, every utterance part of a greater key to which each chain was tuned, and with each word the locks and chains loosed themselves, until there remained no more than physical restraint.
"HA hahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FINALLY!" all were taken aback by the loud but casual snapping of chains which ensued. Ryoko ripped away her bindings with great mirth painted across her face, "Man that was embarrassing, spring one jail and get caught in another."
As she spoke wisps of light formed about the room each one reaching some preordained critical point before streaking towards her and gathering within a ball in her hand. The ball swirled and pulsed growing ever brighter, for several minutes they stood, staring as it pulsed and coalesced into a red Pearline gem. But only for a moment it seemed. At the final swirling of formation the entire thing seemed to collapse upon itself breaking down once more into motes of crimson light.
"Shit," Ryoko cursed. She was still too weak to even form her false gems, unable to track all the points in its formation and the correction of flaws in its higher dimensional construction and the reshaping of gathered matter into a proper dimensional capacitor. This would change with the passage of days, but that was far too slowly for Ryoko's tastes. After 700 years of powerless captivity, she wanted to feel the fires in her blood as completely as she could... and no others would ever take them from her again. In frustration she snarled, she didn't like the vulnerability which she felt operating with so few resources. Even the relatively small boost of power flow and energy management from the false gems would a far cry from her current state.
"That was most impressive, Miss Ryoko, but I'm assuming it was not meant as a failed breach of your oath?" the headmaster spoke with calm solemnity, one backed up by the pointing of every wand and staff in the room at the elf-like creature before them.
"Ehh... Wha? Relax. If I still wanted you dead I'd be killing you all now," she spoke as if distracted, golden eyes focused on some far away task. Slowly a curving smile creased her lips once more exposing uncomfortably sharp teeth, "Ryo-Ohki came with me. That's good, but only her core came along for the ride..."
"Familiar, what are you muttering about?" Louise spoke, still slightly in shock at actually having gotten what she'd demanded. She had been released from her binding spells even before Ryoko was, and held steady on her feet by the maid who watched the entire affair as a peasant should, with eyes open and mouth shut.
"My ship, she came with me!" the self-proclaimed 'space' pirate seemed genuinely happy to exclaim.
"Your ship?" this time Colbert spoke.
"Anyone remember seeing a purple egg lying around the place?" Ryoko asked.
Osmund looked thoughtful, "I believe I left it in the artifact vault. Don't worry Ms. Ryoko, I will hand it over to you at a later time. The vault has many protections on it and a few of them are time specific. We can regain what is yours later on in the week once the vault resets."
Ryoko nodded in agreement. She didn't mind, just knowing that Ryo-Okhi was safely away from others was fine with her. Besides even in egg form there was little which could permanently harm the central control module. At least little that wouldn't prompt Ryoko to investigate anyway.
"Though I am curious as to how it qualifies to being your 'ship' as you call it?" Old Osmund spoke, stroking his beard as he did.
"'She'," Ryoko emphasized, "Is a living critter. She's made of crystals and junk. Never really thought too much bout how she works but she's been with me for as long as I can remember, probably even earlier. We've been everywhere and back together. She's always the way that I fly off into the sunset."
"Ahh! So she is an Air ship then!" Colbert cut in, sounding suddenly intrigued.
"No, she isn't some measly atmospheric affair, she's a Space Ship," Ryoko replied, annoyed at the implication. Pride flared hot within the link between herself and Louise.
"Space... ship?" Kirche joined, her own voice chirping in, if only to pull some of the attention back to her for the moment. Of course real curiosity coloured her question as well, but...
"Jeez, forgot I was dealing with dammed hicks," annoyance crossing her face, "It's a ship that flies, between the stars, from world to world. Without her I'd be stuck here till you guys worked a proper space program. And I do NOT plan to spend the next thousand years or so dirt side."
Ryoko felt the link grow quiet, as if a big reset button had been pressed in her Summoner's head. Then a low lingering sensation of questions left untouched haunted the link.
"World to world...? Oh my... founder..." It seemed the rest of the room reacted with similar amazement, save one. This being, whatever she was. Not only came from another world it seemed, but regularly moved from world to world.
The headmaster nodded slowly, "I see. I think I may wish to show you something's once you come to collect your 'Ryo-Ohki' from the vault."
Ryoko's interest seemed to peak then settle, Louise found it strange how she was getting used to the link. It might even seem normal to her in a short time.
"Sooo... anybody got some spare clothes? I would have just made myself some but my powers are still playing the fool," the gold eyed woman spoke plainly and without the slightest ounce of shame, even taking time to emphasize her state of undress by a judicious cupping of her breasts, then turned towards Louise and started laughing as her Summoner turned red all at once, wobbling on her feet as Siesta continued to support her.
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Colbert's eyes narrowed as he examined the woman before him. The hole in the right side of her chest almost completely sealed, quite rapidly since the moment she was freed. He wanted to trust her, but with something of her power it was hard not to wonder whether allowing her free to fully regain strength after managing to match and defeat a square class mage in direct mortal combat while still in what was admittedly a highly weakened state. The elflike woman did not seem a fool yet she gave pieces of information like that, things which could be used to hurt her or at least would array the mages of the Academy against her. Of course there was always the idea that it could be all careful lies, but trust had to come somewhere, and they were dealing with the familiar of a mage as obtained though the sacred summoning ceremony of Brimir. To question the founder's wisdom was in itself a blasphemy that worried him.
"Darling," a voice behind him half moaned, half whispered, "Thinking naughty thoughts about her naked body?" light amusement flowed in with a voice silk smooth.
When did I let her get behind me? The professor thought to himself as she wrapped her arms about his waist and chest. This had been the biggest fallout of the entire event thus far. Or rather these... which rested softly upon his back, reminding him that he were as much a man as he was a scholar, though he'd neglected that aspect of himself long since discarding his military trappings.
"Don't worry darling," Kirche spoke softly into his ear, looking for the entire world as if she were simply trying to molest him as usual, "I'll keep a nice close eye on her for you."
The professor coughed and tried as always to slip from her constricting grasp, "I cannot condone you putting yourself in danger like that. I mean as your teacher, I cannot."
Kirche smiled, "Colbert darling, it's alright, Louise already has her chains on the beast. She won't be too careless with those reigns, especially if she has a few people keeping an eye on her," she added an extra squeeze in a sensitive place to emphasize the point.
"Ms. Zerbst," Colbert all but squeaked at the impropriety of it. Kirche of course grinned, letting go of the professor before anyone else in the room began to pay them much attention.
"Don't worry darling, one day I will make you mine."
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It was the first night which they would spend together, master and familiar. The peculiar silver spikes of her familiar's hair now gathered into a single tuft with the rest drawn tight against her skull. Siesta had stayed with them for most of the time after Ryoko's release, insisting on grooming the golden eyed familiar as a courtesy to her master, while Kirche too had stuck around providing clothing that would fit the tall woman. Now the familiar wore a loose white blouse which seemed to show off her bosom more than it hid, a pair of black pants which hugged her curves in a manor almost indecent, and a pair of light black boots. The odd combination of clothing and styled hair seemed weirdly to suit the wild woman. Despite the more masculine cut to the clothing, none would mistake her for anything but female. But even so, she looked strangely dashing.
Louise could hardly help but to watch her in pure fascination. In the brief time they had spent in each other's company she could tell how different from each other they were, how wild, how free of all rule and restraint that she was. If not for the power she'd displayed and her elf like features, Louise conceded to herself that she might have mistaken for a mere commoner.
"Except... that freedom is an illusion isn't it," Louise muttered to herself, memories and feelings of helplessness, of subjugation in its most raw flooded her. Though she could not quite remember her dreams, she knew the emotions behind them and of whom she'd dreamed.
"So you guys in this place are the nobility, eh?" her familiar spoke in her usual rough tones, as the last of the workmen filed out from Louise's room. Louise merely nodded in return. She had heard her familiar's take on nobility earlier as the tall woman strolled next to herself and Siesta and their conversation veered around the various facts of the world in which she now resided.
"So what you're saying is that you guys come here to learn how nobles do crap?" her voice carried to an unfortunate volume, crass and uncaring of propriety.
"The nobility is necessary to the survival and thriving of the people of the lands. Without us nobles, commoners would not be able to ensure healthy crops, disease and sickness would run rampant though out the lands without water mages, the land would lack for couriers able to move messages about with any true rapidity. We do anything the commoner's can, only faster, more efficiently and with far less necessary ensemble. Nobles do not do CRAP," Louise twitched, the whole time since they had been getting to know each other Louise had been trying to restrain herself. It seemed almost as if everything her familiar did or said since their freedom had been a calculated jab trying to make her loose her temper.
"So basically nobles are best at doing the dirty work?" Ryoko asked innocently.
"Yes... wait, I mean No!" Louise could feel her amusement flooding down though their link, just as the evil pirate could feel her own irritation.
"Stop that. You are provoking me on purpose. I don't like being prodded," Louise finally lost her temper, shouting and shaking her wand at the woman across from her. Her cheeks puffed in the cutest manner.
The gold eyed pirate simply smiled. For her it was a game she played, poking, prodding, and breaking the things most precious to others. The thrill of an antagonistic confrontation never failed to make her truly Feel, to push at the boundaries of her leash via the use of her targets. The stronger they reacted to her teasing the better. And her new 'master' was a fireball in pink just waiting to explode.
Still she should probably ease up a bit on the teasing.
The second bed which was just installed in Louise's room to accommodate the familiar in her master's quarters was a tiny affair in comparison to the master bed of the room. A nice gesture, Ryoko thought, but wasted on me. She never did like sleeping on the ground much, where others had easy access to her person. The instincts of 5000 years of pirate life dominated, and the best place to sleep was always somewhere out of the way of everyone else, whether friend or foe. Luckily the room had a nice set of rafters which along with a nice pillow would suit her fine, and allow her to keep an eye on her charge. Also she'd gathered enough energy that expending a little in simple low grade hovering wouldn't be too much of a detriment to her recovery. Besides, when she'd first begun to casually float about as was her habit, the look on Louise's face was priceless. Even better was the jealousy which Ryoko could practically taste emanating from the young girl.
A weird sense of satisfaction filtered lightly down the link.
The link between them seemed to be settling, their awareness of each other becoming more muted as time passed in each other's company. Louise supposed it a good thing really. Her familiar seemed to shift from emotion to emotion with an unrelenting verve, passionately embracing each state as if it were something precious. Even the vicious teasing which she engaged in seemed as if backed by a certain inexorable hunger, like a starved man gorging himself on rich foods. But even now, the link still gave form to feelings shared between them, understanding growing faster than without.
"Ryoko," Louise spoke, her voice gentle as she settled down on her bed in her sheer night gown, "You know... this thing between us, I've never even heard of it in my theoretical magic books. The familiar runes shouldn't be doing anything like this, not without actual spells to start it up."
"That's because runt, they aren't the reason for it," Ryoko flexed her hand. The runes which skittered across it tended to shift and skew with her flesh. It was the first time she'd actually had anything like a tattoo stay on her skin for more than a few hours. Her body would cleanse it away too efficiently for her to keep any regular ones, "I don't know how, but you got into my psychic info-sphere, my link between me and Ryo-Ohki. Somehow I can feel you in here like I would her. When the runes were applied, the link got stronger, but I don't really know why."
"You really love her don't you? I mean when you spoke about her just now, it was just all warmth and affection whenever you say her name. But she's just a ship?" Louise questioned.
Ryoko's gentle smile was a complete surprise.
"She's my sister," the space pirate spoke, her words bringing a puzzled crease across Louise's face.
"Sister? I thought you said she was a ship?"
Ryoko, grinned, "I wasn't going to give it away until we got her back tomorrow. But Ryo-Ohki is a living breathing creature, alive like you and me. I don't remember much from when I was a child... assuming that I ever was, but I do know I've always had her by my side. And even when she gets hurt, I know that she can recover and be with me again."
The space-pirate then frowned, "I don't even know why I'm telling you this crap."
Louise bit her lip. The feeling of something intense and private invaded the link, as well as a sense of unease. Ryoko, it seemed, did not like thinking too hard on her past.
"You're a space pirate right, Ryoko? So you've seen other worlds right?" Louise asked trying to feel innocent about the probing question.
Ryoko's silence answered her, but the emotions which filtered across their link spoke of affirmation.
"I had a dream," Louise's started, "I don't remember all of it well. But I do remember that I saw these great spheres, like globes of spun glass. Each one sat in inky blackness like the night sky. And as you got closer you could see everything roads, forests, buildings... people. And everywhere the people were different. And so many of them..."
Ryoko stayed silent. But her presence and attention filtered in just as strong as if she'd spoken.
"I've never had a dream of anything so bizarre before in my life. But the dream made it seem so real..." Louise trailed away, unwilling to make any more of a fool of herself before her familiar.
"Planets," Ryoko spoke, head never leaving the comfortable pillow on her high perch, "Those are called planets. They are what a world looks like from far enough in the sky," she her amusement at this filtering in, "You really are a backwater hick."
Louise exhaled sharply and ignored the insult for once, the information it had been tacked on to blew her mind wide open. The dream had been true. It was a prospect which both terrified and inflamed the young girl's curiosity. It had never occurred to her that the pretty lights in the sky might hold mysteries greater than anything she'd ever imagined. That each point represented a world or several huddled together in the night sky. The thought made her feel small. The idea of it blew her mind.
And here on hand was someone who not only knew of these things, but was so enmeshed with them that she though them little more than common place.
And for the first time in her life Louise wondered about those brilliant points of light which hung in the night sky. Just the glimpse she'd seen gave lie to the explanations of the few scholars whom she could think of speaking to said topic. And within her something broke open. A desperate need to wonder... WHY?
"Tell me Ryoko..." she spoke then hesitated, sapphire pink eyes sparkling with questions which bubbled below their surface as she addressed the golden eyed woman, who had turned on her perch to meet Louise's own sapphire pink eyes. Their eyes met from across the room... but it felt as intimate as if they stood face to face.
Louise banished her hesitance and spoke, "...tell me about... the stars."
Her familiar faltered. A million things running through Ryoko's head as raw curiosity and genuine wonder coursed through their link.
Ryoko found her tongue moving unbidden.
"Yes Louise," she spoke, surprising herself in the process, "I'll tell you about them. Everything you want to know."
With that the floodgates opened.
Wonders invoked from the twist of tongue, minds filled with distant Suns.
They stayed awake for most of the candle light, sharing the heavens and earths.
Winged Knight
Still just a crazy man with a wolf on his head
- Location
- Texas
Looking good so far. I've gotta say, it's refreshing to see a Tenchi fic after all this time. I always liked its various incarnations, though some of the newer anime crowd seems to have skipped over it. I mean, I saw a Ryo-ohki plush at a convention and a friend I was with said "Hey, is that a recolored Kyuubi?"
I'd love to see more interaction between Colbert and Ryoko. He made a really, really impressive showing against her and it might interest her to learn more about him. Sure, she was on the low end, but he was still throwing loads of power around. She might find it fun to poke him a little.
Also how are you going to handle Ryoko wanting to leave? Because she will when she can, and it will stretch suspension of disbelief if there isn't a real good reason to convince her to stay.
I'd love to see more interaction between Colbert and Ryoko. He made a really, really impressive showing against her and it might interest her to learn more about him. Sure, she was on the low end, but he was still throwing loads of power around. She might find it fun to poke him a little.
Also how are you going to handle Ryoko wanting to leave? Because she will when she can, and it will stretch suspension of disbelief if there isn't a real good reason to convince her to stay.
Winchester
Buzzzzzkill
- Location
- Creeping towards your ear
Nitpick: At the start of the chapter, you have Louise addressed as "Mrs", "Ms" and "Miss" interchangeably. Only the last one is correct - Louise isn't married (Mrs), nor is she old enough for "Ms". (I don't remember the exact rule for when it's Ms, but I've only ever seen it used for unmarried adult women.)
Other than that, very nice. How much more do you have written up already?
Edit: About Ryoko wanting to leave - the familiar bond includes some form of compulsion keeping the familiar from growing homesick, or thinking too much about what's going on where they came from. It's possible it also includes some form of "stay with your master" thing, that part is not outright stated in the books IIRC.
Other than that, very nice. How much more do you have written up already?
Edit: About Ryoko wanting to leave - the familiar bond includes some form of compulsion keeping the familiar from growing homesick, or thinking too much about what's going on where they came from. It's possible it also includes some form of "stay with your master" thing, that part is not outright stated in the books IIRC.
Xicree
Murder.Malice.Might
Thanks for the catch. Though Ms should be about right as they should be pretty much on the edge of adulthood if not adults in their own right by the age laws of their system. After all Louise IS old enough to marry.Winchester said:
So I'll just ere on the side of caution saying that for practical purposes and so as not to offend the servants use the adult format, even though the school for the sake of practicality in its eyes treat them as minors, to an extent.
And yeah, chapter 3 is done. Just needs reading over and clean up. and i just started chapter 4
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
Idea! Can Ryoohki go mining and Eat windstones?Blackraptor said: