I wonder what he uses that thing for.
Louise hops off the bed and walks over to the chest of drawers. The little datapad continues to emanate a very familiar feeling of magic, making her leery of touching it. After a moment of consideration, she decides that it must be a trap of some sort and does her best not to think about it anymore. After all, her master isn't one to leave his possessions unguarded and would be rather put out if he found out she was snooping around his room.
With one last look at the gadget, she heads off to freshen up in her own quarters.
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Morning ablutions finished, Louise set off to the dinning hall in search of her sister. It had been quite a while since the two had spent time together, the previous night notwithstanding. Along the way, the teen noticed that she was receiving unusual looks from the commoners. The worthless peasants whispering at her passing, watching her every move and smiling in a way that set her paranoia alight with memories of the academy.
"Yeah, she's on her way."
Narrowing her eyes as she overhears one of the commoners fail to be discreet as they whisper into their communication device. Gripping the hilt of her sword, she walks faster around the last corner and throws open the doors to the dinning hall. All conversation grinds to a halt as everyone in the room looks in her direction, causing her to prepare a Fire Shield in her off-hand. Without warning, the filthy animals rush at her and soon she is surrounded in a sea of bodies and deafened by their noises.
Her slight figure does nothing to impede their efforts as she is hoisted into the air, her mind reeling as it attempts to understand whats happening. Her ears are assaulted by whistles and cheers, congratulations and tearful gratitude. Before she can process the fact that something as unusual as this is happening, the crowd deposits her on what appears to be a hastily assembled throne of pillows and chaise of some sort pilled on a stack of tables and chairs. At some point one of the 'tell-a-visions' on the wall begins to show her fighting aliens in the airship launching hall.
"-ould have seen it, fuckers didn't know what hit em!"
"W-what is all this?" Louise asks in confusion as most of the peasants focus on cheering on her previous self.
"-ust wanted to let you know how much it mea-"
"To Louise! The most badass bitch on base!"
A memory of two intricately drawn figures in the dirt passes through her mind as two commoners offer her a glass of wine and a cake is wheeled out of the kitchen.
"I will be molding you into the most powerful mage in in history." Her master's voice crawls through her head, bringing a wetness to her eyes at the reminder of what her weakness caused.
Feeling a sudden weight land beside her, Louise turns to see Cattleya with two saucers of cake and frozen cream. Accepting the offered treat, she ignores the fact that both foods are the same color as her hair and eats it while she attempts to reign in her guilt. "Isn't it wonderful, Louise?" Cattleya asks with a smile.
"Wha- Yeah, I guess it's pretty good... The cake is kind of odd tasting, but the academy had worse confections." She admits replies absently, poking the spongy mass of pink and chocolat.
"I wasn't talking about the food, silly." Cattleya chides, pointing her fork toward the gathered mass of people. "Look at all of them, coming together to celebrate your accomplishments."
Shrugging, Louise sets her food aside and begins climbing down to the floor, no longer interested in staying in the same room as the obnoxious commoners. Rather than let her go, however, Cattleya grabs her by the arm and forces her to sit back down. "Louise? What's wrong? Everyone's here to thank you for saving them... because they recognize you for the talented girl you are... Isn't this what you always wanted?"
"Parasites. Sycophants, flocking to those with power."
"Of course!" Louise answers before shaking her head at the strange pressure between her eyes. "I... I don't... It doesn't feel as good as I thought it would."
Out of the corner of her eye, Louise spots the foolish woman that had tried to shoot her. The woman flinches as the Vallière girl turns to look at her. Cattleya looks as well, shrugs, and ruffles her little sister's hair. "Cynric will be alright."
"Lies."
"Who... who said anything about him?!" Louise shouts, swatting the older girl's hand away and fixing her hair to hide her flustered state.
"It's your fault."
It doesn't work very well. "Nobody needs to say anything, you're my darling little sister and I'll always know when you're upset."
"Well I didn't ask for your pity!" She growls, ignoring the spike of guilt at the pained look on her sister's face. Levitating to the floor, she stomps toward the door and is forced to shove past several grovelling peasants. Looking back, she see's Cattleya watching with worried eyes and rushes out into the corridor to the firing range in search of something to destroy.
"-at's her problem?"
She needs to be stronger. Strong enough to protect herself so nobody else would be forced to. Guilt and anger fester inside her; anger at the useless commoners who can't fight their own battles, anger at Cynric for sacrificing himself, anger at herself for being weak enough to make him think he needed to, anger at Cattleya for trying to console her when she didn't deserve it, guilt at feeling angry at Cynric and her sister, anger at them for making her feel guilty.
A tangled ball off emotion, Louise charged into the range and unleashed a barrage of explosion with a scream. Cheap buildings shatter into clouds of dust and splinters, tar melts and splashes as she bombards the street with fireball after fireball. Walls, floor and ceiling are coated in razor-sharp blades of ice. Lights burst as she completely lets go of her control and floods the room with Shock magic. Huffing and puffing, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière sits in the dark and sobs, frustrated tears mingle with blood that leaks from cuts caused by her own magical ice.
"Pathetic."
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A pitch black abyss, soaked in cold water and the scent of blood is not a particularly good place to be woken up by the sound of someone beating on the door. It is for this reason that the terrified shriek Louise makes at the intrusion goes unremarked... that and the fact that she blew up the door being knocked on, causing the one doing the knocking to shriek as well when the door narrowly missed smearing them across the corridor.
Climbing to stand on achy legs, Louise stumbles out the door and sees Cattleya on the floor outside. Looking down at her wide-eyes sister, who is clutching her chest and hyperventilating, the youngest Vallière plops down on the opposite side of the walkway. "I'm sorry."
"L-Louise? My goodness, you scared the shit out of me!" Cattleya responds, blushing at the disturbed look Louise gives her. With a cough, she waves her arms in denial, "No! I-I don't... It's just something the soldiers here say frequently... I didn't soil myself!"
What a disgusting language. "I'm not sure you should spend so time with these filthy creatures, they're obviously corrupting you." Louise says dubiously, giving the air a cautious sniff to be certain before attempting to dry her wet clothes by using fire instead of frost for the Frost Cloak.
"Ms. Vallière?" A voice calls from the other end of the hall as Louise bursts into flames. Silence descends as the man turns around and pretends to read his clipboard as he walks away. The two sisters look at one another for a moment before bursting into laughter. Until the water all evaporated away and Louise started screaming in pain.
It took several panicked moments of Cattleya burning her own hands while attempting water magic as Louise rolled on the floor in agony before Louise cast Frost Cloak and the two spells cancelled each other out. Hissing in pain, Louise could already feel blisters forming on most of her body as she wondered why her clothes were completely untouched. The question was immediately discarded in favor of screaming when Cattleya tried to hug her, cracking her blistering skin. Once Cattleya released her and frantically started apologizing, Louise tried to focus on healing herself. Putting her practice to good use, she attempts to heal them both at once, pushing far more magicka into the spell and letting it flow through the entire corridor.
It doesn't take long, the golden magic soothing her pain and restoring flesh to pristine condition. Sighing in relief, she leans back against the wall and doesn't struggle as Cattleya pulls her into a bone-crushing embrace and cries. Chuckling at the thought of what she would think if she knew how often this kind of thing happened, Louise patted her sister on the back and tried to lighten the mood. "So what have you been doing lately?"
Cattleya seems grateful for the distraction. "O-oh, just tending to the animals and reagents." She says, wiping her eyes. "The chaurus really seem to like it here and there's so many fluffy animals outside. The men around base are very helpful, always offering to assist me with whatever I'm doing."
Scoffing, Louise can't help but look at her sister's chest as she sarcastically replies, "I can't imagine why." X-com obviously didn't have Cattleya's... unique shape in mind when they purchased their constricting green shirts. She didn't understand how her sister could wear something so formfitting, at least wearing the combat vest all the time helped Louise hide that she had nothing to hide. "They're probably just being considerate."
"Hmm.... yes, let's pretend to believe that." Her sister says with a smirk. "Other than that, I've just been trying new things, I have so many years to make up for after all."
Nodding in understanding, Louise leans into the embrace. "Just be careful. I don't trust these... people. If anybody hurts you or attempts anything indecent, just let me know and I'll kill them all for you."
Smiling mischievously, Cattleya asks, "But what if I want to be indecent?"
"You wouldn't!" Comes the younger girl's scandalized response, her tiny arms pushing her back far enough to look into her sister's eyes. "How could you even think about doing such things with a commoner?!"
Cackling with glee, Cattleya adopts a look that reminds Louise far too much of Zerbst. "I don't know... Have you seen some of the men around here? Don't tell me you haven't thought about it."
"Of course I haven't!" Louise denies with as much vehemence can project into her words. "They're disgusting animals, the lot of them. I can't believe we're even having this conversation!"
Standing up and brushing the flakes of burnt skin and ash from her clothes, the teen gives her sister a wary look, receiving nothing but giggles in return. Huffing in annoyance, Louise leaves her possibly deranged big sister and stalks off in search of food, having missed breakfast because of a bunch of lickspittles.
I hope she wasn't serious.
Choose 2:
[] Stalk Cattleya invisibly and protect her virtue.
[] Search for your fri- acquaintance, Espinoza. He should be finished with his 'djinn therapy' by now, right?
[] Spell research-
[] Grand Healing.
[] 'Why do Espinoza's rockets cause deeper damage than mine?'
[] Flame Cloak.
[] Sneak into the command center.
[] Write in.
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A/N: Even Vahlen appreciates Louise's efforts.
Grand healing 1/3 learned: Louise can heal herself and has a 50% chance to heal one other nearby target.
