Chapter i: The Summoning
The Netherworld...
A place of demons and monsters, of petty evil celebrated and the concept of good shunned and mocked, often hypocritically.
In a place of so many clashing ego's and plans of intense self interest, violence was but another language to learn, the word 'compromise' more or less cut out of it. Only strength was respected, with the strongest of any argument right on account of their ability to beat up anyone who disagreed.
The absolute strongest would therefore naturally take charge in such an environment, becoming the Overlord, right even when all logic and even the laws of reality would say they are wrong. With such absolute authority as the prize, even the slightest sign of weakness would send demons rebelling for a chance to take the throne for themselves.
It was a land of chaos, one of many in the infinite universes, and each one was as varied as the characters who called them their home. They were worlds where even the moon and sun would play a prank from time to time, and defeat would often equal some form of friendship.
It was a world of power, and opposites, and raging egos that refused to acknowledge how silly or illogical their actions or thoughts were. It would be a culture shock, but most Netherworlds would be an all right place to live, filled with laughs if one had the right sense of humor...
But not this one. Not anymore, and never again.
The sun hesitated on the horizon, it's bloody light barely cast upon the metropolis before it...because said city was gone, reduced to ashes and rubble overnight.
Where once museums displayed graffiti, and the alley walls often had to be washed of works of art rivaling the greatest of human masterpieces, there was nothing, just a field of black ashes and scorched stone.
Where once honors students skipped classes and hung out while the delinquents actually did their work, now only lay a field of craters, rippling outward with the next larger then the last.
Where once a billion demons lived, merely the night before, there was a wasteland, shattered and blood stained. Nothing else...
Save a monster.
She stood alone in the center of the devastation. From a distance, she might appear human, but the wings and pointed ears would disprove that long before her red slit pupils were could.
She stood tall, and proud despite being completely drenched in blood, and with her once regal garb being reduced to tatters barely able to keep her modesty protected. Held tightly in her slightly clawed hands were swords, twin legends now ruined, damaged beyond repair.
Without a thought, one of the priceless artifacts was dropped into the dust as the hand that was holding it went to grasp the center of her chest, where her insides squirmed like a vat of thrashing worms.
She didn't care about the vast wasteland around her, or her ruined cloths, or even the way the only other survivor, an insect who dared call himself an Overlord, tried to lunge for her discarded weapon.
Nothing mattered to her, other then the vile thing her soul had become.
I beg of you...
She frowned as she probed at it, not noticing as she kicked the insect away from the broken blade, unconcerned with the power, enough to outright kill a normal demon, her foot diverted effortlessly.
Her soul...it could barely be said to belong to a demon anymore, and was far, far removed from what she had heard were the characteristics of Celestial and Human souls. Only figments of what it once was weathered the unnatural thing it had become...she was becoming...
My...universe...strong...spirit!
She hissed angrily, her other fist clamping onto the hilt of her remaining sword hard enough to shatter metal meant to resist any and all force, and with that it's legend ended.
It wasn't her fault that she had to kill all those demons. They were traitors! Enemies! She had been their Overlord, but when she had been ambushed they had fled, more concerned with saving their own skin then keeping their oaths.
Even the ambush had been a betrayal masterminded by those she had thought were ally's. That fool had gathered the support of one hundred Netherworld's in an attempt to take her throne.
Anger surged in her soul as she glared down at the last traitor, every last fiber of her being demanding he suffer and die for his crime...
Her soul thrashed a little harder at that, and with extreme reluctance the power gathering in her hand faded. Her soul was on the brink of changing, irreversibly, into something she knew not. Even the meager effort it would take to erase the insect before her might be enough to break her.
I...plead...
Her anger continued to rage in her chest, though her motions were still smooth, and in control.
Betrayal after Betrayal after Betrayal. One hundred Overlords, and one thousand Demons Lords had spearheaded the ambush. She had known some of them. Thought some of them were like her. Thought some of them could even be trusted.
How foolish. There was nothing like her, certainly nothing else worth knowing and especially not trusting, as she had them, reluctantly, once.
In a single night, they had shown her her folly, and in a single night all of them had died, and only the thrashing corruption of her soul kept the last one alive.
It wasn't her fault they had attacked her. It wasn't her fault they had betrayed her. The only fault she had done was trust. The Fool. The Other Netherworld's. The city and it's demons. The damned title of Overlord.
She could trust nothing save her own power. She would not make that mistake again.
...Guidance!
And suddenly, she was gone, leaving only a verdant and slowly fading glyph, and a splatter of blood that refused to follow.
The 100th Overlord, wounded, crippled, but alive growled in rage. How dare she look down on him and leave him alive! He was a threat too, right?
Right?
-{-(i)-}-
"Miss Vallière...you do plan on summoning your familiar, correct?
The pink haired noble simply nodded, not trusting herself to speak as she checked the runes for a fifth time.
Just like the four times before it, they were perfect, a product of weeks of studying the ritual, and generations of the most powerful blood-line of Tristain outside of royalty itself.
Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière shivered, wishing this whole Spring Time Familiar Ritual could be done somewhere else, somewhere private, without the gaze of her fellow nobles watching her, judging her, ready to mock her when it failed.
It shouldn't be so. Her heritage was pure, and powerful. The Vallière had produced powerful and strong mages for generations. Her own mother was a legend, and her sisters were working on crafting their own, but her...
She had never yet cast a successful spell.
She took a breath, feeling the anticipation that had been building from the expectations of the crowd fade...and then she took another. Then a third. Followed by several more before she forced herself to extend her wand into the proper position before her nerve failed her.
In the murmuring behind her, she heard the whispers clear as day, as if they thought she couldn't hear her.
"Why are they letting her try? Everyone knows it will just end in disaster"
"I can't wait to see how she humiliates herself this time. She can't even cast the simplest Dot spells without it blowing up. Think about how big it will be with this!"
"Just get it over with. We all know she is a failure of a mage, but must she take so long with everything?"
Louise's hand gripped the wand tighter. How dare they!
She would show them all she wasn't a failure. She would summon a familiar...the greatest, strongest, most beautiful familiar of them all!
Or one not so great, not so strong, and not so beautiful...
To be honest, as long as she summoned a familiar at all, she would be happy. That would be enough to prove that she...she wasn't a total zero.
She felt her eyes scanning the circle once more, before forcing her thoughts and doubts down. That was enough of the delays.
She took one last breath, calling to mind the words she had spent weeks meditating on, and memorizing. Weeks learning about and practicing.
She let go of her fear, and doubt, and focused only on what she had practiced. It, like the circle, would be perfect.
I beg of you
My slave who lives somewhere in the universe,
Oh sacred, beautiful and strong familiar spirit!
I desire and here I plead with my heart
Answer my guidance!
Most of the other nobles had simply said the words. A few of the other nobles had made mistakes, but still completed the summoning. But hers...hers had been perfect, and heartfelt...more of a song from the heart then words for her magic.
In a brief moment after her last word, the courtyard was silence. No jeers or insults against her pride. Only a respectful silence, broken only by the wind, and a rival's inaudible and regretful, "Oh, Louise..."
And then the summoning circle exploded, and the moment was both lost and forgotten.
The burst of concussive force was a brief gale, carrying with it dark acrid smoke. It stung Louise's eyes as it settled, leaving only a pillar of the ash slowly dissipating into the sky.
"And That's why she's called Zero...", mocked someone in the crowd behind her, "Her success rate is always zero!"
It was an old insult. She'd heard it ten times the day before. Countless times before that. It still hurt though, worse then ever because... she had failed the unfailable familiar summoning, and had lost her one chance to prove herself a noble, a mage... a Vallière.
She glared at the still lingering smoke, willing it to fade away and reveal her familiar. A dragon, a griffin...a cat...a toad...even a rock would be nice...Anything to shut up the laughter behind her.
Anything to avoid seeing...that...on her mothers face.
Shivering at the thought, and then promptly trying to erase it, Louise forced herself to focus on the smoke, the too dark and too thick substance her explosion had summoned this time...
It was strange. Normally the stuff was at most a light gray that vanished almost immediately.
Certainly it was never like this, the column taunting her by remaining almost solid in the center as the rest faded enough to be slightly translucent, making it seem that her familiar was a human of some kind. Louise almost laughed at the thought. A human familiar? Impossible.
She stubbornly hung on to that thought as the cloud dissipated further without losing the form, even attempting to keep holding on to it as some details were revealed. It was only when color was could be recognized that Louise gave up entirely in her confusion, and simply stared as the last of the smoke finally cleared.
It was a women clad in a tattered red dress with an equally ragged black scarf, that much was clear. Despite her height being close to average for an adult, her lithe frame seemed to tower over all others simply by the way she held herself.
Louise cringed as she got caught up in the women's details. The...quite sizable chest. The blond hair unhealthily paled to the point of being almost white draped her shoulders. The skin tanned enough to be a light brown. And red eyes over a scowl, both cold, both insultingly dismissive...
All of this passed through Louise's eyes in an instant, but what caught her thoughts the most was...
"Who...are you?", demanded the young Vallière, unknowingly turning her fellow nobles attention back to the ritual circle.
The woman completely ignored her.
That made Louise angry. "Don't you -"
Whatever the mage was about to say was interrupted by the laughter of her peers.
"What is that~~?"
"A commoner?"
"Ha! Louise summoned a prostitute!"
"How much did you pay her to fake it?"
"Was she any good?"
Louise's face boiled red as the laughter grew louder. "It's not like that! I...I just made a little mistake!"
Despite the circle being perfect...despite the rituals words being perfect...despite her blood-line being perfect even...
"Just a mistake?", taunted Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst, a member of a Germanian family that called Vallière family their rivals and bitter foes. She had taken up that enmity with all her heart. "Isn't that what you always do?"
Louise fumed. "Shut your mouth! I'll fix this!...I'll just summon another familiar..."
"Silence!"
The voice, strong and authoritative, cut through the chatter and the insults in an instant.
Professor Colbert(1), a man of muscle, heavily tanned skin, and a bald head accompanied by black facial hair that flared into a curl on the sides, pointed towards the mysterious women. His teacher's robes somehow managed to not be pressed tight against his body.
"Miss Vallière. This is a holy ritual of summoning. There will be no such things as 'Fixing It'", he said, completely ignoring the girl's protests, "You have called her to service, and therefore she must be your familiar"
He sighed. "Please, just finish the ritual"
Louise nodded, hesitating as she stepped forward. She summoned...a human. A girl. And to complete the ritual...
Her face went red. Her reputation wouldn't be able to take it. She was a pariah already from her failure to cast a single spell, but to do...to do this?
Nervously clearing her throat, she was unable to keep a quiver from her voice. "You...you should be grateful. Th-this is a once in a life-time opportunity, commoner. P-please kneel."
Louise paused as the woman again showed no sign of attention towards her, nor any motion at all. The ritual required a...face to face contact thing to complete, and the women was too tall, almost half again her own height, for her to do it.
"Familiar, I said Kneel!"
Again, the women said nothing, did nothing, the only warning a slight twitching to her hands.
"Pathetic. Never let it be said that I never did a Vallière a favor. Once again, I show mercy to our families eternal rivals!"
"What? Kirche? No!", Louise squeaked as she found herself lifted awkwardly into the air, her rival's strength not enough to keep the two of them from stumbling back, and then forward.
Caught by surprise, Louise's lips met the woman's, and tasted power.
Authors Notes:
(1) On a whim, I have had Professor Colbert's appearance changed to match that of Lordgenome from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. He's still Colbert, he just looks different. There might be other slight influences as well.