Alright, well, this is happening. This is a story that I've had in my head for about a year, give or take. It focuses on one man and his strange power to see things called Glimpses. He'll start out as a nondescript civilian and grow into a warrior of the highest caliber with the help of his friends. Or some storybook shit like that. I dunno. Just read the damn thing.

No one ever really expects the end of everything to occur in their lifetime. We heard that the sun would burn itself out in about fifteen billion years, give or take a few, but we figured that by that time humanity would have advanced to the point where FTL travel would be like walking to the corner store. The ball of rock we call Earth, third planet from the star in the Sol System, reached its latest year and, as all the others before it had, proceeded to do nothing unique at all. It brought the birthday of about eight billion human beings, caused the demise of millions of calendars, and disappointed about five people on a daily basis who hoped for the apocalypse. One of the few birthdays that really mattered was one of a suspiciously plain human being.

On that day, said human happened to be walking down the street of the latest big, fashionable metropolitan city, just as hundreds of other, equally plain humans were doing alongside him. His attire consisted of a grey t-shirt, navy plaid shirt, battered brown leather jacket, faded but sturdy jeans, and dark brown boots, seeing as it was winter. As he continued walking down the street, his narrowed violet eyes taking in the gleaming examples of human technology, he reflected on his life up to this point, his twentieth birthday.

The earliest memory he has consists of him curled into the fetal position on a small side road leading off a busy highway. Seeing as he had no official birth records, he christened that day his birthday, named himself Atrus after one of the few memories that remained, and started surviving. Atrus eventually worked up enough general skills to the point where he could construct a shelter in a forest and perform small time jobs for a neighborhood, such as mowing the lawn or raking leaves.

This method eventually evolved into the routine he has today, a mix of freelance construction, courier, and craftsman work, generally nothing that would tie him down to any one place. He would travel the globe, walking cross country, ignorant of wars and conflicts, debt and strife. While walking, he would save up money for a boat ticket to the next continent he would visit, learning the language before arrival. When he arrived in a new place, he would go out of his way to learn about his location, including various self defence and fighting techniques, the local religion, the history of the architecture, whatever caught his fancy.

His never knew his parents, and he never bothered searching for them. Considering he was just left in the middle of the street in some backwater American town, he never even tried. Someone who wouldn't even bother following stereotypes and/or have the common goddamn courtesy to drop him in a basket at the front door of an orphanage with a little name card could stay out of his life, thank you very much. When in a new place, he would come up with a new last name on the spot, but never identified with one. They never clicked, never stuck, never resonated with his soul, his very being, like his real one would.

Or something like that.

On a related but separate note, Atrus happened to have a chronic case of poor luck. It seemed that no matter what he did, he was destined to never have many personal relationships, general luck in life, or epiphanies on what he wanted to do with said life. There was a reason for all of this, however. He felt he had reached a point in his life where he needed only a few things, despite nearing maturity.

Atrus just needed the Glimpses.

What are glimpses, he hears you ask? We'll go ahead and cover that.

Glimpses are, as far as Atrus can tell, rips in reality that lead to a different universe. They look sort of like vertical strips of transparent static that wobble around and generally look shaky and fragile as hell. When he first noticed them, his five-year old brain couldn't process the thought that he was special to an extent that he could see these things that other people couldn't. When he finally deflected the adults in his life that would send him to the loony bin, he worked up the courage to approach one, it seemed to react to him by vibrating even more violently, and when he got close enough, opening into something resembling a wobbly oval shaped window.

When he looks through a glimpse, there's an equal chance that he'll see something interesting as there is the chance that he'll see something mind-numbingly boring or mentally scarring. But all of them, with the exception of a recurring group of three (which he'll get to in a second), show various forms of media. Not like they're being played on a screen or something, no, these have a sense of realism to them that can't be replicated by a television. An example of one of the Glimpses he witnessed was a man in a green tunic with a silly hat jogging through viridian plains with a gleaming shield on his arm and a silver sword in hand. Not two weeks later, one of his present acquaintances introduced him to the Legend of Zelda series. It was around this time he came up with the 'separate universe' theory.

He's entertained the thought of travelling through one of the Glimpses before, but dismissed it as being a monumentally stupid idea. If walking near one made it rip open and shake itself near to pieces, what would trying to use them as public transport do? He didn't want to think about the possibilities of being scattered all over known and unknown space.

Putting explanations and possible hyper-violent deaths aside for now though.

In the middle of walking down the sidewalk, a feeling in his gut made him step out of the flow of bodies and gaze lazily at a storefront. On the televisions in the display, the newswoman was saying something about unusual weather patterns and a storm interrupting communications to the sister stations. Atrus thought this was strange, but nothing out of the ordinary as far as problems go. In the middle of turning away and dismissing his gut feeling, he noticed a rippling in the glass.

He froze, then slowly brought his head back around and observed the rippling. He moved closer. Closer still.

A singular thought ran through his mind.

'I'm a fucking idiot.' He turned around and stared hard into the sky. There it was.

Holy shit.

That is the single biggest Glimpse he's ever seen.

It's a more than a little worrying how he hadn't noticed before actually.

Up in the sky, as tall as some of the mid-range skyscrapers, was a Glimpse. Not just any glimpse though, this one was drawing others to it.

This was interesting in itself because Atrus had never seen a glimpse move before, it left a small glowing trail and sound almost leaked out as it moved. As some of the attracted ones passed him, he heard what might have, at one point, been a rock 'n' roll song, now distorted almost beyond recognition. Another spat out detonations and screams. Still another let slip quiet weeping and static. These and thousands more went to the giant glimpse and rotated around it like moons. It was oddly silent once they were settled in their respective orbits, then, it happened.

All of the Glimpses orbiting the Glance, as the tall one shall henceforth be known as, suddenly stopped moving altogether. Then, one by one, they all zipped into the massive crack in reality, making small crackling noises that gradually increased in volume until it sounded like a jet engine that had a couple hundred glass bottles thrown in. Atrus had, at this point, crouched and clamped his hands over his ears, grimacing in pain and narrowing his eyes into slits. A few of the passerby noticed him and took actions ranging from walking a little faster to outright stepping out of the river of people to ask if he was alright, which he was barely able to nonverbally communicate to to let know that he was okay.

It was a lie. This was fucking horrible. It was like all the chainsaws in the world decided to have a metal concert with a few miniguns and stick of dynamite or two, who then invited some broken phonographs.

Then, all of a sudden, the sound stopped. Atrus looked up with relief on his face that rapidly paled and changed into horror. The Glance had opened wide. That wasn't what scared him though. It was a combination of two things. One, the river of commuters had stopped moving and was now staring, open mouthed, at the Glance. It was beyond him at this point, but later he would reflect on how everyone could finally see one of the damned things. The second thing that terrified him was what he saw on the other side of the Glance.

Nothing.

Not darkness, not space, not a vacuum. Just. Nothing. The absence of something.

Every time prior to this moment, there had always been something on the other side of the glimpses, whether it be teenagers fighting an ancient evil with magic, grizzled space marines embroiled in a galaxy spanning war, or an insane man surviving in what was left of a world, there was always something. Now, there simply wasn't. It was horrifying for the man that had relied on these constructs for so long, for there to be one of such mind boggling scale and yet have such a void inside of it. That wasn't the end of his troubles though, as there was a breeze that was growing stronger by the second. Others started to notice and began to mumble in shock, yet only a few had made the slightly intelligent decision to get the hell out of Dodge as quickly as humanly possible. Atrus didn't. He knew there was no escaping this. He could feel it.

As the breeze intensified, kicking up urban debris, people finally snapped out of their shock and began to run, mumble louder, pray, or even stumble towards it in a daze, depending on what went through their heads. Atrus just stayed in his kneeling position, having another of his gut feelings. 'Well, they haven't led me wrong yet.' he thought, while wondering how long this would go on for. Would the Glance just keep expanding with every object it sucked in, or would it burn out?

He got his answer in the next few seconds. Looking back, it seemed to happen in slow motion. He saw the Glance shrink back down to about half the size of a normal glimpse then shatter the world around it like a pane of glass. It sent out tendrils of lightning that atomized all the people near him and chained to those farther away, continuing until there nothing but dust left on the street except for Atrus.

He was not unharmed though, as he had taken a lightning bolt to the chest and for some reason, hadn't been killed. He was, however, in almost the highest amount of pain a human can experience, as the lightning had sent a burst of glimpse energy into every one of his nerves. He had felt pain before, either from assholes on the street who felt it necessary to kick a sniffling bundle of rags lying on the sidewalk, or from messing up and injuring himself on one of his miscellaneous jobs. None of it even came close to this. While writhing in pain, he missed the shattered fragments of the Glance melting into a silvery substance and molding into another one. He was able to slowly drag his head up and look at the Glance once more, just in time to see it detonate. This time it didn't even bother with lightning, it just started expanding at an unbelievable pace, swallowing up the skyscrapers on either side of it, as well as the street.

Atrus managed one last gaze at the sky he'd wandered under his whole life before the Glance swallowed him up comple-

o0O0o

Pain.

It was all he knew for years.

His body didn't change, he didn't age.

He would open his eyes sometimes, but all he could see was void. Nothing. In every direction. Just like the Glance. It still scared him to an extreme extent.

He sometimes wondered where he was and if he could somehow leave, but shot that idea down, as the instant he forced one of his limbs to move, it was struck with even more pain. He had resolved himself to wait out the void, and see if he couldn't puzzle his way out this situation.

He stilled.

He blinked.

He was somewhere different.

o0O0o

Ruby Rose was tired.

This is not a normal occurrence, as she is usually known for sprinting around Beacon Academy's campus approaching the speed of sound, but for some reason, she felt all around worse than usual.

There maaaaay also be something wrong with her head too, as she's been catching glimpses of something out of the corner of her eyes for a few days now. She's asked other people if they saw them too, but they just gave her weird looks.

Gly- Professor Goodwitch had excused her from class today because there was obviously something wrong with her with the amount of movement not going on. As she was on her way back to her dorm, she was able to see more of the things she thinks she sees. They looked like glowing white lines, but she couldn't be sure, as when she fully turned to look at them they quickly faded away like they were never there.

She sighed, then continued on her slow walk to her dorm to rest a little.

As she neared the rooms of RWBY and JNPR, she felt a little more uncomfortable with each step she took, her body heating up and itching all over. She was able to reach the entrance to the room scan her scroll, then shoulder it open. She nearly staggered one step inside, then...

o0O0o

Atrus blinked, ignoring the relatively minor amount of pain from something pressing into his back and cast his gaze across his new locale. He was moderately surprised to find he was in what looked like a dorm room. He noted the extremely unstable looking bunk beds, one being held up by rope and the one above him being supported by- are those books?

The bed he was lying on was comfortable and the present safety and state of the room was agreeable enough. His eyes had just started to drift shut to possibly get real sleep after all these years of being suspended, awake, in the void, but snapped open when he heard the entrance to the room unlock and swing open.

o0O0o

Ruby and Atrus both froze and stared at each other.

Ruby wondered why there was an - admittedly attractive - unknown man laying in on Blake's bed.

Atrus wondered how the hell she got her hair to change colors that well.

Before either of them could question the other, the heat and discomfort that Ruby had noticed more and more suddenly tripled when she made eye contact with the man.

The same was happening to Atrus, but the sudden instinctive desire to move with discomfort led to his arm snapping up, subsequently sending him into another bout of agony.

The reaper looked up just in time to see the man's arm move and send him into the most gut-wrenching screams Ruby had heard until this point. With a horrified expression on her face she dashed to his side in a flurry of rose petals, and was able to hear him whisper a ragged 'help' just before one of the things she had been seeing all day opened up beneath the man and let him sink in, quickly disappearing into the void beyond. With a soft pop, the hole sealed up and disappeared, leaving Ruby alone to slump forwards against Blake's bed as she was overwhelmed by the unpleasant sensations and blacked out.

o0O0o

Atrus resisted the urge to sigh. He had opened his eyes after the falling sensation in that room and upon finding nothing but the blackness, had let loose a large sigh, only to find that it moved his torso, causing another session of pain.

On another note, something was wrong with his body. It felt like a constant burn in his muscles and scraping on his bones, this time triggering his pain even without him moving. Atrus figured that his pain tolerance, on a scale of one to one hundred, must be somewhere in the high eighties to even think of stupid shit like rating his pain while he was enduring it.

He was rather proud of himself for remaining sane through the constant torture, but without reference points for mental health he couldn't be sure, and this path of thinking wasn't leading him anywhere positive for the results.

o0O0o

The itching has stopped by now. Atrus glanced at his body, but couldn't make out anything different about it, other than the regular thinness that came from a lackluster diet. One interesting fact about the void was that he noticed his body quality was decreasing slower than if he had been out of the blackness for all these years. Atrophy had not set in, and he wasn't a skeleton yet, so he could only assume that the void kept him preserved somehow.

In this time, he thought about all the places he had seen through the Glimpses. He was able to access his memories easier than before he Glance, but he attributed that to all the time he spent thinking. It was kind of like occlumency, in a way.

Thinking of occlumency got him on the topic of all the things he'd seen through glimpses. 'I swear to all that is holy, if I eventually get out of here but it drops me into a dangerous universe like straight up hell or one infested with monsters like Remnan-"

"Hold up." Pain from his jaw and throat.

Was that who he saw? Did he seriously meet Ruby goddamn Rose and only manage a pathetic 'help?'

Wait, if this void plopped him there, is it possible to get back? Are there others?

Atrus then forgot all about the void, all about his nigh-everlasting pain, and focused instead on his memories of the glimpses and various media he remembered from his old world. He reached a level of hype not previously known to mankind, and vowed to try and utilize a glimpse for transportation to whatever universe was seen through it at his earliest convenience.

o0O0o

Later that decade (?), he was contemplating the myriad collection of memories he had when he was nearly scared shitless by a sudden popping noise and flash. His eyes whipped open and around to view...something. It was similar to the glimpses he'd seen before, so he figured it was connected to the powers of the void.

His hand twitched, checking how much pain he was in from his shattered nerves all those years ago. When his hand reported back registering about an eleven on the Void Scale of Bullshit Pain™, he reached out towards the thing, which his eyes told him vaguely resembled one of the glimpses he'd witnessed in his life, but this time, it seemed stable. Completely so. Disturbingly so. It had a soft grey glow around the edges of what seemed to be an ellipse of shining silver liquid. The void resisted his reach, the arm feeling like it was gently trailing through molasses but burning like he'd decided to take a swim in the earth's mantle. As the appendage grew closer, the silvery substance began to ripple outwards from the point his fingers were stretching towards, expectant for his touch, eager to be felt, for what seemed like the first time.

Then, contact. It felt like an explosion to his senses, due to the disuse of centuries past. The grey substance felt like the surface of water, yet didn't break, just folded around his limb as he stretched into it more and more, desperate for something to break the monotony of his prison.

He would get his wish.

Suddenly, it felt like something encompassed his arm up to the elbow and pulled. His arm was nearly pulled from the socket with the sudden tug, which didn't let up until he started moving. Oh god, he was moving. He had never been able to get his body to move through the void for as long as he'd been here, so even a speed of a few millimeters per second with every nerve in his body at a steady twenty on the VSoBP™ was exhilarating. So exhilarating in fact, he didn't register being pulled into the silver up to his shoulder, and it still didn't click until it reached his face. At that point he had calmed down, ignoring the pain which had increased at a steady rate to hover around a fifty, bearable but noticeable. He began to wiggle his fingers, tense his arm, and miraculously, he felt no pain. The feeling was so alien at this point, he didn't know if he was using any of his muscles right.

As the liquid worked its way across his head, he was forced to close his eyes. It was at this point he noticed a feeling on the arm on the other side of the portal. It was strangely familiar after all these years, and it made him lapse into memories to try and recall what it was. It cooled him off and brushed against his hand sending goosebumps rocketing his flesh, and he marvelled at the feelings it brought him. He waited until the feeling registered. It was wind, rather strong in comparison to the rainstorms he had experienced back on Earth. The feeling continued up his arm and to his body and head, and he assumed he could open his eyes now, which he did.

Wow.

He was hundreds of feet in the air, looking out over a vast stretch of green plains and sparse forest. There was a stretch of modest sized mountains about ten miles from where he was. He happened to be positioned directly over the courtyard of a castle-like structure, consisting of five squat and wide towers connected by thick stone walls. Linked to the five towers by stone corridors was an even larger one that was built on two tiers of a circular base before leading into a thinner but higher tower. Directly below him, he could see a bunch of people milling around a bunch of squiggles drawn on the ground. Atrus questioned what exactly was happening, but didn't question it too much. After another quick inspection of his body, he found he had slid out of the portal to the extent where only his legs from the knees down were still in, and they were coming out even faster than his torso went in.

Atrus, with his respectable intelligence amplified by the pseudo-occlumency, quickly foresaw a problem. A man, hundreds of feet above solid ground, without an instrument of flight, usually doesn't survive his plummet. He tried to bend at the waist and grab on to the edge of the portal, but found it was completely intangible, as if mocking him. He lost his chance to do even that, as his left foot popped out of the portal with an audible sucking noise and dangled him even more dangerously than before. Atrus sighed, resigned himself to at least a seventy five on the VSoBP™ before the impact killed him, and relaxed all his muscles, letting his right leg free of the silver puddle, which promptly drew in upon itself and disappeared.

He seemed to hang there a second, contemplating his life up to this point and the plans he had made for making his life not being a constant montage of trekking and odd jobs. Then he was gently reminded that Gravity is a fair mistress, and must treat all her subjects equally. Atrus started falling at a pace far faster than he'd assumed, which barely gave him enough time to orient himself vertically in order to compress the mess he'd inevitably make, because he didn't want to inconvenience these presumably nice people too much with his corpse.

He drew closer, closer still, the wind whipped at his clothes and hair, creating a mighty gale around his body as it fell feet first towards the collection of scribbles. About fifty feet before impact, there was a momentous explosion of smoke and debris from where he was going to land. This caused his aged leather jacket to gain an extra coating of dust and scuffs as he entered the cloud. As he careened through the dust, he braced himself for his inevitable deat-

THUD

What?

He barely felt that, it was more akin to jumping off a low building than landing feet first after several hundred feet of free fall. He twitched his limbs, relishing the feeling of movement without pain for the first time in what felt like centuries. Atrus glanced up, attempting to squint through the cloud of detritus he landed in. As far as he could tell, he wasn't the only occupant of the cloud. He made out three other distinct shapes, one bulky but streamlined, one appearing to be a recognizably female shape with some additions, and the last looking like someone with a flowing cloak on. Atrus managed, after several seconds of acclimatizing to his limbs once more, to evacuate himself from the earth he had sunk up to his waist in. He overheard a high-pitched voice saying something to a someone but couldn't be bothered to care or understand it at this point.

He could move without pain! Atrus was ecstatic by now, and was so involved with his experimentation that he didn't notice the small object next to him until it jumped up and screamed in his ear. After flinching away from the offending sound, he slowly turned his head to the side and froze.

Long pink hair, magenta eyes, short stature, and a uniform consisting of a dark short skirt and white blouse with a brass pin at the collar holding up a cape. That outfit seemed familiar somehow, was it witnessed through a glimpse at some point? Atrus searched his occlumency before finally finding what he was looking for. It was the outfit of the Tristain Academy of Magic, from the Familiar of Zero franchise. That would probably make this Louise.

He was once more caught up in the occlumency so completely, he only snapped back to reality when Louise whapped him on the forehead with her wand and grabbed the collar of his flannel shirt before yanking his head down into brief contact with her lips.

Oh shit.

Going still, Atrus could only wait and stare at his hand in horror as the runes began to sear themselves into the appendage. He waited a second, then another. After around ten seconds, the pain that he had read about and seen had only reached about a fifteen on the Pain Scale. 'Jesus Christ, was the void that painful the entire time?' He thought before turning back to Louise, only to see the crowd of students, half of which were giving him a slightly haughty, suspicious look, while the other half were snickering at his 'plebian' attire and the fact that it was Louise who summoned him. A quizzical expression overtaking his face, he glanced left and right before having the good sense to look behind himself. He did so while repeating two actions he had used repeatedly since arriving in this universe. Marvelling at the lack of pain, then freezing. The marvelling is self explanatory, but the freezing was due to what he witnessed when he turned around.

This is already different from what he remembered. As far as his memory went, he only remembered one person being summoned for Louise, not three.

Okay. Calm down. This is basically going to be a fanfiction where everything goes perfect because the summoned familiar is exponentially too overpowered for what occurs in the opening season.

Atrus raised his head and studied the other familiars. Surprisingly, he could place them all based on their looks alone.

The one closest to him had platinum white hair trailing to her upper back styled in two tails on either side of her head. Her light brown eyes sparkled with intelligence yet were dim with tiredness. She was around five and a half feet tall, with a lean, toned build that was hidden by her flowing cloak. The cloak was black, with purple lines and gold accents and was heavily worn, with seemingly fresh stains and scuffs in the durable fabric. She wore a gleaming but dented silver breastplate underneath, with a tan shirt and pair of pants one more layer down. She had a tattered royal blue mantle over the cloak, and worn in, sturdy looking boots on her feet. She appeared to be armed with a large hand and a half sword at her waist, and was carrying a battered book with a dark leather cover. There was also a silver polished foot long rod belted at the small of her back. She seemed exhausted, simply staring at the runes on the back of her right hand with half hearted interest. She started, as if coming back to her senses, then lifted her head to gaze back at Atrus, who was slightly embarrassed at being caught staring. She merely gave him a strange look somewhere between suspicion and questioning and lowered her head to palm through her book. Atrus was able to place her as Robin from Fire Emblem, a strange, if powerful, choice in familiar.

Moving to the next person, Atrus instantly recognized the girl standing stock still. She had pale blue hair in a chin length cut, and possessed gleaming crimson eyes. She was dressed in a skintight white suit with interlocking ceramic plates attached at regular intervals, which came together to make a futuristic looking set of segmented armor. She was partly leaning on a blue and white patterned staff topped with what looked like a small head covered in blue plating having only one eye. She was simply standing still, with blinks and the rise and fall of her chest being the only evidence she wasn't a particularly detailed statue. Atrus quickly identified her as Rei Ayanami from Evangelion. Once more, a peculiar case, but another powerful one nonetheless.

His last companion in servitude was a little harder to place, as most of her features was obscured by a dark horned helmet. Brown hair cascaded out the back bottom in a ponytail down to her lower back. She was wearing a breastplate of very dark grey metal with gold trimming around the edges. Her arms were bare except for a what appeared to be sode of the same dark grey and fur gloves that came up to mid-forearm with plates of the same dark grey armor bolted on the outside. She wore a wide leather belt with more of the dark grey metal plates hanging off the sides of it, almost trailing into the greaves she wore on her shins. Under all the armor, she wore various straps and a light brown pair of pants and shirt. She also had expanses of animal fur placed at strategic places on her torso and lower body to trap heat. She was armed with a wicked looking mace with strange runes inscribed on the handle and head, a bow without a string, and a shield on her back that appeared to be made out of some kind of tough bone. She warily glanced around and gave Atrus a clear look at her eyes, the iris of which seemed to swirl with orange and light blue. Atrus was hesitant in his evaluation, but judging by the look of the armor and weapons, he pegged her as the Last Dragonborn from Skyrim. This seemed to be a natural pick for a familiar, as she was proficient in combat and knew various kinds of magics.

Casting one more sweeping glance at all the familiars, he checked to see what was happening with Louise. As he expected at this point, she was screeching at some of the students who were chuckling at her for summoning not one, but four commoners (even if that one's clothes and the other's armor looked expensive). Atrus glanced between her and his fellow familiars, before turning to them and clearing his throat to gain their attention. Their heads swiveled to survey him, gazes holding various emotions, ranging from curious to suspicious.

He coughed a little, and then spoke roughly, his voice having not been used in a few hundred years. "I assume you all have no idea what just happened to us?"

Two quiet shakes of a head and one nearly silent 'No.' later, Atrus sighed. He thought on it for a second, before deciding on the blunt treatment.

"Alright," he said, "we have just been conscripted as Familiars for the small one over there. The magic works a little differently than you two," he nods at Robin and the Dragonborn, "might remember."

At this point, Rei interrupted. "Magic?"

"Ah, right, you wouldn't have seen it. Just don't think much of it yet."

She nodded, returning to silence, but remaining attentive.

Atrus faltered slightly with the abrupt acceptance of his claims, but mentally shrugged, squared his shoulders, and trundled on.

"Well, I suppose introductions would be in order, as I have no knowledge on how to break the contract and you all don't look particularly interested in breaking it."

The woman in full armor (Dragonborn?) stepped forward first. "I am Alora Stormcrown, Thane of Nine Holds, Harbinger of the Companions, and General of the Imperial Legion, among other titles."

Impressive, it seems someone wanted their completion achievements.

The ylissean stepped up next, and spoke in a quiet voice, "My name is Robin... Ferox, I was the Grandmaster Tactician of the Shepherds." Was? "My... employment was terminated shortly after the main threat to the country was... disposed of." She said this while her eyes drifted to the side and her hands sought each other out and rubbed at the back of her left hand.

That doesn't bode well. Atrus getting inklings that this Robin may not have been as nicely treated once her comrades found about her lineage.

Rei sedately and silently glided up to speak next. Atrus had to strain to hear her consistently.

"I am Rei Ayanami."

Uh…

Well, she certainly got her point across, Atrus guesses he can respect that.

He was the last one to step up as well.

One last deep breath and in we go. "My name is Atrus, and no," he cut off the opening mouth of Alora with a short motion of his arm, "I don't have a last name. I… well, that's a story for another time. All you need to know about me is that I really wasn't important at all."

Rei frowned. Alora narrowed her eyes slightly. Robin didn't visibly react except for the whitening of her knuckles. It seemed they were going to try and pep-talk him out of his beliefs like the main characters they were, but were interrupted by a tiny pink spot that had made its way to the edge of their huddle.

It made some unintelligible noises that sounded like a command. Said noises were largely ignored. This seemed to make it angrier, and it reached up and bopped Atrus on the back.

He didn't feel anything except the slight application of pressure. Yet, this was enough for him to break off from the huddle and turn to Louise.

She talked a bit, and seemed to be going on about something she took pride in, closing her eyes in confidence halfway through her speech, but opened them at the end meeting only confused stares.

This served only to make her more upset, before she reached forward and grabbed Atrus by the hand and pulled him along with her. It was all he could do to look back and motion for the others to follow him.

o0O0o

Louise was upset.

This was not a rare occurrence, yet this time, it was because of a completely new reason.

Well, reasons.

All four of them were following her down the hallway to her room.

She just couldn't understand. Why is it always her that has to mess up and be the odd one out? Every single other student got a familiar that was somewhat useful to their continued magical career.

Then she steps up, recites a brand new summoning chant of her own design, one she was sure would send her the best familiar this academy had ever seen. One typical explosion later, she sees the atypical result of her spell.

That being that there was one at all.

No, while she was upset that she didn't get a dragon, or a griffin, or some other magical creature, she was not stubborn or stupid enough to think that a commoner could have zero use.

But she summoned four.

It would be like her personal retinue following her around.

Maybe they would even become her friends.

She allowed herself a small smile.

o0O0o

Atrus was ready to explode.

You might think that this is a unique occurrence for him, and you'd be half right.

He wants Louise to cast the silencing spell so he can hurry up and explain their predicament. He's perfectly fine with the pain and discomfort that typically comes from being blown up, but what he isn't fine with is the abomination of a language the Halkegenians use.

It's kinda like the hellish bastard child of french, german, and the tiniest sprinkling of japanese.

Anyways.

Atrus, Rei, Robin, and Alora are all sitting on the floor around Louise's room, waiting for something to happen.

In his endless wisdom, Atrus starts humming. It is a formless tune, lacking rhyme or reason, but he directs a challenging stare at Louise, as if daring her to stop him.

The other familiars have been filled in on his foresight and leave him to his suicidal plan.

Needless to say, Louise's patience lasts all of five minutes.

One painless (to Atrus) silencing spell later, Atrus is explaining how the spell backfired and needs to be cast on all the others.

Louise is understandably upset over the fact that another one of her spells backfired, but is immeasurably glad to finally understand these peasants. She quickly casts the spell three more times.

After the introductions which leave Louise more than a little pale over the implications of Robin and Alora's titles, they all settle in for the night, wanting this day to be over so they can acclimatize better tomorrow.

Atrus scoots around, trying to find the most comfortable spot on the floor.

He has one final thought before passing out, getting real sleep for the first time in eons.

'Here we fucking go.'

Okay, so, I have absolutely no idea where I want this story to go, or what I want it to do, but expect a whole lot of mistakes and inconsistencies.

Expect updates to be a long time coming, I write slower than Methuselah.

Please give me feedback, I have no goddamn clue what I'm doing.