Crossovers that Shouldn't Be: Guyver/Familiar of Zero, Agito version
Disclaimer:
This fanfiction is written under the auspices of Fair Use of the likenesses of charaters, environments, and situations from the various Guyver and Familiar of Zero properties. This means that this work will avoid plagiarizing the existing properties, and thus things will deviate from canon.
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Agito found himself being pulled across space and time, a feeling that was far from alien but different in character then the occasional trip through hyperspace. The fact he appeared in a cloud of smoke was definitely off. It dissipated quickly revealing a large grassy field enclosed by stonework that while impressive for its size, was lacking in any apparent sense of purpose or flair beyond the use of colored roof tiles. Around him in a loose fashion were numerous children and a single balding adult who didn't give the sense of actually being in control. It all looked like some kind of magic school along the lines of that Harry Potter series from several decades backs. (1)
"Who..." He glanced down and noticed a girl that was probably eleven years old standing in front of him who was clearly working up her courage to address him. It really did not take much for him to place what the basic situation was even without the patronizing catcalls about her being a "Zero." Her posture and demeanor said plenty.
To be free of backbiting schoolgirls participating in backbiting schoolgirl politics.
"My name is Agito Makashima, I'm pleased to meet you." He said with practiced pleasantness. His instincts told him she was responsible, and when there was an option he just preferred to not be needlessly confrontational.
The catcalls increased as someone apparently started adding "common human" and "commoner" to the mix, which quickly caught on and had the predictable effect on their target. The fact this could even be used in such a manner reinforced the notion this was some kind of Harry Potter school, unless they were Zoanoids. In which case they were up for an unpleasant surprise if they pushed the issue.
"Do you always allow your charges to be publicly humiliated by simpletons?" I quickly address to the balding adult I can only presume is in charge, intentionally adding the slur. This had the combined effect of forcing the man out of his apathy and the crowd suddenly going silent.
"Who are you calling a simpleton, commoner?" Was the predictable response with the predictable follow up chatter, proving in the process that it wasn't a insult. It was simply an observation.
"I presume this is some kind of ceremony involving the summoning of creatures and that this reflects upon the summoner, yes?" He made sure to control his voice and keep it in a reasonable tone asking the question as if it was merely a matter of intellectual curiosity.
"Of course, this is the Holy Ritual of Summoning." The balding adult provided, effectively showing again whose side he was on... Naturally followed with attempts at dismissal from a crowd eager to tear down the one who had slighted them.
"Then I would suggest you teach your class a lesson in being intelligent enough to not presume things based on the barest of evidence in the manner of a simpleton, and have the dignity to not behave in such a manner towards their peers." The adult sputtered, and the catcalls died down expect those being launched anonymously from the crowd. They were now however directed at him.
The little girl who had basically gotten lost and drowned out in it all was currently looking rather confused. Given how openly the crowd had attacked her and how this kind of gauche back biting politics worked it was rather clear she didn't really have anybody that could rightly be called a friend and would stand up for her. So it was only natural that having someone stand up and unexpectedly turn the tables back on her tormentors would be a completely alien experience.
"Class is dismissed except for Louise Francoise de La Blanc de Valliere, and her familiar." The balding man declared, clearly less then appreciative of having responsibility for his students actions rightly put on his lap. In the process confirming my suspicions that if this place wasn't some kind of Harry Potter magic school it was trying its darnedest to look like one. While most of the students simply flew off a particularly well endowed redhead couldn't resist getting in a backhanded compliment. To be free of backbiting schoolgirls participating in backbiting schoolgirl politics.
"She only has as much power over you as you give her." Agito observed to the little girl as he observed her fists tighten in response and her entire posture go livid.
"If only..." She did not so much yell as scream before trailing off undoubtedly debating a zillion what-ifs. Undoubtedly revolving around the principle her tormentors attacked her based on their jibes of choice rather then their ability to successfully isolate and ridicule her.
"Anger is natural, but you shouldn't let it control you."
The teacher kept sputtering as he started a thought and changed his mind repeatedly. That was fine. "Is there anything else?"
Grateful for a clear opening the teacher responded with, 'Louise still needs to complete the "Servant's Contract."'
"I presume its purpose is some kind of brand?" Agito observed non-chalantly.
"It is a way to mark you as a familiar, and setup a magical contract." The balding man grateful for things to once more be on apparently favorable terms said almost happily.
"Is that all that remains?" Agito responded in kind like it was nothing.
"Indeed that is all that remains." Cue ball responded with a nod.
"In that case we're done here. I'm not interested. I will however look after the girl."
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Agito managed to rather quickly lift a lot of relevant information through the use of soft interrogation techniques. Simple inquiries revealed that yes the locals practised magic but they were powerless without a wand or similar tool granting them the ability to manipulate it. Encouraging her to vent about her perceived tormentors and a little strategic goading granted him some insight into what they were actually capable of, but only a rough picture as the nature of the technique inherently encouraged as emotional and thus hardly objective response. He did get the impression there was nothing here that was a serious threat to him, but then that had been the case until Guyot had demonstrated his ability to defy death the first time back home.
More importantly he got a sense of this world's dynamics even if it was currently as seen through the warped lens of a child. Basically Fuedalism was the law of the land with the status of nobility being backed by magic. A little egging on at the right times revealed this issue was a particular sore point for her as she was the youngest daughter of her family and thus subject to simply be used as political capital if she wasn't able to aid the family through use of magical power. Indeed it already sounded like she had been promised. It was a not entirely outlandish modification to such practices, given the dynamics involved. More importantly it was a potential source of leverage towards a young female who had the foolish notion she could control what the Advent themselves could not.
After his charge went to bed without any apparent comprehension of anything beyond enjoying a chance to vent had occured he openned up the window in the anteroom, and was immediately confronted by two moons. This was one of those rare times that he regretted the fact that using the Arizona Navigation Spheres to make a second Gigantes had come at the cost of losing almost all of the stored data. Without access to the Advent star charts or hyperspace navigation routes there was really not a easy way to figure out where this planet was relative to Earth. Assuming there hadn't been a dimensional shift on top of everything which could mean there wasn't a Earth, or even that this place was taking up its relative position. Either way it was clearly yet another Advent experiment that had been allowed to fallow, although whether it was simply the calm before the harvest or been truly abandoned was as always impossible to determine.
Perhaps it was time to do some footwork while his "Master" was oblivious to the world. Making sure to secure the door behind him, lest any Noble's brat decide to try something funny, he took to wandering the halls. While walking the walls might be more useful for reconaissance it wasn't time to encourage the starting of rumors about the "black demon" quite yet. He was once more struck by just how bizarre this place was.
If it was intended to be fortifiable there wasn't a single thing about the place that wasn't designed wrong. The wall , if you could even call it that, was in reality on partially as thick as it appeared turning as it did into a vault supported by stone arches. Further it was was dwarfed in both thickness and height by the excessively grandoise tall walkways. Then there was the one tower near the not even vaguely reinforced gate which was unique in only be connected to the rest of the facility through the wall.
Yet by the standards he was familiar with it wasn't exactly decorative stonework either. There was a significant lack of the reliefs and statues one would associate with such things. Nor could he say there was much in the way of true functional design involved. It was almost as if they could raise such a thing so casually as to not feel the need to give real purpose to what was normally such a large and complex endeavor.
He almost didn't notice the maid walking by, which would have been a major loss. Wise nobles had a right to fear their servants as they were the best of spies, due to being everywhere and largely being unnoticed. From what he'd seen these were not wise nobles, and thus it was simply a matter of encouraging the information to flow in the desired direction and not forcing things.
"Good evening, would you like some help with that?" Agito said indicating the rather large stack of linens the maid was carrying.
She, not unexpectedly, was startled when he spoke up. The linens were afterall blocking her view, and the hallways were basically abandoned at this hour. A quick and deft maneuver relieved her of the stack of linens before it had a chance to tumble to not entirely clean floor.
"Thank you." The yound woman said as she recovered herself.
"It's not a problem." Agito replied pleasantly.
The woman started again after they'd been walking for a moment. "Are you Madame Valliere's familiar?"
"Something like that. I take it they were talking about me?" He responded in a questioning joking way so as to encourage her to talk about what they had been saying without seeming at all confrontational or forceful in the process.
From there he was able to get a decent sense of what the school body's opinion of him was, and even get more intelligence on just what kind of a threat they represented. Of course, that involved structuring things as asking about his "Master" and how the other students compared to her in a confiding fashion that worked just fine. This left him with both much higher quality intelligence on just what these "mages" could actually do, and the geopolitics of the various bordering countries who apparently were currently enjoying a period of relative peace. Not to mention a potential avenue for more information later and even into the larger spy network the servant body represented as he had made sure to keep the conversation jovial and light while making a good impression.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
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Perhaps the most interesting bit of information he managed to obtain this morning was that the Headmaster's Secretary was a noble that had apparently been striped of her status and was now a commoner, but at the same time freely able to practice magic. The fact the cueball fancied her despite likely being twice her age, and the Headmaster was a lech were useful in their own right but nowhere near as big. Very few were those who freely walked away from power, period. This woman however hadn't even been given the opportunity to walk away, she had been forced out. As a result he put good odds that she wanted back in to the circles of power, and it wouldn't surprise him at all if she was already talking steps in that direction.
Given what he heard he seriously doubted she didn't realize that being the Headmaster's secretary and tolerating his lecherous existence would do much for her in that direction. So it was to his complete and utter lack of surprise to hear that recently there had been thefts reported to be the work of a power magician. Although if it was her it tended to point to a rather short sighted individual along the same lines as her method of acquiring her current position if the rumors the staff was aware of were true. That or something utterly quirky and clever that she was going to steal or assemble that in a perfectly sane world would never work. Not that any world was ever perfectly sane.
Either way she was worth keeping an eye on if only to break up the large servings of backbiting schoolgirl politics that were liable to dominate his immediate future. If it wasn't for the fact that this place was a literal hub between the various important families of the various nations he would have seriously considered leaving already. Not that he particularly favored soft diplomacy with those who thought they had an entitlement to screw you over. Indeed he favored arranging things so they would deliver themselves to their own divine justice. (2) The locals might be willing to idly standby as their "students" developped and reinforced bad habits which would carry over to how they handled themselves later when in control of real power in difference to trouble with their progenitators, but he had no such scruples.
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Agito couldn't help but internally smirk, while keeping his outside features pleasant, when the girl immediately decided to begin trying to abused her newfound "power" almost as soon as she woke up. The maid from before had given him a good sense of what was and what was not expected from the "commoner" staff. Dressing little girls who were too lazy to dress themselves in the morning was not included. True a normal commoner would think twice before defying a noble, but they understood the principle that there were always bigger fish and that this could be utilized just fine. Something his discussion with the maid had also verified.
Not taking an aggressive posture as always encouraged further abuse asit encouraged the exploiter to find the true limits of their "power." The fact that such people didn't have actual power but instead operated at the sufference of those they exploited togive them a tantilizing taste of what they lacked, was as a rule lost on them. Afterall the failures of short sightedness, a general lack of vision, and understanding of the humanity of those around them were why they would even bother with such petty power grabs in the first place.
As a result he decided arguing the point was inferior to simply creating an object lesson that she had no intrinsic power over him. So he said "No" in a way that said more with tone then words in response to her attempt to order him to dress her and left.
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Louise stamped her foot impotently. She finally had a servant of her own, and it refused to obey her. This wasn't how it was supposed to work! The bedframe was unimpressed with her repeated strikes of frustration, but her leg didn't prove so imprevious to her expression of frustration. Clutching a now rather sore ankle Louise's mind searched for some means reasserting her control. Thinking to how her parents handled her, she immediately thought about witholding dinner and decided breakfast made an adequate approximation.
Having dressed herself thanks to a certain servant disapearing, she rushed out to deliver her judgment. Only there was a complete and utter lack of said servant. There was however an abundance of overdeveloped Zerbst.
"Why good morning, Louise. Where is your magnificent familiar?" With emphasis placed and tone used so as to make the statement mean the opposite of what the Zerbst had actually said, particularly as directed towards her.
Louise, who never quite figured out how to use proper female doublespeak, struggled to come up with an appropriate answer. The Zerbst however being uninterested in an answer so much as getting her daily round of shots in at the Valliere, simply continued on towards the breakfast hall leaving Louise to trail in her wake. Finally settling on a convenient excuse she declared, "He's off on an errand." Neither Kirche or Tabitha showed a sign they even heard her, and she fell behind.
"As I said, they only have as much power over you as you give them." A voice calmly observed from behind her.
Louise quickly whirled around to find her familiar calmly standing a few meters behind her. "If you won't obey your Master then you won't have any breakfast!" She managed in her best imitation of her parents ordering her to go without dinner for this minor offence or that.
He responded by clapping, clapping of all things, with a small smile. "A good performance, but you neglected three things."
"What do you mean I neglected three things?" She vented in his general direction.
"First, depriving a servant of their meal reduces their ability to do work. Second, you don't have the ability to deprive me of meals. And third..." Her familiar paused, and just when she thought he might not continue the bell signifying the doors would soon close rang.
She rushed in an undignified fashion knowing that she wasn't going to make it, but determined to at least try. She didn't even get to see the door close for her trouble. Just as she was debating trying to force one of the doors she didn't hear so much as feel her familiar calmly walk up behind her.
Whirling she declared. "This is all your fault!"
A thin smile was his immediate response. "While we can argue about your attempts to shift blame for your own actions and choices, there are more pressing issues. As today is a self study period I have decided to make arrangements." He lifted up a pack from which she could almost make out the smell of freshly baked cookberry pie.
She really didn't like the way this situation had been turned completely backwards from the way it was supposed to go.
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While they had apparently raised this facility by some sort of magical means that didn't mean they'd bypassed the need for a local rock quarry. Hence it had simply been an issue of finding the appropriate direction and a means to quickly travel the distance, in the form of a pair of horses. Naturally the girl imperiously insisted she could ride a horse and proceeded to have problems leading to her having to accept his offer to ride behind him. This served to delay things, although not as long as it could have as it involved a rather short trip to return the extra horse to the stable.
A further delay arose when it turned out that there no blocks of rejected stone lying around. That either implied that it had been long enough for the locals to haul away all the potentially usable stone blocks for their own projects, or there was something to this earth magic allowing the extraction of materials issue. The solution was no so much difficult as involving a hand it was simply better not to play at this point. It then occured to him that if these people didn't leave rejected blocks and were not currently using this quarry there really wasn't much reason to not just use the exposed rock faces themselves. And so pulling out the piece of charcoal he had obtained for the purpose he quickly drew a large black spot on the smooth hewn rock face.
"Now." Agito declared as he walked his "Master" back to a relatively safe distance. "If you would be so kind as to fire a spell at the black spot we can begin."
"What kind of spell?" She asked in an unsure fashion.
"What you intend to cast isn't particularly important. It simply needs to be something you can cast a lot of, and will travel downrange before exploding." He'd heard enough accounts from both the student body and the staff to determine that explosions were the end result of all of this girl's spells. The fact none of them seemed to wrap their heads around the concept such an ability could be potentially useful instead of just deriding the girl was utterly typical.
The first spell hit high and to the right, corresponding with flick from the upper right the girl had used. It had a noticeable, if not awe inspiring by his unreasonable standards, effect on the rock. "Do you need to be moving your wand when you release a spell?" He calmly asked.
Louise stopped and thought about that for a moment, before showing with her body language more then her voice that no she didn't need to and felt embarrassed about the point.
"As long as you make the effort to learn from you mistakes do not concern yourself so much with the fact you make mistakes." Agito consoled in response. "In this case try giving yourself a second to confirm you are sighted on target before you release it."
This time she got in the circle, while it wasn't a perfect bullseye by any means it was never the less very good start. Give her some more practice to refine what she was doing and she'd be a magic sharpshooter in no time. He took a moment to examine the miss more closely as Louise continued to practice. There were no scorch marks indicative of combustible products, but there was smoke. How very odd.
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1) He's summoned from 2032 for the purposes of this fic, and has been living as a virtual hermit for some time. For our purposes the current duels outcome is not destruction of either party, but does lead to a serious and lasting schism between their two factions. None of which is really relevant here as more then simple bookkeeping issues.
2) "And I leave you the monster you always were."
Author's Notes:
My personal take on Agito's "ambition" is along the lines of a dog chasing a car. He expresses a desire for such in confidence to Shizu, but it was in the sense he sees it as a means to the ends of curing the evil of Society, particularly apathetic/selfish behavior. Something not exactly uncommon to be expressed in confidence with no intention of action followthrough. It should be noted he's never actually done anything to pursue this. Indeed his Army will at best survive long enough for him to defeat Chronos, and is utterly unsuited to any other purpose. Not to mention the issue that afterwards he will finally be truly alone.
Hence I seriously see him going hermit when it's all said and done.