the Tristain Academy of Magic the forefront in the education of the nobility in the country of Tristain. Here students study the mystic arts that all of noble birth have.
At this institution at the mark of their second year of education the students are all required to summon a familiar a magical animal that will serve as the mages partner for life and will reflect on the affinity and the nature of the mage who summoned them. It is to say a rite of passage that all mages go through.
But at this school there is a mage who holds no talent in the four basic elements where her every spell ends in explosive failure.
As such she has been given the Nickname Zero.
"Very good everyone I'm seeing some very amazing familiars good job." Said Professor Jean Colbert to his students with a soft proud smile that befit the teacher on his face.
"Now is there anyone else who is yet to summon their familiar?" He asked looking around.
"Oh Professor, Louise hasn't summoned hers." Said a dark skinned student with a smirk on her face.
"Ah yes please come forward Ms. Vallière." He said.
From the crowd a small Strawberry Blonde girl walked out. She stood less than five feet in height and as such looked much younger than her peers. At this time she wore a mildly nervous expression that she was trying desperately to hide.
"Come on Louise with all that boasting I'm sure you will summon the most amazing Familiar." The Dark skinned student said sarcastically and with a smirk.
"Whatever it is I'm sure it would just blow up after being summoned." A student in the crowd said causing all the students to burst into laughter.
"Sh-shut up!" She said in response.
"Class please be quiet." Colbert said sternly.
"Ms.Vallière if you would." He said after the noise died down.
She nodded and took a deep breath. From her side she took a polished piece of wood and lifted it up to the sky.
"My servant who exists somewhere in this vast universe!" She began
"What kind of spell is that?" A blonde haired girl wondered aloud
"Well its original that's for sure." Said a boy as he casually waved a rose in hand.
"My wise, beautiful and powerful familiar. Wherever you answer my summons and come forth!" She shouted the last line.
In front of her the very began to charge with energy as sparks began to fly. The air was still almost as if it was holding its breath in anticipation as the power grew and grew. I reached the point of critical mass within ten seconds of her finishing the incantation. The students knew what the results would be and took multiple steps back accordingly.
BOOM! An deafening explosion rang outward sending a massive cloud of dust, obscuring the vision of everybody in the vicinity and knocking a couple of others down who didn't get back far enough.
'cough cough'. "Really we should have expected this." wheezed a student as he shielded his eyes from the dust.
"Guh, ouch what the hell was that?" A voice groaned from within the cloud in a language completely different from the students.
Everyone's attention was now fixated on the cloud as it began to dissipate and from within a figure began to appear in the haze the body just outlines in the cloud.
As the cloud finally began to dissipate the figure in the epicenter of the blast became more distinct. He was taller than most of the students at around five foot eleven. He had fairly long unkempt dark brown hair that was coated with a layer of dust from the explosion. He wore a pair of rectangular steel framed glasses and had a pair of soft pale grey eyes.
His clothing to the students was odd but not in a way that stood out unless you were to pay closer attention to it. It was mostly due to the make and weaving the clothing was good but it was not anywhere near as flashy as any of the nobles would wear. He was wearing a rust red shirt and a pair of trousers made of an unknown fabric that was coloured black, overtop his shirt was a black coat that hung open. Along with this adorned on his face was a pair of rectangular glasses.
The man began to brush himself off and then looked to the crowd mainly at Louise who stood a couple meters from him.
"Hello... mind telling me what's going on." He said in the foreign language scratching the back of his head. He looked confused mainly.
"A commoner." A student laughed. "Louise the Zero summoned a commoner!"
"Well you can't say she doesn't meet expectations." The dark skinned female laughed.
"Shut up Kirche. Mr Colbert please allow me to try again." Louise said with a mixture of embarrassment and anger.
"Hello?" The man said again, nobody was paying him much attention instead choosing to watch Louise in amusement.
"I'm sorry Ms . Vallière but I cannot allow it. The familiar summoning ritual is sacred founded by the founder himself to try again is a blasphemy." He shook his head. "Like it or not this man has been chosen as your familiar."
"Bu-but..." She began.
"HELLO MIND TELLING ME WHATS GOING ON HERE!" The man shouted drawing attention back to him.
The confusion was no longer apparent on him only irritation as people saw him tapping his foot impatiently.
"Looks like the Zero has a commoner who doesn't know his place." The Blonde boy with the rose laughed.
"And he doesn't even speak our language." The girl beside him giggled.
"Ms. . Vallière if you would." Colbert said.
SHIFT
"Guh, ouch what the hell is going on?" I said as I staggered to my feet dusting myself off.
I mean think what was I doing here. I was walking in the city killing time on the rare day I was off both school and work. Went to grandpa's, went to bookstore, went to movie's and as I was making my way home I see this big green ovaloid in the middle of the path that nobody else could see.
That was probably a good enough reason to ignore it and go on my merry way but I went ahead and touched it.
I guess you can say curiosity killed the cat in this situation or maybe it should be altered to curiosity gets you sucked into a green glowing ovaloid, flung through an inky black void and deposited god knows where.
Which brings me back to my earlier concern. Where am I?
Looking around me I see a bunch of kids maybe high school age and a middle aged man in robes observing me with curiosity. The curiosity was mainly coming from the older gentleman and I as I heard someone shout out something in a language that sounded like French but was definitely not French from what I could tell from my whole life of speaking it.
"Hello... Mind telling me what's going on here?" I asked again but it doesn't sound like my voice carried over the sound of the laughter that erupted from the crowd.
The assembled students were all laughing but it seemed to be directed at the girl standing a couple of meters in front of me.
"Hello?" I try to bring their attention to me but they don't seem to hear me.
The girl in front of me turns to the balding man in the robes and they talk. She sounds embarrassed which was easy to tell even though I don't speak the language. The man frowns in a way that says teacher I'm sure.
She stutters out something And the man responds...
At this point I've lost my patience. "HELLO MIND TELLING ME WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!" I shout and begin tapping my foot on the spot attention finally being directed at me, maybe I'll finally get some answers.
I hear a guy and a girl say something and then snicker in the former case and giggle in the latter.
The older man says something with finality to the girl with the strawberry blonde hair and she sighs and turned at me with an indignant expression on her face.
She was tiny in comparison to me around a head shorter and her frame was much thinner. She wore the same outfit that all the other females seemed to wear a white blouse, black mini-skirt and a black cape. If I had to guess she had to be between twelve and fourteen at first glance as she continued to glare at me.
Then suddenly she takes out a polished stick of wood and mutters something with the meaning again flying past me. She then reach's up and grabs the back of my head to pull me down for a kiss.
Uh, no.
Before she can make contact I bring up my hand and use it like a barrier, stopping her. She is then distracted and I take the initiative and pull back taking a few steps away from the girl. This seemed to make the crowd again burst into laughter.
The Strawberry blonde who's hair almost looked pink seemed to puff her cheeks out in frustration and stomped over to me while I simply kept my distance from the irritable girl backing up always staying out of her reach until my back hit something.
Something large and scaly.
I turn around and immediately back up as right in front of me is a DRAGON. It was large, blue and was looking at me with a curious expression, though for all I know it's sizing me up for a snack.
My understandable distraction seemed to give the pinkette enough time to close the distance turn me around and plant a kiss before I could do anything to stop her. It was a chaste kiss at least and it only lasted two or three seconds before she pulled away giving me an angry look for all the trouble I no doubt caused her.
I think at this point my mind was going on a little vacation while trying to piece together what's going on. I mean there is only so much someone can take at a given time and the last ten minutes seemed to clock my years quota for weird shit that may or may not happen to me and I need time to reboot.
Part of me really hopes that I got hit on the head while on my way home. That's right any second I'm going to wake up in a hospital bed or something and dismiss this all as the result of head trauma.
Please let it be so.
Instead I got the itching sensation on my right hand. This broke me away from my daze as I lifted up my hand as the discomfort grew. It felt as if my right hand was on fire.
"What the hell is this." I growl lowly as I clench my teeth.
The girl says something dismissively and I shoot daggers at her as the pain continues to grow as I crouch down and take a deep breath. Then suddenly the pain begins to die down to a dull throb as I look at my hand. On it I see runes etched into my skin in an undecipherable language.
I get up from my crouch and look at the girl she's still glaring at me and I believe I'm currently mirroring her expression.
We are suddenly interrupted by the balding man walking up and saying something to the pinkette to which she responds. He then turns to me and asks something.
"I'm sorry I don't understand you." I said politely, he seems to be one of the few here who have not regarded me with either humor or disdain.
He recognizes the problem and points to the runes on my hand.
"Oh, um sure." I said.
I hold out my hand and he pulls out a small notepad and begins to inscribe it. After he finishes he puts it away and gives me a short nod and then turns to speak to the rest of the people gathered and afterwards they begin to disperse.
I see the little pinkette look at me with a very irritated expression, turns around and makes her into the building in the distance.
I just stand there not knowing whether or not to follow the irritable pink haired girl. Just then she turns around and yells at me pointing to the building.
Well it's not like I had any other idea where to go.
LATER
The language barrier problem was solved later around evening as I was standing in the pinkette's room watching her rant and rage. From what I could tell she was not happy with me being here.
Not the fact that I was in her room it seemed more from the tone that she was unhappy about what I was or wasn't.
"Hello you mind telling me what's going on here?" I ask interrupting her mid rant. I have been doing this for awhile trying to find some way to bridge the gap.
She does not seem pleased with my attempts at conversation and starts yelling more at me this time instead of the world in general.
In mid rant I say. "You know yelling at me is kind of pointless seeing as I don't understand a word of what you are saying."
In response she gives me an angry look takes out the polished stick of wood at her side. She lifts it up and begins chanting.
My response is to look at here like she was mentally unstable until she finished and then fly back against a wall as an explosion throws me back and sending me into a daze for a good five to ten seconds.
I snap back to attention though and proceed to get up dust myself off and yell. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!"
She blinks at me brushing off the dust from the explosion that settled on her and said. "I understood that."
My turn to blink. "Same here."
There was a pause for a good five seconds as we took this in before I realized that I was mad.
"Do you mind telling me why you tried to kill me just now?" I asked glaring at her.
"humph, I was casting a Silence spell." She said turning her head to the side in a haughty fashion.
"Well you seemed to fail spectacularly in that regard." I said with a snort.
"Mind your tongue Commoner. You are talking to a Noble." She said angrily staring at me but the expression was lost somewhat seeing as she was a good foot shorter than I.
"I'm so scared." I say sarcastically until something hit me.
"Wait Silence spell, Magic?" I say turning my attention to the irritated girl.
She looks at me like I said something totally stupid. "Yes." She says slowly me. "That was magic, You are at the Tristain Academy for Magic commoner. I am a Noble and as such wield magic and you are a commoner so you do not."
"Tristain? Never heard of it?" I said with confusion eyeing her like she is mentally unstable. I know my geography and know for a fact that no such country exists. Though also my mind was trying to wrap around 'magic' at the same time. Maybe it was just some parlor trick and she just used some minor explosives to perform that action.
I can feel a major migraine forming as I try to convince myself that I'm the butt of some joke. Though that seems incredibly unlikely as nobody would bother with such lengths for a prank.
"It's hard to believe someone, even a commoner could be so uneducated. You are in Tristain one of the five main Countries of Halkeginia." She said her temper rising.
"Listen I'm not from around here I've never heard of Halkeginia so it must be some different continent than where I am from, can we continue this later." I said massaging my temples trying to quell the pounding headache. I definitely don't have all the answers she might have but right now it's proving more trouble than it's worth according to the migraine. Where I was, was going to have to wait. So for now I'll just go with a cover story and say I'm from another continent which wasn't exactly wrong when you think of it.
"Humph you should mind your tongue Familiar." She paused for a brief moment in thought "Very well you can do the laundry then." She said in a dismissive tone turning away from me.
My left eye twitches at the sudden demand."And why would I do that?"
"Because I am your Master." She said angrily taking a step forward and stamping her foot down.
"Aren't you a little young to be into that sort of thing pinky." I said with a smirk.
"Y-y-you dog where do you come from where you imply something so vulgar of a noble. You are my Familiar whether you like it or not I summoned and bound you here you will obey me." She said her face red with embarrassment and anger.
"Familiar you keep saying that exactly does it mean and entail?" I ask changing the subject.
"A Familiar is an animal that a mage summons that is bound to them for life, they usually are cats, dogs, birds and the like but the more powerful mage's can summon dragons, griffins or manticores." She says with a huff. "Why couldn't I get one of those, much better than some mouthy commoner." She mutters.
"I heard that pinky and the names not commoner, it's Garrett." I said irritation obvious when I spoke.
"You should learn respect and it's not pinky it's Louise Francois le Blanc de la Vallière or Master to you Familiar. Now get started on that Laundry or there will be no breakfast tomorrow ." She says glaring at me and waiting for me to do what I was told.
I take one look at the dirty laundry, turn to her and say flatly. "No thanks I'm good."
With that I turn and walk right out the door leaving the stunned girl behind as I made my way out and down the hall. Looking out the windows I see that the sun has begun to set in the Horizon. Need to get out of here for the sake of my sanity.
Continuing on my way I quickly find that I am lost in this Academy. It is definitely confusing, I should have paid more attention when I was following the recently named Louise to her room.
Suddenly I hear a noise down the hall. That would be good news if I found someone that could point me in the right direction out of this nuthouse. As I make my way towards them I begin to pick up on their conversation.
"... Oh really you would?" Said a young women eagerly.
"Of course my dear Katie you see I cannot tell lies in front of your eyes that dazzle like the puddles of the moon." Another voice said in a rather over the top dramatic sort of way which almost made me roll my eyes right out of my skull.
I debated for a minute whether or not to just avoid the two 'love birds' and find someone else to ask for directions. Interacting with the guy speaking in horrendous one liners will give me an even greater migraine the previous of which had barely receded to a dull throb.
I round the corner though and see both of them. The girl was around fifteen maybe sixteen years old with long brown hair and wore the same uniform as the pinkette except her cape was brown instead of black. The guy was a pretty boy, that was the only way to describe him he was blonde with hair that looks like he spends too much time to get that exact look, he wore pantaloons, a white frilly open shirt, a black cape and to top it off he was waving around a rose.
Hello migraine how have you been you haven't been gone long?
"Who goes there?" said the boy turning around. Must have heard me coming.
"Nobody of importance, just passing through." I respond try to pass by quickly to avoid interacting with the fop and to lessen the chance of the pinky catching up to me.
"A commoner. You should speak more respectfully to the nobility." He snorts annoyed at being interrupted.
"Well if I see one I'll be sure to remember that." I said as I see the boys expression change from pompous to angry within a moment of me saying that. It was remarkably easy to get these 'nobles' going, I'm not even really trying.
"Why you insolent little plebeian..." He starts.
"Is that really all you can come up with." I scoff. "Color me unimpressed."
"grr, Y-you." He pauses as if noticing something. "Wait. your that commoner the Louise summoned aren't you?"
"Apparently."
"So typical. She can't do anything right even the commoner she summons turns out to be a rude peasant who doesn't know his place. I honestly am not that surprised" He laughed, an irritating pompous one mind you.
"Right listen this conversation is very... stimulating but I've got to get moving do you mind telling me which way the exit is?" I ask not really caring to talk to him anymore at this point.
"Ask in a more respectful tone and maybe I'll tell you." He says as closes his eyes and holds his head up to the point that it probably wouldn't take much pressure on his neck to snap it.
I stand there for a moment watching him as he seems to be waiting for me. For a brief moment I entertain the thought of punching him in the throat seeing as he has given me such a nice open target. I turn and leave him standing there in that same position after losing that internal argument with myself.
"Um Guiche he's gone." I heard the girl say as I rounded the corner towards another staircase.
"WHERE ARE YOU, YOU DAMNED DOG!" The familiar voice of the pinkette said which signaled me to double my pace.
Luckily for me it turns out that I was not that far from the entrance hall as after I finished walking down the staircase I found myself there. It was quite nice now that I took the time to look around. It was very ornate with a rather nice fountain in the centre where a dark skinned red-head and her date who she seemed to have wrapped around her little finger.
I passed by not interrupting the two and made it for the door as I heard the unmistakable footsteps of the pinkette as she was coming down the stairs in hot pursuit.
I pushed the door open and felt the pleasant rush of the cool night air greeting me. I always liked the night and the solitude that it brings not that I was antisocial or anything but sometimes I just enjoy silence more and right now I would like it a whole lot more than usual.
As I regarded my surroundings and was about to be on my way I noticed something. Two things actually in the sky.
"There are two moons." I said looking at the sky, my feet feeling rooted to the ground.
"There you are familiar!" The voice of the pinkette snapped me back to somewhat coherent thought.
"There are two moons."
"What's all the noise...Oh it's you Louise." Someone said. Turning around I identified her as the redhead with her apparent boy toy close behind curious as well to the commotion but more interested in the women in front of him.
"This is none of your business Zerbest." Louise said sharply.
She chuckled." No need to get hostile just because you can't control your familiar, if he even is that."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Oh like you don't know. Little Louise the Zero can't cast a spell to save her life." She chuckles. "It's obvious that you must have paid this commoner to stand in as your Familiar."
"That's not true I performed the summoning like everyone else and it appeared." She said emphasizing it as she gave me another glare.
"There are two moon." I say to myself slightly louder a feeling of panic and anxiety digging into my chest.
"Are you right in the head there have always been two moons in the sky." She said as she continued to glare at the red-head.
"Yeah... just give me a moment." I said as I dug out my cell phone in my pocket and saw on the screen.
No Service
I sighed deeply and take stock of the situation again. I'm In some sort of alternate reality that looks like medieval Europe and magic is real. There are two moons in the sky, I have no service on my phone and no way to get home and magic is real.
Also I'm not dreaming and magic is real.
A part of me right now kind of just wants to sit down and be alone for awhile take stock and try to piece my perceptions of how the universe is.
"Did you want something?" I said with an air of dispassion putting the phone away.
"Yes, yes I did. I will not have a commoner let alone my familiar behave as you just did. Now apologize and get back to my room."
"And how do you intend to enforce that little girl?" I said flatly staring down at her making her blink in response if it was from the question itself or the tone I said it in I have no clue and then sighed again. "Oh who am I kidding I have got nowhere to go, very well lead the way oh mighty master." I said giving her a tired glance.
"Good now let's head back to my room, and just to let you know because of that little display there will be no breakfast tomorrow and you will also be doing the laundry tonight." she said with a haughty expression before turning around and heading back inside me following leaving the tanned girl and her boy toy to do whatever.
I don't even really care right now, just too much in one day. I'm to burnt out to give the irritable girl a retort.
And I'll leave it here for now This story is basically a redo of my previous story So I'm a Familiar 'Yay' That after rereading it found that I made a lot of grammar mistakes and was going to close to canon so I decided to redo it and make some more obvious change.
Reviews good and bad are always welcome seeing as I love feedback.
This is another edit of chapter one and with a Quick AN I'll be continuing with this story as I've finally decided what I want to do with it details to come in later chapters.