Oh yes.
I got sick and had things to do.
I'm trying to write the third chapter as fast as I can.
Sorry for the long wait guys!
Enjoy!
Enter a fancy castle, encircled by the stone walls around it...
And the castle wasn't actually a castle... It was a school. There, nobles attended magic school where they would learn the ins and outs of magic. Inside, the focus point of the administration were the current second year students... And of that bunch, a specific class of students required the utmost attention, for they harbored important, talented, and worrisome children alike...
"Everyone, congratulations on making it to your second year. I am Mrs. Chevreuse, and I have been appointed by the Tristein Institute of Magic for the year. My element is earth, and I am also known as Chevreuse the Red Moon. I will be teaching you earth-based magic for the next year." With that, the entire classroom was full of chatter of two students, both of which were present. They didn't care if they heard... After all, one of the students was having an eye kept on them...
"Now everyone, what are the four major elements of magic?" Suddenly, a rose was raised into the air, and was immediately called on.
"The four elements are fire, water, air, and earth!" The boy was standing, his bright-blonde hair contrasting with his dark cape and tunic. He stood there with his arm flamboyantly crossed over his chest. The rose in his hand laying on his left shoulder as he closed his eyes, trying to emulate prestige and beauty. The students around him looked on with contempt, the kiss-up that he always did towards girls was already old.
"And what coincidence! My element is earth just like you, missus!" His voice full of fake emotion as he dramatically extended both arms in front of him, seemingly revealing his chest to her. Throughout the whole thing, he still held his eyes closed, being the cocky man he was. Overstaying his welcome, he continued on and started to introduce himself.
"Also known as The Brass, I am Guiche de Grammont!" He was now bowing slightly, his original position in tow. A sigh was heard as he put the rose in his mouth and flicked his hair back into place, flicking the rest of his hair back with his head.
"Please remember me." Mrs. Chevreuse's eye twitched a little as she tried to retain her sense of professionalism.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Grammont..." She continued on as Guiche sat down once more.
"Earth is an important type of magic, involved in the revitalization of all things. In order to demonstrate that to you, I will have you memorize a spell in basic alchemy." She put down three pebbles onto her podium and placed her wand over the three pebbles and recite a spell.
"Rel In Yan."
With that, the stones started to shake and vibrate violently as they started to glow. After reaching their apex, they started to dim quickly, revealing a lustrous set of three shiny pebbles. Everyone was exclaiming in delight and asking if it was gold. Sadly, they were informed that it was mere bronze, and Mrs. Chevreuse called on a random student. She called out a random student sitting towards the back of the classroom, and the students in the class were silent. It was her. It was Louise 'The Zero' Francoise Le Blanc De La Valliere, one of the students everyone was talking about. A troublesome person and a lengthy name to match it, she was the bane of the school. And when they say the school, they LITERALLY mean the school itself...
"Umm, miss? I think it's better not to..." Almost everyone nodded or agreed verbally. The teacher took notice of the comments and turned to face the other students.
"Why not?" She was clearly suspicious, and questioned them out of curiosity. A girl had stood up abruptly to answer the question, her red hair flailing about from the swift movement.
"Because it's dangerous! If Louise is going to do it, I'll do it instead!" Mrs. Chevreuse was now chuckling as the student that had tried to warn her sat back down anxiously as she looked for a way to protect herself.
"Dangerous? How could alchemy be dangerous?" With each comment, Louise was getting angry and yelled out her next words in frustration.
"I'll do it! Please let me do it!" And with that, students started to hide under their desks or retreat to the edges of the room, some even proceeded to leave class as she stepped down to the podium.
"Louise! Please stop!" The red-haired girl called out once more just to be silenced.
"Be quiet! You're ruining my concentration!" Louise turned back to face the three new pebbles on the podium, her eyes fixated on them.
"Now, now... Just think hard on the metal you want to turn this into..." Trembling and whimpers could be heard as Louise pulled out her wand and pointed at the stones...
0-0-0-0-0
"Now here we have state of the art halls, designed to harbor the most royal of students, all the while controlling foot traffic quite well." An old man led a viscount around the school, his mouse familiar perched on his shoulder. His snow white familiar matched the color of his long beard and hair, his black robes loose enough to droop over his entire body.
"Theses are the second-year dorms, and up ahead we have the-" Just down the hall, a bright light was seen as a deep rumbling accompanied it.
BOOM
"W-what was that Osman?" The viscount was now panicking as Osman just shook his head and closed his eyes, reaching for the pipe in his robe.
"I had hoped that the year would continue being peaceful, after all, we had a good start to it..." Before he could finish his thought, he took a puff of the pipe and held it in. The viscount forcibly turned the headmaster towards him and shook his body violently.
"What do you mean!? Are you okay with a possible raid happening on your campus!?" As he was being shaken about, he nonchalantly grabbed the worried man's shoulders and blew the smoke into his face.
"Settle down Theo, it's just one of our problem students... I'll just have my secretary deal with the issue once more." Theo was waving the smoke away from his face from his face, as Osman turned around and continued his tour, taking down notes to recount to his countess.
"Though you should still have some concern for your students..." He muttered under his breath, but Osman heard and turned around, locking gazes with him. Theo was obviously intimidated by the power that laid behind his eyes, but was thrown off-guard as Osman snapped his fingers.
"Oh! Come to think of it, tomorrow is the familiar summoning ritual for the second year students!" Theo was left dumbfounded as Osman left the man on his own in the dining hall, the old man running to his office atop the tower...
...
"Did you hear that Osman? I believe it's her again..." A green-haired woman was sitting at her desk doing paper work as he entered the office.
"It's most likely the third daughter of the Valliere family again..." Without saying a word, the secretary called up some other mages and left the office, leaving Osman to smoke his pipe once more. His familiar climbed his legs and jumped into his palm, and was lifted to face him at eye level.
"My familiar Motsognir... It's been a long journey with you..." The mouse squeaked in a rhythmic fashion, Osman understanding completely what was being said.
"Oh, I see, white! White as snow! I think she'd look better in black..." He gave the little mouse a chestnut, and blew the smoke into the air.
0-0-0-0-0
The room was in tatters, all of the windows had shattered from the mere force of the explosion, it's shrapnel thankfully going outward into the courtyard rather than back in. The desks were splintered, and anything fixed onto the wall were unhinged or completely removed. Dust and ash covered everything, students either coughing it up or were unconscious from the explosion. At the epicenter of the explosion, stood a shellshocked Louise as her clothes were ripped and torn, the stones she cast the spell on gone, and the teacher out cold.
"This is what I feared!" The girl came out from under her desk, and slammed her hand on the desk. She was angry for so many reasons, some of them being unable to stop her. Other insults and retorts followed, which Louise responded:
"It looks like I screwed up a little bit." That lit the other students' anger and they lashed out using her nickname.
"What part of this is a little..."
"Your success rate to date has been Zero!"
"Louise the Zero!"
But Louise stood there, and walked out the classroom to be met by headmaster Osman's secretary Mrs. Longueville. She escorted her up to his office, as healers and earth casters did their work on the room.
0-0-0-0-0
The next day...
In the large field the students stood, the weather being perfect for the test...
"Finally, today is the day of the summoning ritual. This is the first test since you advanced to the second year, and the sacred first day where you meet your familiars..." A balding man stood in front of all the second year students, looking out towards their various expressions.
"With whom you will spend your lives as nobles." Louise was regretting what she had said yesterday as she was dismissed from the headmaster's office.
Flashback...
"Hey, how was it? Another trip to detention? Or are you finally expelled?" The red-haired girl from class was now accompanied by two other female students, heading towards the office Louis had just left.
"Just kidding!" The two girls laughed as the third was too engrossed in a book to care about what they were saying. Calmly, Louise walked past the trio.
"I'm not being punished." The two girls were in shock as Louise continued to descend down the stairwell, for they thought that she would have to make it up for explosion.
"They said it was partly the teacher's fault for making me do it even after all the students tried to stop her." The two girls behind the crimson-haired girl were silent as she continued to tease Louise.
"Seems like everyday is a bad day for you Louise the Zero. Tomorrow will be a sight! What kind of familiar will you be summoning up?"
"As for summoning spells Kirche... I'm confident in Summon Servant if nothing else! So just you watch! I'll conjure up a familiar so divine, beautiful, and powerful, that it will be better than anything you can cook up!" Kirche looked back at Montmorency, who looked just as confused as her. In hopes that Tabitha would explain like usual, they turned to face her.
"Hey, what do you think Tabitha?" They looked on at the blue-haired girl until they realized they were being answered in silence. Soon after the sound of Louise's footsteps disappeared, they headed up towards the office.
End of Flashback...
"I'm looking forward to that amazing familiar you're going to summon!" Kirche had slithered through the crowds to hop besides Louise at the front of the crowd as the first of the students started to summon.
...
Now that all the students had gone, the only two that were left were Louise and Kirche. Like the others, Kirche recited her lines for the summoning ritual and held her wand out. And as the summon came to a close, there was silent. Louise started to snicker at Kirche's misfortune until a sudden ball of flame appeared between the two, which caught Mr. Colbert off-guard. After the flame dissipated, there stood a fire salamander, which was longer than anybody present. At the tip of it's tail burnt a flame that danced in excitement as Kirche pet the large reptile. Mr. Colbert approached slowly to say a few words.
"Well... At the end, you obtained quite a familiar there, Ms. Zerbst. Now... Was that everyone?" Without missing a beat, Kirche interjected to call out Louise. Many people perked up at the sound of her name as the circled around once more with Louise at the center. There were many concerns and doubts being said as Louise steeled herself to do the ritual.
"After all that boasting, you'll summon something amazing than this little guy." She was obviously referring to her salamander, to which Louise acknowledged was an excellent familiar. In reality, she knew that she had no chance of beating her, but her honor as a Valliere told her that she would have to at least try.
"Of course..." Her hand shook as she rose her wand to recite the ritual.
"My servant that exists somewhere in this universe!
My divine, beautiful, and powerful familiar!
I wish and assert from the bottom of my heart...
Answer my summons!"
Everyone knew this wasn't what the spell was, but they let it go as a bright light shot forth from her wand. And as expected, an explosion followed. It was larger than any known explosion she had cast before, and it took a few minutes for everything to settle. Thankfully, everyone had space and room to drop down and protect themselves, but it would seem that whatever she would summon would be killed instantaneously from the force of the magic. But miraculously, the familiar survived as a bark was heard.
"W-what is it?" Louise waved aside the smoke to see a small puppy running around in circles surrounded by strange pieces of pottery and furniture. It jumped on the furniture as it pushed around random vases and pots. Laughter broke out as Louise couldn't help but cover her head in shame...
I'm doing a John Wick chapter next.
So more blood, guns, and killing. (Or action if you're blunt with it)
That's all!
Ciao!
