Hey everyone, HQ here with the next chapter of Artificer of Zero! Now, I know most of you were going on about how I was adhering too much to canon, so this next chapter ought to change things up while we get a glimpse of Lloyd experimenting with his magic!
Turn 02: Cards and Gods and Futures, Oh My!
When Lloyd woke up, he found himself in the familiar surroundings of Louise's room. However, what wasn't familiar to him at all was the fact that, for once, he was laying in something a bit more comfortable than the straw Louise had laid out for him. As he sat up, he realized why that was: he was laying in Louise's bed. He started for a moment, waiting for the inevitable backlash, but none came. How strange.
Looking down at himself, he noticed his shirt had been removed and bandages were wrapped around his chest and abdomen, and a touch of his head confirmed the same around his forehead. He knew he'd taken a pretty good beating from Guiche, but he was pretty sure it was a lot worse than it looked. Either that, or someone had healed him of most of his wounds while he'd been out and all that was left were the superficial bits.
The door opened, and in stepped Siesta, carrying a glass of water and two buns. Her smile immediately returned as she came over. "Ser Kreis!"
"Hey Siesta," Lloyd greeted, then winced as pain shot through most of his injured areas. "Gah! Mother of Christ…!"
"Try not to move too much, okay?" Siesta put her plate down on the table as she came over. "You've been asleep for three days and nights."
"Three days, huh? Sure feels like it…" Lloyd quipped. "Where's my deck?"
"I have it," Siesta said, reaching into her apron and producing it. "I wasn't sure you were going to wake up, so I held onto it so nobody could steal it while you were asleep. It was actually very interesting to see them up close, but I don't understand any of the words or numbers on them."
"That's not surprising. Only people who know the rules would be able to make sense of them, anyway," Lloyd quickly went through his deck, not quite sure what to expect. Strange enough, all of his cards were there, even the cards that had been used or destroyed, like Perilous Myr, Myr Reservoir, Dispatch, and Galvanic Blast. "What happened while I was out?"
"Well, nobody really knew what to do with you after you fell unconscious. So Miss Louise had you taken away to her room and those Myr things followed you. As the maids and I started cleaning up the mess and cordoned off the Reservoir for Professor Colbert to deal with later, suddenly they all turned back into cards, and there were even some new ones in there, too. So I collected them and took them back to your room, where Miss Louise said the other ones turned into cards as well."
Lloyd hummed in acknowledgement. Then he caught himself. "What do you mean, 'new ones?' Can you describe them?"
"Well, some were white and some were red. They had no words on them, just symbols, and they had pictures of meadows and mountains," Siesta explained.
"Meadows and mountains…" Looking back down at his deck, the cards Lloyd used were gathered at the bottom. And mixed in between those were six of his basic lands, four Plains and two Mountains. He quickly pulled them out and showed them to her. "Are these the ones you were talking about?"
"Yes. Why, what are they?"
"Well, for that, you'll have to wake up Louise. She's going to want an explanation about why her Familiar is better at magic than she is, and I'd rather do it now while I'm still recovering. Mostly because she's less likely to smack me," Lloyd jerked his head at the softly-snoring mage-wannabe in the corner.
Siesta bowed and quickly went over, shaking the sleeping pinkette's shoulder. "Wake up, Miss Louise. Your Familiar is calling for you."
Like a shot, Louise sprang up from her seat, somehow shoving Siesta away with a force that belied her short stature. "LLOYD! YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO!"
"Yeah, that's what I was afraid of," sighed Lloyd. "Louise, I'll explain everything, but you gotta calm down."
"I am calm!" huffed Louise, folding her arms. "I'm about as calm as I can be after my Familiar decided to pick a fight with a noble and almost got killed winning it!"
"Fair point, but if you want an explanation, you're going to have to take it down a notch, or twenty," Lloyd frowned. "Otherwise, I'm just gonna go back to sleep."
Louise growled, not wanting to concede anything to this cheeky commoner, or possibly a cheeky disgraced noble since he could use magic. And why couldn't she cast magic as good as him!? She was the Master and a noble, she needed to be the one to cast magic, not the other way around! But, when Lloyd groaned and flopped back into her bed, she finally caved in. "Fine! But you're gonna have to get out of bed! Maid, fetch his clothes."
"Siesta." There was that deathly flat voice again.
"What!?"
"Her name is Siesta. I want you to call her that from now on."
"Me, use the name of a commoner!?"
"You already use my name. One more is not going to kill you."
Louise gritted her teeth. "Fine. Siesta, bring his clothes."
"Yes, milady." Siesta, having recovered from Louise's outburst, promptly picked up Lloyd's clothes from the ground.
"If you can, bring me parchment and something to write with, too," Lloyd added.
Lloyd then slowly got out of bed and made his way to the nearby table, taking a chair from nearby to sit in. Thankfully, he was still wearing his jeans, and the only things that had been taken off were his shirt and jacket. Louise promptly took the other. "Magic. Explain. Now."
Lloyd nodded, taking his shirt from Siesta and putting it on, but he hung his jacket on the back of the chair, and then placed a piece of parchment and a pen of sorts on the table. "Here's the thing. On Earth, magic doesn't exist. At least…not directly. While you guys work with magic, we study science. That being said, we still like to use magic as plot elements for other things, usually to describe some unknown force granting the impossible. And it is from that kind of magic that this card game, Magic: the Gathering, comes from." He promptly fanned out his deck in front of her.
"So these cards come from a game? Like chess?" Louise asked, taking one of the cards in front of her, which happened to be Myr Galvanizer.
"It's actually a pretty good comparison. In the game, the players are powerful mages known as Planeswalkers, engaging in a magical duel. And for some reason, when I came to this world, my cards somehow gained the power to come to life, through a process I have no idea how it happened," Lloyd nodded.
"So how does one became a Planeswalker?" asked Siesta.
"The way it was explained to me kinda goes like this: every universe in the world comprises a plane of existence, and the union of all of the known and possibly unknown planes comprises the Multiverse. Now, for every plane in the Multiverse, one in a million people possesses something called 'the spark.' The number of people who can ignite this spark is fewer still, enough that I could count them on my hands, but those that do become Planeswalkers, the most powerful mages that ever lived."
"Is…is it possible that the Familiar Summoning made you into a Planeswalker…?" Louise asked softly, her expression becoming more starry-eyed with every moment.
"I honestly don't know," said Lloyd. "It definitely sounds plausible, but I have no proof or means to find out. But if you did, then congratulations, Louise: your Familiar has the power of the Multiverse at his fingertips."
Louise said nothing for a moment, her face brimming with hope and amazement. Finally, the Zero had managed to perform a spell correctly, and didn't care that her Familiar, in stunning dramatic irony, had more magical ability than she did, or at least right now. Then she was herself again, brushing her hair and going back to a more noble-looking composure. "You have yet to explain how your magic works."
"Ah, now that is actually a bit more concrete," said Lloyd, clapping his hands once. "Now, Kirche was nice enough to explain how magic worked here, about how you draw power from the five elements: earth, water, wind, fire, and the lost element of Void. My magic is also divided into five parts, but instead of elements, we use different colors. And to do so, we harness power from the various lands they represent, called mana."
"So it's like the nature magic that the elves use."
"Of a sort, I guess," said Lloyd with a shrug. Kirche never mentioned that, so he had no idea what comparison Louise was drawing from. "Anyway, there are five colors of magic: white, blue, black, red, and green. They're not as strictly divided as your elemental magic, but each of them has their own unique aspects and powers. So let's start in what we call WUBRG order.
"White mana is represented by this sunburst, and it draws mana from plains and meadows. White is all about life, order, and vitality," Lloyd pushed out Master's Call from its place in his deck in front of her. "White creatures, typically knights and soldiers but also divine spirits like angels, are typically on the low end of power, but they have spells and abilities to increase their power in battle, as well as force creatures to…take defensive postures," Lloyd said, almost saying "tapping" but deciding against it, "meaning you really can't underestimate them when they fight. White is also the most defensive of the five colors, with spells that allow for preventing damage and healing."
"So that spell you used to cut down Guiche's Valkyrie was a white spell?" asked Louise.
"One of them was, anyway. Without its Metalcraft enhancement, the Valkyrie would've just been shoved off or something. I don't really know," Lloyd shrugged again, proceeding to draw on the parchment Siesta had brought. "Moving on from white, we have blue, represented by a drop of water. Blue is all about thought, control, and mentality, and their mana comes from islands. Blue creatures are typically creatures of the sea and air, and only blue has the power to harness Aether, which is raw magical power, in their spells. Also unique to blue is counterspelling, which is stopping a spell mid-cast, reversing the summons of your opponent, and spells that affect the mind. A good blue mage can destroy his opponent's mind with blue spells very quickly.
"From blue, we move on to black. Black is represented by a skull, and its mana comes from swamps and bogs. Black is the color of death, decay, and mortality. Black is all about power at any cost and using that power to take down anyone in their way. Black creatures are creatures from the bloody bowels of hell itself, like zombies, ghosts, and vampires, up to powerful demons like Griselbrand and Rakdos the Defiler. Black spells weaken creatures, if not kill them outright, poison their foes, and can reanimate the dead."
This naturally got Louise and Siesta's attention, both maid and noble leaning forward in shock and awe. "Truly? They can resurrect the dead?"
Lloyd winced. "It's not really resurrection, more like taking a body and turning it into a soulless puppet. Any semblance of personality the dead may have head is not brought back. You may as well be playing with dolls."
Louise actually recoiled in her chair at the thought. "So grotesque…!"
"Yeah. Let's move on to red, shall we?" Lloyd said quickly, pulling out Galvanic Blast from the deck. "Red is represented by a fireball, and their mana comes from mountains. Red represents fire, chaos, and ferocity. Like black, red specializes in removal spells, but instead of killing outright they rely on dealing damage with various spells. But unlike black, they can also turn that fire on the enemy Planeswalker. It's also the most aggressive of the colors, swarming the field with small creatures and crushing the enemy through sheer force of numbers. Goblins, giants, and dragons are the domain of red, although dragons are kind of a special case, as I've recently learned."
"But you used lightning earlier. Lightning is technically wind magic. Why would it be of the same color as fire?" asked Louise.
"Remember, my magic isn't necessarily separated by elements like yours is," Lloyd reminded. "Lightning and fire are both known for their destructive capabilities, and while all colors except maybe blue can destroy, nobody does it better than red. This leads me nicely to the last part of my lecture. Green is represented by a tree, and naturally its mana comes from forests. Growth, the hunt, and sheer brutality are the ways of green. The most powerful creatures in terms of raw power tend to be green, like the Tarmogoyf. Green can get mana in a hurry and summon humongous creatures of the forest, from wolves all the way to treefolk and humongous wurms."
He proceeded to spin the piece of parchment around, showing the five symbols drawn in a circle around each other. "Voila. As you can see, the way the colors are drawn like this, each one has relationships with the other colors, allies to some, like white is allies with blue and green," he drew an arrow detailing the shape of the circle. "And enemies to others, like white is enemy to red and black. We refer to this relationship as the color wheel. That is basically how my magic works at the most basic, fundamental level."
Louise leaned back in her chair, mulling over this information. Despite the rather in-depth description of his knowledge, she seemed to have understood most of it on the face of it. Lloyd hoped he wouldn't have to delve into the game itself, because he was already winded just from talking so much. Thankfully, Louise only had one thing to ask of him. "Your Myrs don't appear to have the symbols the others do, just numbers. Does that mean they not have colors?"
"Good eye, Louise," Lloyd nodded. "Myrs are artifact creatures. Artifacts, as a general rule, don't actually have a color. There are exceptions, but the majority of them are colorless." Louise beamed for a moment of self-congratulation. Lloyd decided to take the opportunity to steer the conversation towards something more important. "Look, Louise. As long as we're talking, I'd like to address something about our…current relationship."
Louise's face went flat. "What was that?"
"Look, Louise. I'm gonna level with you: we really cannot afford to ignore and snipe at each other like this." Lloyd started gathering up his cards. "Now that I've got a basic idea of what it is I can do, I'm not going to turn into your personal whipping boy and I sure as hell won't stand for it, either. So if we're going to do this, we need to drop this whole Master-Familiar business."
Louise's earlier good nature, which had already begun to fade, suddenly vanished under a wave of righteous indignation. "You want me to what!?"
"I think it's more than fair," Lloyd said calmly, returning his deck to his case. "I'm no noble, but I'm still a mage and I deserve to be treated as such. So from now on, no more Master-Familiar business, no more nobility-commoner business. You and I are partners. Equal shares in whatever it is the two of us get involved in."
"And why would I do that!?" Louise snapped, sparks flying out of her mouth.
"Because we need each other," Lloyd countered. "Without me, you go back to being Louise the Zero who can't do jack-diddly in the ways of magic. But without you, I barely know left from right when it comes to this place. So as long as we're going to be together, it's high time you bit the bullet and actually started caring about somebody other than you with your heart and soul."
Louise growled. She really wanted to whip him for his base ingratitude and even suggesting the idea that they weren't supposed to be Master-Familiar anymore, but partners, like her father would make deals with armorsmiths for the Tristain military. Couldn't he see that there was supposed to be an order to these things!? But, on the other hand, and as loth as she was to admit it, Lloyd did have a point. She did have the awesome Familiar she wanted and the last thing she needed was him running off. Kirche wouldn't ever let her live it down, for one. For another, she was going to need him to help rehabilitate her position, not just in the school, but with her family at some point.
"Alright, alright, fine. What did you have in mind?"
"Excellent," Lloyd smiled. "Already this process is going smoother than I hoped…"
As Lloyd soon found out, Murphy's Law knows no bounds, even across the Multiverse.
"Why the hell did I agree to this!?"
The next day after their rather heated negotiations, Louise woke him up early for the usual song and dance: wake up, get her dressed, go downstairs for breakfast, but Louise had also unceremoniously dropped a basket containing all the laundry from the three days Lloyd had been out at his feet and told him to wash it while she was in class. Despite the shouting and the grumbling that followed thereafter, Lloyd still took it down to the nearest clothesline. He knew better than to throw out all his hard work from the day before.
Of course, the obvious problem was that Lloyd couldn't just throw the clothes in a washing machine and wait around for the next half-hour and change. In this world, you still had to do it manually, and Lloyd couldn't even hope to know where to begin. He was more self-conscious about asking Siesta for help than afraid of waiting for the eventual blow-up that would follow. Stupid Puritan values. He'd rather be exploring his powers.
Eventually, Lloyd decided to settle on killing two birds with one stone.
He took out his deck, trying to take one of his Plains out. Surprisingly, no sooner had he started fanning out his cards than one Plains near the back shot out, then dropped to the ground. Surprisingly, it shattered on contact with the ground like thin glass, and a small white haze was now orbiting around his wrists. How convenient. Pursing his lips, Lloyd started searching for Origin Spellbomb, one of the only three cards he knew that could be cast for one mana. At once, the card, somewhere in the middle, jumped to his hand.
"This is new…" He tapped his chin in thought for a moment, then waved his hand over his deck. Surprisingly, the deck spread out as it followed the movement his hand, orbiting around him like the rings of Saturn. "Hot damn!" Then, as if on comedic cue, all the cards suddenly dropped to the ground. Cursing, he quickly piled them together, keeping his Origin Spellbomb in between his fingers. It would be definitely something if he could keep that going in a fight. It'd allow him more freedom while casting, obviously. Moving on from there, he quickly held out the card like he did in the duel against Guiche. "Origin Spellbomb!"
The mana around him swirled around him like eddies of white mist, going into the card, and in a burst of light, the card transformed into the bright yellow metal sphere he used against Guiche. "Perfect! At least I got casting down pat…" Tossing the spellbomb in his hand for a moment, he lobbed it into the air, pointing at it. "Hot potato!" The haze followed the arc of the artifact and caused it to explode, dropping a single steel Myr at Lloyd's feet. It gave an electronic squeak, ready for action.
"Okay! Coming along pretty darn well…" Lloyd nodded, satisfied. He put his deck away, then, on a whim, held two fingers over the deck, thinking of Master's Call. Like a shot, it came out into his deck as a red stream of mana was quick to follow, joining the white mana that had now returned. So there was some delay between him casting spells and the mana returning to him, which he kind of expected anyway. "Now then…let's get some of your buddies out so we can get this crap over with. You ready, buddy?"
The Myr chirped, saluting.
Louise's morning class had passed without event. Of course, she could've done without Kirche whispering about "Louise the Zero" yet again. She was half-tempted just to blow up the redhead Germanian floozy just for that, but she decided against that, mostly because she'd end up exploding herself, with how her luck appeared to be. But, maybe some cake in the courtyard would get her mind off of it.
"But it's the only life we'll know! Blaggards to the bone! So don't wreck yourself, take an honest grip, for there's more tales beyond the shore!"
Louise actually blanched. Oh Founder, there was only one person she knew with that voice. What on earth was he singing? And more importantly, why wasn't he doing her laundry! Against her better judgment and in full view of Kirche, she sped off towards the singing and the laughing around it. What she saw when she arrived was…bizarre.
"Well the years rolled by and several died, and left us somewhat reelin', in and out came crawlin' out, and spewed upon the ceiling! What became of rebels who sang for you and me? Grappling with their demons in their search for liberty!"
Lloyd was indeed doing her laundry, collecting it off the clothesline as he was singing some bawdy tune, whistling a few bars in between the words. In a group around him as he was throwing the laundry behind him was a group of five Myrs, three of the standard steel ones, the Gold Myr he used against Guiche, and another Myr she didn't recognize, though it seemed to shimmer in the noonday sun. One caught at and then tossed it to two more behind it, who then folded it, and then two more who put it in the basket. While on its own it'd be less of a problem, the bigger issue was that at least ten or twenty students were gathered around him, some laughing, others clapping with the beat.
"Sail away where no ball and chain can keep us on the roarin' waves! Together undivided, but forever we'll be free! Sail away upon our rig, the moon is full and so are we! We're seven drunken pirates, we're the seven deadly sins!"
"Well, I will say this: at least it won't be boring around here with your Familiar around," Kirche observed with a chuckle, having followed her.
"Shut it, Zerbst!" Louise snapped, rapidly starting to lose her temper.
Lloyd, however, having finished folding the laundry, picked up a nearby stick and started leading his Myrs in a circle like a parade. "Sail away where no ball and chain can keep us on the roarin' waves! Together undivided, but forever we'll be free! Sail away upon our rig, the moon is full and so are we! We're seven drunken pirates, we're the seven deadly sins! And again!"
"We're seven drunken pirates, we're the seven deadly sins!" the crowd echoed.
"One more time!"
"We're seven drunken pirates, we're the seven deadly sins!"
"HEY!" Lloyd finished, him and his five Myrs striking a pose, to wild applause. "Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week! Actually, I'll be around a bit longer, I think!"
"LLOOOOOOOYD!" Louise had finally had enough, splitting the crowd like Moses splitting the Red Sea.
"…oh, bloody hell…" sighed Lloyd.
Siesta finally managed to return to her room in the maid's quarters. All in all, it was an exciting time. For as much as she was afraid that Lloyd was going to get killed taking on Guiche, she was happy that he won with his strange abilities and even happier he was awake after the ordeal. She really wanted to hear more about the country that he was from where there was no nobility and no magic, and deep down, she wished she could cast magic like Lloyd. Despite being a maid in the Academy that paid relatively well, all things considered, there as little hope for advancement unless some noble decided to take her in and marry her.
Suddenly, something caught her eye. Placed on her bed, almost like a gift on her pillow, was a stack of familiar-looking cards. She went over to the bed and picked them up. Sure enough, they were Magic cards, just like the ones Lloyd had. Were they also his and she'd forgotten to take them back when she went to see them last? She flipped the deck face-up and much to her surprise, the deck appeared to be completely different from Lloyd's. Lloyd's Myrs were colorless, and yet this deck was primarily red and blue, save for one or two golden cards that she definitely knew were not in Lloyd's deck.
Siesta felt the air around her suddenly begin to tingle. Her hair began to stand on end, and a clean, almost sterile smell filled her nose. As she looked around for the source…
CRACK! KABOOM!
A single bolt of lightning, on a clear, cloudless night, shot right through the window and struck her head-on. The resultant sonic boom shattered the rest of the window and sent Siesta flying across the room, still clutching the deck. She lolled around on the ground for a moment, deafened temporarily by the thunderclap and still twitching from the electrical charge. She was still alive, that much she knew, but something else had happened in that split second. A voice, powerful and deep, had sounded her head.
"Follow me, and the future shall be yours to see."
Siesta had seen something in that moment, something she wouldn't forget in a hurry. She wanted to tell someone, anyone, but who would believe her? Would Lloyd even believe her?
She sighed and instead decided to go to sleep, but it would be a fitful, dream-wracked sleep. As she tossed and turned, one name filled her head, a name she saw in the deck that she now had in her possession.
Keranos.
The next few days were the same as the other three for Lloyd: wake up, wake up Louise, get her dressed, contemplate suicide after mussing up her laundry, shove it away for the rest of the day on the promise of breakfast and maybe spend more time trying to master his powers now that he wasn't bogged down in laundry. The recent ban on singing songs from Earth was kind of a pain, though. It wasn't like he was trying for an audience, he just got bored halfway through conducting his Myrs in doing laundry and people were passing by!
As Lloyd munched on the lonely piece of bread in the empty chair Louise had reserved for him, the sound of clattering and shattering china reached his ears. Looking past the other row of students, he noticed that Siesta had dropped a plate of something, scattering food all over the floor. It didn't look like she tripped over anything, it just seemed to slip out of her hands. How strange.
"I'll be right back," Lloyd muttered to Louise, stuffing the rest of the bread in his mouth as he left his chair to help Siesta. "Siesta? You okay?" Siesta turned to face him, and Lloyd recoiled in shock. Siesta clearly hadn't been sleeping well, her eyes red and puffy, and her eyes seemed to be looking everywhere but at the person in front of her. "Good God, Siesta, look at you! Are you sick?"
"Is' nothing…" Siesta mumbled, trying to pick up the remains of the shattered plate.
"The hell it is!" Lloyd wasn't having any of that, though. "Come on, we'd better get you back to your room and get some sleep before you end up killing yourself…" He reached out and grabbed her by the hand.
Suddenly, Siesta's head shot up, as if she'd spotted something right behind Lloyd, and her tired eyes suddenly flared with some kind of mystic energy, almost like she was containing the power of the galaxy within her. Lloyd shook her shoulders, trying to snap her out of her trance, but his voice had faded into silence as images began to fill her mind once more.
Lloyd was kneeling atop a hill, bloodied and full of arrows. The remains of his Myrs lay scattered around him.
The area around him lights up with magic from more sources she could hope to count. The magic arcs up into the sky like a thousand shooting stars.
Lloyd spits out blood, looking up at the impending doom above him. He closes his eyes and says something. She cannot hear it, but she can see his lips say the words. "I love you."
The magic comes down on him. He embraces death with open arms. When the smoke clears, his body is almost unrecognizable.
Siesta yanked herself free from Lloyd's grasp, barely able to catch her breath in her exhausted and sleep-deprived state. Lloyd is confused and now very worried. "Siesta, what the hell!?"
"Stay away from me…!" Siesta cried, unaware of now everyone in the whole school staring at her.
"Siesta, what's wrong?"
"Please! Don't come any closer!"
"For God's sake, at least let me take you back to your room! You need rest!"
"NO! YOU'LL DIE IF YOU STAY WITH ME!"
Lloyd had no reply for that one. Siesta, uncaring of the ruckus she was causing, immediately ran off, sobbing. For a moment, nobody said or did anything in the great hall, the place quieter than it probably had been since the last vacation break.
"Lloyd…?" Louise asked. She didn't know whether to be concerned for her Familiar or start berating him for chasing off the maid.
"What in the high holy hell just happened!?"
Needless to say, rumors were already spreading like wildfire, especially those who had seen Siesta come hurtling to his rescue before his duel with Guiche, saying maybe Siesta and Lloyd were up to "extracurricular activities," to put it lightly, and were potentially inviting bad luck or intervention from the nobility by staying together. Lloyd really wanted to say something, at least for Siesta's sake more than his own, but he knew the better play was to keep his head down, stay away from Siesta for the time being, and deny everything if asked directly.
Meanwhile, Lloyd, dragged along by Louise, was now sitting in on one of her classes, and Lloyd was at least happy enough for the distraction. Kirche's explanation of Halgekinian magic from the week before was a good one, but now he could get more info on it. As it turned out, mages were divided by Class, as dictated by the number of elements they could control. Dot Class was one, Line Class was two, Triangle Class was three, and Square Class was all four. However, classification wasn't strictly based on that. Combining two elements to create an effect, like combining fire and earth for lava, was very difficult. Instead, mages layered spells on top of each other, almost like Splice onto Arcane from Kamigawa or spells with Kicker and Multikicker from Zendikar, so a Wind-Wind-Wind composition was a Triangle-Class Wind spell.
As the lesson continued, Lloyd quickly stole a look around the classroom. Most of the students in the classroom were focused on the lesson, save for three: the first-year girl Katie from the incident with Guiche, Kirche, and Tabitha. Katie seemed mighty stressed out by something she had at her desk as well, and she was whispering to her friends about it. Tabitha was reading another book. As for Kirche, well, she was clearly trying to tempt someone by playing with the edge of her blouse, and, well, that someone certainly had to be him, as she kept throwing smoky looks his way whenever she could.
"Will you stop staring at her!?" Louise hissed, grabbing her Familiar by the ear, earning a surprise yelp from the artificer.
"Miss Valliere? Is there a problem?" the professor, a homely gray-haired woman named Professor Chevreuse, quickly homed in on the two.
"No ma'am," Louise said, promptly letting go.
"It's fine," Lloyd echoed, massaging his ear.
"Good. Then you wouldn't mind giving us a demonstration on elemental association. Please transmute these stones to glass, if you would," Chevreuse gestured to three rocks, each about the size of a man's fist, on the table.
"Um, Professor, you really shouldn't! Louise is…" Kirche began.
"If I hear anyone call her a 'zero' again, I will stuff their mouths with clay," Chevreuse checked the redhead, giving her wand a threatening twitch. "She at least completed the Familiar Summoning, and this is hardly a difficult spell. Even someone with difficulty casting basic spells should be able to do this without challenge." She turned back to Louise. "You may begin."
Louise nodded, taking her wand and pointing at the rocks. She began to utter an incantation that sounded something like French. Already students were taking cover behind their desks, as though someone had announced they'd be setting off dynamite.
"Say, ser Kreis…" Kirche's voice puffed out like dandelion seeds on the wind. "Do you have any kind of defensive magic in that deck of yours? Something that can protect us?"
Lloyd quickly went through his deck list in his mind. While he lacked spells that granted protection (and he wasn't sure what that would accomplish, anyway, as he had no idea what color this would fall under), he did have a couple of combat tricks to protect himself from incoming damage. "Maybe. I'll give it a shot." He opened his deck case, thinking of two spells in particular. At once, they jumped into his hand. A Plains was quick to follow, shattering into mana, and two more joined his spells on standby. Chevreuse was only half-aware of it, but Louise fed him that searing sideways glare mid-incantation. Lloyd merely made a motion with his hand, telling her to continue as the second Plains became mana around his wrists.
Finally, Louise finished the spell, magic jumping from wandtip to stone, a strange electric crackling noise filling the air as they began to spark with rainbow energy. A few brave students poked out to see what was about to happen, and Lloyd took that as his cue. He dropped the third Plains, then threw his card outward. "Safe Passage!"
KABOOM!
The rocks detonated with the force of a hand grenade right as Lloyd threw his charged card into the center of the room. The explosion actually sent shockwaves through the walls and upended the desks in the room, and every single window shattered from the impact. Thankfully, Safe Passage was a global effect designed to protect himself and other creatures from damage, and by the looks of it, the students appeared to be perfectly safe, if still spooked from being in the same room as Louise casting magic.
Louise herself was not so lucky. She was still upright, thankfully, but she was covered in soot and her clothes were practically in tatters. Professor Chevreuse, despite her proximity to the blast, was still decent, although definitely a little dizzy from the force of the blast. Lloyd could definitely see now there was no sense in denying his Master's title anymore: she really was Louise the Zero.
"You see that!? That's why we don't let you try casting spells!"
"Your success rate is zero! That's why we call you Louise the Zero!"
More and more insults came flying out of the gathered students, and Louise simply stood there, quivering in frustration and agony. Unable to let his Master suffer further embarrassment, he finally took off his hoodie, making his way to her. "OKAY, WE GET IT! NOW SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!"
The insults quickly died down as Lloyd put his hoodie around his Master's shoulders, trying to cover her up at least a little. "You're welcome, by the way…" he added grumpily as an afterthought as he turned back to Louise. "You okay? No broken bones?" Louise shook her head. "Good."
The nearby door burst open, and Professor Colbert as well as a green-haired woman Lloyd didn't recognize, dashed in. Once they saw the room's condition and their students all unharmed, they shared a look that apparently said they'd seen this scene quite a few times before. "Louise de la Valliere, go get a change of clothes and present yourself to the headmaster at once. The rest of you, classes are cancelled, you may go about your business. Miss Longueville, if you would…" The two faculty members went to work hauling the disoriented Chevreuse out of the room.
"You don't have to come with me," Louse finally spoke, her face still hidden under the hood.
"Alright, I hear ya," said Lloyd. Looking behind him, he saw Katie chatting with some of her friends as she left with the others, picking up the words "strange" and "maid" as she passed. "Just leave my jacket on the back of the chair before you go see the headmaster. I've got some digging about this morning's events to do anyhow."
"Very well." Louise said, her sharpness returning a little.
What was that all about? Nonetheless, Lloyd gave Louise a quick hug, then filed out with the others, zooming in on Katie, still chatting away with her friends.
"I didn't even know what to think when that maid told me, but now that I've actually seen it…I don't know…"
Suspicions abounding, Lloyd made a beeline for the first year, clearing his throat to get their attention. Katie visibly jumped as Lloyd's towering presence appeared alongside her. "Lord Lloyd! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult Louise further, but…"
"It's alright, I'm not here to chastise you on it. Truth be told, I didn't think it would be that bad and that you guys were just calling her Zero just for kicks," Lloyd said with a dismissive wave.
"Oh, hardly, Lord Lloyd," Katie nodded. "From what I hear, even basic spells end that way for Louise. I'd almost hate to see what happens if she starts trying more advanced spells."
Lloyd nodded. While he wasn't fond of the treatment she'd gotten, it was at least understandable, to know it was less of spite and more out of fear of personal injury. "So what's this I hear about a maid? Does it have something to do with what you were stressed out about in class earlier?"
Katie actually looked surprised at the question. "Yes, actually. I had penned an essay for another class talking about elemental associations of various precious gems. I was trying really hard to get it right, especially with my first year, so I was working on it over dessert the other day. But then this maid came up to me to serve my cake, and then…she started acting weird."
"Weird how?" Lloyd tilted his head.
"I don't know. She accidentally brushed my hand and had this weird spasm, like she'd been stung by a bee," Katie said. "She almost ended up putting the cake in my skirt. Then she looks at me and says in this dead-sounding voice, 'that paper isn't going to end well for you.' But I thought she was just not feeling well, because she looked really tired."
Lloyd frowned. That definitely sounded like Siesta in the condition he'd found her in this morning, but if that was at least two days before this one… "And? How did the paper go?"
Katie hung her head and merely handed it over. Lloyd didn't bother reading it, the red markings and stern words at the bottom said everything he needed to know about how it ended. "Ouch."
"It was my fault, really," Katie started poking her fingers together. "I spent all night trying to revise it because of what she said and didn't realize I'd botched it up as much as I did until I had to turn it in."
Lloyd gave back the paper, his mind already considering the avenues. If Siesta's outburst was tied to this event somehow, he would need to find out more about Siesta's activities in the past week. Unfortunately, he wanted to give the other maids a wide berth, lest he make the situation any worse, so he would need a secondary information source. "Do the maids have a place they hang out in between assignments? Do you know?"
"I do know they like to frequent the kitchens a lot. They say there's so much extra food after the meals the maids will go there for a snack so they can keep their strength up."
Perfect! "Thanks, Katie."
Lloyd retraced his steps from his first meeting with Siesta, through the empty halls to the kitchen. With the day quickly ticking down towards evening and dinner, the whole place was abuzz. There was one man in the center of it all, dressed like the very definition of a French chef de cuisine, conducting his men in the hustle and bustle of a crowded kitchen. He was built powerfully with thick, hairy arms, but he still had a chef's dexterous hands as he manned the stoves, barking out orders as he did.
Lloyd would've loved to stick around just to watch him work, but even though the kitchen was fairly spacious, he'd be getting in the way. So he turned to leave, resolving to return when things settled down.
"Oy! You there!" And Lloyd turned around again, realizing the man was talking to him. "You got any business with me or my boys, it'll have to wait until after dinner service! Until then, you can see your noble ass out."
"So you're the guy who runs this Scooby-Doo outfit?" Lloyd asked, not entirely fond of the way the man was speaking to him. Were chefs always this temperamental?
"Aye, that's me," the man said, dropping his pan on the stove for a minute. "What exactly do you want?"
"I'm a friend of Siesta's. I was told someone on the kitchen staff would help me if it involved her or one of the other maids around here. Am I right in assuming that's you?" Lloyd replied.
The man gave Lloyd a once-over, then a twice-over. Once he realized he wasn't wearing an academy uniform, Lloyd's identity was clear to him. "So you're that Familiar who took down Guiche de Gramont last week, the one that Siesta's been talking about, eh? My apologies, I didn't quite recognize you there." He held out his hand. "Name's Marteau, I'm the head chef around here."
Lloyd took it, trying to fight down the wince that followed the man's crushing grip. "I'm Lloyd Kreis. Familiar of Louise de Valliere."
"So I've been told. What do you need to know?" Marteau asked.
"I'm gonna keep it brief, since I caught you at a bad time," Lloyd said. "Did you start noticing any weird changes in behavior from Siesta lately?"
"I guess so," Marteau shrugged, quickly returning to the stove. "She's been over the moon about you, you know. Saying stuff about how you're from a country where there's no nobility or magic and how your magic comes from playing cards. Wanted to actually go there herself, you see."
"I bet she would. But I'm talking something a bit more recent, maybe in the last three days or so."
Marteau put down his pan, musing on the question. "Now that you mention it, she has been acting less like herself lately. Normally she's so bright and cheerful, she'll make anybody's day better with that smile of hers. Now she's been so…reserved, and I swore I caught her muttering to herself at some point. I thought maybe someone in her family died or something."
"How certain are you about that?" asked Lloyd.
"Don't know. Never really wanted to ask her about it. Why, what are you trying for, Lloyd?"
"Just the facts, Marteau. Tell me, did anything major happen after my duel with Guiche? I was out of it for a few days, so I've been a little behind the times."
"…actually, there was this thing Siesta mentioned around the day after you came back around," Marteau realized. "She actually said she was struck by lightning in her room that night."
"Struck by lightning? How? Some kind of lightning magic?" Lloyd said, his voice getting firmer.
"Hardly. There's a curfew at sundown for all students, even the third-years," Marteau said. "She figured it was just a freak accident, 'cause there was no weather at all that night or even the following morning. Then she said she heard someone whisper a name in her ear."
"A name? Do you remember it, by chance?"
"Nah. Waved it off as a near-death experience and not important, but I'm pretty sure it starts with a K."
The color immediately drained out of Lloyd's face. Freak lightning strikes, ill omens, and someone with the letter K associated with it all? Lloyd's Magic lore identified the culprit immediately, and now there was serious danger afoot. "Oh God, that is so not good. Where is she now?"
Marteau, sensing the rising distress in the artificer's voice, took off his toque. "She's probably in her room in the servant's quarters. Alain, watch my station, I'm gonna go with Lloyd to check on Siesta!"
"Got it, boss!"
Marteau and Lloyd made their way through the halls, weaving through the students who were on their way to the great hall for dinner. Finally, they managed to reach a separate wing of the castle that functioned as the servant quarters. As it was still early enough in the evening, there were only a handful of maids currently in the main room. The three or four maids that were there looked up, confused about Marteau and Lloyd's presence there.
"Girls, we're looking for Siesta. Where is her room?" Marteau asked.
One of them, a blonde maid, pointed down the hall. "Down that hall, second door on the left. She's been in there all day."
"Thanks," Marteau led the way down the hall to the door they specified, and then knocked on the door. "Siesta! It's Marteau! Can I come in?" There was no reply. Marteau knocked again. "Siesta! I've brought your friend Lloyd here! Come on, talk to us!" Still nothing. "This isn't good. What do you want to do, Lloyd? Should we go back?"
Lloyd looked at the door for a moment, and then pushed against it slightly. The door creaked open a little. Lloyd pushed it a bit more, and the door opened, revealing Siesta kneeling in the middle of her practically-destroyed room, staring up at the ceiling.
"Great Founder…" breathed Marteau.
"Stay here," Lloyd warned the chef, opening his deck case. Three cards, two of them Plains, jumped to his hand. He dropped one, the card forming into a haze of white mana, and kept the other two behind his back as he approached Siesta. "Siesta?" Siesta said nothing. After creeping in behind her, he spun around to her front, preparing to defend himself if whatever was awaiting him had set up a trap. But there was none. And instead, Lloyd saw something that shocked him right to his sneakers. "Mother of God…!"
Siesta's eyes were blank. Actually, blank was a strong word for it. Instead, her eyes seemed to have glazed over with that same starry energy from before. He'd seen the image before on a Magic card before. It was at that moment he also noticed something else was in the room. It was a clean, almost sterile smell. It smelled like ozone, which Lloyd knew was an aftereffect of lightning strikes. There was also a kind of salty smell in the room, as if he could smell the ocean.
Wait. Ocean? Here?
"Why did you come?" Siesta suddenly spoke, looking up at him with the star-filled eyes. "I told you. If you stayed, you would die." Her voice was different now. It was almost ethereal, and had an echo-y feel, like he'd stepped in a church.
"Siesta. Marteau told me about what happened to you. Katie told me about how you knew about her essay," Lloyd said, taking a knee. "How did you know any of that?"
"They tell me," Siesta replied blithely.
"Who? Who tells you?"
"The creatures."
Lloyd blinked, then looked down at what was in Siesta's hands: a deck of Magic cards. Lloyd quickly checked his deck case and found it still full. Somehow, someone had given her a deck, and now it was causing her to act like this. "Siesta. Where did you get those?"
"I don't know…I just found them…" Siesta whimpered.
"Found them where!?"
"In my room…now they show me things…show me the future…they show me things but I can't do anything to stop it…"
That all but confirmed Lloyd's suspicions. "Did Keranos tell you that?"
Siesta's starry eyes widened. "How did you know about him?"
"Any Magic player worth his salt knows who the fifteen Gods of Theros are," said Lloyd. "But it's okay. Just give the deck to me and maybe it'll all go away." He held out his hand to her.
Siesta reached out with a hand, trying to drop the cards in Lloyd's, but her hand shook and her grip stayed firm. "…I can't…!"
"Yes you can."
"No I can't! I…I wanted to be like you, Lloyd! To be a commoner and use magic like you…! I can finally help my family now…for real, this time…!" Siesta's eyes began pouring over with tears.
"Siesta, this deck is mentally tearing you apart. I don't want to lose my new friend over this. Give me the deck."
"Lloyd, I can't!"
"Siesta!" Lloyd reached out and grabbed the deck.
"You dare raise a finger to me!?" Siesta suddenly stood up, her voice now reverberating with a deep brass echo. Suddenly, a familiar red haze began to swirl around her hands, and a lone card flew out of the deck."Lightning Strike!"
The hair on Lloyd's head stood on end for a brief second, and Lloyd took the opportunity to make his next move. He threw one card to the ground, and the held out the other. "Soul Parry!"
CRACK! KABOOM!
The lightning bolt soared through the broken window…
…
And struck Lloyd dead-on in the chest. The Planeswalker-hopeful was launched out of the room and into the hallway by the blast as a second haze of white mana joined the rest. Lloyd had dropped the wrong card, and his would-be spell didn't block it. Of course, Lloyd had forgotten Soul Parry didn't work like that, so it wouldn't have even worked even if he had cast it.
Marteau took this as his opportunity to get out of the way. "Everybody clear out! Lloyd, come on!"
"Make yourself useful and get help!" Lloyd snapped, coughing as he got to his feet.
"Stormcaller of Keranos!" Siesta was already on the move, mana flaring around her as it formed into a beautiful woman in red and blue silks. "Strike him down!"
Lloyd reached out to his hand, thinking of Soul Parry. The card twitched in its place on the floor, then shot to his hand. "Soul Parry!"
This time, the spell worked without a hitch, absorbing the blast of lightning from the Stormcaller, and he quickly took off running, with Siesta floating along in hot pursuit.
"Lloyd!? What are you doing here!?"
Lloyd's eyes widened as he saw Louise coming his way, apparently just now having finished her business with the headmaster. He quickly summoned a third Plains and let it drop, then mentally called for Safe Passage as he tried to wave his Master off. "Louise! Get out of the way!"
"Bolt of Keranos!" Another bolt of lightning shot forward, homing in on Lloyd.
"Safe Passage!" Lloyd countered, throwing out the card behind him as he tackled Louise to the ground to protect her. An angelic silhouette intercepted the card, and the lightning forked around him, one half striking the wall and the other striking the ground harmlessly.
"Lloyd! What in the Founder's name is going on!?"
"That's what!" Lloyd said, pointing behind him as the possessed Siesta kept going at them, more mana accruing around her. "Now we need to get out of here!" He called on a Mountain and dropped it as he hoisted his Master his feet and grabbed her in a fireman's carry, taking off running as he called on another spell. "Tempered Steel!"
"Stymied Hopes!" Suddenly, the card shot out of his hand was swallowed whole by a wave of blue fire.
"What did you do to her!? She's casting magic!" Louise screamed at him.
"News to me!" Lloyd snarked as he rounded a corner and put Louise down.
"How is she casting magic!? She's a commoner!" said Louise.
"She got her hands on a Magic deck like mine! Now she's been possessed by it and now she's basically gone berserk!"
"How did she get a deck?"
"I don't know! I know I didn't give it to her, my Myr deck is the only one I had on me! Plus, my Theros deck was Green-Black Constellation deck! I never used blue-red!" Lloyd poked his head out behind the wall, and a Magma Jet soared past, tearing up the sleeve of his shirt and burning his shoulder. "GAH! DAMMIT!"
"You cannot escape me! I can see your every move!" Siesta, or at least what was controlling her, declared.
"What do we do!?" Louise asked, glaring at her wounded Familiar to hide her fear.
"Take this fight outside! I've already sent for help, they should be here soon!" Lloyd summoned a Mountain and dropped it, then called on four more cards. "Signal Pest!" A small goblin-like golem appeared in Lloyd's hand. "Shimmer Myr!" The glimmering Myr Lloyd had summoned a few days prior was next to appear. "Panic Spellbomb!" Another spellbomb, this one shaped like a rosette and made of iron and bloodstone, was next to appear. "Mox Opal!" Finally, without any mana at all, a small glimmering metal stone cut like a gem appeared in his hand.
"So wait, what exactly is the plan-" Louise began.
"RUN NOW!" Lloyd gave Louise a hard shove down the hall. Immediately Siesta and her Stormcaller barreled down on her, but Lloyd got in the way, lobbing the Panic Spellbomb right in the Stormcaller's face. Then, he gripped the Mox Opal, summoning more red mana from it as he pointed at the arcing bomb. "Pineapple surprise!" The bomb exploded, and the Stormcaller screeched, gripping at her eyes. The Signal Pest and Shimmer Myr took that opportunity to charge and swarm Siesta while she was defenseless, allowing Louise and Lloyd to escape outside.
"Well…if nothing else, it's nice to know my casting IS getting better…" Lloyd joked.
"This is no time for jokes! A commoner just tried to kill us with magic!" Louise snapped at him.
"No, really!?" Lloyd snapped back at her.
More people came running out of the doors to join them: Marteau, followed by Professor Colbert and Miss Longueville, and, strangely enough, the entirety of the student body. "What are you guys doing here?"
"You said get help, I brought it," Marteau said, gesturing to Colbert and Longueville.
"There's a huge racket going on in the castle and you expect us to not seek refuge as far away from it as possible?" Kirche asked with shrug.
"I wanted everyone to stay in the castle because I was going to drag the fight outside!" Lloyd explained.
"Well, it's hard to control people when the first idea you have for clearing the area is yelling 'troll in the dungeons,'" Marteau shrugged. Lloyd groaned at that one, massaging his forehead.
"Mister Kreis, what in the Founder's name is going on!?" demanded Colbert, trying to get the conversation to important matters.
"You want the long version or the short?" Lloyd asked. Upon getting only expectant stares, he explained everything he'd found in his investigation and the current state of things with Siesta apparently being possessed by the deck.
"And you expect us to believe this how?" asked Longueville skeptically.
"I'll vouch for him," Marteau said. "I was right there next to him she blasted him with some lightning magic clean across the room."
"Plus, I didn't exactly get cooked on the shoulder just for kicks," said Lloyd, gesturing to his ruined sleeve and the raw burn on it from the Magma Jet.
"Whatever it is that's going on, I blame you, Louise," Guiche said flatly.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, scrub," Lloyd snarled at him, earning a rather undignified squeak from Guiche.
Suddenly, the door burst open, and Siesta floated through out into the courtyard, starry energy and mana swirling around her like a veritable storm of magic, cards orbiting every which way around her as the Shimmer Myr and Signal Pest flew backwards from the force. She floated to the ground, mana and celestial power swirling around her as a card lifted up from the deck. With this sudden influx of power, day almost seemed to turn to night as a bronze-skinned figure almost as big as the Academy itself seemed to descend, wearing the very cosmos as a toga.
"Ah, the puppetmaster reveals himself," Lloyd grunted.
"Is that him!?" Marteau asked, in awe of the humongous figure before him.
"That it is. That, Marteau, is Keranos, God of Storms, and the thing that's controlling Siesta, most likely," said Lloyd.
"Wait, you're saying that thing is a GOD!?" Louise shrieked at him.
"One, take it down a notch, Louise. Two, yes, one of fifteen in the pantheon. And three…well, I'm a little iffy on if it's the genuine article," Lloyd said, watching as Siesta offered the God a card. Despite the massive distance between them, Lloyd could see the card was an Omenspeaker. Suddenly, the card sparked, transforming into a massive bolt of lightning, which he then threw at Lloyd. The blast launched him backwards, careening over the heads of the other students, and then painfully to the ground. Most of the students took this as the cue to get out, running for the safety of the outer walls as Lloyd scrambled to his feet, Signal Pest and Shimmer Myr coming to defend him.
"Omenspeaker!" A bald woman in a white robe appeared, his eyes hidden under a headband. Two cards lifted from the deck. One started orbiting around Siesta while the other disappeared from sight. "Knowledge is mine! Now behold my power!" Another bolt of lightning shot of the sky behind Keranos, striking down the Signal Pest. The Stormcaller then charged at him, hoping to get a free shot.
"Step right up!" Lloyd countered. "Shimmer Myr! Turbocharge!" Shimmer Myr began to gleam brightly as Lloyd summoned forth a card from his deck. "Myr Galvanizer!" At once, the lightning rod-equipped Myr sprang to life, lightning striking the Shimmer Myr as Lloyd directed it to block the Stormcaller. The Stormcaller was fast, but the Shimmer Myr was faster, smashing it down into the ground. It promptly disappeared into motes of red dust.
"Yeah, I think I'm getting better at this magic thing," Lloyd grinned. "Now, let's get this party started off proper! Go, Myr Turbine!" A massive tower rose up behind Lloyd, pulsating with energy. With a wave of his hand, a lone Myr popped out, ready to defend. Then, he grabbed a second card. "Origin Spellbomb!" The familiar white and gold bomb appeared in his hand, which he then put in his hoodie as he charged headlong at Siesta, trying to reach her. "Siesta!"
The Omenspeaker got in the way of the Shimmer Myr, and promptly fell to the artifact creature. But Siesta merely held out another card. "Searing Blood!"
The Shimmer Myr began to steam and then promptly exploded, showering Lloyd in debris. Then, he screamed as he felt his very blood reach extreme temperatures in a few seconds, sending him to the ground right at Siesta's feet.
"You really have no concept of my powers, do you?" Keranos grabbed him by the neck in between his fingers and hoisted him over Siesta's head, threatening to choke him. "Don't you see, Lloyd? With this power, I can finally give my family a better life! I could finally get a better life for myself, too!"
"Working for your family…it's very noble…" Lloyd eked out, feet kicking as the God threatened to squeeze the life out of him. "But…I think…you're looking at this the wrong way…"
"You don't understand, Lloyd. I was just a maid before. Now I'm a mage, a commoner mage just like you. And with this magic, my family can become a noble family, too! No more having to obey nobles who abuse their positions, or think they're better than me just because they can use magic! And on top of all that, I don't need to worry about marrying someone to send my family more money…"
"I'm no fan of the nobility, either, but this won't solve the problem!"
"I thought you would be supportive of me, Lloyd! You come from a country where there is no magic, or nobility! Wouldn't you appreciate helping commoners like me find a way to get the life we deserve? Slowly the god's massive fingers began to squeeze…then spark with a familiar rainbow energy Lloyd had seen before. "What!?"
KABOOM!
An explosion erupted right on the back of Keranos's hand. Being a God and therefore indestructible, nothing was destroyed, but the surprise was enough to make him drop Lloyd to the ground, gasping for air.
"Come on! Even the one time I want my magic to blow something up, I still screw it up!"
Both of them looked over to find that Louise had shown up, wand in hand. She looked mightily disappointed, probably because she attempted to use a spell to save Lloyd and ended up getting another explosion. Siesta and Keranos both glared at the mage. "Now that was not wise." Siesta offered Keranos a Mountain as two more cards jumped to her hand. "Fated Conflagration! Knowledge and Power!"
A humongous wave of fire and lightning rose up from Siesta, intent on consuming Louise whole, but someone got in the way, his Familiar runes glowing brightly amidst the surging flames. Even as his shirt continued to be torn apart, Lloyd remained standing, standing defiantly in front of his Master. If he'd been burned at all, it wasn't showing on his skin.
"Lloyd!" Louise said, very much surprised by what she'd just seen.
"Why the hell did you come back!?" Lloyd asked.
"Is that any way to talk to your Master!? A Master who also just happened to save your life, on top of that!" huffed Louise.
"You're very noble, I get that, but hello, god of storms!?" Lloyd said, gesturing to the humongous being in the sky.
"Oh, I can just see you've got him well in hand!"
"I've got Dispatch! Gods are less dangerous when you exile them into an inter-planar oubliette!"
"Enough!" Keranos actually created a thunderclap, cutting in on the conversation.
"SHUT UP! YOU'RE INTERRUPTING US!" Lloyd and Louise countered, rounding on Siesta with eyes blazing.
Siesta and Keranos actually flinched. Lloyd took that opportunity to drop a Mountain and then throw his Origin Spellbomb at Siesta. "Hot potato!" It exploded in Siesta's face, summoning another Myr as he summoned his next card. "Frantic Salvage!" The scattered remains of his Signal Pest, Shimmer Myr, Origin Spellbomb, even the Panic Spellbomb in the castle, suddenly flocked to the card in Lloyd's hand, the metal transforming back into mana as it was drawn inside. Then, it transformed into the card Lloyd was hoping to draw from it: Shimmer Myr. Then, he pointed at the Turbine. "Turbine! Generate!" Another Myr was quick to follow, taking up defensive positions with his two fellows. "Iron Myr!" Another Myr, this one more blocky and made of rust-streaked iron, was next to join them.
"Do you think summoning all these creatures will be enough to save you from a painful death!?" Siesta offered Keranos a Stormchaser Chimera, who then cast down lightning at Lloyd's Iron Myr.
"I like to think of it as being prepared!" Lloyd pulled out his Mox Opal from his ruined hoodie's pocket, summoning red mana from it "Iron Myr!" As Keranos's blow hit, the Iron Myr unleashed a haze of red mana, which Lloyd used to fuel his next card. "Flash cast! Shimmer Myr!"
"I won't let you! Dissolve-!" Siesta was quick to counter with a card of her own.
"Louise! Cast a spell at her now!" Lloyd said.
"What? What kind of spell?" Louise asked, surprising someone would be asking her to do anything related to magic with her reputation.
"I don't know! Fireballs! Icicles! Drop a bucket on her head! JUST SOMETHING!"
Louise, whether for fear of what Siesta's spell would do or fear out of what Lloyd was expecting, pointed her wand at Siesta and muttered the fastest incantation she could think of. The Dissolve that she was holding sparked and promptly exploded, knocking Siesta off of her feet.
"YES!" Lloyd cheered, as his Shimmer Myr re-emerged with no ill-effects. "Who said that magic wasn't useless!?"
Louise just stared at her wand. She wasn't expecting much other than her usual explosions, but she realized Lloyd had used that to his advantage, using the explosion to distract Siesta from casting the spell. However, Siesta wasn't quite done. "Stormchaser Chimera!" A quadruped winged beast appeared, with the head of an eagle and a ram as it gave a bestial roar at Lloyd and Louise.
"Let that one through, I've got a way around it!" Lloyd said, stopping Louise from raising her wand.
"Oh? You would really want to hurt me, Lloyd? But I thought we were friends!" Siesta asked, trying to cute her way out of it.
Lloyd merely drew a card. "I'm friends with Siesta the maid, not Siesta the megalomaniac. Metalcraft Concussive Bolt!" Lloyd's card called forth his own lightning, zipping past Siesta's Stormheart Chimera and striking her right in the head, once again knocking her to the ground. "Pin her to the ground!" Lloyd's Myrs responded, shooting past the immobile Chimera and dogpiling on top of the maid. As Siesta struggled under the Myrs holding her limbs down, Lloyd quickly dashed in, and wrenched the deck out of Siesta's hand.
At once, the situation was resolved. Keranos, the Stormchaser Chimera, and an assortment of lands, creatures, and various spells Siesta had used returned to the deck, piling on top with the remainder of its buddies. Even the starry eyes Siesta had had throughout the ordeal had vanished, replaced with the sleep-deprived ones from that morning. "Lloyd…?"
"It's okay, Siesta. It's over now," Lloyd said, brushing the young maid's hair lightly as he motioned at the Myrs. At once, the Myrs, the Myr Turbine, and all his other expended cards returned to his deck case.
Siesta didn't even bother waiting until the rest of Lloyd's cards had returned before the maid embraced him, sobbing hysterically. "I'm so sorry, Lloyd! I'm so, so, so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you or Louise or…or…or anything, really! It was the cards! They...they..."
"I know," Lloyd nodded soothingly. "Now just sleep. You've had a rough week. I'll take you back to your room." Siesta nodded, sniffling.
"So…now what?" Louise asked.
"Go to the others and say it's safe to come back now. And get Professor Colbert, he's going to want an explanation for all of this."
Louise actually looked away a moment. "Actually, I'd…I'd prefer if you went with me, once you've dealt with Siesta. They…I don't think they trust me enough."
Lloyd considered it. "Fair enough. I'll be right back. You just wait here, and come get me if any of those things come back, okay?"
"Okay."
Lloyd nodded, picked up Siesta bridal-style, and made his way to the doors. Then he stopped, and flashed Louise a smile. "Good job, by the way. I couldn't have gotten through that without you."
Louise gaped for a moment, not expecting her Familiar to give her praise, but beamed all the same. "Well, of course you couldn't."