Chapter Eight: War never changes

This sucks. Can we go back to having to deal with my potential harem that I don't feel I deserve at all? It'll take my mind off of how horridly boring and time consuming being the trump card in a war is. Literally, that's what they called Louise, a trump card. We exist solely to give us an advantage. I knew that's what we were going to be doing anyway, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

It had been about a month and a half since we arrived in Albion, which in turn was about a week after we left Louise's house. In that time, me and Louise have been on around 121 different missions for the Tristain army, usually involving using my zero fighter to transport Louise somewhere so she can use her voidness to blow something up. But not always. See, Louise actually picked up a new spell that allows her to make illusion copies of something, so we would sometimes use those to trick the Albion army into retreating. Not like it does any permanent good. I like to think of myself as an optimist, but this war's turning me into a pessimist.

Here's a bit of a sample as to how the current conversation with the generals is going.

"We will go to this part, then use the experimental magic to drive those people towards this place so we can ambush them with our army."

By the way, since we couldn't go around blabbing that Louise is a master of void, Louise, Emily and myself worked together to construct the lie that Louise is being used to test some experimental spells that the royal family is working on. I didn't think it was that good, but Emily assured us it would work, and it did. Kind of amazing.

"Do you think you guys can actually manage to tone down the usage of Master Louise?" I ask the generals present. "I'm all for helping out, but you seem to be forgetting that mages only have so much willpower with which to cast spells. We can't keep spamming Louise like this."

"I don't see what you point is," one of the generals asks me. "Willpower recharges while sleeping, does it not? All she needs is a good night's rest, and she'll be fine."

"The problem is keeping the nights open for rest," I say while I point at Louise, who has fallen asleep in her chair. "You seem to have forgotten that you've sent us on more then a few nighttime missions. Nighttime missions mean no sleep. No sleep means no willpower. No willpower means no experimental spells for you. Didn't you call us a trump card? Isn't the point of a trump card to use it as sparingly as possible, and only in emergencies?"

"Fine. We'll give you a day off," one of the generals tells me. "Tomorrow we'll most likely have another mission for you, so make sure she gets some rest."

"Thank you. Anyone know how to get her out of here without waking her up?"

All the generals then walked out of the tent, leaving me alone with a sleeping Louise. Thank you for nothing. Damn everything, I guess I better wake Louise up.

"Hey, Louise. Wake up," I say as I gently nudge her.

"No, you can't do that," I hear Louise mutter.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"What if someone hears us?" She mutters again.

Wait, is she dreaming? Oh, this should be good. I missed her last dream chat, and I promised myself I'd take the next opportunity, so why not? I'll probably hate myself for it later, but I decided to listen for a bit.

"Wh-what? Of course not! M-maybe a l-little. Ye-yes."

Even in her sleep Louise manages to keep up the tsundere act. That's pretty impressive, all things considered. 20 bucks says she was pissed off at me. It honestly wouldn't surprise me. I am surprised at how coherent she is when she talks in her sleep. Does everyone talk in full, understandable sentences when they dream?

"St-stop it Josh!" She says as she starts wiggling in her seat.

See? I was right. Now where and from whom do I collect my winnings?

"I d-don't like it at ahh-" Whatever Louise was saying becomes drowned out as she lets out a moan.

Um... What the hell am I doing to her in that dream of hers? I'm worried of what I'd find out if I were to dip into her subconscious. I honestly become frightened by the mere thought of it.

"Um... O-okay, I'll do that."

Whoa, is she honestly having some kind of-

"W-wear that! You can't be serious!"

Okay, what the hell? I don't know what Louise is thinking, but now I'm starting to get worried. Is she picturing me trying to force an outfit on her before I go for the home run? Louise, my hobbies don't extend that far. With some exceptions, I don't have a cosplay fetish at all.

"Are you sure? F-fine, I'll wear it. C-could you turn around?"

Oh crap, please don't let her say what I think she's going to say.

"W-what! You per-perverted dog! Wh-who's a kitten?"

Damn everything. Louise, if I am indeed whoever you mentioned in your dream and you're not mentioning someone else named Josh, I'm not that perverted. I think. I hope I'm not that perverted. And what's this about a kitten? I'd ask for an explanation, but I'm too worried about those answers.

"B-back then was different. You were a familiar."

Well, unless she's talking about Verdandi, I think it's safe to assume she's talking about me. In which case, what's that supposed to mean? I'm still a familiar. What's she talking about? Maybe listening in on her dreaming was a bad idea, I'm only getting half the conversation. It's an admittedly entertaining half, but still.

I really should wake her up. But part of me doesn't want to. This is far too entertaining. And what better way to find out how people actually think then by listening to their subconscious? I just hope this doesn't get any weirder, or scientific curiosity goes flying out the window and I wake Louise up.

"I don't want to. Th-they're small," Louise mutters.

They're small? What's "they?" If she's talking about her breasts, I guess they are kind of small. Tabitha's the only one smaller then her in that regard, and Kirche has watermelons duct-taped to her chest. Do you think I hate you because your breasts are small? The only other girl I've spent an amount of time with even close to the amount of time I'm with you is Emily, and her breasts are only slightly larger then yours. Louise is maybe an A cup, and Emily's probably a B cup. I don't care though, breasts are breasts, who cares about the size?

...

Wow, I really am a pervert.

"D-don't lie. You hate them, don't you?"

By this point I'm starting to wonder why I'm still listening. This is starting to get to weird for my tastes. Um... Willpower recharges with sleep, right? More sleep, more spells cast. Besides, it's not like I have anything better to do.

"R-really?" Louise asks the air surrounding her. "Y-you're not lying?"

I guess I wasn't lying in her dream, because real world Louise seems to hesitantly smile.

"O-okay then. Promise you won't do anything?"

Real world Louise then moves one of her hands to the collar of shirt and starts tugging on it, tugging loose around three buttons on her shirt, revealing the closest Louise will ever get to cleavage. Considering she just popped off another few buttons and I could see her camisole quite clearly, and she doesn't appear to care or notice, I think we've had about enough.

"Hey Louise, wake up," I say as I flick her forehead, causing her to jolt awake and nearly fall off her chair.

"Wh-what?" Louise asks as she looks around. She sees me and her face lights up around three different shades of red. "Josh! What are you doing? I was sleeping! What'd you wake me up for? I happened to like the dream I was having!"

"Clearly. Normally when I see people having good dreams, I let them sleep. I kind of had to make an exception in your case, considering what you were just about to do."

Louise looks confused for a minute, then she seems to notice where her hand is, and how many buttons she undid. Her face gains another 5 shades of red, and she slaps me so hard that I do a complete 180 and fall face down on the floor. You know, considering Louise's face seems to always get really red when she's embarrassed, I figure I'll just start measuring how embarrassed she is by the number of shades of red her face is.

"Ow," I mutter as I get back up.

"You didn't hear anything, did you?" Louise asks me. I notice her shirt's completely buttoned up again. Good, I was worried Louise would turn into Kirche and think that was a good look to walk around town with.

"Nope. Nothing at all." If I tell her I heard any of what she said, I can assume my heart will stop beating about three seconds afterwards. "I take it I should never want to ask for details?"

"Of course not!" Louise yells at me. "A maiden's dreams are her personal matter! Even if it did involve you, it is none of your business!"

Did Louise just confess that her dream was about me? I don't know what to think about that. That worries me, and makes me happy. It means she's at least interested in me if she's having those kinds of dreams. It's probably not love, but sometimes you have to take what you can get. Beggars can't be choosers, right? Why does it feel so good to know that someone you love likes you back?

"I was in your dream?" I ask Louise, playing dumb to the fact that I already knew that. Let's just tease Louise a bit, see how she reacts. "If that's true, then that means-"

"No! I don't love you!" Louise yells at me.

I've gotten to the point where I'm around 86% sure the Louise actually does love me. It's a statistic I'd love to raise to 100%, but I doubt Louise would confess to me unless we were both about to die, and even then I doubt she'd say anything. She seems to be one of those kinds of people.

"I didn't say that. I was going to point out how it's kind of funny that your familiar manages to work his way into your dreams."

Louise somehow manages to add another shade of red to her face. We're up to, what, 9 shades of red? I think Louise's real magical ability is to have an unlimited number of different shades of red color her face when she's embarrassed. It's actually kind of cute.

"Shut up stupid familiar," Louise says while refusing to look at me. "So what did the generals say our next mission is?"

"Take a day off. They'll have something for us tomorrow."

Louise seems to perk up at that. "Really? They're giving us the day off? No missions or assignments today?"

"None. None at all. Anything you want to do to kill time?"

"Sleep," Louise tells me with a yawn. "I had no idea magic could be this exhausting."

"You sure that's the only reason?"

In response, Louise glares at me. It was a frightening glare. Her eyes appeared to be boring into the very confines of my soul, ripping it from my body before drilling into the center of this very planet and trapping my soul in hell to burn forever. It was a glare that could have made Cthulhu quiver and fear and go mad had he gazed upon the glare for more then three seconds.

It was one of those kinds of glares.

"Of course that's the only reason I want to sleep. What other reason could there be?" Louise asks me sternly, daring me to question her.

"Well-"

"Say anything, and I will teach you the true meaning of pain," Louise says angrily.

I shut my mouth.

"Good boy," Louise says with a smile.

We turn and walk towards the exit of the tent, only for someone to walk in.

"Ah, I had hoped to catch you two."

He was maybe slightly shorter then me, which still put him at about a head taller then Louise. He had blondish hair, and his eyes were different colors. Blue and brown. Weird.

"And who might you be?" I ask blondie.

"My apologies. I am a priest from Romalia. My name is Julio Cesar. Having a human as a familiar is rather rare-"

Let me pause for a minute. I FREAKING GET IT! HUMANS AREN'T SUMMONED AS FAMILIARS! STOP MENTIONING IT EVERY SINGLE TIME I MEET SOMEONE NEW! Whew. Anywho-

"And I couldn't help myself," Julio continues, oblivious to my ramblings. "I had to meet this strange phenomenon."

... I think I hate you. I don't even know why, I just do. In fact, the more words you speak the more I want to punch you in the face.

"Ah! And you must be Ms. Valliere," Julio says while turning to Louise. "It appears the rumors are true," She's a lesbian? That's what most of the commoners here seem to be saying behind her back for some reason. "You are indeed almost criminally beautiful," He says as he takes her hand and kisses it.

Urge to punch Julio in his smug face rising beyond recommended levels. At least Louise will take care of that for me. Louise won't take something like that lying down! Right Louise?

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that," Louise says with a slight blush on her face.

... Right Louise?

"Nice job with the whole priestly act thing," I throw in to keep this moment from getting any worse then it possibly could have normally.

"Since I'm helping Tristain in the war, the pope gave me a reprieve from my duties as a priest."

And here I thought the pope would have given you a stupid hat and told you to not go fight because it's evil and wrong.

"So you're allowed to do not preistly things just because you're on vacation and helping in a war? Sounds about right."

"My apologies," I don't want apologies, I want to punch you in the face. "I had forgotten my priesthood and reacted reflexively when faced with such a lovely lady."

... I'd be very happy if you would leave. Now, preferably. Before you say anything else to make me want to punch you even more, you goddamn flirt.

Thankfully Julio seemed to sense the killing intent I was trying to muster, because he left with barely another word. As soon as he left, I suddenly felt all my hatred disappear. Huh. Weird. Wait, couldn't I have at least used Heightened Awareness to check and make sure he was on our side? Well, too late now. I'm sure he's fine.

Louise and I walk out of the tent, and head back to the room we've rented for the duration of our stay here.

"What's the matter?" Louise asks me as we head back to the hotel. "You seem kind of down."

"Do I? I don't feel it."

"Well you definitely look it," Louise points out. "What, are you jealous of that flirty priest?"

"No. What's there to be jealous about at all?"

Louise smiles. "Right. After all, he's not my type anyway."

"May I ask what is your type then?"

"Why would you want to know?" Louise asks in a teasing manner. "What benefit could possibly come from that knowledge?"

"I feel like you're mocking me."

"I'm not mocking you at all!" Louise says in a faux-defensive tone. "What's there to mock?"

"The fact that I managed to somehow fall in love with you. I feel like that fact amuses you and you mock me for it. To me, it kind of comes across as rejection. Is that what it is?"

Louise stops walking for a minute, then puts a hand to her chin, like she's deep in thought.

After a minute:

"No."

"No, what?"

"Your question. The answer's no," Louise tells me.

"So I'm not rejected?"

"Nope. But it's not accepted either. I need to think about it a bit more," Louise says with a happy tone.

Is it just me or is Louise acting a bit different then usual? She seems pretty cheerful. I don't get it. Still, I think Louise has the right idea. Sleep now, put life in danger for the 122nd time tomorrow.

*Scene Break*

*Whistle* I love flying the zero fighter. Flying a plane is surprisingly easy, and it really allows for a nice chance to just think about nothing in particular. It's a very zen experience. It'd be more peaceful if I was flying for a reason other then war, but you take what you can get, right?

"Okay, so fly over to that town and let you cast illusion, right Louise?" I ask to confirm the mission.

"Right. That should be it."

"And why are these dragon following us?"

"They're our bodyguards," Louise explains. "They are to protect us should the enemy try and bring us down before we reach town."

"Are we really important enough to warrant body guards to protect us?"

"Of course! Where would our army be without the void? It's proven an invaluable asset!"

"You sound just like those generals," I remark.

"And what's wrong with that? The void is Tristain's advantage! We have something Albion doesn't, so shouldn't we use it?" Louise asks me.

Ah, it's nice hearing Louise be all upset at me again. It seems much more natural.

"I'm just saying, is it really okay to spam void like this? Someone's bound to catch on eventually, and besides, remember that little thing the water spirit told us they have? remember the Ring of Andvarri? I can see that giving them a slight advantage." Damn, I still need to get that for the water spirit. Maybe once this war's done I can make a move on that.

"The water spirit's ring won't help them in a war!" Louise yells at me.

"Armies of unkillable zombies are kind of useless after all."

"My void counteracts that! You forgot that already you idiot?"

It's so nice having Louise back to her normal personality. I like this Louise way better then the Louise that appears to be a bit of a tease. No, wait. That's not it. The Louise that's slightly more mischievous? No, not right either. Anyway, her being a type A Tsundere comforts me way more then her being type B Tsundere. I'm more familiar with it and it seems way more natural for her. That and I think I have a bit of a thing for Tsunderes, so yay for me.

"What are you thinking about?" Louise asks. "Pay attention to where you're flying."

"Sure thing Master."

It's only another five minutes or so until we reach our destination, this mission will all be over soon.

*BOOM*

"Holy hell, what was that?"

"We've been spotted!" Louise informs me. "Albion dragons are attacking us!"

I take a look around and notice that there are roughly three dragons chasing after us. Perfect! We have three dragon knights of our own. This'll be fun.

"Should I try to do something or leave everything up to our bodyguards?"

"At least make an attempt to make it to the town!" Louise yells at me. "Just focus on flying to the town, the dragon knights will take care of those following us!"

Can do. Ignoring everything around me is a specialty of mine. Next stop: Nameless town so we can trick the Albion army into retreating. Ignore everything.

"Shit! Fireball!" I notice as I press Z twice to roll out of the way of the fireball that was just shot out at us.

"Watch your flying!" Louise yells at me as she tries to reorient herself after the roll.

"Sorry. Evasive maneuvers are always annoying in first person."

"Just watch it!" Louise yells. "We have to accomplish this mission!"

Maybe I'd do better if you quit yelling at me! Okay, keep ignoring everything, keep ignoring everything. Wait, shit! Is that dragon trying to go kamikaze on us?

"Is that dragon trying to collide with us?" Derflinger asks.

"I think so. Must be an 'I am taking you down with me' mentality he has," I reply nervously.

I get ready to turn the zero fighter out of the way, but I don't need to. Before my eyes, one of our dragon knight bodyguards does his own kamikaze, and runs into the dragon going to attack us. The two dragons collide, and both riders are knocked off and plummet towards the ground, with their dragons following suit.

"H-hey! Did he just do a heroic sacrifice?" I ask in a panic.

"No time to worry! Keep piloting!" Louise tells me.

"Wait, no! We don't even know him! Why'd he do that?"

"That's how important the mission is!" Louise tells me.

"That's stupid!"

Before Louise responds, the other two dragon knights with us perform similar moves, and take out the enemy dragons, at the cost of themselves.

"Wait, why are they doing that!" I ask. "There's no reason for that!"

"They're making sure those dragons are completely incapable of taking us down," Louise tells me.

"That warrants a suicide maneuver? It's unnecessary! We'd have been fine!"

"Now we are! There's no one else after us, see?" Louise says as she motions to the now empty skies around us. "We're in the clear! The mission is now a success."

"And all it took was the lives of three people we didn't even know," I say with a sigh.

"Josh, are you okay?" Louise asks.

"What? I'm fine, what's with that question?"

"You seem upset. Was it the fact that those dragon knights sacrificed themselves to protect us?"

"What do you think? I didn't even know them, I never talked to them, never met them, and they get themselves killed to protect us. Just... Just cast your spell or whatever, I want to get out of here."

And so Louise did, and we were able to accomplish the mission.

*Scene Break*

Argh... I feel like shit. I honestly feel like shit. Normally I'd link this back to the fact that I just saw three people die so me and Louise could live a few days ago, but I didn't know them at all. I didn't know their names, I never met or talked to them, so it shouldn't be getting me down like this. So then why is it?

What's the term for people doing what I'm doing? Wangsting? God, I hope I haven't devolved into that. I have to at least keep some of my own credibility. Okay. Don't complain. Cheer up. No point in mourning every single death in a war, right?

...

Screw it, I'm going out and getting a beer. Where's the bar around here? I think there was a bar of some kind in town. Okay, so I get out of this room, leave the hotel, I think it was around 3 blocks down and then a right. Or something like that. Either way, I opened the door to mine and Louise's room and took one step out.

"Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"Where are you going?"

"Out for a walk. You want to come?"

Louise thinks for a bit. "No, I'll be fine here."

"Okay, see you later," I say as I exit the room.

Why did something about Louise's tone imply that she's scheming something? The fact that Louise could scheme anything worries me greatly. What plan could Louise have the benefits her? I let my thoughts wander... then I walk headfirst into the end of the hallway. Note to self: Pay attention when walking. Also walls hurt when you walk into them. I hope no one saw that.

Eventually I do manage to stumble across a bar of some kind, and I walk in. Goddamn, it's busy in here. I order a glass of the weakest alcoholic beverage they've got, and sit at a table by my lonesome, drinking away my sorrows. Or I would, if I bothered to drink. I still couldn't bring myself to do much more then look at the beer in front of me. All I need to do is lift the glass, put it too my lips and drink. But after what happened last time I drank alcohol... *shudder* Let's not go into that.

"Josh?"

Company! Yes! Something to take my mind off of the fact that I won't drink this! Who is it?

"Emily? What are you doing here?"

By the way, Emily was wearing casual wear. Just a nice black dress with short sleeves and a chest pocket. And she still has her hair in a criminally adorable ponytail. Damn it.

"Me, Jessica and Scarron set up a sort of mini-charming fairy inn here to help out in the war effort," Emily tells me. "I didn't have to come, but I wanted to help out my relatives." My mind briefly projects the image of Emily wearing that inn uniform, then just as quickly rejects it. It's best to not picture things like that in public.

"Is that so?" I stupidly ask.

"Yeah. I'd ask why you're here, but it's pretty obvious that you're helping out Louise with the war effort. A better question is, why are you here at a bar, and where's Louise?" Emily asks.

"Louise is back at the room... I dunno, sleeping, I guess. I'm here to attempt to drink this beverage in front of me."

"I thought you didn't drink?"

"I don't. It's a special occasion."

"And what might that be?" Emily asks in a tone that actually seems to show that she doesn't know why I'm here. That's a nice change of pace.

"Me and Louise went on a mission... Two days ago, was it? We got assigned three dragon knights as bodyguards. Now, I didn't know them. I never met them, never talked to them, I didn't even ever see them face to face, and I doubt Louise did either. Despite this, all three of them still sacrificed themselves to stop the opposing force from taking down Louise and I."

"Sorry if it sounds a bit dickish, but why does that upset you?" Emily asks me. "Like you said, you never met them face to face, so why are you so upset?"

"I think that's why I'm upset. I didn't know them, why'd they go and get themselves killed for us? I don't get it."

At that, I finally manage to pick up the glass and drink a solid half of it. Alcohol tastes terrible.

"Well... How's Louise taking it?" Emily asks.

"I dunno. She... Why are you spinning?"

"Excuse me?"

"What'd you do?"

"You're that drunk already?" Emily asks.

"Please, I only had like one sip."

"You just held up four fingers."

"Oh yeah."

Emily sighs, and pulls out what looks like a notebook from her dress pocket. She flips a few pages and looks at a page.

"I miss those," I mention.

"Excuse me?"

"I miss notebook computers. Different from notebooks, but the same, you know? You write stuff in them, they remind you about stuff and go off when you set the alarm at the right time."

"Notebooks don't have alarms."

"Really? Do they still remind you about dates?"

"Yeah." Then Emily sighs. "Just another few days."

"What's in a few days?"

"That depends on your capacity to remember things I tell you when you're drunk," Emily tells me.

"I dunno. Am I drunk?"

"Very, apparently. You have the lowest tolerance I've ever seen. One sec, I'm going to slap you."

"Wha-"

*PAK*

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Less drunk now?" Emily asks me.

"I definitely feel saner."

"Good. I hate talking to drunk people," Emily notes.

"So, what happens in a week?"

"You remember that?"

"It was a topic of conversation we started roughly 30 seconds ago, and I only drank half a cup of the weakest alcoholic beverage they have here. I was saner then I appeared."

Emily hesitates, then sighs again. I don't think I've ever seen her sigh this much.

"What would you do if you knew about something really dangerous, something you really shouldn't know, but it doesn't concern you in any way and there's nothing you can do about it?" She asks me.

"What are you talking about? Does this have anything to do with that information network you claim to have?" I ask.

"Look, I do have a way to get knowledge about stuff here. Yes, it involve sources and people. Yes, this is something about that. I... Look, I can't talk about it. I don't really know how to explain properly. I guess the base point is that I came across some info I don't like."

"That info being?"

"Hey waiter! Can I have what this guy ordered?" Emily asks the waiter, who nods and goes off to get her a drink. "Anyway, you know that advent festival that's scheduled to start soon, and how there's supposed to be a ceasefire called?" Emily asks.

"Yeah, and?"

"Apparently, and I don't know if this is true or not," I think you do. "But apparently, Albion isn't going to honor that. Last day of the festival, count on an invasion force."

After saying that, Emily looks away and stares at a spot on the wall and spaces out. What's she thinking about?

"Well, if you know this and can prove it, why don't you-" I stop when I see Emily shaking her head slowly.

"That's just it. I don't have the proof. I don't have a written document saying, 'oh, these guys are sending 70,000 troops over here at this time at the end of the festival.' All I have is the word of friend that an invasion force is coming. Size and type unknown. Thank you," She tells the waiter who just brought her a drink. She drinks about three fourths of it and glares at me.

"You got drunk on this stuff? You can give this to kids and they'll be just as sober as before!" She tells me.

"Shut up. Anyway, if you can't provide any proof, then how can you be sure that the info is correct?"

"I just can. It's not something I could really explain, I just know it's true. Please, don't ask," Emily tells me.

"Okay, if you say so."

Hmm... How long have I been out here? How late is it? I should probably go back to Louise's room and sleep or something.

"Well, nice seeing you again Emily, but I think I should probably go now."

"Right. I understand," Emily says as she downs the rest of her drink. I do the same and drink the remaining half of my drink.

As soon as I do, Emily flicks my forehead.

"There," Emily says. "Much less painful then being slapped. Before you go, I was asked to give you a message."

"From who?"

"Guy named Rene. Ran into him yesterday and mentioned I know you and he asked me to pass a message on," Emily explains.

"And that message is?" And who the hell's Rene? Isn't that a girl's name?

"If I remember correctly, he said something along the lines of 'Tell that kid and girl we saved that there's no hard feelings and to finish up the war before out month long vacation's up.' Or something like that."

"Wait... Are you saying-"

"Yeah, they're fine. Gotta love that elven magic."

"Elves?" Legolass?

"They say it was a fairy, but the description is much closer to an elf," Emiri clarifies.

Interesting. Very interesting. But considering the fact that I want to name the table I'm sitting at Steve and tell it all about my time in the antarctic military, I'd say I'm far too gone to really care at the moment. Maybe my head'll clear up on the walk back to Louise's room.

Walking while drunk sucks. I walked into the same pole twice in a row. Am I really so drunk after half a cup that I'm this uncororinated? Uncoorordianted? Clumsy? Damn alcohol.

*THUD*

Third time! Damn you pole! Wait, just a few minutes ago there were three poles! Bouncing into this pole makes me sober! Thanks Steve Geoffrey Polesworth!

*THUD*

*THUD*

*THUD*

God damn alcohol. Damn it hard. But now I think I'm at least sober enough to get back to the hotel. At least as soon as I remember where it was.

Despite my inebriated state, I was able to get back to the hotel. Remembering Louise's room number was a different matter altogether, but not entirely difficult. The number's all added up equalled 13, so that was an easy way to remember. I can't for the life of me remember the actual room number though, which is kind of weird.

Open the door, enter the room and- WHAT THE HELL? Giant cat in my room! I am in the right room right?

"Y-y-y-y-you're my m-m-master for the day!" The giant cat tells me. "Do whatever you're going to do already!"

Wait, I know that voice. But:

"Louise, why are you dressed up as a cat?"

Well, she wasn't so much dressed up as a cat, so much as wearing a fur bikini and cat ears complete with a tail. I believe I've mentioned not having a cosplay fetish, but I do also believe I mentioned exceptions. Cat ears are one of those exceptions. They look far cuter then they should. Damn it Louise, stop figuring out my interests! I swear to god if she says nyan or any variation thereof just once I cannot guarantee what will happen.

"She wanted to cheer you up, partner!"

Holy shit! A talking sword! Oh wait, that's Derflinger. ... Right. I remember now. He's said so little recently that I forgot he could talk. I wonder if the alcohol helped that fact. At least the shock appears to have sobered me up completely. I think. I hope.

"Cheer me up?" I stupidly ask. "I've been depressed?"

"Of course!" Cat!Louise tells me. "After that mission with the dragon knights..." Louise's voice trails off.

Oh, that. I guess I have been a bit saddened by that. Well, I am feeling a bit better now, considering they're alive, but I might as well ask:

"And what gave you the idea to dress up as a cat? I'm honestly curious."

Louise hesitates and I can see a blush on her face. "S-stupid sword suggested it."

"Hah!" Derflinger laughs. "Liar. We both know-"

"Shut up stupid sword!" Louise says as she pulls out her wand from somewhere and points it at Derflinger. "You want me to melt you down?"

I feel terrible for saying this, but the sight of Louise in what amounts to little more then a bikini, wearing cat ears and a cat tail, is really making me unable to focus on anything. It's far too cute for me to focus on Derflinger's imminent death. Sorry, but you'll have to talk yourself out of this on your own.

Ignoring the arguing Derflinger and Louise, I walk up to the bed and sit down right next to the current cat girl, causing her to yelp in surprise. Apparently she was so focused on Derflinger that she didn't notice me move at all.

"So let me get this straight. You notice me being depressed, so you come up with a plan to fix that and the plan you came up with-"

"I said it was the stupid sword's idea!" Louise snaps at me, still blushing.

"Right. And the plan that 'Derflinger' came up with involved you dressing up in this cat suit?"

"Y-yes," Louise says nervously.

"Right. May I ask why did you decide to do this?" Apparently when drunk I have even more control against these types of things. Normally by now I'd probably been rendered speechless against the power of nyan. Maybe alcohol isn't that bad of a thing after all.

Louise hesitates, and doesn't speak for a minute.

"Um... I d-did it be-because... Er..."

Let's help her out a bit. Here's what she's probably going to respond with anyway:

"Because I'm your familiar, and it's a master's job to make sure their familiars are feeling good?" I offer.

Louise's face brightens and she nods once... Then she gets a look on her face like she's deep in thought.

"No, that's not it," Louise mumbles to herself.

"Well it that isn't it that, then why did you go through with it?"

I mean, Louise could be an exhibitionist, but I doubt that, leaving one other potential option. I think. There are actually probably like five different options, but I'm not really counting at the moment.

"I did it because..." Louise's voice trails off as she thinks. You know, it's hard to take her seriously when all she's wearing is cat ears and the equivalent of a bikini. "I... Don't like seeing you so depressed like that," Louise eventually finishes.

Okay, progress being made. I just never really thought Louise would ever admit to that. Louise, are you sure you're not drunk? I'd like to make sure, otherwise this whole scene is pointless. I think she's sober, at any rate. Anyway, let's press on. It takes a ton of pressure to make a diamond, right?

"Oh? What makes you feel like that Louise?"

Louise pouts and glares at me. "You know already, don't you? You know exactly where I'm going with this, and you're mocking me because of it."

I can honestly say I'd never mock you in this situation. You'd probably kill me, and that's not something I want to happen right now. I value life far too much. Might as well be semi honest with her though.

"I'll admit, I have a few suspicions, but my guesses tend to more often then not be wrong," I tell Louise. "Would you mind clarifying your motives?"

By this point Louise is blushing furiously. Seriously, she's already broken her record from earlier today. Quite an impressive feat, if I do say so myself.

"I... Don't dislike you..." Louise says in a voice only slightly lower then a whisper.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that," I'm actually being rather serious there. I had to strain to hear Louise.

"I... Kind of like you," Louise tells me in a slightly louder voice.

20 bucks says that that's most I'll ever get out of Louise in terms of a confession of any kind. And you know what? It's good enough for me. ... I say that, but the little devil sitting on my head is telling me to go for a full confession. I briefly wonder why he's not on my shoulder like he should be, but become preoccupied when I notice that he kicked the angel of my shoulder onto the ground, ensuring complete dominance. Weird.

"So you say you like me, and that's why you don't want to see me depressed," I start, giving in to the temptation to go for the whole nine yards. "Is it alright if I ask the extent of that like? Is it a 'You're a really good friend and it hurts me to see you hurt,' or is it more of a 'I really genuinely like you a whole lot?'"

Louise is silent for a few seconds. "If I had to pick, I-I'd have to say the s-second one."

After Louise says that, I notice something. Our faces appear to be moving closer together. Holy shit, are we going to... I can't help but wonder though, who started to move in for a kiss first, me or Louise?

Disregarding that useless train of thought and not caring who started it, me and Louise were about an inch away from kissing each other.

*Knock knock*

Louise instantly panics. She pushes me away, climbs under the bed covers and pretends to be asleep. I'm really amazed at how quickly she did that. If my life were a manga or comic, then we would have been about to make out, then literally the next panel would be Louise pretending to be asleep. I'm both impressed, and a little irked. Might as well answer the door and see who it is that's coming to visit so late at night.

I stood up, walked over to the door and opened it to find Emily, standing there looking really down.

"Emily? What are you doing here?" and why do you look so miserable?

"There was something else I forgot to mention..." Her voice trails off when she notices Louise sleeping in the bed, completely covered expect for the top of her head. The top of her head that still had cat ears.

"Oh, sorry, was I interrupting a moment between you two?" Emily asks in what I detect to be a forced attempt at making some kind of joke.

"If I say no, I know you wouldn't believe me."

"Sorry, but I didn't know if we'd run into each other again, and this is really important," Emily tells me.

"Okay, what is it?"

Emily fishes around in her pockets, pulls out a vial of some kind and hands it too me. I examine it for a minute, then remember I can't read this world's writing at all.

"Er... What is this? I find myself in a position where I am incapable of reading this writing."

"Oh, right. Sorry," Emily says rather half heartedly. "That's a sleeping potion. Mix it with some kind of liquid, wine usually works best, give it to someone and they'll be out within maybe a minute or two."

I'm not surprised this exists. If love potions exists, can't simple roofies exist in this world? ... I feel the need to apologize for that statement.

"Thanks, but why are you giving it to me?"

"Honestly? I can't say I'm one hundred percent sure," Emily tells me as she stares at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought. "Who would you use it on, anyway? I might as well toss that idea into the ring though."

"What idea?"

"Remember I mentioned the invasion force?" I nod. "This isn't something I heard from anyone, it's just a gut feeling, but I think that you and Louise'll be the ones sent to take care of it. Hey! I'm talking!" Emily says when she sees me open my mouth to argue that point. "Think about it. Does the phrase 'trump card' ring any bells?" Wait... Oh goddamn it. "Use in case of emergencies. A invasion force like that can be considered an emergency. I know someone who would tell you to use that potion on Louise and take the opportunity to get the hell out of there while you can, save yourself and all that. I know people who'll tell you to use it on Louise so you can both get out of there alive."

"Which are you?"

Emily hesitates. "Truthfully? If it came down to it, you're probably the person in this world I want to die the least. I'd really do anything I can to at least try and help you live through this," at that, Emily chuckles. "Guess I'm not being to subtle about how I feel, am I?"

Subtlety was thrown out the window the second we went into war. You win wars by being as explosive as possible, not sneaking around and hoping to win!

"Subtlety or not, I don't think I have to tell you how I feel," Emily sighs. "Should I anyway?"

"Well, Louise is right there, but she's probably asleep, so do whatever you feel like."

Emily takes a deep breath. Then-

"JoshIloveyou,thereIsaidit,nowlet'," Emily says in a rush of words.

Honestly? Aside from the speed of that sentence, it was quite anticlimactic. Aren't confessions supposed to have a bit more buildup? Well, at least it confirms my fears of a growing possible harem. Damn it. This isn't something I want to deal with.

"I know you already love Louise," Emily says. "It's something I tried to avoid, but it just happened. I'm sorry. I just-"

"You said let's forget it ever happened, so let's do just that. Besides, what's there to apologize for? Nothing really. For now, let's change the topic to something less awkward. What the hell am I supposed to do with this potion?"

Emily smiles. "Right. Anyway, I'm not going to tell you what to do with that potion. I'm not even going to recommend anything. It's your's now, do with it whatever you want. A few details have already changed from what they should have been, maybe the invasion force won't show up at all."

"Wait, what do you mean by 'a few details have already changed?'"

Emily's silent for a minute. After said minute of silence, she leans forward and gives me a brief kiss on the cheek.

"Come back alive when the war's over and we can talk."

Having said her piece, Emily turns around and leaves. I close the door and walk over to the room's window, open it and stare out the window at the snow covered town. When the hell did it start snowing? How did I miss that?

Moving on, I took another glance at the bottle of sleeping juice. Internally, I debated for a bit. Would I ever have a use for this? What possible situation could I have to put someone to sleep? Those two examples Emily gave were pretty good, but the odds of that happening are probably rather small.

I think and debate with myself for probably a few minutes. Eventually, I look out the window and chuck the bottle as far as I can. It goes flying about a hundred feet before colliding with a lamp post and smashing into pieces, the liquid contained inside seeping into the snow. Normally I'd worry about possibly regretting that, but I have a feeling that I can adapt to the situation and come out on top without a sleeping potion.

Speaking of sleep, that's exactly what Louise has already done. Guess she was really tired, or really bored. Either way, I think my business for the night is done. Sleep sounds like a good idea.

*Scene Break*

So is this really the big "advent festival" that everyone was hyping up? It's the same as that other festival I saw back when we saved Tarbes! What's so special about this, other then the fact that nobody's trying to kill each other yet?

After Emily visited that night, me and Louise avoided mentioned anything about that day. Some things are better left untalked about, and I'm pretty sure we both got the general gist of what that whole situation was about.

And it was all swell. What was swell? The fact that I was at a point in time where my life wasn't in mortal danger! It's a nice change of pace compared to the normal state of affairs that developed over the past few weeks. This is definitely something I can get used to.

Unfortunately, if what Emily said is to be believed, then isn't today the day that invasion force is supposed to drop by and say hello? I guess I could go for something, considering that the past two or three days have been rather boring, considering the shockingly low quality of the festival. Maybe I just set my expectations too high.

I kind of wish Emily specified some kind of place and time for the invasion force to show up so that I at least have an idea of where and when to be, but I can't fault her supposed information network for not being able to provide all the details necessary for something like this. I'm mostly shocked she got this info at all. Where the hell would she get information like the fact that Albion's not going to honor the treaty half a week before it's actually set to happen, with the treaty only having been decided on a few hours earlier?

For now, let's assume there won't be any type of attack and enjoy the festival! Louise is taking a nap in the hotel room for some reason, so I was left on my own to wander around town and see the sights. Welp, let's see if we can find anything interesting on the last day of this big damn festival, shall we?

...

...

...

Okay, it's been quite a few hours, and it's starting to get dark. Did I find anything interesting? Yes, actually, there was a really nice food stand that had all these fancy foreign recipes and things like that. Well, foreign to me, but native to here in Albion. There was also this music booth that played some of the town's native folk music. I'm honestly kind of surprised they still have Earth-type instruments here. The band that was performing was clearly using a guitar, what resembled a bass, and a working drum set. It all looked and seemed to function astronomically differently then from Earth's native versions of those instruments, but they were recognizable in size and sound. It was honestly quite interesting. Maybe if I save up some gold coins I can buy my own Halkegnian bass. I played a little back home, but I obviously had to stop when I dropped by this world. I honestly do kind of miss playing it.

As I intentionally, for once, get lost in my thoughts and allow myself to wander aimlessly I wind up touring around the neighborhood of this town we were staying in. Yes, the glorious sights of... What the hell is this town called again?

Ah well, it's only slightly important. And by that I mean it's not really important at all. Especially since-

"I think... I'm starting to get used to walks like this."

Well I assume you've probably taken this walk many ti- Wait, what? Isn't that... I gotta check this out.

I round the corner and head in the direction I heard that voice and notice three people walking together. Why hello there, Wardes, Fouquet and third person whom I've never seen before in my entire life, how are you doing this fine day?

Just to be safe, Heightened Awareness on. Oh goody! The obvious confirmed! All three are enemies! Yay for red silhouettes! I deactivate Heightened Awareness and decide to follow them. Seeing Wardes and Fouquet together is fishy enough as it is, but who the hell is this third person? I think I remember hearing that Wardes was affiliated with Reconquista, the ruling party of Albion at the moment, so I don't think it's a stretch to say they could be doing or talking about something of some type of worth.

Of course, I can't exactly walk behind them and follow them that way. If I get within earshot, there's a solid chance they'd find out I'm following, so I need to keep a distance, when they get to where they're going, then I can focus on listening to the conversation.

Now the problem, how do I inconspicuously follow them? Rooftops. The answer is always rooftops. People don't look up unless something draws their attention to it. Ignoring the fact that someone might take notice, I examine the building whose corner I was currently using as cover to keep from being used. It was about three stories tall, made of bricks of some kind, and seemed sturdy enough. Alright, let's do this.

I back up a bit so I can take a running start, then sprint towards the wall. When I get close enough, I jump and reach for a few stray bricks. I manage to get a good grip, and plant my feet against the wall to secure myself. I then start climbing up the side of the building using mostly the window sills and tops, with the occasional conveniently placed brick.

I climb up the three stories, then haul myself onto the roof. Huh, that wasn't as tiring as I thought it'd be. Thought I do wish I had brought Derflinger, or some type of weapon. Curse myself for not thinking this would possibly end in a fight.

Ignoring that, I scan around and notice that the trio is still moving. No time to waste, it wouldn't be good if I let them get away! I start taking off after them, jumping from rooftop to rooftops all while keeping my distance to make sure they don't notice me.

Of course, this would probably only work this well if they continue this rather straight line, considering I am not capable of jumping 100 feet across the street to the buildings over there. Why are the streets here so damn wide?

I continue tailing the group until they unfortunately and obvious, come to a three way intersections, and turn left. I was on top of the buildings on the right side of the street.

"Crap! How am I going to cross the street now?" I think aloud.

Observe the surroundings. Okay, the building currently in front of me is taller the the one I'm currently on by about two stories. On it's own that doesn't help me, but how can I use that to my advantage? Since it's a festival thee are tons of decorations around so... Wait. Decorations. Decorations as in hanging lanterns and other objects like that. I think I feel an idea forming, and everything's in just the right place for me to go through with it, if I'm lucky.

I'd like to point out that if this doesn't work, I will most likely go splat on the floor which would not be pleasant for anyone, especially me. Not like I have a choice considering ht three I'm tailing are starting to get away.

I quickly climb to the top of the slightly taller building in front of me. I stand at the edge of the roof and survey the situation. I can still see Wardes and Fouquet, but barely. I look down and observe the drop that I take if I fail. It wasn't much, only 60 feet or so. Maybe I was wrong in assuming I'd die, but I'd definitely break a bone or two.

Still, this is hopefully the quickest way to get across the street without drawing too much attention. I say hopefully, because if it turns out there was a safer and quicker way then I am going to be really pissed off.

I back up a few steps or so, and run for the edge. I jump off the edge of the roof, and feel myself start plummeting. I'm taking this moment to pray to every god in existence that I don't die.

As I start approaching around 30 feet to the ground (by they way, my jump got me maybe 16 feet of forward distance), I reach out and pray that I didn't misjudge my distance. I feel my hands clamp in to one of the hanging lamps, which I then use to swing forward. I let go, and use a few more swinging lamps as a sort of way of crossing the gap. Eventually I swing off my last lamp and collide with the building on the other side of the street, but I'm able to get a solid grip and pull myself onto the roof. I roll over and lie in my back for a bit to catch my breath. Why did I think using the lanterns as swing set was a good idea? It was a fun idea, but not a good one. Not a good idea at all. Kids, never try that at home. Unless you really want to.

Damn it, I need to get up and keep trailing them. This better be freaking worth it, or I am going to be really pissed off.

*A little bit later*

*Pant pant pant* Damn everything. Damn every single thing. Why the hell did they have to walk around so much! Couldn't they at least be considerate of the person tailing them? Running across rooftops, swinging from hanging lamps and jumping across various roof decorations isn't easy! It's difficult and tiring! Well, at least the trio finally stopped.

Now to listen in on their conversation that I'll only be able to pick up the last part of due to the fact that they were talking while walking, and I can't eavesdrop and parkour at the same time, my skills don't extend that far.

"It's the closest water source, but it's not the only one," Fouquet says as the group moves towards a well.

"This should work," purple haired lady of mystery says.

She approaches the well and puts on some kind of fancy purple ring. Fouquet and Wardes look surprised at the ring.

"Isn't that Cromwell's ring?" Wardes asks.

Wait, let the hamsters on wheels that power my brain run a bit to provide my thoughts. Cromwell stole Water Spirit's ring. Cromwell's ring = Ring of Andvarri. Purple lady has Cromwell's ring. Situation = Purple lady has Ring of Andvarri.

Wait, purple has the Ring of Andvarri? What the shit? What's she using it for? How could-

"Water is the magic of life," is something I manage to pick up during my little internal rant.

Water magic = magic of life. Ring of Andvarri = water magic ring. Ergo, Ring of Andvarri = control of water magic = control of the magic of life.

Wow, my hamster wheel brain must be working overtime. Anyway, I see the purple lady put on the Ring of Andvarri and step forward, right in front of the well. Then she starts glowing a slight purple light.

"Using this ring, I can control the town," she says as the ring drops something into the well, which glows purple before subsiding.

The three talk about something else and go off to talk, but I have more important things to deal with. Control the town?

Serious thinking time. Let's for now assume that she literally meant control the town, and just put in some kind of mind controlling agent into the water. This mind controlling agent would therefore affect everyone who drinks from the water wells and other sources of water in this town. Let's assume that the worst case scenario happens and everyone here drinks the water. Congrats, you've got around one or two thousand untrained civilians under your command, big whoop. That really wouldn't help much unless you maybe used it a distrac- wait. That's it! If they used the mind control agent on even just a third of the population, then you could have riots. These riots would be the perfect distraction to send in an invasion force and completely wipe out everyone here, which is most of Tristain's military strength that was here on vacation. The attack would cripple us, and leave us unable to put up much of a fight at all. Those magnificent bastards.

Perhaps I should mention this to someone, maybe Louise. She'll probably have an idea of what to do.

*Scene Break*

"Eep!" Is the first thing Louise says when she hears me enter the room. She apparently was taking a nap or something, because she was still in the bed when I entered. Does using magic really make you that tired?

"What? You've never had your roommate enter the room through the window before? It happens to me every other Thursday." Not really, but it feels like it sometimes.

"Josh? Why did you climb in through the window? For a second I thought you were a burglar or something!" Louise yells at me.

"It was the fastest way in, and I was in the mood for climbing considering it's what I've been doing for the past 30 minutes while tailing Wardes, Fouquet and some other chick through the city."

"Wh-What? Wardes is still alive?" Louise asks me. "And Fouquet still isn't in jail?"

"I know. The justice system here sucks." Then again, Earth isn't much better at times. "Anyway, I started following them by keeping on the rooftops and things like that, since people never look up they never would have noticed me-"

"How do you manage to follow them from rooftop to rooftop?" Louise asks.

"Parkour. Remember I mentioned that? It's basic foundation is climbing and jumping on and around buildings."

"And what if they, say, crossed the street or something?" Louise asks me. "You don't expect me to believe you leapt from building to building across the street, do you? You'd need a wind spell to move you that far!"

"Lanterns."

"Excuse me?" Louise asks, clearly confused.

"You know how since it's a festival, people have all sorts of lanterns and decorations hanging around?" Louise nods. "I just swung around on those if I ever need to cross a gap that I couldn't get across by normal jumping means."

Louise stares at me blankly. I can't quite read minds, manners, or even body language yet, but I'm pretty sure Louise is thinking "What the shit?"

"You're insane," She tells me after around 30 seconds of silence.

"Jason told me that all the time when we climbed around town together," I mention. "Personally I think the only time it was deserved was when I, completely on accident I assure you, jumped onto the back of a moving train, jumped off, and grabbed onto a pole literally seconds before I wound up splattered on a wall, just barely keeping myself alive. I damn near dislocated my shoulder."

Well, there was also that time I climbed the building and caught a bus by jumping onto it's roof and hitching a ride that way. I would have been caught, and probably arrested, but there was never any evidence to persecute me. Again, princess, hoods can hide your face, but only if you wear them correctly, otherwise it just doesn't work!

"I think we're getting off topic," Louise says in a tone of voice the indicates she wants to change the subject as quickly as possible. "What did you learn from trailing them?"

Oh! Right! That's why I rushed over here! My capacity for remembering things still hasn't improved.

Well, they had a nice chat, drank some tea, Fouquet had coffee, and got into an argument with Wardes over which is better, coffee or tea. They then came to blows and was settled when they decided that "diplomatic negotiations" on a cheap hotel bed would be a better solution and what the hell am I talking about?

"Crazy purple lady," as I have now decided to name her, "said something about having the Ring of Andvarri-"

"What! The water spirit's ring?" Louise asks.

No, It's Wesker's ring.

I nod in reply. "Yeah, that one. Anyway, she used the ring to enchant the water or something so she could control anyone who drank the water, most likely to cause some kind of distraction, send in an invasion force, and generally screw things up for us in around 34 different ways. Pleasant, no?"

"No! It's not good you stupid familiar!" Didn't catch my sarcasm. "We need to go warn the generals about this!"

And so me and Louise got everything we needed, not like we have much anyway, and ran out of the hotel to go warn the generals. ... Only to find that apparently everyone had gone crazy, considering half of the people we saw had glowing purple eyes and were attacking civilians.

"I think we're a little late," I remark.

Louise glares at me. "Gee, you think? I thought this was a case of make believe gone terribly wrong!"

"You appear to have inherited my usage of sarcasm whenever I feel far too nervous about something to properly freak out. It could use a bit more deadpan though."

"Must have slipped my mind when I noticed the innocents being attacked. My apologies."

"You sound so genuine. I truly believe you feel sorry for a lack of deadpan remarks."

"As opposed to your over reliance on them?"

"You accuse me of using sarcasm far too often. I'm offended, Louise."

"Wounded even?"

"Hurt, Louise."

"I'll make sure to call a medic when we're done here to fix your poor, poor ouchies. For now, I think we should either find the generals, or pretend this was a bad dream," Louise says as she starts walking off towards the general's camp and I follow.

"You do the first, I'll stay here and do the second."

"Scared of having to fight mind controlled civilians? Don't worry, I hear they only kill you if your an innocent bystander. In your case they'd probably only massacre you brutally."

"Not scared, so much as tired and lazy."

"You're tired already? That's honestly quite pathetic."

"Oh, I didn't know you spent the last half hour running and swinging across rooftops trailing three of our known enemies. You must have exercised for a whole five minutes to get that type of stamina."

"Don't need to. My ability to put up with you at times is far more taxing then any amount of physical exercise."

"Says the mage who collapses after a few big spells. I at least did all the running on my own, without the gandalfar powers or abilities."

"Quite impressive. Gandalfar probably would have added, what, a few additional seconds worth of stamina?"

"Gandalfar multiplies abilities and stamina, not adds to. I expected you to know that considering all that studying you did instead of magic practice and physical exercise."

"Multiplying small numbers still only gives you a small number."

"I'm not the one who needs to worry about small numbers."

"Oh, I'm sure you do. After all, I'm sure you'd rather getting better proportions out of any deal."

"You appear to be sore about getting the short end of the stick when it comes to proportions."

"Says the one beating people to death with the stick."

"You didn't have to insult Derflinger. Besides, I'm not the one whose only job is to point a stick at people."

"Right. You only protect the stick wielder. Must be the absolute worst job ever."

"It comes with solid perks."

"Perks he says! Great criteria for job choice."

"Both of you," Derflinger says eventually. "Can you stop your flirting for a minute and actually focus on why you two came to the generals tent in the first place?"

"She started it."

"Says the guy who made the brilliant observation that we were a little late in preventing half the town from being mind controlled."

"I only vocalized the thought. If I didn't, you probably would have."

"You assume I feel the need to vocalize the obvious when I see it. I'm offended."

"Wounded even?"

"Closer to annoyed."

"Maybe we should talk to those generals before your annoyance becomes anger."

"As it tends to, does it not?"

"It's the apocalypse, Louise admitted she gets angry on occasion!"

"We've already entered a mini apocalypse, that statement is redundant."

"Go talk with the generals, then we can discuss the intricacies of redundancy."

Louise nods, then enters the generals tent. When the hell did we get here? Doesn't really matter. Let's just get some kind of briefing, get some kind of objective then get the hell out of here.

After a few minutes, Louise walks out of the generals tent, her face the palest I've ever seen it. I take it the discussion went well?

"Sooooo... What happened?" I asked Louise.

Instead of responding, Louise turns and starts walking off in a seemingly random direction.

"Hey!" I say as I run up to her and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "So what's going on? What's happening, and why do you apparently seem so lifeless?"

In response, Louise pulls a letter out of her pocket and hands it to me, but she still doesn't turn to face me. I open it up and attempt to read it.

"Why does everyone forget that I can't read this world's writing?" Including me, apparently?

"I can help with that," Derflinger says from his place in the sheathe on my back. He's silent for a minute. "A backup? Not very honorable."

"That helps a lot Derf, it really does. Care to explain a bit more?" Like how a sword can read or ever learned how to read?

"Not sure you're going to like it, but okay. Basically, Albion broke the treaty and is sending an invasion force of 70,000 soldiers over. The missy here is being sent to stall them to allow our troops time to escape. Retreat and failure are not options."

Damn it Emily, why'd you have to be right? Why did you have to know this? Damn information networks. How do they work anyway? More importantly, how did Emily become the center of one despite being a teenage maid? It makes no sense.

And no, I'm not ignoring the most important part of this whole thing. The want Louise, a single mage, to fight an army of 70,000? Are they stupid? No matter how powerful a mage is, don't they need time to cast their spells? Louise'd get one, maybe two spells off it she's lucky before they get within a close enough range to KILL her. This is a terrible idea for so many reasons, we are so screwed.

"Please tell me you're not going to do this," I almost beg.

Louise shakes her head.

"You're actually going to do this? You're going to try and stall an army of that size!"

Louise nods her head. She's still not facing me so I can't see her expression. I can't even begin to think what's going through her head. *sigh* Well, I did say this world would be the death of me.

"Well then lead the way, master."

"What!" Louise exclaims as she whirls around to look at me, her expression that of complete shock.

"I think I know you well enough that you'll pull out some kind of contrived reason for doing this, and I can think of a few. Protect the princess, protect Tristain, protect our friends, preserve your honor, gain recognition, things like that. I can already tell that no matter what argument I come up with, you'll find some way to counter it, probably by twisting my arm with the fact that if we sit and do nothing, a whole lot of innocent people, a few of which are our friends, are going to die. Believe me, I realize that. As a result, I also realize that I can't do anything to stop you from going, and as your familiar, isn't it only right that I march off with you and fight also?"

"N-No!" Louise yells at me. "Absolutely not! I forbid you from helping me!"

"What? Why?"

"You have nothing to do with this!" Louise yells at me. "This isn't your world, and this isn't your war! You shouldn't even be here!"

"And yet, here I am. Maybe you're right. This isn't my planet. But does that mean I don't have anything to do with it? Absolutely not! I have everything to do with this! I chose to get involved in this. I chose to help you out and support you in this endeavor of yours. I'm here because I chose to be, not because you told me to."

"And now I'm telling you to run away!" Louise screams at me, the beginnings of tears forming in her eyes. "I'm telling you that you've done enough. You've helped me many times, and saved my life a few time as well. I could never begin to tell you how grateful I am for that. But you've already done more then I could have asked you too."

"Since you brought it up, I would like to point out that I am your familiar. As your familiar it is my job to protect you. Am I doing my job if I let you march off on a suicide mission? No!"

"Also as my familiar, it's your job to do what I say!"

"Because I've done such a great job of that in the past."

"Don't even start," Louise tells me with a glare.

"Start what? Pointing out how I've never really obeyed any of your orders? Never really listened when you told me what to do but did it anyway? I couldn't care less! If I don't do what you ask, it's because I felt there was a better course of action! And there's one right now! If you go and do this on your own, you will die!"

"And if you try to help me then you'll die too!" Louise exclaims.

"You think I care? If you go and do that on your own, you're fighting with a handicap. You'll get maybe two spells out before they realize you're the one casting and target you! You can't cast if you don't have the time to chant the spell!"

"As opposed to if you were there to absorb all of the attacks for me?" Louise asks. "You'd buy me maybe another few seconds, at most. If I only get two spells, then I'll just have to make sure they're explosive enough to destroy the army!"

"Would you just listen to reason? This isn't something you can do on your own!"

"And would you listen to me?" Louise says with a glare. "This is something I need to do myself. I'm not going to risk you dying, so would you just swallow your pride and leave before you get yourself killed!"

"Pride? You think I refuse to run away because I'm afraid of hurting my pride? It's nothing to do with pride!"

"Then what is it? Why are you so intent on facing whatever you face with no heed for the consequences?" Louise inquires.

"Because when you run away it's the same as doing nothing!" I reply. "When you do nothing, people die! Just like with-"

I stop mid sentence.

"Just like with what?" Louise asks, annoyance and confusion obvious on her face.

Just like with... Where did that come from? Just like with... Her? I finish the thought. Suddenly, flashes of images invade my head and assault my brain. Earth, my home town, walking along, a knife coming down towards me, a scream, a girl with a deep gash in her chest, her shirt stained with blood. Who... Who is she? Do I know her? I must but... What's her name? I can't even remember what she looked like, all I have is an impression of sorts. I try to remember more, but all I do is give myself a headache. A piercing headache that forces me to clutch my head with my hands.

"Josh, are you okay?" Louise asks worriedly.

"I don't know," I whisper to myself. "I just don't know."

"I'm sorry Josh," Louise tells me. "But I have to do this. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. It looks like there's nothing I can do or say to stop you," I say with a sigh as I release my head and look at Louise. "Any last requests or words you'd like to say?"

Louise is silent for a minute, then glances off to the side. Then she starts blushing.

"Um... Well... I am about to potentially die, and I am still unmarried so..." Louise gulps then turns and looks me in the eye, her face still dyed really red. "Remember what I said back at my family's estate? If there was no one else..."

"I'd suffice," I complete the sentence. "Wait, are you saying-"

"Don't get the wrong idea!" Louise says, her face lighting up another shade of red. "It's only unpleasant to die before being married. You just happen to be the best option right now!"

What about me makes me the best option? Is it that I love you, or (I'm pretty much 99% sure) that you love me, or what else? Ah well. I really don't want to think about anything at the moment, so might as well get this settled.

*Scene Break*

Just what are the odds that there happened to be a church on the outskirts of town, and that we had enough time to get through with this before the invading force arrives! Sometimes I feel like the universe has a rather sick sense of humor. "Oh? You two want to be married? Okay! You'll have enough time to get it done, but then immediately afterwards your wife's gonna march off to her certain death! Also, tomorrow's going to be a nice day for a picnic, so pack some sandwiches!" Thanks universe. That makes me feel much better.

Well, there's no one here at the church, so in terms of officialness, this wedding has about as much as a bootleg copy of a nonexistent movie. While Louise prays to some statue of what I assume is their god, founder, whatever he's called, I simply stand around awkwardly, lamenting my decision to toss the sleeping juice. Eventually, Louise finishes up and walks over to me.

"So how exactly do we do this?" I ask Louise as we stand in front of the alter in the church. "My expertise does not lie in matrimonial settings."

"I honestly don't really know," Louise says nervously.

"So you don't know, but you were almost part of one? How does that work exactly?"

"And I suppose you weren't there as a witness?" Louise asks with a wry smirk.

"Hmm... Point conceded. Still, as far as I'm aware, it's as simple as the priest person asking both parties if they're really sure about it. If they say yes, the two parties kiss, then confetti is thrown all around."

"S-so, do you take me as your wife?" Louise asks nervously.

Option 1: "Sure."

Option 2: "I love you."

Option 3: Stab her in the stomach, ensuring she's incapable of movement, then go and fight the army on my own to surely die while leaving Louise to bleed to death in a church.

... Where do I even come up with options like that?

"Yes Louise, I'd be happy with marrying you," I tell her. "Now, are you sure you want to marry me?"

Louise is silent for a minute, and stands there deep in thought while blushing. 30 seconds later-

"Yes. I want to go through with this." Louise hesitates for a moment after saying that. "Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"I... Um... I..." Take your time, not like we're being invaded.

Eventually Louise sighs, almost as in defeat. She leans forward and gives me a kiss on the lips. Brief, but it definitely happened. Congratulations me, you're sort of, maybe, married, I think.

After breaking the kiss, Louise runs to the entrance of the church and opens the door. She takes a step outside, then turns around and looks at me.

"Thank you for everything Josh. I'm glad I was able to meet you," she tells me with a smile.

"The feeling's mutual. Bye Louise."

"Good bye Josh."

I might have imagined it, but it definitely looked like there were a few tears moving down Louise's face as she turned and left the church. It wouldn't surprise me.

"I get married, then immediately widowed when she decides to go get herself killed to save a city." I sigh.

"Fukou da," and "yare yare" are two phrases that come to mind when it comes to describing how I feel at the moment. Damn everything.

"So that's it?" Derflinger asks me. "You're just giving up?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes, you do. You can choose to go after the missy and help her out."

"Did she not get through saying she doesn't want me to help and that she doesn't want me to die? I dunno, it seems like kind of a slap to the face if I went and fought alongside her."

"Okay, so she asked you nicely not to help her," Derflinger reaffirms. "Should you care? When was the last time you bothered listening to her about things like that?"

"Derflinger, I really don't want to argue this at the moment. I'm not exactly in the mood right now."

"So you'd prefer to talk about it when the missy's dead and gone? Because that's what's going to happen if you don't go and help."

"And if I help, I die too. Solid plan."

"Do you have a better one?"

...

"Alright Derf, you win. Let's go help Louise."

"Wait, what? Really? I expected a much longer, more drawn out argument," Derflinger says in amazement.

"Like I said, I don't feel like arguing at the moment. Besides, you already knew I wanted to go help her out anyway. So Derflinger, since you actually read the letter, where to now?"

*Scene Break*

"And you're sure this is the right place?" I ask Derflinger. "Because I swear, if we wound up in the wrong place-"

"Don't worry," Derflinger assures me. "I'm positive. The missy should d on that hill up ahead."

"Got it. Thanks for the directions."

"Someone had to know them," Derflinger responds, immeadiately making me sad that minimaps don't exist in reality. I want to be able to just put up a waypoint and know where I'm going by instinct. *sigh* Us video game protagonists have it rough sometimes.

Ignoring my rants, I run forward until I could see a hill, which I approached. As I approached, I was able to make out a lone figure on the too of the hill. This is where normally someone would go all poetic about the aforementioned lone figure, but I suck at that.

...

What the hell, I'm probably going to die soon, let's give it a try!

The lone figure stood atop the crest of the hill. Her long, billowing, pink hair flowed gallantly in the gentle, but foreboding breeze. She stood solemnly, but determinedly, ready to face down the enormous army of countless trained soldiers, each of which probably had a spouse, kids, two days until retirement and it was probably the birthday of a few of them as well. And the lone figure was going to blow the **** out of them using her fancy, magic stick. The bodies would be sent flying, contorting in every direction in the cool, calm, air. Their giblets would fly in every direction! And that's assuming there was enough of them to even be called giblets! MUAHAHAHAHAHA! Blood for the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!

Hmmm... Maybe I should stop before it gets any worse, as all my poetry tends to.

Ignoring all that, I ran up the hill and saw Louise at the top, staring intently at the horizon. If you looked hard enough, you could see the approaching army. Goddamn, is that what an army of 70,000 looks like? It's freaking huge! We're screwed! Anyway, Louise appears to be so focused on that approaching army that she didn't here me show up. That's annoying. What if I was an assassin? I could have just walked up, stabbed her in the back, and Albion would have won then and there. Louise, you need to pay attention to your surroundings more.

I open my mouth to announce my presence, but then I hear Louise sigh.

"Is this it?" Well, that depends on your definition of it. "Selfish as it is, I wish I could see you one last time, Josh."

"Wish granted," I respond, prompting Louise to gasp and turn around.

"Wh-what?"

"Honestly, if I were you I'd have used my wish on something more dramatic, like living to see another day, or being strong enough to defeat this obstacle, or something like that, but being able to see me works too. It's easy to grant as well."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU STUPID FAMILIAR?" Louise yells at me at decibel levels that damn near break my eardrums.

"I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I don't think that's the right reaction to have," I reply.

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Louise takes a deep breath and calms down. "Didn't I tell you I didn't want you helping me with this? This is something I need to do on my own."

"Want, no-"

"Don't even start!" Louise yells at me, her face starting to redden with anger. "You know what? I've had it with you! You never listen to anything I say!"

Is this the proper time to discus things like this? I open my mouth to vocalize that thought process, but Louise is on a roll, and interrupts the unspoken thoughts.

"Don't say anything!" She tells me. "You're always like this! I tell you to do something, and you don't do it! Like with the duel with Guiche, or any point during the trip to Albion to deliver the letter," When the hell did I disobey you there? "Or during that mission for the princess when I suggested an easy way to double our money, or demanding that we not act like beggars on the street!" Hey, that plan worked, don't get pissed at me for it.

Louise takes a breath, then continues with her rant.

"Now, all I ask is for you to listen to me for once in your life, and you can't even do that!" Louise exclaims. "I told you, I can handle this. I don't need you-"

Due to my worry about the army getting to us before we even notice do to this ongoing rant, I decided to take the interrupt option to get things rolling. How did I chose to stop Louise from talking? Simple. I kissed her. She seemed slightly surprised at first, but it wasn't that quick before she pretty much gave in and started kissing me back. My internal clock says we made out for around 45 seconds, before we broke the kiss.

"You talk too much sometimes," I tell Louise, causing her face to blush with embarrassment rather then anger for once today. "I'm sure you could deal with this on your own, but I'm offering to help, for hopefully obvious reasons. Besides, doesn't a great familiar protect it's master, no matter the cost?" I add with a wry smile.

"B-But-"

"Can we start the battle or do I have to kiss you again?" I ask.

Louise gives me a half-hearted attempt at an angry glare, but it passes quickly and she nods.

"You go intercept them and keep them distracted so I can get as many spells as possible out," Louise tells me. "I'll be counting on you."

"No problem," I say with a smile. I walk past her in the direction of the approaching army. I grab Derflinger's hilt, unsheathe him, and get ready for battle.

"Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?" Come on, it's only been three steps.

"I love you," Louise tells me.

There's a slight silence in the air for a few seconds. Dear god. She said it. She actually said it. It makes sense, We're both potentially to die, but I still never thought she's actually say it.

"I love you too," I reply, as I give her one last, quick kiss on the lips before turning and running off to go fight an army.

The army's a solid distance away, therefore if I go distract them now, they shouldn't be able to see Louise. They're more likely then not notice the explosions, but they hopefully won't know where they're coming from. That's the good thing. The bad thing is, since it's so far away, Louise could accidentally hit me, and I have far too much time to actually think about what I'm doing before starting the fight.

I'm about to take on an army of 70,000 highly trained soldiers.

It's not that bad, think of it like Sora against the 1000 heartless. Except these aren't the weakest enemies in the game, they're heavily armored and trained soldiers and mages. And I don't have magic or an inter-dimensional magical sword key, or access to reaction commands to do badass stuff. I'm just a kid, with a shiny sword that can move fast, and have backup from an explosion maker. The odds aren't in my favor.

This sucks. At least it's kind of a cool way of dying. I do wish it was a bit more of a bang though, instead of being mauled by people I don't know. Picture this: Something, maybe an important building or even the entire world is being endangered. Maybe the bad guy's got some kind of super death laser that he's pointing at the moon, which'll cause the chunks to fall to the planet destroying civilization. I'm sent to go stop the machine, but the only way to do that is to destroy it, so I fight my way to it's core and set it to self destruct. It's not enough time for me to get out of there, so I tell my friends or crew or whoever helped me to get out of there and live their own lives instead of dying with me. Maybe the person I might have had as a love interest completely disregards me and stays by my side, and we're both caught in the explosion killing us both, but saving the world. That would be a freaking awesome death.

Thinking about it, what mental music should I play? I'm leaning towards EMIYA, but I am far too undeserving of that piece of music. When I become badass enough to create swords with my mind, then maybe, but until then that song is out of my reach. In keeping with the last song I used, I think I'll go with Protectors of the Earth. ... Yeah, this'll work.

Wait, let's think about this. I don't need to stop the army, I just need to delay it! If I can cause enough chaos to disorder them for a bit, then everyone can escape, mission accomplished! What's the easiest way to create chaos? Eliminate the chain of command. Get rid of those in charge, and order turns to chaos. The problem is, how do I know who's in charge? It's a problem I have an easy solution to.

Heightened Awareness, on.

My god, there's a whole lot of red silhouettes. But, it worked as I intended. Sprinkled out through the sea of red are a few flecks of yellow, most likely the commanding officers, or people of rather high rank. I know my targets. Good thing I figure out a plan, because I just hit the army. Let's begin the fight.

I can see that there's definitely a look of surprise on the enemies' faces when they see me approach. "One kid against an army? Surely you just!" Well, my names not Shirley, and I'm the goddamn batma- I mean, goddamn Gandalfer, bitches! Let's rock and roll! Cue mental music!

Instead of bothering with the guys in the front, I jump and land about 20 feet behind enemy lines. They look confused for a second, but then one person tries to slash at me with his sword, which I parry, then counter by by cutting into her shoulder, causing him to drop his sword and clutch his wound. One down, a hell of a lot more to go. But these guys aren't my problem, I'll leave them to Louise with her AoE explosion spells when she's ready which is hopefully soon.

I see that the first yellow silhouette is within a solid distance from me. I start taking out soldiers on my way there, but I'm trying to be careful not to directly kill anyone. If I say, cut off their arm and they die of blood loss, I'll feel a lot less bad then if I straight up beheaded them, because they at least had a chance to live.

Yellow silhouette 1 seems to notice me approaching, because he chants a spell, and a large fireball gets flung my way. I could use Derflinger to absorb it, but instead I dodge roll to the left, and the fireball instead takes out a few soldiers unfortunate enough to be in the line of fire. I take the opportunity to jump up, land on a guy's head, and run across some more heads as a shortcut to get to my first target. He notices, and tries fireball again. I leap up, have Derflinger absorb the fireball, and then slash, I land on the ground next to target 1's severed head. Damn it! I was too busy thinking about beheadings after mentioning it. Well, human kill count: 1.

Before I can think of what to do next, I hear an explosion, and see one off to my right. And wow is it big. Hell, it seems like it even took out targets 2 and 3! Thanks Louise!

Unfortunately, due to the explosion, I was distracted, and didn't notice the sword coming down towards my shoulder until it was almost too late. I turn to dodge, but I don't turn enough, and the sword cuts my arm a bit. Considering the amount of times I've hurt myself badly back home, the sight of my own blood doesn't dizzy me as much as it should have. Good thing too, considering if I froze up, I'd be dead right now. I duck another of the soldiers swings, and lop off his arm at the elbow before kicking him in the face and sending him to the ground. I smash in the helmet of one soldier with Derflinger's hilt, before knocking another one out using the flat of his blade.

The explosions are coming more rapidly now. Three more just happened in the span of around 30 seconds. I don't know if it's luck, or Louise knows more then I do, but she's taking out at least one commander with each explosion. There's only two yellows left.

Scratch that, none. Louise took out all the high ranking officials with her explosions alone. I'm just pissed I didn't get to do much other then take out the first target, but this frees me up to focus on the actual battle.

Fight with one sword seems to be presenting a disadvantage. Considering the amount of people, I can't block all possible attacks. I slash one soldier across the chest, only for one to pop into my field of vision and slash at me. It grazes my side, which is suddenly filled with a lot of pain. Note to self: getting cut with a sword hurts a lot.

I intentionally blot out the pain, grab the sword by the handle, and kick the guy away, forcing him to let go of the sword. The sword's a claymore of some kind according to my gandalfer-ness. I spin the sword and Derflinger around to show off a bit, and then get to work.

It turns out, duel wielding swords isn't like duel wielding guns, in that's it's actually semi-practical. When duel wielding guns, you have to worry about the considerable loss in accuracy that comes in trying to aim two weapons at the same time. With two swords, they both function as an extension of your arm, giving you potentially greater variety of performable moves and techniques.

Louise's explosions are getting less frequent, and smaller as well. We need to wrap this up before Louise collapses from exhaustion, and I collapse from blood loss.

Using both blades, I being carving my way through the enemies around me. As I get busy, I take about two arrows, one in my shoulder, and one a little above my knee. They hurt like hell. You know how in movies and stuff when people get shot by an arrow they just pull it out like it's nothing? Yeah, that doesn't work in real life. Arrows hurt like hell. The only reason I was able to pull them out and keep fighting is becauseI needed to, otherwise that might have been the point where I collapsed.

The battle rages on. I keep cutting through the enemies, absorbing spells with Derflinger whenever they appear, and continue the onslaught. Louise's explosions have pretty much been reduced to that of a grenade, but they're still coming which is immensely useful. I don't know how long the battle lasted, an hour? 30 minutes?

Eventually, I heard exactly the words I prayed that I'd hear.

"Retreat!"

"Fall back!"

The soldiers started turning around and fleeing. Running in the direction opposite of the town we were having evacuate.

"You're damn right you better evacuate!" I yell at the army as it turns and runs. "And take your stupid sword with you!" I say as I toss the claymore somewhere into the crowd. I think it hit someone on the head and knocked them out, but I'm not really sure.

Once the entire, conscious and alive, members of the army have left I turn around and slowly make my way over to the hill where Louise is. It wasn't easy. Let's tally up my injuries:

One medium sized slash on my left arm

One solidly sized slash to my right side

One arrow through my shoulder

One arrow into my thigh, close to the knee (and I still plan on adventuring, making me more badass then 90% of Skyrim's guards)

Slight burns on parts of my body from a few fireball spells I didn't quite notice until they were practically upon me

Overall assessment: I got pretty screwed up and am bleeding from practically all over my body. Damn it.

Ignoring my imminent bleeding out, I walked over to Louise on the hill. Well, she came over to me first when she saw me and saw how beat up I got. I swear to any god you want, if she asks me if I'm okay-

"We did it," are Louise's first words when she gets to me. She's panting pretty hard, and looks like she's having trouble keeping herself awake. I don't blame her. She took out a whole warship and practically knocked herself out, and now she's casting multiple huge explosions? It's a wonder either of us are still alive.

"What'd I say, master Louise?" I say while forcing a smile. "What did I-"

My words are cut off when I feel my body lock up. The apparent lack of blood seems to have caught up with me. I feel my knees buckle, and then I fall face first onto the dirt. Great, now I've got a headache in addition to everything I've gotten earlier.

"Josh!" Louise cries out when she sees me fall. "Don't panic, I can... I can," Louise words take on a slight drowsiness to them, and she also slumps to her knees before hitting the dirt right next to me.

"Used up a little too much willpower, eh master?" I ask.

"Yeah," Louise admits with a tentative smile. "I forgot that overdoing it and using too much willpower isn't good for a mage's health. More then a few mages have died that way."

"If we are going to die, we at least die together, right?" I say as I try my best to put a reassuring smile on my face. Damn it, it hurts to do so much as think.

"Yeah, I guess we do have each other," Louise agrees.

"I love you Louise."

"I love you Josh."

In what appears to be a great effort, Louise reaches out and puts her hand on mine. We both share one last smile, before everything goes to black and I start to lost consciousness. The only thing I was thinking as my world faded to black was how low my odds of ever waking up were.

*Author notes*

Uncreative: So then I stripped the corpse naked, threw it into the river, and rode my horse away before the guards showed up.

Ariana: *Whistle* Sounds like a hell of a game. I still can't believe you punched a dragon to death.

Uncreative: When you're a high enough level and put all your points into strength, anything's possible. For example- Oh shit! We're on!

Ariana: What? Okay, ahem, so then Mr. Author, what happened this chapter?

Uncreative: Well, for a season finale it had an admittedly shitty final battle, which I would like to apologize for. I tried to get this out a bit sooner, and writing a battle like that's really hard to do. That's what I get for this being the only chapter I didn't have written before uploading the story at all.

Ariana: So before even posting the first chapter, you had everything up to this point written out already? If that's true, why didn't you just post it all at once?

Uncreative: Well for one, I wanted to have some kind of time to edit each chapter before it went up. Each chapter you see in this story was modified in some way shape or form before being. Hell, even chapter 1 took a few heavy modifications five minutes before posting when I completely rewrote the Guiche fight. Also, since this chapter wasn't done yet, I wanted to give myself as much time as possible to get it down before my own self imposed deadline which I can't even remember anymore.

Ariana: So the readers can't even begin to expect part 2 for a while, can they Mr. Author?

Uncreative: Part 2, season 2, whatever you want to call it isn't getting a single sentence posted until it's completely, or at least 95% done. Which hopefully won't take as long. After all, since I'm covering a bit less then this season, I should be able to finish it up more quickly.

Ariana: Awesome. Now onto something a bit more author's note related. So I dug around on your computer, checked out everything you have planned from now until next season of stories, and I found the bios you wrote up for each of the main characters of this story season.

Uncreative: Good catch. For my own personal reference, I wrote up bios for them main characters of stories I've either written now or previously (i.e. Saito, Shana Louise 1, Louise 2, and Joshua) and stories I haven't written yet but have planned (characters such as Eve, Scott, and Elise). Fun fact, I believe Emily mentioned in chapter two she knew some people named Scott and Elise. That was a happy accident. In the future, two stories I right will star OCs with those names, But are so far unrelated to this story and set of characters I almost can't help buy laugh.

Ariana: Right. So I was reading through Joshua's profile and noticed some interesting things. His favorite anime is Sailor Moon?

Uncreative: Oops, that's a typo. That's his second favorite, his favorite anime is Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Ariana: He really likes magical girls, doesn't he? I'd ask if it's a fetish of his, but under assorted notes it says "Despite claims to the contrary, Joshua does indeed have both cosplay and ponytail fetishes."

Josh: It's not a fetish! I just think they look good, that's all.

Uncreative: Josh? When'd you get here? Part 2 doesn't start for a while.

Josh: I got here a bit early, and the door was unlocked, so I thought I'd stop by.

Uncreative: The door to my house, or the door to this commentary room?

Josh: Both.

Uncreative: Well, might as well introduce you. You know who I am, but this girl right here is Ariana.

Ariana: Hi Josh!

Josh: We've met already, remember?

Ariana: Oh yeah. I love non-canon environments. They allow main characters of completely different stories to meet while picking up groceries. It's really quite funny.

Uncreative: Quite interesting indeed.

Josh: Funny, not interesting.

Uncreative: Thank you. Anyway, since part 2 is a quite a ways away, I figured that I'd maybe show off an excerpt from a scene in a chapter I haven't gotten around to writing yet to whet your appetite.

Ariana: Oh! What scene?

Josh: Is it the scene that technically follows this one, since that'd make the most sense to post?

Uncreative: Wrong. It's actually my favorite scene in this entire story. It helped me come up with one or two actual plot points, that's how important it was to me in the planning stage.

Ariana: Oooh, it's the first scene you ever came up with for the fic, isn't it?

Uncreative: Yep. Remember back to chapter 1 when Ariana mentioned that this was originally a rewrite of one of my older stories, but it got changed into what it is now? That's a rhetorical question Josh, you don't need to answer. Well when I got the idea to make this it's own thing, a scene popped into my mind. A solid chunk of that scene is what you're going to be seeing. Note: This following excerpt is from chapter 13 or 14 (I'm not sure how I'm going to break the story up yet) and, as such, contains possibly very heavy spoilers. Those who don't want to be spoiled, We'll se you next time.

*Excerpt Start*

"Um... H-hey, you mind if I ask for a favor?"

"What's with that way of speaking?" I ask. "It seems like you just go a whole lot more nervous for some reason."

"Sh-shut up! Nervousness comes easily to me," the girl says. "Anyway, I wanted to ask a favor. Since you're gandalfar, you're familiar with weapons, right?"

"Wait, how do you know about gandalfar? I can name to amount of people who should know about it on one hand."

"Believe it or not, I'm a bit of an expert on the void lineage," the girl says, her triumphant smile returning. "I know practically all there is to know about it! I think I can recognize a gandalfar when I see one. So anyway, since you are gandalfar, would you mind helping me pick out a good weapon for my friend's birthday? She's a bit of a weapons nut, and I figured you'd maybe be able to help me out. In exchange, I can help you find a weapon more suited to your style."

"Um, thanks, but I've already picked up a new one," I say as I brandish the katana I picked up recently.

"And besides," Derflinger adds. "He's still got me!"

The girl chuckles. "Yeah, I know. Derflinger and Nietono no Shana really are kind of great on their own."

"Nie-what?"

"That katana's name is Nietono no Shana," the girl explains. "And I know you're fine as is, but still, I think I saw something around here you might like, so what do you say? Deal?"

I think for a bit then nod my head. "Deal. Let's find a weapon for..."

"My friend's name is Natalie," the girl tells me.

"Then let's find a weapon for Natalie."

We start digging through the piles of weapons in search of a good birthday present. I don't know where half of this came from or why it's here. Is this a plasma cutter?

"Oh, it is!" The girl exclaims as she grabs the gun from my hand and aims it. "Um... How does this work?"

It's probably out of ammo, so it most likely won't fire anyway.

"No, the holograms says three, see?"

*BANG*

We both scream and dive for cover on instinct when the gun accidentally discharges. We both come out of cover after about a minute and look at each other.

"No."

"Agreed."

"Let's keep looking and make sure we didn't kill anything important," I tell her.

We keep digging around a bit more. Hey now, what's this? I pull out a sword from a pile and examine it. It was mostly white with three holes in a line on the blade close to the hilt, which took the form of a circle.

"Isn't this the infinity blade?" I wonder aloud as I examine the sword.

"Oh! That'd be perfect!" the girl exclaims. "Natalie would love it! Would you mind handing it here please?"

I hand the infinity blade, the god slayer, over to the girl. I just handed over a really overpowered sword to a little girl. ... Am I an idiot?

"Probably," the girl responds. "Anyway, thanks, Nat'll love it. As thanks, follow me to that thing I mentioned."

The girl runs off in one direction, and I follow her. Eventually we reach yet another pile of weapons, virtually indistinguishable from the others. The girl puts down the infinity blade and starts digging around in the pile.

"I know I saw them here somewhere," she mutters to herself. "I was thinking about giving them to Nat, but they're a bit too far on the subtle side for her. Aha! Found them!"

The girl pulls out what looks like two bracers and tosses them to me. She looks at me, then motions for me to put them on, which I hesitantly do. What are these supposed to be? They look like normal leather bracers, with some metal plating on the top and bottom.

The girl looks about as confused as I feel. "They should be working," she mutters. "Um... Try flicking your wrist back," she advises.

Not like I have anything better to do. I flick my left wrist back, and then a blade pops out of the bracer.

"Whoa!" I cry in surprise.

Once the blade is extended, my gandalfar runes light up and start telling me how to use it.

"There it goes!" The girl cries happily. "I hope you like them. They don't really have a fancy name or anything, but most people simply refer to them as a hidden blade."

*Excerpt end*

Josh: Going all out with the Assassin's Creed, aren't you? Giving me two hidden blades, and the Eagle Vision?

Uncreative: When I first started brainstorming for this story, this scene, of which I've shown about a third, came into my head. It was mostly a joke, "Oh yeah, let's give him a hidden blade, that'll be fun." Then I thought to myself, "Hey, let's give him a hidden blade! That could actually work! Well, if I'm giving him a hidden blade I might as well pull him from the AC universe, so let's throw in Eagle Vision and a few assorted extras as well."

Ariana: Like the apple.

Uncreative: That was always nothing more then a joke. Anyway, please note that since I haven't written up to even the next chapter yet, that scene I just showed you is very likely to change a bit. In the meantime, I'm going to learn to be less lazy so I can get season 2 up quickly. In the mean time, Josh, Ariana, make yourself at home. There's pizza and sugar cookies somewhere so feel free to have some.

Josh: Pizza?

Ariana: Sugar cookies?

*whoosh*

Uncreative: Huh. If I had known mentioning that would have that kind of effect I would have done it a long time ago. Anyway, I'll see you all next time! This The Uncreative, signing off for now. We're done here.