Chapter 9 – Breakfast Disaster

Disclaimer – I still don't own ZnT or SnS. Evang and Pan-Samun are original characters. Copyrighted characters and names appearing in this work are property of their respective owners.

Evang's Laboratory

"I've done some heavy mind-warping shenanigans with Pan-Samun's help. People won't notice us until we speak to them first, or do something spectacular to draw attention. This will allow us to proceed with our tasks without drawing questions or attention from the locals," Evang boasted as he gathered the teens the next morning. "This includes transferring the Reiji Maigo back into its proper receptacle."

Yuji heaved a grateful sigh. "Finally."

"Saito, you have some level of skill now in nitou-ryu, and I trust you will not let that skill rust away despite returning Blutsauger, the Blood Drinker, to Yuji. Say goodbye to Azur as well," Evang said.

"Okay, how are we going to transfer this Reiji Maigo?" Saito asked after he had handed Azur and Blutsauger to Yuji, who staggered under the weight of the sword. "Is it really that heavy?"

"I'm a normal human again, with my Power of Existence untapped," Yuji gasped. Shana took pity on him and took the Hougu, stowing it in her cloak. Around her neck, the Cocytus gleamed, the embers inside it swirling around again.

Louise had approached her earlier, apologized for unknowingly taking some of her things and using them, and returned the sword and necklace to her. After that, they had a little chat, one of those girly chats that always end up with the participants being best friends afterwards. While Evang was placing a containment field around Yuji and Saito to begin the operation, the young ladies found that some of their circumstances were similar.

"By a fighting chance, you meant your chest?" Shana asked, puzzled.

Louise nodded. "See, Saito is a simple beast. He's attracted to fair faces and big breasts. I meet the face requirement, but didn't meet the breast requirement until recently." She blushed, remembering what had happened next after she had acquired her 'assets.' "Saito, who I take is an expert, has told me that I now am at par with Princess Henrietta, my best friend. I'm saddened whenever I think that the Princess might be developing some affection for my familiar, though."

"I don't have that many friends, but I have a lot of rivals for Yuji's attention and time," Shana confided.

"It's annoying, isn't it?" Louise knew exactly what Shana meant.

"Annoying is too soft a word. To put it bluntly, it's hell." The two girls looked at each other and nodded in understanding. They watched the containment field and the events happening inside. Saito and Yuji were both floating within the blue bubble, and wispy trails of energy were streaming back and forth between the two. Evang, who was perched on top of the containment field observing the process, decided he'd seen enough and hopped down. He swept one of the tables clear of the junk it held and produced an alcohol lamp, which he put in the center of the table. It was followed by a tripod, which he positioned over the unlit lamp, and finally placed a short-handled pan on top of the tripod.

"What's happening?" the girls asked in unison, causing the old mage to grin, for he couldn't tell their voices apart. Ah, the travails of old age, even if he didn't look a couple of hundred and fifty years old.

"Breakfast, that's what's happening. Are you fine with scrambled eggs and some iron rations? I haven't had a chance to visit the market yet, and only have my well-preserved, long-lasting traveler's food to offer."

"I'm ok as long as it's edible," Shana assured him.

"Never mind that! We meant what's happening to Saito and Yuji?" Louise demanded. She caught sight of the eggs, garlic, and onions that appeared on the table as if by magic, and her stomach growled in a very unladylike fashion. She turned red.

"Ah, you should have said so in the first place! Right now, I've a spell that creates a tunnel between Yuji and Saito for the Reiji Maigo to travel through. I must say, that is a very unusual Noble Phantasm – it seems something is inside of it, but being heavily suppressed. It should be done by the time we finish making breakfast, and we could sit down and eat with them. Isn't it great?"

"You can cook?" Shana asked. The only great cooks that she knew of firsthand was Chigusa Sakai, Yuji's mother. What could a man do?

"It's not gourmet, but how hard can it be to make eggs and whatnot with help from two cute girls?"

"I've actually never helped in the kitchen before," Louise said shyly.

"Then you're in for a treat! Watch the wonders of the kitchen unfold before your eyes – at least, my rendition of it." So saying, Evang snapped his fingers and cooking oil coated the insides of the pan. Using sleight of hand to seemingly pull an egg out of nowhere, he held it over a bowl and bade Louise to observe. "Take the egg in one hand, tap it against the side of the bowl to create a breach, apply pressure and voila! One egg in the bowl. Would you like to give it a try, girls?"

The two nodded, and Evang handed a bowl and an egg to each girl. "Now, the trick is to make a small crack in the armor, not destroy the shell in one blow," Evang instructed. "Go!"

Louise, utilizing a mix of eagerness and unfamiliarity, managed to do it properly on the first try. Shana looked at the egg, then the bowl, gauging material strength and her own force. With a decisive set of her eyebrows, she tapped the egg against the bowl – and watched as the contents spilled onto the table. "Oh!"

"That's alright, we've got plenty of eggs to practice on. Here, try it again," Evang said, handing her another one. He asked Louise, "Would you show me that again that feat of yours, Louise, or was it beginner's luck?"

"It was not all luck! I'll show you, Professor!" the female mage said.

"Professor?" Shana asked, surprised, which caused her to hit the egg against the bowl and land the yolk and white squarely in the middle. "Whoa! I did it!"

Louise scored her second successful egg-break, gloating, "See, Professor? It wasn't all luck!"

"Indeed. You might have a chance of - nah, I shouldn't say it."

"A chance at what, Professor?"

"He's an actual professor?" Shana asked again, eggs momentarily forgotten.

"Well, I do travel a lot, teaching any who are willing to learn and work for knowledge. Cooking, spellcraft, how to have fun – it all depends on where I am and who my students are going to be." He cracked another egg into his bowl. "Now, pour the contents of your bowls into this one, and decide what you'd like to do next: beat the eggs, that is, to mix them up; or slice up and prepare the garlic and onions.

Alastor spoke up, "Shana knows her way around a sword, would those skills apply to this sort of knifework?"

"Ah, Tenjou no Gouka. I'm glad to see you're back in communication. I'm letting the girls choose for themselves, since this is all new territory for them."

Meanwhile, inside the bubble, Saito and Yuji were engaged in conversation as well.

"So to have you where he wanted you, he first put you in a situation where you were bound to get injured, offered to give you a potion to fix you up, and slipped some agent into the medicine that made you lose your inhibitions and gave Louise breasts?" Yuji clarified.

"Yeah. So if I were you, I'd be careful not to get hurt, or else you might find yourself going at it with your Shana who'll be the instant owner of a double D-cup rack," Saito warned him.

"That will actually be dangerous – Shana still beats the stuffing out of me when we spar. I don't want to be me if I started to do something perverted to her."

"You know how to use a sword? For real, and not because of some magical gimmick?"

"Well, I've been taking lessons from Shana, mostly for footwork and how to defend myself with a long, hand-held weapon. And prior to being thrown here, I've been trying to be a mage as well. As for magical gimmicks, there's Reiji Maigo, which used to restore my Power of Existence every midnight until some bad shit happened. Now I've enough power reserves to rival a Crimson Realm denizen, and I regenerate it over time even if it isn't midnight."

"All that power and no way to use it, huh?"

"Well, I can reinforce my body to take less damage. I fell off the roof of my house and didn't feel a thing."

"That is wicked! I wish my ability as a Gandalfr included that feat – I'm pretty sure it would have prevented me from dying."

"You've died before?"

"Uh-huh. I may be skilled in the use of all weapons past, present, and future, but it doesn't make me invulnerable. You try to take on thousands of soldiers, beasts, arrows, and mages at the same time, by your lonesome."

"I'm not that heroic and noble. Even if I had the ability to create any weapon and fought side by side with a cute sword-wielding girl, I'm still not going to take those odds. So why did you do it?"

"I did it because I didn't want Louise, no, everyone I cared for to be dragged into the slaughter."

"Better you than them, is that it? Have you considered their feelings and opinions on the matter?"

"Even if I did, that still wouldn't have changed my resolve then to engage the Albion vanguard so that everybody else could retreat to the capital."

Silence.

"How long do you think we'll be stuck here?" Saito asked.

"I don't know. Don't you find it odd that we can't see anything outside this bubble?" Yuji asked in return.

"True." Saito had a horrid thought. "What if Evang is doing something perverted to my Louise, and I'm not aware of it because of this bubble!"

"Your Louise?" Yuji noted with a grin. "Oooh!"

"Yeah, like the way Shana's your Shana," Saito retorted.

"Come off it, man. We haven't even kissed yet!"

"Whatever, so hurry up and take this Reiji Maigo thing out of me!"

Outside the bubble, the three chef wannabes were observing the events inside intently. "Any moment now," Evang murmured.

They saw it then – a fist-sized construct of clockwork and glass, floating slowly in the tunnel connecting the two boys. It was lazily making its way from Saito to Yuji.

"At the rate it's going, we'll finish before lunchtime," Louise sighed.

"Do you have anything to teach us to pass the time?" Shana asked.

"Well, now that you mention it, there is." Evang smiled, a smile that some people might call evil. Before he could launch on this tangent, though, a flash of light came from inside the containment bubble and blew it apart, the pieces dissolving into blue glitterdust a second later. "It will have to wait, though, as the boys seem to want breakfast and finished ahead of schedule."

Breakfast was a light-hearted affair. At least, it started out that way. When Yuji heard that Shana helped with the breakfast, he was suddenly less enthusiastic about eating. "You're supposed to be an omniscient mage, right?" he addressed Evang. At the man's nod, he continued, "How many Flame Hazes do you know that are passable cooks? Is Shana one of them?"

Feeling rather insulted, Shana acted without thought and tossed whatever she was holding at Yuji's head. Unfortunately, it was a knife, an eating knife to be sure, and a sharp one at that – not the dull eating knives of the twenty-first century. Her rage gave the projectile deadly accuracy. In response to the attack, a gash of light appeared in Yuji's chest and a silver gauntlet came out, flicking an arc of fire that disintegrated the knife, set Shana ablaze with pewter flame, and sent the others at the table scrambling for cover.

"Shana!" Yuji cried out. To his horror, the silver gauntlet stretched out, revealing the metal-covered arm it was attached to and grasping at the table as though it was attempting to find an anchor so that it could pull itself out of Yuji.

Academy Kitchens

The assassin known as Wilhelmina Carmel felt a familiar, hated signature of magic coming from her target's quarters and the psychic scream of pain rippling through the aether. The scream was undoubtedly female, from a young girl, and its point of origin led her to only one conclusion. It was time to carry out her contract.

After informing Marteau, the head cook, that she was needed by Miss de la Valliere and gaining his permission to go, she dashed out, eating a lout of ground by her leaps. If other people saw her, she paid them no heed. What mattered now was not stealth, but speed.

She was unfamiliar with his quarters, but her ability to sense magic led her to the door she was seeking. Donning her death mask, which would allow her to see spell patterns clearly and react accordingly, she drew Mageslayer and burst through the door, only to be greeted by a bizarre sight.

Her charge was in one corner of the room, being protected by the commoner familiar and his sword. Louise de la Valliere was safe, so she focused her attention on the other occupants, who were part of a macabre tableau. Her target was struggling with a giant silver arm emerging from a boy's chest, while a dark-haired girl was lying on the floor, her appearance suggesting that she had been hit by a powerful fire-type attack. The boy in the center of the piece had a look of horror and pain on his face, and had both hands on the gauntlet growing out of him, as if trying to pull it back in.

"Wilhelmina!" Louise cried, at first not recognizing the newcomer thanks to the mask, but her height, hair color and maid uniform gave her away. "Why are you here?"

"I sensed trouble, and my first instinct told me it involved you and the Professor. It looks like I was right, de arimasu."

"Priority shifting" said a cold, emotionless voice. It seemed to come from her mask.

"Mugen no Kantai!" Alastor said, recognizing the other entity. "How can this be, that you are here as well, Tiamat?"

"Explanations later," came the cold reply.

"Tell me, assassin, do you know if your dagger can hurt, if not harm, demi-gods?" Evang ground out, trying to push against the Silver with streams of raw energy, which the Silver was pushing back against as well.

"Assassin?" Louise and Saito exclaimed.

"It hurts! Someone do something quick, he's getting really, really agitated!" cried the boy.

Wilhelmina decided to deviate from her programming and hurled the dagger at the giant silver arm. The blade bounced against the metal, but the gauntlet flinched, and was pushed back a few inches by Evang's beams. "It looks like it works, alright. That means you should be able to help us out, Saito."

"Are you OK with this, Derflinger?"

"You want us to cut through magical armor? Let's go then!"

"This is no mere magical armor, Derflinger, it's the skin of a demi-god," Evang warned the sword.

"Steel, adamantite, men, gods, it doesn't matter! There is nothing me and my partner cannot cleave!" Derflinger proclaimed. "Let's go!"

"Raaaaghhh!" Saito roared, springing forward and bringing Derflinger down on the silver gauntlet. The screech of metal on metal was joined by Yuji's scream of pain.

"Please bear it this last time, Yuji," Evang pleaded, cutting of one stream to fashion an ornate sword with it. "Deathrender!" he cried, activating the sword and stabbing it into the palm of the huge silver hand. Yuji howled, the gauntlet closed into a fist and crushed the sword Evang summoned before withdrawing back into Yuji, who passed out from the ordeal.

"Do you two Crimson Lords mind if you have your reunion while I tend to these two children?" Evang asked, looking every day of his 250 years. Turning to Louise and Saito, he said, "Well, sorry about breakfast, I'll make it up to you as soon as I fix these two kids up."

"What was that thing?" Louise asked, shaken. She had not taken part in the skirmish, for fear of her magic going out of control and injuring Yuji, yet she was still unnerved by Yuji's screams.

"You might want to ask Alastor and Tiamat about that, if Wilhelmina doesn't decide to go after me while I tend to the injured."

"Tiamat?"

"She's the Crimson Lord masquerading as Wilhelmina's battle-mask."

"Inference of chosen form incorrect."

He sighed. "I mean no disrespect, but I really have to tend to the Flame Haze and the Mystes. Miss Assassin, you're free to stay or go, but if you stay, be prepared to answer questions."

[Insert eyecatch here. Yeah, I know it's the lazy way out. –Jemu

Wilhelmina stayed for a bit and answered Louise's and Saito's questions, then left before either Shana or Yuji could come to. "These two know of another person who looks exactly like you, dresses exactly like you, and also serves Mugen no Kantai Tiamat," Evang said to this universe's Wilhelmina, nodding to the sleeping pair. "While I believe explanations are necessary, it appears you don't have a plausible one yet. I've my own theories on why you're here, but I think they'd prefer words coming from your mouth. Would you like to take some time alone to formulate your cover story?"

"I would appreciate that, de arimasu." "Prudent course of action." With a bow to the still dazed Louise and Saito, she silently made her way out of the room.

"Will you be needing us around, Evang-san?" Saito asked. "I'd like to take Louise to her room, she's shaken and all that."

"Go, go on, children. We'll be fine here, the Silver seems to be in 'lurker mode' again. Carmel-san wouldn't try to kill me, now that I've explained I mean no harm. Ah, I know! This would be a good time to involve your eldest sister in the practical aspects of my work! Could you send her here, on your way back to your room?"

"I'm not sure I can trust you alone with Eleonor-onee-sama," Louise said in an audible whisper. "You might do something delicious- I mean perverted to her."

"Aw, Louise, let what will happen, happen! Besides, if Evang-san wanted to do something to your eldest sister, I think she'd welcome it," Saito countered, recalling the time he snuck into Eleonor's to look at her chest and cleavage – or the lack of it.

"How can you say such a thing! Onee-sama is the very image of a noblewoman!" WHACK! That was the sound of Louise's palm connecting with Saito's forehead.

"Well, you seem to have recovered your spirit, in that case, I'm REALLY looking forward to bringing you back to our room." Without any warning, Saito swept Louise up onto his shoulder and carried her like a sack of grain to their room.

"Ah, young love. To be youthful and carefree again! Alas, one cannot take back what time has stolen away, woe am I."

Once he had seen the Void Mage and her familiar off, the mage went into apothecary mode and began to lay out ingredients on the long table that not so long ago served as a kitchen counter and dining table. He cast a worried glance at the Mystes boy and at the Flame Haze girl. Both were breathing easily, which was good, but their eyes were still closed, which was not so good. He was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in."

Eleonor let herself in, her eagerness carefully hidden. For weeks now, she had signed on as his assistant, but had done nothing except listen to lectures about alchemy and medicinal properties of various materials, some of which she already knew. All the lectures had been done in a corner of the Academy Library which was warded and shielded every session – this was her first time that she was summoned to his laboratory. She wondered what this meant.

"Ah, Miss de la Valliere, excellent timing. You've been an excellent student, and now it's time to put your knowledge to use. I've laid out some ingredients and reagents on the table, as well as a recipe that details what needs to be done to how much so what to mix something up. Your task is to create the potion indicated within half an hour. Any questions, my lady?"

"What kind of potion is it?" Eleonor asked.

"It's a restorative. It doesn't close wounds or mend bones immediately – that's more magic than can be infused in a simple potion – but the potion does increase your natural rate of healing and regeneration. When taken by a healthy, uninjured individual, it works like a tonic, enhancing the person's capabilities by a random amount."

"I see. Would this be the same potion you gave my sister and her familiar?"

"It is," Evang replied. "Now, do you have any other questions? You may begin, and I expect a sufficient quantity of the potion for two persons. You must fill this flask," he lifted the one he was referring to, "Or at least fill more than half of it for me to consider your efforts successful."

"What will you be doing in the meantime?" Eleonor asked.

"I will be tending two children who are in need of that medicine I asked you to prepare. I believe that magical healing only goes so far, and that the rest must be done by the patient. It's why I think the environs, the food, and the caretakers themselves must be conducive to recuperation. Now, begin."

After taking a peek at Eleonor busily working over the potion recipe, Evang decided to make a quick jaunt and see how his recruitment was going. "Space Station SpaceBar," he uttered.

In a flash, he found himself back in his Haven, one that he shared with his 'brother.' "Have we gotten any good ones yet?" he asked without preamble.

The person he had spoken turned around, and Evang smiled at the face he saw in the mirror every morning when he washed his face. "Actually, I'm considering recruiting individuals with Glam Sight for this effort. You are familiar with the phenomenon, right?" Jemu replied, returning his twin's smile.

"That's no phenomenon – that's what I call a cheat code! What mages study for years on end to achieve, Glam Sight grants by virtue of being attached to you!"

"True enough – however, cheats don't come with a price. This one does. That aside, do you agree that Glam Sight will be useful?"

"I concede that being able to see the flows of magic in spells and in magical creatures is going to be an advantage in this war. Assuming the user can maintain his sanity while out there, fighting – all this magical radiation can't be good for an organic means of detecting magic."

"Agreed. Also, we'll need fighters who can dish out quasi-magical attacks, either naturally or aided by devices. The closer our strike force gets to the tower, the more unreliable their magic becomes."

"You mean, wielders of magical weaponry?" Evang asked. At Jemu's nod, Evang continued to rattle of possible recruits. "What about people who can focus chi? Or children who can communicate with cute, lovable critters armed with bio-weaponry like lightning, firebreathing, pressurized water blasts, and the like? Or pilots that can pull off fighting game maneuvers and special moves in and out of their personal mecha?"

"Before you go any further," Jemu interrupted, "I'd like for you to follow me and introduce yourself to our guests sitting at the bar, who are currently being entertained by BOS."

"You have got to be kidding me – BOS, playing bartender?" BOS was the space station's AI, and was pretty much in charge of everything the brothers didn't want to micro-manage at the moment.

"You'll see." They teleported to the bar, and their guests swung around on their barstools to face them. This, despite their silent teleport, spoke volumes about the pair.

"Hey, welcome back, my lords! Elder God Kurou, Elder God Al-Azif, allow me to introduce my other master, Evang. He's taken an active stance against the Dream King Reborn's Tower of Infinite Stuff, as Master Evang refers to it."

"Amazing how your mind wasn't blown away by the sheer scope of what you're going up against. Let me guess, Order of the Four Destroyed Walls, right?" Kurou greeted him, extending his hand. "Your Order is a collection of partially awakened planeswalkers and Time Divers, isn't it?"

"Kurou, it's 'The Order of the Four Broken Walls," Al-Azif corrected him.

"Actually, the name of the Order isn't important. We'd be even more concerned if our Order became a household world, even in a single dimension," Evang said, smiling as the Shroud granted by his Vows to the Order seemed to work on Elder Gods as well as mortals. "We are honored by the presence of Elder Gods in our humble vessel. How may we serve?"

"You're already striking out, recruiting an army to mow down that Dream tower, right? That's a good thing. We're actually just here for a stop-over. Who knew looking for your kids across dimensions could be so tiring?" Kurou groused.

"This Dream King's tower isn't helping the transition between worlds either, being a rip in the fabric of different realities. I've never seen the like in my existence," Al noted.

"Oh, you have kids? If I may say so, Lady Al-Azif looks too young to be a mother," Evang said.

"They told me earlier that when Lady Al-Azif sat her daughter down for a family portrait to be taken, the artist blurted, 'Your little sister is cute, and she looks so much like you!' Poor man. He never figured out why his staff were snickering at him until she informed him of his false assumption," Jemu related.

"Tell you what, you two flatterers, since my wife is amused by your compliments, both said and unsaid, I'll help you out. Heck, I'll even throw in some heavy support in the form of Demonbane if you find yourselves facing big-ass demonic mecha."

"I thought gods were forbidden to directly act against the tower," Jemu mused.

"Mere gods, those of established pantheons, yes. The rule does not apply to newly awakened Elder Gods, or those gods who have lost their followers. Seriously, Order Mage, look it up."

"And where did you look this up, Lord Kurou?" Evang asked.

Kurou gave him a look that said "You're either really stupid for a mage, or you're blinded by my wife's beauty and mind-fogged by her shapely form."

"Dude, his wife was a once grimoire, a tome of power," Jemu informed him in a stage whisper.

"Oh."