ARC II
CHAPTER FIVE

Disclaimer: Not Mine.

The Princess, her advisors and Louise stood around the strange object. It looked something like a fish, on it's side – completely smooth. It was a dark red, but had large rectangular patches of slightly transparent black – through which they could dimly see a human figure sitting in front of what looked like a small ships wheel.

'Um... what does it do?'
The question was the princess's, but Louise quickly repeated it, and heard the voice in her head she was starting to associate with her familiar.

'It goes places really, really fast.'

They looked at it. It did, indeed, look fast.

'Show us'

The machine roared, and Louise recognized the roar from the metal creatures with the cannons yesterday. Could this be their younger sister? It did look feminine somehow...

The rear wheels spun, and the thing shot forward, leaving grass and smoke in the air behind them. It seemed to be having trouble on the grass however – the clumps made the thing start bucking up into the air every time it built up a bit of speed. Quickly, it slowed back down, and rolled back towards them at a more moderate pace.

'Well that was a bust.'

Louise didn't know what sculptures had to do with anything, but it clearly hadn't gone as planned.

'Do you have anything else? Anything actually useful, this time?'

_.sSOSs._

Louise screamed as the metal wagon hit another bump and she bounced into the air. The thing was bouncing along twice the speed of a horse, and even tiny bumps threatened to throw her out the back. This wagon was much closer looking to the original two she had seen yesterday – though it had no upturned metal bucket on it, and the place the crew sat was open to the air. She looked across the compartment at the blond haired female musketeer, who was holding on grimly, but refusing to utter a sound.

The two of them had volunteered to ride in this thing – her with reluctance, the musketeer with – she didn't even know. Stoicism? She hadn't seen the guard show so much as a smile or a frown the entire day.

Just getting into the wagon had been an unnerving experience. Much like when she had first touched her familiar during the summoning, it wasn't entirely there. You could put your hand right through some parts that looked solid, but not through other areas that looked clear.

It was like the wagon was only an illusion, but someone had made a much simpler, invisible wagon on top of it, made of solid blocks. All the finer details like levers and handrails weren't modeled on the invisible wagon, but the largest portions of it were all there – in rectangular blocks. It was definitely an eeiry feeling sitting on something a few cm below the actual deck of the wagon, but they got used to it...

The wagon hit another bump, and Louise flinched as she held herself against the invisible walls... but it seemed they were getting close to where her familiar wanted to go. They were slowing down, finally. As the wagon rolled to a stop, it turned, aiming in the general direction of the woods almost a km to the east.

At her familiar's insistence, they had set up some targets there. An old wagon had been dragged into place, and one of the earth mages had magic'd up an earth palisade, a stone wall about a foot thick, and a small stone hut for demonstration purposes. The royal party was standing perhaps a few hundred meters off, watching both them and the target.

Agnes narrowed her eyes. She was a musketeer, not a cannoneer, but she had seen their cannons in action enough to know they didn't have half this range, and even if they did, they were so inaccurate the shells were as likely to land on the royal party as on the targets. But, Louise had forbidden her familiar to fire if the princess was in danger of being hit, and the effectiveness of her commands had already been demonstrated. So...

BOOM!

If anything, the explosion was even louder than a normal cannon-shot. The sound rolled across the landscape, and took several seconds to die away. Oddly, it didn't leave her deaf the way normal cannon-shot did. Something to do with it being a magical construct?

KRUMP!

A tonne of dirt one meter to the right of the wagon shot into the air, and started raining back down. The wagon itself was blasted into pieces by the peripheral blast. Still – it hadn't been a direct hit. It seemed the cannon on this machine wasn't completely accurate.

She watched as the cannon seemingly automatically adjusted it's aim – towards the hut this time. Louise, across from her, was still clutching her ears, looking nervously at the destroyed wagon, the royal party, and the angle of the cannon. She didn't trust her control over her familiar? Agnes sighed. The girl seemed so flighty. So nervous. Her own childhood hadn't had the luxury of self-doubt. Being a plebeian in a world run bun corrupt nobles was hard enough, but making it your life's goal to get revenge on the nobles that had massacred her village meant anything other than iron self-control would have led to her failure - left her ruined and destitute. It was hard for her to feel any pity at all for the spoiled little rich girl across from her.

BOOM!

Louise was slightly re-assured when Agnes flinched at the second firing of the cannon. Even this seemingly impervious military figure wasn't completely invulnerable. She risked a smile at the musketeer, but received a glare in return – daring her to say anything. Louise sighed, and looked down-range, just in time to see the

KRUMP!

As the cannon landed a direct hit on the stone hut. It was obliterated. Louise looked closer. It really was obliterated. Given how much stone had been used in it's construction, there should have been a lot more rubble strewn about, Instead, nothing lay higher than half a meter lay on the ground. Her familiar spoke, seemingly reading her mind.

'It's just like in-game'.

'What?'

'The shells are acting like they do in-game. They either lightly damage a building with the first shot, or they destroy it outright. You got to remember, this is from a game, not real life. The real life artillery work very differently.'

Louise blinked. 'Real life? I thought these were all imaginary constructs. Your world has these things in real life?'

Brent nodded – not that Louise could see of course. 'Yes. But the vehicles modeled in this game are all based on world war... uh, on a war that happened eighty years ago now. Our modern artillery are much much more advanced. In real life, they can shoot out to forty km. And that's just the mobile artillery units.'

Louise looked downrange at the hut, then answered back doubtfully
'but... you wouldn't even be able to see what your shooting at if it was forty km away...'

Agnes blinked. These things were real? With a range of forty km? If they could be replicated, it would completely change siege warfare. With the speed the shells came in, they would render the defensive mages that usually lined ramparts obsolete. For that matter, they would render the triangle and square attack mages obsolete too – at least while besieging. She frowned as a thought occurred to her, and turned to Louise. 'Ask him how many of these weapons he's showed us are real in his world.'

_.sSOSs._

Louise stood around, bored. Her familiar had changed into a variety of different shapes, and was discussing – mostly through her, how the real-world variants of his constructed vehicles and weapons worked. Academics from the college had been called in, and were taking sketches of the different parts of his machines, and writing down everything he said – through her. A lot of the technical words she didn't even know, and barely knew how to pronounce. If she wasn't needed for translation, she would have left a long time ago. Louise glanced off to one side, where Mr Colbert stood, frowning and clearly wanting to protest, but unable to find a reason.

Finally, one of the nobles asked something she actually understood.
'So, does your world only have games based on reality? Or do you have games based on things completely made up too? Just what are the limits on the kind of games you can appear here as?'

_.sSOSs._

Brent looked at his monitor and sighed. He should have expected it really. In front of him sat a planet – his homeworld, in this game. While this game's planet models were ok, the one sitting in his monitor seemed a little more real than usual. The two moons – red and blue, clued him in that this was the planet his – ugh, 'mistress' lived on. Beside the planet, sat it's statistics. Terran biosphere, medium size, rich mineral deposits, zero population.

The zero population was the reason for his sigh. With no population to start from, he couldn't build, couldn't increase the population, couldn't research – couldn't do anything. A game which could potentially allow him to conquer the galaxy, and he couldn't even get started, thanks to how it interfaced with reality. He sighed again, quit out of the game, and selected another.

_.sSOSs._

They stood outside the castle walls, and stared at the gleaming metal buildings. There was four of them now. They had appeared so suddenly...

It had started with another one of those metal wagons. This one wasn't red and fast looking, but neither was it dirty and military looking. Instead, it was all silvery, and it was Huge. It had had wheels as large as a man, and the entire thing was half as high as the academy walls. And then the thing had unpacked itself. Unfolding, with new pieces of machinery coming out of places they really shouldn't have been able to fit – until they had a massive building thing in front of them. Unpacked, the machine was as high as the academy walls. It looked a bit like some of the facilities at the docks. There was a massive crane, and a warehouse with huge sliding doors – but it all looked so impractical. And there wasn't a brick, or even a length of timber anywhere. It was all gleaming metal.

The thing had immediately started whirring and grinding and doing who knows what, and a minute after it started, the huge roller doors on the warehouse had opened, and one of the metallic creatures came out – as different from the rest as they had been from each other.

This one was a dirty yellow, and seemed somehow skeletal. It had a glass box on top – where the pilot sat, and a huge shovel on the front of it.

The yellow thing had moved to a new location, and started doing... not much at all. It moved backwards and forwards, moved its shovel up and down, but didn't really seem to be doing anything. Except even with it's weird movements – some kind of dance, perhaps? Something was happening. A metal framework grew itself out of the ground, slowly rising... before falling away a minute later to reveal another building.

The dirty yellow wagon continued its building-summoning dance, and soon there were a further three buildings in the clearing outside the walls. Not so much a clearing now though... the buildings were huge. They had tried to enter them, but it seemed the buildings weren't functional. They couldn't even get close. Much like the wagons, these things had invisible boxes around them they just couldn't enter. The 'Collision box' things her familiar had mentioned.

One of the buildings – another one with huge warehouse doors, and what looked like chimneys coming out the top, started moving. Fans on the side spun up, smoke chuffed from the chimneys, and various grinding noises could be heard. The warehouse doors rolled down, and one of the metal wagon things rolled out – The upturned bucket thing on the top of it with the cannon sticking out of it revealing it to be one of those 'tank' things. It's entire creation had taken about a minute. And as the tank rolled to a stop, the building started up again – starting production on a second one.

Louise looked around at the nobles. They were nobles, of course, so were used to keeping their composure, but even so, she could still pick out signs that they were utterly shell-shocked. That the things they were seeing were so far beyond how they thought the world operated that they were just letting their bodies carry them through the day automatically, until their brains could catch up and process what they were seeing.

_.sSOSs._

The princess watched as Louise leaned over and looked cautiously into the hole in front of her. Was it even a hole? The edges swirled a thick, magical blue – yet no magic was involved. One of the nobles had told her that. Louise turned and looked up at the main academy tower, where a second hole had burned it's way into one of the walls. Unlike the hole in front of her, this one had it's edges swirling a bright orange Louise waved at the hole, and the princess wondered what the girl was doing. She stifled a sigh, and wished – for the hundredth time, that she wasn't a princess, that she didn't need to be guarded all the time, and that she didn't need to be kept so safe that she couldn't at least get a little closer to the most interesting thing to happen in Tristania since it's inception.

Instead, she just smiled warmly as her childhood friend stood right next to the magical hole, and threw a small pebble through. Though when that same pebble shot through the hole in the academy tower and hit her in the back of the head, the princess couldn't help but giggle a little...

One of her advisors – a minister for finance, turned to the familiar and spoke up.
'Could you shoot a portal into a wagon, and have the wagon moved to another city?'

Her familiar darted from side to side.

'Why not?'

The familiar just looked at her blankly, and they all sighed. Being restricted to yes-no questions were a pain.

_.sSOSs._

They gazed up at her familiar. It made no sound, and sat in the sky eerily. Every so often, it would slide up and down. Straight up and down, quite swiftly. It was a white rectangle. Perhaps a meter wide, but as tall as a three-story building. The strangest part about it was that it was a rectangle. Not a rectangular prism, but a rectangle – completely flat. If you stood at a certain angle, you couldn't see it at all. It slid up and down a few more times, before disappearing, and Louise wondered absently what kind of stupid game it had been made for.

_.sSOSs._

Louise and the other nobles stared at her familiar. It had appeared as another wagon thing. This one was a brilliant white, and much closer in design to the red thing they had seen earlier – though it didn't seem to have those black wheels, and it had huge fins sticking out it's sides. Much like the red thing, they could see the silhouette of a driver inside, but were unable to enter themselves. There were two massive pots attached to the sides of the wagon, and the bottoms of these glowed blue and gave off a loud whining sound.

'Ok – I'll be taking off now.'

And as they watched, the whining sound increased in pitch and volume until it sounded like a banshee's shriek, and the wagon lurched it's way into the air. The nobles watched impassively, but that was no real surprise. Levitating themselves and other objects was childsplay, Even first-year college students were capable of that much. Louise frowned internally. Most of them could, at least...

The pots on the side of the craft swiveled, and the thing shot forward, and was quickly lost to sight. The nobles muttered, and looked at each other. Levitating things was one thing. Speed while you were flying was another. The amount of control and power that was needed was simply too much.

The creature shot over their heads, and was gone in an instant, before coming back at a greater height, and giving an acrobatics display above their heads – demonstrating how fast it could climb, how hard it could turn, and how high it could go. Louise heard murmurings from the nobles comparing it with dragon knights – in the favor of her familiar. There were disparaging comments though – saying they didn't know if it was armed yet. She felt oddly defensive of her familiar. It was awesome! It was the most awesome thing possible in any of it's forms, and how dare they critisise it.

'Can you hear me?' She said softly, trying to prevent the nobles from hearing.
'Yes.'
'Does that thing have weapons? Can you give us a demonstration?'
'Roger that.'

Louise frowned, irritated.

'No. Not 'Roger'. 'Louise'. They don't even sound the same.'
She could hear her familiar sigh. 'Fine.'

The craft came down faster than... well, it was so fast that even comparisons to other fast things made it seem too slow. But Louise was getting distracted, because the thing was making noises like someone stepped on a cats tail, and what looked like lines of lightning were streaming out of the thing, tearing lines of destruction through the forest. As the thing shot overhead, something detached from the bottom of it, and while the craft pulled up and away, the thing glided a hundred meters further before detonating in an explosion that shot a fireball three stories high.

The nobles that were complaining before were noticeably silent now, Louise noted smugly.

_.sSOSs._

The demonstration had ended and the royal carriage had long since left, followed a gaggle of the less impressive carriages of the senior members and advisors of court. Louise was making her way back to her dorm room, followed by her familiar. The demonstration had only bee a few hours long, but it had been bewildering – not to mention the stress of preforming in front of the princess, and the advisors of their country. It seemed all the tension from the day had let loose, and all she wanted to do now was sleep. She barely even noticed the strange looks she received from the other students. A puzzled, respectful sort of look.

Finally making it back to her room, she pushed the door open and slipped inside, sighing wearily. Then, noticing the shadowy figure sitting at her desk, sighed again. Her day still wasn't over?

On the door closing, the stranger clapped her hands, and the lights came up. She dropped the hood of her cape back, revealing Princess Henrietta.

Louise smiled wearily at her old friend. 'A private audience with the princess. I'm honored.' And flopped down on her bed. Henrietta giggled softly, before coming over.

'It has been a long... and surprising day, hasn't it. So much is going to change...'

Louise nodded, staring up at the ceiling.

'If those abilities of your familiar are real...' Henrietta caught herself. 'Oh, no disrespect Louise. I'm not saying he was faking. It's just... so hard to believe. I saw it. We all did. It Has to be real. But – for so much to change in one day.'

Louise pushed herself up, curiosity overcoming her weariness. 'What are you talking about?'

'With his abilities... with his assistance, he could take over the world.'

Louise blinked.

'I'm not well versed in military matters. I'll be the first to admit. But even I can see that.' Henrietta paused. 'Of course, it didn't help that I overheard the generals talking about it.'

Louise cracked a smile.

'He could take over the world. And he's your familiar.'

Louise's smile cracked.

'Right now, he's probably the most powerful force on this world. He could protect us from any military force. Even just the information he's given us – he's mentioned new ways of planting crops, and new mining machines that could vastly increase our countries wealth. For centuries, Tristain has had to carefully negotiate it's way around Gallia and Germania, careful not to offend lest we be crushed. If your familiar is as powerful as we think, we won't need to bow to them anymore. No more unfair trading concessions. No more 'royal gifts' draining our treasury. And no more having to marry off our royalty to piggish Germanian princes twice their age that think that just because they're from a more powerful country, they can put their hands all over you like your a common tart.'

Louise cocked her head. That last one had seemed oddly specific. And Henrietta had gone red for some reason.

'Anyway', the princess managed, composing herself, 'Your familiar changes everything. Your familiar is quite possibly the most powerful force in the world right now. And you're in charge of him.'

Henrietta paused, looking Louise squarely in the face.
'Louise, right now your now the most important person in the world.'
Louise's eye twitched, and she started laughing unsteadily.

END OF ARC 2

AUTHORS NOTES:

I've been wanting to play with this since about the third chapter, but – gah – sooooo much talking needed to happen first.
I'll probably write a third arc at some point, but don't expect it any time soon.
Also, 's auto-deleting of double lines and anything that might otherwise mark a break between two sections is getting pretty damn frustrating. I had to re-insert them into the chapter three times before they'd stick.

See how many of the games you can pick. Some of them are more genre types than specific games though, so I guess it could be a bit hard.