One day, I'm going to learn to stop saying that.
The meeting with the headmaster was amusing, in the same way a party with a bunch of Vilebloods is liberating.
A bunch of hormonal and maladjusted brats jockeying to be the ones to hunt down the thief and reap some glory in their meaningless lives.
And that was just the professors.
Ultimately, Old Osmond chose to have Louise, Saito, Zerbst, Zerbst's creepy friend, myself, and his fucking secretary hunt after the thief. The rest of the staff would stick around to repair the damage caused by the attack. I didn't object to hunting the bitch-it sounded far more interesting than looking after Doll's sister and her familiar; who by the way, seemed more like a Samoyed than a Beast-but something told me Doll wouldn't want her kid sister joining a Hunt at such a young age.
Or ever, really.
That old bastard could see the objection coming from a mile away, however. He grinned, asking if it was "the choice of the De Vallière family to leave a job half finished?" Louise had turned her glare on me then and it took every fiber of my being to not punch the smug son of a bitch where he sat. The girl wouldn't let the bitch go, not now, not after her family's honor had been questioned. Trying to argue against it would only make my friend's family look weak, which was a death sentence on a backward planet such as this*.
Not that one incident alone would cause the Vallière name to suffer, but perceived cowardice on top of the girl's 'failures' with magic? Tongues at court would wag, and the Family's enemies would have another bullet in their arsenal, ready to speak poison into the ear of the untested whelp sitting the throne.
I wish I hadn't listened to the Vileblood Queen babble about politics. Ignorance would have been easier.
I nodded my assent to Louise joining The Hunt, my teeth grinding in frustration. I made a mental note to kill the old fool whenever I had the chance, as he droned on and on about the staff the thief stole.
The children were just as eager to spill some blood in the name of Founder and country -save for Saito of course-or 'passion' in the case of Lady Zerbst. Speaking of the good lady…
"My, but it seems the familiars of House De Valiere can't keep their eyes off me. Not that one could blame them. What is the dull weed compared to the blooming rose?" declared Lady Zerbst with a toss of her flame red hair.
"Our familiars knows their place, Zerbst! Besides, who would want to serve a cow like you?" Louise demanded, sneering in contempt.
Zerbst grinned and thrust her ample chest out. "A lady ought to use all of her assets, Louise. Though I can see why you might have trouble with that. Maybe I can give you some lessons on how to use those small… tracts of land?"
Louise's face purpled in rage, opened her mouth to howl some angry retort or denial, when I let out a small blast of killing intent. Silence filled the wagon we sat in, a heavy oppression that seemed to leach the oxygen out of the air.
I shut it off after a few seconds.
"Children," I said mildly. "We are hunting a dangerous thief, one who'll put us all in the ground if we're not careful. Our group consists of a teenage boy whose idea of battle is quick scoping in Call of Duty, a girl who seems to have an unhealthy obsession with aping Rei Ayanami, a pair of brats more concerned with fighting each other than hunting our prey, a Hunter nowhere near drunk enough for this, and one overworked and underpaid secretary," I concluded, staring flatly at the girls. "Save your squabbles until they're captured."
They both nodded jerkily, before turning away and finding something else to stare at. The only ones unaffected seemed to be Saito and the blue haired girl, which I found quite curious. The girl had the look of a hardened killer, once you saw past her bland façade. But Saito lacked the hardness I'd come to associate with those who made their living through violence.
He stared at me, a look of vague recognition on his face. "What"- I started to ask, just before the wagon exploded. My bones shook and my teeth rattled as I was thrown from my seat, earth and rock smashing through the wooden boards. We flipped over, the tarp covering over our heads ripped open, and we all spilled out, pell mell, like a pack of blood-drunk Yharnamites fresh from All Saint's Eve.
I landed awkwardly, sprawling face first into the dirt. Scrambling, I surged to my feet and threw myself over Louise, trying to shield her from the gunfire and spells hurled in our direction. Somehow, she was aware enough to let out an outraged squeak. She started beating my shoulders, demanding I let her up, that an uncouth familiar such as myself should never put his hands on a noblewoman.
The air froze suddenly around us, our breath frosting in the sudden cold. Tabitha, the blue haired girl, had conjured a thick shield of ice, stopping the barrage from blowing us apart. Fat chunks of ice were blasted from the shield, the barrage unceasing.
I looked around, trying to take stock of the situation.
The front of the wagon was smashed to kindling, mixed with churned earth. No way had Longueville survived that.
Zerbst was slower to get up, but holy hell, the fire in her eyes! The fury marking her face wouldn't have been out of place on a Hunter.
"Scheißdreck!" she snarled, casting a spear of flame, right into the forest where the onslaught seemed to be coming from. A hole opened in the ice wall and the flame-spear licked through the hole, burning its way into the trees. Screams of agony could be heard faintly in the distance.
I got up, and Louise snarled in anger.
"Don't do that again!" she snapped.
"You blow things up, right?" I asked her.
She glared at me, her cheeks reddening.
Then the light turned on and she blinked.
She thrust out her wand, chanting, "EXPLOSION!" at the top of her lungs.
A hole opened for just a moment in our shield and was gone just as quickly, a spell of screaming violet and black, trailing sparks as it flew. It slammed into the trees beyond us, the fire stream from Zerbst combining with Louise's spell, detonating with a massive crump of overpressure.
The trees shook, their branches splintering, their trunks shattered. The fire heading our way dropped off, only a few stray shots and spells bouncing off our shield. A piteous wail replaced the deep throated screams from earlier.
I cocked my head. Something else was out there…
Beyond the crackle of trees erupting into flames and sharp banging of guns going off was something deeper. A rumble, shaking through the earth. Something seemed to loom out of the trees.
My jaw dropped. A machine of wood and steel, like something out of Da Vinci's fever dreams, rose up out of the forest. It was a ship, its sails snapping in the breeze, magi-tech engines humming with barely contained power. The constant thrum of it made my teeth ache.
I saw Longueville-no, Fouquet, I realized-running as fast as possible, carrying-
"Oh, you've got to be shitting me," I said. Strapped to her back, matte black and gleaming, was a fucking quad barreled rocket launcher. A golem rose up out of the earth, picked the thief up, and starting barreling towards the waiting ship.
Saito, knocked unconscious from the force of the blast, slowly awakened. He looked about in mute confusion. The boy blinked stupidly at me, causing me to groan and slap him across the face. That seemed to wake him up.
He shook his head angrily, jerked his sword out his scabbard. I grabbed his sword arm before he could skewer me and shoved him back. "Awake now?" I asked sarcastically.
Louise, to my surprise, glared wrathfully at me and walked over to Saito, turning his face this way and that, inspecting his head for wounds.
"Stay still, you lazy dog!" she said, as he tried to push her away, a note of concern buried underneath her bitchiness.
I raised an eyebrow and turned to Zerbst.
"I need a flare! You have to blind those bastards on the ship! I can take that bitch down and turn the 'staff' on them!" I shouted at her, straining to be heard over the roar of the ship's engines.
Zerbst nodded, that vengeful look still burned on her face, and pointed her wand up, towards the rapidly approaching ship. High above our heads a small ball of light formed.
A small pinprick at first, it rapidly grew, escalating into an eye searing orb of heat and pressure. Sweat beaded down Zerbst's face, her chest heaving with the effort of such a conjuring.
The blue haired girl-Tabitha, I remembered- was also looking pretty ragged. Maintaining a ward against such heavy gun and mage fire must have been overwhelming. The ship now loomed over us, and I could see their guns swivel in our direction, their iron barrels oiled and polished, gunners ready to blow us apart like a pack of mindless beasts.
Then Zerbst gasped and thrust her wand out, collapsing from the effort of gathering so much energy.
Tabitha cast a new barrier, the cold from the ice dome frosting the churned earth around us, freezing us to the bone.
Then the world exploded.
That's what it felt like, at least. The flare that Zerbst sent up blew apart right at the edge of the ship, almost touching the gunnery deck. Tabitha's barrier protected us from the worst of it, but my eardrums throbbed painfully and my head ached from the pressure pressing down us.
The shield cracked and a fat chunk of ice fell, narrowly missing Saito's skull.
After a second Tabitha released the energy holding the ice together, drenching us in water. Steam rose from our skin as the heat of the day evaporated the water, the earth turning to mud under our feet. She fell to her knees, panting in exhaustion. Beyond us, staggering out of the trees, were the gunmen and mages who'd pinned us down. Turning to the kids, I opened my mouth to tell them to stay put, but then thought better of it. I probably couldn't do something like this alone, not anymore.
For a moment I missed having Insight. Yeah, I may have had one too many eyes in my brain and seen a lot of ugly truths, but damn it all if wasn't worth its weight in gold. Maybe even more.
Gold doesn't let you walk off getting your soul flayed or your body atomized.
"We need the staff Fouquet's got," I told them. It's a"-
"M202 FLASH," Saito interjected.
"Yes, that. We can use it to take down the ship and any of those assholes unlucky enough to be stuck on the ground. We need that goddam weapon no matter what. Kill anyone that gets in the way. If Fouquet doesn't just hand it over, kill her. It's us or them, understand?"
They hesitated then gave me grim nods. I'm sure this was going to be one of those days that would leave lasting trauma for these poor kids, but it couldn't be helped.
They wanted the glory, after all.
"Will stay with Kirche," Tabitha said with a shake of her head. I looked at Zerbst. He skin was pale, her hair plastered to her face in sweaty clumps. She tried to protest, to get up, but fell back into her friend's arms. I nodded and then turned back to the men now emerging from the forest. Some were carrying friends on their shoulders, while other were stumbling, blood dripping from ruptured eardrums and flash burned eyes. Others, their bodies' charred black, crawled forward, mouths open in silent agony.
Fouquet's golem had balled itself up, protecting its mistress from the shockwave. It uncurled itself, Fouquet emerging from its shell. Between us hovered the airship, listing drunkenly on its side, its engine droning softly. Guess its pilot was on the floor somewhere, his brains ringing from the proximity of the blast.
From an unseen hatch spilled a number of ropes, men and women sliding down. While many looked relatively unharmed, some of them sported flash burns on their faces; a few of them must have become quite deaf, judging from the torrent of blood leaking from their ears. Their eyes were what united them.
Cold. Pitiless. Dead.
Fanatic.
I'd seen such eyes before, in the Hunters of The Healing Church. Single minded freaks, so totally brainwashed and deluded that humanity was a distant memory, only their mindless drive saving them from Beasthood.
Fouquet stood on her golem's outstretched hand, glaring hatefully at us. She pulled out a Sword-Wand and, to my surprise, a pistol. The fanatics in front us did the same, unsheathing swords and wands, priming guns and powder bombs.
My sawblade screamed when I pulled it off my back, spark flying as its gears grinded, extending to its full reach. I felt Saito and Louise tense on either side of me, their bodies shaking with rage and terror.
Evelyn's hammer clicked, the sound echoing through the now silent road. We eyed each other for a moment. "Let's go," I said and quickstepped forward.