The Familiar Festival
Louise floated around the city of Bans, the look on her face tells any bystander that she was looking for something and they wouldn't be far-fetched. Looking down on her map, she made sure that she was where the marker told her to go. Looking ahead she realized that she was looking right in front of a window. She wasn't surprised though, the city itself is floating without any ground to step on. Why build doors when you can just enter through the window. She knocked on the window and waited for an answer. As she waited, her thoughts wandered back into her world, Halkeginia – more specifically, the Magic Academy.
Academy
It had been a long time since she had come to terms that she may never be able to come back. During the first week of her arrival, she desperately tried to use her magic wand but every time she tried casting, instead of the usual explosion, it was replaced by nothing. She should've seen it coming though, according to her studies magic stems from their centre and it spreads out to the entire body. Cutting off her arms and replacing them with metallic arms should have been the first hint that told her: she would never be able to cast magic ever again. No magic, no way back home.
"Louise?"
Turning around she saw a young man, he had scraggly jet-black hair and ocean coloured eyes. His body consisted of mostly metal while the only thing remaining human was his head. He also wore a blue hooded jacket and grey track pants. He looked at her with a questioning gaze that told her that he was still waiting for an answer.
"You are Louise… right?" he asked.
His question knocked her out of staring contest with him as she reached out a hand where he took it and shook. "I'm sorry, I was just overwhelmed,"
The man shook his head, "That's alright, I get the same reaction every time I meet a new person,"
As they let both of their hands go a thought suddenly crossed itself within Louise, "How did you know my name?"
The man's face turned up to an 'ah' before he tapped the side of his head with his metallic finger, "I modified my eyes so that they'll be able to recognize anyone around the city of Bans,"
The thought of being able to know somebody's name without the permission of asking them slightly made her uncomfortable, "Do your eyes also tell other information?"
Seeing her caution, he shook his head immediately, "N-no no! It's nothing like that, I'm only scanning your face. After that, a database containing all of the names that reside in Bans. It will then try to match your face with the closest look alike. It won't look up your private information or anything,"
Understanding almost all of what he said, she gave an 'oh' expression before calming down. With the small misunderstanding done they started making the transaction. Opening her pack, she pulled out two arc rods and a single Cyborg core. As she does this the person brought his arm up, a small section of the arm opened up and projected an image that displayed numbers and other information. Dialling in the correct amount, Louise brought up her own arm and projected the same image as the man in blue. She watched as the numbers in the image begin to rise.
Once it was done, they both brought their arms down and nodded to each other before flying away to their destinations. As Louise flew across the city of Bans, she thought about the name of the man that dealt with her.
"Alloy Drexon… weird name," she said mostly to herself.
"Let's give it one more try, Flame!"
Kirche, with an outstretched hand for aesthetics, commanded her familiar. The flame salamander gave a happy trill before opening its mouth and breathed a thin line of fire that spiralled which made the entire performance pretty. With a satisfied grin, Kirche nodded to herself and decided to take a break. She made her way towards a lone tree for some shade when she spotted someone already there: Louise.
It's no secret to the entire academy that they knew who Louise is now. With the whole incident revolving around the black golem that was publicly dubbed as a 'Ravager'. Among other things, there was also the whole show she showed to the entire academy – her fighting against a dozen golems without even breaking a sweat. And finally, her small achievement of preventing the firing of one maid.
Seeing all of that first hand, Kirche had to wonder: what happened to Louise? It was clear that the aura she emanates is nothing compared to the Louise that she knew; an air of pride and a massive ego. The Louise that stood before he reminds her of a fighter… a soldier.
"You want something from me?"
"O-oh… n-nothing, I was just going to go under the tree to get some rest," Kirche said.
"Well, no one's stopping you,"
Unprepared for Louise's forward question, Kirche stammered to get out an answer. The fact that Louise's attitude completely changed caught her off guard; usually, her attitude was around the lines of 'only attack when provoked', hence why Kirche was usually the one who starts most of their quarrels. Kirche took her offer and gingerly sat on the tree for some shade. She looked up at Louise and started to observe her.
Kirche is what one would call a gossip girl; where there was the latest gossip, sure enough, she would be around to hear about it. There isn't anyone in the school who would know more about rumours than the red-haired Germanian girl. If there was something that Louise had failed to factor in when she came back to Halkeginia is the speed of how fast rumours can spread. For Louise had been on the end of the stick with these rumours since the beginning when most found out that her aptitude for magic was zero.
The last few days were no exception. With her recent achievements, Louise was just shrouded in a cloud of rumours. The rumours became too much to the point where even the principal has issued an order that Louise and her partner, Bench, is to not be disturbed. The punishment was simple detention of course.
Such a punishment was minor when compared to the chance that Kirche has at the moment. For she is sitting five feet away from the girl that had caused all of this chaos in the school. And she may never have a shot of this happening again. Once she felt well-rested, she finally made her move.
"So… what are you doing out here Louise?"
"Just test driving a drone," Unknown with the word, Kirche asked, "It's a pilotless aircraft,"
Feeling that she had wasted valuable time, Kirche just pretended she understood what a 'drone' is and went on with her next question. "How did you get that skirt chaser to back down? "
"Is there any particular reason as to why you come here and talk to me?" Louise asked bluntly.
Unperturbed by her familiar bluntness, Kirche decided that stalling won't work on her. Shrugging her shoulders, she thought it would be best to be direct with her at the moment. "I'm just curious. There are plenty of rumours circulating you. And since this academy decided that talking to you is bad my curiosity just went up even further,"
Shaking her head left and right, Louise decided that it would be best to ignore her. Closing her eyes, she took over the drone which was flying a few miles away from the academy. The drone in question was made up of nanites that were produced by her body. After making those floating ion beam cannons, a question popped out her mind: how far can she control floating object.
Surely enough she decided that today would be a great time to find the answer to her question by making a nanomachine drone and make it fly far just to see how far her control of the drone is. For now, nothing is impressive, he knew plenty from her regiment that could fly a drone remotely for miles on end without even batting an eyelid. A mile is nothing special.
"Hey, Louise I am talking to you!"
With her concentration disrupted, she turned to address the perpetrator with an irritated look. Yet, despite giving Kirche the look that told her: 'you're getting irritating', her response was to just grin widely. Thinking that Louise would just ignore her if she asked another pointless question, she decided to decorate her next words delicately so that she can continue conversing with the pink-haired cyborg.
"You know, there are some boys in the school that are giving you some pretty indecent looks,"
Hearing this Louise scoffed, "They can look as much as they like. Frankly speaking, I don't give a damn about what goes around their heads,"
Surprised by this declaration, Kirche sincerely thought that appealing to her ego would make her open up. Unfortunately, for Louise, things like those meant nothing for her. She didn't care about the rumours that circulated the entire academy. They didn't know the struggles she had to go through to live the life she had now. She wouldn't let rumours dictate her life. This was the law that she had personally implemented for herself, she trashed her mother's 'Rule of Steel' and replaced it with her own rule: doing whatever it takes to survive; no matter how dirty it would get, she will always end up in the top.
Of course, such a mindset could only get Louise so far. Doing everything on her own eventually began to weigh on her. With that in mind, she had made exceptions in her rule which led her to the way she is right now. Louise sighed in annoyance as she looked at the shocked Kirche. While knowing that any student that interacted with her would get detention, she knew that such things were just unreasonable. Deciding that looking for another spot to conduct her main objective she started to walk away.
"Say, Louise, what happened to you?"
Louise stopped walking for a second to address Kirche's question. Looking at the red-haired teenager in the eye, she noticed the eyes that looked at hers told Louise that Kirche was done playing around and decided that it was best to be blunt rather than beating around the bush. The two stared into each other's eyes for a few solid seconds before Louise turned around and continued walking. Not before giving Kirche an obvious answer.
"I've changed,"
Walking away from the red-haired girl, Louise gave out a sigh. Unknown to all of the students on the campus, Louise had already forgotten most of them with some of her classmates unrecognisable in her eyes. Spending eight years living in Bans can take a toll on her memory, with the most recent memory being one that she did not want to talk to Bench. Aside from that, becoming a full-fledge cyborg also affected her mind since most of her organic body had been replaced with machines so that she would be capable of battling Bans' biggest enemies aside from the occasional Ravager. Suffice to say, she barely remembered anyone here in Halkeginia.
The exceptions were her family members, Henrietta and surprisingly, Kirche. She didn't know why the redhead would be the other person that she would remember, it might be because she was the most prominent figure in her school life. While she knew from the beginning that she wasn't the one who started her bullying, Louise was sure that Kirche was the one that stoked the fires to start it. Then again, it could be another reason that she couldn't put her finger on or she had forgotten.
Deciding that today's experimentations were over, made her way towards the kitchens to talk with Marteau. Upon reaching her quarry she opened the door; she was greeted with a busy kitchen with workers moving around like a well-oiled machine. Across the swathes of servants and maid and over the counter was a large man. He wore the standard chef attire with the only thing that made him look different was the red scarf wrapped around his shoulders. Arms that told of many culinary experiences and eyes that were keen on even the most minute details. At the moment, he was chewing on an apprentice chef for adding too much seasoning on the special stew that they were supposed to serve to the nobles later lunch.
"Chef!" Louise called out.
Upon hearing her voice, his stern look brightened but then it turned slightly sombre. He shook his head a few times before looking back at Louise with the biggest smile he could conjure up.
"Louise, come!" he bid her.
Louise walked forward; the servants moved away from her even without looking. As she reached the counter, she placed both arms on it and with a smile on her face, she proceeded to ask about things. Louise and Marteau talked for a few minutes with him shouting at a chef now and then. Louise's view on the man was something that she can respect, while he might've looked intimidating to the normal man, he was rather approachable once she got to know him. Which was why whenever she had the free time she would go and talk to him.
A few more minutes passed before Louise noticed something was off. It didn't take long for her to discover what it was.
"Say, Marteau, where's Siesta?"
That question alone made the entire kitchen halt. Seeing this as something strange, Louise looked around to see some of them looking down with a sad look on their eyes. Turning back, she saw the eyes of her large friend. A sorrowful look on his eyes met hers as he looked away. A long silence graced the entire kitchen as she waited for his answer. With a heavy gulp, he talked.
Louise walked out of the kitchen with a purpose. From what Marteau told her, Siesta was taken away from the academy from a noble named Mott. For a second she thought that what had happened was good for Siesta since she had told her the other day that she's using the money that earned to support her family. She thought that she would be earning more now that she was working for a noble. She thought that with the money that she would earn she would be able to have some spare for her indulgence while still having enough to support her family.
Unfortunately, Louise thought wrong.
After hearing from Marteau that this Mott person had come from the academy more than once already just to take one maid. Initially, Marteau thought for the first time that it was good for his employees that they would be working for a better payment. He had asked them to write back just to catch up since he had built such a good connection with his employees.
From the seventeen times that Mott came back to take another maid, only one had sent a letter.
It was a letter which told Marteau of all the shameless acts that Mott had committed to her. She was imprisoned in his mansion, and every night, the noble would do horrible things to her just to satiate his lust. The letter also told Marteau of how she escaped… and how she took her life after that.
He showed the letter to Louise and after that Louise's eyes turned cold. The core in her chest glowed a crimson red along with crimson lines that traced her body glowed. When Louise asked how long she had been gone, he told her that she had just left a few hours ago. Slamming the letter down she made her way out of the kitchen which leads to us now. Using her nano-drone she traced the road that lead from the academy. Through the drone's eyes, Louise found a carriage that was being escorted by eight soldiers on horses. She commanded the nano-drone in the drone to zoom in to take a peek at an open window.
On the front seat of the carriage was a man with a moustache, his lecherous grin could be seen even from where the drone was. On the back seat was Siesta, an uncomfortable look on her face. Louise willed the drone to zoom in even more to see the reason for Siesta's discomfort. Mott's hands on her thigh, from the looks of it though, his hands seem to inch closer and closer to her pelvis.
The core inside Louise glowed a brighter crimson and without any other question she willed the nanomachines in her body, her legs changed form and quickly turned into thrusters which she used to fly away from the academy. Once on a reasonable height, the now formed leg engines hummed louder and the next thing that the entire academy heard was a loud boom.
Siesta's heart was racing. Unfortunately for her, it was not one caused by love but fear. The hands that roamed her legs slowly inched closer and closer to someplace she didn't want it to. To make matters worse was the perverse look that the man in front of her was giving her. She wanted to take those hands away from her and slap the noble in front of her. But, she couldn't in fear that she would get fired and that the noble would shame her making it difficult for her to find another job.
"Siesta, look at me," Mott said.
The way he called her brought a chill down her spine. The tone he gave her name was a tone of lust. It disgusted her. She wanted to just scowl at him but she was scared that if she did, he would use his authority to submit her. Everything that he did she loathed.
"I said look at me," he said firmly this time.
With visible reluctance, she met his eyes. Never in her life did she want to run away and scream for her. Those eyes looked at her like a predator looking at a fresh piece of meat that was ready for the taking. His lecherous grin widened in satisfaction.
"That's more like it,"
One of his hands left her legs alone. This should've given her some form of respite. Instead, that same hand that was touching her leg, made its way to her chest. Her heart raced and panic settled in her eyes as his hands molested her breasts. She wanted to cry. She averted her eyes from him. This action seemed to only motivate the noble as he continued to touch her. He inched closer to her and whispered.
"All of this is for your family, remember?"
Her family? Yes, that was right. She was doing this so that she would get enough money so that she could help her family. His face inched closer. His lips pursed.
She obliged
Suddenly, the carriage lurched forward telling both of them that they had stopped.
This was followed by a scream.
Louise stood in the way of the carriage. The guards were looking at her with confusion and caution.
"Would you please move out of the way," one guard asked.
When she didn't comply and chose to continue standing on that one spot, one of the guards walked up to her to force her to move. That never happened unfortunately as the guard was grabbed by the throat and thrown away like he was nothing. This action alerted the other seven guards to draw their swords. The systems in her head started marking all of them as hostile. Willing the nanomachines in her body, they all formed seven floating ion cannons.
All ion cannons fired, despite her eyes covered in rage, Louise still had control over herself. Seeing that the guards in front of her were just doing their job she decided to disarm them by shooting at the swords. The intense heat from the ion cannons melted all of their swords leaving only a stump. Fear started to settle in their eyes as they slowly backed away from the pink-haired cyborg. Seeing this behaviour, Louise used it to her advantage.
"Take your horses and leave, I'm only here for the person inside the carriage,"
It took a second for the guards to comprehend the fact that she was sparing them before they commanded their horses to leave. She looked to her right to see the last guard that she had thrown made his way to his horse and followed his fellow guards.
The door to the carriage was opened and out came the person she was looking for. An upset look on his face as he made his way to the coachman.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked with irritation.
The coachman could only point a finger at Louise. Mott followed the finger before locking eyes with the cyborg.
"Give her back,"
It took Mott a few seconds to realise what she was talking about. "You mean, my newly acquired maid?" He shook his head, "You must be an idiot, I have already signed the pa-"
"I don't give a shit if you signed some stupid papers. Siesta didn't have a say on whether she would've liked being transferred or not," Louise said venomously, "Give her back,"
Irritated by the fact that he was cut off he spoke again, this time he spoke with an entitled voice, "do you know who I am, girl?"
"I don't care who you are, I only came for Siesta, so you're either going to comply or I will make you comply,"
Mott gave an offended look, "Are you commanding me, girl?!"
Louise didn't say anything. Instead, she only glared at him.
Mott gave an irritated sigh, "I will have you know, that you will regret talking to a noble like that," He reached inside his chest pocket and pulled out his wand, "I am Count Mott the Wave, my affinity is water and I am a triangle class ma-"
Suddenly, the girl in front of him disappeared. A half of a second later, he felt something fall on his feet. Looking down his eyes turned to pinpricks when he saw a hand holding a wand fall just in front of his feet. The end where it was sliced off was burnt telling him that it was cauterized. Then he felt it.
Pain. Searing hot pain.
He screamed as he held on the cauterized stump where his right hand should've been. Just when he thought the pain was easing up, he felt another spike of pain when his left hand fell to the ground. He stared in horror at both of his stumps. Both of them were cauterized preventing any form of blood loss. He was going to continue screaming only for his breath to hitch when he felt something hot near his neck. Behind him, was the pink-haired girl. Her cold glare could be felt even though he could not see her.
His rational mind had managed to wrestle with his panicked mind as he realised the main reason for her being here.
"Take her, take her and leave!"
Seeing his compliance, Louise commanded her nanites. Her heated arm blades returned to normal and she made her way to the entrance of the carriage. Behind her, Mott fell on his back as he tried to calm his frayed mind. Upon reaching the entrance, he found Siesta. Both of her hands were on her face as tears continued to fall. She wanted to enter the carriage and comfort her but she feared that her weight might just destroy the carriage.
Reaching with her hand she called out, "Siesta, it's alright, I'm here to bring you back,"
She opened her fingers slightly to see with her own eyes and hope that she wasn't dreaming. Seeing that it wasn't she threw herself at Louise, sobbing along the way. Louise gently patted her back whilst saying comforting words. Once Siesta had calmed down, she pushed herself away from Louise.
"I-I think I'm going to be fine… thank you,"
Louise gave nod before looking at the coachman with a glare. Said man flinched at her gaze. "Take her back to the academy,"
"B-but what a-about the C-Count?" he stammered.
"I'll deal with him," Louise said with finality.
Without any other questions asked, Siesta entered the carriage and with a promise of eating dinner together, she left. Once she was far away, she turned her attention to Mott who was still sobbing.
"W-what do you want m-more f-f-from me?" he trembled.
She grabbed the scruff of his clothes and brought him close to her face, "Where are the others,"
Louise brought up the wooden spoon and took a sip of the soup. While being a cyborg told her that she no longer required sustenance sometimes she takes the food just to feel some semblance of humanity in her. The taste was delicious, without saying anything else, she scarfed the food down to the last piece. In front of her, Marteau gave a hearty laugh at her behaviour while Siesta giggled. It had taken her until the night to save all the other women that were taken by the Mott. When she came back the servants in the kitchen welcomed her with open arms
With a sigh of relief, Louise looked at Marteau, "That's a good stew!"
"It should be after all this was all made with the mind that you would be saving Siesta from Count Mott," he paused before he looked for concern, "Speaking of the Count… what did you do to him, you do know he's the messenger,"
Louise nonchalantly waved her hand, "Don't worry, I made sure that he won't be speaking to anyone about this. Anyways, I have to go. The stew was good Marteau, you better not give that to the students,"
"If you say so, Louise. I shall call this stew, 'Louise's Usual'. Siesta, if you could escort her outside,"
The girl gave a nod before standing up and walked towards the entrance. Once outside, they continued to talk until both of them reached the warehouse.
"Louise… thank you again for saving me," Siesta said.
Louise nodded, "Anytime, I mean, what are friends for?"
For some unknown reason, a small sense of disappointment sparked itself in the back of Siesta's head but that was squashed immediately as they both said goodbye for the night.
"Captain… what can you make of this?" a knight asked.
"I-I don't know, son," the captain said.
"Could this be the 'Ravager' monster that has been circulating around the castle?" another knight asked.
The knights that were standing on a plot of land that once belonged to the messenger of the kingdom received a message from a commoner a few days ago. That commoner talked about an individual that was clothed in all black clothes with crimson lines traced all over their clothes. The commoner wasn't able to say anything else because the next thing the attacker said was to leave and take their belongings before the attacker burned the entire place to the ground.
The mansion's top half was gone, they can only imagine what kind of fire magic was used to completely remove the top half. On the steps leading to the entrance of the mansion, the head was pinned on the door. It didn't take them long to recognize who the person was. In front of the door, Mott's headless body laid still. Both hands were cut by something hot while between his legs was a large stain of blood.
"Whatever, monster this may be, the princess has to know," the captain said.
The knights left the land of the once Count with the intent of warning the princess of a possible threat.
A/N: SORRY FOR THE LATE UPLOAD BUT HERE IT IS! I hope all of you enjoyed it.
What do you guys think of Louise's behaviour? Is it understandable from her perspective? Remember, Louise grew up for the last eight years in a world where she had to fight for her survival. She had to be ruthless and efficient or else the dangerous world the spent eight years in would swallow her. Do you think that she's mentally unstable? Or have I just took it to the extreme with how I just brutally killed Mott? Give me your opinions as I read all of them.
By the way, I made a Discord account. This would be perfect for me if anyone of you has any questions that are a little too specific. Be warned though, by asking these questions it might leave you spoiled as to what my plans are about 'Zero'. Aside from stories, we can also just casually talk about things. Here's my username:
Weekendsmash#1950
With that being said, time to read the reviews!
Touhoufanatic: if you mean 'pissing off cyborgs' instead of 'posting off cyborgs' then yes I agree making them angry, especially Louise is a bad idea.
Lucian Naruto: I have to agree with you there my friend, the number of nobles that know how to fight without their wands are so less. It also makes me mad about the fact that majority of the nobles feel so entitled with their status but throw away their wand and they are of equal footing with commoners.
Guest: Me: *sees this review* -happy face-
Nero: Thank you for the review! As for the pairing… I'll see what I can make do, if the situation makes itself present then I might take the opportunity with pairing.
AnimeA55Kicker:
Chapter 1 reply: Thank you for giving my story a chance!
Chapter 5 & 6 reply: Thank you for understanding the reason why chapter 5 has an angsty ending.
Chapter 7 reply: Oh, I didn't know about Cattleya's age being eight years older than Louise. Thanks for that information! Also, if you're wondering what Louise's moniker is, I am pretty sure, Bench made a mention about it in chapter 2 or 3.
With that being said I hope all of you enjoyed this chapter and without further ado, I bid you all farewell.
Peace~