Intruder
"Thanks, Bench!" A loyal customer said
"Next time I see you broken I'm not going to fix it!"
The auto-door of Bench's workshop closed with a hiss. Night had already fallen hours ago and most of the residents of Bans had already clocked in for the night with the only activity being the Enforcers and the Hunters that were assigned to protect the once great, floating city. The hissing sound of an open door from behind made the pod-bot turn around to see his assistant walking out from Louise's room.
"Finished the last patient?" the multi-armed woman asked.
Bench opted for a couple of beeps which sounded like confirmation before starting to clean up his workplace. Alban helped speed up the process, picking up the used tools and broken pieces that were taken off from the patients that they treated. This continued for a couple of minutes; both were too exhausted from doing their morning jobs and just wanted to sleep. This peaceful silence was broken when Bench spoke up.
"Getting all chummy with her, huh?"
"I'm just helping her," Alban said while giving an irritated look at Bench.
Bench hovered up and down as a symbol of a shrug, "Alright, alright, I'll say this though, she's cute,"
Alban scrunched up her face in confusion, she was about to point out how weird it was for Bench to identify Louise as a cute girl but Bench was already ahead of her, "Just because I can't 'love' doesn't mean I can't tell the difference between a cute girl and a… not so cute girl. I'm not so basic Alban, I'm not like those last century A.I.s,"
Alban raised three arms in a sign of surrender, "Alright, we'll leave it at that,"
Another wave of silence rolled in as both of them finished up their cleaning. Alban gave out a tired yawn and left the workplace and made her way to her room which was on the second floor and just below of Louise's room. Bench, on the other hand, stayed behind and decided to take stock on their inventory, checking to see if they have enough to treat tomorrow's line of patients.
Just before Alban reached the stairs, Bench spoke up, "Just to put it out there, I'm not opposed to it, to be honest, I wouldn't mind. And to quote a person, 'you've been cooped up here all this time'. You need somebody Alban, take this from a friend,"
"…Whatever," Alban called out before walking up the stairs and going in her room to retire.
The next day rolls around and Alban was looking right in front of Louise's room. She shook her head and knocked on the door. A few seconds later, it was answered. The pink-haired girl looked up to meet her eyes.
"Alban? What do you need?"
"Oh, uh, Bench told me that we need to get two boxes of Cyber Cores, we've run out apparently," She told her.
Louise tilted her head in confusion, "Didn't we just buy three boxes a week ago?"
One of her back arms reached over the back of her head and started scratching it, "A Hunter came to us with an overheated auto-blaster arm, after that he bought a spare box 'just in case' he said,"
Louise raised her eyebrows in understanding, "Oh, I see… alright, let me just get ready, besides, I wanted to test my glasses,"
"Cool,"
A few minutes later, Louise came out of the room wearing a light-yellow shirt and brown shorts. Her jet-pack was strapped behind her back, she looked at Alban who only opted for a dark blue with a white line jogging pants. Both of them walked towards the door. As they were walking Alban looked to her left to see Bench staring at her, the patient, which was a male was also looking at her with a small smirk. With one heated glare, both pod-bot and patient went back to minding their own business. She must've been imagining it but she thought she saw the patient mouth 'good luck'.
"Fascinating," Eleonore said as she looked through a device that was called a 'microscope'.
Bench beeped in confirmation, "While this type of tech was introduced centuries ago, I will admit, it still has its use during this generation,"
Night had already fallen but it seems like the eldest sister of the Valliere family is more inclined to reject sleep for more knowledge. The two had been studying the laws of Physics for a good three hours ago before they moved on to Biology. If she wasn't tired after this, Bench considered introducing her to more advanced Chemistry. Eleonore leaned back on the wooden chair that was given to them by Professor Colbert. A small sigh of relief escaped her mouth as she processed everything that was in her mind.
"I suppose, we can stop it here for now," Bench said.
With a small moan, Eleonore sat straight up, "No, I can continue,"
"Uh-huh, you are going to sleep. I'm no flesh-skin but even I need time to process all of the data that I have inside of my storage,"
Eleonore gave a small frown before relenting to the pod-bot. Silence reigned in the shack once more as the blonde Valliere retired for the night. Bench was about to do the same when he noticed two blips on the radar. The first blip was easily identified as, Eleonore. Meanwhile, the second one was just to the right of Eleonore, twenty-five metres away from the Valliere. He also noticed that the second blip's elevation was seven metres high, therefore Bench assumed whatever or whoever it was, was on the wall of the academy.
Eleonore's blip started moving to the left before disappearing from his radar. Meanwhile, the secondary blip moved a few more metres before Bench noticed something weird. The elevation of the secondary blip went down, from seven, it went down to three. After that, the blip moved to the opposite side of Eleonore's direction.
"Hmm… I'll check it out tomorrow, might need to have Louise look around the perimeter," Bench told himself.
The morning had arrived and Louise could be seen on top of the walls of the academy. Her eyes scanned the area where Bench had told her, looking for any discrepancies, anything weird. She was about to give up when she noticed something different about the elevation of a certain part of the floor. Her eyes enhanced a particular area and that's when she noticed it.
There was a slight indent in the floor, not big enough to be obvious but it was there. Her vision further enhanced giving a grid structure of the entire floor. With the grid structural vision that she has, she could see how the dent is not in line with one of the grid boxes.
"Someone did come in… best report it to Bench or Colbert," She thought.
"Louise!" A voice called out.
Stopping her thoughts, she looked at the source of the voice. From below the wall, she could see Kirche and the person that stuck with her for most of the time – Tabitha, if she remembered. She was a foot or two shorter than the Germanian. Having bright blue hair with red under-rimmed glasses, the uniform that the school provided was looked a little loose due to her lithe figure. On her left hand, she held a wooden staff that looked more like a long club but with a gem at the top, on the other, a book.
The pink-haired cyborg, looked through the back confines of her mind, looking for any memorable memories about the blue-haired girl. While she couldn't remember a lot about her, what she did know was that she was pretty adept, or even skilful, with wind magic. Speaking of the person in mind, Tabitha had forgone reading the book and opted to look at Louise with slight interest. Of course, the cyborg didn't care, at this point stares had been a daily thing, adding another pair of eyes on her isn't going to hurt.
Ignoring the pair, she jumped down from the wall. The back of her body shifted into thrusters that started to hum which in turn slowed down her fall. Both girls watched with slight amusement as she landed just a meter behind them. No other words were said as she walked towards the school academy, intending to report to Colbert.
Gazes started to lock onto her, some had curiosity while others were lecherous. Most of the latter were hormonal teenagers who just seemed to admire the slimmer parts of Louise's nanomachine body. She ignored the gazes and continued. Now inside of a long hallway, she had to find the room where Colbert was teaching. As this happened, she sighed with slight irritation at the two blips that were a couple of meters behind her. Aside from that, her advanced hearing could also pick up what those two were talking about.
"What do you think she's doing?" asked Kirche.
"Looking for a person," Tabitha responded.
"Who would that be though?"
This continued question and answer went for a while as Louise walked down the hallway. Eventually, she got tired of it and started ignoring them by muting her ears. Spotting one door she opened it, what greeted her was a classroom of older teens, from the looks of it, they're the seniors of this academy. Curious eyes started to look at her, looking further in the classroom, she spotted a teacher.
While her cheeks were slightly sagging due to age, she was fairly young, probably in her late forties. She sported a witch's hat; her body size was large and she was a little shorter than her. Completely ignoring the fact that she had interrupted the class, she went inside and walked up to the teacher.
"Teacher, do you have any idea where Colbert might be?"
The teacher was a little stumped by the directness of Louise but nevertheless, she answered, "He should be teaching the first years right now,"
Louise nodded, "Which room would that be in?"
"It should be in the Fire Wing,"
Louise gave her thanks and left the classroom. With the directions now given she made her way to the Flame Wing. Tristain Magical Academy had four wings; each wing would be named based on one of the four elements. That doesn't mean that each wing caters to a specific affinity, it was just named that way for easier navigation. After asking a maid she encountered along the way, she finally reached the Flame Wing. Touching the knob of a door down the hallway she held back on opening it.
"Will both of you follow me inside as well?" She remarked with irritation.
Kirche and Tabitha stopped on their tracks although, between both of them, the blue-haired girl acted more mature and just gave her a neutral look. Meanwhile, Kirche looked like a child who was caught stealing the biscuit jar.
"Looks like you've found us," Kirche said.
Louise shook her head, "I already knew both of you were following me, I just want to do anything since I don't want a scene,"
After saying that bit, she opened the door and closed it on their faces.
"Ah, looks like there's nothing we can do now, shall we get go- Tabitha!"
Said girl was already walking away from the door, leaving Kirche chasing after her. Meanwhile, inside the cyborg girl was being stared at similarly to how the third years were doing earlier. Ignoring them, Louise searched the classroom for the man. She found him in front of the blackboard, drawing some steps on how to use advanced fire magic. Hearing footsteps to his right, he looked and spotted Louise. With a raised eyebrow, he placed down his chalk and approached her.
"Louise? What are you doing here?" The professor asked.
"We need to talk, professor. What time are you free?"
The confusion was on his face but nevertheless, he answered, "A-after the fourth bell- ". Louise walked away. "W-what's this all about?"
"It's important, meet me in Headmaster Osmond's office,"
Not another word came out from her mouth as she left the classroom. The class continued as usual but of course, people are now starting to wonder what kind of scheme is Louise up to.
The fourth bell had already rung, during this time, students are leaving their classrooms to have their hour-long break. While everything looks normal from the outside it was quite different from the inside. Rumours had begun to spread again regarding the two residents that housed the shack near the Earth Wing. Along with the rumours that started to spread included the two Vallieres that were older than Louise. Said pair could be seen walking down the second-floor hallway that led to the headmaster of the academy.
While there were no words exchanged both of them had the same question in their mind:
'Why did the headmaster call them?'
Their questions were about to be answered when they opened the office of the headmaster. Four people could be seen. Sitting on the main desk was the headmaster himself, to his left were both Colbert and Longueville. Finally, in the centre of the office stood Louise. More confusion settled on both elder sisters' faces as they now started to wonder what Louise got involved with. Greetings were exchanged before Louise spoke again.
"Before we begin, I'm going to have to ask Miss Longueville to leave the room," She gave a perplexed look before Louise gave a reason. "Not to offend you or anything but I trust the other four more in this room right now, you, on the other hand, you're an anomaly. So please, leave,"
The tone on her voice begged for no argument, after a glance to the headmaster, she received the permission to leave. Once she was gone, she then looked at the remaining four in the room, "Do any of you know of any sound muffling spells because what I have to say needs to stay in this room,"
"The door of the office is already enchanted with a spell similar to that, Miss Louise," Osmond said. He rested both arms on the table, "May we know what it is that made you call for us?"
With a small sigh, Louise held out her palm revealing a holo-disk. After a quick press, the holo-disk came to life and displayed a radar. "This was what Bench's radar recorded last night, this blip here-" she pointed at the one closest to the centre, "is you, sis," she looked at Eleonore.
A few seconds had passed and everyone watched as Eleonore's blip started to move away. That was when they saw the secondary blip that was a little smaller was spotted to the right of Eleonore. The second blip didn't move in its current position, meanwhile, Eleonore's blip continued to move, this time, her direction was a little more to the left. Once Eleonore had disappeared from the radar, the blip started to move on a straight line before stopping a few meters away from where it was before. The blip expanded then deflated before continuing to go on a straight line. Eventually, also leaving the range of Bench's radar.
"Anyone caught what happened?" Louise asked everybody.
While Eleonore, Cattleya and Osmond thought about the question that was given, it was the soldier that had given an educated guess.
"Someone stalked Madame Eleonore," Colbert said.
Hearing his answer, the other three who couldn't answer looked to Louise. "Allow me to rephrase; someone was hiding from Eleonore,"
"Why would this person be hiding… unless," Colbert's eyes widened he looked at Louise hoping that his suspicions are unnecessary. Unfortunately, what he received was a confirmation for his assumptions.
"Given that this recording was an hour past midnight, we might have a big situation on our hands," she then looked to the headmaster. "Unless this academy doesn't have a curfew and students are allowed to loiter around in the middle of the night… well?"
Old Osmond shook his head, "No, we have a curfew. Before the moons Lune and Hati appear, students are told to go to their designated dorms,"
The frown on Colbert's face slowly turned into a scowl. It didn't take long before Eleonore and Cattleya caught on what the situation is, both looked at each other with worrying glances before looking at Louise, hoping that their worries were also misplaced. Louise gave out a sigh but looked at the people in the room before declaring what she knows.
"Yeah… someone infiltrated the academy,"
A/N: Well, how about that. Sorry if the pacing of this chapter is slow and if it's too short. I'm currently organising the plot for each chapter, making sure that what I put in this chapter won't force me to continue on writing the next chapter. Tell me your thoughts about this chapter.
Now I know that aftermath of Louise telling them her backstory isn't here, there is a reason for that, I won't ignore the fact that Eleonore and Cattleya had just been dumped with a ground shattering fact that Louise lived in a destroyed Earth for 8 years.
Recently, I've made a promise to myself that I'm going to write 500 hundred words a day. It's a struggle but what isn't? If this goes smoothly, I'll branch out this plan to my other projects which in turn will increase my productivity in making more chapters.
As always, I read all of your reviews and I answer them to the best of my abilities without spoiling the story but if you want to ask more specific questions like what kind of world Louise grew up in. Please, feel free to message me on Discord, I'll be more than happy to answer all of those questions.
Discord: Imaginationsburstingout#1950
With that being said, time to read your reviews!
Tohoufanatic: It's not a 'simple' realization to be honest. I mean if a person that you know or love ever told you that they lived in a different world for a long time would it be simple?
'People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer'
-Andrew Smith
At the same time, if a person is open-minded and gave the unknown the benefit of the doubt, they will not fear it if they commit to understanding it. Louise didn't want to outright reveal to them that she lived in another world for 8 years. They can easily reject her statement and claim that she just came from a faraway country/continent that focuses more on technology rather than magic.
That's why I built it up. From Louise explaining what a Ravager is, Louise's practical examination when fighting holographic Savages when she first donned the Ravager body, Bench's explanation of the three Sciences, etc.
Because let's face it if a person that you know or love walks up to you at this moment and told you that they lived or came from another world. Would you buy it?
Lucian Naruto: I didn't even know that Eleonore was a teacher in an unknown academy. This could be perfect writing material as I don't want to gloss anything over. Yes, a breakthrough in Halkeginia's Science would be something interesting. Who knows, maybe Eleonore might even be the leading pioneer for discoveries, aside from Colbert.
I hope you all enjoyed today's chapter! With all of that said and done, I bid you all adieu!
Peace~