Ramiel and the others were within the confines of the Headmaster's office, spinning slowly whilst shifting through shapes that man was not meant to see. It felt a bit amused, Louise thought, especially since there were definitely more melted things in the Headmaster's office than there should have been.
Louise inhaled. Then she exhaled. Then she massaged her temples. "Ramiel. Why."
E N T E R T A I N M E N T
"What Ramiel said, we were trying to have fun, Kanade got drunk, Ramiel turned into a disco ball, Archie makes for a hot woman, Taylor knows how to do the chicken dance, Albert can do polka, Hibiki had no clue what she was doing with a table and a lot of books, Aria knows the best alcohol, turns out the 'mistake' was Archie's milk allergy and he couldn't owe up to it before getting drunk and vented to us and we accidentally burnt down the library." Roman recapped.
Ramiel spun around once more, imprinting the message as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Apparently at some point it had learned sarcasm.
Louise privately wished her familiars would learn shame. Or at the very least, social dignity.
"I'm going to need to be exceedingly specific with my orders to you, aren't I?"
Ramiel just giggled in that same infuriatingly robotic manner, shifting back into its octahedron form and hovering back over to Louise's side, whilst the Headmaster cleared his throat and drew attention back to himself.
"I see you understand fully why I've called you here," he spoke gravely, leveling a stern glare at Louise. "As this... being and these misfits… are your familiars, you are naturally responsible for their actions. And said actions have cost this school quite a few ecu what with its wanton destruction of property."
Louise cringed for a moment, then composed herself. "The Valliere family will cover the costs, and I will reprimand my unruly familiars."
Osmond sighed, pinching his brow. "See to it that you do, miss Valliere. And bear in mind that I will not be so lenient should this incident happen again."
She nodded. "Understood, Headmaster. May I leave now?"
Osmond nodded, all but shooing her off. "You are dismissed. And remember- no more acts of wanton destruction. Failing a spell in class is one thing. Destroying school property at random is far less acceptable."
Louise nodded. "Then I will keep the wanton destruction to class, headmaster." Founder why did I say that. "Everyone, come." She exited with as much dignity as she could muster, with the misfits following and still giggling without any kind of remorse.
Louise strode down the stairs, fuming. "Honestly! I'd like to say that it's your fault we're in this situation, but clearly it's mine for not giving you clearer orders." She pinned the misfits a stare. "One. Please don't destroy any more of Academy property. I'm going to be in enough trouble with... Mother... as it is. Two. If you absolutely must blow something up, for Founder's sake ask for permission. Three. You know what, just keep at my side. You evidently can't be left unsupervised. Understand?"
"Yes boss." Albert agreed.
"Fine." Taylor added.
Ramiel simply hovered closer to Louise, the ever-present humming it made quieting down slightly as it neared. It seemed almost a bit dejected, having never experienced any kind of reprimand before.
Louise slumped. "And now I feel like I just kicked a puppy. Great."
Ramiel just spun in place, oblivious to Louise's feelings as it catalogued its new concepts of 'shame' and 'dejection'.
Sighing, Louise reached out. "Look. It's okay. You didn't know. But I let you know now, didn't I?" She slid her fingers across a facet of her familiar. It felt cool to the touch.
Ramiel hummed quietly, vibrating under Louise's touch and slowly warming up. It seemed a little less dejected now, and almost seemed eager to do… something. Anything, really. Though of course, it didn't actually speak to her.
Once again feeling slightly silly, Louise hugged the misfits. "C'mon. Let's blow up a classroom." She paused. "And by that I mean let's go to class; why did I even say that first bit."
She set off walking towards the Earth tower, Ramiel and the misfits following along.
~~~~~~~~
According to the clock, she was late. Louise decided she didn't care. So, naturally, she kicked the door open and marched in. "I'm late," she informed the teacher. "Headmaster Osmond held me up."
The teacher, a middle-aged small woman, blinked at her. "Be that as it may, miss Valliere, you still kicked the door open. How about you perform some transmutation for me, and I'll overlook this transgression?"
Kirche - good heavens, Louise hadn't even noticed her - jumped up in an instant. "Professor Chevreuse, don't! You'll only invite destruction upon yourself!"
Professor Chevreuse waved her off. "Nonsense. I've heard that miss Vallière is a dedicated worker. Being a little excited over a new familiar doesn't change that."
Kirche looked almost desperate. "She'll blow up the classroom!"
The professor glared at her. "Well, that's my problem then, isn't it?"
From the sidelines, Louise raised her hand. "To be fair, the Headmaster did give me blanket permission to only blow up classrooms for now."
Professor Chevreuse gestured Louise-wards. "There you have it, then. If she does blow up the classroom, she has permission to do that. Now, miss Valliere, if you would?"
Louise exchanged a bewildered look with Kirche. Then she shrugged, and took out her wand. She pointed it towards the pebbles she assumed was the target.
What happened next, not even she could predict.
First, Ramiel immediately began shrinking down whilst making a godawful sound, its form wavering in a way both geometrically beautiful and horrifically organic as it collapsed back in on itself, going from an octahedron down to a spiky cuboid shape that rippled and pulsed with an internal glow.
Second, Louise's wand glowed a hellish red, the heat spiraling from the tip causing it to emit a vibrating shriek almost exactly mirroring Ramiel's own terrible cries.
Third, immediately as the previous two events occurred, a massive beam of light ROARED out of the tip of Louise's wand, searing a path through the air, the table, the floor, the ceiling below, the wall immediately past that, the air outside the tower, and then the ground for several yards, terminating in an earth-shattering explosion that shook the entire academy right down to its foundations.
Finally, sitting at the very bottom of the newly made crater, somehow still intact, were three perfectly round pebbles, each one gleaming with the shine of freshly transmuted copper and unfortunately for Louise, a new familiar added to her group.
The unknown thing clambered out of the hole, making a mad dash. Before anyone could exchange another word, it practically tackled Louise, wrapping it's arms around her tightly.
Taken off guard by the sudden embrace, Louise, believing herself under assault, twisted out of the grip of her assailant, grabbing his wrist to put it up behind her back in a hold. His wrist fluidly snapped out of her grip, and he danced out of her way before he could make another move, giving Roman enough time to really look at who the assailant was: his tall form, his black suit and red scars on his body, his soulless eyes, his black hair. Roman's face immediately lit up as he recognized his and Neo's former partner in crime: "GRIMCUTTY!"
Grimcutty bounced on the balls of his feet, giving a coy wave.
Roman turned back to his cohorts, gesturing toward Grimcutty. "This is Grimcutty, the freak I told you about and basically my big little brother who thinks me and Neo will blow up if we're left alone for two seconds, please don't tell him about how we died," he introduced.
Behind his back, Grimcutty stuck out his sharp tongue.
Roman turned back to Grimcutty, and back into his mouth the tongue went. "So I see YOU survived," he remarked.
He nodded, then pointed to Roman and Neo.
"Yeah, us too," he confirmed. "Well, technically, we died and came back to life. I'm guessing you skipped the 'died' part."
Grimcutty nodded no. He wrote that he got on the bad end of someone named Isaac Von Reinhbach after slicing at some Weiss Schnee individual and got his thorat slit.
"You heard anything from Green, Black, or the two Ashes?" Roman asked.
Grimcutty shook his head.
"So you're not working with them."
He shook his head again.
Roman was practically giddy. "How would you like to come work with us? Our new pals are mean on the battlefield AND the dancefloor. Though you have to be a familiar for Louise here. But hey, better than the twin Ashes, I say."
Grimcutty nodded with enthusiasm, looking over the group.
"Does that man even know what he's getting into?" Kanade asked.
"Do we know what we're getting into?" Vathek replied.
Snatcher was content with the fact that Roman was still on the market.
"You are not gonna regret this," Roman told the others. "Grimcutty has three specialties: invisibility, ability to induce mass hysteria in people and killing things."
The class stared for a moment. Then Louise stepped forwards and peered into the hole. Then she narrowed her eyes at Ramiel and the misfits. She opened her mouth. Then she thought better of it, closed her mouth, and squinted into the hole. "Well, I either vaporized the pebbles, or they're somewhere down there."
Professor Chevreuse coughed. "Well. I think we'd better send a servant down there to check." She rang a bell. A servant appeared.
The professor spoke to it. "Servant, please go to the end of this hole and scout it. Bring back whatever you find. If you find nothing, return and report."
The servant nodded and dashed off. Ten minutes later, he returned, panting. He dropped three copper pebbles on the table. Professor Chevreuse's eyes widened. "This was all there was?" The servant nodded. Professor Chevreuse nodded thoughtfully. "You may go." It dashed off.
Louise was staring at the copper pieces, mouth open. She wasn't the only one. Kirche looked like she didn't believe what she was seeing. Guiche looked like he was about to faint. Tabitha was simply blinking rapidly.
Professor Chevreuse smiled happily. "Congratulations, miss Valliere! I did say you were a dedicated worker, didn't I? Just, ah, try to put a little less power into your spells next time, yes?"
Two thoughts were flashing around in Louise's mind. One, smaller, cynical one pointed out that less power was somewhat of an impossibility now that Ramiel and her misfits (along with the new addition of Grimcutty) were around. It was however quickly drowned out by the louder, excited chant of 'I did magic! I did magic! I did magic!' that was hopping around in her head.
She did however narrow her eyes slightly towards her familiars, mainly out of habit by that point.
Ramiel said nothing, but shifted just a little bit out of what seemed to be a sense of sheepish embarrassment. It too, seemed to be in a bit of shock, not having expected that much drain (miniscule though it had been overall) from its core, just from a single spell.
Louise sighed. "Is this going to happen every time?"
Grimcutty responded with a shrug.
So, naturally, Louise did the only thing she could. She turned to Kirche as announced blithely, "As expected, the superiority of my Familiars to yours is clearly assured."
~~~~~~~~
Ramiel spun quietly in place, considering the events of earlier. Its core was intact, and energy production resumed at its normal pace, but something tugged at its processing unit- how had Louise managed to siphon off so much energy all at once? Even with the tenuous bond between their souls, the metaphysics governing the link should not have been able to siphon off that much energy at once- in fact, the channeling process alone should have torn Louise into a bloody pile of goop in an instant with how much power raced through her in less than a second and yet the girl was completely fine.
It was a question that boggled its mind (And wasn't boggle such a fun word now that it was aware of it?).
Still, it was not overly important.
Louise was alive, it was fine, and ergo, as long as Louise did not siphon enough energy to deplete its core, Ramiel had no reason to really care.
It left the line of thought in another subprocess for later.
