Candidate Rebirth
Chapter 18: Winter break 2, and break end.
It was a battered, bruised and wearing torn clothing Tonks that returned to the Basilicom. She had left after buying only a few healing items, having assumed that a low-level area wasn't going to be dangerous.
She was wrong. She had started the sole fight she had started by using the spells she had been trained to use against hostile targets.
She winced as she remembered the sole fight she had been in.
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Flashback!
The stunning spell knocked out the dogoo, and then the rest of the pack attacked. She had managed to disable a second before she had been tackled. The impact had knocked her backwards and forced her to drop her wand, which one of the blobs of dogeared blobs managed to bounce on and break. She had been hit some more when the woman she was with had caught up, as the Auror trainee had run ahead, while the other woman had just walked in the same direction, as she hadn't expected the changeable woman to start a fight without her.
Tonks watched in shock as the woman pulled out a pair of claws, and proceeded to shred the blobs with minimal effort.
So great was the shock that she didn't see the tulip behind her about to attack.
"Watch out!" a male voice shouted.
She turned in time to see a large boy of around fourteen cut the flower monster in half. Her eyes widened at the fact that a boy younger than her was able to so easily kill the monster.
"Hey rookie," the young man said, before he continued, ignoring how she bristled at the insult. "Why the hell did you come here without a weapon or armor?"
"Why you! I had my wand! And I was told this was a low-level area!" the witch snarled.
The large boy, who had been transitioning quickly from being fat, to well muscled checked her stats then snorted. "What did you do? Hung out with someone stronger until you hit twelve? Yes, the monsters here are between eight and ten, but you are nowhere near strong enough to take them without a weapon, or some armor.
He then looked at the woman who was watching the confrontation between the boy and young woman, and he said, "Lady IF, why did you allow her to come here so unprepared?"
IF sighed as she responded, "I didn't allow her. I told her to buy some gear before coming here. She ignored me, and it looks like I was right about her wand, she lost it in her first fight.
"What?" Tonks said, and she looked down and saw that her wand had been snapped. "No! My wand!"
IF shook her head sadly and simply said, while watching the young witch cradling the pieces in her arms, "I told you, you should've gotten a real weapon. We should leave, you are completely defenseless right now, and I assume the lesson I wanted to impart has been learned?"
"Lesson?!" the angry young woman shouted.
"Yes, lesson. You were being arrogant. You needed to see that in comparison to some of the heavy hitters here, or even the middle of the low hitters, you aren't that powerful. The boy here..."
"Dudley," the boy helpfully supplied.
"Dudley then is barely level twenty, and you were acting in a far more arrogant manner. I'm sorry your wand got broken, but I was expecting you to wait for me before picking a fight," IF stated as she held a hand out to help the battered woman up.
Tonks sighed as she accepted the hand up. Had she really been that bad? Then the comment at the level of the monsters at her current location clicked, and she realized that she would have been butchered in the other incident.
Following the other woman back, she wondered why someone that was so much stronger than the area was training here but shrugged it off as none of her business.
Dudley watched her go, then shrugged. He had gotten both a new skill, and a new sword, and a low-level area like this was perfect for getting used to them.
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Tonks sighed as she headed to her room, and wondered why IF had taken her wand fragments. Deciding to turn in early she was out like a light as soon as she hit the bed.
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IF was in the Alchemy labs with the wand fragments, and she turned to her friend GUST. "Can you repair it?" she asked the young alchemist.
"GUST can, but expensive," the youngish looking girl wearing a rabbit hat said. She then started gathering what she thought she would need, and after calculating the cost, said, "with friend discount, it comes to fifty thousand credits."
IF shrugged, and simply transferred the credits. Really that amount was pocket change for her, almost literally.
Centuries of life, a blessing that occurred because she had fought beside the goddesses and candidates when Arfore tried to destroy the world, ensured that her bank account was high due to how many missions she completes.
It was a minor apology to Tonks, but she still felt that it wasn't her fault she had been ignored by the woman.
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Chloe, Cyberconnect2, and the Leanbox military had managed to take care of the attack in under half an hour.
The cleanup and body retrieval took four times that.
After the bodies had been cleaned up, she called the town and military to the town square.
Looking at the assembled people, who were looking at her, some with devotion, some with anger, and others worried.
"Today was a tragedy, and I am sorry for your losses. I have no idea how the monsters managed to penetrate the passive protections around your town, but I promise you that I will have it extensively investigated. until we have both answers, and a way to resonantly prevent a repeat, we will be stationing the units currently here as protection. I know that this will not make up for your losses, but the army engineers will be available at no cost to repair the damage. Thank you for your time, and again, sorry for your losses," Chloe said from the hastily erected announcer's podium. "If anybody has any idea why this happened, there will be a reward for any confirmable information." with the last bit said she bowed and headed back to the aircraft she came in with Cyberconnect2.
She wasn't happy with her impromptu speech, but she felt she did the best she could. Looking at the damage to the town, she cried herself to sleep.
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Meanwhile, on Earth, the headmaster of Hogwarts was sending out invitations to those he felt might be interesting in touring Gameindustry. The invites all said that the leaders of Leanbox would have the final say in who could come, but he was confident that his choices would be approved. Well most of them at least.
He had sent one to the Weasleys, with a reminder of the fact that two of them were banned, and he hoped that they would choose one of the non-banned individuals.
He could hope at least.
His list was relatively short, as he knew there would only be so many slots available.
So far he had:
The Weasleys.
The Longbottoms.
The Greengrasses.
The Bones.
Several Muggleborns.
And against his better judgment, the Malfoys.
His hope was to have Chloe become friends with some of the children so that when Voldemort returns she would be willing to help, and so, to that end, she chose people from a broad spectrum of ideologies.
A few more letters and he felt he had a good selection.
He even sent an invitation to that Granger girl who had been crippled.
He hoped that this would work.
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Chloe entered her room and paused. Again, on her bed was another rose and a note. Deciding that it could wait until morning she changed into her night clothes and settled down to spend the rest of the day gaming.
The next morning she read the note and blushed again, but at least it didn't disturb her sleep like the last one.
She was wondering who 'H' was, and why she was being so subtle.
Then it hit her how she was so disbelieving about the first letter. If the other woman was going to go through so much effort, she would try and believe.
If it was a guy she would reject him, as the thought of being with a male that way disgusted her.
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The rest of the vacation went smoothly, and without incident, and with her new wand and humbled attitude, Tonks was accepted as the new ambassador from Magical Briton.
She was definitely glad when IF delivered her newly repaired wand.
Although she was getting used to the technology involved in Leanbox, as well as buying a set of equipment appropriate for her current level.
She also spent time speaking to Sirius, and upon discovering how he was interrogated, decide include the facts of the interrogation in her next report.
A report that would piss many people off for various reasons.
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Meanwhile, various people were looking at the invitations for the summer that they had received.
An aristocratic blond man was deep in thought. His 'son' had royally screwed up his first meeting with the candidate. The boy's lack of tact and subtlety had ruined his chances of being married to the future goddess of a nation, and that was not even counting the crush the boy had on the girl's subordinate.
The boy's words also made it difficult to come to a business arrangement with the nation.
After several moments thought he sent back an affirmative answer to the invitation, knowing that the final choice would be made by Leanbox.
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An older woman that normally wore a hat with a stuffed vulture looked thoughtful at the letter. She had already decided to go and had sent back her response, but she was planning on going for reasons other than just the tour.
Her grandson wasn't getting any closer to any 'appropriate' females during his time at Hogwarts, and she was thinking that the girl candidate would be an excellent bride for the boy, and the responsibilities he'd gain as her fiance or husband would help him learn to be a great man like his father without risking the family, or at least keep him out of the damn greenhouses.
After all, how could the girl refuse a prominent family like hers?
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The acceptance letters flooded back. Well trickled since there were only a dozen or so families invited.
The Weasleys were the only ones that refused, or at least Arthur did. His reasoning was that his wife would try and force her and Ronald to go for the family, something that would end in their deaths.
The family of a bushy-haired crippled girl accepted for reasons other than the tours. Perhaps this Leanbox could help their daughter, and if not, at least it would be a vacation for her.
Many of the other families accepted because it either meant a free vacation for their child and one of them or at the begging of said child because they had been hooked on the systems themselves.
Chloe had actually bowed out on the actual choosing of the visitors, and left it up to her sisters, as she wanted the choices to be done without prejudice.
She would regret this decision during the visit.
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The rest of the winter break went quickly without any major events. Although the visitors were shocked that there was no Christmas holidays, just a giant fair to commemorate the winter solstice. (EN)
During this time Sirius was working towards his guild accreditation so that he could eventually get his own place. The fact that he had to behave in the basilicom made him itchy. He longed to prank the hell out the place, but couldn't until he found a place of his own. His weapon training, courtesy of a bored set of guards consisted on training to use a pistol he had purchased to use as a weapon. He was a decent shot, and he was able to survive some trips into the wilds but didn't want to push his luck without a partner or two, or a hell of a lot more training and levels.
His wand wasn't even considered as a weapon surprisingly, as he had been warned that it was too fragile to do much good.
This was hammered home when his niece Tonks came back battered and with a broken wand.
Of course, he wasn't stupid or cocky enough to charge ahead of his trainers like she did, as he had both completed his Auror training, and had actual combat experience, and knew that not listening to the people who have years of experience is idiotic.
And so he only was mildly bruised at the end of the day, although his escorts weren't impressed by his stat growth.
Shaking his head he prepped to see his current nation's candidate off, and then head to his final test.
He just wished he could try and seduce one of the Girl's sisters, as they were well within his strike zone.
The threats leveled at him, combined with his gratitude for the asylum had stayed his hand, although he saw plenty more girls that caught his eye.
Perhaps some would like some fun later with a fake ex-con.
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Chloe flinched as she hit earth again, directly at the gates of Hogwarts. The quality of shares between her home and there was still very noticeable.
She then noticed dementors starting to gather around her and Cyberconnect2. She started firing off holy arrows until they dispersed
After losing half their numbers.
Chloe frowned, there was something wrong here, the numbers of dementors was larger than ever, despite the fact that he had killed over a hundred of them.
Entering the castle, Chloe saw the headmaster at the teachers' table, alone, and doing some paperwork since someone had managed to detonate enough dungbombs in his office to render it uninhabitable for the rest of the day. Chloe smiled at the coincidence of the man she wanted to talk to was available, and approached him. The man looked up and frowned at the approaching candidate.
"Shouldn't you be on the train young lady?" he asked.
"Sorry, the drop point was set, without my knowledge, to the gates. I have to ask though, are there more dementors here than before I left? I was just mobbed by nearly fifty of them, and I thought I had eliminated enough to have them under that number here," came the candidate's response.
Dumbledore frowned. He hadn't authorized more to be sent, in fact, the Wizengamot was going to be voting to remove them, because of the detrimental effect on the students, and the fact that several students had nearly been kissed by them on a Hogsmeade visit.
"If there are, they will be removed. The fact that they keep attacking you without provocation, as well as the other students is not a good thing," Dumbledore said seriously, he then said, "You may go to your rooms now and set up, just be down for supper."
'Chloe nodded, and smiled a bit to herself, it had sounded, by Dumbledore's words, that those annoying beasts would soon be a memory.
She would be correct, just not in the way she thought.
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In the depths of the forest, the surviving dementors were splitting their absorbed souls to increase their numbers. There were nearly three hundred of them. They would soon take their revenge on the one who dared hill them.
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End Chapter.
EN: Christmas is a Christian holiday, at least that's where it started, so why would they have it?