Beyond the VOID, a familiar of zero fanfic

Beyond The VOID

Chapter 1: The Nowhere

By: Sam "Nekomancer" C.

Louise had been sure that her imminent spell was going to explode, She had hoped it would be successful, and she feared that nothing would happen at all.

The Familiar Summoning Ceremony was considered a rite of passage for many Tristainian Noble children, and Louise had dreaded this day as it marked her last chance to prove herself a competent mage. Every student whom Louise had witnessed attending the academy, that had also failed to summon a Familiar spirit had been doomed to expulsion from the school, and likely their own households. Forced to integrate amongst the peasantry as just another hedge mage, that was a fate Louise feared more than death.

To ensure the maximum possible chance of success, the young noble girl had donned her best silken blouse, and a freshly-pressed black pleated skirt. Alongside her spiffy outfit, she was wearing her nicest pair of loafers, and the silky cloak that her older sister had given her before she left for first form. It had belonged to her sister Cattleya before she fell too ill to attend schooling any longer herself. The cloak was enchanted to change color with the seniority of the wearer, and was clasped with a shiny gold pentagram brooch. Her usual borderline-arrogant confidence that she had learned to utilize at a very young age was also present in full.

"Hurry up ZERO~! Summon your oh-so-magnificent familiar already. I'm D~y~i-n-g to see if you can fill the order your big mouth wrote." Kirche von Zerbst had a tendency to really put that confidence, and Louise's patience, through a gauntlet so daunting that it really is a wonder that Louise hasn't accidentally, say, put an explosion into Kirche's face already.

"Shut up Zerbst! I'm trying to concentrate!" Louise bit back with venom. Silently seething as she returned her focus to the spell at hand.

A wheezy sounding boy piped in "I'm pretty sure you don't have to concentrate too hard to cause a mess Louise the Zero!"

Jean Colbert, Fire Magics instructor, and overseer of this year's summoning festival slammed the end of his staff down into the rocky ground with a practiced firmness. "Enough! Miss Valliere remained silent for all of your summoning ceremonies, and you shall do the same for her."

Maybe it had been the relief of pressure from Colbert's words, or perhaps it was pure spite for Kirche and her success as a fire mage. Most likely though, Louise had finally snapped under the pressure, and something primal awoke within her and spoke to her. Whatever it was, It filled Louise with motivation, and a chant.

"Oh Magnificent Familiar Spirit, Will You Not Answer My Call?"

Louise de la Valliere's eyes glazed over, Everyone felt something crawling up their backs.

"Wise Great Sage Of Old, Shall You Catch Me When I Fall?"

Wind starts whirling around the caster. All but ruining her neatly brushed deep-pink hair.

"Abyss Running Deeper Than Family Ties Nor Blood"

The ground begins to shake

"Stake My Soul, To Pay The Toll, And Drag Thou Through The Mud!"

"W_O_R_L_D_D_O_O_R"

Louise herself was not able to witness the climax of her own spell, nor the ensuing microsingularity that would consume all matter within an 11 foot radius around her body. When the dust settled, and the shockwave of air collapsing into the vacuum left behind by the all-consuming point of nothing had dissipated, the noble Valliere's ex-classmates would observe the perfectly rounded divot in the ground centered on where their pink haired bullying target had been standing only seconds before.

Everyone was speechless. Jean Colbert had adopted a stony-eye'd million mile stare, and Louise's rival, after a great many seconds had passed, finally opened her pillowy lips to let out one exclamation. "Bloody Brimir's Balls! That was impressive!"

"KIRCHE, LANGUAGE!"

Manatech can only function in a null energy chamber, or void chamber…

Louise stood in the completely still courtyard. Not a whisper of the wind, nor that smallest squeak of a mouse could be heard. Her classmates had vanished from where they had been observing her summoning, and not even the steadfast Colbert was anywhere in sight. "Ve-e-ery~ funny everyone." Louise called out with a smirk. Internally she was quite confused. Where had the wind, and ambiance gone? Why had Jean Colbert, the most supportive of all her teachers, abandoned her with the rest of her classmates. "Y-you can all come out now!" Louise nervously chuckled to herself. "I-I mean it! Come out now!" She stomped her foot in frustration. The clapping echo that resulted joined her voice in it's resonation throughout the castle walls.

Something shook the ground, and a great crash shook the Tristain Magic Academy from within. The central tower slowly leaned over, roaring as it went, and biasing itself towards the earth tower. Louise was in awe. She knew about the square magics used to reinforce the academy's walls. After all, at one point the Pentagonal structure had actually been a military fortress. She had been so in awe, that she failed to notice that despite it being broad daylight without a cloud in the sky. The sun was suspiciously absent.

"Brimir's balls…" The cacophony echoed around the courtyard for at least half a minute. An incredible echo that should have been impossible in an open plane like the one the academy was built on. "Is… Is ANYONE seeing this?!" Louise frantically looked around for some sign of life, but found not even a fly.

"..."

Instead of calling out like an idiot again, Louise finally decided that maybe she should investigate her environment. The first thing she noticed was that moving through the air felt like moving through liquid, as well as just how hard it was to breath! Gasping in panic, Louise desperately tried to suck in as much air as possible and started to hyperventilate. It took about 2 minutes of panic (It felt more like two hours) For Louise to realize that she actually felt fine, and did not actually feel the urge to breathe. Once Louise stopped trying to breathe, deafening silence returned to the Academy. Her footfalls would echo deafeningly across the courtyard, despite the presence of grass, still and silent as the rest of her environment. Her footfalls sounded like they were pounding stone.

Louise felt something crawling up her back, but dared not to look behind her. She recalled the tale of Orpheus from the Founder's Prayer Book, and the current situation had frayed her nerves to the point that she was seriously considering a supernatural presence.

Louise made it to the foot of the central tower, but was incredibly disappointed to find that the fractured ground had all but destroyed the way into the entry hall. "Great… Just great!"

Louise rolled her eyes. Whatever had caused the earthquake earlier had done SOMETHING to the foundation of the academy, but that doesn't make any sense. The foundation for the central tower IS after all the most impenetrable magical vault in all of Halkeginia. Louise Huffed, and pulled at her wand. A special holster was sewn into her left sleeve "At least I've finally discovered a use for my magic…" Louise grimly commented as she leveled her wand at the pile of rubble.

"Fireball!"

Nothing, not even a spark came from her spell, but the poor girl started to feel a pressure in her chest. She dropped her wand to cradle the building pressure behind her underdeveloped bosom, but It didn't stop mounting. Louise let out a blood-curdling scream as the pressure mounted enough to visibly bulge her chest outward, and she promptly hit the ground rolling around in agony before losing consciousness.

Anima is the force behind all happenings in the universe, Monoplanar Anima occurs naturally only in plane 0, and is the only form of Anima suitable for the Arcane Arts…

"KIRCHE, LANGUAGE!" Colbert snapped out of his million mile stare when he heard the assault on decency that Kirche had uttered.

"I'm sorry darling~! I've just never seen our little Louise do something so impressive~!" Kirche muttered under her breath "Where is the little zero anyway?"

Another one of Louise's classmates snapped out of their stupor and began to exclaim "HOLY SH-"

"ENOUGH!" Colbert bellowed, almost certainly using a spell to enhance his commanding presence. "Everyone is to return to their dorm rooms immediately. Miss Zerbst, would you please let the headmaster know what is going on?"

"There will be no need for that. I saw everything" Everyone looked upwards to see Old Osmond himself descending through the air via flight spell, Notably without Miss Lounguevuille in tow. After landing at the edge of the fresh crater he spoke up. "Classes and all assignments are canceled for today. Please use your free time to bond with your new companions." Osmond's disarming smile worked well enough on most students, but the sharper tacks, Kirche and Tabitha were unmoved by Osmond's display of calmness. Osmond waited patiently with his disarming smile, and eventually Tabatha silently turned and started walking away with her Wind Dragon Familiar in tow.

Tabatha's stealth really was impressive. Even by the standards that Colbert would set for himself, and Kirche took a couple seconds to realize that Tabatha's Familiar's breathing had vanished. She balked and ran after her friend. Kirche grabbed Tabatha's shoulder and tried to tug her back to the scene. "What are you doing tabby?! This is the most exciting thing that's happened this whole year!" She yanked and pulled, but the slip of a girl she was trying to drag was not budging.

"..."

"..." Kirche waited

"..."

"... tabby?"

"Don't call me that…"

"C'mon Tabitha! Let's go eavesdrop!" Kirche Excitedly tugged on Tabatha's Shoulder again.

"... No"

Kirche deflated and remembered that in order to get Tabatha to do anything the Bluenette had to see the merit in a task. "Why is that, my darling Tabitha?" Kirche asked in a sultry voice.

Tabatha looked Kirche in the eyes, and communicated all the details she needed to. "Important teacher discussion… Tragedy…" She resumed walking away.

Kirche was left standing in the middle of the courtyard, deep in her own thoughts. Long after Tabitha had entered the wind tower, Kirche uttered one single, dejected "Oh…" and slowly made her way to her own dorm in the fire tower. Dejectedly thinking of her now likely dead frenemy.

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."

― Charles Darwin

Once all the students had left the courtyard, Osmond wandlessly and stealthily cast Silent Sanctuary, covering a 40 foot radius around the crater. Truely an impressive display of his mastery over polygonal magics.

"How impressive! I had suspected as much, but to think I would see one reemerge in my lifetime. TWICE no less!" Osmond let out a wheezy chuckle.

Colbert was flabbergasted. "S-sir? Are we talking about the same event? The summoning spell that just disappeared one of the highest profile students we have?!" Outraged that Osmond didn't seem to be taking his missing student seriously, Colbert bulldozed his way past Osmond's next response. "What do you think Karen is going to do when she finds out that you LOST HER DAUGHTER!" Colbert practically screamed the last few words.

Headmaster Osmond was unfazed by his fellow Archmage, and simply started stroking his long beard. "Jean… I think Duchess Valliere will be very pleased to find that her daughter has so thoroughly surpassed all of us that not even I should be able to provide her with schooling that she will find of any use."

Colbert was once again speechless. "Come again?"

Osmond smirked and proudly proclaimed to the entire academy "We have ourselves a Void Mage!" A couple seconds passed. "It's a good thing I cast Silent Sanctuary, Otherwise we would have a very real political incident on our hands." The borderline maybe not maybe senile old man laughed to himself again. Colbert had often wondered just how much was an act, and just how much was centuries of age rearing its ugly mug.

"Void? As the Void used by the founder himself?!" Colbert exclaimed. "Such a claim will no doubt be seen as heresy by the church!"

Osmond chuckled for the 24th time that day, knowing something that Colbert didn't. "Somehow I doubt that… Nevertheless, we must not let the crown hear of this news. I shall pen a letter to the Duke and Duchess Valliere myself. Anything else would be insulting…"

Colbert nervously swallowed. "I put my trust in you, but I still have a bad feeling about this." Colbert tugged at his collar with his non-staff holding hand.

Osmond's left hand returned to his beard. An unintentional tic that the headmaster had developed when deep in thought. "I do as well, but the situation is thoroughly out of our control now." A certain sadness overcame Osmond's face. A look of regret that Colbert had only seen very few times during the many decades he knew Osmond. "I missed my opportunity to intervene, and now I can only hope that our lost lamb will eventually decide to come back to us, even after everything she has endured…"

Most of the Gods cared little for their creations. However the God of Mankind may have been one of the few exceptions. He sacrificed his infinite power to gift his creations with sapience…

Louise regained consciousness to the sound of a lullaby being played on a music box. Every other measure she felt her body being dragged by her feet, and heard the clinking of a chain. She was being dragged down what seemed to be one of the many corridors in the academy. On the third dragging motion Louise tried to scramble to her feet, but was horrified to find a three fingered metal pincer grasping her right foot. Attached to the base of the pincer was a chain, and several tubes of segmented metal piping. Both of which disappeared down the stairwell she was being dragged towards. Louise screamed and tried to kick the thing off her leg… Which actually worked. The pincer opened it's fingers, and let go of her foot.

Scrambling to her feet, Louise slowly backed away from the thing. It stopped playing it's Lullaby, and stood up on it's 3 pincers like some mutated spider. As soon as it started moving towards her, Louise bolted down the hallway and out into the Vestri Courtyard.

Louise ran as fast as she could away from the thing, all the way back to her dorm in the fire tower. Louise would have welcomed any interaction along the way, even a taunt from the Zerbst harlot, but no such taunt came. Louise was all alone in her own little -world- Dimension. She collapsed on the bed, unable to cry without tiring herself out. Moving enough air to speak or scream was already hard enough, crying was out of the question. But she really wanted to. Louise lost herself in thought. Thinking about her current situation. Thinking about how much she missed Kirche of all people right now. Thinking about her family, and if she would ever see them again. Thinking about the rhythmic ticking noise that was getting louder and louder.

Tic Tic Tic

… Wait what?! Silently, Louise screamed. That… THING was following her. She bolted to her door, did up all three locks on the door, and hid in her washroom.

Tic Tic Tic

TIC TIC TIC

…

It stopped… But Louise lacked the courage to move.

CLICK TIC tic…

THUD THUD THUD THUD.

It was… knocking on her door? What kind of monster knocks to be let in. Louise then remembered the legend of Dracul, where a vampire must be allowed in by the tenants of an abode, and firmly resolved not to answer the door.

THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD

…

THUD THUDthudTHUD THUD … THUDD. THUDD.

…

CLICK tic

*Lullaby plays*

Louise heard the lullaby from before, and started involuntarily shaking. Please PLEASE let this be a nightmare! But the lullaby didn't stop. A haunting tune that she had never heard before, but everything about the note progression screamed bad juju and malice, and Louise didn't even know what juju was.

*Lullaby continues to play and loop*

Louise momentarily thought about blowing it away with her magic, but then remembered that her magic is what got her into this chase in the first place. For a moment, her incredible temper overshadowed her very reasonable fear, but one moment was all it took. *Grrrrr* "S-Stop with the S-S-Stupid baby-b-box music and go away!" Louise yelled atop her porcelain throne.

The Lullaby stopped.

CLICK… TIC TIC TIC

TIC TIC TIC

Tic tic tic

Tic tic… tic

It seems to have moved away from her door. Louise waited patiently for it to make another sound, but it didn't. Louise had decided she had enough for today, and would get some shuteye in an attempt to still her pounding heart.

Cautiously peeking out of her private washroom, Louise looked into her room. Aside from it being cleaner than she left it this morning, nothing was out of the ordinary. "Hah… I can't believe it. Has it truly left me alone?" Louise thought to herself. "No. It must be waiting for me to let my guard down!"

Despite being an adult in her own eyes, as well as in the eyes of her society, Louise was still just a teenager with a VERY active imagination. Thoughts and fears of the 3 pincered hand dragging her to the academy's dungeons for some unspeakable torture filled her head, and knowing that magic, even her own failed magic, would not be there to protect her awoke a primal terror inside her soul. Still, she was seriously starting to feel pretty tired… And hungry but let's ignore that for now. There was no way she would be able to fall asleep with that… THING sitting outside her door. In her heart of hearts, Louise silently, and only v-e-r-y momentarily, wished she had been born a peasant so she might have some knowledge of defending herself without magic. This foolish notion passed quickly, and Louise decided to use the weapon that her ancestor's ancestor's ancestor's ancestor's ancestor had discovered long ago in a galaxy far far away…

The bigger stick

Louise had access to a pretty large stick, she climbed on her dresser to reach for one of her curtain bars, and after discarding the curtain, she brandished the meter-long stick cautiously while approaching the door.

She undid the chain.

She undid the latch

With a trembling hand, she undid the deadbolt and rushed out into the hallway. Curtain bar raised for a strike, and fully prepared to dart back into the room and redo the dead-bolt as soon as possible.

The spider-hand-thing was standing not at her door, but at the end of the hallway by the stairwell. It stood there balanced on it's 3 pincers, and made no attempt to move towards Louise, but the orange yellow glow from under the thing's palm started burning brighter when she looked at it.

Caught in a standoff, Louise was waiting for it to make the next move. She flinched but was somewhat surprised when it retracted all 3 fingers to lay on the ground, and roll over like some submissive puppy. It re-extended one of it's fingers to give Louise the universal "follow me" gesture.

Louise lowered her improvised weapon in disbelief, and spoke the first vocalization she had made in the last 10 minutes. "You… You want me to FOLLOW YOU?!"

The Thing jumped to it's pincer tips with a speed that made Louise slam her guard all the way back up. The Thing moved its body up and down in a semblance of a nodding motion. And waited patently.

…

Louise slammed the door and redid all her locks. After 6 or so minutes of effort, she was also able to barricade her door with her dresser. Somewhat satisfied that the metallic monster seemed to be unable to move all that quickly. Louise prepared to take a non-pain induced nap. Just in case though, she perched the curtain rod between the wall and dresser in such a way that if disturbed, the rod would fall onto the iron-sheet bucket Louise had placed under it, and make a great cacophony.

Louise tried to brush her teeth like any civilized noble, but discovered that the enchantment placed upon her tap to provide her with running water no longer functioned. She did what she could with a dry brush, and changed into her nightgown. Louise had fallen asleep faster than ever before in her life, and was out before her head had even hit the pillow.

Outside her room, the gauntlet waited patiently for it's master to wake up. It would wait to escort her to meet her new Familiar in time, and it was willing to wait forever. After all, machines have no concept of boredom. Even Sapient ones.

Even after witnessing his gift being so grossly abused by his creations, God still refused to smite his sinful creations and start over…

'Dear Duke Sandorion de la Valliere & Duchess Karin de la Valliere, I hope this letter finds you well. I recall both your days as my students, and the many clever pranks you both would play upon me and my staff, as well as my own responses to those bouts of mischief. This is unfortunately not a bout of mischief nor a prank. Something gravely serious has happened to your third daughter, and I cannot explain the nature within this letter for fear of sensitive information falling to the wrong hands. I'm sure you understand Karin. I would like for you to arrange travel for yourselves so you both may meet me in my office, where I can guarantee the protection of information. I will be ready to receive you at all times. If I do not hear back from either of you within a month I will assume this document has not reached you and I will make my own attempts to visit your estate. This is the severity of the situation. I have not left these grounds for 100 years, but the importance of this situation calls for drastic action, and I am honorbound as an educator to look out for the safety of my students. Even if it means expelling them for their own safety, I assure you this is not the case with your daughter, and I hope once you know what I know you feel the greatest pride in the world.

-Headmaster Osmond, Director of the Tristain Academy of Magic'

Old Osmond unceremoniously sealed his letter with wax… and a forbidden hexagonal magic that not even the royal families know how to bypass. The purpose of which is to subtly change the nature of the document within in such a way as to not rouse suspicion from any unwanted readers. The curse is dispelled once the letter reaches its intended target. An extremely subtle spell that Osmond had developed himself observing a curious machine that a dying man had gifted him in his own office 60 years ago. He appeared out of nowhere, and started bleeding all over his carpet. Despite all efforts to save the man's life, it seems that he had just lost the will to live, and passed quietly even after his apparently self-inflicted wounds were healed. His dying request had been that Osmond not share the machine with anyone and to never activate it.

Osmond had kept his word, and despite installing a decoy in the academy's vault, the functioning version of the device is stored safely away in the secret catacombs beneath the school. Osmond himself did not know how to use the machine, but the fact that it utilizes void magic to operate piqued his curiosity. Intense scrutiny revealed that the device was not in fact utilizing traditional magic as an art. But was manipulating the fabric of reality to achieve similar effects. Osmond had been inspired by this machine, and began to apply this mentality to create his own brand new spells. Despite gaining this insight, he still has no idea what the machine actually does.

Osmond stood from his desk and calmly sidled up to his secretary and handed her the letter. "Miss Loungevuille, can you please send this letter to the Valliere household? It is of the utmost importance." Defying his own words Osmond used his other hand to grope his secretary's bottom.

Loungevuille developed a heavy blush, and slapped his hand away. "Headmaster, If you continue this behavior I shall be forced to report it to the crown."

Osmond backed down and sat at his desk. "You and I both know that you will not." He pulled out a pipe and stuffed it with some freshly ground pipeweed. The pipe was promptly levitated out of his hand, and into his secretary's.

"Maybe I will one day. And you need to stop smoking this stuff, it is bad for your health at your age." Loungevuille countered back, she stowed the pipe in her desk with all the other ones, and was unsurprised that Osmond had produced yet another pipe and was puffing away on it. "... I don't even know why I try." Osmond chuckled for the 25th time that day.

Instead, he spent every last bit of his remaining power to create pure souls for his creations to utilize, until there was nothing left…

A.N.: Soooo… It's been awhile. I have decided that my original FoZ fanfic concept had far outgrown what I had already written, and after educating myself further in English (First Language, I know, but I'm severely Autistic… In the nonverbal kind of way {IRL speech patterns like Tabitha's lol}) I have decided to pull the trigger on a rewrite. I also have somewhat of a confession to make. This story is actually a crossover with my SUPER HOMEBREW D&D campaign that I'm running IRL, but I don't really think this deserves to go into that crossover section because I have all but thrown out all the D&D lore, pantheons, ect. Even much of the base ruleset is not safe from my reign of homebrewed terror *MuahHaHa*. Now that I have an active party, I have started writing lore again for my multiverse. And the Plot Bunny bit my little toe REALLY hard. I promise I'll finish this story someday. Even if I am just giving a plot outline on my deathbed. I will be focusing on higher-quality longer chapters over regular updates, so they WILL come slow. BTW, this is probably going to be the only A.N. for a while. I REALLY hate authors' notes. Especially the ones that take up half the damn chapter. I will post any future author's notes at the beginning of any chapters that contain them, because I also hate getting to the bottom of a chapter and finding out the last 5th of the page is a goddamn author's note. I try to be active on PM, but forgive me if I only check my mailbox like once a month. I am always open to suggestions for my campaigns, and I will extend the same courtesy to my readers that I give to my players. Please enjoy my sorta-grimdark fantasy world.