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Fragment Chapter III: Noblesse Ark
"I'm… pregnant…" the noble said, clutching his stomach as the burning red hue suffused his entire being.
"Wh-What?! How could it…?" said the commoner. His face was flushed from the stress of the day's work. The news was the icing on the cake, devastating his mind as the weight of those words dawned unto him. The circumstances, the responsibilities… the pain. He gnashed his teeth as he glared at his once former nemesis, "Since when…?"
"Two months…" the duke confessed. His eyes darkened behind his golden locks. He could not look at his beloved, not if he wanted to save himself from the guilt of keeping the secret for so long. Unfortunately, he could hide no longer, as the bump in his stomach steadily grew, promising the gift of life to their offspring.
The bespectacled man's blood boiled. He grabbed the noble by the scruff of his coat. The confusion was too much to bear, he averted his gaze away as tears stung at his eyes.
What should he feel?
Happiness? Disappointment? Betrayal? Fear of his execution?
He felt all of it, yet he struggled to speak out a word. His heart, however, reminded him what was most important.
His voice cracked as he muttered the noble's name. Tears beaded down his cheeks as he held his lover's shoulders. With a toothy grin, he sobbed. Regardless of the consequences, he was going to be a father. A father to a child he never dreamed he could have.
He buried his face into the chest of his one and only soulmate, as he-
"CUT!"
Cyan hair bopped up and down as the small girl skipped over to her two actors. She held a black megaphone in her hand as she pointed it accusingly at the bespectacled student.
"Machias I told you, you have to FEEL it! Really smooch that face of yours into that sweet, sweet chest!"
"Nope. No way. Impossible," Machias said, moving as far away from the sweet chest he was supposed to be smooching as he physically can. "All hell will freeze over before I'll smooch anything from that cocksure, disputatious, vexatious VARLET!"
"Seconded." With a glare as fierce as his family's riches, Jusis Albarea ironed out his decidedly wrinkled coat.
"That doesn't mean you're out of the woods Jusis!" Millium shouted. Her tiny frame exuded a stern aura not befitting a child of her stature. "What was with that delivery huh? You were supposed to blush. That wasn't a blush. That was a fifth of a blush. A FIFTH!"
Blonde eyebrows quirked at the demanding girl, "A fifth is generous considering the words you coerced me into uttering." And will utter, he didn't add. The multiple paged script weighed in his hand. They were on page two out of 30.
Jusis stared at the pouting child in front of him. With a resigned sigh, he straightened up. "But I suppose a promise is a promise. I have my pride as a noble after all. Acting is one of our traditional recreational hobbies."
He smiled, "I shall do as you say."
"That… was actually pretty cool…" Machias muttered from his end of the room. With a rough scratch of his head, the vice-president resolved himself. They had promised the little girl after all. Come hell or high water, Class VII was going to make this work. The two rivals locked eyes with one another and nodded once.
"Yes! Alright, take 5." Millium said as she bounced back to her director's chair. "We're gonna smash these scenes! And then we'll have the time to do those shirtless ones too!"
The male stars groaned.
"Hahaha…" Rean could only pity his two classmates. He got off quite light being the narrator this time around. As Millium explained, in verbatim "Something to do with bad feminine blood if Rean's made the protagonist."
Whatever the girl meant had completely eluded him.
'Still, these aren't nearly half as bad as the stuff Dorothee would make,' he thought as he flipped through the pages of the script. Rean pushed that bait away before his imagination could catch up, however. It's best not to think what the Literature Club president would write for her own version of the sequel of- never mind.
A knock on the door alerted the small director as a blue-haired swordswoman stood outside the classroom. Holding several shopping bags of indiscernible goods, Laura smiled sheepishly, her face flushing under the twilight sky.
"Props! You got the goods, Laura?" Millium said as she hopped over to the taller woman.
"Y-Yes, I have procured… most of it. The costumes, props, and uhm… implements." The trained woman pointedly could not meet her classmate's gaze, the red on her cheeks growing ever more furious. "Will it suffice?"
"They're awesome! Where did you buy all these anyway?"
"Instructor Sara's been… open about her sources." Still no eye contact from the dignified sword wielder.
"Ooohh tell me all the juicy details later," Millium teased in a salacious tone that should not at all be used by a child.
Laura's blush exploded.
"Alright, get her dressed and ready to go. We'll shoot those scenes next," the director ordered before she turned on her heel towards the corner of the room where a blonde girl was sat burying her face into an orbal laptop.
"Special effects! Howzit goin'?"
Alisa flinched yet continued typing on the keyboard. Her eye convulsed as Millium approached.
"It's not bad-" Alisa said.
"So...?" The small girl leaned uncomfortably close to the screen of her laptop. "Can we make Jusis pregnant?"
Such an innocent question, yet the stiff coughing of an evil-eyed noble nearby brought Alisa back to reality. It took her several moments of sputtering nonsense before actual words blundered out of her mouth.
"I- uh… I mean, uh, I guess I'd- I'll keep working on it…?"
"Good good. You do that." With an enthusiastic step, Millium left.
A cold crystal dagger jabbed into Alisa's gut as the soon-to-be pregnant Jusis glowered at her. The one woman special effects team could only mouth an apology to her classmate as she buried herself back into the realm of the digital.
"Gaius! How're the shots? We doin' okay?" Millium asked of the Nord as she skipped over to him, her hat flapping with each hop.
"It is going well enough. No problems with the lighting or the video quartz. We should be able to keep shooting," Gaius said. He held his shoulder as an ache slowly subsided from his body. A brotherly smile pursed his lips, "I would appreciate it though if you would not jump on my shoulders on a whim. It might make the shot unstable."
"Okay." Millium agreed rather easily. "I'll just hop on Lammy instead. La-"
"On second thought, feel free to use my shoulder as much as you wish." The tall man sighed. Senseless destruction of school property narrowly averted.
"She's ready," a quiet Laura called out. All heads turned towards the blushing swordswoman at the doorstep. Besides her stood a silver-haired maiden. She wore a grey two-piece attire a tad bit short for a fifteen-year-old. A heart-shaped hole bared a hint of the small girl's cleavage as thigh high stockings and frilly gloves covered her slender limbs. A tail wagged from behind as one of her four ears twitched.
Male jaws collectively dropped.
Laura fled the room.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road! Skip over to page 10 guys," the energetic director yelled.
Perching on Gaius' shoulder, Millium lifted her megaphone. "Lights- we don't have anyone on lights. Camera?"
Composing himself, Gaius lifted the orbal video recorder as he nodded, "I'm right here. Ready."
"Music?"
"And they call me a taskmaster." Elliot sighed. He flexed his fingers as the cramp from the steel strings left small blisters on his skin. It was way better staring at his bruised pinkies rather than in front of him though.
"MUSIC!"
"Ready!" Picking his violin bow off the floor, Elliot averted his eyes from the stage. He was a man, but this one's a bit too much for his liking.
"Narrator!"
"Ready," Rean answered as he held the script up to his face. He was absolutely ready to read out his lines, despite the fact that his eyes were still glued towards the scantily clad girl.
"Actors!"
"Ready," responded one of them.
"Annnnnnnnd… ACTION!"
"Papa! Daddy! Welcome home!" Fie said with an airy voice distinct from her usual monotone. Fake tears streamed down her cheeks as she rushed over to the flummoxed teens. She held Machias' uniform as she buried her face into it, tail swaying in mock excitement.
Fie stared longingly at the bespectacled boy's cherry-red face, her lips twitching as she held down her mirth, "Did you miss me too Daddy? Filia has been a good girl for you. She's even made tons of new friends. They are so nice and they gave her so many gifts. Filia hopes you can meet them someday…"
Machias gaped. His internal processors stopped functioning altogether as his jaw dropped further.
"CUT! Machias, your lines!" the small director scolded from atop her Nordic tower.
"Uh, right. Where was I... " Machias' face calmed down in the moment's reprieve before it flushed again as Fie brushed up against him. Her cat-like tail poked him on his cheek.
She flashed him a teasing grin, "What's the matter Machias? Not used to having a girl call you 'Daddy?'"
"WHY WOULD I BE?!" he screeched. He swatted away the furry appendage that was patting his face, "Stopit-"
"What about you?" 'Papa' Jusis asked, his hand planted firmly on his face. "You seem to be one of the few people here that's actually enjoying themselves. Having the time of your life perhaps?"
"Not really," Fie chimed. Her tail wagged left to right as she scratched her fake ears, "I mean, why me?"
Millium answered for the two of them as she hopped up to the stage, "Cuz you're the only one who could fit that role of course. Well… I tried asking Altina if she could help out."
"And…?"
"She hung up on me. Then she called back and told me never to dial her ARCUS ever again."
"Okay, but…" Fie stroked her tail, perplexed herself on how she's able to move the thing, "why am I half cat?"
Millium shrugged, "I dunno. Ask Emma. It's her script."
"HAH!" a deranged girl laughed out. It was followed by an agonized wail. Their lifeless class president slumped further in another corner of the room as her familiar pawed at her head.
The poor girl had been like that ever since Millium prodded through her stuff and fished out a certain document she had been meaning to sanctify, exorcize and then burn. The hyperactive girl then declared to Class VII that she wanted to turn the 'masterpiece' into a short play. Quite passionately to boot. Emma had fainted by that point.
The dispirited writer laughed again as the remnants of the color on her body faded away.
"Anyway. I don't really mind. It's just cold in these," Fie spoke up. She had made to ignore her dissolving friend as her cat ears perked up.
Emma was overreacting, Fie thought to herself. She, and pretty much all of Class VII, actually enjoyed reading the work of fiction. They wouldn't have agreed to the play and Sara wouldn't have allowed them to if it wasn't good.
Fie adjusted her top before she noticed a pair of grey eyes ogling at her.
She blinked and covered her chest with her arms, "Rean… don't be a creep."
"Oh- Sorry- I just…" the boy stammered out. He then tried (and failed) to sound smooth, "Wow, that suits you so much."
A freckle of a blush crept up the face of the stoic girl, "You really think so…?"
"Yes! I mean… it's definitely cute. It really brings out your inner Fie-ness. The colors complement you pretty well. A-And it shows off your nice legs and curves and stomach and-" Rean sputtered before a bushy tail whipped across his face, "Ow!"
"Shut up you," an embarrassed Fie said as she glared twin gunswords at the horny teenager.
"Okay, enough of that you two lovebirds. We got a movie to finish!" Millium shouted as she sprinted back to her usual position atop a mountain of dark-skinned muscle. "Let's take it from the top!"
"M'kay."
"Got it."
"Let's just get this over with."
"Please let this day end soon."
Millium Orion inhaled the crisp Trista air before she bellowed out on her megaphones, "ACTION!"
"Ah… kids these days."
"Shouldn't you be, as their adviser, advise them not to make decisions that they will regret for the rest of their lives?" former Instructor Neithardt asked of the laissez-faire homeroom teacher supervising the chaos before them.
"It'll be fineeee," Sara said as she took a swig on her definitely non-alcoholic filled mug. Her fond smile grew as she gazed at her students, "Someday, they'll look back at this moment and have a good laugh… or die cringing. Either way, it'll be hilarious! Right?"
"...Right."
"CUT!"
I am sorry for writing this.
This was supposed to be an April Fools chapter but then life got in the way. But here you go!
And yes, these events ARE canon to The Dark Prince. I teased quite an important plot point hidden in here. Can you guess what it is?
JohnJoestar17 - tbh I actually didn't mean to write Fie as like a cat that chapter. It just occurred so naturally haha
Elia950 - thank you for the review :) Yes I will keep writing as there is a hurtful lack of Rean x Fie fics. Thanks for the support.
Anyway, back to the main story.
See ya.