Louise's summoned familiar sprawled on the grass in front of her. She looked down at him with a degree of disappointment. "Well you have opposable thumbs," she observed. "That could be useful."

"What?" He looked around. Dozens of kids in stereotypical school uniforms covered by black cloaks. A castle in the distance. It lacked a few pointed hats of being a Harry Potter movie. Of course the fact that several of the kids appeared to have been knocked over and the pink-haired girl standing over him suggested a somewhat different circumstance. "Oh crap."

Louise's eyebrows rose and she pulled at the goggles that she was wearing over her eyes, loosening the headstrap so that they hung around her neck. "I suppose I will have to explain a few things," she observed. "However first I must complete the ritual. Please stand."

There was a laugh from the lushly built redhead standing nearby as the familiar scrambled to his feet. "What did you do Louise? Hire a commoner to pretend to be summoned?"

"If I was going to cheat I'd have bought a trained animal," Louise replied calmly before turning back to the boy in front of her. "This may sting a bit," she warned and began chanting a spell, standing in tip toe to wave her wand above his head. Then she kissed him.

Fortunately, the familiar was somewhat braced in expectation for the burning pain in his left hand that resulted. "'Sting a bit'?" he grated out between clenched teeth, gripping the hand as if the extra pressure would make it hurt less.

"You want I should blow you up as well?" Louise asked him drily. She really wasn't acting quite the way that the familiar had expected.

"Would it send me back to my Fortress of Geekdom?"

The mage gave him an intrigued look. "Experimentation suggests no. Sorry."

"Well, that's all done," declared the teacher, who gestured with his staff. "Lets go back to class, everyone." He rose into the air, followed in turn by pretty much every other one of the students.

The familiar watched them. "That's kind of cool."

"Yes it is."

"Can you..."

Louise shrugged and gestured towards a footpath leading back towards the castle in the distance. "Not reliably, no. Alright, I promised you an explanation."

"Your name is Louise de Valliere, this is Tristain Academy, Tristain, Halkegina, right?"

"...uh yes. That is so." Louise gave him a cautious look. "You aren't Hiraga Saito, are you?"

"Oooookay, are you sure that you're Louise the Zero?"

"I prefer Louise the Exploder Mage, personally. So... Bastard ROB?"

"I presume so. No special powers that I can tell though."

'Louise' nodded. "So, by what name might I know you?"

"Drakensis."

"...oh please, please, I beg of you. Tell that that was a lie."

"Uhmmm... no. No, I'm not lying. Is that... G?"

Louise looked vaguely sick. "Nope. And may I say that no kind god would permit that there be two of me."

"Two of you?"

"I am Drakensis," she asserted.

"But..." Drakensis frowned and then reached for glasses he wasn't wearing to remove them. "I suppose that that's not impossible given the whole Halkegina thing... but really?"

"Affold," she said, kicking off a sign and counter-sign that had stuck in her memory more than a decade before.

"Ah... abacus."

"Zymase."

"And bezant. Oh... dear. Um. 2011."

"The same. I've been here just about a year though."

He winced. "Oh that must be fun."

"Fuck puberty," she agreed bitterly.

"You've hit puberty? It hardly shows."

"Do you really think I wouldn't kick you in the balls?"

"I doubt the ability, not the intention," Drakensis pointed out, but he changed the subject. "So have you had any luck with the void magic thing?"

"Absent the ring or the prayer book, very little. I can deliberately blow something up now. On the plus side, if we can get back to my room without trouble, I picked up Derflinger on the offchance I got the Grey Wizard plus R again."

"Oh good. Uh... keeping it quiet?"

"Everyone knows I'm weird. I'd rather not be branded a heretic though."

"So you're the familiar?" Derflinger observed sharply as Drakensis walked into Louise's chamber.

The room wasn't quite what he had expected of Louise, although it made a great deal more sense knowing who was doing the thinking beneath the pink hair. "Are you in competition with Tabitha?" he asked, gesturing at the stacks of books. "Or maybe The Paper?"

"Very funny," Louise said drily, although he knew the tone well enough to recognise amusement beneath her feigned composure. "I've been studying magical theory, trying to work out how to use Void magic - not so much the big magic as the day to day things that any mage can do."

"Embarassing?"

"I had to explain the pecking order to some of them. Kirche won't shut up of course..."

"Does she ever?"

"Not in the least."

"Hey! Hey!" Derflinger shouted. "Don't you ignore me!"

Drakensis picked up the sword and flipped it around so he could address the hilt, noting as he did so the glowing runes upon the back of his left hand. "Do you have any manners in there or do I have to engrave them in your blade?"

"Don't even think about it." The sword sounded horrified. "Hey, you're a user."

"I'm a lot of things, some of them printable." Reversing his grip, and with one eye on his surroundings, the familiar took a couple of swipes at nothing in particular, the sword whistling through the air. "That's amazing."

"I am the great Derflinger!"

"I was referring to the fact I haven't broken anything yet."

Louise groaned. "Please try not to. Some of these books are borrowed."

"Well I'll try," Drakensis agreed doubtfully. He lowered the sword and looked around for somewhere to sit. The only chairs were both stacked with books so he eventually settled on the bed. "This is going to be weird."

"At least you keep your bits."

"Well not exactly mine..." He shoved his free hand down the front of his trousers and felt around. "Damn... no wonder all the ladies all wanted a part of him. The boy's practically deformed."

"Don't feel you have to show me," Louise warned, pulling out a sizeable tome and flipping through it.

Drakensis shrugged and lay back on the bed, feet dangling off it. "Now that really would be weird."

"It would indeed." Finding her bookmark, Louise laid the tome on the bed. "Let's not go there."

"I reserve the right to reconsider once you're no longer a loli-con's dream." Drakensis glanced at Louise. She wasn't quite as slim and delicate as he might have thought - there was evidently some degree of muscle, suggesting that she hadn't spent all her time nose deep in books. "Touching on a distantly related topic: bed."

"I wasn't sure if I'd get you," Louise explained. "I'll see about getting you a pallet for the floor. That's about as far as the Academy is likely to accomodate unusual requests on behalf of a familiar."

Drakensis grimaced at the thought of a thinly stuffed bag being the only thing between him and the floor all night. The girl smiled and he was highly disconcerted: Is that what I look like when I'm teasing someone? I hope it's just her face that makes it look so smug or I probably owe a few people apologies... Nah, must be her face.

"Don't worry, it will be a magical pallet. The Academy uses them for servants and they're quite comfortable."

There was a pause and then Drakensis asked very mildly: "Personal experience?"

"Hmm?" Louise's face was a picture of bland innocence.

"The two of you," Derflinger noted, "Deserve each other."

"Why thank you," they chorused.

If a sword could grimace, Derflinger would have. "That wasn't a compliment."

Drakensis interlaced his fingers across his stomach. "Have you made plans?"

"Your recollection of the series is fresher than mine," Louise observed. "Check me on this: Henrietta, nice but ineffectual? Wales, noble... and doomed. Cromwell, puppet. Sheffield, strings and Joseph, Gendo's understudy."

"No arguement there, although we might be able to keep Wales from dying."

"Do you really think we're that competent?"

"I think Wardes might suffer a tragic accident and it depends how persuasive we can be."

Louise nodded. "Possible. We can consider our options later. To resume: the Pope is also a colossal dick although possibly on our side. Elves... I have no clue, but Tiffania is innocent of all but boobs."

"They can't possibly be as large as they were in the anime."

"Kirche's are."

"Um. Point."

"And we do seem to be following the anime continuity. I blew up Professor Chevreuse yesterday."

"So... Foquet and then... Mott. Damn, I've not watched that episode."

"I was hoping that you'd got around to that," Louise sighed. "I checked and he's both nearby and politically connected. Count Palatine is a fairly important title. Which isn't to say that I plan to let him take Siesta away, but I don't know the details of how he tries."

"Hmm. Well, one step at a time," Drakensis observed drily. "Tonight we rest. Tomorrow... getting to know your familiar?"

"Indeed. Are you going to duel with Guiche?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I'm not sure I see the point, honestly."

"Either way, I suggest you start getting some regular exercise. We can't afford you getting fat."

"Now you sound like Mum."

"There was an awkward silence for a moment. "Maybe I feel like Mum, talking to you. Mandatory one mile run, every day."

"Oh god."

"We did this when we were at school. It was good for us."

"I don't feel like being sixteen all over again."

"Well we are. I'll race you." She grinned, knowing how competitive he could be.

He gave her a dour look. "You've been practising, haven't you."

"I... hate... everything..." Drakensis gasped as he passed the 'finishline' at the gates of the Academy for the second time.

Louise had reckoned that the outer perimeter of the school was about half a mile long so twice around it made up the desired distance. Having finished a few minutes earlier, she had sat down on a cushion she'd brought along and cracked open a book to read, just to rub her victory in his face. She'd actually only finished cooling down just before he came back into view but that wasn't the point. "I feel so much better now that I have my familiar here to protect me."

Drakensis declined to reply, instead walking back and forth in the hope that his legs would stop feeling like jelly sometime soon.

"Well aren't you two getting along famously," called a voice from just inside the gates.

Louise didn't bother to look up from her book or reply and when Drakensis turned he could see Kirche leaning against the side of the gate, her new familiar coiled around her shapely legs. With the flaming reptile, even the fact the clothes she was bursting out were a school uniform didn't detract from the impression of a Boris Vallejo or Frank Frazetta picture.

Apparently undeterred by the lack of response, Kirche sauntered over. "So is this your boyfriend, that you're sneaking into the school by pretending he's your familiar?"

"It's a good idea, but I'm going to get people used to my having a human familiar before he switches place with my boyfriend," Louise replied without looking up.

Drakensis coughed. "Lady Louise, it is best not to reveal your plans in front of adversarial parties."

"Hmm. I suppose you're right." She looked up and winked at him. "Silence the witness, please. Permanently."

He bowed. "It shall be done, dread Exploding One." Then he he picked up Derflinger from where the sword had been laid out by the cushion. "I'm sorry, Miss Kirche, but now I must kill you. Nothing personal."

The girl's eyes bugged out for a moment and then she laughed, neither Louise nor Drakensis noticing the slight hint of fear hidden in the sound. "Have you two practised that routine?"

"The Master summons a familiar suitable to her," Drakensis replied evenly, sheathing Derflinger and hanging the scabbard across his back on the baldric that Louise had thoughtfully obtained when she bought the weapon.

"So basically she needed a familiar as crazy as she is."

Kirche stared at Drakensis. "Who said that?"

"Etching," the familiar said, reaching back to tap on Derflinger's hilt. The sword took the hint and shut up again. "Anyway, isn't it time for breakfast?"

"Let me finish the chapter first," Louise told him.

Drakensis was about to agree when he had a sudden thought. "Does she miss breakfast often?" he asked Kirche.

The girl nodded. "All the time. She's worse than Tabitha for getting lost in books."

"I know the feeling," the boy observed, somewhat wistfully. "Still, I'm hungry." He kept one hand on the hilt of Derflinger and with his other hand he suddenly scooped up Louise and flung her across his other shoulder.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Louise flailed helplessly.

"Breakfast!" he announced cheerfully and then picked up the book that she had dropped, stumbling slightly as he had to release the weapon in order to do so. "Looks like an interesting book." He flipped it open and started reading as he walked through the gates.

Kirche shook her head. "What an interesting guy."

"At least give me the book back," pleaded Louise.