YAY! I had the idea for Archimedes when I first read about the kinky HAR the robotics club has... dont judge me... ANYWAYS, I have decided to run with this for as long as I can. And just in case you are wondering what shade of silver Archimedes' hair is, here is a link to the color. . And yes. I know that that is a car. And no, his hair is not that glossy. Just imagine a normal hair texture in the color of the car.
"Necromancy?" The female Yotsuba agent who was sent to question Archimedes asks.
"Yes, but not in the whole raising the dead manner that you are probably thinking of. While that is well within my abilities, it is not the best way of operating."
"And why is that?"
"Because while the dead bodies still have the basic necessary components to be controlled, all they can do is walk around and do what any human can do. You see, their brain is already useless at that point. I cannot use it for any complex actions. The only use I have for raising the dead is to retrieve their memories."
"You can retrieve the memories of dead people?"
"To an extent. There are a few problems with it though. I need a general idea of when the memory was recorded and what it was about. There is also the fact that I can only retrieve the memories if their hippocampus is still intact. Decay and physical damage are things I cannot get around. It also takes time. Rooting through someone's memories is not an easy task."
"Okay, so you don't use dead bodies. What do you use?"
"It depends on the situation. I can always use humans if need be."
"You mean living humans?"
"Yes, but only if they are unconscious. Even then it is still a struggle. I can only control someone or something if I can subdue the current occupant. But the unconscious rule only applies to creatures capable of higher order thinking, i.e. Humans. Lesser animals like dogs and cats can be controlled easily at any point."
"We do have some information on Necromancy, but that is only based on myth and legend. Even so, why don't we have information about controlling animals?"
"Because, when a necromancer takes control of a being, we have access to their memories and how they interact with their environment. You will notice a dead body walking down the street, but not a cat that is being controlled. But, living creatures are still not my prefered hosts."
"Why is that?"
"Pain. Necromancy involves hijacking another creature. We can see what they see, and also feel what they feel. Why do you think that necromancers haven't taken over the world yet? Of course there is the reason that I am quite possibly the only one in existence right now, but the main reason is because we feel our host's pain. Every injury they suffer, we feel. Why do you think fire has always been portrayed as being so effective against the undead? Because we feel that we are being burnt alive. While we do not sustain the injury ourselves, the mental strain is more than enough to send anyone over the edge."
"So what do you use?"
Archimedes smirks.
"Robots."
"Robots?"
"Well, any electronic system anyways. We have to have something to control in order to use necromancy. Luckily, electronic systems fit the bill. Cameras, phones, robots, security systems; as long as it has some processing power, I can control it."
To illustrate this point, Archimedes activates his magic on the small camera in the corner of the ceiling. The camera begins to spin wildly in its plastic shielding, the soft sound of the stressed motors evident.
"How were you able to evoke ancient magic so quickly without any sort of chanting or anything?"
"Necromancy as a whole is only one spell. The spell to take control. It takes longer if the prospective host puts up a fight, but over time Necromancers have been able to get the speed down. That's why I am wearing this ring." Archimedes says, displaying his ring.
Said ring now glows with the fiery red that the symbols are letting off. The whites of Archimedes' eyes have once again turned black, but the agent appears not to notice.
"So, without the ring, you can't cast the magic?"
"No, think of this ring as a rudimentary Specialized CAD. The runes engraved in it speed up the process but the ring itself is not necessary. I can cast my magic without it, just slower."
"Why the emphasis on speed?"
"It all comes back to pain. The faster you can cast and dispel Necromancy, the less likely you are to feel pain. It is like an emergency eject button. Also, there is no point in trying to make the spell stronger so speed was the only place for improvement."
"The spell couldn't be made stronger?"
"No, the spell is highly based on natural ability. As long as you have a host enthralled, it drains Psions. The more hosts under your control, the more Psions you need. You also need significant brain power. Each host under a Necromancer's control requires some form of direct control, it is very difficult to control multiple hosts. Not to mention having to suppress whatever is currently residing in the host."
Maya frowns as she watches the recorded conversation.
"Who knows about him and his power?" she inquiries.
"Only us, my lady. We actually have that boy to thank. He was able to wipe himself from the camera footage and the teacher we planted to monitor him smoothed it all over. He was reprimanded, but there will be no permanent record of this occurring. We only learned of this because of your order to continue observing the extended Shiba family."
"Leave him for now. He will probably develop his skills far faster without our interference."
Archimedes twirled a pen between his fingers, unfazed by the events occurring around him. His thick silver hair has grown to shoulder length, and he has grown considerably in the two years since his Necromancy was awakened. He is wearing a long white duster, white dress pants, and a red blouse. Many of the men around him question his choice of attire given the situation, but they know better than to voice their concerns. They are currently riding in a military VTOL, the interior has been blacked out to cut down on the effects of emerging into the dark of the battlefield. The bay of the VTOL is illuminated by a red light, despite the apparent black-out. The light comes from Archimedes. His clothing is covered in glowing red characters which glow dimly, but most of the light comes from the ring on his right hand. Fiery red characters dance across the surface of the snow white ring, constantly changing and rearranging. The men accompanying him shiver every time his eyes are illuminated by the light. His crimson red iris' are surrounded by a sea of black.
A crackle in Archimedes' ear wakes him from his trance.
"Have you reached the drop site?" a female voice asks.
Archimedes sighs before answering.
"No, I have not. But I am ready to go. I am still disappointed that I have to use the old models rather than my new ones."
"Your new robots are still in testing. We need something that is guaranteed to work."
Archimedes sighs again as he goes back to devoting his focus to the robots under his control. There are 20 in all. Instead of being humanoid killing machines like people imagine, these are simply mobile turrets. Each one has two mounted mini-guns and a grenade launcher. As the VTOL comes to a stop over the ground, the robots are released and Archimedes begins to send them out to kill the foreign invaders.
"So, no one was the wiser of his magic?" Maya asks.
"No ma'am. Everyone assumed that Japan had just sent in a group of advances robots." Archimedes' female handler said.
"And will we be able to maintain this secrecy around him?"
Archimedes' handler sighs.
"Sadly not. He is developing very powerful units for himself to control, but they are not the most inconspicuous."
"You are doing what with some of my HARs?" Archimedes' grandfather inquiries.
Shiba Tatsuaki, Archimedes Grandfather, is the owner of a large technology company which produces a large amount of HARs along with other household appliances. This has become a very profitable business, allowing the Shiba family to amass a large amount of wealth and power.
"Militarizing them. I am switching the design to be that of a normal Japanese man in his 20's and then putting an integrated CAD into them."
"We have tried militarizing humanoids in the past. They are never sturdy enough to handle battlefield conditions."
"Ahh. But that's where Necromancy comes in. My magic supplies a constant stream of Psions to my hosts. I can channel those into runes on the bodies to reinforce them as well as activate personal speed magic on the robots, among other things."
"I was under the impression that you were unable to use CADs, let alone cast other spells."
"You are still correct in that thinking. I am still a BS Magician. I am unable to use CADs or any other magic other than Necromancy."
Tatsuaki cringes when Archimedes says "Necromancy".
"But, through a lot of research and testing, I have discovered that I can activate magic and CADs through those under my control. Which, in my opinion, is much more useful than being able to command a wide variety of magic myself."
"I… See…" Tatsuaki says, distraught.
"Don't worry Grandfather. This will only help me maintain my position as your heir. I am turning your companies into strategic assets for me so the Yotsubas won't try to make me relinquish my claim."
Tatsuaki immediately brightens at this.
"By the way, Grandfather? Have you been able to get any information about "Mahesvara", the one I saw in Okinawa?"
Tatsuaki shakes his head.
"No, but the information cover up around his identity has the Yotsuba's name written all over it."
"I'll take that into account. Thank you Grandfather."
Archimedes squirms in the black suit he was forced to wear, unable to get comfortable. He feels a hand touch his shoulder and turns to his mother.
"Archimedes! Stop squirming!" Mya hisses in a soft voice.
"I'm sorry! But you know that clothes other than the ones specially made for me make my scars itch. Not to mention I hate the color black."
"I'm sorry, but you will have to deal with it! We are at a funeral after all!"
Currently, Archimedes and his parents are attending the funeral of Yotsuba Miya. They are sitting in the second row from the front, directly behind Miya's immediate family. The service is fairly standard, lacking the flair one would expect for a member of the ten master clans. The service ends quickly and everyone is escorted to a ballroom. Archimedes slips away from the party and into a small side room. As he gently closes the door, he notices that he is not the only one who has taken refuge.
"Um… Hello." Archimedes says before pulling out a mobile terminal with a custom OS and punching in a few commands.
"Hello." The boy and girl who are in the room reply.
"I'm Shiba Archimedes. I was the nephew of Yotsuba Miya, not that I ever got to meet her…"
The young girl cocks her head, a confused look on her face.
"You don't look Japanese. How exactly are you related?" She asks with a charming voice.
The charm appears to be lost on Archimedes, who is currently struggling out of his suit jacket.
"Oh yeah! I am the adopted son of Shiba Mya and Shiba Rei. Apparently I washed up on the shore one day about 7 years ago and they took me in."
Archimedes shakes out his thick mane of silver hair before beginning to unbutton his shirt. The girl blushes fiercely and looks away, the boy continues to watch Archimedes.
"What do you think you are doing?" The boy asks in a monotone voice.
"Taking my clothes off so I can change." Archimedes says.
Archimedes unbuttons the last button and drops the shirt to the ground. Runes are carved into his skin, each one faintly glowing with red light.
"What purpose do those runes serve?" The boy asks, unaffected by the appearance of the scars.
"They help with my magic. With these I can increase Psion flow to my ring, allowing for more powerful magic. I already had them by the time my parents found me."
There is a light knock on the door. Archimedes opens the door and a small robot that looked like a trash bin enters the room. The girl looks at it with interest before blushing even more as Archimedes took off his pants. The robot opens, revealing some clothes. Archimedes slips into them easily, having worn these quite often. The outfit consists of white slacks, a white shirt, and a long white duster with red trim. He shakes out his shoulder length silver hair before smirking at the boy and girl in front of him.
"Alright, now you guys know about me. Who exactly are you?"
The bow boys and the girl curtseys.
"My name is Shiba Tatsuya." The boy says, "And this is my sister, Shiba Miyuki."
A few months have passed since Archimedes met his cousins. They became fast friends, becoming one of the only people that Miyuki can tolerate other than Tatsuya. They are currently in the basement of the home that they have been sharing. The house was originally Tatsuya and Miyuki's, but Archimedes began living there so that the Yotsuba family could have him easily under their observation. Tatsuya and Archimedes are currently sitting across from each other in the testing area in the basement. Miyuki looks on in nervous anticipation.
"Are you sure you two want to do this? I know that your research says it should work, but we still don't know much about the necromancy Archimedes controls." Miyuki asks, clearly distressed.
"Don't worry Miyuki, we know what we are doing." Tatsuya says with a soothing voice.
"Mostly." Archimedes adds.
Tatsuya shoots Archimedes a glare, to which Archimedes only shrugs in response.
After this, both of their expressions turn deadly serious.
"Ready?" Archimedes asks.
"Ready." Tatsuya responds.
Archimedes raises his right hand at Tatsuya and casts Necromancy. The whites of Archimedes eyes go black and his ring glows with a red light. After a few moments, they both stand up. They walk towards each other and Tatsuya throws a punch at Archimedes. Miyuki gasps, Archimedes is not particularly strong. He is about Tatsuya's height but is skinnier due to him having to spend most of his time meditating and working on his robots at the Yotsuba Clan's request. He also has to help with his grandfather's business to prepare him for when he takes control of the company, leaving him almost no time to train his physical body. Despite this, Archimedes dodges every punch that Tatsuya throws at him. Tatsuya ceases his assault and Archimedes picks up a customized CAD made for this experiment. Tatsuya proceeds to pick up a shinai. Archimedes casts Necromancy on the CAD. Immediately after this, an activation sequence forms around the shinai. A shrill shriek pierces the air and Tatsuya swings the sword around for a few moments before the spell is dispelled. Archimedes dispels Necromancy as well, giving a fiendish grin to Tatsuya.
"Did it work?" Miyuki asks.
"Oh yeah. It worked great!" Archimedes says, doing a small dance.
"What are you doing?" Tatsuya asks, with small grin.
"It's my victory dance! You like it?"
Miyuki giggles and Tatsuya shakes his head with a smile.
"Let's just go have some coffee." Tatsuya recommends.
"Don't you have to go over the results or anything?" Miyuki asks, cocking her head.
Tatsuya and Archimedes share a knowing look.
"What?" Miyuki asks, now even more confused.
"Let's talk over coffee." Tatsuya suggests again.
"What is with you and coffee?" Archimedes asks.
Tatsuya shrugs and walks upstairs. Miyuki and Archimedes fall into step behind him, Archimedes teasing Miyuki in various ways as they walk. As they enter the living area, a loud grinding noise is heard coming from the kitchen.
"God damn it." Archimedes curses under his breath before grabbing a toolbox from a closet and walking into the kitchen.
Tatsuya sits down in a chair and begins documenting the experiments results in a terminal while Miyuki begins making coffee.
"Miyuki?" Tatsuya asks after a short time.
"Yes, Onii-sama?"
"How would you feel if you had to marry Archimedes?"
Miyuki is stunned into silence, the only sounds that can be heard are that of Archimedes violently trying to fix the HAR by bending the gears back into place with a hammer.
"Onii-sama?" Miyuki finally manages to stammer out.
"We both know that they will eventually force you to marry a magician with great magical ability. I have no doubt that Archimedes is on a short list of candidates. He possesses great magical ability and commands a never before documented Ancient Magic that appears to be hereditary. There is also the fact that contrary to how he acts around us, he is a skilled manipulator and has a very commanding presence. I also believe that he is be a good candidate for becoming your husband because you two get along very well and he is one of the only people that can actually assist me with your protection."
Tatsuya pauses for a moment due to the shrill shriek of metal on metal piercing the air.
"So, what do you think? Does Archimedes have potential to become your husband?"
Miyuki opens her mouth to respond but is interrupted by one of Archimedes combat robot prototypes climbing up the stairs and entering the kitchen.
"I am not totally opposed to it. I guess that if I had to choose from a list that they came up with, I would chose Archimedes." Miyuki says, sporting a small blush.
The sound of metal being crushed comes from the kitchen before the robot emerges and returns to the basement. Archimedes emerges a few seconds later, a large grin on his face and a small cube of metal in his hand.
"Fixed it! Now all I need to do is make a new HAR!" Archimedes says, the backup HAR entering the kitchen behind him.
"What did you do?" Tatsuya asks.
"Fixed it."
"How?"
"By fixing it."
"…"
"…"
"What is that in your hand?"
"What are you talking about?"
Tatsuya sighs and activates his elemental sight, learning all that occurred in an instant.
"Maybe you should get changed, Archimedes." Miyuki suggests, barely able to contain a giggle at the conversation between her brother and cousin.
Archimedes' previously all white jumpsuit is now stained with oil and grease. There are also small burn marks on the suit.
"That's a splendid idea! I'll get right to that, Mistress Miyuki." Archimedes says, taking a deep bow.
Miyuki turns bright red but turns back to the coffee before Archimedes can notice. Archimedes goes upstairs to the bedroom he barely uses, leaving the siblings alone.
"Still "not totally opposed" to having him as your husband?" Tatsuya asks sarcastically.
"Be quiet…" Miyuki says blushing deeply.
Tatsuya chuckles to himself before a large crash is heard from upstairs. This is immediately followed by Archimedes shouting and the sound of things falling to the ground. Tatsuya sighs and walks upstairs to investigate. What he sees surprises him. Archimedes is standing in the hallway, holding a plunger, trying to fend off several tanuki.
"Archimedes, can't you just use your necromancy to control them?" Tatsuya asks, clearly amused by this situation.
"NO I CAN'T! NECROMANCY IS TARGETED, I CAN ONLY CAST IT ON ONE THING AT A TIME! THERE ARE AT LEAST 20 OF THESE THINGS!" Archimedes yells, swinging the plunger haphazardly.
"How did 20 of them show up?" Tatsuya asks.
"I accidentally left the window open the last time I went to my bedroom! It looks like these guys moved in in my absence!"
"I've got it." Miyuki interrupts.
Miyuki casts a low level movement spell, freezing all of the tanuki. Sadly, she did not get the area of effect exactly right.
"Sorry Archimedes!" She exclaims to the partially frozen Archimedes.
"Its fine Miyuki, but I would be very grateful if you could unfreeze me."
Miyuki casts another spell and Archimedes is freed from his icy binds. He walks into his room and closes the window before typing some commands into his terminal. Almost immediately, several small trash bin shaped HARs climb the stairs and begin carting the frozen tanuki outside. Archimedes, Miyuki, and Tatsuya all go back to the living area and take their respective seat, sipping at their coffee.
"So… Would you two mind explaining exactly what you did?" Miyuki asks, flashing a smile that could melt the ice she makes so often.
"Archimedes, how about you start. You are the one knows the most about Necromancy after all." Tatsuya suggests.
"Alright then. Well, Miyuki, as I am sure you have gathered in the time we have spent together, I do not use my Necromancy to raise the dead as depicted in popular culture. While raising the dead is well within my abilities, I find that there are much better ways to use my power. The basis of Necromancy is that I forcibly take control of a creature/robots processes. But, I do not have to directly control of everything the thing I am controlling does. I merely command the thing under my control to do something, and their built in natural process will accomplish that for me. That is why I can control multiple things at once. The reason that I can have the combat robots I made cast magic is because they are programed to be able to accomplish the activation sequence. I only have to supply the Psions needed and select the spell. One of the effects of doing this is that I have complete access to all of the memories of the person I am controlling. This allows me to accurately judge the abilities of those under my ability. So, when I learned that Tatsuya had an additional Magic Calculation Area…"
Miyuki noticeably cringes at the mention of the surgery her brother went through, Tatsuya remains impassive.
"I wondered if I could jump into that area and control it without Tatsuya instinctively pushing me out."
Tatsuya takes up the explanation after that.
"After doing test to test the feasibility of doing this, we decided to go forward with the experiment. Together, we created the custom CAD that you saw Archimedes use. That is a special general CAD. It has no functionality to cast the spells, but it does contain a vast library of Activation Sequences. Archimedes is able to directly access the sequences using Necromancy and then utilize my Flash Cast to have me preform the spell. Another perk of this is that our consciousness are linked during this time, allowing for instant transmission of data between us."
"So you two were able to search each other's memories?" Miyuki asks, clearly embarrassed about the implications of this.
"Yes, we were." Archimedes says, winking at a very embarrassed Miyuki. "Speaking of which, Tatsuya? Were you able to find anything about what happened before I showed up that day on the shore?"
Tatsuya shakes his head.
"No, but it doesn't appear to be normal memory loss." He says in a serious tone.
"Meaning?"
"There were traces of magic. Someone didn't want you to regain your memories."
"Wait, Onii-sama. We only know one person who is capable of doing something like that!" Miyuki says with a worried tone.
Tatsuya nods grimly.
"You're right Miyuki. The only person I know of that could do something like this is our mother."
