AN: Once I started playing Fable III, this idea wouldn´t leave my head. Zero no Tsukaima just seemed perfect for this story. After all, I don´t know any other anime in which nobles mistreat commoners with such a fashion, specially to busty bar waitresses. Personally, I don´t know why anyone thought of this idea before, seeing as history itself talks about people getting fed up with abuse and revolting against authority.
This fanfic would take place after the third season of the anime, my shot at what a good fourth season could be about. Obviously, Louise and company would make their appereance, but as you will see on this chapter, my own OCs will play a mayor part in the plot. Don´t expect much romantic stuff, specially from Lyon. The main themes will be war and revenge, and be sure that some of Saito´s friends will end up in a near dead state. In other words, it won´t be nice. War is never nice.
For anyone wondering my absence, I just took a break while final exams and christmas took place. I still plan to focus on my main crossover fic, but this just won´t leave my brain. I will leave it like this for a while, but after I write a couple more chapters for Meaningless Life (Feel free to read it) I will come back to finish this.
Without further ado, on with the fic. It´s a little short, but enjoy it nonetheless.
Disclaimer: I don´t own Zero no Tsukaima nor any of its characters. This literal work gains me no money, but I certainly wish it did.
DIVISION/DIVISION/DIVISION
Rebellion: A Zero no Tsukaima Fanfic
Lyon glanced down at the numerous, tiny lights coming from the village below. Or rather what was left from it. Once a peaceful, prosperous town, now barely the shadow of what it was.
And all thanks to them.
Years, no, centuries of work, death and war to please them! And for what? So they could have a little more gold? So they could gain more territory? So they could be respected? So they could continue ruling the way they did?
And what about them?
Them, the commoners, the ones who did all the hard work, the ones who were abused and mistreated, the ones who served themin exchange of almost nothing, the ones who suffered the consequences of their decisions, which had little if no consideration for their wellbeing.
The answer was easy, nothing.
Nothing good ever happened to them, nothing ever changed, no one cared for them inside the court, no one helped them, and no one ever fought for them and their rights.
Well, NO MORE!
If everything that happened to him in his 20 years of life taught him something…
…is that nobles are useless.
And now, after years of pain, misery, death and training, he was finally ready. Before, commoners couldn't even dream of standing up to a noble, specially a mage, but tonight things would be different. Tonight, nobles would see and fall to his power. Tonight, and for the centuries to follow…
…things would change.
And it all began tonight.
His train of thought suddenly stopped as he made the figures of his allies catching up to him. His eyes tore themselves away from the lights below and focused on Diane, a serious expression adorning her face. She looked back and asked. "So what is the action plan?"
Zheo, his tactician, spoke. "Three of us will create a distraction for the guards, while the last from us enters the mansion to force Lord André and his family to surrender, either by easy or violent means, and seize our village. You already know this, but if we are to fail in this mission, it would be very difficult, almost impossible, for our plan to work, at least not in the few following years."
Lyon, Diane and Joshua nodded. As usual, Zheo was right.
"Guys." Diane spoke up. "I know that the three of you want to kill that noble idiot as much as anyone down there, but I will be the one to irrupt inside the mansion, no excuses." Suddenly, her bright, ruby-colored eyes darkened, and her voice was drowned in revenge. "That bastard and me have some issues I have been waiting the last eleven years to sort out."
Lyon let out a sigh, one that indicated some sort of deception. Diane could make a dragon's fire seem little more than a candle's flame, literally, but he had personally wanted to beat the crap out of him. But there was nothing he could do. Sure, Natasha had been like a big sister to him for the past fifteen years, but so had she been to Diane, for twenty. She was her biological sister, so it was just fair for her to be the one to extract revenge.
The three men visibly accepted her as the one to get the big piece of the cake, but since Lyon was the leader, she needed his authorization. "Fine, just make sure he suffers, even if he agrees from the start."
"As you wish Lyon."
"As for the rest of us, I will make the frontal attack, Zheo and Joshua, you will attack from behind. We should be able to pass any sort of defense, and as soon as all the guards are deployed, Diane you will enter to make some mage barbecue.
His companions nodded.
"Try not to involve any townspeople, they could get killed in the crossfire, so make sure you direct your attacks flawlessly. The least we want is for this village to suffer more than it already has."
"Got it."
"Got it."
"…"
"One last thing before the attack." Lyon walked up to a stone, the highest one in the hill he had been standing the past five hours. He unsheathed his sword, and in a flash marked the rock with two runes, their meaning as ancient as time itself, their importance even greater than the four warriors´s lifes. "Let it be known that on this very spot, a new era for men and women all over Tristain, and hopefully all Halkeginia too, begun."
He turned around, determination dancing in his eyes like a tornado. Slowly, he walked up to the edge of the hill, a seventy feet fall separating them from the village below. The other three revolutionists stood beside him, all of them glancing at the town below.
Shavia, the village that saw them grow, the town where they met and made their stories, or more specifically, the beginning of them. They had been given so much down there, but they had lost as much, if not more. They were no longer retrieving what they lost, but they could make things right, not just for them but for everybody else, and make sure no one suffered the way they did.
Steeling his resolve, Lyon gave the order. "Let's do this." The four leapt forward, taking the deadly fall head on, no fear showing in their eyes.
Five minutes later, and had someone been over that very hill, he or she would have saw the runes marked over the surface of the highest stone expel light.
A bright, blue-colored light.
Division/Division/Division
Five more minutes.
Charles had been patrolling in his usual routine around Lord André's Mansion all day long along with his two comrades until night finally came. The guard supposed to substitute him had been executed yesterday for letting a thief, who had been captured and executed later by young Lord Vincent himself, enter the Leveque Mansion and almost steal Lady Paulette's pendant, so he had to cover up extra hours (No extra pay).
And now, five minuets before his second turn was over, this green-haired asshole suddenly appears with the intention to intrude the noble house. He had to be the stupidest man on earth, as he simply walked up to them and asked where the entrance was. People like them pissed him off, people who appeared on the last second to interrupt your plans for trivial matters. Well, he was not taking it.
"Now, listen to me asshole. I have a job and that's to keep this place safe. Else, I get killed and my family has no money to survive, so why don't you simply go away and leave us in peace." He said looming over the now obvious swordsman's body, his face as intimidating as possible. The guy wasn't an underage, he could easily tell, but his stature wasn't a big one.
Or a medium one for that matter.
Still, the man didn't seem to care, as he simply kept on walking. "Fine, I will find it myself. And if I was you, I would quit. Your job is tiring and lowly paid, not to mention boring. It would be best to grow crops, that way you have some food and sell what is left for profit. Of course, you and your family would have to do something while the corn grows, but it's worth it, and the seeds are easily found during a half-hour walk through the forest."
Charles felt his frown twitch and then arrange itself on an angry, angry expression. This bastard interrupts him out of nowhere, threats his work as if it was nothing, and lectures him about his way of life as if he gave a damn. Furious, he and his comrades surrounded the guy, blocking his way. "Listen to me, and listen well! Today has been a stressful day and I just want to go home, SO I DON´T HAVE ANY TIME FOR YOUR CRAP!" He reared back his iron-glove fist, ready and more than anxious to hit the bastard on the face, but even before he could begin moving it forward, he was punched, sent flying away, and lost consciousness, entering a world of blackness.
"Neither do I, asshole."
The other two guards saw Lyon as a threat, and sounded the attack alarm. One minute after, both of them were shocked for two reasons.
One, little after sounding the horn, they heard the very same alarm from a second spot, and second, for what the swordsman said.
"You made a big, big mistake. Not for attacking me, but for putting your comrades in your same position." He unsheathed his sword and in half a second cut the lances the two terrified guards were wielding. "Good night."
He swung his sword again, but this time runes around the sword shone with a bright blue light. The strike didn't even hit them, but they were somehow sent flying back before crashing with a wall, joining their friend in dreamland.
Division/Division/Division
Turning around, Joshua sliced another guard with his sword, not enough to kill, but enough to make him lose too many blood to remain conscious. Counting, he had just taken down the thirtenth man of that night. Jumping and doing and air flip, he dodged an enemy's strike and landed behind him, knocking him out with a punch while slicing the thirty second guard.
In all honesty, he was getting bored. He thought the alarm horn would summon more soldiers than simply twenty patrols, but it seemed Lyon was taking the majority to himself, so unfair.
Deflecting and counterattacking another strike, he turned to Zheo. Ever since the beginning of the fight he had been occupied casting his spell, leaving all the enemies to him. Sure, they were children's play, but Joshua had just remembered that unlike the wooden swords they had been training with the past four years, the guards´s weapons could cut through his clothing and ruin it. Not wanting such to happen, he unleashed a red-glowing energy razor upon the remaining enemies, knocking them out and raising the score to a round sixty.
Annoyed, he turned to the so-called mage. "Zheo, we are supposed to fight together, and even if you need time to cast a spell you are to help me."
"As tactician, it's my responsibility to use the correct spells at the correct time." He responded matter-of-factly, his expressionless face never changing.
"And when would such time be?"
"In ten seconds:"
"?" Turning around, Joshua saw three entire squads of fifty soldiers each charging at them. It looks like they were finally taking them seriously. Hearing his comrade count down from ten to zero, Joshua could only feel pity for the poor men as he sheeted his sword.
When Zheo casted a spell, doom was sure for whomever unlucky bastard was his opponent, and such fact was refunded as at the pronouncing of "Zero" the one hundred and fifty soldiers fell flat on the ground, unconscious.
"Seems like I win, by ninety points this time." Zheo didn't mock Joshua in any way, but after living with the boy for four years, one learnt to substitute his emotionless reactions with the ones a feeling person would tell. It helped the whole lot of them understand in which mood the purple-haired was, and more importantly, how to act accordingly.
In this occasion, Joshua came up with annoyance. "Yeah right! As if you could have done that without me to protect your ass."
"Pardon me, but I never said I could have done it without your protection. I admit it would have been a far more difficult fight without you there." Joshua nodded in satisfaction, and a little of shame. Zheo always had a valid argument for every action he made, and after four years of living together, he should have known the man would never see his skills as inferior to the mage's. "But that doesn't change the fact I won."
Joshua gathered all he had thought earlier and set it on fire. He wished Diane had never taught him to joke. Even with his neutral tone it gave off the same effect as any joke, if not a more effective one.
Shaking his head in defeat, Joshua followed the void mage to fight the other squads, which, on a near future, would wonder how is that the commoner mage managed to cast such powerful spells with his bare hands, no wand, staff or tome placed in them.
Division/Division/Division
Barely controlling her anger, Diane glared at the silver door in front of her with enough intensity to melt it. It had been a personal achievement for her to avoid incinerating the whole building out of sheer willpower. Not even lashing out at the guards and the noble family members had successfully calmed her anger, or even reduce it. Vincent may have been responsible for Mia's caravan exile from Tristain, but André was the only one she genuinely wanted to reduce to ashes.
And she would finally do so.
Kicking the door open, Diane's eyes focused on the noble's body. The mage had his wand pointed at her face, a smirk adorning his face which told Diane he had been waiting for her. "Die you town scum, Fireball!"Lord André was a man of action instead of words, something Diane was glad of. She came here to beat him, kill him if necessary, not to hear stupid warning or threats.
And he had just given her a reason to do the second.
Appearing in front of him in a blink, Diane cut his entire arm off, the one he used to hold his wand. Taking some time to register what had just occurred, and a little more to get out of the shock, Lord André held his shoulder in pain and collapsed to the floor, taking long breathes as he felt his blood leaving his body.
Slowly and clearly happy, his assaulter walked up to his side, a sadistic smile on her young and beautiful face. Had he seen her a few days before walking around town, he would have immediately made her his lover. But right now, all wanted was to get his questions answered. Struggling to speak while in such a pain, André was finally able to pronounce words. "Who are you? WHAT are you?"
"My name is Diane, and I am a human. A human looking for something you have."
"What is it?" The noble was red out of rage, and he made no attempt to hide it. To be defeated so easily and humiliated by no other than a female commoner made him want to strangle her cute neck, something the pain was successfully not allowing him to do.
"I want the town's papers, this place is our home and you are no longer its owner." Said the swordswoman in a more angry tone.
"Ne…never." He felt his strength leaving his body.
"I would comply if I was in your position. After all, without your wand you won't last very long as you are. So, care to tell me where the papers are?" Again, the woman changed to her amused and sadistic tone.
André's eyes widened. His wand! Diane was holding said object over his face, obviously mocking the noble. If he could hold it, a simple healing spell would stop the bleeding long enough for a doctor to cure him. Greeting his teeth, the mage had no other option put to tell the girl. He was just too young and important to die. He was so close to getting a place at the royal court, he couldn't simply go to heaven just yet. "Okay…fine. The papers are in the chest besides my bed, in the bottom right.
Following the agonizing man's directions, Diane took no time in finding the papers, which she held in her left hand and close to her heart, as if their meant the world for her.
"Now…" André said taking the woman's attention. "Give me back my wand." He concluded anxious to get healed soon.
"No." At his disbelieved and betrayed expression she explained. "I lied to you, I have no intention to leave you alive, and I never had. My original plan was to burn you to ashes, but this death is okay as well. It feels horrible, doesn't it? Your blood flowing from you body, your energies slowly leaving you, your heart painfully trying to keep on beating." Her voice and expression then switched to something that could only be called a silent rage. "Serves you right." She enjoyed his confused reaction as to why she was doing this, and being the lady she was, Diane answered his internal question. "You reap what you sow. You lied to me a long time ago, when you told me my older sister was only going to work at your mansion as maid because of her hard work."
André began to comprehend… "Still don't get it? Then hear this. My full name is Diane Evans." Then he finally realized it, her name, her family, it all made sense now!
He smiled inside…
"Guess that old man was right… when he said my decisions would come back to haunt me…" Paled as a ghost, the once proud noble Lord André de Leveque said his final words as life escaped from his eyes, Diane feeling no less victorious after that.
She had prepared herself to kill someone, and the bastard had asked it upon him.
Breaking the wand in her hand, Diane put the papers inside her bag as she left the mansion, her sword's runes glowing with deep red light as she set the house aflame.
Division/Division/Division
Mia was so happy she couldn't stop smiling. Each time she tried to, her mouth would protest and ache from the sheer amount of force required to return it to its normal position. After the seventh time, she simply gave up and admired the beauty of the scene displaying in front of her.
There, before her very eyes, the Leveque mansion was burning. It had all started with panic, people thinking the fire was an accident and that it would expand to what was left of their houses. Not to mention the increase in taxes Lord André would make to get the money to repair his house.
Then, a green-haired man stood at the top of the burning structure, mystic air swirling around his body, fending off flames. He called out for the entire village for it to hear his message. When he was asked what had happened, he raised his hand to give out the signal, and seven hung corpses appeared tied to the Mansion's wall.
Looking closely, one could easily indentify Lord André and Lady Paulette, their respective parents, and their sole son young Lord Vincent.
The Leveque family, dead.
Before a word could be said, cheers and applauses began to echo through the night air, slowly followed by the sound of happy crying. Finally, the people who tormented, abused and tortured them for years were dead. And what a dead! Hung from their vey house, wearing nothing but humiliating underwear, and some were even missing limbs! It suited them perfectly.
Asking for a bit of silence, their hero talked to his people. He spoke of hope, of freedom, of revolution! He spoke of years of suffering, of unfair punishments, of injustices. He spoke of the ineffectiveness, cruelty, selfishness and uselessness of nobles, and most importantly, he spoke about a way of government that gave power to mages, people supposedly granted powers by divine choice.
Powers that until now, were thought to be only belonging to mages.
What a lie.
From what the swordsman and his allies talked about, everyone had their own power, magic being only one of many ways to express it, and all being matter of finding your personal method to channel that power.
Everyone had power, everyone! And that meant that the reason nobles had ruled them for centuries was and had never been a valid one.
So, he asked a question. Why continue with this whole crap? Why allow mages to rule them? Why keep on with the mistreat, and the abuse, and the insults and everything?
Why not fight?
They were more, they were able to have power too, they were the ones that kept the kingdom functioning, they were the one who always suffered and they were the ones to always die.
So why not?
No answers.
They had little to lose and everything to fight for. Sure, a revolution would kill people and weaken the kingdom, leaving it vulnerable to enemy attacks. But what was a life if you lived it under constant fear and blind obedience? It was an ugly, empty life. It was way better to risk it all for a better life than play safe and resign to a life no much different to that of a dog. And if they failed and died, at least they would have no regret.
They had to make nobles understand they were as important as them, that they were of value too, that they were worth something.
Finally, their savior asked one final question. Who would be willing to join his cause and fight for commoners?
In an instant, people all around the giant torch offered with enthusiasm to fight for them, townspeople and guardsmen alike, Mia between them.
Leaving the issue as decided, the man descended from the roof and joined his followers below. They had a lot of work ahead of them, mainly making sure no one found out about the Leveque family until they were strong enough to make a stand against the royal court and gain the support of the people.
Until that day, they would wait, but one thing was sure.
That night, everything changed, forever.
DIVISION/DIVISION/DIVISION
What do you think? Is it good, is it not? Feel free to express your feelings in the reviews, even flames are welcome (I´m emotionally prepared).
Hoped you have had a good time reading this. In the end, an author´s goal (In my opinion) is for his or her work to be accepted by the readers.
Happy New Year and Peace.