Chapter 5: Combat, Cat ears and Class trips!

The Anne Millers in town

Negi was confused about why John wanted to see him. As a matter of fact, Negi was confused about a lot of things. Not that he was stupid mind you, far from it, just distracted. So when he walked up to the counter he decided to ask, straight up, what was wrong. "Uhhh, John-san, what's going on?" John looked up at him, face set like a mask and after a second it seemed as if he debated weither to tell him or not.

"Has anyone... strange talked to you recently?" Negi cocked his head to the side and asked, "Why?" John's mask like expression cracked for a second and Negi realized something. Someone or something spooked him. The thought throughly unnerved him. Anyone that could spook John, was someone that he did not want to meet. John's face resumed the mask like expression and repeated the question.

Negi thought about who he had met today. Scaning his memorys quickly no one imeadiatly came to mind, then a thought hit him out of the blue. Wait, that guy who bumped into me counts, I think. Just as he was about to open his mouth to reply a familiar face walked into the restarunt. Eva!? What is she doing here?

The miniscule master vampire walked up to the counter, her eyes never leaveing John's face. A small smirk tug'ed at the corner of her lips as she broke eye contact and turned to Negi. "So he's the guy that's supposed to protect you? Hehe. So Negi-bozu, why do you need protection, humm?" Eva leaned in closer to Negi causeing him to blush lightly. "Does his presence have something to do with me? Because, you know, I could just drain you now." She licked her overly long cannies and chuckled at Negi's reaction, a mixture of fear and emberisment.

She looked over at John and cocked her head, "I don't know who you are, and I know a little of what you can do from Chacamaru. So, I'm going to ask you, who are you?" John wondered what it was about the little girl infront of him that made his highly honed survival sence scream in terror. After a half a second John shook himself meantaly and tilted his head to the side and back and asked in a measureing tone, "Why should I tell you anything, Miss Evangeline? As far as I am concered, you don't need to know. Ma'am..." With that, he turned around and walked into the kitchen.

Eva's suprise was so great that she fell off the stool she was siting on. Negi shot to his feet to help her when Eva surged upright and proceeded to shake Negi by the shoulders violently while screaming in his face, "You brat! You did not tell him about me? The Dark Gospel, The Black Disciple, The Clarion Ring of the End Bell? Thou, to be fair, only a dozen people ever called me that last one... but enough of that!" Negi shook his head and looked down at his feet trying to hide the sheepish expresion that crowned his face. Eva threw up her hands and started to browbeat Negi, "You mean to tell me that you have not told the man who is supposed to protect you that one of his class mates mean's to drain you of you're blood to break a 15 year old curse?"

Eva palmed her face as Negi redened in confermation. Sighing in consternation Eva leaned into Negi's personal space and said in a voice lightly tinged with anger, "I should drain you now just on principle. But," Eva looked over at John as he emerged from the kitchen and smiled fractionitly, "I came here to see the skills of this so called 'bodyguard' and what do I find?" Eva shook her head theactriticly and shrugged with a similar fliar, "A busboy. Not exactly the great soldier Chacamaru had discribed. Oh well, time to begin the test."

With a sigh, Eva pulled a wicked looking dagger from the purse she had slung over her shoulder. Negi perked up at the sight of the dagger, as he was a collector of rare magical artifacts and he could clearly tell that the object held tremendous power. "What's that Evangeline-san?" Eva smiled meantaly at the clear enthuseaism writen on the boy's face. "A spectral projection dagger." Next, she pulled out a object that looked kind of like a snow globe only sans the snow or the cheesey cottage surronded by trees and instead contained what looked like a Roman colliseum at the height of the Empire's glory. Before Negi could ask about the globe Eva headed him off, "You'll find out in a bit."

Eva made a few curious hand gestures and made three slashing motions at herself, Negi and John who had been watching Eva intensely the moment she brought out the dagger. She started to chant quietly and Negi wondered what a 'spectral projection dagger' was and why it sounded so familiar. A memory floated to the surface of Negi's mind and he suddenly remembered where he had heard of spectral projection and why it was dangerous. "Uhhh, Eva, what are you doing? That's dangerous you kno-" Before he could finish what he was about to say Eva finished her chant and plunged the dagger into the globe.

With a flash of light Negi found himself falling. He looked down and saw the ground coming up to meet him, or is it the other way around, the thought was met only with blackness.

Unknown Location, Unknown Time

John knew he was falling. How he knew he was falling was simple, he saw the ground coming up to meet him. As he had started to fall John had automaticaly assumed the delta-v skydiveing position. Before he hit the ground he noticed something else, he was wearing standard issue ODST urban combat training gear (a black Tac-Vest/kenetic reactive flak jacket, black combat boots, urban digi-camo BDUs, and fingerless gloves) and that he was armed.

Right before he impacted into the ground John righted himself and prepared to land. This is going to hurt...

The landing went supriseingly smoothly and with very little pain which brought something to the forefront of John's mind that had been buging him ever since he had arrived a few days ago. It feels like I'm wearing the Mojliner, even now. Everything I've done lately has been too easy, like I'm wearing a powered armor suit, only it's a part of me now. When I lifted Chachamaru-san above my head I bearly felt the strain and when I fought Ku Fei and Rinshen-san I was fighting with the speed of my armor. Even my weight's off, I should be 320 pounds because of my augmentations. Instead, I weigh about 190, the norm for a man of my size and muscle mass...

John shook his head and took stock of his weapons and surrroundings. The first thing he noticed was that he was in a colliseum of some sort. Shakeing his head John headed over to Negi's prone form and checked his weapon loadout while scaning the surrondings. Humm, let's see: a M7S silenced sub-machinegun with a after market mod to accept drum mags, a stock M90A shotgun, two stock M6D pistols in armpit holsters, a four frag granade's, one chest seathed combat knife, one boot seathed throwing/combat knife, enough ammo for four reloads with each weapon except the shotgun and one... wait, what?

The reason for John's confusion was simple, the reason was simple because he had a long sword sheathed on his left hip. John unseathed the sword and looked at it for a second. It felt right somehow in his hand, like it was a part of him that he did not know was lost until now. The sword itself was beautiful, the handle was covered in some type of synthetic leather that had a metalic hue and the hilt and guard where made of some type of silvery material. The hilt also sported twin egales carvings faceing away from one another. The blade itself looked to be made of silver-like alloy.

While the blade was nice to look at John could tell that it was mainly a tool for war. The blade was wickedly sharp and every time he made a experimental swing the sword sang through the air. John sheathed the sword after shakeing his head and continued makeing his way to Negi while his mind calculated possible exit points, fields of fire and lines of sight. Negi was awake by the time John reached him and was scaning their surrondings. Negi paused his inspection of the area to gape at John.

He looks like a action movie hero! And not the mindless kind, who shoots first and never bothers to ask questions. What most Spartans did not know that even outside of their armor they gave off a aura of extream deadly comptence and the effect was further enhanced in Johns case by the weapons he now carried. Negi cleared his mind of the sight after a few seconds and continued his study of their suroundings. After studying the white-washed walls of the colliseum Negi's confusion deepened. Where are we?

A laugh echoed off the walls of the arena that was instantly familiar to Negi and filled him with dread. A black buldge appered in the center of the stadium that quickly formed into a figure, a figure Negi reconized. Eva strod over to John and Negi with a large toothy (In the fulliest sence of the word) smile. John quickly knocked Negi over and pulled out one of the M6D's and centered the sights on Eva's forehead. Eva paused in her advance for a second and John asked in a deadly quite tone, "Who are you?"

"Well well, I see the bodyguard has a bit of bite to him. I see you took a 300 foot fall without breaking anything, very impressive." As she talked Eva circled the pair and John circled Negi while keeping the sights of his weapon centered on her face. Negi, a little non-pulssed at being so overtly protected said in a slightly iratated voice, "I fell 300 feet?" Eva laughed a bit then placed her hands on her hips and leand forward and adressed Negi as if he was a small(er) child."You? Ha! You only fell about 40 feet."

"You did'nt answer my question. Who are you?"

"Me? Well, since Negi did'nt tell you I guess I should indulge youre curioisty. Youre fist question should have been 'what' instead of 'who' ,because, what I am is something that causes the strongest men to flee in terror. My name is Evangeline Mcdowell and I am master vampire and sorcercess known throuout the underworld as the 'Dark Gospel'." Eva put a hand next to her mouth and started to laugh haughtly.

John blinked at her and cocked his head to the side before answering, "So?"

By means unknown Eva fell to the ground face first. As she extracted herself from the ground she started to scream at John, "What do you mean 'So'? I mean, come on! Most people would freak out if you told them they where a vampire after poping out of the ground from a mass of shadows for gods sake! What does it take to impress you people these days. I know, fire! No wait, how about locusts..." She started to mutter to herself about "black rain" and "the skeletons of her slain enemys emergeing from the ground and forming a throne with her on it" and "black lightning strikeing the ground and her raiseing up from the crater on the back of a pit-fiend" after turning away for a second.

After a few moments of muttering fadeing to thoughtfull silence John helped Negi to his feet with one hand while the other kept the weapon on the so called 'master vampire'. Negi tapped John on the shoulder and whispered, "If you can help it John, please don't hurt her. She's my student after all. Oh, and try not to get hurt youre self, she is strong. " The Spartan had to shake his head mentaly at the sincerity in the boys voice. Mercy was not one of the Spartan's strong suites and he knew it, but, he could respect those that had it abundence.

As he thought about mercy (or his lack of it) somthing that had been bothering him poped to the forefront of his mind. There's to much peace. According to my history, the Terror wars should be just geting underway, yet I have yet to see a headline about the U.S.A.'s war effort. It's almost like I'm in another diminsion... wait, calm youreself John. No need to start advanceing crazy therioes just yet, let's gather a little more evidence first.

Negi stired behind him causeing John to put aside that particular train of thought. Negi looked intently at Eva and declared in a strangely authoritarian voice ( tho John detected a bit of the 'drill sargent' vibe he had used to quiet the class a few days ago), "Why are we here Evangeline-san? If you wanted to hurt me or John you would have done so already. So, why-are-we-here?" Eva, startled out of her little revere by the hidden steel in Negi's voice, decided to give a straight answer, "You both are here because of him!" She punctuated the statement with a jab of her finger in John's direction.

John raised a eyebrow slightly. "Why?" Eva rubed a finger under her chin and let loose a urchins grin. "Curiosity!" Negi and John both let out a collective, "What!" Eva's grin became even wider, "Ho ho, I see great minds think alike..." Negi glanced at John and John looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

Eva continued, "Yes, the reason both of you are here is because of John. Chachamaru told me about how you delt with those terrorists. She told me some... Interesting tidbits, like how you picked her up and held her over your head, how you tore through walls like it was tissue paper and how you seemed to be able to see through the dust kicked up whenever you tore through said walls. One particular bit really caught my attention, the story you told Chachamaru and Mana... "

"Ah, I see now I have you're undevided attention John. Now, what's this about you being a former member of a super soldier program that was run by the U.N. ?" The cover story was one that the Principle and John agreed on. The reason he fed the class the stuff about him being a Merc was simple, misdirection. Tell one lie badly so the other lie looked more like the truth. Eva leaned foreward toward John and Negi stired, "Hey that's not ri-" John shifted his gaze toward Negi in a very threatining maner. Negi let out a little 'Eeep' and shut up.

"That's right."

Eva noded pretending to not have noticed the little interplay. John noticed Eva noticeing. Negi noticed John noticeing Eva noticeing... The new directors of the fic would like to let you know that the old directors of the past three sentences have been sacked and replaced with banjo playing Lammas.

John was muttering something about 'breaking the fourth wall' when Eva continued talking, "Anyway I brought both of you here to test you're new bodyguard." Negi looked around for a half second before addressing the question that had been bounceing around both of their minds, "Where are we?" Eva looked at Negi questioningly then shrugged, "You know where we are Negi. Come on, think!" Negi thought back for a few moments then a image hit him.

"WHERE IN A SNOW GLOBE?!?"

Eva snaped her fingers, "Got it in one!" John's confusion was apprent to Eva causeing her to grin, "It's quite simple boy, we are mentally inhabiting a pocket diminsion that is held in a snow globe." Johns confuision deepend and Eva sighed then pointed at Negi, "Tell him where we are, boy and make it quick. The test is about to begin."

Negi turned to John, still a little pale from recent events, and started to explain. "We, currently, are having a litteral out of body experience. Our minds have been magicly detached from our bodies. The bodies we have right now are collections of ectoplasm created as a necceary by-product of the process so we don't go insane. A more simple explaination would be that our minds have been booted out of our bodies magicly and as a resualt our minds created ghost-like bodies to prevent sensory depravation so we don't go insane by the lack of stimulas. Oh, it's also why you're armed. The spell used is called spectral projection."

Negi raised a fist and coughed into it to hide the blush that spred across his face. John slowly holsterd his M6D so that he could puzzle out what he was just told and because he was sure that he could put two in Eva's head before she could blink, let alone complete a hostile action. "Let me get this straight, we had our minds somehow... seperated from our bodies and to compensate our minds created ghost like bodies?"

John crossed his arms and raised a eye-brow, "O.k., I'll accept that. I mean, I live with a child wizard and my millitary carrer was not exactly run-of-the-mill." Shrugging he uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on his hips. "At this point it would take the sun explodeing to faze me. Now lets get this test over with." Negi pieped up, "Umm, that's not all. The spell spectral projection is dangerous. You're mind sometimes does not want to return to you're body. Eva mitagated the danger somewhat by binding our minds to the pocket diminsion contained in a snow globe."

That made sence to John, so he nodded fractionitly. Eva waved her hand dismissing the conversation and turned to John, "Are we done with the exposition? Because it's time to begin the test." With a snap of her fingers the shadows of the arena started to coloace into vauge shapes. After a few seconds a phalanx of shadow people stood before the three of them. John had unlimbered the M7S he carried, flicked off the safety and had the weapon pointed at the shadow men a few milliseconds after Eva snaped her fingers.

Eva turned and with a dramatic flair of her hands presented the beings. "Gentelmen, may I present my Schattenmarionetten." Eva pointed at John and exclaimed in a voice that heeded no arguments, "This is your test bodyguard! Let's see how long you can last." With another snap of her fingers the shadowy horde rushed at the Spartan. John took a few milli-seconds to assess the tactical situation and took out one of the frag granades and chucked it at the lead creature. Not waiting for the explosive to go off John started to fire the M7S at the shadows who where starting to try and flank him.

The 9mm caseless sub-sonic rounds the M7S fired where slightly kinetic-reactive and pre-fragmented and that ment they had a kinetic profile of a slightly larger round and they also designed to cover a large area of a energy shield (UNSC scientists/engineers figured out you don't need a particularly large round to defeat a energy sheild, just ones that where able to cover a lot of surface area, thus better able to drain the batterys of said shield). What all that techno-bable means is that to a gun-savy 21st century person, the round fired by the M7S where over-kill to anything not protected by a shield, let alone anything armord.

One of the things they teach in UNSC MOCS (Marine Officer Canadate School) is Stratgic Math and it's little brother Tactical Math. These two disciplines allow a comander to, statisticly, guess who will win in any random engaement and/or campaing. Here's what the Schattenmarionetten where up aginst in terms of tactical math: John (who is the 5th best shot of the Spartan IIs) + Enhanced reaction time (As of right now, because of adreniline and augmentations, somewhere around seven milli-seconds) + Aformentiod projectiles + Heat/Overpressure Wave/Shrapnal from the granade John threw at the tightly packed group = Thirtyseven mutilated/dead shadow creatures in the space of time it takes most people to blink.

Seven seconds after Eva snaped her fingers two-thirds of her little shadow horde was dead while the straglers stumbled around while John picked them off. The Schattenmarionetten had no ordenery sences to speek of, only magical, so when nearly fourty of their number died the massive release of magical power gave the remaining twelve a really bad magic induced hangover, so to speak. One of the creatures had managed to shield itself from the burst of energy and had managed to stay on it's feet long enough to get close enough to strike out at John.

The Spartan saw the shadow creature coming and readied himself to defend aginst the attack. The creature was too close to simply shoot so John opted to finish it mono-e-mono. The creature lashed out with one of its claw'ed hands, however, to John, it might as well have been standing still. John had side steped the clumsy attack and readied to respond when something odd happend. John was going to use the combat knife straped to his chest, but, his hand had instinctualy gone to the grip of the long sword straped to his waist. The moment his hand made contact with the weapon a single word sang itself into his mind... SHRIKE.

John paused for a dozen milli-seconds and shook himself mentaly, Later, think about it later. The Spartan unsheathed the combat knife in one fluid motion and cut the attacking arm right off at the elbow. John fallowed that up by unleashing a full force kick at the things torso. The creature landed ten meters away and after a second or so John gave it a three round burst. The last of the creatures fell a moment or two after.

Eva and Negi where shocked. The entire battle had only lasted about fourteen seconds and John had only moved about seven feet in any direction. John shethed the combat knife with inhuman grace and turned with viperish speed with the M7S leveled at Eva's head. In a quite voice without any descerible emotion, SPARTAN-117 Master Chief Petty Officer John, asked, "Are we done here? Because i've got things to do..."

The emotionless voice greatly unnerved Eva, more so than any shout or warcry could have. It's like i'm talking to a machine desinged only to kill. Eva shook herself and tried to regain her mental equalibreum. Raiseing a shaky hand to her mouth Eva started to laugh like a crazed nobel women. After a few seconds, the laugh pettered out and Eva gave John a shakey smile after exclaiming in a voice fillied with false cheer, "So the bodyguard has fangs and claws!"

John saw how obviously scared she was and decided that she was not a immedate threat at the moment, so he lowered the M7S but kept the safety off. After a few seconds of silence Negi coughed into his fist to get John's and Eva's attention, having recovered from his shock. Both looked at him, John's eyes still without emotion and Eva's badly shaken, as he started to talk. "Umm, Eva, are we done here? Because, like John said, we've both got things to do."

Eva took one look at John's emotionless green orbs before shakeing her head hurriedly. Eva raised her hand and snaped her fingers and the world went black...

The Anne Millers in town, unknown time

John opened his eye's and saw he was back in the restarunt. He also knew that he was standing in the same position he had been when Eva cast her spell. Looking infront of him, John saw Negi and Eva also standing in the same positions they had been. A half-second later a slight headach hit him while the word SHRIKE echoed around his skull. John ingored both the pain and the phenomenom to make sure there where no nearby threats (Eva's little test had John's profesinol pairinoa going full bore).

Negi also opened his eye's to find himself in the exact same position he had been before Eva cast her spell. A large headach assaulted him a few seconds after waking as a sound like a church bell rang in his mind while the words CALLED'S AFINITY bounced around his head. Negi rubed a temple to help with the pain while he looked at Eva to see if she was allright.

Eva recovered the fastest, after all she knew what to expect, and gave a John and Negi a quick once over to make sure they where allright. Eva, having regained her calm after canceling the spell, looked at John and gave him another toothy girn. "You did well for a mere bodyguard. One of these day's i'll have to a sample of you're blood. Anyway, the tests for today are done, but, don't think i'll hesitate to test you again. If where done here, I shall take my leave..."

With that, Eva turned and started walking toward the door. Negi called out after her, causeing her to look back breifly, "Before you leave Eva-san, could you answer one question?" Eva shook her head affermitive. "How long where we in that place?" Eva smiled, "You said you graduated Magic School right? You should know the answer to you're question." With a rueful shake of her head Eva called out "A half second" while continuing to walk toward the door. Negi's jaw droped at that particular bomb shell. A half-second!? Negi shook his head in disbeleif.

As soon as Eva was not in the line of sight of the restarunt she sat down in a chair of a random chaffe. While Eva might not have attmited it to anyone, even to Chachamaru, she was scared. During her fight with Negi Eva did not really go all-out even when Asuna came to help. She had mainly wanted to test Negi's skill, but had ended up rescued by Negi. She had been toying with him and that had lead to her running out of time to use her powers fully, then she got rescued by said chewtoy.

She designed her test figureing that Negi would have taken at least ten minutes to beat her little challenge while the bodyguard she had heard about would get overwhelemed and beaten unconcious. Instead, her horde died fifthteen seconds into the test by someone who seemed to have super human levels of strength and speed.

While Eva would only be mildly concerned if she had her full power, she knew that as she was, she would pose no challenge to the bodyguard if he decided she needed to die. This development is unexpected.

Mask Of The Gods: Costume and Cosplay shop, Two hours, Thirty minutes later

Asuna and John finished their shifts two hours after the Eva's test. John decided to head back to the dorms but Negi, Asuna and Konoka managed to convince him to tag along. However the trip through town was not uneventful. Every time John and Asuna or Konoka and Negi started to window shop two slightly familiar pairs of people would but in.

Thirty minutes later they had ended up in a costume shop. After Konoka forced Asuna to dress up in several different reveiling outfits, with Negi bulshing all the while and John scaning the surroundings for any more of Eva's tests, Konoka started to bore of her plaything and set her sights on the stoic Spartan. She staired at him a while before going off to one of the racks of the shop and pulling down a cat ear accessory.

She gestured for John to lean forward. He complied, figureing there was no harm in playing along. With ears in place he stood back up and continued his subtle scan of the surroundings. What John did not know was that with his good looks, ultra serious aura and cat ears, John was reaching cuteness critical mass. Konoka asked him to cock his head to the side and he complied in his customary fashion, which had always posessed a curious catlike flair. Asuna, Konoka, and any other red blooded women in the shop all let out a nosie that can only be described as "SQUEE!" and started to bleed from the nose.

John wondered if he should apply first aid...

Lake Overlook, One hour later

The sun was setting and its dying rays set the lake on fire. John, Negi, Asuna and Konoka all looked at the spectacle, all of them lost in their own thoughts. John's thoughts where about a certian criminal mastermind. Negis thoughts where about Asuna. Asuna was thinking about birthdays and Konoka was wondering about if Setsuna was happy.

The reason John was thinking about Yuri because a few minutes after they had left the costume shop John had caught sight of the terrorist leader in one of the shop windows. A few minutes later John was certian they where being tailed. After leading the group through a particular twisty part of town John had determined they could not loose him. Fakeing a loose shoe-lace John told the rest to go on. After the rest of the group walked on John walked into a nondescript ally.

Yuri fallowed armed with a taser, his glock and a poor mans scilencer (A plastic bottle and tape), determind to exact his revenge. What fallowed would probably have qualified as one of the most brutal beatings in the history of burtaldom. Suffice it to say, that John rejoined the rest of the group a few minutes later without a scratch while Yuri sported enough broken bones to make singing 'the hip bone is conected to the leg bone' kind of difficault (Because, in Yuri's case, you needed seven verses to say the exact same thing). The only reason he did not kill him is because he did not want the police after him.

Konoka wished her childhood friend could share the sun set with her. They had grown apart in recent years and she did not know why. Try as she might, Konoka could not strike up a conversation with or even get a emotional reaction out her long time friend. The scilence was starting to hurt and Konoka did not like geting hurt. Her train of thought was interrupted by Negi coughing into his fist.

Negi took out a small gift wrap'ed package from one of the bags he carried and presented it to Asuna. Her bleak thoughts dispelled, Konoka also presented a gift to Asuna. John, who took his que from the other two, presented small gift to Asuna as well. In unison all three chanted, "Happy birthday!"

The cheer trio and Setsuna, who had been masquradeing as other people to watch/stalk Negi's group, let out a collective sigh of relief. Setsuna especially. She had been worried about Konoka's safety with the kidnapper's leader on the lose, so, when John had wandered into a ally she had feared for the worst. With a quick excuse to catch up in a few, Setsuna hurriedly made her way into the ally. What she found was a broken shell of a man muttering something in Russian she could only assume was "PAIN!!!" After a bit of moral deliberation she kicked him in the chest and when he curled up further into a ball stomped on both his knees (He did hurt her after all). With that done she dusted herself off and hurried to rejoin the cheer trio.

Yuri continued to whiper on the ground of the allyway in Russian, only now alternating between "PAIN!?!" and "KNEES!!?" or a combination of the two.

Asuna was stuned. Whipeing tears from her eyes she looked at the three and whispered, "Thank you. All of you." At that point Chamo came running down the street with a particular set of panties in his mouth. Setsuna did a double take, then stood up from where she and the cheer trio where hideing and yelled after the rapidly reatreating ermine, "Hey! Those are mine!"

Setsuna remembered she was supposed to be hideing and looked over at Konoka who was staireing at her. Setsuna, cheeks buring red, was silent for a second before blurting "bye". She took off full speed after Chamo. The cheer trio, cover blown, quickly presented Asuna with a few gifts before running after Setsuna.

Konoka watched Setsuna's retreating back for a few seconds before smiling...

Mahora girls dorms, A few days after, Morning

Negi woke up as he usually did, in Asuna's bed and early. He nimblely hopped down from bed and started to get dressed. John's futon was put away, as he normaly doing calistics behind the dorm at this hour. The noise woke up Asuna and Konoka. Asuna inquired what he was doing up so early, he replied that he had to get to school early to arrange things for the class trip. Asuna and Konoka got up so they could prepare for the trip as well as Negi headed out the door.

Negi ran to the train station, excited to finaly get this tip going. What he found was a ring of students and the sounds of what sounded like heavy breaths coming from the center. One of his students, Haruna Saotome, saw him coming and waved. "Ohh, Negi-sensei, how's it going?" Seeing nearly half his class up and about caused him to blurt, "Wahh, you're all up early too?" That got a laugh out of Haruna and a few other's that heard.

Negi, curious, asked what the ring was about. Haruna gestured a few other's out of the way and Negi saw what all the heavy breathing was about. John had some kind of over stuffed back pack on and was doing hand stand pushups while slowly scisoring his legs forward and back in time with the push ups. John did not seem to be exerting himself at all, he even had his eye's closed, so Negi turned to Haruna and asked, "How long has he been going at it like this?" Haruna placed a hand under her chin and thought.

Yue Ayase answered him, "I got here three hours ago and he had just finished doing some push ups. He started doing what ever that is soon after. I lost count of how many he's done." Nodoka squeeked "3,498". John finished two more before nimbly fliping to his feet. He streatched for a few minutes before opening his eyes. He looked around for a few seconds before clearing his throat, "How long have you girls been here?" A round of laughs greeted his question. Someone told him around three hours, to which he replied, "Really?" That also got a laugh, while John berated himself mentaly.

Negi shook his head then claped his hands to get the classes attention after looking at his watch. That's when he noticed the guidence counseler, Shizuna. "Oh, hello Ms. Shizuna, how are you on this fine morning?" She smiled. "Just fine Negi-chan, just fine."

Negi smiled back and had a feeling this was going to be a unforgetable trip...

Mahora Train termainal, one hour later

Negi stood before his class on the train and asked, "Are you guys ready to have a good time?"

The answer was a resounding, "YES!"

Negi smiled and pointed toward their destination and exclaimed, "Next stop, Kyoto!"

Class: "WHOO!"

John: "Umm, Sensei, Kyoto's the other way..."

Negi: "Ohh.."

Eldritch Cave, same time

Helter and Skelter kneeled before the non-echludian tree, while what sounded like organ music played with a saxiphone screeched in the back ground. The shadows still continued to whisper their promises of power though the two before the tree had long since learned tuned such things out. Helter spoke aloud to the thing tied to the tree.

"Yes my lord, both Skelter and I have done as you asked and observed the Caller of the 13th pair. I did a quick scan of the boy and found that he possess massive amounts of talent and power. His skills are untapped and untrained. Also, his Pactio holder is in a... violent relationship with could quickly be used to our advant-" A sound that could only be described as a moose being fead ass-first through a wood chiper inturupted him. Helter lowered his head quickly and muttered an apology.

Skelter rose his head as the sound finished. "Yes my lord, I have done as you asked and observed the Called of the 13th pair. I seen into the mind of the Called of this pair and all I saw was steel, pure untarnished steel. His mind is a forterres and the bits I could see where, I thought I'd never say this again, terrorifying. All I saw where wonders and weapons, the walking dead, and a unceassing war the likes of which i've never seen. But what scares me the most is that the Called survivied and triumphed when all else around him fell. My lord, I bealive that the Called this time is one of the most accomplished soldiers the multi-verse has ever seen."

The sound like a egael being eaten by a squid breifly ecohed around the cave and Skelter shook his head and smiled, "No my lord, i'm not affraid but happy. If anyone can give me the warriors death I deserve it's him." A sound could not be described filled the cavern and Helter shook his head affermitive, "Yes my lord, i'll send the Cat to test them and the Hatter to observe." Helter and Skelter both suffled back into the darkness leaveing the thing chained to the tree to it's mad imagineings.

Two words softly floated from lips of the never changeing mask mounted on the ever changeing body, "Jabber Wocky..."

End Chapter 5, Volume One

Auothers End Note: Hey everybody! Hope you like the new chapter! Sorry about the updates but R/L has started to rear it's ugly head. If some of my wrighting seems strange, well, that's becuase most of this was writen around 2:30 AM. Anyway time to sleepzzzzz......