Hello, my humble pirate followers! I have returned from my slumber! We shall continue the invasion of Canada until they all stare in wonder and awe at our glorious plunder and booty, and beg to join our scalawag cause! What is our plunder, you ask? Why, it is nothing other than Sarif Industries' newest model of pencil sharpeners! They can come out of your arms, and you can sharpen them down to the MOLECULAR LEVEL. BOOM! Didn't see that one comin' did ja? … WELL YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE LOOKED AT THE BIG BOLD TEXT BEFORE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO READ IT! Jeez, you're acting like I'm the one at fault here!
We're acting just like a married couple now. A very dysfunctional one filled with me getting home late and writing stories for a few hours, but hey! I feel a little bit more attracted to your beard already. Oh. Sorry, I, uh, didn't know those were your butthairs. I mean, your butt and your face look so similar! They're both as gorgeous and handsome as the day we met(OHGAWDPLEASDONUTHURTMENOMOREBABYWHATISLOVE).
Alright, I'm gonna stop pretending to be your bisexual seal-spouse and get down to the skimmy.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Elder Scrolls franchise, or the Familiar Of Zero franchise.
Everyone had prepared for the worst. The students had backed up 5 meters, earth mages providing cover for the rest of the students, wind mages covering spots where shrapnel could breach through the granite, and water mages standing by to heal broken bones, tendons, and veins. They've lost enough limbs to last a decade in battle, they didn't need to regrow a lost leg again.
It wasn't always this way, though. Until Zero came along, there had never been any need to fortify the classrooms, or buy surpluses of healing reagents, or fear that a spell going awry might take your friends, or even worse, your life, as one unlucky lesser noble had found out the hard way.
One rarely considered what the experience must be like from her point of view. Murdering a girl by your own incompetence at a skill you both yearned to know. It should have been another harmless, if failed, spell. SHE should have died. SHE should have been torn apart from her own explosion.
But the founder had other plans in store for her, or so she had been told. She didn't believe them, so she decided to bear the burden of living up to the name she had taken from that family, to make up for what could never be replaced.
Francoise Le Blanc would live on through her name, and she would do her damnedest to make that a name of pride before she died. She was forced to divert her energies to study and proper nobility behavior, lest she fall into a depression that she could never emerge from.
Nobody knew of these motives, though, nor of the death of Francoise Le Blanc. Her family kept the whole conspiracy under heavy wraps, employed every politician they could, and expended as much resources as they had to make sure Louise Valliere was deemed innocent. That was the way of the noble, use your power to protect others, in exchange for proper respect and treatment. She possessed no power, nor was she deserving of respect.
The summoning she was attempting right now proved that.
The runes weren't glowing white like it did whenever a familiar was about to taken from the far sides of Halkeginia. Instead, a piercing sound pulsed from the center, like bone shredding through iron, like a thousand souls, nay, as if an entire world was gazing upon them, and faintly screeching at them to stop what they were doing.
When that dreaded noise had stopped, another had began. This time, however, rather than being a noise that simply made everyone wish to run in terror, flee, or just not be here, it had been a voice in a foreign language coming from the summoning circle that few understood.
"SK-VALR TOR'R N'ZEL-FT'H K'REVU'L M'VRUNAL DLU-KAIR'N! DAEDRA M'YLER WER'NLU'TH TREN TOR'Q!"
Familiars of all shapes and sizes had ran behind their masters for cover.
Were they not connected to the more powerful souls of their master, they would have done what any creation that followed nature's wise, simple rules would have done. That is, to say, go away from whatever posed a threat to their survival.
Even though few had truly understood what had been said in that message, everyone who knew their ancestor's history had heard of those monsters. There were many legends that surrounded them, such as how they could be judged from their appearance, yet had forms as changing as the winds. How they were immune to magic, and yet were mightier than the strongest of warriors.
They were even said to have been the ones who had given Brimir his gift of magic, though this was heretical and absolutely ridiculous. Such a mighty gift could not have came from anything less than God.
Everyone had paled with fear when Tabitha had fell to the ground shaking, and emptying her stomach's contents. As she had continued vomiting, she, thankfully, started understanding less and less of the message, as her brain tried it's best to erase everything she had just learned, and her soul tried to block out everything her dragon was feeling and thinking.
Colbert, however, had been informed when he had took the job, that something like this may one year arrive, and thus his mind was slightly more prepared. Not that preparation helped his soul any. He had understood all of what was said. But why?! What had they done to deserve an invasion?! Had God found them lacking? Did the First Souls gain enough strength to make armies again?!
No, that couldn't be it. He needed to stay calm for his students. Besides, the First Souls' war was to save Halkeginia from the Cold. It was only rumored that they would have devoured everyone had they won.
Louise was slowly regaining awareness of her surroundings. She was standing on a brown stone floo- what? She knew she was at the academy grounds the last time she checked. She tried to stand up, but she quickly realized she already was.
"Wha- where am I?"
She had spoken those words, that she knew, yet she never heard an echo.
She took a look at the…. Where would the floor be?
As she glanced around, she noticed something. Each side of the room seemed to have all of the properties of a room, yet the angles all matched up perfectly. She knew it must be a cube of some sort, but she couldn't quite work out the shape of it. Now that she thought about it, EVERY wall of the room seemed to be a cube in and of itself, yet she was sure that was impossible. She tried to grasp and reason how such a shape could exist for ten minutes, and failed to find a way. She didn't even notice that the walls were constructed of bones and blood until she started to wonder where the door was.
When she did, the effect was immediate.
"Where am I?! Did I die! Is anyone here?"
'No. You're alive. Yes. I'm here.'
She couldn't handle hearing a voice without sound, so she shook her head around wildly, searching for a figure.
"Wh-wh-who's there?"
'Ulmaarmul Nehviir. Me. I thought we went over this.'
She felt fear grip her at hearing that name. That name seemed fitting of a destroyer, of a being that desired killing, of a monster that… she wasn't sensing any hostile intentions from.
She felt slightly irritated that someone would speak so disdainfully towards nobility, but she wasn't stupid. Whoever this was, and wherever this was, felt as if it infused with magic down to the core, so it was safe to say this person brought her here for a reason.
'I'm assuming you have questions?'
Seeing no reason to fear for her life quite as much, Louise grudgingly obliged.
She still wanted to run, but there were no doors.
Have any of you guys played the new deadpool game? It's more scripted than a call of duty game(okay, I take that back. Comparing call of duty to deadpool would be unfair to the old fish), but High Moon couldn't have done it better. It's the first (third)GOOD game I've played based on a comic book character on a current-gen console. Wait, this IS 2012, right? I mean, if not, this timeline is boned. OH WELL, no convincing NASA it's a bad idea to broadcast radio signals everywhere in space. Really, though, angry joe's review of that game sucked. The only bad part about that game was it was too d*mn(4th chaos emerald) short!
I just thought of something. Why was your pants off at the beginning of this chapter? Creep.
Ah, well. Please rate and review. Reviewing especially. Really helps me out when I get to see what you gal-sirs think. Next chapter: Louise asks questions(and I answer a few you may be having)!