Happy Holidays to all! Before the New Year I deliver to you a chapter, and it comes with gratuitous violence and a mind blowing discovery.
I want to thank again (and again) my beta Poliamida for his help.
Kyle finished closing his mech cockpit before going down its arm like an automaton and began to walk towards his master who was waiting for him in the courtyard. He hardly could walk, it was as if the air was as dense as water for him.
"Kyle-" She began worriedly, holding the bag that contained all that they had bought plus the sword. Normally, Kyle should be the one to do it, but the girl felt that her familiar already had too much weight on his shoulders.
"Apologies, master." He said in a mechanic tone. "Today I can not start your training. I need some spare time to assess my current situation."
"Oh! Yes… then... better leave the things in my room first."
Louise didn't understand her familiar's sorrow, but she wasn't an idiot. Something bad had happened to Kyle, something that she didn't fully understand. Why's the name of this world a problem for him? Nostra had had to hold him in the tavern when the boy seemed to go crazy. Even the giant had problems to control him despite his strength. After several minutes struggling the boy seemed to calm down and fell into that state of apathy.
The young mage followed the boy as he walked through the corridors with a weary step. Soon they crossed paths with a group of students, one of them smiling at the scene.
"What's the matter, Louise? Can't you make your familiar carry your things as he should?" He said mocking her. Kyle stopped, although he did nothing else, his back was slightly stooped and his hesitant step gave a pathetic look to his form.
"Come on guys, don't you remember that a mage's control over his familiar depends on his magical ability? It's normal that Louise can't-"
Kyle clenched his fists and turned his head slightly towards his master. She was standing her ground, looking at the boy in the face, with her chin high, but in her eyes, he saw that the jeering was hurting her. That every word hurt her. Kyle didn't understand much about some emotions, but he knew what pain was in its broadest definition. He had seen fear, and he also knew what fear was.
Throughout his life as a sibko whelp he had often felt fear. Especially fear of failure, of not being worth the effort of creating him, of failing the Clan at its most critical moment and even causing its downfall, of failing those under his command or his comrades in arms. His life was a map of fear and pain. He remembered Viter, with his marksmanship skill problems. How many of his teammates gave him as a lost cause. Giving him as unfit, as a failure, someone not worthy to be a warrior, a resource waste. He remembered how Viter fought with all his strength to avoid that fate, not with courage but desperation. How he discovered his defect and how he tortured himself physically and mentally with his training to correct it. He imagined Louise trying to do magic and failing, failing and failing without stopping, without an iota of hope, standing between ridicule and insults from his companions. He imagined her in that courtyard praying for her familiar to appear, knowing that if she didn't she would be expelled. He almost tasted her fear, because he had fell it before.
For Louise that last spells was all or nothing, like Viter. Kyle couldn't fail her, no matter what happened to him, that was secondary. He couldn't do her the same thing he almost did to Viter. Never.
Kyle's left fist tightened, and with a movement that none of the others saw, it crashed into the face of the student who was speaking. It wasn't a calculated blow, it was a totally wild punch. Everything he had was discharged in that blow, two teeth of the boy went flying and another pair broke. But that didn't matter to Kyle. He gave an animalistic scream, a mix of a wolf howl and a roar, and project his knee at the second noble. The student hadn't even time to process what had just happened. A moment his friend was there mocking the failure that was the daughter of de la Vallière, and the next second he wasn't there. In his place a mix of man and beast who roared before attacking him. By the time he was able to process that he was lying on the floor puking and struggling to breathe.
The third wasn't more lucky, he had the time to draw his wand, but before he managed to fill his lungs to make an incarnation a disagreeable crunch announced that two of his fingers had been broken by the howling beast with human skin. Before he could even scream, Kyle's left fist crashed into his face, not once, not twice, but three times, as the crazed familiar screamed out with each blow. Then he grabbed the young nobleman by the neck and one side of the hip and lifted him over the head, preparing the knee to split the spine in two.
The howl turned into a vicious roar similar to a tiger or a lion.
"STOP! STOP! BY THE FOUNDER! KYLE, STOP!" He heard Louise's screams as someone grabbed him from behind, struggling uselessly to make him stop.
He breathed out heaved, he was tired, more than ever in a so short fight like that. He started to breathe heavy turning at the girl. "Master?"
"Please, leave him! Stop Please!" The girl was crying. Kyle's arms began to weigh him
"I- master, they were mocking you."
"I know, but leave them, they won't do it again. - She hugged tightly Kyle's chest. Kyle looked at those pink eyes, now full of tears, and that same color hair. A few hours ago they would have seemed alien to him. Not now. Now he knew the truth. He released the boy who fell pathetically on the ground. That he started calling his mother crying was just the icing.
"I- master- I am unable to continue-"
"What?"
"This- situation is too much for me." He sat on the floor next to the whining boys. "I can not stand it. You should look for another familiar, I can not... If the contract is until the death of one of us, I can-"
A Hard Slap -with capitals- made his head turn. Louise had dropped the bag, his sword, and slapped him as hard as she could.
"Listen to me you stupid damn dog!" She screamed. "I've spent a year and a half in this academy suffering the mockery of guys like those just to summon you! You're crazy if you think I'm going to let you collapse so easily. I don't care what those overgrown Cats said to you, you are my familiar! You said so several times!"
"B- but master… if what they say is true- the Clans- do not exist- the Clans are not forever-"
"You are a member of the Clans, right? Claus and Samantha too. That means they still exist. And, may the Founder assist us, maybe someone wants to belong to your clan. I heard that Guiche doesn't stop looking for you to ask your forgiveness and offer you a gift." Kyle frowned, not in a million years, or in the worst Clans' moment, he would accept that dezgra. "Do you want me to have more confidence in myself? Why don't you start with yourself? Damn sstravaaag." She tried to imitate Kyle's language. "You behave like a- a- estravag and a- and- and all those weird words you said before! Maybe everything you told me before wasn't worthy of being heard? Maybe you lied to me… to your master!" She kicked the ground. Kyle lowered his face for a second. He was a representative of the Clan Wolf-in-Exile, the only one in that country in fact, maybe the last one. And how had he behaved? Like a frightened pup. If the Father raised his head from his grave he would only feel ashamed. Kyle couldn't indulge himself like that.
"I- I did not lie to you, master. But you had reason to behave like that here. I am unworthy."
"That is! Then collect our things and we'll start training."
"Aff, master." He stood up. "Although you will end up regretting saying that."
"Do you think I'm a pushover?"
"Never, master." He stared at her. After that sample of character, Kyle felt a sensation that ran from his back to the head and then down the belly to reach his crotch. If she behaved that way more often, she would need many more cold showers. That kind of character on girls attracted him a lot. "Very good master. I am going to teach someone from your world how to be a clanner. Will you be able to do it?" Perhaps in that world, in that reality, there had not been either the Father or the Founder, but he was still his descendant, and they were watching him, he had to recover he had to deserve having their blood in his veins.
"I'm a noble, I will not back down."
"Well said master." He looked around. "And them?"
"They won't say anything." She adopted a sarcastic tone. "After all, it's impossible for a commoner to defeat three nobles barehanded." She tapped the one who had received the knee with the tip of her foot. "Isn't it?" Kyle bit the inside of his cheek. He loved seeing a girl behaving like that.
[Flashback]
Finally Nostra and West stopped talking prophecies about Kyle, Louise, and more abstract subjects. That was a good thing since Kyle had run out of patience. When the two boys told them they were there, the elementals were greatly surprised, despite having spent more than a decade there making weapons they had never seen a speaking sword. Although they immediately got used to the idea. After all, it was like the computer voice of power armor or a Mech: a weapon with a voice. After leaving the sword with West, which wanted to try something to remove the rust and leave it shining, they left the shop with Nostra who wanted to take them to see a place.
"Partner! I don't think they can do anything, I was forged with magic spells that protect me from damage."
"Noted." Kyle said smiling maliciously. "But they are Elementals, part of their job is tear off fragments of armor from the enemy war machines with their hands."
"THE WHAT?" The sword almost bounced out of its sheath.
"Have no fear, Derffinger, she will not hurt you. The Star-Coronel will just give you a well-deserved maintenance." He said while leaving with the others.
Outside the shop, Louise looked at Nostra. "R- really you can tear metal with your bare hands?" She said scared.
The man laughed in a thunderous way. "Neg, only when we have our power armor. Without it, we could only tear little girls arms." He said making a gesture with his hands towards Louise, who put Kyle between both as a barrier. The giant laughed again. "Hahaha! It was a small joke, little one!"
Kyle changed the subject to avoid more problems with his master. "How did you get here?" Nostra was thoughtful for a moment.
"It was during the Jihad-"
"The Jihad?"
"I will explain later. Now it would only add confusion to my explanation. Our ship was about to deploy us on Ma- a planet controlled by the Blakists-"
"You are speaking about that Word of Blake fanatics who split off from ComStar, quiaff?"
"Aff, we allied with the forces of the Precentor Martial Victor Steiner-Davion and Devlin Stone to launch a series of attacks against them."
"B- but Star-Captain, as far as I know, Victor Steiner-Davion was recently designed as Precentor Martial. You were here for ten years."
"Whelp, stop interrupting me." He looked annoyed. "I will explain later. Our goal was to reach Terra and destroy the Word of Blake war machine, but as we approached Mar-" Kyle was about to interrupt again, but Nostra looked at him definitely. "we received heavy fire from several warships, pocket warships, and aerospace fighters. In addition to Caspar drones."
"Freebirths! They dared?"
"Aff, they dare to recreate the Caspar technology. Those dezgra had developed combat drones similar to those that existed at the time of the Star League, not so powerful, but still fearsome."
"It is awful! It is... it is an offense to the hundreds of millions who died in the Amaris coup at the hands of those machines!"
"S- sorry." Both clanners looked at the girl. "But what is a Caspar?" Nostra pondered for a moment. But Kyle managed to explain it to her before him.
"Master, please think about Derffinger. It is a weapon with intelligence, quiaff?"
"Yes, I- I think it is."
"Then, imagine machines the size of a mountain that can fight without anyone piloting them. With such a high speed that if someone were inside they would die by acceleration crushed against their insides. With weapons capable of reducing to ashes a city in minutes and boil a sea. All of them controlled by an intelligence similar to Derffinger, but designed only to destroy, with a resolution that makes them fight while a weapon of their arsenals is still working. And even without weapons, they will try to destroy the enemy using its bodies as a battering ram. During the fall of the Star League, millions died because of those weapons, the Caspar drones. The General Kerensky, my ancestor, commanded to destroy all of them and the methods and techniques to build them again, no living being should have such dishonorable and coward power."
"By the Founder!" She opened her eyes wide after hearing that.
"Aff, little one, it was a terrible weapon." The elemental said. "As I was saying, during the approach to that planet a group of pocket warships attacked us. Normally that would not be a problem, we had the destroyers Rover and Hunter and the frigate True Vision protecting us. But their cowardice and slander know no limits. We did not expect being attacked by nuclear devices in that numbers and intensity."
"Dezgras!" Kyle's eyes exuded hatred. Claus nodded.
"Our dropship was damaged. The last thing I remember during the attack was seeing how the outer bulkhead of the hangar where we were standing, disappeared. And then, instead of dying, two points of Nova Cats Elementals and some techs were lying on a green field near the capital of Tristain. Of course, at that time, we ignore that."
"Two points?"
"In fact, fourteen warriors and three techs of ours come, but four of our fellow brothers were injured by the decompression and did not survive. The ones farther from the bulkhead had more luck, we only had minor injuries or bruises."
"By the ghost of Kerensky! And I complained about my arrival here."
"How was it?"
"I was in a training exercise when I crossed a greenish oval and ended up hitting the grounds at the Academy of Magic in front of my master." He neglected to say anything about the mech.
"You were lucky, I know about a man who was falling from a building and ended up in a nearby river. He was rescued but died several days later due fever."
"How do you know he is not a simple-"
"He said he was falling from a burning skyscraper." He pointed to his surroundings challenging the boy to found one in that city.
"Does that mean there are more like you?" Louise asked a little concerned.
"Many, throughout Tristain we will have about three hundred. Living in different cities and towns, most have settled here like us. Although there are groups that prefer to live in other places, mainly because of affiliation issues. A couple of inhabitants of Kentares IV left the city for a nearby town when they discovered that several kuritans lived here. In our case, Samantha an I helped an old man who was being assaulted by bandits. He turned out to be a weapon manufacturer, swords especially. He taught us how to forge weapons and later we started with the manufacture of firearms. In fact, we managed to revive his shop with and an exclusive contract with the palace firearms guard. After all, the muskets of other armorers cannot be compared to our breech-loading rifles. Then he died without heirs and he left everything to Sam and me."
"Breech-loading rifles?" Kyle asked. "They have that kind of tech-"
"Neg, the only had smooth bore muzzleloader muskets. We decided to win the competition against the other manufacturers using our knowledge. We have two techs working for us and we got the help of a disinherited mage with alchemy knowledge. With his alchemy backing our ideas, we were able to create cases for the projectiles. After that, a single-shot breech-loading rifle was easy to manufacture. Tristain has the best marksman corps because they have our rifles." He stopped in front of a tavern. "We have arrived."
Kyle saw the establishment, as the armory had two signs, one in which in gallian (as Louise said) said Five Elements Inn, and another in English that said End of the World Inn.
"We use two names in our shops to help the newcomers find us. Even if they do not know English, They know that they are written in English and they come in to ask for help. Whether we can help them or not is another matter."
"Why?" Asked Louise.
"Many people do not assimilate the arrival. Finding yourself in a world that is the opposite of yours, without things you have given as granted. Some can not cope with it." He had a hark look. "Sometimes, it is just horrible to see something you can not explain, something that turns around all the settled ideas of the world that you may have." He looked at Louise. "Imagine that you are transported to a world where magic does not exist, or where magicians are hunted by commoners. You would feel confused and afraid, quiaff?" He opened the door and invited the boys to enter.
The tavern immediately called the attention of the boys. For Kyle it was full of pictures on the walls with images of Mechs, combat vehicles, modern buildings, ships, and even images of spacecrafts, although he couldn't identify some. Behind the bar there was a half-burned aircraft stabilizer. On the opposite side of a small stage, a man was talking with a young woman of Kuritan appearance while they were reviewing a piano, next to the woman a little girl of just over 5 years old with a sailor dress was sitting on a chair while humming a lullaby. Next to the stage, they could see a powered-off old and ornate jukebox. Kyle also saw a couple of empty computer mainframes, similar to those used in the era of the Star League, used now as part of the furniture. The inn had a communal space with some reserved alcoves at the back of the room with thick black curtains to give more privacy to those who used them.
It seemed that many more things had reached that planet, but almost all broken and useless. Kyle felt a stitch of apprehension. His mech, his working battlemech, was possibly more valuable than he thought.
There were a few clients, some exchanged looks of familiarity with Nostra. For Louise, everything was full of strange images (although she slightly recognized the mechs of the paintings as machines similar to her familiar's machine) and even more weird objects.
The waiter, a short, Mediterranean-looking man, greeted Nostra. Which led them to an alcove but didn't close the curtain.
"As you can see, we usually meet here in our spare time." The huge man smiled. "Everything here is full of references to our origins, rescued from our arrivals. But it is a misfortune that we do not have the means to make almost all of them work again. I am curious to know how the old jukebox sounds." A sad smile appeared on his face. "Sam, her old personal techs, and I are repairing a two Elemental armors we found years ago. They arrived almost heavily damaged here. Unfortunately, we still do not know how to recharge them." Kyle clenched his teeth, his mech produced enough energy to feed a small town, but if there were mechwarriors among the group they might want to steal his machine. Kyle reminded himself that he should program a code-access in his machine when he returned and not say anything about it at the moment.
"Why do you want to repair... that?" Louise asked. "There has been no war in Halkeginia for quite some time."
Nostra laughed. "That is good little one! Why do we want that? Why do you want your magic? We are Clan elementals, we are warriors, we were born warriors!" He proudly declares. "Besides that, I do not know if you have heard about the war in Albion. It never hurts to stay prepared."
The waiter appeared at that moment, and he took the orders. But when he looked at Kyle he frowned. "Are you new?"
"Aff." Kyle said without hesitation.
"Fuck! Another clanner? You're everywhere Claus." The big man just shrugged smiling. The waiter looked at Kyle again. "Wait here."
After a while, he came back with a wooden box in his hands.
"Here it is." He said putting the box on the table. "A couple of books to learn how to read this weird language they have here. They were printed by some Kuritans with a manual printing they have. Although I think the original volume was written by a Lyran historian so sorry if you find some contractions in it. You also have a map of Tristain, a list of relative prices to know when you are being scammed or not, and a list of the places where there are people of ours. It's what we call the 'Basic survival kit for interdimensional novices.'"
"Interdimensional?" Kyle asked.
"Oh! Haven't you explained it yet?" The waiter glanced at the elemental who narrowed his eyes.
"I was trying." Nostra sounded annoyed.
"What stravag no-sense are you talking about?"
"You always liked to talk in circles, as the others Nova Cats. Look boy."- The waiter said pointing to a map behind him. "See that map? It is the map of part of this world." Then he pointed to another map, which Kyle recognized as a very old world map of Terra. "Check the Europe region. It is familiar, isn't it?"
"Victor, you are a stravag-" The elemental looked angry and really annoyed for the first time.
"I already know it. But what I said is the truth. He surely thought that this world was another of your 'Sphere' or 'Periphery' worlds. But he has to know it. After all, when I arrived here, I didn't have the excuse of thinking that I was in another colonized world because I was already living on Earth, or Terra as you call it, long before you created that jumping ships. I knew where I was from the moment I saw the map of this continent."
"But you could have waited until-"
Kyle stood incredulous, forgiving the two arguing men, the maps were almost the same, the map of that world was something coarser and simple but the similarity was too big to go through another thing. He approached both maps. It can not be ... it was not ... it is not poss- Neg! This can not be happening. I can not be in Terra!
'Interdimensional novices.' He was on Terra, a different Terra that the Clans venerated, but the Clans wouldn't do that anymore. Because the clans didn't exist there. The Clan worlds didn't exist, maybe they were there, thousands of years light away, but void, without humans populating them. Tamar too and Arc-Royal... and... and Strana Mechty... either. Which meant that in geosynchronous orbit with its now non-existent capital there would not be the McKenna Pride. And inside it wouldn't be the body of General Aleksandr Kerensky, the father of the Clans.
[Flashback end]
Duh! Duh! Duh! Again
On a small note, Halk here looks like the real Europe, in fact Gallia looks like France and Spain together.
MasterXMaster: Well, you aren't wrong, but you aren't completely right about Siesta. Her grampa wasn't a mechwarrior. I suppose that this chapter explain your questions.
See you on the 31st century's battlefield, mechjocks ...