Jolt was no stranger to killing. He may not have lead a long life, but it had been eventful. He had killed swiftly, a precise, lethal cut before moving onto the next, and he had killed intimately, close enough he could still remember the smell of their hair as he held them close and slit their necks.
Some said that when you lose the feeling of regret from killing you become a monster. By that standard Jolt supposed he was a monster, he had long since become numb to the killing.
It was luck, or divine intervention, that saved Siesta's life. A spark of inspiration lit up in Jolt's mind.
"My eyes?" He replied, any hint of her potential doom hidden from his voice, "It's normal where I am from. When I said I've been travelling I meant it, I haven't seen home in three years and have been on the move the whole time."
"Three years...? That's a long time to not see your family." Siesta didn't see Jolt flinch behind her, "Well we're almost at the kitchen." She added as they approached a doorway from which the sound of several voices and the clatter of cutlery and tableware could be heard, "We can talk more later if you would like? For now we have work to do."
The displaced young man simply nodded and followed the young woman inside the kitchen. Within moments he had been handed a pair of plates and was sent on his way with some instructions.
Luckily Siesta had elaborated on the instructions to account for him not only knowing who he was supposed to be giving the plates to but where in the crowd they would be. As he navigated his way through the courtyard full of teenagers he noticed a few things that he found amused him.
The most prominent was the fact that despite being armed not a single one of the Nobles gave him a second glance when they spotted the outfit he was wearing. Apparently they considered servants so unimportant they gave them no more mind then the furniture they sat at.
If he was his old comrade Fenix he likely could have shivved two dozen of them before they even noticed something was amiss. The thought of Fenix made the displaced Taro think of the thief's wrist-mounted knives and how useful they where. He made a mental note to try and recreate them for use as a backup weapon at some point.
Louise stumbled around another corner and sighed in relief when she didn't find herself somewhere strange but instead in the expected hallway. So far she had been drawn into two more visions after seeing her familiar's younger self face that dragon...
One had been him and several others in some sort of self-propelled carriage with a repeating musket on the back as they where chased across a desert by metal golems that looked like a cross between an ostrich and a reptile. The other bad been of her familiar and a blue haired boy fighting a much larger boy with four arms. The most striking thing about both visions had been her familiar's behaviour...
They had been devoid of passion and listless. Almost like he felt he had no reason to live or care...
She had come to realise that they where glimpses of her familiar's past, though what had caused such a drastic change from the first to the other two she had no idea.
But even so, she couldn't bring herself to think of him the way she had always thought she would think of her familiar. He wasn't some animal, some beast of burden to do her bidding; he was a person and deserved at least that much respect.
In fact he may just be what she had been needing from the start; her visions had shown him using magic on each occasion. Maybe he knew some way to help her master her own magic?
She hadn't summoned a servant. She had summoned a teacher, she was sure of it.
As she walked down the corridor towards the courtyard where the other students where supposed to be getting to know their familiars the world around her shifted as she was overtaken by a new sensation. Her eyes locked onto those of the being she summoned across the field as pain raked her body.
Louise's scream of agony drew the attention of everyone present and all eyes turned her way. The pinkette convulsed where she stood and clutched at her head in obvious pain while the youthful inhabitant of the Academy could only look on in horror and confusion.
In the time it took the man she summoned to reach her, with a busty red head and lithe bluenette hot on his heels, a sickly dark aura had begun to enshroud the distressed girl. "Louise!" The young man called out, "Louise! Can you hear me?!"
"IT HURTS!" She cried and then whimpered, "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!" She grit her teeth before adding, "It's like something trying to get out... and it's trying to rip me apart!" The pinkette then glanced at Jolt before suddenly screaming in renewed agony.
'It's reacting to me?' The Fylkir pondered for a moment before it clicked and what he had been sensing since he had arrived made so much more sense. He raised his arm and blocked the red head as she attempted to rush past him before glaring at Louise and speaking in a commanding tone that wouldn't be out of place coming from a King, "You who Taints this young girl's body! In the name of the Goddess Triplexia I command you! LEAVE HER BODY AT ONCE!"
For a moment nothing seemed to happen and all was silent, even Louise's screaming stopped. Then each and every human present felt their hairs stand on end for a brief moment before the sickly aura that had surrounded Louise leapt into the air, dragging more of itself from the poor girl's eyes, mouth, nose and ears until it formed a massive, shapless mass in the air. Once all of the Taint had left her body Louise fell to the ground, unconcious.
The field was quiet for a moment before the sharp snap of blades being quickly drawn from sheaths filled the air followed by the sight of Jolt leaping high into the air towards the dark mass only to be batted away, sending him sailing into one of the walls. He hit the ground with a grunt a moment later and muttered, "Ugh... should have thought that part through a bit more..."
Above them the dark mass began to condense, taking on form and substance. Gradually it swirled in on itself and gained a definite physical form. An angular face with a sharp nose, smooth shoulders with an ample bust, slender waist with wide hips and shapely thighs. The feet ended in avian talons while the hands where human like right up to the nails which where bony claws extending from the finger tips. The creature's flowing hair was slightly transparent and looked like pure obsidian. On it's back where two small, almost cute, bat wings. It remained unclothed with only swirling dark energy covering it's feminine areas.
Naturally the male students where all captivated by the sight.
Before the female students could react to their drooling male counter parts their attention was drawn back to the demonic creature as it shriek as it was hit by a blast of fire. "Hey! Hooters! I'm your opponent!" they heard Jolt yell followed the sight of a green magic circle with a trigram instead of the usual pentagram appear out of thin air in front of one of the young man's out stretched hands, "Eat this! Gust Arrow!"
As the words left his lips a faintly visible blast of highly compressed air shot out from the magic circle and struck the demonic woman in the face. For a brief moment the stunned creature forgot how the fly and fell to the ground.
"Go! Everyone get out of here!" Jolt yelled and everyone present agreed that was a brilliant idea. The red head that had run to Louise's aid earlier picked up the unconscious girl before fleeing with the bluenette helping.
The demon was quick to rise again and extend her fingers towards Jolt, dark orbs appearing at her fingertips before unleashing ten beams of dark energy that swept around the field as she shifted her fingers. The Taro tried to avoid them as best he could, dodging several as they tore part him but his body was still weak and sluggish. He was hit by three in quick succession and howled through clenched teeth at the pain as they shredded his clothes and burned his flesh.
But he could still stand, he could still fight.
And he still had some Mana left.
"My turn." He growled as he extended a hand and a pure while magic circle formed, "I call upon the Light of the Void! Illuminating Spear!" A brilliant blast of pure light erupted from the magic circle and struck the demon dead centre causing it to scream in pain and stunning it.
Not wasting the opening Jolt charged forward with both his blades held out and chanted, "I call upon the Circle of Nature!" He swung his right hand weapon, the blade glowing orange, "FIRE!" He followed through with the left, the blade looking sharper then it had a moment before, "EARTH!" he brought the right around again, the blade shimmering as it vibrated faster then the naked out could see, "WIND!" He spun and slashed with the left again, a thin line of liquid racing over the blade, "WATER!"
He crossed his arms and brought them up and swung them both in an upward diagonal slash, "The Circle of the Void! DARKNESS AND LIGHT!" He then tossed both blades into the air and clenched his right fist in front of him before pulling it back, "Final Circle!The Primal Circle! THE SPARK..." Light erupted from inside his hand, shining out from between his finger and thumb, "OF THE SOUL!" He roared before throwing a ball of energy from his right hand into the centre of the cuts he had just put in the demon.
He pulled both of his sheaths from his belt and held them out to each side as both of his blades slammed into them seamlessly, "TRIPLEX..." He turned away from the demon and spun his sheathed swords before slipping them back onto his belt, "PURIFICATION!"
The combined energies from the attacks exploded and the demonic woman was shredded, turning to nothing more then dust as her energies where blasted away. As the explosion reached it's apex the excess energies from Jolt's attacks began to gather around a ball of pink energy before glowing brilliantly for a moment.
As the light faded a medallion floated in place of the energies. It depicted a magic circle with a trigram as it's central feature, at each point was a circle, each in turned marked with runes. One had just a single rune, one had two and the last had four. The magic circle was bordered by a wreath of leaves and wings on each side. The entire thing was crafted of gold.
Jolt inspected the medallion while drawing deep breaths before limping over and grabbing it out of the air and laughing softly, "I see... so that's it."
A moment later he was joined by a wobbly Louise along with the two that had assisted her. The red head smirked at him and gave him a wink, "My my, well done handsome. I certainly didn't expect anything from the Zero to be so impressive... If you need help with those burns I'd be more then happy to 'kiss them better.'" She laughed.
"I don't have the energy to yell at you Zerbst so just please stop ok?" Louise said tiredly with a voice that was clearly suffering from her earlier screaming. The red head clicked her tongue but didn't retort.
The young man fell to his rear in clear exhaustion and looked at the medallion before looking at Louise. After a moment he asked, "Hey, Louise... do me a favour and cast a spell. Doesn't matter what spell or at what target... just try and cast a spell."
Pink eyes blinked in surprise at the request, but knowing her familiar he likely had a good reason. With a shrug she took out her wand and aimed it at a random part of the field before calling on her magic and casting, "Fireball!"
Zerbst and the bluenette had already ducked away behind Louise the moment they say the wand come out and braced for the inevitable explosion.
After about a minute all three girls looked at each other and blinked, "What in the word? I know I have enough Willpower left...?" Louise wondered out loud, "I mean... I wasn't expecting a fireball to come out... just my usual explosions..."
"Well this confirms it." Jolt chuckled humourlessly before laying back, "You're magic was of Outsider origin... when I forced that thing out of you it took your magic with it."
Another moment passed in silence.
"WHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTT?!"