Cromwell felt his smile drop as he read over the report that he had just received.

The new Emperor of New Albion was in the room of the once king James, the grandiose living quarters now belonged to him and had been turned into his office as well.

Strewn about his desk were the various reports from his advisors and few more reports from the spies that he had within Tristain.

Wardes, for example, had already returned to the palace and was once more working behind enemy lines.

However, those weren't the reports that he was interested in at the moment.

Instead he was looking over the full casualty report from the siege of Newcastle.

It was… more than he had expected.

Such an attack was obviously going to have sacrifices, but he was rather surprised at the full picture.

And it was all because of a single Insect that had decided to tear through the Reconquista army for a goal none of them knew about.

He lowered the report to look at the one that had handed it towards him.

It was one of the older generals, his face looked like it was carved in stone as he stood there stoic.

"Is this report accurate?" He had to ask.

The man nodded "Down the injuries, your excellency." The stoic face frowned just a bit "Most of these came from investigating the bodies that we could find, the rest were from the panicked screaming of those that we asked for."

Cromwell let out a sigh "This is rather unfortunate."

"That's not the worst part either, your excellency."

The former bishop raised an eyebrow.

The general continued "We all know that one of our early targets when we invade Tristain will be Hallownest, as such before all of this many of them were rather… excited to do so." The general paused, swallowing a wad spit in his mouth "But due to this singular Insect seemingly tearing through a good portion of our army at New Castle, morale has dropped in regards to the attack. From both our soldier and their mounts."

Oh that was right. Cromwell looked over the reports and found that a good number of horses and drakes that were also part of the siege had apparently turned on their owners. Some of them had just opted to drop whoever was riding them, while some had eaten their riders alive.

"Some of our soldiers are rather worried that if one Insect caused all of this, what would happen if we face a whole army of them" the general stated.

Cromwell could feel a headache was approaching, he set down the paper and massaged his temples "I can see that this is going to be difficult," he huffed out "I will try to handle this soon, to see if I can boost their moral a bit." As he said that he was aware of the ring on his finger.

"I understand your excellency" the general nodded again "I will do my part as well to try and rally the ones that weren't a direct victim of the Insect."

"Thank you."

There was a pause as the conversation ended, and just as the general was about to leave he looked around the room and raised an eyebrow "If I may ask your excellency, where is… 'Prince' Wales?"

[Scene]

"Oh Wales? He's familiarising himself with the castle again."

Walking along the corridors of New Castle was the corpse of Wales Tudor, the spirit inhabiting the body puppeteering the movements.

Around it, it could see the other soldiers of Reconquista, all of them looking its way and smirking as it walked past. More than a few jeers and insults were thrown its way.

The memories that the spirit could pick out from the corpse it was inhabiting told it to be more… angry at the words. But the directive given to it by the one that allowed it to inhabit the body, was that it was be loyal to the cause.

And so it simply smiled back and kept walking.

Walking all around the familiar, yet strange hallway.

Until finally, it reached the room that was calling towards it.

"Is that wise your excellency? To allow 'him' to walk around so freely?"

The throne room was currently being 'redecorated', as whatever objects that swore fealty to the previous royal family was being thrown out, and instead banners of the new cause was being hung.

Oddly enough, the sole exception was the black torch.

More than a few of the soldiers were looking at it in frustrating, the many tools around the torch told the spirit that they had been trying to remove it for some time.

With no success.

"It is no problem, after all everyone knows that the Wales that walks around New Castle is now part of the Reconquista!"

The spirit walked the corpse closer to the torch.

"And he himself is loyal completely to me."

Red eyes stared into the faint, faint embers that remained on the torch.

And just barely, it could see a similar pair of eyes staring back at it.

[Scene]

"Hey you three!"

Marion frowned as her conversation was rudely interrupted by whoever had called her, turned to see an odd sight.

By the gates of the Academy were the two guards, as well as a cart that was being escorted by four men.

Three of those men were fairly normal looking, one of them was on the horse driving the cart while the other two were just standing off at the side. It was the fourth one that made Marion and other maids she was talking with to pause.

For some reason, in the current weather they were in, he seemed to have covered himself head to toe in every kind of clothing imaginable. Long sleeve shirt, a glove, long pants with boots, and to top it all off, he was wearing a hood over his head.

He was the only one sitting by whatever cargo they were carrying. It was massive crate that was just as big as he was, and when he turned to look at their direction none of them could see his face. He had his drawn so far forward that it hid everything about him.

Marion couldn't help but raise an eyebrow and ask "What's going on here?"

"We got some kind of delivery for someone." the second guard answered her question.

"So? just send them in and let whoever deals with packages deal with it." Her fellow maid said.

The man by the package looked up and spoke "We were ordered, specifically, to ensure that the person himself accept the delivery." His voice was rather stilted, though he managed to speak clearly.

"Okay?" Marion was even more confused, she turned to the guards "Then how come neither of you went to get that person already?"

There was a moment of silence between them, as both of them looked away sheepishly.

"We uh…" one of them glanced at her direction "We don't know who they're asking for."

"Don't look at us that way!" his partner quickly snapped "It's not our fault! We've been here for at most a couple of weeks, and it's not like the professors here like to speak with commoners."

Marion couldn't help but nod in agreement at the statement, though she still couldn't keep her eyes off the hooded man. "Who are you looking for exactly?" She asked, before her eyes flicked to the crate "And what's in the crate?"

"Something Insect-y" the one riding the horse answered in a bored tone "For whatever reason, instead of just tossing it away or returning it to Hallownest, we're giving it here to some professor instead." He shrugged "We don't really know who, but they must be weird to be interested in things like this."

"Ugh of course," the other maid with Marion rolled her eyes "I can tell who you're giving this to, it's probably the professor that's been running us ragged replacing a lot of the tools with Insect ones."

"Is the name of this professor Jean Colbert?" the hooded man asked.

"Yeah that's him…" with a sigh she turned away from the group "I'll go get him, I know his schedule enough to figure out where he is."

"That's great!" The first guard beamed "In the meantime, we'll stand guard here."

The smile withered away when he felt all three of the maids glare in his direction.

When she was out of earshot, Marion couldn't help but ask again "So what is inside that crate?" She asked "I know you said something… Insect-y, but it's not a corpse or anything is it?"

"No." The hooded man shook his head "It is parts of a broken down golem from a mining town, apparently it got damaged and the engineers could not get it back working again."

"Why would a professor be interested in junk like that?" The other maid asked.

Marion snickered "Maybe he wants to improve it? Use his magic to make it twice as effective."

"Oh please," she received an eye-roll in response "Tristain is already the largest source of Wind Stones because of those things, I don't see any reason why he would want to improve it more."

"Maybe he's just interested in the thing then?" Marion suggested "I mean he's a freak about Insects according to Alice. Maybe he wants to teach his classes about it."

"Ugh I hope not," the other maid shook her head.

There was a moment of pause, before the hooded man leaned forward "Do you have a problem with Insects?"

"Not personally," she waved off his question "I just don't want to start hearing about 'dirty Insect this' or 'cheating Insect that' if the professor decides to bring out that golem to show. The nobles here don't really like those guys, despite all they've done."

"Ah," the hooded man sounded "I understand. Our relationship with the nobility, is still rather shaky despite our best efforts."

Marion blinked "Our?"

"By Brimir, it's actually here!"

Both of the guards and the maids jumped slightly at the extremely excitable yell. They all turned to see a balding man wearing the cloak of a professor hurriedly running towards them with a wide grin on his face.

The maid that had gone to call him was following behind.

"Finally," the other men both sighed out at the same time when they saw the professor running towards them. The one on the horse gripped the reigns and gently guided the horse forward. While the hooded man took out a couple of documents from where he was sitting.

Marion and her fellow maid stepped aside to allow them to pass.

But before they could, Marion reached out to the hooded man.

"You're an Insect aren't you?"

He nodded at her question "Indeed I am."

"I gotta wonder about something."

He leaned back a bit when she gestured to his whole body.

"Why do you always seem to wear so much clothes? You practically cover yourselves in it."

"Oh, that iss very simple." He raised a finger and then pointed it upwards "It is to protect us from that."

At that moment, it seemed like the area got just a bit hotter.

"The sun?"

"Mhmm," he nodded "We gather heat rather easily and we also burn very easily when exposed to direct sunlight. Besides, we're all used to dark spaces that it just feels nice to wear all this."

"Fritz, enough talking." The man on the horse called out "Get the papers ready, we need to have a lot of them signed for this."

"Of course," Fritz nodded. He turned to Marion one more time and bowed "It was nice talking to you."

"Yes, it was nice talking to you to."

As the cart was pulled deeper into the school ground, Marion watched them leave. Her orange eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Protect them from the sun huh?"

[Scene]

There she was, walking away with her Familiars in tow.

A feeling of anger welled up inside the blond mage, following the pink haired mage through the halls.

The two Water Spirits both following her every step as they usually did, earning looks from everyone and everything that passed them by.

They were joined by Kirche and Tabitha, the three of them having grown close after returning from whatever trip they had gone to.

A few of those looks was thrown his way as the anger build up even further, more so as he continued to trail after the group.

She had a lot to explain, over what had happened. She had say it, that she had done something horrible.

He needed her to explain what she had done to Montmeroncy!

It was that thought that cause his emotions to explode, and even though that they were just standing in the middle of the Vestri Court, he couldn't help but yell.

"Louise Francoise Le Blanc De La Valliere!"

Everything seemed to pause.

Guiche became aware that he wasn't alone with his target as he wanted to, heads all snapped towards him.

Both Kirche and Tabitha had turned to face, both in slight surprise.

But Louise seemed sluggish to respond. Her hand was on her stomach as she slowly turned her head over her shoulder.

"What do you want Guiche?" She bit out, her pink eyes glaring at him.

Both of her Familiars turned to face him as well. Two pairs of empty eyes staring into his soul.

He felt his resolve falter just a bit, but seeing her angry look reminded of him the one on Montmorency's face. And he swallowed the lump in his throat "You have a lot of explaining to do!"

He pointed a finger towards her, recoiling a bit when he saw the Familiar with the four horns immediately drawing the Soul Wand on its back. His eyes flicked between the Familiars and its Master, before he focused them on its Master with a glare of his own "Tell me, what you have done to Montmorency!"

Confused muttering broke out within the crowd, each of them asking whoever was closest towards them.

"What. did Ze- Louise do to Montmorency?"

"Maybe he was two-timing them, and then Louise got enough to blow her up!"

"Serves the playboy right!"

Louise didn't seem to mind what the crowd was saying, though her glare faltered for a moment before it returned full force. She turned to face him completely, her arms crossed over her chest.

As she did, the Familiar with the two horns mimicked her pose.

"Did she put you up to this?" Louise asked in an irritated tone "Because she's been trying to find some kind of reason for days now."

"No," Guiche replied "She didn't. I am here, because I am worried about what you've done to her."

He saw how her hand gripped her sleeves as she gritted her teeth at his words.

"You did do something to her didn't you," Guiche raise his head "I demand that you explain and apologise for what you d-"

"Hey Gramont, why don't you back off."

The rest of his declaration died in his throat when he heard Kirche cut in. The Germanian was tapping her shoulder with her bandaged hand as she looked at him with disapproval. "Lay off Louise, if she doesn't want to talk about it then don't bother her" Her voice was stern.

Louise looked at the red head with a rather surprised look on her own face.

Guiche blinked, before he shook his head "But she still needs to answer for what she has done Kirche. My honor as a Noble and as Montmorency's boyfriend depends on it!"

Louise's head snapped towards him "I didn't do anything!" She shouted back.

That only made the blonde mage narrow his eyes "I see…" he sighed and placed a hand on his forehead "I regret that it has to come this, but you leave me no choice Louise."

He pointed a finger directly towards her and declared "I Guiche De Gramont, by my honor as a Noble," his right hand reached for his wand "Challenge you to," and pulled it free from his cloak and then pointed it forward "A D-"

Before he could finish his words, he felt a sharp slicing pain across the palm of his hand.

His vision lit up as his words turned into a scream of agony. His wand clattered from his grip as he stumbled backwards, gripping the injured limb.

He stared at what had struck him. It was the Familiar with two horns, the weapon in its hand glinting in the bright orange sun. He wince as another wave of went through his body, and when he opened his eyes again.

He saw that Louise had gripped the lengthened appendage that her Familiar had used to strike his hand. Its arm had grown to multiple times its own length and was now wriggling uncomfortably in her grip. The other Familiar hadn't moved from its spot, though it looked ready to launch itself at a moment's notice.

Guiche looked at the damage, and saw that he had a thin cut across his whole palm. It wasn't bleeding as much as he thought it would, but his hand was starting to turn red.

Seeing it bleed caused Guiche to groan in pain once more.

"Oh my god!" Louise panicked voice reached his ears "Gu-Guiche, I'm sorry! I didn't know that Bug would."

"Is this what you did to my Montmorency?"

Why was he still so focused on this line of questioning? He needed medical help right now.

"Wha?" Louise looked confused.

Guiche raised his head and glared at her "Did your Familiar do this to her?" Stop talking you idiot, you hand is bleeding! "Is this why she's so angry at you?!"

There was a moment of pause, before Louise snarled "Fine, you want to know?!" She pointed at him with her free hand "Your bitch of a girlfriend, thought it was a fine to just grab my Familiar, insult it, and then afterwards call it a monster! Not only that, she threw it against the ground hard enough, and it cracked its skull! I had to shove her off before she did anything worse to my Familiars."

The anger inside Guiche faded away the moment he heard those words. He blinked, the thoughts of his injured hand seemingly gone.

"So whatever she told you, it's because she started it!"

"Enough."

A powerful gust of wind silenced their arguing. Tabitha had managed to stand in between the two, her eyes as bored as ever. She glanced at Guiche "Go to the nurse."

Guiche blinked at the curt order.

The wind mage then turned to Louise, her eyes softening a bit "Louise." She paused and sighed "Please calm down."

"Yeah," Kirche moved and placed a hand on her shoulder "You're freaking out Louise."

It took the Valliere a moment to calm down, and when she did she released the grip on her Familiar's arm.

It retracted back into its body, and Bug turned to face its Master.

Eventually, the rest of them dispersed as a couple of teachers approached the commotion.

Guiche, was told to get medical attention. The blonde mage clenching and unclenching his bleeding hand, wondering what had possessed him to do all of that?

Away from the commotion entirely, another blonde mage suddenly grew a frown her face.

DISAPPOINTING

She muttered, her eyes glazed over.

A/N: Happy New Years my dudes. I am, so very sorry for the sudden hiatus. It's just… kinda hard to write to be honest, with the whole situation going on.

Hopefully 2021 is… better than what happened.

Enjoy, and hopefully this isn't too shitty.