And now... Wardes vs Tlopfest, round 2. Enjoy guys!

Chapter 20: The Familiar Pigman's Revenge.

With the battle still raging on about them, Tlopfest, Derf, and Louise continued to evade Wardes' attacks. Getting closer to the ship, Tlopfest started to fire at it, hoping to hit something important and cause the ship to fall.

"Tlopfest?! What in the Founder's name are you doing?!" Louise shieked into his ear, causing him to wince and have the plane wobble.

"Can you not do that while I'm piloting Louise!? I don't want us to die from a crash." Tlopfest snarked back at her before readjusting his course. Before he could continue however, the cannons from the ship suddenly turned on them. "Oh…crud, forgot about that."

Steering away from the ship, the cannons fired upon them, just missing the plane. Although that didn't stop one from flying mere inches from their heads through the open cockpit.

"You stupid familiar, you're gonna get us killed!" Louise shouted, hammering her fists into Tlopfest's back. She didn't show it, but she was fearing for her life right now.

"Cut that out Louise!" Tlopfest said back, having his health go down by a heart before he stopped her. Another set of turbulence hit the plane, however, when Wardes was able to get in another shot at them.

"Come back here you stupid familiar!" Wardes shouted, firing off another spell. Luckily, Tlopfest was able to avoid this one and prevent the plane from taking any more damage.

Growling under his breath, Tlopfest continued to evade Wardes to the best of his ability, although he isn't a skilled pilot in the least. Wardes continued to fire spell after spell at the plane, causing it to start taking some damage. Lucky for Tlopfest, however, some of Wardes' stray spells ended up hitting the side of the ship. Unluckily however, said spells did little more than cause some gashes to appear, nothing really noteworthy.

"Ugh, this isn't working!" Tlopfest cried out. He tried to circle around Wardes to get a better shot in, however Wardes anticipated this and continued to fly out of Tlopfest's firing range.

Laughing at their struggle, Wardes continued to fire upon them. "Give it up, familiar! There is no way you can take down Reconquista! Louise, and this world, shall be ours for the taking!"

"In your dreams old man!" Tlopfest shot back. "I may not be from this world, nor be a native Tristain, but that doesn't make it right to just leave them be with idjits like you trying to ruin their lives!" He piloted the plane and started to shoot at Wardes again, having the chance to finally land a few shots on them. Not enough to take them down, but at the very least it made them more leery of the plane."I won't give up until the last of you stop this madness! And no one will take Louise against her will again!"

"Tlopfest…" Louise was touched by what she heard from her familiar. At that moment, the runes on Tlopfest's hand started to light up, drawing her attention towards it. "What the…" In her vision, the runes, even covered by Tlopfest's glove, started to fly off into her face.

"It's finally done.." Derflinger said from his sheath. "Awaken Louise! You, the master of Gandalfr, are a void mage!" As he finished his shouting, much to Tlopfest's annoyance, Louise's eyes suddenly went blank. Standing up in front of Tlopfest, she started chanting softly and pointed her wand towards the Albion army.

"Louise?! For Nether's sake, are you trying to get killed?!" Tlopfest shouted, worried for her safety.

"It's fine, partner! Void magic takes time to activate. Buy her some time to finish the spell! That's why you are Gandalfr!" Derf answered in her stead. Nodding Tlopfest continued to pilot the plane away from Wardes and the ship, or at the very least ensuring they stayed out of their firing range.

Unfortunately for them, Wardes continued to hammer the plane with spell upon spell, causing more damage to the plane and almost making them start to crash. "Come on…come on…" Tlopfest was getting really worried, as the plane was starting to reach critical damage. Just before Wardes sent the killing blow, however, Louise completed her spell and a huge swath of light burst forth.

"Is this…the power of the void!?" Wardes cried out, before both he and his mount succumbed to the spell. The ship behind them fared no better, being set alight and starting to crash down to the ground. Tlopfest looked back and saw the carnage behind them, elated that it worked.

"You did it…you did it Louise!" Tlopfest yelled out. He noticed Louise start to fall over however, and quickly caught her in his arms. "Oof, guess that took a lot out of ya huh?" Tlopfest said to her sleeping face.

"Uh…partner, as much as I like the scene in front of me, you should really watch where you're going!" Derf cried out. Turning back towards the front of the plane, Tlopfest saw that they were heading straight for the eclipse, with said eclipse just blocking out the sun.

"Uh.." Tlopfest was confused why Derf was concerned, other than probably how high up they were. Yet, he then remembered the legend of the other 'dragon.'

"...two dragons suddenly appeared in the sky…one disappeared, while the other stayed behind as the eclipse completed…" Siesta's tale echoed in Tlopfest's mind. Realizing what may be going on, Tlopfest grabbed the controls to try and turn the plane around, but just then another instance of his warp hit him, causing him to let go and grab his head in pain.

"Arugh! Of all the times to happen!" Even worse, as his headache reached its peak, Tlopfest could feel the light of the sun/eclipse much, much more than usual, almost burning his skin just from the contact alone. Opening his eyes a bit, Tlopfest saw everything was washed out and blinding, forcing him to close his eyes again. "Great, the oversensitivity to light…good thing I'm fireproof." Unfortunately, due to him being harassed by his warp again, Tlopfest failed to steer the plane, and before he could reach out to the controls again, they had already passed the event horizon. Feeling the stinging of the light recede some, Tlopfest opened his eyes to see that they were surrounded by darkness. Turning around, he could see the greenery of Tarbes fall away behind them, quickly shrinking in the distance.

"No no no no no!" Tlopfest panicked. Grabbing the controls, he quickly turned the plane around in the void trying to go back to Louise's world. "I cannot leave, I must stay and protect Louise!" his thoughts screamed out at him..yet..they almost didn't seem like his own. Slightly confused, the pigman didn't push as hard as he could on the controls, which caused them to miss the window of opportunity to go back. Before his eyes, the window into Louise's world shut just before he managed to pilot back there.

"...crud." Tlopfest muttered. Looking around the void they were in, Tlopfest felt a small tug towards his right. Looking that way, his eyes still having the warp effect on them, Tlopfest could see a small speck of light that way. With nothing left to lose, Tlopfest sat back down and piloted the plane towards the light, keeping Louise steady in the plane and closing the cockpit, just to be safe. "I just hope it gets us out of..whatever this is."

"...Tlopfest…" a scratchy, old voice said. Looking around, Tlopfest tried to determine where the voice came from, but to no avail. "...you….shall…be…mine!" Just as the voice completed that sentence, a giant, skeletal hand reached out of the void towards the plane. Panicking, Tlopfest gunned the plane towards the light, trying to outrun the hand. As he got closer however, more hands popped out of the void, reaching out to them.

"I don't care where it takes us, just get us out of here!" Tlopfest panicked, hoping to reach the light before they got snatched. Remembering one of his upgrades, Tlopfest flipped a switch on the plane's controls and activated turbo mode, letting them double their speed and quickly getting out of reach of the spooky hands. Yet just as they reached the exit, one of the hands got a lucky shot on the plane, taking out the rear flaps and causing Tlopfest to start losing control of the plane.

Popping out of the void, Tlopfest was thankful that his warp just ended as they reached the outside, as he could see much clearer now. Unfortunately, it was obvious that they were not in Louise's world anymore. Tall buildings with glass on the sides reached up to the sky, with roads being chock full of both people and metal boxes going about on them. "Where in the multiverse did we end up…?" Tlopfest muttered. Before he could observe further however, something shot up from underneath the plane and hit one of the wings, damaging it further and sending the plane into a death spiral.

Shouting in both surprise and terror, Tlopfest attempted to righten the plane, but failed to do so. Louise just woke up as well, hearing her familiar's scream. Looking around, all she could see was the sky and earth spinning around them. Feeling nauseous, she turned back to her familiar, only to see a look of pure panic on his face. "Tlopfest…?!" Louise started to panic as well, since her familiar had never had that look on his face before.

"Louise?! Oh, now you wake up!" Ignoring her slightly annoyed face, he grabbed her and held her tight. "Listen, whatever you do, don't let go!" Before the plane crashed, Tlopfest forced the cockpit open and hit the emergency parachute switch on the seat, ejecting them into the sky at a nearly 90 degree angle. The parachute, unfortunately, failed to deploy, so the duo ended up falling into the forest on the chair. Through the screaming of both himself and Louise, Tlopfest held her tight and didn't let go, taking the brunt of the damage from the tree branches smacking into the back of the seat and Tlopfest's head.

Landing roughly on the ground, Tlopfest only had half a heart left as they skid to a stop under one of the many trees. After a moment, the two of them opened their eyes to see where they were. Before Tlopfest could say anything, however, one of the branches above them snapped off, falling right onto Tlopfest's head and taking out the last of his health.

"Ack!" Tlopfest sputtered before he collapsed onto the ground.

"Tlopfest!" Louise shouted, grabbing her familiar and trying to shake him awake. "Don't you die on me you stupid familiar!" She shouted at him. Of course, Tlopfest didn't stir at all, completely out of it until at least some of his health could be restored. Taking a look around, Louise couldn't tell where they were, other than trees, trees, and more trees around them. "Where the hell did you make us end up Tlopfest?" Louise muttered.


Back in Tristain, the army led by Henrietta was slightly blinded by the flash of light Louise had created. Blinking back the spots in their eyes, they could only watch as the ship they had been trying to bring down was suddenly aflame and crashed into the earth. Confused as to what had occurred, they nonetheless cheered for their victory. happy to have lived through that situation. Henrietta, however, was concerned when she failed to hear the buzz of the plane Tlopfest had acquired. "Louise…Tlopfest…where are you?"

Meanwhile, back at the crash site, a very beat up Cromwell crawled out of the wreckage. "Ugh…how could this happen?! We had everything! This should have been easy to do!"

"Well, it certainly doesn't seem like that now, does it?" Standing above him were Tabitha and Kirche, both having their staff and wand pointed towards the enemy leader.

Smirking, Cromwell pulled up his hand and started to shine the light from his ring towards them. "If I'm going down, I may as well cause some more chaos before I flee."

Caught off guard, both of the girls released their spell casters and fell to their knees, feeling as though a large weight had come upon them suddenly. "What…what is this?" Kirche asked, worried about both her and her friend's safety. Suddenly however, Cromwell felt something whack him upside the head and caused him to lose consciousness. This released the two girls from his spell as well.

Standing behind Cromwell was none other than Guiche, holding a sturdy branch in his hands. "Well…that could have gone better. Are you two ok? And who the hell is this?" Guiche lightly kicked the unconscious Cromwell.

Laughing slightly, Kirche picked herself up and helped Tabitha up as well. "We're ok, thanks to you. Not sure who he is, but given that he tried to attack us, he is probably one of the enemies."

Yup, you read that right, Tlopfest and Louise ended up going through the Eclipse, and now they're...somewhere. Anyone have a guess as to where they could have ended up? (Hint: do the initials TLR spark any ideas in your head? Don't spoil others yet!)
Anyhow, there's one more chapter before I wrap up this book, where more information about where they landed will be told. Look forward to that!
In any case, I once again hope that anyone and everyone that gave this story a chance, and even better, made it this far, enjoyed what I had to share. And thank you for sticking with this. See you guys in the finale!

(Slight spoilers, but this won't be the last time Tlopfest will be in the FoZ world - I mean, he does have Louise with him, so he's gotta get her back at some point at least, right?)