ARC II
CHAPTER TWO
Disclaimer: Not Mine.
LOUISE
A sense of deja vu flashed through Louise's mind, as the teachers funneled the dust away, allowing the crowd of students to move closer to the collapsed stables, and rescue whatever familiars weren't already out on display.
Right where her familiar should have been, was yet another thing. While her familiar had previously mimicked the form of some soldier/wizard hybrid, this time it seemed to be mimicking...
She really didn't know.
While she was examining it, the guards – both those guarding the princess, and those assigned to the college, moved in to take up a rough circle around the thing. And where the last thing she summoned could be mistaken as harmless, this... could not.
It looked a little bit like an upturned metal boat, except there was a lot of metal wheels underneath it, wrapped around with some kind of metal belt. And there was something like a smaller upside down metal boat thing on top of it, with a thick metal pipe sticking out of it. There were metal plates with handles on them, and metal things with glass inside, and metal... everything. Iron wasn't expensive compared to gold or silver, but Louise didn't even want to think about how much something like the thing in front of her would have cost. It was huge! Easily enough for several people to fit inside... and looking over it with fresh eyes, Louise could see the plates with handles were hatches, and the things with glass must have been viewports. It had to be some sort of vehicle. Some sort of... landship, or something.
And then the thing moved. It gave out a deep growl, spat out black smoke from it's rear, and the wheels spun, churning the belt against the ground – completely without any effect, as it was half-buried in fallen masonry. With a whining of machinery, the upturned thing on top swiveled, and the pipe lowered, pointing first at a group of guards, then at the castle, then at the group of students – revealing the swirl etched on the inside of the pipe. Exactly like the one etched on the inside of the fast-firing musket her familiar had carried.
While the things movement had made many of the students back off, and the guards and various nobles raise their various weapons and staffs, they all relaxed somewhat when they realized it was still immobilized by the rubble. Louise, however, remained frozen, blood rapidly draining from her face, as the barrel of what had to be a cannon continued pointing at her. It moved... but she didn't feel any better when it pointed at the Princess instead. If her familiar killed the princess...
Wait a second... HER familiar.
"Don't Fire!"
Her words seemed to have no effect. The thing still tried to move, and swiveled it's cannon around to point at different things... but at least it wasn't actually firing.
BRENT
Brent no longer cared what was going on. He had missed this. Competing against bots was all well and good, but nothing beat the feeling of completely crushing a human enemy. Or a whole series of them, in this case. Collecting a set of grenades and ammo off the fallen enemy in front of him, he ducked behind cover, reloading his plasma rifle. He hadn't quite seen the pair of enemy heavies – but they had to have been there, and seen his brief foray out for supplies. Which meant they should be coming out right about...
Brent strafed out of cover a half second before the heavies launched a rocket into the front of it, and unloaded his disintergrator pistol right into the visor on the first heavie's helmet.
...
Or he would have, if his gun had actually fired.
Rather than this, Brent ducked out of cover, and danced around, waving his gun ineffectively in the general direction of his enemies until they lobbed another rocket at him.
As the respawn counter ticked down, Brent frowned. What just happened?
LOUISE
Several minutes went by, and Louise started to relax. The thing wasn't firing, and it didn't seem to be able to move. Mr Colbert had spoken to the guards and asked her to talk to it, but either this new thing was unable to hear her, or it wasn't paying any attention. Nothing she said made any difference to how it acted. Was it even her familiar? This one didn't have her familiar's tattoo on it, after all. But, what else could it be? And it did sort of have the same... look, as her familiar. It was completely different of course, but the rifled cannon, the woodland-themed paint scheme... if it wasn't her familiar, it at least came from the same place.
While Louise considered the likely origins of the metal contraption, the nobles around her debated the merits of lifting the masonry off it. None of this mattered however, as with a sudden pop, it disappeared.
The nobles all used various detection spells, but with no result. It simply wasn't there. Mr Colbert came hurrying over, and asked if she had any ideas about where it had gone – but from his countenance, it was obvious he didn't really expect her to know. Halfway through her reply however, there was another 'pop', and the metal beast re-appeared.
Wait. It wasn't the same beast. The other one had been a sort of creamy-brown, and was absolutely huge. This one was a sort of bluey-green, was less than half the height of the other one, and was much shorter. It still had a metal bucket thing on top, but this one was much flatter. Most of the nobles could see over the top of this one. However, the most important difference was that the vehicle hadn't appeared under all the rubble, like the previous thing – instead ,appearing twenty meters to the right, on flat ground with nothing to prevent it moving.
Shortly after it appeared, it started growling and belching smoke – grabbing the attention of those who hadn't already noticed it's reappearance. Despite being free of the rubble, the vehicle didn't seem to be moving. It would move the barrel up and down, and the bucket thing from side to side, but didn't move the wheels on the ground at all.
And then, after about half a minute, it did. The beast roared, the metal belt around them spun, and the vehicle shot forward at a speed unbelievable in something so massive. The nobles had slowly been crowding in around it, and it was a small miracle none had been hit by it as it shot off.
Showing a maneuverability that again belied it's size, it curved around the makeshift stage and royal pavilion, and was only a few seconds away from the open gateway when Louise's 'STOOOOOP' floated through the air. The vehicle swerved slightly, but otherwise kept going, disappearing around the corner. Louise – and the staff, students, and royal guard paused for a minute... then rushed after it.
BRENT
Since none of his guns seemed to work any more, Brent had switched to a knife. Bringing a knife to a gun fight might make things insanely difficult normally – but with how stupid his enemies were playing now, he was still getting about the same kills per minute he'd normally be getting with a gun. The extra challenge made it more satisfying, too. He'd already racked up five kills with his knife, and for the past minute had been stalking an enemy sniper, waiting for him to set up camp. Brent was just moving in for the kill when his screen froze. Only it hadn't. The guy was still moving, slightly. Adjusting his aim, and firing, with Brent right behind him, knife at the ready, just standing there.
Brent tried frantically to get his figure moving – disconnecting and reconnecting the mouse, alt-tabbing out of the game and back into it – but it was only the controls in the game that weren't responding. Just like when...
The sniper in front of him finished his magazine, and reloaded. And must have spotted Brent while doing so, because he quickly sidestraffed and switched weapons to his pistol. Brent cursed, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. After a panicked shot into his chest – which reduced his health to 30%, the sniper seemed to realize it too – shot him a few times in the leg, reducing his health to below 5%, before getting behind him and slowly nudging his player-character towards the rather high cliff he'd been camping on.
Brent swore, frantically pulling out and reconnecting the mouse again, just in case... but still no response, just as his character was pushed off the edge. With the 'YOU HAVE DIED' message, he swore again, and quit. Time to sort this out now!
LOUISE:
Louise panted to a stop on the other side of the gateway, behind a crowd of not-moving teachers, royal guards and teachers. All looking up, for some reason. Had her metallic vehicle golem thing started flying or something? She couldn't hear it's roar any more... Her eyes went up to see what they were looking at, and...
She couldn't see the metal creature golem thing that seemed to be her familiar. Instead... Her eyes, like the eyes of the other teachers, students and royal guards, were drawn up. Up, and up, and up, where a giant golem made of earth had been slamming it's massive fists against the Academy main tower.
Nobles didn't swear. Nobles – by virtue of being noble, weren't ever in the company of those who swore – at least in their presence. Nor were they ever allowed to read the sort of pulp that contained such vulgar language. Thus, the words that came from Louise's mouth on spotting the giant earth golem couldn't have been swearwords.
First her familiar had been some sort of undead golem, then a metal bucket thing, now a giant animated statue? What next? The lord of the underworld? Louise started chuckling unsteadily to herself, eyes wide. The giant turned to face the crowd in front of it, and an overconfident laugh rang out from it's shoulder.
'Well, I may have overestimated your defenses this time, but I'll be back'.
Louise stopped, confused. It could talk, too? Then she noticed the robed figure sitting on the giant's shoulder. The giant started striding for the walls, and a barrage of spells slammed into it – everything from ice magic to fireballs to... was that a tree trunk? But they all had no effect – except for the woman disappearing off the shoulder, to hide behind the bulk of the creature.
So the woman was controlling it? It wasn't her familiar? As the giant reached the academy walls and started thumping it's way through them, Louise finally spotted the metal creature from earlier – previously hidden by the crowd.
Another barrage of spells blasted ineffectually into the back of the giant, who had knocked over enough of the wall to start forcing its way through.
Louise started running in the direction of her metal familiar.
'Shoot it. I don't know what you are, but just shoot it already.'
The blue-gray object swiveled on the spot, the belt on it's wheels tearing up the turf. It raised it's barrel, and...
Well, to be honest, compared to the noise being created by all the wind, fire, ice and earth spells, the sound of her familiar firing it's cannon wasn't overwhelming. It was noticeable, but there was so much chaos being created by the Nobles magic that it fit in nicely. There was a Boom, and one of the legs of the thing started to crumble. The entire Golem staggered, before bracing itself on the walls it was trying to batter through. Once braced, a mass of grass and earth surged up from around it's wounded leg, filling in the gaping hole left by the explosion. Projectiles of ice, stone, and water continued to bombard the Golem, but the golem didn't notice – finishing healing its leg, before... 'Boom.' Again from her metallic familiar thing. This time, it's head. There wasn't much left of it- just a stump of a neck. Louise was cursing the stupidity of her familiar – taking it's head out wouldn't destroy the golem. The only way to destroy it would be to do enough damage that the magic used to heal it was overwhelmed.
Yet – the golem didn't seem to be healing. In fact, it was very quickly crumbling back to earth. But how? As long as it was being sustained with it's caster's magic... And then Louise saw the bits of bloody meat pasted against the walls, remembered the robed figure that had been hiding at the front of the golem... and vomited up her breakfast.
AUTHORS NOTES
Four months since my last update, and I've kind of run out of excuses. I guess all I can say is while I still enjoy writing on rare occasions, I can't seem to get passionate about it any more. Maybe some time in the future.
Oh, for reference, Louise's command to 'not fire' had no effect on the tank. Adant just isn't the sort of person to shoot at a crowd of civilians, even in-game.
OMAKE
Brent came home, and immediately knew something was wrong. There was something about his housemates sickly grin that made it immediately obvious.
'Alright. What did you do?'
'Well I know you told me not to use your computer, but, like, I was seriously bored. So... Well, I think I broke your computer.'
Brent followed his housemate into his room.
'At first I was going to play World of Tanks, but that's kinda getting a bit stale, you know? So I booted up World of Warships instead.'
Sure enough, a 190 meter long battleship sat resting on the remains of the stables, and crushed both the front and rear of the walls guarding the Tristanian Academy of Magic. The headset was unplugged, so his room was full of the bleats, chirps and squeals of terrified animals, and the just as terrified sounds of their owners. And, for some reason, there was a giant earth golem clambering over the superstructure of the battleship.
Brent looked on in disbelief. 'What the hell?'