Authors Note:

Thanks once again to All-Seeing-Eye for beta-reading this chapter. He's helped a tonne with all my revisions.

This is the 3rd revised chapter. Originally intended as a segment at the beginning of the old chapter four, it grew large enough to stand as a chapter in it's own right.

ARC III

Chapter Three B: Too tired to think of a chapter title

The sun shone. Birds twittered. It was quite a lovely summer day on the Academy lawns. Students took advantage of the weather to have their lunches in the Academy lawns and sat at delicately wrought tables and chairs bought out by the staff.

While most of those on the lawns were students, there was a teacher or two, and a few parents come to see the progress of their future heirs.

These other adults should have allowed the three figures at one particular table to blend in a bit more, but they really didn't help.

Unlike those at the other tables, even a casual glance would reveal these three had no interest in the gardens, the birds, or the weather. The small talk that would start up and then immediately peter out between two of them revealed their lack of familurarity with each other, and the maid now coming with a fresh pot of tea and sandwiches showed they had been here some time. While these were enough to make the group stand out to the careful eye, a careful eye wasn't really needed. Two of the figures clearly wern't students, teachers, or parents.

The first and most noticeable of these was a huge hulking beast of a man, with arms like tree-trunks, and a neck thicker than most peoples thighs. Numerous old burn marks suggested this person would be more comfortable in some form of workshop, rather than this luncheon for the heirs of the elite. Despite his appearance however, he held himself well, doing a reasonable job of hiding his impatience. A pleasant smile and polite conversation were well within his capabilities, and if his replies had gradually dwindled down to curt one word answers over the past twenty minutes, neither of his companions appeared put out by it. Indeed, the shorter one hadn't even noticed.

The second of the trio was less obviously out of place. A lady in her mid-twenties wearing a high quality cloak. Close examination of her body language revealed this wasn't some pampered noblewoman however. The way she refused to sit down, the toned arms and legs, her constant glances in every direction, and the slight bulge at her hip revealed for those who knew how to look that this lady was more at home on the battlefield. The gentleman's attempt at conversation had been ill-handled by her, and it appeared she had little in the way of etiquette training.

The third of these looked the least out of place. Her uniform marked her as one of the other students, and her behavior somewhat matched theirs as well. Perhaps she would have been showing the same signs of impatience as her colleagues, but she had been released from her classes late, and would have no chance to eat after the missing fourth member of the group finally arrived. Rather than impatience, this third figure was frantically stuffing her face with sandwiches, perhaps a little faster than decorum allowed. The thing that marked this figure out as different was not her costume, nor her behavior, but how others acted around her.

The other students, as much as they enjoyed themselves, were careful not to look at the group, and not at her particularly. Not for too long, anyway. There were all sorts of quick looks, all sorts of muffled conversations that definitely weren't about the out of place trio, and definitely not about their classmate in particular.

The first noble frowned again, his impatience growing, and finally made some comment about the work he still needed to complete that day. Agnes, not impervious to impatience herself, sent the still-eating Louise a glare. 'Your familiar, Louise. Is he on his way?'

Louise internally cursed. She'd been hoping she could finish her lunch, but nooo...

'Mmmmmmph, mph mph', she said, before swallowing and trying again.

'I'll see. He's not usually this late.'

The two nobles from the palace just stood there, watching her with impatience.

Swallowing again to get rid of the rest of her sandwich - which seemed to prefer staying lodged halfway down her throat, Louise focussed, and closed her eyes. With just a moments concentration, her other eye flicked on. The one in his room.

In contrast to the gardens she sat in, his room was almost completely black. Only the faintest of grey light came in through the window, enough for her to make out a mound of blankets on the bed that had to be her familiar. Sleeping? It shouldn't be too hard to wake him.

She flicked a thought through her connection, and her 'mouth' and 'ear' turned on too.

REEEEEEEEEEE - REEEEEEEEEEE - REEEEEEEEEE - REEEEEEEEE

She flinched, and turned the ear off again. It was like a bird shrieking, but too uniform to be natural. How could he even sleep through that?

She searched through the device looking for whatever was causing the noise, before finally finding it on his mobile device. Something called an alarm? Well that was a clever idea.

Or rather, it would be if it actually worked.

The mound lay there, not moving. Apparently oblivious to the noise.

Well, he had been up late last night studying...

She briefly considered turning it off, but decided to leave it on. It might wake him eventually...

Back in the real world, she could see Agnes tapping her feet impatiently.

The noise blaring out of his phone hadn't been enough to wake him, so yelling at him wouldn't work. If only she could control his lights... Or even physically kick him out of bed...

Or... get someone else to do it.

Didn't he have a housemate? What was his name again?

She accessed his mobile device again, and searched through his contacts. It seemed to be alphabetically ordered, so 'Adant' wasn't too hard to find.

It connected - eventually.

'Brent? What is it man, it's 6 am.'

She could hear a soft, feminine 'Who is it?' in the background, and tried not to blush at the implication.

'I'm not Brent', she said curtly. 'I'm his mistress. Louise. I'm unable to wake him. Could you get him up for me?'

The very sleepy Adant's eyes widened slightly at the word Mistress. He didn't even know Brent was... His thoughts were cut as the girl repeated herself.

'Adant? Are you able to wake him for me? There's training he needs to go through.'

Adant winced. 'Woah, waaay too much information. Yeah. Yeah, I'll get him up for you.'

He hung up and sleepily pulled himself from bed, wincing at the cold air before making his way to Brent's room... where he could hear an alarm blaring loudly. He blinked, looking at the door in front of him, mind blank...

There was no way Brent would even hear him knocking...

Adant shivered at the cold, and sighed. All he wanted to do was go back to his nice warm bed.

He thumped on the door, and yelled Brent's name - more for courtesy than because he thought Brent would even notice. Then checked the door. Unlocked, thankfully...

He located the alarm on Brent's phone and killed it before prodding the figure in the bed, who did it's best impression of a zombie - moaning and shifting, but not actually getting up. Finally, Adant had enough, and tore the blankets off the bed, letting the freezing air do the work for him.

Brent moaned and clawed for them, but they were pulled from his reach, and the chill air quickly bought him to conciousness. He grimaced, looking more like a zombie than ever, and peered up at Adant.

'What are you doing there?'

Adant shrugged, irritated at being kept out of his bed so long. 'Your 'Mistress' called. Said she wanted to train you.'

Brent blinked slowly, before checking the time on his phone. 'Shit! Thanks...'

Adant just looked at him, before shambling towards the door - still dark. Still cold.

'What you do with your 'mistress' is your own business, but keep me out of your sex life, ok?'

Brent looked at him stupidly.

'What?'

Adant ignored him, shambling through the house before going crawling back under the covers.

The figure next to him grumbled, but made room for him. And as he lay there, cocooned by the wonderfully warm blankets, feeling the warmth of the figure next to him, sliding back into sleep.

Brent sat hunched over his computer, using his blankets as a makeshift robe to keep himself warm. Beside him, the old electric radiator ticked to itself, slowly warming up. The lamp beside him cast the room in a half-lit glow - the main light being too bright for this early in the morning.

His computer had already booted up, of course. He'd very quickly got used to the idea that it had a mind of its own. Or the mind of his bloody 'mistress', at least.

He loaded up a game, and his blocky avatar appeared in the stables. Running out to their arranged meeting place, he saw Louise, the 'special forces' chick with the musket, and some other guy with massive arms.

'Sorry I'm late', he typed, and they glared at him. Musket girl sighed, dismissing it.

She waved to massive-arm guy. 'This is the royal gunsmith, Manon. He'd like a few words to you before we start.'

The man stepped forward, and Brent yawned, blinking his eyes. It'd be nice if he'd had a chance to make a cup of coffee...

'Familiar', the man started. 'I've had a look at that repeating musket diagram you let us copy. Those things in them articles? Rifling? Cartridges? Bolt actions? Magazines? There ain't no way to make 'em. The metal in them diagrams? They're too thin. Barrel'd burst. The rifling? You'd need a master artisan to work on the inside of each one. Take six months a barrel. 'Nd the rifling'd clog wi the gunpowder residue.'

The man shrugged his huge shoulders.

'Now - lookin at the diagram, I cn see how it all works. Not saying it's nonsense. But there's gotta be stuff you're not tellin us. New gunpowder, new ways to make the barrels... I'm gunna need more information from ya.

Brent blinked, struggling to understand the man's heavy accent.

Right... Metallurgy... Casting techniques, maybe. Metal lathes? Smokeless gunpowder, definately. But none of that information would be on the net in enough detail to be useful...

He shrugged and started typing.

'I don't know. But I can borrow some books from the library. Will bring them in next time.'

He hit 'enter', and yawned, pulling his hands into his blanket cocoon to warm them up. The heater was taking forever.

The man nodded. 'Is there any information you can give us now? Some direction we can work on in the meantime?

Brent blinked sleepily, pondering the question. And finally spoke.

'Lathes. You should build some metal lathes. Or something.'

The big man blinked. 'Lathes? Yes. The wood-workers use these. How would you make tools to cut through the metal?'

Brent blinked. Shrugged. Thought about it. Diamonds? Didn't know... didn't care...

'Dunno. Will get some books... bring them next time.'

The screen was making his eyes burn. He closed them, and felt sleep beckoning...

The big man waited for Brent to continue, a frown gradually growing when he realised that was all Brent was planning on saying. Looked down at his satchet - full of writing materials, enough for at least an hours worth of notes. Then at Agnes, who shrugged back at him.

He finally shook his head in irritation, slammed down his cup, and started heading back to the stables, muttering to himself. 'Hour and a half horse ride. For this?'

Louise frowned at her familiar. 'That was not well done.'

Her familiar didn't respond.

'Brent?'

The blocky character continued to not move.

Louise frowned, then focused.

'BRENT!'

Brent flinched and lifted his head from his desk. He moved his hands out of their nest under the blankets, and back to the keyboard and mouse.

'What?'

Louise sighed. 'Never mind... he's gone now. Anyway, we have a lesson to attend.'

Brent shrugged.

Agnes nodded, glad to finally be getting started. She led them to a quieter part of the gardens, monologuing as she went.

'I'm here to train the pair of you in how to do missions for the crown. Each and every mission I've been sent on has been different, but they tend to involve the same set of skills. We're going to have a number of lessons, finding out how you can adapt your abilities to these, and practice and refine them.'

She sighed.

'These lessons will really just be an introduction. For all your abilities, I'd be much happier if you were to spend a week on each of these. But... Perhaps later.'

She stopped, in a clear part of the academy.

'So – Infiltration. Extraction. Stealth. Persuasion. Recon. Rescues. Object retrieval. Which of these would you like to do today?'

The pair looked at Brent, and he stumbled to a stop. All he could think about was coffee... sleep...

She'd been saying something about... 'Infiltration?'

Agnes nodded. 'This comes up in most missions, so it's a good one to start with. Getting past guards, into buildings, or through city walls.'

She pointed to the high walls of the academy around them.

'So for instance, if you needed to get past that, how would you go about it?'

The wait seemed to take forever.

'I think there's a game where I can throw a teleport ball. If I could throw that over the wall...'

He paused.

'Or... there are games where you can dig underground. But they're not exactly subtle...'

Louise piped in. 'I'm able to change where he appears. His 'spawn point'. What if I went in with a disguise, and set his spawn point within the walls?'

Agnes frowned. 'It's not ideal. If the gates are closed you wouldn't be able to get him in. Also, Brent's expendable. You're not. Far better to keep you safe, and let Brent handle all the danger.'

Louise bristled, but before she could respond, Agnes continued.

'Brent can't really be killed here, he just reappears, correct? So he's never in any real danger. Now you on the other hand...'

She paused.

'You do realize your ties to Brent actually make you even more vulnerable? On any mission, if your opponents really want to stop the two of you, they need to target you. Targeting Brent might slow him down, but only by taking you out will they be able to stop him altogether.'

Louise winced. She'd had some vague idea, but to hear it spelled out like this...

'We're going to need to train you in how to keep safe and keep hidden. And possibly, to keep Brent's link to you a secret, though it might already be too late for that. Anyway, to begin with, we should have Brent acting independently of you. If a city isn't safe for you to be in, you'd need to be staying outside somewhere. So moving back to Brent...'

She turned to face the blocky avatar.

'Is there any way you could come in from the air without being spotted?'

Brent's avatar stood there, staring blankly into space.

'Brent?'

No response...

Louise frowned then focused... her eyes glazing over... he was slumped over the keyboard.

'HEY!'

He grunted, and looked up, bleary eyed.

Louise sighed, and explained to Agnes. 'He's really out of it. The sun's not even risen there... I honestly don't think any of this is even sinking in...'

Agnes sighed, frustrated. 'This is important. He's not living up to his end of the deal...'

Louise frowned. 'Our end of the deal is that I help him with Uni. I'm doing that, but...'

She looked in on Brent again, once more face down on his desk.

'He needs to catch up. He needs to put in every minute into actually catching up or he's going to fail. I'm surprised he didn't cancel today.'

Agnes frowned. 'Brent's skills mean a lot. They make us all powerful. Or at least, they will if we can have him trained. How he acts and what he can tell us will make the difference for tens of thousands of people. His training here is immeasurably more important than his university studies.'

Louise nodded. 'Brent doesn't really care. All he cares about is getting through his course.'

She sighed. 'I can't really blame him, I suppose. Before I summoned him, all I cared about was getting my magic to work. It's a bit frustrating, because his study habits are terrible.'

A hand dropped onto her shoulder.

'But I'm sure you're doing your best to fix that.'

Louise jumped and spun around.

'Mr Colbert? Where did you come from?'

Mr Colbert smiled. 'Forgive me for startling you, Louise. I found I had some free time, and decided to see how your extra lessons were coming along.'

He peered curiously at Brent's avatar. 'Interesting. Made entirely from rectangles? What a strange design.'

Agnes nodded, not letting herself get diverted.

'And as you can see, he's not controlling it. Asleep, by all accounts.'

Mr Colbert chuckled. 'Here in body, but not in spirit? Sounds like some of my students.'

Agnes didn't appear to appreciate his light-hearted response. If anything, her frown etched itself deeper.

'This is serious! This is training he's going to need. We're going to need.' She turned to Louise again.

'You said he only really cares about his studies. Do you know why is he studying in the first place? Can you seen any way of convinicng him to drop his studies?'

Louise shrugged.

'He's never really said. I can ask him I suppose. Or search through his computer some more...'

'In the meantime, can you start trying to convince him to give them up?' Agnes asked.

'Or spend less time on them?'

'Wait a minute, Agnes', Mr Colbert said. 'We're relying on his goodwill. If he realizes we're trying to manipulate him, there's no reason for him to help us.'

He turned to Louise.

'But perhaps Agnes is on the right track, Louise. Don't sabotage his studies, and don't try to convince him to stop. Instead – try and find out why he's studying in the first place.

If it's for money, family obligations or prestige...'

He shrugged.

'There may be some easier way for him to achieve them. Especially with our help.'

Louise nodded thoughtfully.

'You know the 'Control Familiar' spell gives me control over his devices, not him?'

Colbert nodded, while Agnes looked on impatiently.

'I have a lot of control over his devices. More than he does, I think. I may be able to help him through them in some way'

She frowned, thinking...

'His devices have some sort of automatic password on them, but they just open automatically for me. It's a bit harder for devices that don't belong to him, but I can generally access them if I keep trying.'

Colbert blinked. 'They talk to other devices? What about?'

Louise smiled. 'It's actually kind of amazing. They talk to each other, no matter how far apart. For instance, he can use his device to check his bank balance at home, and order food and things too. Or even books and things from nearby countries. It's like sending a servant to do it all, but happens instantly!'

Agnes looked thoughtful...

'You said you can control the other devices?'

Louise nodded.

'And one of these devices has his bank account?'

Louise nodded again.

Agnes smiled. 'Problem solved then. Fill his account, and he won't have any need to study.'

Mr Colbert winced. 'Not such a good idea, Agnes. Banks tend to be rather protective of their money. There may be all sorts of safeguards we're not aware of... We don't want to draw any attention to him, unless we're sure it'll be to our benefit. If their government decide they don't want him talking to us, or order him to wipe us out...'

He frowned.

'For now, Louise, don't make any changes. Explore these devices all you want, but don't make any changes outside his personal devices. Just help Brent focus on his studies, and we can think about how to reduce his need for them later one. After all, we have plenty of time.'

Agnes nodded.

'We'll need to make up this training session tomorrow morning. We didn't really get much at all done in this one, and we need to make up time. He's got a training session with General Gramont in two days, so we can't really put it off.

Louise looked at Brent, still slumped over his desk, and winced.

'Um, I think he can't come...'

Agnes and Colbert frowned at her.

Back in his bedroom, Brent's ears twitched.

'He kept falling asleep in today's lesson. He's staying up till the early hours on his assignment. Right now, he's spending every spare minute on his studies and assignment. He's going to crack at this pace, especially since he's not used to it. He couldn't do the lesson today, and he's going to be worse tomorrow.'

She frowned.

'Mr Colbert, can we please stop his training? At least till his assignment is done? I'm worried about him.'

Agnes looked at the comatose avatar.

'That's 'trying?' She snorted, and was about to say more when Mr Colbert spoke over her.

'You said his assignment is due in eight days?'

Louise nodded.

'Then we can resume his training after this. He'll be free after that?'

Louise frowned.

'He'll have more assignments. But he'll have more time to do them so... Yes. He'll be a lot more free.'

Colbert nodded.

'There's no immediate need for his services. We can wait a week. He can resume training then.'

Agnes looked like she'd just bit into a lemon, but held her tongue.

'I'll let his other tutors know.'

Colbert left. Agnes glared at the comatose avatar, then Louise. She finally left herself, striding angrily away.

Louise sighed...

Angering Tristain's Chevalier... not a clever move. But it was necessary.

'I hope you appreciate this', she murmured softly to the blocky figure next to her.

Back in his room, Brent lay face down on his desk, eyes closed... but not actually asleep. Not completely asleep, anyhow. He was still able to half-process the words that had been coming in through his headphones.

Their words had flowed through him, barely processed in his half-asleep mind. The occasional sentence had caught, but most had just drifted by. The gist had stuck though. His 'mistress' - the same one who kept pushing him so bloody hard, was now trying to give him a break? Confusion washed over him. This wasn't the Louise he knew.

But it was a problem for another day. Or another hour anyhow. An hour where the sun was a little higher in the sky, for instance. His confusion washed away as sleep seeped in and took the rest of his consciousness.

Authors Notes

I realise the timezones tend to jump around a bit. You could think of this as me being lazy and not checking for consistency, or you could think of it as Halkeginia not having a 24 hour day.

Also, while I haven't finished my revisions for this arc, chapters 2, 3 and this new 4 are all I've done so far. The old 4 and 6 won't be revised, but I'll likely be putting in another chapter or two between them, and perhaps revising 5.

I was planning on waiting till I'd completely finished my revisions before posting all in one go, but there's a lot going on with my life right now, and there's a chance I may not be able to write much in the future.