Hello, if you are new to this story I would suggest skipping this chapter as it doesn't connect to the next one as this was the original One-Shot and has been reworked for a better storyline. If you wish to read it anyway, then go right ahead.
Howdy, and welcome to The Shattered Familiar. I've recently started reading The Familiar of Zero and have read FOZ/Fate fics, including the Hill of Swords which was pretty good even though I was missing a lot of context. Anyway I hope you enjoy.
-OtherwiseR00K
Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere was not in a good mood; she just finished her Springtime Familiar Summoning as was customary for all second years of the Tristian Academy of Magic and she had wished for a wonderful, beautiful looking familiar and all she got was a commoner.
She asked for 'wonderful and beautiful', not a commoner! What kind of noble wanted a tall commoner as their familiar and it didn't help that everybody in the circle around her laughed and continued calling her by that damnable nickname 'The Zero'.
One day she'd show them she knew it in her bones that she'd show them.
Speaking of her familiar, he was odd-looking. Tall, with bronze skin, white hair, and dull gray eyes, but the weirdest thing was the outfit. A navy blue button-up with short sleeves, same color pants, and sandals.
She believed it to be a uniform of some kind, perhaps the normal garb for commoners wherever he was before being summoned as her familiar. She wonders where he came from for a moment but dismisses it as not being important.
Louise and her familiar finally make it to her room in the girl's section of the Academy, she opens the door and walks inside. Her familiar walked in behind her and closed the door just as Louise began taking off her uniform.
Louise, now just in her undergarments, tossed her uniform into a hamper near her wardrobe as she walked closer to it. She opens the wooden dresser and pulls out her nightgown and then glances back to her familiar.
"Familiar, take my laundry down to the washroom and make sure it's ready for tomorrow," she commands as she puts on her nightgown. She turns fully to her familiar who'd just grabbed the hamper and was already moving toward the door.
Louise nods, satisfied that her familiar was listening to her without backtalk or any defiance. She would not have to deal with people making fun of her for her familiar's disobedience at least. Being known as Zero was insulting enough, she didn't need to be known as the Noble daughter who couldn't control her familiar.
Louise sighed, sitting on her bed. The whole day was just draining on her, the incident early in the morning where she once again produced an explosion, the summoning, and the jeers toward her afterward.
Louise lay back onto her bed, throwing the cover over her, and closing her eyes. Her final thought before drifting to sleep was that the next would be better than the one she had today.
-Siesta-
Siesta was a commoner born in the village of Tarbes and the eldest of eight siblings, all counting on her to provide money for the. She knew she was lucky to get a job as a servant in the Academy as it paid a lot and if she played her cards right she could make her family's money troubles a thing of the past.
Right now she was doing one of her nightly duties which usually rotated from laundry, cleaning, prepping meals for the next day, or transporting food from the shipments to the kitchen. On this night she was currently doing the last one.
Siesta walked through the servant halls, a set of halls that the students didn't typically go down and were more used by the staff so they didn't always intersect with the students. She had a bag of maize on her shoulder, which was the last of the shipment, and was heading toward the kitchen when she saw an odd sight.
A tall man wearing what looked like an odd uniform was walking around with a basket, he seemed to be looking around as if he were lost. Siesta looked around and saw no one else and decided to help the man out.
"Excuse me, are you lost?" Siesta calls out, the man turns to her voice, and though Siesta can't understand why it's as if he's looking through her. The feeling gives her a small shiver as if a predator was looking at its prey before the feeling disappeared.
He looked toward her and gestured to the basket in his hands. Siesta gets a glimpse of clothing inside and realizes he may not know where the laundry room is, "Oh, you need to know where laundry is?"
The man nods.
"Okay, it's" she turns and points down the hall, "down the hall and once you reach the end take a left and it's the first door on the right."
The man looks down the hall then to her and nods before going off in the direction he was pointed toward. Siesta watched the man go and wondered who he was as he wasn't wearing the normal Academy staff uniforms. She shook her head, he was probably here for a reason the Nobles would've sniffed him out otherwise.
Putting the thought away she continued on her way to the kitchen.
-Louise-
Chirping birds invade Louise's unconscious mind breaking up the cloud of dreams and the sun beaming through the blinds forces the teenage Noble to open them and then close them again as the beams hit her eyes.
She hisses at the irritation and turns her head blinking out the colors that invade her vision. As the colors fade she sees her familiar sitting next to the door. He's sitting oddly with his legs out forward but bent with his arms rating over his legs. It seems her familiar is sleeping but isn't using the hay she set out for them.
She pushed herself up and groaned, not wanting to get up but refusing to miss the day. Louise's movement awoke the familiar who seemed to flinch upon waking. His fingers curled as if to hold something but stopped halfway through. Though Louise was ignorant to that motion and simply thought she'd scared him awake with her sudden movement.
The familiar stood from his position pushing himself with his back up against the wall. He simply stared at Louise, awaiting a command most likely. Louise was happy that her familiar was once again showing obedience but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. She didn't know what it was but blamed it on her familiar's eyes, the gray eyes that bored into her without any emotion.
Louise couldn't help but find it kinda creepy, "Familiar, help me get dressed," so she gave a command and brushed the whole thing off.
A few minutes later she was dressed and ready to get on with the day. Louise looked herself over making sure she had everything and grabbed her wand off the dresser and slipped it into her skirt pocket.
She looked to her familiar, standing once more behind her, "Let's go," Louise said, opening the door and heading into the hallway. The familiar stepped out behind her and closed the door behind him before following Louise.
Within the hall itself were three other doors similar to Louise's that lined it, though one opened as the duo got closer to the stairwell. A busty teenager walked out with bronze skin, red flaming hair, and an untucked blouse with the top few buttons open showing off the top of her bust.
She looked to the two and upon spotting Louise a smirk crept to her lips, "Ahhh, if it isn't the 'Zero'!" she greeted.
Louise growled, "And if it isn't 'Pass Around Kirche'."
Kirche simply smirked, "At the very least I'm capable of having multiple men," she says, pushing her chest out and cocking her hip.
Louise simply frowned at her. Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst was the worst part of Louise's time at the Academy, it wasn't just that the Zerbst was a rival to the Valliere for generations, nor was it that Kirche whored herself out to any boy in the academy that caught her interest, no, it was the fact that she was the main perpetrator behind Louise's nickname.
The Zero
"What do you want, Kirche," Louise asked, her teeth grinding together in her presence.
"Just wanted to see if the rumors were true," Kirche purred, though Louise could hear that mocking tone in it, "you summoned a human didn't you?"
"You were right there when I did so, Kirche."
"Ah, sorry I was busy with something far more important at the time," as she said this a large reptile walked out of the room Kirche came from, "I was getting to know my own familiar, meet Flame."
Flame tilted his head looking at Louise who stared at the fire salamander with clear envy on her face. It wasn't fair that Kirche got a familiar that reflected her affinity while she got a commoner that she wasn't even sure what it could represent.
"A Fire Salamander from the Fire Dragon Mountains!" Kirche announced, her voice filled with pride, "a creature capable of producing a shower of fire and proving I am a competent fire mage. Familiars reflect their status after all~" she purred, her eyes looking at Louise as if she were a predator that just caught the scent of blood, "so going on that view, it's obvious the Zero would summon a useless commoner!"
Kirche laughed as if she'd just told the joke of the century while Louise simply seethed quietly, not able to offer a word in response as she couldn't think of one.
During this whole interaction neither mage paid attention to their familiars and how they were reacting to each other. Nor that Flame was looking more and more frightened as it stared at the human familiar, his own grey eyes boring into its own slitted ones.
Flame backed up slightly, bumping into Kirche's legs who finally took notice of her frightened familiar. Looking inquisitively at Flame, she glanced at Louise's familiar and smiled. Louise's eyes dilated at that look, she recognized it all too well. It was the same look Kirche gave anyone that caught her eye and it seemed her familiar was in her sights.
"Ahh, it seems your familiar has a rather," Kirche's eyes scanned Louise's familiar, Louise growled at the look, "Robust~" Kirche purred once more but this one was accompanied by a sultry breath.
"No," Louise growled, stepping in front of her familiar, "you will not do anything to my familiar, Kirche."
"Quiet pipsqueak, the grown-ups are talking," Kirche said, looking over Louise's head at the taller familiar, "Why don't you and I meet back up here around midnight, hmm~"
The familiar just stared at her, not reacting to her charms at all. If anything it looked like he was looking through her, a small chill went up Kirche's spine and she found herself liking it. She went to speak more but Louise wasn't having it.
"Come, familiar, we have to get to class," Louise commanded, brushing past Kirche followed by her familiar who didn't give the busty girl a glance.
Kirche watched the two leave, her eyes lowered on the familiar at all times. Kirche licked her lips and her face took a brighter shade as she looked hungrily after the two, "You will be mine tonight~" Kirche vowed.
Louise cursed Kirche under her breath with every creative insult that she knew of. How dare that Germanian cow attempt to seduce her familiar! In front of her no less! Did that cow have no shame? Oh, who was kidding she knew the answer to that. All she had to do was count the men she had hanging off her every time she was in class.
Louise glanced at her familiar, a stone wall that didn't even blink at Kirche's advances. Usually, a man would at the very least look uncomfortable with a beauty, as much as she hated to admit it, like Kirche showing any interest in them.
But not her familiar.
He hadn't even blinked at her or did that thing that men did like checking women out through the corner of their eye. Nothing. Louise was thankful for that, she didn't know what would've happened if her familiar had fallen for the seductress but thinking about it would make no difference.
Louise and her familiar continued on to class and for the first time in a long time Louise felt hopeful for her class.
Louise's hope had been extinguished nearly as quickly as it had appeared. Her first class was a disaster and she could only blame herself. The first time she has hope and she'd let it get to her head and caused an explosion big enough to create a crater in the once pristine wooden floor of the classroom.
The shockwave had blown most of the students in the front row into the middle while a few poor souls got launched into the stone walls. All this was because she'd attempted to transmute copper into gold.
All she could do was stand there and soak in the chaos of the room, her clothes had been just scuffed this time so she had to thank the Founder for small mercies. She didn't want a repeat of her first year and have to run from the classroom nearly in tears because she'd been left in nothing but her underwear.
She should've known that would happen.
The worst part was what everyone chanted afterward, they all yelled at Louise calling her Zero. The teacher didn't stop them that time as she did during the beginning of class as all she did was look at Louise in pity.
She probably thought the same thing as them.
Louise sniffed and wiped a small tear from her eye. Thankfully her familiar had done none of that and instead stood as a pillar for her in that moment. She wouldn't admit it but she was thankful one person was standing by her, even if they are contracted to do so.
She walked into the cafeteria, the day having passed quickly to lunch after her incident, her familiar following just like usual. She sat down at the end of a table away from the others not wanting to deal with more jeers from her peers.
Louise pulled her wand from her skirt pocket and stared at it, twisting it in her hands, feeling the wood taken from the Valliere garden and shaped into the wand. She stared into the wood, hoping it may give her an answer to her plight. She needed something, anything, to tell her a way out of this.
But as usual, it never came.
She sighed and returned her wand to her pocket, placing her arms down before letting her head fall into them. Perhaps her family was correct in their beliefs about her.
Louise had fallen into the hole of self-pity and hadn't noticed the commotion coming from a table over. Her familiar however had noticed and was watching it all unfold.
The familiar watched as the maid he had encountered the night before walked up to a blonde student who was speaking to a girl in a brown cloak, the maid offered up a bottle of perfume to the student saying that he had dropped it but the noble attempted to say it wasn't his until one of the nobles at the table recognized the bottle.
The blonde noble, Guiche, attempted to dissuade them of the notion until the girl looked at the bottle still in the maid's hand and back to Guiche. The girl had teared up and after a back and forth between the two she slapped him and ran off crying.
Guiche had been blindsided by this and was in no condition to react to the girl walking up behind him. A blonde girl with curled hair, the owner of said bottle, yelled at him as well and then slapped him hard enough to send him tumbling to the floor.
She stomped off and grabbed the perfume from the maid's hands, who had been standing in the same place the whole time just watching it unfold. Guiche stood up and glared at the maid, he proclaimed that two flowers had cried because of her folly. Guiche advanced toward the maid who'd begun shaking after being addressed.
"-who do you think you are?" Guiche questioned menacingly at the poor maid, "I am a Noble son of the Gramonts and you are a common maid who believes she has any right to harm the hearts of noble standing."
Guiche raised his hand and attempted to slap the maid. The maid closed her eyes ready for the pain.
But it never came.
"What do you think you're doing!" Guiche shouted as Louise's familiar grabbed Guiche's arm holding it up away from the maid. All the while the familiar's face never changed, he simply stared at Guiche who attempted to pull his arm away.
"Unhand me, you commoner!"
Louise finally snapped out of her pity party just in time to notice what her familiar was doing. Her face turned from confused to horrified in the span of a second. What in the founder's name was her familiar doing!?
She couldn't understand it, her familiar had listened to her throughout the time it'd been here. Not once had it done something without her saying so-no wait that wasn't true. She remembered the explosion she'd caused earlier and how her familiar had come to her after it. But he'd never displayed this kind of autonomy with the insults hurled at her.
So why was her familiar grabbing Guiche!?
Guiche seemed to get an idea and grabbed the rose he held in his breast pocket, which also acted as the wand he used, and attempted to use a spell to get Louise's familiar off of him but was interrupted when the familiar's other hand snatched the rose wand from his hand.
Within a moment of that action, he tossed Guiche over the table. Guiche slammed into another table with a loud crash before silence enveloped the cafeteria, everyone in it just attempting to understand what just happened.
All except Louise.
"FAMILIAR!" Louise shrieked, she moved toward the familiar who was now looking at her with the same look as always. Not a hint of remorse or fear, it was like he had no idea what harming a noble could entail for him.
Louise stomped up to him and snatched the rose from his hand using it to point at him, "Do you have any idea what you've just done? Commoners striking a Noble in any way is considered punishable by imprisonment or a beating!"
As she screamed Guiche hauled himself up, a small cut on his head the only visible damage to him besides his ruffled uniform, "Zero," Guiche growled cutting off Louise's scolding, "you do not have to explain it to the commoner familiar of yours because I will be giving him a proper showcase!"
He marched up to Louise and snatched his rose from her hand, before pointing toward the familiar, "You will head for the dueling grounds and accept the punishment I deal out to you, you will pay heavily for scaring my visage!"
"W-wait, Guiche, surely-" Louise attempted to get Guiche to be more lenient but he wasn't having it.
"No, your familiar has struck me! A noble! He will pay the same price every commoner would pay for his insolence! The dueling grounds, now." Guiche didn't give any more words and simply walked out of the cafeteria leaving silence in his wake.
"YOU IDIOT!" Louise yelled before kicking her familiar in the shin, though it seemingly did nothing, "Why would you do that!? There was nothing to gain from protecting that maid!"
Not to mention the maid had scurried off as Louise was first yelling at her familiar.
Her familiar didn't seem to care though and she had half a mind to go back to her room and take a gift she'd gotten from her eldest sister to her familair. But he was already to be punished and she'd still hold back on it if she were doing so.
Guiche would have no such restrictions.
There was nothing Louise could do though, Guiche had been wronged and everyone in the cafeteria saw it. No one would listen to her or allow her to dish out a punishment because they'd think she'd be lenient on him. And she would be, no one wanted a crippled familair.
Louise couldn't see a way out of this. It could only end one way and it was cemented in stone with her familiar's actions.
"Familiar," she said, her voice having lost a lot of its anger, "we are leaving."
Louise headed off in the same direction Guiche had headed with her familiar following her, his expression the same as it's been since she first summoned him. Walking toward a punishment with no sense of fear.
All the while the maid the familiar had protected watched this with a heavy heart.
Louise walked to the fields with her head lowered as if on the way to the executioner's blade. She may not have been but she couldn't say the same for her familiar, Louise had no idea what Guiche would do as a punishment. All she could hope was it wasn't something that would cripple or kill him.
Louise walked through the field, toward Guiche who stood at the far end of the dueling ground. He stood with a smirk and a vengeful eye toward her familiar who still followed behind her. They reached the other side of the marked area and Louise looked toward her familiar, "Familiar, go and stand in the middle of the area."
Without a word, the familiar walked forward not a hint of fear in his steel eyes.
"Ah, so you accept the punishment you rightly deserve?" Guiche asked, mocking the familiar with just his tone alone. He idly let a petal fall from the rose he held in his hand, the petal drifted to the ground and just as suddenly as it landed the ground rippled.
Soon metal formed from the dirt and in a moment a large metallic feminine golem stood before Guiche. Its appearance seemed similar to that of empty armor that a woman would wear but over-stylized. It stood at attention with a pole in its hand ready to use it in whatever fashion its master ordered.
"Ha! Meet my beautiful steel Valkyrie, the culmination of my earth magic!" Guiche proclaimed, "And today, it will be used to put this commoner back in his place!" Guiche looks to the familiar still standing in the field with no change in its face, "Do you have anything to say, perhaps groveling for my forgiveness?"
The familiar just stood. Not a word, not a twitch, nothing, not even sweat rolling down his face. He was wall toward Guiche and his face set in its perpetual blank stare.
Guiche scoffed, "I'm not sure why I bother. Beat him black and blue!" Guiche commanded to his valkyrie. The Valkyrie's helm turned to the familiar and suddenly rushed toward him, the metal pole raised high.
The crowd watches on, fascinated by what is to occur, as if this were a simple fair-side attraction. Louise had long looked away from the scene, only having the crowd to guess what was happening.
The Valkyrie was finally in range and swung down.
Clang!
The sound of metal hitting metal echoed through the courtyard. A sound that shouldn't have been heard, it should've been the sound of a blunt metal object breaking bone but instead, it was a completely different noise.
Louise whipped her head back toward the scene and her mouth gaped at the sight.
Her familiar had grabbed the pole aiming for his shoulder and was holding it above his head. The Valkyrie was shaking, showing the strain it was putting into the hit while the familiar simply held the pole up with not a hint of effort.
The familiar's eyes looked at the pole and then down to the Valkyrie before trailing to Guiche who stood in utter shock. Breaking the mask he wore, the familiar scoffed audibly, closing his eyes and then opening them to reveal cruel golden eyes.
The familiar ripped the pole from the Valkyrie's hand, making the Valkyrie fall forward. The familiar's runes began to glow before the familiar spun the weapon toward the Valkyrie's head with enough strength to separate the steel golem's head from its shoulders.
The head fell to the dirt with a thud and the body with a louder thud. The steel then reverted back to dirt and all that was left of the golem was a mound of dirt, as if it were buried.
Silence reigned for all of a second before the familiar began moving forward. Guiche, finally processing what happened, sent three more petals and summoned three more valkyries which immediately sped forward.
The familiar flipped the pole and held it in a javelin stance before throwing it at one of the approaching valkyries. It speared through the Valkyrie's head and collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
In the same moment the familiar threw the pole a weapon appeared in his hand. A strange weapon that resembled one of those flintlocks Louise had seen before in a demonstration at the Vallerie Estate. But it was much larger and had a black bayonet under its barrel.
BANG!
And she had no clue it could be so effective against the steel golems.
The shot had hit the Valkyrie in the chest, shattering the metal like glass and making the golem stumble backward. Another shot hit the other valkyrie directly in the head causing it to fall and turn back to dirt. The Valkyrie with a shattered breastplate was quickly finished off with a similar shot to the head.
The familiar smirked, looking directly at Guiche. He seemed to realize what may happen and summoned four more valkyries, though these ones were showing his exhaustion as they were brown. Made from copper than the stronger steel.
The familiar glanced at them and then raised his hands, another gun appearing in his offhand. He fired rapidly, this time not letting them get near him as he walked forward. Guiche looked panicked but there was nothing he could do now.
Summoning that many valkyries had exhausted him. He'd expected to have the first Valkyrie beat down the commoner and show him his place and instead, the commoner tore his Valkyrie apart. Then those weapons appeared in his hands and it just went downhill.
Guiche was terrified, so much so he hadn't noticed the familiar lining up another shot.
Bang!
Directly at his knee.
"Ahhhhh!" Guiche screamed as pain erupted in his knee. It felt as if his knee had exploded and he nearly fell over but was caught by the throat and lifted up.
Guiche was now looking directly into the golden eyes of the commoner he'd meant to teach a lesson. Instead, the commoner had taught him one. A very painful lesson and one that, if Guiche survived, wouldn't be forgotten.
Too bad for Guiche, it didn't look like the familiar was interested in mercy. He had already raised his gun to the noble's head and his finger was wrapped around the trigger.
"STOP!"
All motion ceased. The sadistic smirk once on the familiar's face was gone. The feeling of death encroaching on Guiche disappeared.
All because of the shout of one Louise Valliere.
"Familiar, that's enough! Put Guiche down and come back here!"
The familiar continued looking at Guiche, "Well," he said, breaking the silence he'd held until then "It seems I have a rather merciful master." And with that, he dropped Guiche who screamed again once his leg hit the ground.
The familiar looked down at the noble and blinked, his face setting back into its blank mask and his eyes returning to their steely gray. He turned on his heel and walked back to his master's side.
Louise watched as her familiar walked to her side, barely noticing Montmorency rushing to Guiche's side. Instead, her gaze was locked onto her familiar. Her mind is seemingly at war with the image in front of her.
The docile and obedient familiar vs the dangerous golden-eyed familiar.
How could they be the same person?
This line of questioning was interrupted, however, by the arrival of Professor Colbert.
"What is going on here!?" he demands, looking around and soaking in the image. No one speaks up, either too shocked by the events or staring at Louise's familiar in utter shock. With no one speaking up and Colbert noticing the stares he makes a decision.
"Miss Valliere, please head to the headmaster's office and take your familiar."
Louise mutley nodded and began heading toward the office, her familiar trailing behind her. Thoughts continued bouncing around in her head, how, why, and more importantly, who was the familiar that she had summoned?
This is going to stay a One-Shot as I'm only into volume two of Familiar of Zero plus I wish to focus on The Fallen and finish that up before doing anything else. I made this with the original thought of Emiya Alter and it is a variant of him but not exactly as shown by his actions in the story. I would like to see someone run with this idea in all honesty as even though I wrote this I feel like I'll never actually get to writing a full version.
Anyway I just hope you all like it and if this is the first story you are seeing from me and like the idea I recommend going over to my other story (Shameless Plug) The Fallen, a RWBY/Fate fic (Shameless Plug) you may like that as well.
-OtherwiseR00K