Magic The Gathering is owned by Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. Familiar of Zero is owned by Noboru Yamaguchi.
Φ
With a pull of the horse's reins, Longuevuille slowly stopped the cart. "Alright, this is as close as we can probably get to the thief's hideout without them hearing us approach in the cart. We'll go on foot for the rest of the way." With a nod of agreement from the three girls and a grunt from Urabrask, the nobles hopped out of the cart. "If I remember correctly," Longuevuille began to recall, "the path to their hideout should be this way."
After a few minutes of walking through the forest, the group came to the edge of a large clearing, with what looked like an abandoned home sitting in the center of it. From how it looked, it was abandoned for a long time, with several large cracks running throughout the structure. Situated at the front of the house was an oversized window, which due to the elements had a thin layer of scum growing over it, effectively blocking the inside from sight at this distance.
"Are you sure this is the thief's hideout?" asked Louise. "It looks like no one's touched it for a decade."
"I'm certain," reaffirmed Longuevuille, "everyone I spoke to when I was going around for intel on the thief had them coming this way, and I had an eyewitness state they saw them heading towards this clearing."
With only one way to find out if Longuevuille's info-gathering was worth the effort, they had Tabitha circle to the side of the old home before approaching the scum-stained window. Finally, after peeking through a small patch where the scum hadn't grown over, Tabitha leaned her staff against the wall and gave a signal back to the group by crossing her arms above her.
An X. No one was home.
"It seems your intel was more unreliable than you thought," sarcastically chided Urabrask. So far, he remains unimpressed by the ability of this world's humans to gather intel.
As the group approached the now twice abandoned home and met back up with Tabitha, they discussed what to do next, now that the thief bailed.
"Perhaps the thief heard us approaching after all and decided to leave before they could be caught. If so, maybe they left a trail that could be followed. You all should check out the house and see if the thief left anything behind, I'll go and check the area for any possible tracks they may have left behind."
While this seemed like a good enough plan for the girls, Urabrask was doubtful. "Going alone is unwise, this thief could be anticipating such a strategy, and may be waiting in the forest to strike. If this Fouquet was willing to attack an academy full of experienced magic users, there is no doubt they must be confident enough to handle fighting a smaller group like ours, and much more an individual."
"If they were, wouldn't they have stayed here, instead of fleeing?" questioned Longuevuille. "And besides, they're an earth mage, they could be covering their tracks as we speak! If you're worried about my well-being, as meager as it is, my magic can protect me well enough. If that thief does ambush me, I'll just try to get back to the clearing and go back to our original plan."
Urabrask wanted to point out the flaws in Longuevuille's argument, seeing her insistence as foolishness, but Louise spoke up first before he could.
"Urabrask, can you please just go along with it for now? If she's willing to go off and find where that thief has slinked off to, I'd say let her. And besides, I agree with Longuevuille, thieves are cowards. Why else would they strike when no one is looking? Such urchins would never want to settle things fairly."
After a moment, a scowling Urabrask let out a heavy sigh. "Fine, but don't blame me if your plan falls apart, like a poorly-made tool."
With the next steps decided on, the girls entered the building, looking for any clues that could lead them to where the thief or the staff went. The inside of the house matched its exterior, with the furniture left behind looking worn with age and lack of care. As such, they could see several places where the house had been disturbed, with upturned dust floating in the air. Soon enough, one of the girls would make a discovery, for when Tabitha moved over to near the fireplace, she noticed a white sheet placed over a stack of boxes. Unlike everything else within the dilapidated house, this lacked the layer of dust covering every other object. Quickly glancing under the sheet, she found out why that was.
"Over here," notified Tabitha, gesturing for the two other girls to come close. Once they did, Tabitha pulled back the white sheet she previously looked under, fully revealing what she had found.
"The Staff of Destruction!" exclaimed Kirche and Louise.
To be more accurate, it was the Staff of Destruction's box. The lock was undone, but a quick check inside showed that the artifact was still there.
"Why would they go through all the trouble of stealing a powerful artifact if they were just going to leave it behind?" Louise asked, closing the box. As she went to lift it, however, she found it to be of considerable weight. With some effort, the short pinkette brought the box to a table more exposed to the window's light. "Maybe they didn't want to be weighed down by this heavy thing when they realized we were coming?" After all, what else could have been the reason for the thief's disappearance?
But before any more contemplation could be done, the ground began to rumble, the shaking slowly growing violent. Suddenly, the room greatly dimmed, followed by the large glass window behind them shattering as Urabrask charged into the house. After he landed, he very quickly stood back up and made his way to the small group of shocked students, the tall exhaust tubes on his back nearly scratching along the ceiling.
Louise was put off by her familiar's violent entry, not anticipating Urabrask to enter the home after he said he wouldn't, on top of everything else that was happening in this short period. "WHAT ARE YOU-" She was unable to finish, however, as Urabrask suddenly grabbed her and threw her back through the window, followed by Kirche and Tabitha. Urabrask was about to follow, but he luckily noticed the box on the table, grabbing it before finally leaping out himself, landing near the group he had just tossed out. Getting up off the ground, Louise ran up to Urabrask, too confused to get angry at him for mishandling her. "What's going on!?"
Her question was answered as the house's roof was suddenly torn asunder, revealing a familiar golem as the source of all the commotion. It wasn't as large as when it attacked the academy's central tower, but it was plenty big enough to crush them all if given the chance.
As the golem looked up from the now twice-abandoned building, it found that its quarry had already escaped the house. So, rather than step around the old building, it simply decided to use its immense bulk to walk straight through it, finishing the job that nature had started.
While Louise was still stunned by the sudden reappearance of Fouquet's golem, both Tabitha and Kirche had already recovered and started to chant their respective spells.
"Whirlwind." "Fireball!"
Both finished their casts at once, each spell hitting the golem on different sides of the construct and leaving behind a cloud of smoke.
"Did we get it?" Asked Kirche. Her question was answered by a stone fist smashing into the ground in front of them, the shockwave blowing away the smoke and revealing the golem, unscathed by the assault. "Nothing, not even a mark!?" she exclaimed. "How are we gonna beat something this tough?"
"Plan later, get out of its range!" commanded Urabrask, already making some distance between himself and the golem.
At first, Louise was also going to run, but then she thought of something. "Hey, if my magic could tear off the leg of that monster that attacked the school, then surely it can hurt this thing! If I could bring this down myself when they couldn't, Kirche couldn't call me Louise the Zero anymore!" And so, instead of trying to make distance away from the golem as Urabrask, Kirche, and Tabitha decided to do, Louise instead held her ground and began her chant as the golem began to recover from its attack, slowly rising back to its full height. Finally, as the golem fully recovered, Louise cast her spell. "Fireball!"
There was a loud phut as a small patch of dirt was blasted off the surface of the golem.
"...Eh?"
Her attack, while indeed doing more damage than either of Tabitha's or Kirche's spells, ultimately left the golem unfazed as it began to raise its foot over Louise. Quickly, she cast Fireball again, aiming this time for the foot casting a shadow over her. But as before, it only left marginal damage to the surface, nowhere near enough to stop it. The foot began to descend, and Louise closed her eyes, waiting for the painful inevitable.
However, right before the golem could turn Louise into a bloody noble pancake, a fuming Urabrask blazed under the descending foot and ran out with Louise in tow. He had seen Louise trying and failing to blow up the golem and had to run as fast as he could to get to her in time, even throwing aside his forearm blades so that he could run on all fours without them tripping him up. By the time he grabbed her, Urabrask was moving so fast that by the time he stopped, they were already a good distance away from the golem, albeit in the opposite direction of Kirche and Tabitha.
As Urabrask stood back up, he snapped towards Louise, ready to spew out words of fire and fury at her, but was stopped by the sight laid before him. This wasn't the prideful, hot-headed noble with darksteel in her eyes, this was a little girl whose spirit had finally broken. All the while, she kept repeating that now familiar nickname.
"Nothing's changed… I'm still Louise the Zero, the failure."
Normally, Urabrask would be numb to her despair while feeling furious at her stupidity, but this was different. Before, her despair at her treatment would still hold sparks of the fire that drives her, despite everything the world has thrown at her. But now, that fire has been fully snuffed out, leaving an empty shell of a human girl. In the state she was, she could very well die here, and not care in the slightest. So, using what little empathy he was capable of as a Phyrexian, he held back and contained the wrath and vitriol that threatened to spill out and make things worse for the young mage. As he approached Louise, she looked up at him, tears streaming down her face.
"How can you do it?" asked Louise.
"Do what?" responded Urabrask.
"You told me that I shouldn't care about what others say about me and that you were able to keep going forward, despite what others of you kind said about you. And yet, here I am, unable to do it. I thought that if I could use my magic to stop the golem, I could finally no longer be a failure, I would finally stop being called Louise the Zero." At that, she looked down again. "But once again, I prove everyone correct. A noble is supposed to stand their ground, and never turn their back on their enemies, but I can't even do that without failing. I'm nothing but a failure, a disgrace to the Vallière name. So how, how can you keep going when you have the entire world wishing for your downfall!" She would then fall silent once more, stewing in her misery.
"How pitiful, for you to lose faith in yourself so easily," Urabrask groused.
"…What?"
"You want to know how I kept going when my world dismissed my existence and actively worked to try and end it? Because, I had something to prove, because I have something to prove. My enemies would say I was a fool, but I knew what would come to pass were things not to change, were I to lose faith in The Great Work. So, for myself and my kind's sake, I stayed motivated to bring forth the change my kind desperately needed. Even now, I work toward that future, and I have faith that I can prove to those naysayers that what I do is for the betterment of Phyrexia. So, now that you know what motivates me to keep going, I ask you, Louise Vallière, what motivates you? What kept you going for so long, long before you summoned me, what do you have to prove to the world?"
For the first time in quite a while, Louise was too stunned to speak, so instead, she turned her thoughts inwards. "What has kept me going? All my life I've been ridiculed and mocked for my lack of success in magic, and now, the one time I should have been able to use my magic to prove them wrong, it does nothing? What if they were all right about me? What if I truly am Louise the Zero?" As she thought of this possibility, on the brink of fully giving in, a spark ignited within herself, a spark of indignation at such a thought. "...No, that's what they would want, for me to give up, to prove them right!" As she thought of this, Louise began to slowly stand back up, picking up the wand she so carelessly dropped. "No, it's them who's wrong! I've already shown I can do magic, otherwise Urabrask wouldn't be here! He's the first right step I've taken in ages, so maybe, even if it's just a chance…!" With that, she realized what she needed to say, what she had to say, what she had to declare to the world. So, as she got back onto her two feet, she looked straight at Urabrask and gave her answer.
"For the sake of my pride as a noble, I will prove to everyone that I can do magic and that I am worthy of my family name!" Much to her familiar's pleasure, Louise's declaration had reinvigorated the fire within her soul.
A small part of Urabrask was even relieved she hadn't given up so soon into their partnership when she had yet to scratch the surface of her potential. However, after taking a glance behind the spitfire mage, he realized that the time for discussion was over. "Now that you're no longer on the verge of having your soul crushed, make sure that your body doesn't get crushed either and get moving."
Louise was at first confused, but the sound of grinding rock reminded her that she had her breakdown right by Fouquet's golem, a golem who had just recovered from its last attack and was currently trudging towards them. Very much agreeing to not getting stepped on, Louise picked up the Staff of Destruction's box and ran away, with Urabrask following behind. They didn't get too far before they heard the familiar sound of flapping wings. To both Louise's and Urabrask's surprise, Tabitha and Kirche were riding Tabitha's familiar, Slyphid.
"Get on," said Tabitha, pointing at Louise.
"Wait, what about Urabrask? He's too heavy for your dragon!" Louise did not want to leave Urabrask behind, after all he had done to save her. However, before Tabitha could respond, Urabrask picked Louise up and plopped her on the dragon's back. After being let go and embarrassed and flushed Louise turned to Urabrask. "Hey, what's the big idea!?"
"This is for the best, neither you nor the other two are equipped to bring down the golem, and that thief will only reveal themselves when their golem is destroyed."
"How are you so confident Fouquet's still here? Couldn't the golem just be a distraction so they could make a clean escape?"
"If they wanted to get away, they wouldn't have bothered spending the time and energy it would take to make the golem in the first place. No, they wanted us to be here, to spring the trap they set. While I do not know why, I know they're still here, somewhere in this forest." Urabrask then turned to Tabitha. "Go, find out what's taking the secretary so long to return, then head for the school. If I can't destroy the golem, I'll escape and follow the path we took back to the academy."
"How are you going to destroy the golem?" asked Kirche. "Nothing's been able to do any real damage to it! Not even Louise's explosions could do anything to it!"
"That is not important right now, all that matters is getting you and your school's stolen item back to the academy." answered Urabrask, "Now go, the golem is almost upon us." Before any more arguing could occur, Slyphid took off and left Urabrask alone on the ground. He then turned to face the golem, now towering over him. As he prepared to fight, he thought about his previous scuffle with the blonde fop. "If that duel was the warm-up to this world's magic, this is the stress test to see if Phyrexia could truly prosper in this land." After all, if he couldn't deter an average mage's construct here, there was no way his rebuilt Phyrexia could handle this land's greatest users of magic. So, with a fist of stone crashing above him, Urabrask charged.
By the time the golem's fist hit the ground, Urabrask was already long gone from the spot, having sprinted past the stone construct. As the only weapon he had on him was a rusted talking sword, Urabrask was intent on retrieving the forearm blades he had tossed aside to save Louise. This little maneuver had also proven to him his biggest advantage in this fight: his unmatched speed. By the time the golem's fist had made contact with the ground, He was already halfway across the field, and would likely have his weapons prepared by the time the golem started to stomp towards him.
"As large as this golem is, it must also be very heavy with its composition, with what I assume to be magically compacted dirt and rock. As durable as that makes it, it also must make its movement terribly slow. It likely only got away from the academy yesterday because its original size allowed it to cover a lot of distance with each step."
Urabrask then ran back towards the golem, his blades blazing hot as he directed heat and mana into them. As he ran towards the golem, it raised its fist again for another punch. However, something was off about this attack. Within Urabrask's vision, he could see green-colored mana rushing toward the fist, and within a matter of seconds, the stone changed from a rough, tan color to a smooth and shiny gray. Urabrask had to leap to the side to avoid the steel cannonball that had replaced the golem's fist, the extra weight from the metal causing the punch to be greatly assisted by gravity, reaching him faster than he expected.
"Damn, I forgot that this world's earth mages could also transmute metal!" Urabrask thought, chiding himself for forgetting one of the first acts of magic he saw in this world. However, seeing the golem's fist transmute back into compacted rock and dirt gave him an idea of how to immobilize the golem long enough to approach and perform a debilitating attack. It was going to be a risky move, but it was the best chance he had.
Φ
While Urabrask was fighting Fouquet's golem, Louise watched him from Tabitha's familiar, whose master was still searching for the missing secretary.
"As powerful as he is," Louise thought, "I still don't know how he's going to stop the golem. He may be confident in his blade, but surely there's too much rock for him to cut through!"
The situation only became worse as the golem showed that its limbs could be turned into much deadlier steel. However, when Urabrask got up, instead of returning to his breakneck speed, he simply… walked towards the golem.
"What's Urabrask doing," asked Kirche, who was also watching the fight, "I thought he was gonna fight the golem?"
Louise didn't know either, and she was beginning to think Urabrask may have hit his head or something, as he didn't look like he was planning to dodge the fist the golem raised once more, its surface beginning to transmute back into steel as it did before.
"Tabitha, something is wrong with Urabrask, we need to help him!" pleaded Louise.
"We can't," Tabitha said, "the golem could attack us if we got close."
So, despite her pleas, Louise could only helplessly watch as the fist was launched, the fastest the golem had attacked yet, speeding towards her idle familiar. She wanted to look away, not wanting to watch her familiar get ground into a metallic pulp, but she couldn't pull her eyes away from the encroaching disaster.
And then, at the last second, something happened.
The idle Urabrask, which Louise noticed had his left hand up in a closed fist, used his right hand to make a diagonal downward slash in the air. At the same time, the golem's steel fist ignited, the limb now shrouded in flame… as it slammed into the golem's leg, right under where the knee would be on a human. The effect was immediate, as the steel fist went straight through the leg. As the golem couldn't keep its balance anymore, it began to topple forward, carried by the momentum of its attack. As it fell forward, Urabrask finally moved from his spot, running towards the undamaged leg.
On the dragon, meanwhile, all the girls were in various levels of shock, unable to process what just happened.
"Did.. did Urabrask parry the golem's fist?" Asked Kirche.
"No, the fist didn't even touch him. I think… he somehow gained control of the golem's fist at the last second!" Saying it out loud, Louise could hardly believe it, but it was the only thing that made sense. She knew he could use magic, but finally seeing it in action gave her a little hope that things might turn out alright. All Louise could hope for now was that Urabrask could take advantage of the opening he made.
Φ
What Urabrask did was way riskier than he wanted, but it produced the result he was hoping for. His plan required the golem to punch as hard as it could, and then he had to redirect the punch back into the golem. To do it, he made use of two different spells of his. First, to ensure that the golem would use what he assumed was its strongest attack again, he cast a spell he called Act of Aggression to cause what little autonomy the golem had to be flooded with violent intent. Normally, he would use this spell to cause chaos in the ranks of his enemies, but using it like this would ensure the golem would try its hardest to flatten him.
The risky part was casting the other spell he used, Metallic Mastery. Unlike the first spell, it took a few moments for Metallic Mastery to take effect, but once it did, it would allow him to manipulate the steel fist the golem had so generously turned into a material he could control. Any mistake on his part could have seriously put his life at risk, but his gambit had worked. Now he could approach the golem's other leg and ground it for good.
Wasting no time, Urabrask jumped onto the golem's leg and began ripping into it with his blades. Normal blades would have taken ages to chip through the golem's stony composition, but Urabrask's blades were made for a conflict greater than this, able to cut through stronger materials with ease. With each slash of his blades, another chunk of stone and dirt was gouged out of the golem's leg. This wasn't met without resistance, as the golem tried to shake the praetor off its leg, but this was more to Urbrask's favor than the golem's as time spent trying to shake him off was time not used in recovering.
However, the golem wasn't the only one trying to foil his attempts at dismemberment. As he got about halfway through the leg, Urabrask noticed a flow of dirt moving into the gash he had carved out, slowly filling it like a liquid would a bowl.
"That damned thief is trying to stop me!" Urabrask thought. He began to swing faster, scooping out the dirt as fast as it came in. The thief must have seen this, as the rate of dirt flowing into the scarred rock was slowly increasing. But as they did this, Urabrask began to notice something off with the ambient mana surrounding the area. With a bit of focus, he could feel the large amount of mana that was carrying the dirt along, being directed by the unseen hand of a mage's willpower. Risking the progress he had already made on the legs, he tracked the stream of mana, turning his head away from the golem to glance towards the forest's edge. Just beyond the edge, he could make out a silhouetted figure.
That figure was the same figure that he had seen upon the golem that assaulted the school. The Staff of Destruction's thief, Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt.
"There you are," thought Urabrask. "Let's extinguish this problem at the source." But before he could make good on his internal declaration, Urabrask got distracted by a peculiar sight. Tabitha's familiar had stopped flying around the field, rather it instead hovered in place as its master used her staff to maintain a levitation spell, lowering Louise and the case containing the Staff of Destruction to the ground. From what Urabrask could tell, Louise was fishing out the artifact, supposedly trying to once again deal with the golem herself.
Reaching the ground, Louise yelled out to her familiar, "Get out of away, I'm going to use the Staff!" Pulling it out, Louise threw down the large case and unwrapped the fabric covering the magical weapon, revealing…
Urabrask paused at the sight of the academy's ancient artifact.
Louise meanwhile was just wildly waving the so-called Staff around, clearly not knowing how to use it. "How do I use this thing!" she exclaimed. "Is there a requirement to activate it or something!?"
Shaking out of his stupor, Urabrask leaped off the golem and ran up to Louise. Without even asking or exchanging any kind of words, he ripped the "Staff" out of her hands, surprising the short mage.
"Hey, I was trying to use that!" complained Louise.
"You were failing to use it," Urabrask corrected. He then took a closer look at the "Staff", if it could even be called that.
Unlike what one would expect out of a staff, the Staff of Destruction looked quite off. First off, its shaft was curved and was thicker than a human would be able to comfortably wrap their hands around. Even stranger was the composition. The shaft, which looked to be made of polished black granite, was etched in runes that he couldn't read, but could understand were meant to protect the shaft from breaking from the very thin layer of mana that surrounded them. Meanwhile, the head of the staff was made of a completely different material, a type of steel from what he could tell. In fact, the more he studied the staff's head, the more he felt it resembled less the head of a magical staff, and the more it looked like…
"A hilt…" murmured Urabrask. "Could it be?" Then, remembering something that happened when he fought Guiche, he shifted his grip so that instead of holding it by the middle of the stone shaft, he held onto the staff by its metallic head. As soon as his fingers settled into the proper place, the runes upon his left hand reignited with light, and his mind was once more flooded with knowledge that was not his. And with that knowledge, came certainty.
"I know what this is." He thought.
At once, Urabrask started to gather a small bit of mana in his left hand. In an act similar to what he had seen Mirran golems do to his poor scamps, he began to squeeze down on the rune-engraved granite, slowly crushing it in his enhanced grip.
As he was doing this, Louise looked on with horror. "Urabrask! I don't know how they worked In your land, but breaking a staff tends to make it stop being able to cast magic!"
Of course, Urabrask continued to ignore her, as his grip caused more cracks to form in the granite, breaking apart the protective runes. Finally, when the last rune broke and the mana keeping it together unwound, his hand ran freely along the length of the shaft, pulverizing and removing the remaining rock. However, Instead of destroying the staff as Louise feared, his action revealed the secret hidden within the stone: a blade of gleaming, silver-colored metal.
"So this is why the headmaster hid away his savior's weapon and prevented anyone from using it." Urabrask thought. "This is no Staff of Destruction, this is-"
"A Sword!" exclaimed Louise. "Why is the Staff of Destruction a sword!?" This reveal went against everything she read about the artifact, but she was stopped from further gawking as she noticed that the area around them had gotten dark again.
Both Urabrask and Louise looked away from the newly revealed blade to the source of the large shadow, that being the towering form of the thief's golem, which had finally recovered enough material in its injured legs to stand. Louise was ready to run away again but noticed Urabrask standing his ground.
"Come on, we have to get out of here! I don't think what you did last time is gonna work again!" After the disastrous result of the previous attack, Louise doubts the golem will be transmuting its hands into metal anytime soon, which means they were down an option to topple the earthly construct.
Alas, Urabrask wouldn't budge. "Such tricks are no longer necessary, now that we have this," he said, raising the former Staff of Destruction aloft.
Louise balked. "I know you favor blades over your magic, but isn't this a bit ridiculous what you're suggesting? How is a sword going to stop that?" Now that the Staff of Destruction was revealed to be just a sword, Louise had already written it off in her mind. After all, how could a simple sword, enchanted as it might be, ever beat the magic of a mage?
Despite Louise's doubts, Urabrask was resolved. "Sit back and watch." Saying this, Urabrask grasped the hilt with his other hand and shifted into a high guard stance, holding the sword with both hands high above his head, and prepared to swing. As he got into position, he looked back one more time. "Stay behind me, or you'll be joining the golem in oblivion," he warned.
While Louise wanted to back away from the golem, to run away again and escape, she instead decided to trust her familiar's judgment. "I hope you know what you're doing!"
As Urabrask stood there, stanced and ready, the golem had brought its hands together above it. Instead of trying its previous trick, the golem was trying to kill its targets with sheer mass, as dirt and small stones flowed up its arms into a boulder that almost rivaled even Sylphid in size. Once it had brought in enough material to flatten the duo, the golem brought its arms down with all its might.
Finally, as the golem's attack came close to the two, Urabrask swung downward, letting out a loud "Hah!" as both attacks met.
At the first micro-instant, nothing happened. But as Urabrask's swing continued, rock and dirt along the path of the blade's swing simply ceased to exist, a nonexistence that would continue past the cut of the blade. Like a parting of the sea, dirt and rock would be pushed away by an unseen force, before being atomized into dust. Going through the golem's arms, the force extended beyond the blade and reached the golem's unprotected body. In Urabrask's vision, the aura of mana that he saw that had previously blocked Tabitha and Kirche's spells and absorbed Louise's botched spell wasn't able to do a thing to prevent what happened next. The force would cleave completely through the golem's body before the rest of the dirt, rocks, and mana that made it up was eradicated. By the time Urabrask had finished his swing, all that remained of the golem was a dissipating cloud of dust.
Louise was too stunned to speak for a moment. "...What… happened?" One moment, the golem was swinging down an attack that would have certainly killed the both of them instantly, had it connected. The next, the golem had ceased to be without a trace.
"It was erased, eliminated so thoroughly that not even rubble remains of it," explained Urabrask. "That is what happened to the dragon that attacked your headmaster that day thirty years ago. That is why Osmond locked this blade away in your school's vault." After all, if Osmond was willing to cover the blade in granite and seal it away with protective runes, there was no way he didn't know the truth about this blade and its owner.
Φ
"He did it," cheered a joyful Kirche, "He actually stopped the golem!"
Seeing that the field was safe once more, Tabitha had Slyphid land beside Urabrask and Louise, with Kirche jumping off as soon as Tabitha's familiar touched the ground.
"Oh Urabrask, you were amazing out there!" exclaimed Kirche. "The skill, the fury, the passion! All of it was so wonderful!" She almost even went to hug him but remembered at the last second that doing so would likely not end well, considering he was essentially a walking smelter after exerting himself in battle.
Meanwhile, Tabitha was more curious about the sword that had finished the fight. "The Staff was an enchanted sword?"
"Not just a mere enchanted sword," corrected Urabrask, "it's an ancient blade unlike any other, a weapon that I have found to have no equal. But, unfortunately, that also means we must make for the academy as soon as your headmaster's secretary is located."
"Hold on, what's with the rush? Shouldn't we be looking for signs of Fouquet?" Asked Louise, who was confused by Urabrask's sudden urgency "And why are you so acting like you're familiar with the Staff- er… Sword of Destruction? Isn't this the first time you've seen it?"
"I will explain later, for now, it's urgent we-"
"Partner, that sword… it's what the monster that attacked the school was looking for, wasn't it? It's the only reason I can think of that a blade like that could get you all tizzied up like this." For the first time since the previous night, Derflinger finally spoke up to drop a bomb of information on the group.
With a sigh, Urabrask nodded. "Yes, you are correct, Derflinger. This is indeed the Sword of Kaldra, the missing third of the Kaldra artifacts. This weapon is the reason why it attacked the school. As long as it remains active, the lives of anyone holding onto this weapon are at risk. Knowing this, do you now understand why I want to get back to the academy so soon?"
After all, they were out in the open, no longer surrounded by possible help if Kaldra were to return. Now understanding the power of the weapon that Urabrask wielded, the group knew they couldn't let it fall into either Fouquet's or Kaldra's hands.
Kirche crossed her arms upon realizing this fact, her lips pursing as if she had tasted something sour. "Well, when it's put like that, I could see why you're in such a rush to-"
"Sorry to interrupt," Derflinger started, trying to get everyone's attention, "but I think that secretary lady is back from the woods."
Looking around for who Derflinger was talking about, everyone saw Longuevuille step out from the forest's edge. As she approached the group, it was noticeable that she looked somewhat exhausted, but not much worse for wear besides that.
As Longuevuille finally reached them, she gave the group a worried look. "Oh, are you all alright? I had gone deep into the forest when I heard a great commotion, and when I got back, I found that the abandoned house was gone and you were all in shambles!"
"That's because that horrid thief sent their golem after us! If it weren't for Urabrask, we would have been killed when the golem walked through the house." Kirche had spoken up first to the secretary, filling her in on what she had missed.
As the explanation was going on, Urabrask seemed to look rather impatient, as he wanted to wrap this little expedition up before things could get worse. But a small part of himself had a nagging feeling, a feeling that there was something he was missing about this situation. As he thought back to the fight with the golem, he recalled that he had glimpsed Fouquet for a brief moment, just beyond the forest's edge.
"Thinking about it, where was it that I caught a glimpse of that thief?" Recalling what the area around Fouquet looked like, Urabrask scanned the forest's edge, hoping to find the place that matched his memory. But when he found the area that lined up with what he saw, he found that it just so happened to also be the same part of the forest that Longuevuille had just walked out of. "Curious, it's quite the odd coincidence that she'd come through there. In fact, it's rather odd that she showed up only now, just after the fighting stopped." Making this connection, gears were starting to spin in Urabrask's head, as one thought after another began to piece together into a bigger image. But as he was pondering, he was approached by the very subject of his thoughts.
"Pardon me," Longuevuille said, getting Urabrask's attention, "but may I have a look at that sword there? I could hardly believe it when Kirche said that the Staff of Destruction wasn't a staff at all, but perhaps taking a closer look at it could convince me otherwise." Longuevuille was looking at the blade in question with curiosity, but unfortunately for her, Urabrask had concluded a certain possibility, one he found potentially troublesome.
"Could it be?" Urabrask needed to confirm his theory, so instead of handing over the blade, he lifted it just out of reach of the secretary, which confused her greatly. "For someone who went out to find where the thief had gone, you've been rather quiet about it. So, unless you were just wasting everyone's time hiding like a coward, what did you find out about where Fouquet ran off to? If we are to return to the academy with the sword, I would rather not be the victim of an ambush if they decide to double back."
Longuevuille broke her stare away from the sword to focus on the uncooperative familiar. "Are you really still worried about that thief? I doubt any hypothetical ambush they would attempt would work in their favor. If what Kirche said about that blade was true, you could destroy anything they create with just a single swing!"
Urabrask remained undeterred, however. "No debriefing, no sword. I will not be dissuaded on this subject." With Longuevuille now suspect in his eyes, he must leave no stone unturned in this.
"Fine, I'll put your worries to rest, if that will get you to relax. From what I could find, there were no tracks left by the thief, no matter how far I went into the forest. After I heard the commotion caused by the golem the thief left behind, I took another path back, hoping to find anything, but I didn't see any sign of them there either. If I had to suspect, the thief left a lot earlier than expected, and left the golem behind to protect the artifact while they were gone."
Even after her explanation, Urabrask kept the blade just out of reach. At this point, he could make out the flickers of frustration in the suspected secretary's eyes. If Longuevuille really is who Urabrask thinks she may be, then it's going to take some harsher prodding to reveal such a fact.
"And you're certain you saw no sign of the thief whatsoever?" No shifting shadows, No footprints, no disturbed ground, nothing?"
"Nothing," confirmed Longuevuille.
"Hmph."
Before Anyone could interpret what that grunt meant, the tip of the Sword of Kaldra was brought inches to the secretary's face, the runes etched into his arm still glowing with white light. Such a quick and violent movement caused the secretary to flinch backward, as did everyone else watching the conversation unfold.
Louise recovered first, shock quickly replaced with wrath. "What in Brimir's holy name do you think you are doing, familiar! I hope you're not thinking of punishing her for not finding anything, or I'll be using you for spellcasting practice for the rest of your life!"
Despite the threat, Urabrask seemed unusually calm. "There is no need for threats against me, this is simply… insurance, for if my theory is correct."
"What theory? What insane idea do you have now!?"
"I'll explain, but call off your acquaintances first, before they make things ugly."
"Before they do what?" Louise turned back to find both Tabitha and Kirche chanting and prepping spells. "Wait, hold on a moment, let him explain what he's doing!" exclaimed Louise. The two's chanting stopped, but only Kirche let her built-up spell fully dissipate, whereas Tabitha simply left it hanging in the air, the giant icicles aimed at the praetor.
"Talk," said Tabitha, louder than her normal volume.
"And your spell?" Urabrask asked.
"Insurance," Tabitha said, throwing his word back in his face.
"Kirche, can you please talk her down," pleaded Louise, "I'm certain he has a perfectly reasonable explanation-"
Urabrask interrupted, stating bluntly, "I suspect that Ms. Longuevuille is Fouquet, and has set up this mission as a means to distract the school from her trail of guilt, by killing all of you and faking her death."
The silence that would fall upon the field was heavy, to say the least. How could it not, when considering the implications of such an accusation?
"...Urabrask," started Louise, who was the first to break out of the stupor caused by her familiar, "please tell me this some kind of perverse joke, and you don't actually think a member of the school facility, one we saw just this morning, is the same person as the thief who we saw escaping the school last night."
"I think you fail to realize how simple it would be-"
"NO! I WILL TOLERATE NO MORE OF YOUR… INSANITY!" Louise then began marching right up to Urabrask, her finger pointed squarely at him. "For nearly a week I've had to tolerate your bouts of violence. Before, I could understand why you did what you did, but this is crossing the line! Longuevuille has been a part of the faculty for a couple of years now, why would some thief spend that much time just to steal some bygone relic? On top of that, even if you have actual, reasonable cause to doubt her, it doesn't mean you have to immediately resort to such barbaric methods to get your answers." Finally, Louise reached Urabrask and let out a deep sigh. "Please, just for once, can you not resort to a blade to solve your problems."
Urabrask's gaze, though not able to be physically seen, was hard set on the one who brought him into this world. This confounding, confusing girl who could at one minute have a raging temper rivaling his own, and the next, lost in misery as she would pour her heart out to him. And yet, despite her conflicting, erratic nature, some small part of him wanted to see what she would do.
"Fine. I'll consider lowering my blade. However, if I am to do so, I want to know how you plan to solve this dilemma. I doubt you have any real way to confirm Longuevuille isn't Fouquet, so surely you have some method to prove her allegiance to your school."
After being told his request, Louise looked down and pondered on what to say, with everyone staring at her in anticipation. Finally, after much debate, she looked up again, a resolved look on her face.
"Well, we have what we came for right? Let's just go back to the academy and finish this thing."
"I presume there's more to it than just that, right?" asked Urabrask. "Because if not-"
"Let me finish!" interrupted Louise. "Tabitha has her dragon, right? Me and Kirche can ride it back to the academy, and you can follow us on the ground back to the academy, with the Staff- er, Sword of Destruction in tow.
"And what of Longuevuille?"
"She can ride the cart back to the academy, separate from the rest of us. If she's really the thief as you say she'll probably run for the hills, otherwise, she'll come back to the academy, as I know she will, because she is not the thief."
"Sorry to burst this bubble," interrupted Kirche, "but I think you forgot to factor in something. If she is the thief, what's exactly stopping her from coming back to the academy and just repeating all of this, all over again?"
"Because he wouldn't allow it," answered Louise, pointing at Urabrask. "It's not public knowledge yet, but my familiar intends to help reinforce the school's defenses, as part of him renovating the old forge. His pride as a blacksmith wouldn't allow for a thief like Fouquet to break in again, for something like that happening would besmirch and put doubt in his work. In addition, the faculty itself will probably remain on high alert for quite a while after this whole debacle, so that's another factor added to the mix. Overall, this was probably the last time Fouquet could have pulled something like this off, at least as easily as they did it last night."
After musing over her argument, Urabrask nodded. "As loath as I am to drop this issue, I must admit that your plan is firm enough to work with." Finally, Urabrask lowered the tip of the sword to the ground, freeing Longuevuille from its impending threat and letting everyone else breathe out a sigh of relief. "As long as this sword remains out of less-than-desirable hands, I can drop the issue for now." Though, for his own sake, he planned to keep a further eye on the secretary from now on. There was simply too much evidence pointing towards his theory to ignore.
As the blade was lowered, and when all attention was on master and familiar, a certain someone's voice spoke up behind the pink-haired mage.
"Actually, I think there was one thing you failed to account for in your plan, Miss Vallière."
Before anyone could process what that meant, Louise suddenly found herself being pulled backward by an arm wrapped around her neck. At once, the rest of the group began to take action, raising swords, wands, and staves to save the short mage, but they all stopped frozen when the hostage-taker's wand pointed to the girl's neck.
"One more step and I'll have her impaled on rocks!" warned Longuevuille.
From her position, Louise could only barely turn her head to glance at the face of the woman she had just spent the last couple minutes defending. "Longuevuille! What's the meaning of this!"
"You really should have given your dear old familiar a chance at explaining himself, maybe then you wouldn't have become so open to be used as leverage." The traitorous secretary then looked back at the group and pointed at the two mages. "You two, drop your wand and staff, now."
Kirche and Tabitha momentarily hesitated, but after sharing a glance, they complied. The icicles hanging in the air behind Tabitha dissipated as soon as the staff left her hands, leaving them open if Longuevuille decided to retaliate.
"Smart little girls, aren't you?" Longuevuille quipped. "Now, Mr. Familiar, would you be so kind as to disarm yourself? And don't get any smart ideas."
Urabrask was furious. He had let his guard down for just a moment, and now fate was repaying him for his slip-up in kind. A small part of him just wanted to bring down the sword upon this foul, traitorous woman for putting him in this position, the fate of his summoner be damned, but he knew doing so would essentially be throwing away any current foothold he had within this world. So, with a growl of frustration, he lowered Kaldra's blade and drove it into the earth, burying it halfway into the ground. As he worked to detach the other weapons from his person, he glared at the secretary who now held onto Louise.
"It seems that Louise's earlier claim was correct, thief. A Coward, through and through. You might as well reveal your real identity now, seeing that you've decided to commit to this path."
"Hm, very well," answered Longuevuille, who ignored the previous jab, "since you were so helpful in helping me figure out why I couldn't get the staff of destruction to work, I might as well reveal the truth." In one swift motion, she removed her glasses and let down her hair. As soon as she did this, any remaining softness on her face was replaced with a callous glare. "I am indeed Fouquet, the Crumbling Dirt. Honestly, after playing secretary for the past two years, I'm surprised someone finally figured it out. I can't help but be curious myself, how did you manage to put it together?"
"You're careless," accused Urabrask. "When fighting your golem, I spotted who I presumed to be Fouquet beyond the forest's edge when you were trying to regenerate your construct. After you returned from the forest and joined us after the battle, I went over my memory to remember where I saw the thief, only to find that you had left the forest in the same place I had seen them. After that, it only took a review of what I knew of you to put the pieces together and put together a hypothesis, one made all the more certain when you denied finding anything on the thief, despite having come through right where they were. After that, I knew something had to be done."
"A slip-up that almost cost me, but despite all that, thanks to your dear, darling Zero, your attempt to reveal me meant nothing!" Fouquet then let loose a laugh that only served to anger Urabrask further. After her laughter petered out, she and Louise approached the sword planted into the ground. "If you would, Ms. Vallière," said Fouquet in a sickly-sweet voice, all the while pushing her wand onto Louise's neck as a reminder of what would happen should she not comply.
After struggling to grab it from her position pinned beside Fouquet, Louise managed to pull the sword out of the ground, which she would end up holding flat against her body to avoid accidentally setting her captor off.
"But why," started Louise, "why would you spend so long being a secretary for the school, just for a single heist?"
Fouquet scoffed. "Trust me, it wasn't something I wished to last for as long as it did, what with that horrid, perverted headmaster constantly sending his familiar to peak under my uniform nearly every day. Alas, breaking into the tower's vault was not something that could be done brazenly, what with the enchantments and reinforcements the damned thing had to protect its contents. Luckily, your dear familiar's little fight with that many-legged monster had created the perfect situation to weaken it enough for my golem to smash through its defenses."
That last bit piqued Urabrask's interest, as her odd attribution of the weakening of the tower's defenses was put onto him instead of her captive, but he had no intention of correcting her. However, it did remind him of the reason why he wanted to quickly get back to the academy in the first place.
"So, you now have what you came for, and for all intents and purposes could escape without a trace. However, what will you do, now that you're the target of Kaldra's wrath?"
Fouquet's sneering look slightly gave way to confusion. "I beg your pardon? Why would that thing be my problem?"
"Because, that sword you're holding? It belongs to Kaldra. It's why it attacked the school in the first place, to reacquire that missing piece of itself, so that it may be compleat once more. And now that the blade is in the open, fully revealed to the world, there is no doubt in my mind that it will home in on it, on you." Then, in a move that slightly unsettled Fouquet, Urabrask Smiled. "Never sleeping, never slowing, never stopping, what will you do when Kaldra returns to reclaim what is theirs?"
For a moment, Fouquet looked uncertain before regaining her sneer. "If I can defeat you, I can certainly defeat the mindless beast that couldn't get through you. After all, weren't you able to make this… Kaldra, flee from the academy after it lost its leg? I'll just have my golem crush it into the ground and be rid of it."
"You didn't defeat me though, you've only stalled me by taking advantage of one of the few things in this world that hold my interest. However, Kaldra has no such limitation, and if you think that golem of yours could best it, then you're no better than an ogre menial. Idiotic, and only able to resort to brute violence to solve your problems. The damage it took last night was a fluke, an occurrence I doubt you will be able to replicate when it comes for you."
"Oh, I think I'll manage something." She then started to back away from the group, slowly creeping to the forest's edge, keeping her full attention on who she saw as the most dangerous of the group. "I tire of your foolish attempts to dissuade me. Now, if you excuse me, I have places to be. Goodbye Gandálfr Urabrask, it's been fun."
Despite her insistence that she was done with the conversation, Urabrask continued. "There is one other thing about you that will doom you, beyond your carelessness: your tunnel vision."
"I'd call it having a goal-focused mindset," countered Fouquet, slowly pulling her hostage beside her.
"No, tunnel-visioned is the right way to describe you. You focus only on what matters to you at the moment, oblivious to anything that falls outside that focus, including things that could be the death of you. Indeed, even now, there is one major fact you have ignored."
His claim caused Fouquet to scoff once again, but it stopped her regardless. "Really? Well, if you think I'm so single-minded as you claim, what exactly have I been missing, if you're so kind as to enlighten me?"
"When I fought Kaldra, I assume you saw the explosion that knocked it off the tower and attributed that attack to me, and since you saw it crack the tower and weaken the enchantment, you assumed I was the one you had to watch out for. However, what you missed was the fact that the explosion wasn't my attack."
"Well then, if it wasn't yours, who did it?" Fouquet asked. "Was it Colbert, that foolish fire mage," she pondered. She then looked to the two students on the ground beside Urabrask and pointed her wand at them. "Or perhaps it was one of you two?"
At this accusation, Urabrask only sighed and shook his head. "In your rush to escape once you were suspected, it seems you've forgotten something you should have learned a long while ago."
At this point, Fouquet was getting angry at his stalling. "Just get to the point, you hot-headed beast!"
"THE POINT, Miss Fouquet Longuevuille, is that of all the people to take hostage, you took the one who is able to generate building-crippling explosions at a whim, and you didn't even have the foresight to strip her of her wand. Honestly…"
Fouquet snapped her head to her captive, only to find Louise no longer cradling the Sword of Kaldra. Instead, she was holding the sword in one hand, letting the blade rest on her shoulder, while her other hand was awkwardly pointing her wand behind her at Fouquet, already primed to cast a spell. Immediately, Fouquet tried to point her wand back to Louise, but it was too late to stop her.
"You should've been paying attention to your hostage, idiot."
"FIREBALL!" yelled Louise.
Her wand sparked, and a massive flameless explosion blasted outward from the space in between Louise and Fouquet. The explosion launched dirt and smoke into the air, shrouding the field in a vision-obscuring smog.
Once the intentional magical mishap passed, Urabrask quickly turned to Tabitha on the ground. "Tabitha, clear this smoke if you can."
With a curt nod, the blue-haired mage picked her wand up from the ground and did a short chant. With a wave of her wand, the smoke was blown away by a brisk wind, revealing the aftermath of the explosion.
Louise herself looked fine, mostly. There were a few rips in her clothing, and the ground around her was utterly ruined, but she herself looked uninjured. Fouquet, however, fared much less well than her hostage. She was launched from her former position behind Louise and landed halfway to the treeline, clearly knocked out. Urabrask decided to take the opportunity to check up on his partner.
"Well done Louise, it seems you took down the thief yourself after all."
"..."
"Louise?"
She promptly collapsed to the ground.
Φ
Meanwhile…
"Damaged. Impossible."
A mechanical beast stalked the undergrowth, thinking to itself simple thoughts about the previous night's failed hunt.
"Shield. Failed."
It knew what had happened was something that should have been impossible. It had taken critical damage when even the ravagings of the Blind Eternities itself failed to kill the beast.
"Praetor. Heretic."
The presence of the Heretic Praetor, Urabrask didn't help it. While his arrival had reawakened the beast, it knew the Praetor was no ally, only confirmed by last night's battle. The former master of the Quiet Furnace had gotten in the way of its current objective and thus will be eradicated, along with anything else that stands in the way of the Grand Evolution.
"Sword. Taken."
Ultimately, without its sword, it was reduced to simple punches and leg slams, which was not enough to reclaim its missing piece, with a surprise attack costing it a leg in the process. But the beast isn't one to give up on its quarry.
"Adaptation. Necessary."
While currently separate, the leg was still wholly intact, and after the previous fight, it knew there was a critical weakness the leg could potentially make up for if grafted in the right place: a right arm. With a right-sided appendage, it would more easily be able to attack and defend itself from all sides. But to do such a grafting, it will need to rely on an adaptation gifted to it from one of its old masters, before being banished to this plane. As it wanders, it picks up the sound of a human talking in the distance. Slowly, Kaldra makes its way to its new prey.
"Organic. Material. Required."
Φ
Sorry to keep you all waiting for an update for so long, a mix of writer's block, procrastination, and the Elden Ring DLC slowed down this chapter from release. I originally planned to do the Golem, Fouquet, and the Kaldra rematch in one chapter, but after the chapter reached a certain point, I realized that doing those back-to-back might be a bit much. So instead, it's just the golem and Fouquet, with a hint of what's to come with the mechanical monstrosity. Hopefully, the next chapter won't take as long to do, now that we are approaching the end of the "introductory arc."
