Times New Roman 11 - Team Bonding
October 2003
Archen
Hauling my tired ass back to the classroom after the unexpected first meetings with one of the biblical factions' top dogs. Can't believe I forgot that this world is technically set in a soft core porn setting. I probably should have realized this when my teacher was so openly sexual, but I had bigger concerns on my mind back then.
Taking a moment to stop in my walk, I focus inwards to look through Bianca's eyes to see if they are actually still in the classroom. Through our bond I can feel a faint hint of amusement as I see Gray looking up and seemingly trying to placate her own 'familiar'.
Having the ability to see through her eyes is one hell of an advantage. Sadly, we're still not in tune enough to do it while keeping my own awareness at the same time as hers. Yet, the feeling I get through our bond does hint to further possibilities down the line.
Meredith and Fay appear to have left already, at least I didn't sense them through the quick peek I just had. Honestly, I expected Fay to have waited, as she seemed to have some burning questions for me.
Can't say I'm unhappy with not having to have that conversation right now, but I'm already exhausted enough as it is.
With a soft click I open the warded door, having slightly recovered from my previous ordeal. I enter the classroom, hoping that Gray might have something fun to do as I really need some distraction.
Yet, peace was never in the cards for me. Since the moment I had gotten the attention of two different witches I should have expected to live in interesting times.
As I enter the dimly lit room, the once peaceful ambiance is shattered when I step on the first tile in the room. The tile comes to life as a magical circle spins into existence and a barrier forms around me. I instinctively try to teleport to the other side, yet the space is secured by the barrier walls.
Before I can try some more drastic measures, the door slams closed behind me and the tiny terror-witch shows herself.
"You have some explaining to do buster." She points dramatically at me, her witch hat crooked on her head while her cape flares dramatically in the wind she herself conjured.
I can see five sets of eyes looking expectantly at me, one of those is supposed to be always on my side. Yet, from her eyes I can only see amusement, the same type of amusement I could literally feel from her through our bond not even a few minutes ago.
I look at her with clear betrayal in my eyes and my wolf just chuffs in amusement and space-bends herself in the barrier with me.
What. The. Actual. Fuck? I've been outdone in creative use of my own powers by my own familiar?
I can hear the clicks of someone snapping their fingers and as I focus back on the situation in front of me, I can see Fay impatiently trying to get my attention back.
"Helloo~ earth to Arc, are you there?"
"Yeah, sorry got distracted by a certain someone." As I pointedly look at my shadow, where the offender has decided to slink back into.
"So." She taps her foot impatiently. "Want to share something with the class?"
Didn't think she'd be the first one to catch me, but whatever. I would have told them in the future anyways and might as well do it right now, even if I'd rather rest for a bit.
"I think that he looks like he's dead on his feet. How about we postpone to later this evening, it's not like he's going anywhere else." Gray. My savior. I knew I could count on you when the going gets tough.
Fay looks at the both of us with naked suspicion and whirls around while pointing at Meredith, who is hiding behind one of the bookshelves, and she declares, "All right princess, we're going to prepare quickly and meet these two at seven sharp."
And she storms out the room, Meredith following her, shooting us an apologetic glance while trying to keep up.
Peace at last and all thanks to Gray who is apparently finding a great amount of hilarity in the scenario.
Through a hiccupping laugh she manages to seal my fate, "You've had her curiosity, now you have her undivided attention. I don't know what set her off, but be prepared for her truly obsessive side."
...Today is not my day.
"I think she noticed something about my magic..." I start, wanting to explain what happened.
"Sshh!" She cuts me off softly and with a quick gesture she points at the walls and her ear.
"Let's go to your room and I'll help you prepare counter measures for mount Fay."
Aah...
The walls have ears huh.
"Sure, don't want to waste the few hours of respite you've managed to get me." Gotta play along and remember this for the future. If even she doesn't believe it's truly safe to talk openly here, then I won't go against her judgment.
"Want to grab a bite to eat on our way, or do you want to eat in the dining hall?"
"Let's just eat there, least amount of effort. Can't save you from her wrath again if you fall asleep before they arrive." She smirkingly adds.
We take it slow and languidly walk the streets, the autumn being in full swing reminds me how time actually passes now and despite the new challenges it feels good to be in a moving world again.
As usual we take the road less traveled. After a few too many times that we've been stopped by the townsfolk, the both of us decided that it brings the mood down a bit too much. We might as well take the slightly longer one but without interruptions.
The renovations on the old dive bar en route have been completed and it seems to have opened recently. It used to always be an eyesore, luckily the new owners appear to have better taste at least.
'The Keepers' bar has a classy design, but with a name like that it's probably a sports bar. I'll have to remember to avoid the area after game nights.
Arriving at the Mansion with plenty of time to spare, we take it easy and have a meal in the kitchen area. As the preparations for the communal dining haven't been completed yet, we take a corner where the staff usually eats their meals. Gray always enjoys eating here. Even though the food at her own place is better tasting, everyone's too stiff there. She told me how this wasn't always the case, but since they found out about her status everything changed.
At first, she didn't fully understand why this was happening as she wasn't told anything, not even by her own mother. Luckily, Add, her sacred gear, is capable of speech and started showing her the hidden side of her family.
With his help, she managed to grow and learn at an astonishing pace. According to him, he was incredibly close to the one whose spirit she has inherited. The double whammy of both the sacred gear and a mentor who knew the original quickly turned her into a powerhouse.
Sadly, this only inflated the beliefs of her family that she is the second coming of the founder, and they have decided to triple down in their behavior. Thus, widening the rift she felt in her own home.
Luckily, once she became friends with me and showed her face more and more around the mansion, she got to be around family members who didn't care about her status and here she was allowed to be just herself.
This place where she didn't have to be the perfect heir instantly endeared itself to her and now, she joins me in dinner here at least a few times a week.
"Thanks for the food mister." She politely smiles and thanks the cooks.
"You're welcome little missy, you can come and eat here whenever." He looks at me with a gimlet eye. "You can leave the glutton behind though, if he keeps coming here the other children won't have dinner."
That's so rude!
She laughs happily at that, "then I won't stand on ceremony."
Don't act as if you agree with him, you eat even more than I do...
"Oi."
She sticks her tongue out, clearly unbothered by my disapproval.
"Hahaha!" The chef laughs uproariously, while still giving me the stink eye. "That's right boyo, she can stay but you should scurry away."
I can feel the love old man, your bias is showing.
I roll my eyes and stand up, "I'll take a quick shower before they arrive, you can enter when you're finished." And I walk away as the old-timer explains the different dessert options.
Finishing my shower, I expected Gray to already be in my room but she most likely wanted a few more sweets to go and the staff will never deny her.
With no one to talk to and still some time to kill, I might as well take a quick nap and hopefully fill up my stamina bar.
I wake up to the feeling of someone softly combing through my hair, without opening my eyes I can feel a few more presences in the room. Thanks to my time sensing prowess, I know that it's been only half an hour since I fell asleep.
After a titanic battle of wills, I slowly open one eye to look around me and find Gray comparing my hair and Bianca's fur.
"What's the verdict?" I grumble tiredly, hoping to shake her out of the fugue she put herself in.
"Both of your hair's the same shade of white, but hers is firmer and while hers is naturally thicker yours has a silkier texture." She answers absentmindedly, still not fully out of her daze.
Huh, the more you know.
"I didn't expect you to have such girly interests." Honestly, I'm surprised. I've always pegged her as a tomboy extraordinaire.
My disrespect manages to finally get her focus back to the present and she drily responds, "you do realize, I'm a girl, yes?"
"Cut me some slack here all right, you always wear a hoodie, when possible and if I hadn't seen you in a dress at your birthday gala I would've only ever seen you wear pants." I reply back just drily.
She stills at my response and it takes a moment before she finds a retort.
"You're right." She manages to say and after a little more contemplation she continues with "I'll have to change that soon."
Her abrupt agreement to what I considered to be only an observation is throwing me slightly off-kilter, I expected this to devolve into more shade thrown my way. But it seems my comment hit more on the mark than I could have thought.
Before I can think on how to bring the mood back up, the door to my room gets kicked open with the fury of a thousand suns and a rabid Chihuahua barges into my chambers while dragging a despondent-looking Meredith behind her.
Her unhinged-looking eyes instantly zero in on me and without preamble she slams the door shut behind her. "Meri! Anti-spy setup, let's go!" Suddenly, magical circles come to life around them, while the walls of my room start to glow blue and white.
"Now, no one can spy in here unless they're at least on the level of a god." Meredith states with a calm voice.
Like, hello? You're saying that if the two of you work together, you can keep everything below gods out? Do you realize how absurd that is and you just mention it offhandedly? It's good that they have the same apparent wariness as Gray about outing my secrets though.
"With that out of the way, let's start the interrogation!" Jeez, lady you've gone off the deep end.
And with a bang, we start an "interrogation," which after the first question devolves into more of a sleepover than anything else. Once Fay got her confirmation about what my magic actually entailed she instantly calmed down significantly. Yet, at the same time she asked if we could collaborate on some magical studies.
"I'd love to do some magic together, but I don't understand how your math-magic works and I can't really explain how I do mine either." I try to placatingly explain to her, hoping to not instantly dash her expectations.
"No, I get that. I don't think you can teach me anything, but I CAN learn from you." She states with utter confidence. "You have to understand, I've almost finished learning everything the Golden Dawn has to offer already."
That is scarily impressive.
"Then why not travel outside and learn from other places?" Cause, if I'm not learning anything new at the order, I'd leave in a heartbeat.
"Family mostly, but also, I'm not magically strong enough to go and 'adventure.'" She says bitterly, but I can understand her family as well. Letting a young girl out to another territory, in a world as dangerous as this one? I wouldn't want to do that either.
And magical power grows with age, but you can forcefully induce growth by overusing it and allowing your body the time to restore itself. So, why don't they just do that? It sounds extremely obvious to me, maybe they don't know about it?
"Don't you girls know that you can train your 'mana pool' by overexerting it and recovering afterward?"
She looks at me with an unreadable gaze, kind of frightening how good she is at making such a varied number of expressions. "Yes, the practice is known but it's a bad trade-off. You'll be bedridden for a number of days after overusing your magic and the growth is not big enough to sacrifice the time you could also use to study and make your spells more efficient."
That's...
Yeah, I hadn't thought about what overexerting your body actually does to you. With how I've been able to increase my own natural recovery, I've never had to deal with these side effects. Wait... Maybe?
"Gray, can I try and use a spell on you?" I quickly ask.
She nods affirmatively, and I try to use "regeneration" on her. It almost worked, but it feels as if it didn't fully take hold. With a theatrical flick of my arm, I summon my sacred gear while repeating the spell, and this time she glows blueish-green.
"I don't feel any difference," Gray remarks, not unimpressed, but more in a goading way for me to explain what it does.
"This is one of my first learned magics, one that I managed to learn all on my own," I start off with not a small amount of pride. "This spell allows you to overnight fully recover your stamina and magic while accelerating your natural wound recovery."
I can see it in their faces when the full benefits of my spell click, the pin-drop silence as they think about what this could mean for their further training, and all three come to a decision at the same time.
"You know all my pranks against you were just a joke, right?"
"Gimme."
"What would you like in exchange?"
I quickly hold up my hands. "As I've already told you about it, I can cast it every night if you're around here." Which instantly sounded stupid once I said it, given how I know they can teleport here whenever they wish.
"We wouldn't want to impose," Meredith instantly replies, her rigidness to noble conventions coming to the forefront once more.
Still, it's good she's reacting much more than in the previous weeks. All the excitement seems to have brought her somewhat out of her funk.
"No, it's fine. If I didn't want to help you, I wouldn't have brought it up in the first place." But now that I think about it, maybe they could actually do something for me. "On the other hand, is it possible to keep those privacy wards around my room on a more permanent basis?" Got to shoot my shot, eh?
The three of them look at each other and, without speaking, manage to come to an agreement.
"We'll do the upkeep of the security, and you'll give us magical healing."
"Deal." x4
With the deal struck, I can see them all instantly glow up.
"I can train in all my weapons now!" Gray holds her Owl happily, while Add nods approvingly. "If you can bring your proficiency in all of them to half of your main ones, you'll be a true menace."
"Finally! A way to permanently grow my mana. I have so many plans." One cackles happily.
"Most of my sealing is only theoretically possible, but this changes everything." While the other two are more jubilant, Meredith shortly returns to her state before she found out about her heritage. Hopefully, she can keep being happy for longer.
We chat for a bit more about all their upcoming plans and how we could collaborate further. It's here I talk about the meeting from earlier that day and how I'm invited to do a few missions with Penemue.
This brings them to a pause, and Fay starts off, "We do have contact with other factions. My family has a contract with the 'Agares' devils. It's how I recognized your temporal magic, as it has the same flavor as theirs."
That is very interesting. I could try to get in contact with them through Fay. But do I really want to show myself to the devils? No, I think not.
"And the Grigori are, all things considered, not that bad. Maybe I can convince my brother to chaperone your expeditions."
She mentions something interesting here. I was planning to talk to the matron about this, but her brother is strong.
"Hehehe, if he goes, I will be able to pester him until he allows me to go as well!"
There we have her real reason for offering up her brother. She just wants to go on an adventure.
I can't help but snort at her scheme, yet it's only beneficial for me, and I don't think there will be any real danger connected to them. And it would be much more fun to bring the chaos gremlin along for the ride.
"If you can convince your family, I'll take you as my plus one." I laughingly shake my head at the headaches she will give the Fallen. She can be my shield to her perverse antics.
As the evening turns to night, they all decide to leave together, leaving me alone at last to finally have a full rest. With nary a whisper, I close my eyes and finally fall asleep.
December 2003
Stonehenge. Can't believe I've never been here before. It's only after I started running gigs with Penemue and her scientist buddy that I've started seeing all of the UK.
Luckily, all these "missions" are not just sightseeing tours, and I've even had the chance to fight some weird monsters from time to time. Gray and Meredith used to join in on these excursions at first, but when we found a ton of ghosts at one of the locations, Gray decided that this is not something she wished to continue.
With Gray stopping her participation, Meredith seemed to think that was her cue to also stop. She got a boost in her mood thanks to yours truly helping her grow her magic, but sadly something is still weighing her down, and I noticed her sliding back to that "angry princess" vibe.
My last companion, on the other hand, is having the time of her life. According to her, thanks to multiple factors, she's allowed to go on these trips as long as she's with a bodyguard.
She switches bodyguards every few times, and this time her brother decided to join us. At first, he was against her outings, but after a few weeks of nothing "bad" happening, he's decided that her gaining experience in a safe-ish setting is preferable to dealing with it in crisis situations.
On my end, I'd expected to be allowed to go on my own. Honestly, I didn't think that they would send someone to chaperone me each time, but I'm pleasantly surprised. With the help of one of the matron's children, I've been able to do the missions in relative peace.
Sadly, the addition of my bodyguard has made it a lot harder for Arthur this time. Elaine, the daughter of the matron, has a one-sided rivalry with him and continuously tries to goad him into a spar.
Her snips at him go unrebuffed, and his unfailingly polite attitude seems to piss her off even more.
At some of the locations we've visited in the past few months, I've felt some of the energies prevalent in the Land of Shadows on the material plane. Those remnants of taint are what the Fallen are after. They wish to both study it and prevent someone from trying to reopen her gate.
Nothing good can come out of bothering my teacher. Either undead monsters will escape to the living realm, or you'll piss her off and she'll figure out a way to give you a whole heap of misery.
The reason I've been required to go on all these errands is my sensitivity to her realm's energies. I'd expected another routine investigation, possibly finding some phantasmal beast to slay. Only this time, it's different.
I've been accustomed to trying to sense the same type of energies for a while, and for a time I was the only one who could accurately detect it. Luckily, after studying the emanations for some time, the Fallen have been able to replicate it.
This continued use of my "sensing" capabilities has increased my range by 50% and has made me more capable of finding hidden things within that area more easily.
With my increased sensing, I've noticed that something has been unsealed here, and a faint whiff of ash and soot still seems to permeate the air. When I touch one of the stones, I can feel a discordant and chaotic note hum in the wind.
Something is wrong here, and no one else seems to notice it. If I warn them, will the danger manifest, or will it simply ignore us?
Can't take any chances, better warned of imminent danger than unprepared for an ambush.
I sharply whistle and bark out, "Danger, careful!"
The reaction is instantaneous. Everyone moves in accordance, with me, Fay, and the scientist in the middle, while Arthur, Elaine, and Penemue guard us in a triangular formation.
Fay has already started summoning barriers around us, while Bianca has summoned herself above one of the stones to give me a better view if needed.
For a short moment, it seems that I was being paranoid as nothing happens, but as none of us lower our guards, the "monster" decides to appear.
In a swirling of smoke and shadows, the entire terrain of Stonehenge gets suspended in darkness. Within that darkness, a chilling and malevolent entity flickers into existence for one moment, only to suddenly disappear in the next. Every appearance is heralded by a feeling of profound evil, while when its eyes are visible, I feel a pressure appear in my head.
Elaine stands tall and summons a simple, unadorned cross to her hand. She bellows, "Vada Retro Satana," and a glow of white flashes, dispelling some of the mist.
"It's demonic in nature," she states affirmingly.
"Huh, that makes this a lot easier," Penemue mutters, while around her, dozens of spears made of light start to come into being.
"Don't become complacent." Arthur stands at attention, his holy sword Caliburn ready to annihilate anything that might threaten his sister.
As the thing keeps circling us, neither attacking nor running away, the pressure mounting behind my eyes surges in intensity. I cry out in pain, "It's using soul-based attacks!"
My cry of pain alerts them to the unseen danger, and everyone flies into motion. With extreme precision, Penemue scatters her spears into the fog, allowing them to keep emanating their holy powers where they land.
These beacons force the shadowy anomaly into the material world, and it starts to fly up into the air. Before it can start its song and dance again, it has to dodge the projectiles of light being shot by Elaine.
The oppressive pain starts to fade with the thing too focused on dodging, and I feel a burning hate spring up in my chest. I've trained so hard, yet I apparently get no-sold by whatever this thing is?
No, I refuse to be a damsel in distress.
I summon my staff. I've been told that I've been using it as a crutch for too long and that without my own mastery in magic, it did all the heavy lifting. But now that I have a passing grade in it?
I point my ornate staff at the monstrosity and hiss with venom in my voice, "Jera."
A bubble of gray overlaps its position, and its movement slows down to a crawl, my combination of powers halting its erratic pattern.
My spell gives the others a perfect window of opportunity, and with their experience, they wouldn't let it go to waste.
"Dance, Failnaught!" With unerring precision, a rain of arrows pierces the demon from multiple angles. At the same time, a portal appears to the side of its midsection, and a slash of holy steel bisects the monster clean in half. Not wishing to give the abomination any chance of survival, Penemue blasts the remaining pieces to nothing with a concentrated beam of light.
The feeling of chaos and corruption starts to slowly vanish, yet as it fades away, I can't help but think to myself. I have felt the same type of energy like this before, but where?