Chapter Text
Louise had expectations when she took the podium, climbing the dais with the false bravado she's gone use to hiding her doubts with and coming face-to-face with the rune-engraved circle carved on the ground that would determine her fate, not just in the academy, but to her entire life.
She envisioned herself performing the ritual, activating the magic in her veins to light the circle in a array of mystical light, ever shifting in tones of color and intensity of light that revealed her affinity to an element of the Pentagram, before with a mighty roar a beast of great divinity, incredible power, and emaculate beauty that was equal elegance and ferocity, awing all her peers and dissuading all the doubts and rumors they casted to her.
That wasn't her expectations. It was only a fantasy, a dream to distance herself from her actual, sadder reality.
No, what Louise expected was much more bleaker than what she wanted, that being absolutely nothing would happen except an explosion to her face as an insult to her existence.
Her magic, the reason for her doubt, was unlike that of her peers, who watched her from below the dais with trepidation and doubts. Whereas theirs worked as intended, casting spell and manipulating the world around them, her's only resulted in sudden explosions and failure.
Not a single person knew of the reason why her magic was like this, no element on the Holy Pentagram acted the way her's did. None from the priests of the Brimiric Church to the wild mages could find reason nor cure for her faulty magic, not even through blasphemous means such as consorting with the Great Foe, elves, to fix her magic, the nature-attuned hominids looking at her like she was an anomaly to the natural order.
In a society where those with magic ruled over those with not, as aristocrats and nobles over their commoner subjects, Louise was treated as an outcast by the vast majority of people she met, even to the common folk who viewed her with distrust and wariness for her noble status and different disposition.
Louise has come to grow used to the hate directed at her, a bitter pill she has swallowed more than once in her life and expected to continue to do so should nothing change with her faulty magic. And standing atop the raised platform, staring right at the thing that was capable of doing so, Louise couldn't help but feel apprehensive about her chances. Her hands unconsciously closed into fists and trembled. Her right where she held her wand threatened to snapped the foci like a twig.
"Miss Vallière?" A voice pulled her away from her musing, firm yet kind in its tone.
Louise turned to her side and saw her professor, Jean Colbert, one of the few people in the academy to treat her with a measure of respect and the only one who held confidence in her ability. He was also the current supervisor for today's event.
The man had a stoic face on but he had a reassuring smile on that soothed Louise from her morose thoughts. "Professor," Louise nodded to the man, who nodded in return, his dipped head briefly flashing Louise's eyes from reflected sunlight due to the shiny boldness the man possesses.
Mr. Colbert pointed his stave to the magic circle on the ground, "You may begin when ready," he said, voice relaxed and assured, not at himself but at her, to complete the ritual and keep her place in the academy.
Louise nodded again, a smile on her lips, and walked closer to the magic circle, her earlier apprehension eased a bit from her professor's assuring gestures, and approached with a deceiving confidence belying her deeper doubts.
She stopped right at the edge of the circle, where the first rune of summons lay, and brought up her wand. Then she began her special incantation prepared just for this day.
—0—
In another world, one of bloody evolution, a foul beast ran while its hunters gave chase.
Long arms propelled the beast of serpentine shape and form forward in incredible speed, traveling miles with but a couple pulls from its strong but deceptively spindly limbs, but so much faster were its hunters.
Its pursuers were so much smaller than it but were greatly more dangerous than their size belied. There were four of them, incredible individuals wielding incredible weapons with even more incredible souls that shone like beacons to its unnatural eyes.
It's hunters of green, pink, red, and white assaulted its body of black ichor and ivory armor with bullets, blade, hammer, and sword. Black essence weeped from its wounds afflicted from their first confrontation, where the hunters fought with a ferocity it had not seen in their kind before.
Perhaps it had been the village it had laid waste that spurred their ire? Or was it the sprayed gore and viscera of its inhabitants laid display on the settlement's border that ignited the righteous fire in their hearts? Whatever the cause, it made them bring the beast low, afflicting wounds and injuries greater than it, and the hunters', expected, and with a strike from the white knight of the hunters, one that shined like a white star and delivered a pain that wrought into its very being and forced it to feel something it was designed not to feel—fear.
With pain indescribable, struck by powers anathema to its being, the beast was forced to take an action it had never taken, or even conceived before—flee.
Miles were crossed but the hunters didn't wane in their pursuit of it, if anything its frightful fly only seemed to agitate them more into attaining it's head. Closer and closer they got, weapons getting ever so nearer to once again carve into its dark flesh and rent it apart. It needed an escape.
That it thought such a thing, to run from a foe, was an affront to what it was made for, that being the annihilation of human life across the Second Cycle. But it had no choice, not with the newly inflicted fear caused by the white knight's attack. The beast was forced to drop its pride and consider its survival first.
It crossed distances it had never reached before, passed regions of land it had not seen in its long, ageless life— until it entered a forest, one with tall trees that towered even its titanic form and dense foliage, a place older than the cities of the New Men and untouched by their advances.
Deep the beast went into the woods but still it was pursued, the hunters' fury to its transgressions against their fellow man proving far to great for them to give up. The trees, behemoth in height and thick in bulk, were felled by its immensity and mass as the beast desperately ran from the hunters, who in turn responded in a fusillade of empowered bullets from their guns and cracking thunder from the sky.
The beast threw massive logs, thrashed against foliage with large thorns capable of bisecting a person, and carved out great trenches on the earth to slow its hunters down but it didn't seem to have any effect at all against them.
So it continued running deeper into the forest.
Tirelessly it moved, its body of dark essence not restricted to the constraints of the biological, passing trees that got ever so taller, ever so darker the deeper it went into the woods. The hunters were no longer in sight but still it felt their presence through their souls that shined like beacons in the dark. So the beast still ran.
It ran and ran, not stopping, not waning, for the fear injected into it was as potent as it had been—until something strange happened.
'O familiar mine,'
A voice spoke.
Claws suddenly dug into the earth, clasping for a hold and digging a long trench a man's height deep on the soil below until the beast finally paused in its motion. Six eyes snapped around it, looking, surveying, searching for the source of the one who spoke ethereal-like and from nowhere.
What... was that?
Another emotion was felt in the beast; confusion— confusion at the voice, confusion to its existence, confusion as to why it spoke. Didn't it know of its kind, of the monsters that terrorize the world and made its denizens fear them since time immemorial? When the Brothers yet lived in the mortal world? But most confusing of all; why did it felt compelled to listen?
'Beautiful, powerful, and divine creature,'
Again it appeared, spoke its words like gospel to it, and the world around it vanished as the beast's full attention was on what the mysterious voice spoke.
Beautiful? It had no concept of the word, but the voice that spoke it gave It the meaning desired of it. Great in visage, enrapturing of presence, entrancing to look. These were the concepts he understood of the word and the closest the beast could compare it to was its most fearsome form and presence, monstrous and serpent-like, massive and looming over all, one that had made low of entire countries and instill absolute terror to populations of entire cities.
Powerful? Strength, might, authority. It understood what the word conveyed well, its being was made for such it! It was indeed that, incredibly so despite its fleeing self. Armies of the new men had been left slaughtered in its wake. No matter if it was on the fields, of forts, or even their flying ships, it had maimed, killed and gored the foes that stood in its way. Power was it and it was power.
Divine? Oh, it was among the oldest of its kind, birthed from the first pool of darkness to be made and shaped by the primal nightmares of the First Men. It has existed long before the rise of its new master, the witch who claimed the throne of its creator who left and abandoned this world along with his brother. And now, among all the new beasts of its kind, barring the Witch and the Wizard and the rumored relics left by the gods, it was the closest to being called divine left in this world.
'My servant to be, heed me,'
It was rapt in attention, listening closely.
Servant, it mused, it was already a servant, one to the witch who now ruled over the rest of its kind and rests on the seat of its god's domain. It was reluctant to serve her but her authority was absolute, her control of them incredible. From her castle in the dark wastes she sees the world through their eyes, hears what the New Men speak through their ears. She was everywhere all at once, connected through them by her transfusion of the dark essence, and she wanted to see the world set a blaze and under her rule. The voice called it their servant, but how could it serve them when it was already in the service of another master?
But... It felt a reassurance of sort, that, what happens should it bow will never reach the Witch. Something cut the connection.
A vibrancy had begun, energy unknown to its knowledge coalesced around, shaping, forming, until a presence appeared.
A portal, for that was what manifested in front of it, a swirling pool of energy that awaited its approach. A beckoning pull came from the portal— no, from the other side.
It, wanted, to go in, which was strange. It was a Grimm, they had never desired anything more than the destruction of life, but what called to it beyond the swirling portal promised a purpose better than what the Witch gave it.
It made the choice.
'By my command, come and appear to me!"
It leapt forward, gauging massive craters in the wake of its claws, and entered the portal.
—0—
"-by the powers of the pentagram, by my command, come and appear to me!" Louise yelled out, putting all the frustrations and hope she had at the end of her incantation. Below her the portal glowed with incandescent colors, a swirling rainbow of light, her power fueling its magic and the runes inscribed on it, pulling for a creature that matched her affinity and would become her familiar.
And at the end of her incantation it pulsed with a sudden flash of light, a familiar sight that foretold the completion of a summoning and then... nothing.
Louise stood atop the summoning platform, form still that of her casting form, and waited.
A silent moment pass and sweat started to form on Louise's face. Dread took a tight clasp on her heart as the seconds ticked by with nothing happening. Eyes behind her stared with disappointment and snickering glee. A particular laughter from a certain redhead began sounding off.
Louise felt her heart stop, a pit now formed in her stomach.
No. No, no, no, no.
'This–please– this can't happen.' The grip on her wand tightened, her eyes staring at the summoning circle with desperation, 'Something has to come! I did the incantation correctly! Something please appear!' Nothing. 'Anything–!'
An explosion appeared, one greater than the one's she made before.
Smoke and dust covered the area, the sounds of students screaming heard clearly to her as the shockwave of the blast shoved them to the dirt below. Exclamations were soon to follow.
"My ears! I can't hear anything!"
"Not again!"
"Why don't you just leave, Zero!?"
"Monmon, are you okay?!"
"Too much dust!"
"Zero!"
Under the cover of the dust and smoke, Louise wilted with each braying remark, a year's long frustration held against her carried within felt clearly to her.
Louise lost her strength and dropped to her knees. She didn't feel the pain of her bare knees scraping against the coarse stone floor of the platform, drawing bleeding marks on her pristine skin. No, she was far more engrossed in a much greater wound; despair.
"Why..." The noble gasped out, her voice quiet and weak. "Why didn't it work? Why doesn't anything work?"
She... failed. Again. Like she always did.
She shouldn't even be surprised anymore— no matter what she did it always ended in failure. She just didn't want to believe it. And today marked her most spectacular failure to date.
She failed to pass the Springtime Familiar Summoning Ritual, an event held by the academy to its second-years that determined whether they would continue studying in its prestigious halls or expelled from its grounds as failures of academics. And with her non-present familiar, Louise expected herself fated with the latter.
Brimir, what would her family think. She dreaded to imagine.
Her family had always been present for her, despite the backlash from the vast majority of the nobility who like vultures took every opportunity to bring their house down. They may not have been forwardly supportive but they were there to keep her company, soothing her doubts and making her feel just the smidge wanted, her sisters most of all no matter what Eleanore denied as her compassion.
But, to return as a failure like always despite years of their aid, expelled from the prestigious Tristain Academy of Magic founded by the very daughter of the Founder of which they paid in excess to let her in, would be an insult to their sacrifices for her. Louise doubted they could keep the disappointment and defeat from their faces when she returns home.
Should she even return? She was a disgrace now, returning now would just put a dirty mark on her family's name. A magic incapable daughter, who couldn't even cast a single spell correctly and who has been expelled from the prestigious Tristain Academy. The other noble houses would eat that up and use it in whatever means to lower the fame of her family, such is the politics of the nobility.
Louise looked back down on the now inactive summoning circle, bereft of a creature that was supposed to appear.
No, they didn't deserve that, not with what they've given her. A runaway child may still leave a black mark on the family but it was one that would fade and be forgotten about over time so long as she never reveals her face again.
All she needed was to wait till night—for the faculty was not so cruel as to immediately boot her from the academy grounds for her failure—, ride her personal mount and get as far... away...
As Louise was hatching her escape plan, she noticed something.
The fog of smoke and dust she's created was thick and dense, a person barely able to even see their feet in it. But the rays of the sun still managed to pierce its veil, and through it, Louise noticed a large, looming figure cast a massive shadow through the fog. And it was moving.
Hope, a notion she believed she'd never feel today, flickered in her heart as the palpable presence of the looming beast boosted her belief that, yes, she didn't fail. She gripped tightly that hope and filled her mind with it so much that she didn't noticed her peers had stopped talking.
Slowly Louise stood back up to her feet, first with shaky footing and then with more confidence as the looming figure got ever more clearer in the fog.
Scales of starless midnight and bony ivory protrusions, claws the size of a war golem, and a aura of something... godly.
A growl sounded, one so great and loud it vibrated the air and made her heart tremble in an excited way. Faintly Louise could hear yelps and even screams of terror behind her.
With growing awe and confidence, Louise approached the beast, her familiar.
Someone was screaming her name but Louise ignored it as she desired to see the creature she summoned. The smile on Louise's face as she came to bare the massive arm of her familiar would have been described as manic, with teeth on full display and the edges of he lip reaching to her ears.
Louise stopped her trek as she came before the massive arm, her eyes tracing it up to its main body. Vaguely she could see its form was serpent-like through the fog, propped up by what seems to be two arms and covered in plates of ivory armor. Oddly, she could only see the two limbs and no other. And as she beheld the creature, the creature became aware of her.
Movement happened, a great current breezing against and displaced the fog. A spell, Louise was quick to recognize as the fog faded away with a wind spell casted by someone, probably by Tabitha. A collection of gasps sounded out as the beast she summoned was revealed to everyone in the courtyard and perhaps even beyond inside the towers that surrounded the academy. Louise wasn't far behind losing her breath too.
Before her was a beast of pitch black. It was massive, easily over half the height of the academy's central tower, its body serpent-like with scales so black it seemed to consume light and armored with bony plates and juts of ivory spikes. Two, lanky but no doubt powerful arms propped it up, holding it above the ground and imposingly over them.
Its head was gator-like, triangular in shape with an outstretching maw and nostril that was plated in the same white ivory armor that covered the rest of its figure that made it all the more fearsome to look at. Six eyes lined the eye openings one each side of the beast's skulled face, six orbs of crimson that contained within them absolute malice.
Its gaze locked onto Louise, its crimson pupils narrowing, and she felt the full weight of its suspicion. It was aware of her now, recognizing her as something, a mystery.
Its throat, so thick and muscular, rumbled, a growl growing.
The atmosphere grew thick with tension, the low growls of the giant sending incredible shivers down her spine. With a slow, heavy movement, the beast lowered its head down at her level. She smiled.
Under its intense gaze, Louise began approaching the beast, ignoring the calls of her name, begging her to return and away from the beast.
The beast growled at her, sounding at such a volume it shook the bones in her body. It showed aggression for the first time since its summoning, becoming wary its surroundings, of her. Her smile turned into a frown when it did so, and she glared at the beast. Showing disobedience at this moment, right in front of her whole class, showed her lack of control of her own familiar, was unacceptable. Especially after she nearly failed the ritual.
Affronted by the beast's aggression, Louise's already breaking temper finally broke and she whipped up her wand and casted a spell.
Faintly Louise heard professor Colbert yell at her action but it was completely consumed when an explosion ripped through the air.
The botched spell did as intended and exploded on the beast's skull plated face, cracking the mask and breaking off chunks of bony shards. A pained screech erupted from the throat of her familiar as it reared its head back, eliciting screams of terror from her peers.
"You will listen!" Louise yelled out before she realized she did. The beast was still whining but it regained some measure of composure. It turned back to face her with a snarl, snapping at her with its bared gigantic teeth the size of a man, ready to rip her apart for her impudence.
Louise showed no fear in her eyes, only fury, and pointed her wand again as an act to warn the beast if it desired her harm.
Miraculously it seemed to work as the beast flinched away from her. Recognition flashed in its eyes and it cowed. It lowered its head, the beast dropping its entire body as close it could to the ground, and bowed.
Silence. No noise. Everyone in shock.
And then laughter.
Boisterous. Joyous. Sinister. Mad.
Louise didn't register it at first but she discovered she had begun laughing. She didn't stop even as she fully realized it.
The rest of the courtyard remained silent at their peer's mad cackling. None dared to interrupt her new high, else the beast bowing down to their least-liked classmate take offense on her behalf and crush them with its immensity.
Silent they stayed, fear gripping their hearts instilled by primal instinct at seeing a beast so greater than them in size, and affected too by an aura of pure terror and despair emitted by a source unseen but still incredibly palpable in presence. And through their fear-stricken minds a few dared think; from this day on, with the Zero they mocked and doubted no more, and a beast in her wake, what happens next?
Many paled at the conclusions they came to.