Prologue- The start of a Adventure

It was a pleasant day with the sun was shining and on the lush grass around the Tristain Academy of Magic. However, the students of the Academy find their peaceful morning interrupted by one of their own.

An explosion shook the foundations of the Academy. Dust and smoke flowed out the windows of the classroom.

Professor Chevreuse a plump woman dressed in a long black robe with a purple cloak underneath with a wide brimmed pointed hat. She, was in tbe midfle of teahing her class when she asked one particular student to preform the art of transmutation, however, it had all gone downhill.

Despite the protests of the class, she had thought she had made the correct choice as the student had been taking down notes vigorously throughout the entire lesson… aside from when the other students had started making fun of her. That aside, Chevreuse knew that the girl had potential.

Unfortunately, she should have listened to the students' outcry about her choice Louise de La Vallière.

a petite girl with thick Bright pink hair flowing down from her head to hips in with, pink eyes. dressed in the usual uniforms of the Academy, a white button-up blouse with a grey pleated skirt and a gold medallion with a pentagram etched in the center fastened around her neck. On top of that was a black cloak signifying her status as a second year.

When Louise came up to the front, she did everything right, from the pronunciations to the wand-movements and finally, envisioning the metal she wished: bronze. Yet, just as every other time she cast a spell, it ended in an explosion.

The professor had been thrown against the blackboard, knocked her unconscious. And smoke was sent every Yet despite the chaos that was caused, Louise stood unaffected by the explosion, despite being only second to Chevreuse in terms of proximity to the blast.

Surveying the damage, Louise could not help but sigh. Another failure…

And it would seem the rest of the class agreed if the glares directed at her meant anything. "What's the matter with you!?" the usually sultry, now angered voice of Kirche von Zerbst shouted from the safety of her desk wall.

Louise scowled, turning towards the Big breasted tanned girl with a thick head crimson hair. "I just screwed up a little bit," she replied, trying to keep her voice calm.

"What part of this is 'little'?" whined another student, the fat blond named Malicorne de Grandprè.

Louise reacted to the insult but kept an impassive mask in the face of failure, even when more people in the room started to throw out insults and complains she kept her face. She knew and should have expected this to happen. But I just had to go up and try. She thought bitterly. With her head held high, she marched out the room, planning to go to the Headmaster's Office before being collected, again. On her way out, she found Tabitha, a smaller girl with blue hair, however, based on what Louise had seen, her height was inverse of her magical potential. She supposed the girl had left before she went up to avoid any injuries.

The blue-haired girl looked up from her book, asking in a monotone, "Teacher?"

Louise let out a long-suffering sigh, "Unconscious."

Tabitha nodded silently, walking back into the classroom, probably, hopefully, to take the professor to the healers.

Crossing her arms, Louise began walking down the hall of the tower, passing a few classrooms and down a flight of stairs, each step causing her mood to drop. Had she been a proper mage, she would have been able to simply levitate herself down the steps, yet any time she tried the spell, it would explode, and she certainly did not wish to try it on herself.

Once she exited the tower, she made her way across the long path leading to the main tower. She watched a few third years out on tables outside, enjoying the sun or preparing for the lessons to come. Some noticed her, and she could hear them laughing, and speaking to their friends which in turn brought more eyes upon her.

Louise ignored them, of course, and continued walking along the paths until she arrived at the main tower. Skirting along the side, she eventually arrived at the entryway. After that, it was only a quick walk through some rooms, halls, and up a few flights of stairs before she found herself standing before the Headmaster's Office.

Moving to knock, Louise quickly retracted her hand when the door swung open on its own, revealing the two residents of the office; Miss Longueville and Headmaster Osmond.

The green haired Miss Longueville, the Headmaster's secretary, was dressed in her usual blue robes with white highlights and a wine-red cloak. She was sitting down at her desk, looking the least bit annoyed, but by what, Louise did not know; though the scornful looks she sent the Headmaster, and the fact that the Headmaster's pipe was on her desk could have been a clue.

The Headmaster was a well aged man with a long silver beard and hair. He was dressed in a plain, yet fine robe of dark grey and had a quite few rings on his fingers.

"Miss Vallière," he said with a sigh, tapping his fingers as he looked at her.

With a hung head, Louise walked into the office, taking a seat on one of the chairs in front of his desk and prepared herself for another chastisement.

Approximately half an hour later, Louise was finally freed from the Headmaster's office. Her mood had plummeted throughout the lecture she was given. Not for the first time since arriving in this school, had she been told to be careful with her magic, reminded of her place as a mage and a noble, the religious significance of her status, and the strain of her schooling on her family, both financially and reputation wise. Fortunately, her punishment had been near non-existent after she informed the headmaster of what happened, but there was warning in his voice. Her punishment would be dealt tomorrow, and the extent of which would be dependent on whether or not she failed the Springtime Familiar Summoning.

Failure would mean expulsion. Success would mean that the school would have something to work with.

Calming herself with a deep breath, Louise headed down the staircase from the office, ready to absorb herself in her books once again. However, unlike when she ascended the stairs sometime prior, she ran into an obstacle, or rather, three obstacles.

Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst. Montmorency Margarita La Fère de Montmorency and, Tabitha. While she had no qualms with the petite glasses wearing young lady. she was a quiet bookworm who had only muttered a handful of words to Louise since the start of this year, she even gave her some books to read every so often so out of most of the people at the academy she is one of Louise's favorite people to be honest, Louise would have liked to been friends with Tabitha, had she kept better company, but fortune had never favored Louise. At the moment, the girl was simply doing as she did best silently reading a book the other two she found herself loathing.

Kirche the Ardent, to put it in the nicest way Louise could, would be a total whore. She seemed to love dressing in her one-size-too-small uniform with the top two buttons of the blouse undone to show off her, admittedly large, assets, strutting around with her thigh-high leather boots and golden choker, all to increase her appeal. Some would have called Louise petty had that been the only reason for her disdain for the redhead, so she was pleased that she had more than enough reason to loathe the woman; the main two contenders were the incessant bullying which included the creation of her most hated epithet and the way she showed off how superiorshe was in every way to the petite pinkette.

Then there was Montmorency the Fragrancewho may seem like a dumb blonde who was too blind to see her lover's unfaithfulness but was actually quite handy with a cauldron. Her hair was styled in tight ringlets with a red bow tied immaculately atop her head, and, unlike Kirche, she wore a uniform in a conservative fashion—as any proper Tritainian noble should. While not as indecent and aggravating as the redhead, she still seemed to despise Louise for whatever reason.

"So, what's the story? Another trip to the detention room, or are they finally expelling you?" asked Kirche, trying to appear serious, butl it was obvious that the girl was amused. It seemed Montmorency also found the downcast look of Louise funny as she too had to hide a snicker with a small cough. Tabitha turned a page.

Louise kept her eyes straight, not focusing on any of the three, as she walked past the group. "They decided not to punish me."

"What!?" exclaimed the two girls, their shock by the leniency of the school's officials obvious to the naked eye. "Why not?"

"They said," Louise began with a sigh, holding back the urge to sneer at the two as annoyance permeated her voice, "that it was partially the teacher's fault for asking me to demonstrate, after being warned by everyone in the class." Her answer, filled with bitter resentment, seemed to humour the blonde and redheaded girls as they both began to laugh. "I'm just having a bad day," stressed Louise.

"Yeah? Well, you're always having a bad day. You can't even get a real runic name, Louise the Zero!" Kirche teased.

Louise span around, sneering at the two, "Why don't you just be quiet!" she spat after hearing their insult, and nickname for her which she despised

Despite Louise's outburst, Kirche ignored her. "Tomorrow will be fun. I can't wait to see what kind of familiar you manage to summon." The bait was obvious, but Louise could not help but bite.

"Oh yeah? Well, I'm confident in one spell: Summon Servant!" Louise shouted, glaring at the two who recoiled slightly at the vehement proclamation, "Just you watch. I'll conjure up a familiar that is divine, and beautiful, and powerful—and it will be better than anything you could cook up. Then we'll see who's laughing!" Spinning on her heel, she began stomping down the staircase, wanting to get as far away from the two as fast as possible.

Her goal was in mind: The library. In an act of kindness on the Headmaster's part, she had been given the day off to mentally prepare for the Summoning tomorrow and she wished to waste no time in silly things like relaxing, not when something as serious as this was before her she wound not even read her favorite commoner adventure stories.

…

The sun soon set and the twin moons soon rose up into the night sky. Most, if not all students had gone back to their bedrooms or in some cases, the bedrooms of others. Louise, at this moment, was being shooed out of the library and the librarian's insistence; something she felt mild annoyance at.

"Miss Vallière You have been at this school for little over a year, read through almost all of the books you have been permitted to read more times than any other student, and yet found nothing," the librarian, said as she shooed Louise, "Go to bed. Tomorrow is the Springtime Familiar Summoning. If you are a mage, we'll find out tomorrow," she then said under her breath. "why did we let such a zero talent child such as this into our school".

Louise frowned, holding her tongue as she remembered the last time she had pleaded to stay in the library after hours. With a mumbled apology, Louise left the library after, of course, putting each of the books away. Once done, she left the large library quickly, heading towards her bedroom, her safe haven, as quickly as possible.

As she hoped, the walk was quick, and she soon traversed through the school to her dorm.

Entering, she found it a lot cleaner than it had been when she awoke. Obviously, the servants had tended to her room in her absence; books mostly about magical theory or her commoner stories that were strewn about the previous night due to excessive studying and reading in what little breaks she gives herself. Each of those books were now stacked neatly near her desk separated into different stack for the two different type of books, while the dirty clothing she wore the day before had been taken from her room and probably washed; her desk she had been using to write a letter to her mother and sister had been placed packed away with what looked like a fresh inkwell ready for use; and finally, her bed had been made with her pillows puffed and new blankets to replace the dirty ones.

Walking to her large set of drawers, she began to discard articles of clothing from her cape to her shirt and skirt, letting them all fall to the floor in a small pile. She then opened her draws and pulled from it, one of her pink lacy nightgowns, pulling it over her head and over her small frame. Briefly, her eyes flickered to her books but quickly pulled away. Normally, she would have begun to read through her books again, but tonight, she could not pull herself to do so the Liberians comments were still ringing in her mind. If... If I am a mage, why is a zero talent child in our school.

One of her favorite parts of living in the Academy was the personal quarters. As Louise soon learned, the personal quarters were a place where one could act however they pleased without the tiring politics or rumors flying around, that is if they are alone; something that was always the case for the youngest Vallière.

She remembered breaking down crying during her first year when her classmatesS had been especially cruel. It was the day that she had also been given the "runic name" of 'Zero,' a name that had spread like wildfire all over the Academy to even her eldest sister, Éléonore. In some cases, a small few even thought it was her actual runic name, and her classmates were always there to fuel that assumption. Of course, she never told anyone about this, not even Cattleya, the middle child of the Vallière family she did not need to place any more stress on her sickly sibling.

Even now, Louise felt like crying, yet, she did not allow herself to do so. Tomorrow was the final chance she would have to prove she would have magic, and if she failed, she would be expelled where her father would be the one to decide her fate; married off to her fiancé, Jean-Jacques Francis, or disowned and forced to become nothing more than a commoner.

She knew that the latter would be unlikely, but the thought that it could be a possibility still haunted her.

With nothing better to do, Louise crawled into her cool queen-sized canopied bed, and tried to drift off to sleep, but found the land of dreams a hard place to reach; her mind always going back to thoughts on the Familiar Summoning. After a few hours of restlessness and fidgeting, however, she fell into a deep sleep, filled with dreams of adventure, of being a master mage not ridiculed by others.

...

She woke up the next day with a feeling of jealousy, and of dread. Jealousy for the adventures in her dream and dread for the expendin

"Today is the Springtime Familiar Summoning!" Professor Colbert exclaimed to his students. "This is the first exam of your second year, as well as the sacred day where you will meet your familiar spirit; a creature who you will spend the rest of your life with as a part of your Noble family…"

While the Professor continued to lecture the students about the summoning, Kirche made her way over to Louise with Tabitha hot on her heels. "I can hardlywait to see how divine and beautiful and powerful a familiar you'll summon, Louise the Zero."

"Leave me alone…" Louise growled. She was not in the mood to deal with the Zerbst, being far more tired than usual. Unfortunately, it was something her rival seemed to notice.

"Did someone not get enough sleep?" asked Kirche, her tone like she was talking to a baby.

Louise glared up at the taller girl. "Shut up, Zerbst," she said, turning back to the Professor. "The Summoning is starting."

The Professor had moved to the side and called for a student to begin the Summoning. The first was a boy named Thomas. He walked up to the edge of a chalk pentagram—which served no purpose other than abiding tradition—and began to cast. Raising his wand he began the ceremony with one of the many variations of the Summoning Spell, intoning the ancient spell as if he were reading it off a note. Once the spell finished and he had performed the flourish of his wand, a large green mirror like orb materialised from nothingness in the centre of the pentagram. It stayed like that for a second, before it disappeared with a flash, leaving behind a floating purple eyeball the size of a head.

It was a Bugbear, a creature said to belong to the air class of familiars, feeding off the ambient magic in the air to stay afloat and to survive.

Immediately after, another student took his place, summoning another creature, then another and another. One after another, each student summoned a familiar, some conjuring something mundane, such as a frog or a cat, to the weird and creepy such as the girl who ended up with a dog sized spider or a duck-beaver… thing. Finally, were the select few students who got the magical and powerful familiars, such as Tabitha's wind dragon; large, blue, with four legs and two powerful wings. From what she had read, the creature was quite young compared to other dragons.

Kirche was the other one who summoned a magical creature, conjuring forth a fire salamander—a large oversized red lizard with a live fire emitting from the tip of its tail—much to the admiration of her male cohorts. Even Louise had to admit she was slightly impressed with her rival, before banishing the thought with a scowl.

"Has everyone summoned a familiar?" asked Professor Colbert, surveying the gathered crowd of assorted creatures and students; oblivious to the familiar-less pinkette who frowned at the question. Am I that forgettable...? She thought.

"Not yet!" Kirche said singsonged, still patting her new familiar, before pointing to Louise, "Louise hasn't summoned anything, yet!"

The buzz that had prevailed over the crowd ended swiftly, everybody stopping what they were doing to turn to Louise with either a nervous frown or malicious joy. Even the teacher took a bit nervous, before it changed to apologetic, then finally something encouraging. "Miss Vallière, could you please step forwards to summon your familiar?"

"Uh… yes," Louise said, choosing to not look at the Professor as she addressed him, moving towards the Summoning circle. Ignore him, just focus on summoning a familiar.

She stopped at the edge of the summoning circle, a mask of indifference covering the nerve-racking fear and anger that festered within. Behind her, she could hear the buzz of the students pick up again, no longer praising each other for their success in summoning a familiar but making jokes or insulting statements at her own expense.

Each insult chipped away at her mask as her anxiety disappeared in a puff of smoke as loathing took hold. She glared at the pentagram, trying to ignore them all as she went through the summoning spell in her head. Raising her wand, she began to chant, ignoring Kirche's barb at her boast the day before, "My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe. My divine, beautiful, and powerful servant, heed my call! I wish from the very bottom of my heart, bring forth my familiar and appear!"

Then, Louise suddenly swished her wand towards the centre of the pentagram as the rest of the students, and even the teacher braced themselves for an explosion.

…

Nothing.

Nothing but a vague feeling of dirtiness. Louise still wore the face of anticipation that had taken over during the chanting. It was like time had frozen. And it was quiet. Much too quiet. If someone on the other side of the school had dropped a coin, Louise was sure the entire class would have jumped. Yet, nothing.

Then someone laughed. It was a pathetic laugh, one people who do when they hear a bad joke but don't know whether to laugh or not. Then another, and another, and soon, the entire class was laughing. At first, Louise was confused; there was no explosion, so she could not have failed… right?

But as laughter reached new heights, she finally understood what was happening. I… failed? Her mask cracked as her mind filled with anguish and despair.

An explosion occurred around me but this one seemed different from the others. At first I thought I finally succeed in summoning a powerful familiar. However that was not the case. I suddenly found myself falling from the sky. "EEEEYAHHHHHHAAAAAA! I was falling fast and continued to gain speed. Is this how I'm going die? By falling to my death? While falling, I saw a vast ocean of trees hanging over a massive blue body of water My only hope was that the branches could cushion my fall. I braced for impact as I neared closer to the trees.

The landing was not as helpful as I thought it was. I hit the top of the tree but I kept hitting the branches until I finally hit the ground. I groaned in pain as stood up. My vision was woozy and I couldn't see straight. My body ached all over. When my vision returned to normal, I scanned the area. I was in a place I wasn't familiar with over a body of unknown water, fact I'm wondering why I was in the sky in the first place. Where's the academy? Where is everyone else? All of these questions were swimming in my head, but there is one clear thing in my head because when I raised my head to the sky instead of the twin colored moons of my homeland I saw something I thought was impossible a single moon shining brightly in the sky.

"WHERE THE HELL AM I!

To be continued in Chaper 1