Chapter 6 of Dire Familiar

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my crazy thoughts and Onai. If anyone wants to use my ideas please just credit me and I will be super flattered.

AN: I have never written a full combat scene before so bear with me if it is marginal or confusing.

AN: Sup guys its Skelo here, beta'd the hell out of this fic.

Story Start

Returning to her guest quarters after her visit with Louise, Henrietta was incredibly glad that she had managed to slip free from her royal guards long enough to spend some time with her longtime friend.

Unlike so many of the nobles that she dealt with, Louise was neither a courtier that would agree with everything that she said merely for her favor, or one of the older nobles that constantly seemed as if they were one step away from patting her on the head and telling her to go do something ornamental while the 'real' nobles took care of the business of running Tristainia. Bad enough when it was her Mother or Bishop Mazarin, who actually did most of the official ruling, but when it came from the various nobles that held positions at court due to political appointments it was almost enough to set her screaming.

And soon enough she would likely hold even less real power.

After her marriage to the Emperor of Germania and the subsequent absorption of Tristainia in all but name it was unlikely that she would be free enough to be able to get away from her guards long enough to interact freely with others her age.

Slipping past the guards that guarded her chamber was simple enough as long as she remained quiet. She was actually rather proud of the spell she had developed herself that allowed it. Normally a sleep spell would be considered an easy Line class combination of water and air and leave the victim limp and relaxed for several hours.

Glancing at their stiff postures and closed eyes behind their helms confirmed that they were still solidly unconscious.

The Royal Magic that made her spells have that extra oomph however allowed her to take the next step. What made sleep spells, and any water magic affecting another person internally, so hard was that any external magic tended to interfere and cancel out internal magics. There were plenty of externally based spells, especially Wind, that allowed for paralysis or otherwise holding another's body in a certain position, but they were difficult at best to hold against another mage, resulting in them being relatively rarely taught, as they were only useful against commoners.

For the royalty that could trace their ancestors to Brimir certain other options became possible. Namely the spell that Henrietta had proudly named 'Sleepy Sentinel.' Instead of trying to cast a Wind Bind on top of a sleeping spell, she managed to layer the two spells on top of one another so that not only were they combined into a single difficult Line spell, but the two spells wouldn't interfere with each other like they normally would for another mage.

End result, two guards that 'nodded off' while standing at their posts that would only remember feeling sleepy and closing their eyes for a bit while for all appearances standing on guard with their guard helmets mostly shielding their eyes from any cursory scrutiny.

Hopefully Louise would find her own way and learn to start creating her own spells like she had. Given the way that Louise had such a difficult time with the normal spells that most nobles used, building her own spells was likely to be the only way for her to get a grasp on her own spellcasting.

For Louise, the day of the Springtime Familiar Exhibition was turning out to be almost as nerve wracking for her as the Summoning Ritual had been. Unlike last time though, it wasn't a question whether her familiar would be impressive enough, but instead of whether the magic that she had planned would work the way she had hoped it would. Unfortunately the order of presentation was being done this year alphabetically, meaning that Louise had had to spend most of the morning watching her competition from the student seating before she could go to the preparation area.

While most of the demonstrations were comparable to what she had seen during her first year, and thus at a level where she was fairly confident that her planned act was superior, there were the occasional outlier that alternately had her gripping her skirt in anxiety or desperately trying not to break down laughing.

Watching as that puffed shirt Guiche de Gramont posed with his giant mole on top of a bed of conjured roses took everything she had not to break out cackling at how pathetic the display was. With the curtains falling on Guiche's tableau, Louise got out of her chair in the student section that had been slowly shifting through the day as various students left to perform and then returned for the rest of the spectacle.

The temporary fairgrounds that had been set outside the academy for the familiar competition were located right next to one of the school entrances, letting the various students that were soon to go on stage practice and get ready behind the wall before making their way to the side of the stage where they could be called up.

Passing through the gates, Louise could hear the formerly muffled noises suddenly become almost a cacophony of noise as her various peers put in last minute practice and preparation. Spotting her familiar and moving over to where he stood next to Siesta, Louise was happy to see that the two prepared targets had been set out as per her directions by the maid.

Each only 5 feet tall, they were little more than thick cylindrical constructs of pale granite that had been strengthened by Ms. Chevreuse to the point of a line class earth spell. While technically she had gotten to the level that she could destroy triangle class materials with her spells, it was difficult to aim them sufficiently for her to want to use them for a demonstration. Given that their diameter was only a foot and a half wide with a flattened conical base she had decided that it was far better to be less impressive performance wise compared to having a good chance of missing and embarrassing herself in front of the Princess.

Dismissing Siesta from where she had been succeeding in keeping Onai amused and thankfully calm around all the other familiars, she quickly climbed onto Onai and directed him to use his, at this point massive, jaws to pick up the two posts like a normal dog would a stick and go get in line for the competition.

With her name called, it was simple to ride Onai out onto the stage, where he managed to place the two test dummies without too much trouble. After Onai walked back to the side of the stage, it was time for the product of all her practice to get shown.

Urging him forward, it only took Onai a couple of quick steps before he reached the first reinforced pillar. Reaching down with his jaws, it was simple for him at this point to bite down and then all the way through the granite with a single mighty clench of his angled jaws. At the same time, Louise let go of Onai's fur with her right hand in order to retrieve her wand, and once Onai had stopped moving beneath her, carefully aimed her wand at the other pillar nearly 10 feet away at the edge of the stage and channeled her power as precisely as possible at her target along with her uttering the keyword that she had practiced, "Explosion!"

While the entire target didn't disintegrate into rubble, her spell still had a enough power to destroy at least half of the material several feet above its base in a rather spectacular explosion.

What made her the happiest though was that not only was she right on target, there was almost no smoke or light from her destructive spell.

With both targets she used her knees to guide Onai to turn so that he faced the side of the stage where he had entered and twisted her own body around to give a deep bow from on top her mount to the silent audience. Having completed her planned demonstration, she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks at the thought of having finally proved that she was a true mage that could cast destructive magic and control her familiar with skill just like Mother. Waiting a last few moments to enjoy the view looking out at the crowd, and especially the stunned expression on so many of her peers that had ridiculed her so many times, Louise ended her silent vigil and using her knees once again to squeeze Onai as best she could to urge him forward, she exited the stage.

Finally dismounting Onai back at the staging area, it was took all of Louise's strength to stay standing as she clung to Onai's side as the wave of adrenaline that had taken hold passed through her system.

Louise realized at this point though that while she was finished, she had managed to nearly totally soak herself with nervous sweat from being up in front of such an important crowd of teachers as well as the various nobles that had arrived with the Princess. While she had no illusions that she would win first place in the competition, she couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the faint stink rising from her as well as feel the damp cloth of her shirt stick to her in several places. Even if she wasn't likely to win, it would still be necessary for her to be present for the winner to be announced.

Picking at her damp clothing, she checked where Onai was happily rolling on the grass and Siesta was futilely attempting to get him to hold still so she could use a brush to get him presentable once again. With both of them occupied and Onai unlikely to wander off, she should be able to quickly get a change of clothing and wash up in time for the final awards ceremony as long as she hurried.

Putting thought to deed, she immediately set out at a fast walk, heading around the side of the wing that held one of the smaller courtyards, and most important for her, a set of stairs that would take her directly to the hallway where her room was. Rounding the corner however was a giant golem that was under a silencing spell standing in the middle of the courtyard pounding away at one of the towers.

Gasping at the sight and preparing to run the way she came, she wasn't quite quiet enough to avoid being noticed.

At the sight of a giant golem charging and reaching for her, Louise's hours of pseudo combat training managed to bypass the shock that held her paralyzed. Raising her wand, she had only a few moments before the golem reached her to force out a spell that was overpowered by her fear and adrenaline.

While practice had managed to bring her wand to bear on the target, her panic caused the almost invisible force of the spell to twist almost spiral like as it traveled, resulting in Louise missing the arm reaching for her, but instead hitting the golem almost directly on its left knee.

As the golem lurched to the side due to its sudden loss of a leg, it was enough for the arm reaching for Louise to instead miss, driving a trench into the dirt several feet next to her and showering Louise with clods of dirt and plants from the near miss.

Watching the gigantic golem that had nearly crushed her regrow its leg and stand back up, Louise finally unfroze and began to chant the words to the one spell that actually seemed to help her casting.

Finishing the final spell word, her cry of "Explosion!" sent a slightly more powerful explosive spell at the golem that this time managed to turn to the side slightly. With a massive boom and billowing smoke, shrapnel launched out for the side of the golem's chest as it was forced to stagger backwards from suddenly missing part of its torso.

For Fouquet, who had armored herself in the center of the golem, the sudden vibrations caused by the shredding of her protective armor was enough to convince her that retreat was looking like a great idea. As the sound of a second explosion reached her, from the sensing spells she had woven into her golem, she was alert for the golem spell to alert her of even further damage. When no damage was reported, Fouquet turned her perception from panting child in front of her to where the sound had come from.

The tower that she had spent the last minute pounding on with her golem to no effect had a hole over seven feet around in it!

At the sight of the sheer amount of damage caused to a square class reinforced structure, Fouquet was quick to force herself out of the staggered golem, heading straight for the newly created entrance to the Academy vaults. As she entered the storage area and quickly began to search for the Staff of Destruction that she had been hired to procure, she mentally commanded the golem to get between the hole in the tower and the girl, a Miss Valliere if she remembered correctly, and had mentally commanded the golem to start firing stone spikes at her in order to keep her too busy to try and fire off another one of those terrifying blasts.

For Louise, buoyed by her success, things had gone from bad but manageable to hopeless in a heartbeat. With spikes of stone raining down on her, it was taking everything she had, as well as quite a bit that she had never realized she had, in order to detonate as many of the stony projectiles aimed at her as she could.

And while she had managed to train herself to create explosions both relatively quickly and accurately, she had neglected to train herself to stay moving on her feet, having instead relied on Onai, resulting in her being a sitting duck for the rain of missiles currently flying at her.

As Louise begins to get overwhelmed though, the spikes suddenly stop, with Fouqet leaping out of the hole in the tower to land on the back of her golem. As the golem stood up from where it had been crouched, Louise, still on high on adrenaline from her close encounter with the golem starts to cast her trusty explosion spell at the now moving golem that has begun to run toward the wall separating the academy from the surrounding fields and forest that are maintained as a source of reagents. Midstride however, the golem seems to twist in front of Louise as its right hand grows larger and is hurled at her.

Faced with a boulder larger than she is hurtling toward her, Louise shifts focus with her wand while desperately trying to finish her spell in time. As time seemed to slow down and the hurtling rock grew bigger and bigger in her vision, Louise could tell that she wasn't going to finish in time.

Just as the rock finally had reached her though, she felt a massive force hit, not from the rock though, but from the side as she felt herself lifted up and carried in a giant set of claws.

As the boulder crashed through where she had just stood and the world seemed to disappear below her, Louise managed to look up and realize that she was in the claws of Tabitha's dragon, safe from the Earth mage that had nearly succeeded in killing her.

With the realization that she was safe, Louise felt the darkness that had begun to tinge the edges of her vision rise up and envelop her as she passed out from magical exertion and shock.

For Tabitha, winning the competition was, while nice, just another day in Tristain. Really, the best part was being able to fly and test her spells and accuracy during the day instead of at night when she usually would practice.

When she was called up by the Princess and given the trophy and the prize winnings, a small purse of gold, her only real concern was how much of it she should plan on saving for an emergency versus spending on food for Sylpheed or new books to read. Being asked to repeat her performance for the audience as a sort of grand finale for the event was a bit annoying but par for the course and not a particular problem.

Once in the air however, problems just seemed to be materializing left and right. From her position in the air, the golem currently causing a ruckus in the Academy's courtyard was her first major concern. Considering that major magics such as that were strictly forbidden inside the school grounds as well as the shear skill needed to create and animate something that big, there was no chance that it was the product of either a student or a teacher. As dealing with a rogue mage of at least triangle class wasn't beneficial to either herself or her mission at the academy, she would normally have turned around and reported to the teachers without delay. The complication to her normal plan was her second problem, namely Louise de la Valliere. While Louise wasn't a problem per se, she was something of an ongoing subject of interest for Tabitha.

Namely, her tendency to explode any spell she cast was exactly like what her uncle King Joseph of Gallia possessed.

Since she had seen him accidently destroy objects that had been reinforced with square class Earth magic, Tabitha was quite aware that if she wanted to kill him at some point for what he had done to her mother and attempted to do to her, she needed to know what he was capable of. Watching Louise fumble around with the apparent same ability had been very useful for her own purposes.

Which was why watching from the air as Louise managed to detonate multiple shards of rock, remarkably similar to an attack spell that she knew that used ice, was a mix of prudence against getting involved and opportunity to learn.

When the golem user had apparently given up playing and went for the kill with a broad sweep of one of the giant's rocky limbs, Tabitha finally acted. With Sylpheed racing in a dive for Louise, Tabitha focused and incanted one of the most basic dot class Wind spells that any mage would learn.

Flight and levitation were nominally classified as elementally neutral spells, and thus open to any competent mage, were in fact nothing of the sort. What made it so simple was that both used such a minimal amount of magic energy to achieve its basic effect.

Instead, it consisted of using Earth to decrease the weight of the object and then the most minor of winds to push the object or person in the desired direction.

What Tabitha cast as she dived was the opposite of the normal Flight spell. Flight normally caused the target to float and then drift in a particular direction. Instead, she wrapped her in a cushion of wind that would cushion the target while at the same time temporarily increasing her resistance to movement with Earth.

As a result, when Sylpheed swept down and carried off Louise from her imminent death via golem, instead of Louise breaking her bones and getting whiplash from her sudden acceleration; there was only bruising from getting carried away in Sylpheed's claws.

At this point, Tabitha urged her familiar to return to the competition stage in order to report the damage to the Academy as well as return Louise to the ground after she passed out upon being saved.

With the wind whipping around her, she watched as the golem that had done so much damage proceeded to regrow its damaged leg and then upon reaching the walls broke down into its component pieces. With the thief likely gone, Tabitha allowed the wind shield that she had been maintaining to dissipate as they came in to land and report.

Let the teachers deal with the problem, it's not like it was her responsibility, she had left those behind when she had been sent here to monitor the Tristainian Academy by her Uncle.

Landing on the stage and making her report to the Princess and Headmaster Osmond after she landed, Tabitha quietly focused on having Sylpheed lay out Louise while the various teachers and guards swirled around her like a kicked hornet's nest.

Let others worry about things like the loss of face that the Academy will suffer for failing to protect its treasure; her worry was for herself, her familiar, and the few students at the Academy important to her like Kirche and Louise.

Chapter end

Well, it is finally done despite being kicked to the backburner for over a month.

Super thanks for input from weather witch nami-zo and Zaralann for ideas and grammar as well as beta'ing from Skelo