Until death?

by Andur

  “The notebook!? I don't want to! I have put my soul into it!!”, complains Celes. “No agreement until the notebook is gone!”, I will not budge in this!

  Hehe, she will surely not comply with this! She put so much work into this fucking thing.

  “Ff.... FINE! Then we have an agreement!”, she flicks the notebook into the open fire at the wall.

  As it starts to go up into flames, she pulls out some kind of list and ticks off an item on it.

  “Fufufufu... step one is done, just a few more until it gets interesting.”, her eyes have a strange fire in them. I have seen that look a few times on Katrin's face. The first time was when she bondage tortured us.

  “W... Why does it feel like I just lost a fight!”, I am not happy here! NOT happy!

  “Oh, darling! Don't think of it as loosing a fight, but opening a new path to the future! Sometimes you have to give away something, to gain the thing you want.”

  The tail tightens down on me and Celes puts on a disturbing smile.

  17 - Prototype and special class?

  “I wish you a nice day little masters!”, Rose smiles and waves at us, as we pass through the schools gate. I smile and wave her a goodbye.

  We are walking for about a minute into the direction of the school yard, when we become aware of three students, who are lying on the floor.

  Two of them are twitching and the third has foam at the mouth. “A bio-attack on the school? Is it poison?”, I ask myself.

  Celes walks up to them and probes one with her foot, but no reaction. “Heal!”, I want to ask them what happened. Strange they show no reaction to healing magic?

  “They aren't wounded, so I think you wasted your mana Angrod”, Celes comments. “Hm, strange, I have seen this somewhere already. But I can't remember.”, I wreck my brain.

  If you live such a long life like ours, you are bound to forget a lot of stuff. Be happy if you manage to remember a few things of your first life after a thousand years.

  “Hahaahaha....Muahaha.......Hihiihiiihihi.....”

  We can hear a crazy laugh from the school yard. We both look at each other and start to run into the direction of the mad voice.

  As we reach there, we see a picture out of a horror movie. Multiple students are lying around in the school yard. Apparently the fell were they stood, like having their strings cut.

  And in the middle of it all is ….. Margerie? And a small drone-like device hovers about ten meters above her.

  “Hohoho! Celes, Angrod I am so happy, you cannot believe it!”, the culprit says with a heavenly smile on her face.

  Then she dashes over and bulldozes into me, giving me a big hug. “Angrod, I can't thank you enough for yesterday! You are a genius! Just solving the problem, I thought would take me a lifetime.”

  “Haha, no big deal more important. WHAT happened here!?”, I ask. “Yes, Yes, was there an attack!?”, Celes follows.

  Margerie smiles,

  “Oh, no I was just testing Agrods prototype design. I made a few changes here and there to maximize the output. Fufufu, this is a complete new branch of science for this world! Who would have thought, that some materials get such miraculous properties, if you cool them down enough!

  After Angrod gave us the hint yesterday, I stormed one of my parents research labs and enlisted all workers, researchers and materials for this project. They didn't have anything productive to do anyway. Hahaha.

  So as of today, we have the first levitation-device, which isn't dependent on ridiculous amounts of rare materials!

  Though there is a little safety issue, as you can see. The strong magnetic field seems to paralyse most living organisms I have tested so far. There needs to be more control on the magnetic field.

  But that's no issue, I used a very simple control circuit!

  Do you want to test it?”

  This one is dangerous....

  She holds out a device to us, which looks like a remote control. I take it and fly a few circles with the device. It is very easy to use, almost like a video game.

  It must generate a really strong magnetic field to hold itself up like that. I didn't expect that Margerie could put this together over night!?

  Suddenly a few teachers enter the school yard, they don't look very happy. “Give me that!”, Celes grabs the remote control and the device does a U-turn.

  “SSSSSSSSSsssssmmmmmmmmmmmmmm”, directly into the group.

  They twitch and fall to the ground.

  “Let's run!”, “Yes!”, “Hahaha!”, Margerie takes control again and deactivates the device, to pick it up.

  Then we run for it, because we already see another group of people coming our way.

  “That was funny!”, Margerie proclaims in one of the hallways a few minutes later. Now, that I have time to look at her, I see that she looks really tired, despite her demeanour.

  “You should probably rest, you don't seem to be in good condition”, I advice. “Rest? Rest? How can you talk about rest now! There is so much to discover! What else is in your head!? You just walk up to a chalkboard and revolutionize our science in thirty minutes! What happens if you really put some work into it. Haaahaaa.....”, Margerie is now drooling on the floor.

  This makes her look like a real dog, with a happy waving tail, looking up to its master!

  “Ahem! Margerie, you should probably really rest a little. Your behaviour is a little strange today. I will bring you to the infirmary-room.”, Celes grabs Margerie at the neck like a kitten and walks off.

  Margerie tries to resist, but the mad scientist doesn't seem to be above brute force.....

  “We see each other at special class, Angrod. Tell the teacher that I will be a little late!”, Celes calls out to me, while turning around a corner.

  “Noooo! I have to dissect his brain! There is so much to leeeeaaarrrrrnnnn!”, I hear a howl, which is slowly growing weaker, as the two of them increase their distance to me.

  So I turn into the direction of the so called special class. And walk a little faster. I imagine, it would surely make a bad first impression to be late. After I changed my clothes I arrived at my destination.

  Which is just a wide open field?

  Just seven students and teacher Tongord are present. I know five of the students. “I am sorry, but Celes will be late.”, I inform Tongord.

  “Ohh, the prodigy is late? Hrm. We would have odd numbers in that case. So it is not a problem.”, Tongord nods.

  “So, as for introductions, here we have Angrod Tirna. Unfortunately our second newcomer Celes Stricc will be late. This here is Tanja Morden, Sven Hjavars, Iris Tulhelm, Gabriel Rosenquarz, Sarda Meltheim, Senda Meltheim and Sandra Andros.”, Tongord introduces me to the people here.

  As he points to Sarda and Senda, I give them a happy smile. Two more punching bags for Celes mean less punches for me! This is a good day!

  For some reason both of them take a step back and Iris holds a respectful distance to me. I am amazed at this world's healing magic. Just yesterday, Iris had all four limbs broken and some other injuries too.

  Haaah, just now I remember where I heard the name Tulhelm. Wasn't that a family which father hugely dislikes? He mentioned them to be very troublesome fellows.

  Now THERE we have the reason, why the perverted wolf girl threw herself at me like a whore. Or am I interpreting too much into this?

  Then I take a closer look at the two new faces. Gabriel Rosenquarz is very human-like, just his skin is reddish and he could be about eight years old. His build is a little sturdy. I wouldn't be surprised, if someone told me that he is related to teacher Samarin!

  Sandra Andros is.... a bunny girl! Yes, there is no other way to describe it. A bunny girl through and through. She may be ten, but why do you wear a skin-tight suit for this!? Everyone else uses tracksuits.

  “Unfortunately we have a huge age gap here. But that shouldn't be such a big problem, we have just the strongest of the strongest here anyway! But to give you a better training, I will have
to know your fighting style! So I will have a test fight with each of you guys, when Celes is here.”, he explains.

  “What are we allowed to do?”, I ask curiously. “Everything is allowed, as long, as you do it from a range no bigger than fifty meters!”, Tongord answers.

  “I can cast spells too?”, I am confused. I thought close combat lessons were all about martial arts and use of close range weapons?

  “You can cast every spell, you manage to cast. Don't confuse this class with something stupid like magical combat or martial arts classes! In which you just stand at fixed positions and cast spells at each other. Or just use your fists and feet, if you could instead use your mind too! A highly unrealistic scenario!

  In my class, you will train for the real life! Everything goes, as long as you don't try to snipe the opponent from a ridiculous range.” -Tongord

  Now I stand there with an open mouth, “I let myself being beaten up for nothing!”, I scream!

  “Hahaha, I knew you had mistaken the rules of combat in this class, because you didn't read the flyer we got for it.”, suddenly Celes laughs behind me.

  ”Why didn't you tell!?”, I turn around.

  “Because it was so cute to see you struggling, while trying your best!”, Celes smiles like a sadist at me!

  “Your face tells the whole story already!”, I answer. It seems our talk yesterday doesn't include to not have a sadistic relationship. I want to cry!

  “Hrm. Having the right informations is also a part of combat! I already asked myself, why a mage character like you fought her in such a strange way. Though I have to compliment you for holding your ground against her, while using nothing but enchants on yourself!” -Tongord

  I grumble to myself, while Tongord walks onto the open field.

  ….

  18 - Another raccoon geezer!

  As Tongord walks onto the field, Celes notices the Meltheim brothers and gives them a sour look. Iris is also branded with devilish grin, which makes her back up a little more.

  Tanja walks up to us and starts a conversation with Celes.

  “Okay, The first hit counts! You are first Gabriel!”, Tongord calls out, as soon as he reaches the centre of the field.

  Gabriel walks very carefully up to Tongord. As he reaches a distance of about fifteen meters, he suddenly thrusts out his hands and a jet of flames shoots into Tongord's direction. But the teacher just jumps and evades, while closing the distance.

  The student swings his flame-thrower into Tongord's direction, but the geezer just turns to mist, as he is about to be hit. Reforming above Gabriel, he falls down and flattens the smaller student under his weight.

  “You depend too much on your ability. You should have countermeasures, in case someone is able to avoid your flame attacks. Next!”

  Sarda walks up to the teacher, with sword in his hand. He is putting up a better fight, but looses in a similar way. His speed gave him the ability to avoid the same fate as Gabriel, but it didn't change the outcome in the long run.

  After this Senda puts up an incredible fight, while using just his bare hands and feet. Just from watching, I can tell that he is much stronger and faster than Sarda! So why did his family send the weaker one of the brothers against me? I am confused!

  In the end, the geezer calls an end without touching Senda. It seems he has seen enough.

  Celes and Tanja have a nice chat about martial arts in the meantime. Tanja seems to be a martial arts maniac. She is all over the stuff, Celes has to tell her everything about inner mana manipulation.

  Then Sandra Andros goes for it. As the teacher approaches her, she suddenly jumps up and casts an altered form of a blizzard spell, shredding the entire area, including Tongord, to pieces. Tongord's bloody body dissolves, to reappear above Sandra.

  But while he is trying to hit her, Sandra does a somersault, and kicks the teachers head. Impressive leg strength! While Tongord's limb body falls to the ground, Sandra makes a perfect landing like a ballerina.

  The teacher's body dissolves again and reforms before her, he congratulates her, calling it quits.

  “Sucks! That geezer has the same ability as grandpa! In the first few fights, I had hoped he does the mist thing beforehand, to avoid injuries! But he seems to be immortal too.”, I complain.

  “The ability of those with the raccoon heritage is a very powerful one! It allows them to turn their body into mist and reform themselves in any form they like. So they are able to regenerate completely.

  They may be weak in other aspects, but you have to kill them so many times, it is a given that they will get you sometime in turn. The only restriction is their mana reserve. If they run out, they are easy prey!”, Tanja suddenly gives a nice explanation.

  As expected of a house, famed for their intelligence network! But why are you talking of our teacher as prey!??

  “I am next!”, Tanja calls cheerfully and runs out to Tongord. But while she closes in, she suddenly falls into her own shadow? Tongord takes a defensive position and looks at the ground. Suddenly a knife stabs out at his ankle from his own shadow.

  But he jumps up and with a short incantation, he releases a shock-wave against the ground. Landing again, the game starts anew.

  Tanja seems to be some kind of fucking ninja! If she starts to pull out the shadow clones I will walk around on my hands for a day!

  After five minutes and a few injuries on Tongord's side, he calls an end again.

  Tanja comes back to us. “You did very well!”, I conclude. “Hahaha, not really. Its true, that I had the upper hand, but that's only as long as I have mana. If we had played this game for another ten minutes, I would have lost, because teacher has much more mana than me.

  The same would probably be true for Sandra. We can't kill Tongord often enough to drive him into a corner.”

  “So, how many times do I have to kill him?”, Celes asks. “Huh? I don't know? I never got him to admit that his mana is low. He never shows any indication of that, even after dying dozens of times in a row.”, Tanja answers.

  What have you done to the guy!?

  Iris is next. As the fight starts, she uses the same strategy, she had against Celes. Coating herself in mana to enforce her power, she gives Tongord a terrible beating. It lasts for about ten minutes, but then she apparently runs out of steam and gives up. The geezer is still standing, even though he should have died over ten times!

  Then Sven is up against Tongord, with two knives. He moves so fast, there are just flashes to see. Tongord is holding his ground with defensive magic, like stone skin and shield. The teacher is not able to counter Sven's speed.

  But as much as Sven has the upper hand on the offensive, he lacks the needed power to penetrate Tongord's defense. After a few minutes, Sven is completely exhausted and not able to go on.

  I am impressed, I didn't think the little timid, shy boy had such potential.

  “I will go!”, Celes walks up to Tongord and starts the fight with a head on approach. Storming in, she gives Tongord a kick to the chest, which he evades by ducking under her kick.

  Smiling, Celes turns in the air and thrusts an open hand to the ground. While she is being pushed up by the recoil, the ground dents in around Tongord, and he is flattened!

  Oi! You watched too many eastern martial art movies on some earth-like planet! No sane martial artist would get such an idea by himself! That was the open palm of Buddha! What a copyright violation!

  While Tongord dissolves, Celes starts to hammer out those attacks in quick succession, not giving Tongord time to reform. The stream of attacks holds her up in the air, while the crater with Tongord inside becomes deeper and deeper.

  After about forty seconds of hammering blows, Celes lands again in front of us.

  “Whew! I think that's my limit for now! I hope the geezer is a goner, I dislike zombies.”, Celes has sweat on her forehead. In those few seconds, she hammered out about eighty of those attacks.

  Suddenly something crawls out of the crater! “Co
ugh, We need to have a talk about destroying the fighting grounds little miss!”, Tongord is behind her with folded arms and a nasty look on his face.

  “Hiiiiiii!?” Celes runs up to Tanja and hides behind her. It seems the time with Nicosar has left some kind of trauma inside her.