Chapter 2

Tristan Magic Academy: POV (Siesta)

This morning had been a very nice one for the young maid Siesta, she had awoken full of energy despite getting to sleep later than normal last night. Part of the reason for that was a peaceful nights rest with several nice dreams about the nice man she met yesterday evening named Michael. He was so polite and charming as well as a pleasure to talk to, which was a rarity here at the academy, since the only males that were around that were her age were mostly aristocrats, and they were just so snobby and stuck-up that there was no way she could even think anything about them, plus being a commoner herself, it was very dangerous for her to associate with them on any level other than as a simple maid.

Anyway, he had left quite the impression and Siesta was hoping to talk with him even more today, however right now she was dreadfully busy with serving the students their midmorning tea and cake. Dreadful because she had to endure constant fondling and other things done mostly to backside by the various hormonal and overly spoiled ‘noble’ boys which she ended up passing by as she delivered the various pastries and teas. ‘Oh, how I wish I could spend time with Michael, he wouldn’t act so immature, he would treat me right, and gently, and… ohh!’

Siesta’s thoughts quickly went into a more… mature, place as she lost herself in various fantasies inspired by her collection of novels as well as some of last night’s dreams of Michael. Her thoughts continued like this for a little bit as she went about her chore until she was brought back to reality by someone speaking to her.

“Excuse me maid, but could you possibly point out were Sir Guiche is?” It was one of the first years, Katie, if Siesta remembered correctly.

“Yes milady, he is sitting right over there.” Siesta pointed over to where the blonde pretty-boy was sitting, admiring his large mole familiar sprit. Thanking her, Katie ran over to him carrying a basket of some kind.

With that taken care of, Siesta continued with her duty and her mind drifted partially back into fantasy mode, which was why she still had the presence of mind to spot a bottle of some kind laying on the ground. Curious, she picked it up and realized that it was a perfume bottle most likely dropped by the young lady she just spoke to.

‘I wish Sir Michael would gift me with a present like this.’ It was obviously a bottle only an aristocrat could afford. Her mind still somewhat off, Siesta walked over to return the dropped bottle like a good little maid.

“Pardon me milady, but it seems you dropped this.” Katie looked from the object of her affection to the proffered item and instantly recognized it.

“Oh yes, thank you.” She instantly snatched the bottle from the maid’s hands. “This was the gift Sir Guiche gave me last night.” Everything seemed to be going nicely, and Siesta was silently happy to be thanked for once and was about to move on when the calm atmosphere was shattered by an angry yell of…

“WHAT!” Everyone, including Siesta and a now very nervous looking Guiche turned to the origin of the shout to see a very angry looking curly-haired blond girl marching up to both Katie and Guiche. “Guiche, what does she mean by ‘gift from you’, that was a gift from me to you, that is one of my personally made perfumes!” Guiche looked ashen and Katie looked confused and slightly hurt.

“M-m-my dearest Montmorency the fragrance.” He started out all nervous and waving around his rose of a wand and trying to look charming but instead looking guiltier by the second. “I assure you, this all a mistake.” He didn’t get any further than that in his explanation before he was cut-off.

“How is it a mistake, she is holding it and claiming you gave it to her!?” Montmorency yelled.

“That’s because he did give it to me!” Katie fired back and Guiche was even more distraught.

“L-ladies please, let’s not fight, this can all be explained.”

It couldn’t, for the next several minutes a heated argument was loudly carried out as Guiche futilely tried to cover-up his two-timing. A crowd had gathered and was being amused by watching Guiche get bitched at by two furious females and all the while Siesta was gradually getting a worrisome feeling in the pit of her stomach telling her that she had inadvertently done something very jeopardizing to her future health. That feeling worsened significantly when two loud smacks echoed throughout the court yard signaling a bad end to a pair of relationships.

The gathered crowd erupted into laughter at the fate of the young fop sitting there on the ground bewildered with a red hand print decorating each of his cheeks, various comments were flying around all about his screw up and cheating which was quickly angering him. With that anger quickly overflowing Guiche shot to his feet and pointed his rose-wand at what he truly believed was the starting point to this stain on his honor and he declared.

“This is all your fault, maid!” The horrible feeling inside Siesta suddenly exploded into all out horror.

“M-milord?”

“Because of your grossly incompetent actions two noble ladies have had their honor sullied!” She fell to her knees in abject terror; a commoner being accused of dishonoring a noble is as good as a death sentence. She tried to defend herself, but Guiche would hear none of it as he continued.

“I shall punish you for this disgrace!” He raised his foci to strike and Siesta raised her arms in fright, but when nothing happened she took a tentative look and saw something which filled her with joy.

“Sir Michael!” Siesta shouted in relief, her knight had come.

Minutes earlier… POV (Michael)

Michael had been walking over to the collection of students, having previously made his deal with Tabitha, with the intent on getting himself some snacks and to relax a bit while waiting for the incident in which Guiche gets caught when he instead spotted Siesta pushing a cart around all the while with her head in pervy-lala-land. Deciding that talking to her while helping her out with her duties might prove to be a better time he altered his course and strolled on over. He got just over half way to her when he saw her get addressed by who he recognized as Katie, after what appeared to be a simple question he watched as Siesta pointed off to a particular table that happened to contain the little shit that Michael was keen on seeing humiliated. As Katie hurried on over Michael witnessed Siesta reach down and pick up what he recognized as a perfume bottle and immediately realized that it was time, and Siesta would be the victim.

‘Well, looks like it’s about time to play hero.’ He thought to himself as he hurried over as well, not wanting to miss any of the entertainment. He wasn’t to be disappointed, the entire thing was far better than the anime was by a huge margin, the dual slaps at the end along with the look on Guiche’s were priceless and Michael couldn’t contain his laughter and joined the crowd in displaying his amusement. ‘Holy fuck that just made my day ha ha ha… oops, looks like it’s time for my part.’ He thought as Guiche had his tantrum at poor Siesta and was about to strike when Michael reached out and caught Guiche’s wand arm.

The entire crowd gaped in shock as they witnessed Michael holding Guiche’s arm, here was Michael, who was supposedly a plebian, restraining Guiche, who was a noble, even the relived outburst of Siesta’s ‘Sir Michael’ comment didn’t snap them out of their surprise at this… atrocity.

“That’s enough Guiche!” Michael’s words however was enough to snap Guiche out of his astonishment, yanking his arm free, which Michael let him, he then let lose his wrath at the offending peasant.

“How dare you lay a hand on a noble when he is dispensing justice!?” The blond idiot actually said that, and then he pointed his rose-wand at Michael and said even more stupid things. “You filthy commoners should know how to treat your betters!”

“’Dispensing justice’”? Michael said incredulously. “You are standing there blaming your own stupidity on a helpless young woman, accusing her of dishonoring two other young women when it was you who is the guilty one!” Everyone was speechless at how Michael was dressing-down Guiche, well, everyone except Guiche, though he wasn’t much better.

“H-how dare you…” Was as far as he got before Michael went on.

“How dare I, no, how dare you? You have the audacity to play with the hearts of two young maidens, you have the stupidity to then get caught, and then instead of having the integrity of manning up and accepting your fuck-ups you go right ahead and blame yet another young girl for your failings!” Guiche was more wide-eyed than ever, as was the crowd. “But that wasn’t enough for you was it?” Michael voice had lowered to a deathly level. “You dare to then strike at her, Guiche de Gramont, you not only lack personal integrity or honor, but you don’t even have the right to call yourself a man!” The crowd was gaping, Guiche was fuming, Kirche was quite possibly creaming, and Siesta couldn’t decide if she should be in awe at how much Michael was defending her, or worried sick at what was most likely going to happen to him for speaking to an aristocrat in such a manner.

“THAT IS IT!” Guiche screamed as his rage broke. “I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS; I WILL NOT BE INSULTED BY SUCH A LOW CLASS WRETCH!” He, once again, pointed his homo-wand at Michael and declared. “I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL!” Michael may have raised an eyebrow at this on the outside, but on the inside he was thinking.

‘Yes! Perfect!’ “A ‘duel’ you say?” Guiche’s face had taken on a fiendish smile, no doubt thinking how he was going to destroy this peasant filth.

“That is correct, you have insulted me far too much, and so I challenge you to a duel of honor to disprove your foolish accusations.”

‘This moron’s snapped, there is no way he can believe that a duel will prove anything. Oh well, not like his reasons matter.’ “Okay then, a duel it is, Vesty Court in ten minutes good for you?” Guiche’s grin was savage.

“Yes, that will do perfectly!” He then walked off, taking most of the still stunned gathering with him. Michael was about to head off to when he suddenly found himself with an arm full of soft and supple maid, but before he could enjoy the feeling he noticed she was crying hysterically.

“Sir Michael what have you done, you can’t fight Sir Guiche, he’s a noble, and a mage and also he’s so angry that he’ll probably kill you!” She was so incredibly worried and Michael just tried to calm her by wrapping her up in his arms and patting her head.

“Hey, hey clam down Siesta, it’ll be fine.” She didn’t clam down at all, so he took her by the shoulders, pushed back a bit and then tilted her head up to look him in the eyes. “Siesta, you forget that I too am technically a mage, if only by a technicality, I am also a skilled fighter and have a means to fight him and any other mages that he has never even conceived of. Trust me, I will be fine.” The surety of his words seemed to have an effect as she nodded and ceased her sobbing, giving a nod of satisfaction Michael then went off to the agreed upon dueling area.

During the short walk over, Michael took the time to use his power to manifest himself a weapon and holster at his waist in under his greatcoat. It was a six-shooter pistol, more precisely, the ‘Samaritan’, which is the pistol, used by Hellboy in the Hellboy movies. It was more or less the same weapon, only it was altered slightly to have less recoil and was semi-automatic, also instead of using specialized ammunition meant for killing demons and other hell spawn, it now just used regular ‘really big bullets’. On one side of the grip the word ‘Samaritan’ was embroider while the other side had the words ‘Red Right Hand’. One thing of note about Michael’s powers when using firearms that was really neat, was that he technically had unlimited ammo since bullets fell under the requisites for manifesting.

The courtyard, like the rest of the academy, was larger than the anime depicted, and as Michael entered he saw that the distance from him and the blond nitwit was going to be greater than he had thought. As with the anime the crowd had encircled the combatants and had actually grown to include students from all the years and event some of the staff had come to watch. Expressions were mixed, some of the students looked as if they were about to see a petulant child get disciplined whiles others just had a look of curiosity about them, Tabitha was one of those as she looked on with an unusual amount of interest. The staff had the expressions of people watching someone walking to their execution, perhaps the most interesting look Michael was getting was from Kirche who was eyeing him like a piece of prime meat.

‘That’s right, it was after this fight that Kirche suddenly develops feelings for Saito, only instead of Saito it’ll be me.’ As his eye’s met hers she gave him a sultry wink that promised many interesting things. ‘Damn, bitch be horny, guess I’m doing something right.’ His thoughts turned to how he could tap that tight bronze ass without it coming back to bite his ass but before he could really get into that line of thought he was brought out of his musings by a very annoying noise, in the form of Guiche talking.

“So, you had the courage to show up eh, peasant?” He seemed to have reverted to his overtly smug pretty boy persona.

‘God… it’s like he exists solely to piss me off.’ Guiche flourished his rose in a showy way as he continued.

“I give you this one last chance to save yourself; if you kneel and apologize earnestly enough for your horrid insults then I shall graciously let you off with a light beating.”

‘How about I just beat you instead and then get off in your former girlfriend(s), yeah, that sounds like a much better deal to me.’ That’s what Michael thought, but instead he said. “I shall give you one last opportunity to show that you have any sense of integrity and own up to your mistakes and apologize to the ones whose honor you have spat upon.” It was obvious that Guiche didn’t like that as his face contorted into a sneer.

“It seems that you indeed need to be taught your place you ungrateful peasant.” He waved his rose-wand and a petal fell to the ground which then brought forth one of his bronze Valkyries, complete with clothing for some reason. The Valkyrie looked similar to the one in the anime but was slightly bigger and more solid than the anime version; it seems that everything was turning out to be larger than the show. “I am Guiche the bronze and this bronze Valkyrie shall be your opponent.” Michael had drawn his weapon and was holding it at his side during Guiche’s little intro.

“I am Michael, and I shall be your instructor… in life, personnel morality, and PAIN!” The way he said ‘pain’ sent waves of fear through the assemble audience and for a few students it was too much and they just fell to their knees and wept. Guiche on the other hand seemed to be oblivious to it and took it as an insult.

“Go my Valkyrie, teach this cur his place!” The construct charged Michael, lance ready to skewer him alive. *BANG* The loud noise startled everyone, including Guiche, but what resulted of the noise really shocked them, the entire head and upper chest of the golem just seemed to cease to be there. Guiche looked on in disbelief as the remains of his Valkyrie disintegrated to nothing.

“W-hat…h-how did…” He never bothered to finish that sentence as he noticed Michael approaching him as an easy pace. His face turned into a maniac snarl as he made two more Valkyries, these ones even bigger than the last one and looked far more battle oriented. With a gesture they too took off after Michael, but another pair of head shots stopped them, however their heads remained and they did not fall, only stumble slightly with mere dents in their faces. Guiche had been prepared this time for the loud noise from the unknown weapon in his opponent’s hand and also made the golems stronger, the survival of his constructs made his maniac snarl turn into a maniac grin.

Michael was not as caught off guard as one might think, in fact as soon as he saw that the golems had withstood the shots he just turned his attention towards Guiche, and saw his opportunity. Raising the ‘Samaritan’ he aimed at Guiche’s wand hand and fired. The hand exploded, cover the blond boy in his own gore, the shock left him speechless for a second before the pain struck him causing him to cry out and fall to his back clutching the bloody stump. Michael kept approaching as the Valkyries collapsed into dust and when Guiche saw him he tried to scoot away, however Michael was already at spitting distance and decided to ‘cap him to prevent Guiche from running, the bullet destroyed Guiche’s knee and took off everything below it causing the sobbing noble to wail even louder. Grinning is own savage grin, Michael reached Guiche and placed his boot on his chest and pointed the ‘Samaritan’ at his face.

“Well Guiche I can’t say it hasn’t been fun, in fact I find myself in desperate need of baggy pants.” He said simply and then cocked the hammer for effect. “Goodbye Guiche.” As he was squeezing the trigger a yell brought him to a pause.

“STOP!” His head whipped around expecting to see Louise or even Siesta, but instead saw the crying forms Montmorency and Katie, it was Montmorency who spoke. “Please, don’t kill him!”

“Why, why shouldn’t I kill this pitiful excuse of a man, after he not only toyed with your hearts, but I bet he wouldn’t have even spared me if our positions were reversed.” He spoke simply, as if he was stating the weather and their replies were just more sobs, or that could have been Guiche, hard to tell. Seeing that they weren’t going to say anything he continued.

“I wonder if you really want me to spare him, can you forgive him for all that he has done, can you redeem this farce of a man and… noble?” He said that last part with disdain.

“Yes we can!” Answered Montmorency with a rapidly nodding Katie. “I swear we can and will!” Michael just smiled a shark grin as he withdrew his weapon and removed his foot from the fop’s chest and gestured to him.

“Well then, you’d best get over here and save his life then, and I’d be quick about it if I were you, he’s losing an awful lot of blood.” The two noble girls rushed over to were Guiche laid, bone white from blood loss and tried to save him. “I’d suggest one of you go get a nurse or something.” Michael said patronizingly. He then gestured the entire crowd and spoke to them in a powerful voice.

“As for the rest of you, I want you all to remember this, I want you to remember his cries and wailing agony, I want you to remember the blood, bone, and flesh, and I want you to remember that this will be the fate of any who dare challenge me!” With that said Michael holstered his weapon and walked through the crowd which easily parted for him. He heard mumbling amongst many but paid it no mind, though the shouted comment of ‘I think I’m in love’, from no doubt Kirche managed to raise a chuckle out of him. He walked on over to Siesta and was quickly glopped in a big hug.

“Sir Michael that was amazing, I can’t believe how easily you defeated an aristocrat!” She exclaimed in sheer joy and relief. Michael only chuckled as he responded.

“I told you it wouldn’t be a problem.” Then his voice took on a somber tone. “Alas, this is not all good; I’m going to leave the academy for a little while.” Siesta took on a look of confusion at this.

“But why, you won?”

“Yes, and that is exactly why I need to leave for a little while, just until things settle down. I’m not going far though, just to the capitol and the surrounding countryside.” Siesta’s mood saddened at the thought of him leaving.

“You will come back though right?” Michael nodded his affirmation.

“Yes, I promise that we will see each other again.” Before she could say anything else he caught her lips in a toe-curling kiss that left her breathless when he let up. “So long Siesta.” With that Michael smiled to her and then went to find Tabitha to give her some instructions for while he was gone. In truth that whole bit he told to Siesta was complete bullshit, he couldn’t care less about any tensions brought about from his little spat with Guiche, he just needed to leave so he could carry out certain parts of his grand plan. A loud ‘kya’ sound behind him caused him to look and see a heavily blushing Siesta insanely deep in fantasy land, he couldn’t help but to laugh. ‘What a perverted girl, I can’t wait till I get back.’

Eventually he did manage to relocate the blunette; she was sequestered in yet another peaceful spot away from others and a perfect place to read her books. He informed her of his plans, at least of more truthful version, and also gave her a more specific task.

“Aside from keeping an ear open for anything of significant importance, I want you to keep watch on Siesta and make sure she doesn’t suffer any backlash because of this incident.” Tabitha nodded her assent as Michael continued. “You know where I’ll be if you need to inform me of anything, so with that, see you later.” Thus, he set off towards the stables in an effort to barter for a horse.

Three days later… Outskirts of Tristania (Capital of Tristan): POV (Michael)

It took an incredibly gaudy long sword in order to get the horse that Michael was currently riding on, but it also came with everything one would need for several days on the road. The Tristan capitol of Tristania was fairly close to the academy, only about four to five hours by horse and was actually a fairly big city for the level of technology available to Halkeginian society, from what Michael was able to learn this city alone had nearly three million people, which was quite a bit for a medieval city, it must be mentioned however that Tristania was in the top five in terms of population, so cities this size were not common.

Something else that Michael found interesting was the mage to commoner ratio was something like 1:10 in favor of commoners, meaning that mages were not as rare as one would think. That got Michael thinking about how so many nobles could divvy up the common folk and still have enough to consider themselves aristocrats. The answer had been surprisingly simple; it was a combination of roughly a quarter of all mages being disgraced or outlaw nobles and therefore no longer considered aristocrats, and the fact that the nobles themselves had their own class system, thus you get high or lower born nobles which determines how much they rule and how great their influence was.

Michael had learned this more in-depth system during his stay in the capitol as well as his traveling around it. He ended up exploring most of the main roads which always lead to one noble mansion or another, one of them being Count Mott’s, which was something he needed to know for his future plans. Also, he saw the royal palace and was fairly impressed by its grandeur, but less so by its overall size, it was big, but he’s seen bigger.

One thing that annoyed Michael more than he thought it would were the nobles, they were just infuriating assholes. Not only did they dress like retarded clowns with no sense of humor, but they literally expected anyone who was not another noble to just drop whatever they were doing at the time and do whatever selfish thing that noble wanted them to do, and if said commoner refused they were called ungrateful and either beaten by the noble’s entourage of guards or arrested. It was insane, and the craziest part was that, according to what Michael had been able to glean, things had actually gotten better due to some of the reforms that Princess Henrietta has put into place; Michael didn’t even want to think about what it was like before she came along.

So here he was now, a few miles from the city on horseback on the open road headed to whatever town or village it leads to. Around midday he noticed a figure in the sky rapidly getting closer, at first he thought it was coming to attack him but on closer look it was the familiar blue dragon that is Tabitha’s… familiar. Upon landing the blunette dismounted and headed on over to where Michael had dismounted as well and was standing there waiting.

“Hello Tabitha, how have you been, got something important to tell me?” He said it all cheerful like, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on Tabitha except for her to nod once.

“Siesta’s been taken by Count Mott.” Quick and efficient, just like always. The statement caused Michael’s smile to fade.

‘So it’s time to take down Mott is it? Excellent, I’ve been itching to fuck up a noble, and he’ll do nicely.’ He thought to himself with no small amount of joy. “Very well then, thank you for informing me of this, I’ll take care of it, anything else?” She shakes her head ‘no’. “Then I’ll see you later.” With that Tabitha turned and hopped on her dragon to leave, but Michael wasn’t about to let her leave without getting some kind of real reaction from her, so before they took off he shouted. “Oh, and good luck on the familiar exhibition, I’m sure that you and Illococoo will no doubt come in first!”

That got a reaction, almost as big as when he revealed that he knew her true identity, he actually laughed a bit at how big her eyes got, even her mouth dropped open somewhat. Illococoo, or Sylpeed as she is mainly known as, even got somewhat defensive as she growled at Michael, which snapped Tabitha back to reality to calm her and ask the obvious question.

“How?” Michael just put on a knowing grin.

“I’ve told you already, I know what I need to know. Now run along you two and when you get back tell Louise I said hi and tell Kirche that I’ll be seeing her real soon.” Tabitha just stared at him for a moment before getting her familiar to take off.

With that taken care of Michael headed off in a gallop towards an area that was said to be plagued by bandits, he had plans but those plans require personnel, minions. Now while bandits and outlaws were not the best choice for to get man power, they were at least disposable if it came down to it.

It took just over a day to both reach an area with bandits and find a group suitable to his needs, specifically individuals that didn’t kill for the fun of it. Michael ended up watching this group for about two days after he found them, during that time he had learned that there was five mages and thirteen peasant bandits with them, they only robbed people and didn’t get violent unless it was necessary, the mages were in charge of coarse but more specifically the actual boss was one of the earth mages. With these things determined Michael boldly walked right into their camp leading his horse beside him, the sheer nerve he showed let him just stroll right up to the leader.

“Greetings gentlemen, my name is Michael, and I have something that will change your lives forever,” The entire camp of eighteen just looked at him speechless at his announcement. It was a couple of minutes before the earth mage in charge spoke up.

“What could you possibly have that would change our lives?” He asked skeptically.

“Why… power… of course, power that I’d be willing to share if I chose to.” Michael stated that like it was the most obvious thing in the world, something that unnerved those around him.

“What kind of power, some sort of magic?” The bandit leader was at least a little bit curious now. Michael just shook his head and simply smiled.

“Nope, technology.” One of the other mages just scoffed at that,

“Technology, you mean that stuff commoners use? It may be interesting at times but magic still trumps it in terms of power any day.” Everyone was nodding their heads in agreement, but Michael wasn’t done.

“Oh trust me; what I’ve got is more than a match for magic in terms of power. In fact, I’d be willing to make a bet on it.” The leader raised an eyebrow at that.

“Just what kind of bet are we talking about?”

“It’s very simple.” He took out a clay figurine from his pocket, it was of a knight in a battle pose and it was the size of his hand, he set it on a stump that was being used as a seat and then turned to the mages. “All of you mages use your best spells and other magic to protect this figurine from me for five minutes, if you can you win and if you can’t I win.” The mages looked at each other, it was simple.

“What are the stakes?” One of them asked. Michael had a shark grin on his face.

“Again, simple, if I can take out that figurine then I become you guy’s new leader.” Most of the camp busted out laughing.

“I assume you have something of equal value that’s worth that risk?” The leader said, one of the few not laughing. Michael just patted a sack on his horse with a cocky smile on his face.

“How about a thousand new gold?” The camp let out a collected gasp at that. A thousand new gold was no small amount, a fact that Michael had learned during his time in the capitol, it took a lot of bartering with expensive looking bladed weapons as well as harvested gems from others in order to accumulate that amount of wealth.

The mages and the leader seemed to be in deep thought about this wager, doing calculations and risk assessments until Michael decided to help them along a bit.

“How about this?” He pulled out bronze bowl from a saddle bag that he had gotten along with the clay figurine just for this occasion. He then proceeded to cover said figurine with the bowl. “Now it’s even harder for me, and easier for you, now what do ya say?” They took another second before they all finally nodded in agreement. “Alright then, so the deal is that if I win the bet then I become all of you guys uncontested leader, but if I lose then you all get my gold right?” Again they nodded. “Then let’s seal the deal.”

Michael offered his hand to the mages who all one by one took it and bound themselves to Michael’s power of the ‘Deal’, then he went on to shake the hand of everyone else in the camp, a very awkward ordeal. When he was done he and the five mages positioned themselves to start the contest. The mages readying their wands and Michael taking out the weapon that he would be using, which was not the ‘Samaritan’, instead it was another pistol; it was a Colt M1911A1 using .45 caliber armor piercing (AP) rounds. It was one of several he had made along with rifles that he was going to arm his little troop with.

“So, everyone ready, remember, five minutes.” The mages all nodded and one of the other commoner guys signaled the start and immediately Michael lined up the pistol with the bronze bowl where the figurine was and fired. The loud ‘bang’ and a ‘ping’ stunned the camp and Michael just smile cheekily and lowered the pistol. “I win.” He said simply.

The bowl had a hole in it now and the stump was damaged, one of the mages lifted the bowl and found the remains of the figurine and simply looked at Michael with disbelief before asking.

“What the hell was that?”

“A gun.” He stated. “To be more precise, a pistol, and these…” He pulled out one of the rifles to reveal a M1 Garand Variant, it was modified to have a magazine instead of an "en bloc" clip system, and also it has a butt stock contained cleaning kit. The rifle uses .30-06 AP rounds, equip able with the Rifle Grenade Launcher system, and could have a bayonet. “… are rifles. I am going to teach you to use them, and then we are going after a big score.”

The next couple of days were spent teaching these guys the proper use of firearms; they practiced at a make shift shooting range, learned basic weapon maintenance, and the mages learned how to make gun power and bullets. The mages were equipped with pistols as were six of the other guys, while the rest had rifles with two magazines of twenty rounds each, which meant that Michael had seven men with rifles and eleven with pistols.

When Michael finally thought they were good enough to at least hit their marks he announced his plan for the assault on Mott’s estate, some were understandably nervous, while others were excited, however, all of them would follow their new leader Michael.

Count Mott’s mansion: POV (Brian) One of the riflemen.

‘I can’t believe we’re doing this.’ Brian thought to himself for the umpteenth time as he aimed at a sentry guard stationed on the wall surrounding the noble’s home. When he first saw Michael come into his camp one day and made that bet Brian honestly thought he was nuts, but then he won and now Michael was the new boss. Then he handed out the new weapons which he called ‘rifles’ and trained Brian and his buddies how to use them and now Brian was a rifleman in Michael’s… gang? Army? Some kind of force.

After a couple of days firing ridiculous numbers of rounds Michael then told everyone that were going to pillage a noble’s place, and now here he was waiting for Michael’s signal, they were all wearing cloaks with face masks to protect their identities, even Michael.

Brian saw Michael walk up to the front gate seemingly without a care in the world holding his own personal pistol, which was just a bigger one that fired bigger bullets. Brian had seen Michael use it once, the result was scary. As Michael got to within a few yards of the gate Brian saw him get challenged by the gate guards. After exchanging a few words Michael just raised his weapon and shot the first guard and then barley a second later shot the other one, both in the head which was a gory sight.

‘That’s the signal!’ He realized and then shot the guard he had been tracking, the guard was hit and a bloody mist sprayed out from his back as he was hit center of mass, the force of the bullet launched him off the wall to fall inside the perimeter. Elsewhere other riflemen hit their targets, then like Brian immediately got up and ran for the gate. When Brian got to were Michael was just inside the wall he saw him gun down two more guards, Brian the saw a group of other sentries come around a corner brandishing pikes and swords. Brian raised his rifle and started shooting, the semi-automatic weapon allowing him to make quick work of the eight men in armor.

After that, the others showed up, some went off in search of other foes and Brian quickly heard more gunshots, however he and three other riflemen and two mages stayed with Michael and together they entered the manor. They made quick progress through the halls and while they encountered many more guards, they were all killed with little fuss. They had come across a couple of maids, all of whom were dressed in such a way that accented their figures; they were rounded up by the mages as per Michael’s orders as well as any other staff.

Finally they came to the final set of doors which no doubt had the count behind them.

“Alright, this is it.” Michael said to those with him and Brian readied himself for what lay beyond as the doors were flung open.

POV change (Michael)

As the doors opened Michael and the others waltzed right in, Michael carrying the ‘Samaritan’ in one hand and his face still masked laid eyes upon the one he was here for; standing there in front of his throne dressed in clothes that would make anyone back home laugh their asses off and question the man’s sexuality, was Count Mott, looking quite livid at what was happening if his goofy face was any indication.

“Who are you, how dare you intrude into my property?” Michael, standing there with his face hidden just looked up at the aristocrat and declared in an authoritative voice.

“Count Mott, I have but one question for you.” This caught the count so off guard that he actually obliged.

“W-what would that be?”

“Die.” That seemed to send the count into a fit.

“How dare you speak to me in such a way I…” He never got to finish his diatribe ‘cause Michael just raised the ‘Samaritan’ and shot him in the chest, the round exploding out from behind him and throwing him into his throne chair. The sight brought a smile to his face.

“Um… sir, I don’t mean to sound out of place but…” Michael looked to the man who was trying to asking a question, it was the one who had taken out an entire squad by himself. Michael just gestured him to go on. “Well, it’s just that what you said to the count wasn’t a question.” Michael just looked right at the man and decreed.

“That’s because I don’t do requests.” The rifleman just stared at him in bewilderment. “Alright, let’s wrap this up; you all know what to do.”

Everyone nodded and went off, the mages were responsible for rounding up all the staff members and taking them to a place near the main road and make sure that stayed put until dawn, everyone else was to drag all the dead bodies and place them inside the mansion and then grab anything valuable that they could sell for more money, since Michael knew they would need more since he planned on expanding his little force and that would cost money to support. Michael meanwhile was going to raid the counts study for anything important that he could use to further his goals.

Eventually all the looters had their bags full of shiny stuff and so when the mages returned they began setting everything on fire to burn all evidence of what happened here and to make it look like this was the work of rouge mages. When the estate was completely ablaze they headed back.

Back at the camp…

“So, what’d I tell ya, total success and now we’re rich.” Everyone was cheering at their success. “However, as many of you know this wealth won’t last long, especially when the nobles find out you have it, they will use any excuse they can to tax it from you, and then you will be right back here again.” A somber mood descended on the camp as they all realized that Michael was right, they were rich now, but they were still peasants, the nobles would eventually make them poor again. Michael continued speaking though.

“But what if this wasn’t the case?” Heads turned to him. “What if there was a place where that never would happen, a place without nobles, wouldn’t you like to go there?” Murmuring of affirmatives rose from the men. “If such a place existed, would you do anything to be there?” More yeses. “Would you fight to be there!?”

“Yes!” The collective voice said.

“Would you follow me there!?”

“YES!” They all shouted.

“Then I shall take you there, but it will be a long journey, a hard journey, and will take much preparation before we can even start. But I promise you that if you are willing to fight and willing to follow me, then I will lead you. The only question I have left for you is: ARE YOU WITH ME!?”

“YES!!!” The affirmation was thunderous despite there only being eighteen of them but it was all that was needed.

“Okay then, here is what needs to happen.” Michael began laying out instructions to his now ferociously loyal army.

He had his mages learn how to make all the parts of the pistols and rifles, which they would then synthesize and/or basically summon, kind of like Guiche’s Valkyries, which would be easiest for the earth mages, however since they were making individual metal and wood pieces instead of animated golems, any mage could technically do it. Once they could make every piece to exact specifications they would then make as many sets as possible for some of the non-mages to assemble into completed weapons, this was in addition to the mages making as many bullets as they could as fast as they could.

While this was happening half of the remaining men would go to surrounding towns and villages and kidnap people that no one would miss with their sudden disappearance, such as drunkards or the homeless and bring them back to the camp were some of the others would convince them to join the cause or kill them and then get them trained to use the new weapons. Anyone else who wasn’t doing anything was to go and purchase supplies and food to turn the place into a proper training camp able to support hundreds.

With basic instructions given Michael then informed everyone that he was going back to the academy and would return in a few days, this of course raised a few questions to which he responded that he had some business to take care of, it didn’t satisfy everyone completely but in the end they accepted his reasons so he bid them a goodbye and set off towards the main road in direction of the academy.

Along the way his evil smile returned to his face as he thought…

‘It begins.’

Chapter End