28Hi all, this is Ridli Scott (not the movie director but the acid-sweater mutant from Fanhunter's comic books). I'm so glad... and nervous, very nervous, to present you my first attempt to post an English fic here. In this case the translation of my fic Void Wolf.
My main language isn't english so I ask forgiveness for the mistakes that will surely be here.
Man! I'm really nervous about this.
This could be a very loooooong work, I'll try to make slow but steady pace, but I don't make any promise.
Before I start I want to thank Poliamida for his support and help. If you don't know his fic Zero Summing you are missing a great story, it's worth reading it.
So enjoy... I hope.
Oh wait! I almost forgot! One more thing, this isn't the typical Battletech's fic.
I own none of the franchises that appear in this story. They belong to their respective owner and creators.
Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière was a model student, or at least that's what the written tests said. She was one of the best students of the school academically speaking. But, she had a problem. Although she had learned all the magic spells, potion recipes taught at the Tristanian Academy of Magic, she was unable to use them, any spell, any attempt to imbue a potion, all transmutation ended in the same way- with a sharp and humiliating explosion.
This failure record had led many teachers to give her up as a lost case, and her companions, nobles like her yet in many cases spoiled and capricious children, to mock her fate. She had been even been contemptuously nicknamed The Zero, Louise the Zero. The girl's academic life had been plagued with countless hours of study, desperately trying to find an answer to her failures, and with that to quell the mockery of her companions. It was always followed by failed attempts to perform a spell, any spell to stop their jeering.
And there she was, in her last attempt, or all or nothing. That day was the Springtime Summoning Ritual, a unique and important event where each magician decided his destiny, and as such invoking a familiar that would determine their magical affinity. If Louise couldn't summon anything, she would be expelled from the Academy. After that, she would be worth nothing more than a candidate for a marriage arranged by her parents, a womb with noble blood, only that and that alone.
But Louise could not afford to fail, she couldn't. She herself had ignored the mockery of the German harlot named Kirche von Anhalf Zerbst German, not only a member of her family enemies but probably one of the more vocal bully of the Academy against her, and told her that she would summon a more powerful familiar than she could summon.
Now, after Kirche's summoning, she had to summon something more powerful than a fire salamander, more than a meter long reptile that breathed fire and had a flame in its tail. Marvellous, simply marvellous. She thought as the crowd watched her, eager to see her fail.
Louise in her first two attempts had only been able to summon two smoke plumes that rose from her explosions. The dust had blinded her and made her cough, but she had to do it. The professor Colbert, the only professor who had not yet given up on her, shook his head a little and told her to try again- she still had one more chance, one more try.
"Surrender, Zero! The third time might be lucky and you will can blow yourself to pieces." It was heard among her companions, since long ago she did not bother to know who was the one who insulted her.
"Montmorency, my dear, get cover behind me, I do not want this useless Zero to hurt you."
"Professor, I know that the rules of the ceremony allow up to three attempts, but she will never get anything, and we are risking ourselves to blast-"
"Silence!" Order the teacher. "Miss de la Vallière has respected your invocation shifts, and she has not made any comment when someone had a problem. Show some respect for a peer! Aren't you nobles? If so, then behave as such!"
There was silence, and Louise raised the wand again, remembered the words and tried to make them hers, give them all the strength, to the last bit of willpower that she could gather and send all that power to her invocation. It was now victory or defeat. Clutching her feet and standing firm, she made precise wand movements perfect in performance as she recited with a firm and determined voice, trying to be graceful but precise, melodious and sure.
Away from there someone was also facing a more than possible defeat too.
"LRM incoming! We are in the open!"
"My servant that existed somewhere in this vast universe"
"Claw-3, take cover behind this rocks!" "It is an order damn stravag!"
"My divine, beautiful, wise, powerful servant, heed my call"
"Claw-4 has fallen!" "A direct PPC to the cockpit!"
"I wish and assert from very bottom of my heart."
"We are the Clan of the Wolf in Exile! Stop behaving like freebirth surats!"
"Answer my guidance and appear!"
"Squad leader eliminated, combat simulation finis-" Cadet Kyle's radio was filled with static while he was still running with his Pack Hunter to get cover. As he ran from the swarm of simulated missiles that was thrown over him, just when he managed to hide behind a hill he fell on his face with a bright green light that blinded him. All went dark until his battlemech hit the ground.
Kirche rose with the smoke as she sighed in annoyance.
"As you would expect from Louise the Zero, you are incapable of-" Kirche said, stopping as she saw the object that had apeared from the smoke. In front of them, trying to get up, there was a small metal golem with something like a cannon on his right shoulder.
"By the Founder!" Exclaimed Professor Colbert, staring at the construct with his mouth open. His young pupil approached him with the same expression of astonishment.
"That- that's my familiar?" Louise asks.
"Yes, it is." Colbert said smiling to the girl. "It seems that despite the explosion you have managed to summon an unique familiar. Finish the contract."
"Yes- yes- right now professor." She said, still with doubts, but now with a hope that was born of her current and obvious success.
Suddenly the golem got to its feet, dropping large chunks of earth and grass from its body that had started to fall. As it began to look left and right, twisting its own torso in a way they had never seen before in a living thing, as if it had the neck at the waist. Louise would have sworn that it looked confused.
"Don't- don't be afraid, familiar!" Chirped hesitantly the pink haired girl. "I- I- I called you."
The golem stopped looking at both sides and tilted its torso toward the scared nobles gathered there. It looked like it didn't hadn't noticed their presence before, and by a stroke of luck it had not stepped on anyone. When finally it saw them, the golem began to make gestures while a powerful voice with a great reverberation came out of its head.
"What stravag are you doing here? This training ground belongs to the clan Wolf in Exile!"
"It can speak?" Asked Kirche with surprise to Tabitha, her blue haired, small and silent friend. She simply nodded in response.
"Of course I can talk! And hear better with the directional microphones of my battlemech!" It said, turning to the one who had spoken. "Freebirth! Where in the name of Kerensky is everyone? Where am I? Command, this is Claw-3, come in! Command, this is Claw-3, come in! Please reply. Star captain Sturm? Instructor Yields? Stravag radio! Where I am?"
"Excuse me."A bald-headed adult man in a robe came over to where the pink haired girl stood. "You're in the Tristanian Academy of Magic, and we were preforming the Springtime Summoning Ritual. My student Louise de la Vallière has invoked you."
"Summoning? Magic? Tristanian Academy of Magic? Have you taken any drugs or what? Damn freeborns!"
"No, the mind-affecting potions are forb..."
"Magic does not exist!" It turned its torso again, as if searching for something. "For The Remembrance! What is this? I have no readings of any fusion engines in the vicinity, there are not even any marks of combat ... Freebirth!" He finally realized. "How is the air breathable? We were in a combat drill in Dust Bowl, there the air can kill you in minutes. And gravity? This cannot be!"
"An air-breathing golem?" Guiche asked Montmorency.
"But is it that you have the brain of a surat or what?" The creature turned to the blond boy who had spoken gesticulating with both arms. Both finished in chubby hands with elongated claw-shaped fingers very different from any normal golem they had seen before. "Have not you ever seen a battlemech?"
"No." Was the blonde's response. "And I demand more respect! Zero, make your familiar behave!"
"Wait! Do you think that who you are talking is my machine and not me?" The creature sounded surprised.
"I don't understand, Miss de la Valliere's familiar, but please calm down. She needs to finish the ritual." Interrupted the bald professor.
"Oh! By The Remembrance! Where did I end up?" It asked as bent its knee to earth and put its hand at a certain height to help get to where the pilot could dismount. "It will make more sense when I go down; you can explain to me what is happening."
In the head of the golem a door was opened and a human figure came out, a boy dressed in a jumpsuit, stepping out in one smooth motion to the golem's left shoulder. His strange clothes were open and showed a more strange harness full of cables and tubes. On his head he had a strange helmet that he took off when leaving the golem's head and threw inside. Then he started to climb down and walked on the golem forearm, ending in its hand and jumped to the ground. He was a boy of about sixteen or seventeen, with brown hair strangely cut at the temples and quite attractive despite the sweat that clogged his hair and crossed his face.
"Who are you?" The little pink haired girl tried to command. She seemed to be dressed like the rest of her other girls that were around her, with a white long sleeve shirt, a very short pleated skirt, long stockings that almost covered the whole legs, leaving to see only a few centimetres of pale pink skin before arriving at the own skirt, and a dark blue cape on the shoulders. A golden spherical pendant with a star inscribed on a pentagon was placed on her neck. The boy thought it was some kind of odd uniform, but a uniform could mean some sort of military organization.
"Who am I going to be? I am the pilot of that Mech. Cadet Kyle, of the bloodline Kerensky, sibko Silver Fang of the clan Wolf in the Exile." He said squaring and saluting in a martial manner.
"You control that golem?" Asked the girl. Why, in the name of Kerensky, she dye her hair of that colour? In combat the enemy would see you from afar. Kyle thought.
"Freebirth! It is a 30-ton light battlemech. A Pack Hunter, and I am its pilot during this exercise."
"Whatever." Said the robed professor. "Miss Louise, you must seal the contract."
"But-"
"If you don't want, I can do it!" Said a dark-skinned girl with hair like fire and a large bust that made Kyle blink twice.
The girl with pink hair, was visibly annoyed by this offering. She stood before him and started waving a curious pointer, similar to the ones that some instructors used to teach the cadets in theoretical classes.
"You should feel honoured! This is not something that a noble normally gives to someone like you! My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Pentagon of the five elemental powers; bless this humble being, and make him my familiar!" She finished waving the pointer that started to glow with a strange glare, as if on the tip it had a bluish laser. Kyle stared so intently at it that he did not see the girl coming, who caught his face and kissed him on the lips.
Kyle tensed a second. The girl was not his type, she looked too fragile compared to any of his sibko's female companions. But, if that freeborn wanted to know how a Wolf kissed, even if he was a cub, Kyle wasn't going to disappoint her...
"Arggg!" She shrieked as she slipped out of Kyle's arms. "Damn pervert dog!" She said giving a strong kick to the boy that he stopped with his right forearm while looking at her with a wolf-like smile, to which she responded by raising the wand as if she was to use it to split the boy in two.
"What's the matter, Miss de la Vallière?" Said the professor.
"This- this- perv- perverted dog stuck his tongue in- in my mouth!" Louise cried. Behind the girl, her companions burst out laughing.
"Typical of Louise the Zero! Summon a commoner that not only don't obey her but does try to 'get along' with her!" Said a student as he grabbed his stomach laughing.
"COMMONER!?" Kyle shouted in a roar as he pushed the girl aside and faced the group of students. "I belong to the Kerensky bloodline, the proudest and most important bloodline of the Clans! I am a Trueborn! Not a servant of the neo-barbarian lords of the Inner-!" He stopped screaming for a second as he grabbed his left hand, twisting his face in a gesture of pain. He took off his left armored glove and looked at his hand. It was shining and strange white lines were written on the back of it. "What have you made me, you damned freeborn!?" At this, the older man came to see his hand.
"It seems to have been a success, Miss de la Vallière. A contract at the first try and well defined, however the runes are unknown to me-"
"What surat's excrement runes" He said, pounding the teacher with the hand that still glowed leaving him unconscious on the floor. Then he jumped on the pink haired girl, and the next thing he knew he was on the ground several meters to the right of where he was supposed to be. A strong wind was blowing, until it stopped unnaturally. When he raised his head, he saw a girl with gasses, short and very thin with blue hair moving his staff who spoke in a monotone.
"No fighting."
"But how-?" He jumped and stood up, lowering his center of gravity and putting his arms low, waiting for any kind of attack. The girl wasn't on guard, or at least it didn't look she was. She looked at him as if he was transparent. Preparing to attack, Kyle's vision became slightly blurred. He knew that he was somewhat dehydrated from the simulated battle, but not enough to be so weak. They must have done something to him! But, for the Kerensky's legacy, he would not give them the satisfaction of defeating him with tricks. He breathed deeply, trying to overcome the effect of whatever happened to him and take a combat stance. However, he could barely gain any consciousness against whatever that stunning him.
At that moment a blond boy approached carrying a rose in his hands. Adopting a pretentious pose he spoke.
"Louise the Zero could be a null in magic, but I mustn't allow a such savage as you attacks a noble lady. Familiar! I'll have to immobilize you until you calm down! My name is Guiche de Gramont and-"
His speech was interrupted by a punch to the face with Kyle's remaining armored glove knocking him unconscious. Kyle did not feel better, though, as he took a few steps towards his Mech and fell unconscious.
Ok, this is the end from now.
In the Spanish version I had to put a glossary in some chapters because Battletech is not well known in our language. It's a callous and hard to explain issue about copyright (I'll only say that my biggest dream about that topic is that the Timun Mas editorial will burn to the ground while its copyright managers are sodomized by demons full of burning spikes).
If any one has any doubts do not hesitate to consult me ... And if any Battletech fan doesn't have the faintest idea that it's Familiar of Zero ... well, you can also contact me, try to find the light novel or watch the anime.
If I could find some native english speaker that could help me with this I would be happy.
See you on the 31st century's battlefield mechjocks ...