-Two years later-
=Micheals PoV=
Micheal leaned down and stretched feeling his muscles move as he loosened up. The past two years had been busy as shit for him, his mom, and Desmond. Within a week of getting out of the medical wing he had had his attribute, affinities, and origin discovered. His mom didn't know what to make of his Origin and one of his Attributes so she had left to go to the clock tower to see if she could find anything on 'Saint' Origins not even trying to figure out what the 'XI' meant. Then there was his attribute which they also had no clue on how it worked either. The only thing they figured out for sure was his 'Heavenly Aim' which apparently was a super powerful attribute that meant that as long as he charged anything with mana it would never miss. He and Desmond had been testing that out over the next few months after he had left the medical wing and during that time Micheal had come up with a spell that used steel ball bearings and his affinity for lightning. By aligning his fingers and hands into a rudimentary barrel and charging a ball bearing with an electromagnetic field he could shoot it forward like a bullet.
So far he was able to fire it off with enough force to punch through kevlar but not anything more than that. Micheal lowered himself and stretched out his legs as he looked around the antichamber to the training room under the Lafaire mansion. In the more recent months he had come up with another application of his natural mana and that was to super charge his reaction speed. Since his mana naturally took the form of electricity what he would do is supercharge his nerves and muscles alongside a personal bounded field and reinforcement magic. When anything crossed that bounded field it would analyze what it was, how best to dodge it, and then fire electricity along his muscles and nerves to automatically move him out of the way of whatever it might be. It was janky and clearly needed refinement but when sparring against Desmond or his mom it gave him the time needed to dodge.
Micheal frowned as he settled himself into a butterfly stretch. He knew that Desmond was good but whenever Micheal sparred with him it always felt like the butler was….toying with him for lack of a better word. As though he could fend Micheal off in his sleep no matter what he threw at the butler. Every time Micheal thought he was going to land a hit Desmond twisted his body and pushed the strike or kick away as though he was pushing a curtain aside. It was positively infuriating that after a year of sparring with Desmond, Micheal had yet to land a single glancing hit. He stood up out of the stretch and shook his arms and legs out as his mothers voice came over the speaker system announcing the upcoming fight. Micheal grinned a bit as he felt his blood pump faster and his heart speed up in anticipation.
A half year back Amelia had been at a meeting representing the area of France that was under her purview as a Brand of the Clock tower. After the meeting had ended she had been waved down by a recently christened Lord. He had bragged about how his newest golem could stop her in her tracks if it fought her. Looking back it was clearly bait to get her to damage test his newest golem and she took it hook, line, and sinker. Now as for why Micheal was fighting the golem and not his mother... that was entirely Desmonds doing. If Micheal won then Desmond would let him look at something that would hopefully give him an idea for something that would use both his Heavenly Aim and natural affinity for lightning. As for what it might be Micheal hadn't had the chance to ask as Desmond was planning to leave for three weeks to obtain whatever it was from some "friends" he had back in the United States.
Micheal tuned back into what his mother was talking about right as she finished,
"...and we are doing this fight by clock tower sparring rules understand Lord Bravontile? What I mean by that is that your hunk of crap isn't going to try and kill my son. Excuse you? What do you mean-"
Micheal smiled and shook his head at his mother antics. In the two and a half years he had gotten to know her he understood where a lot of his impulsiveness came from. Eventually his mother realized that her microphone was still live and awkwardly said that the combatants can enter the ring and as soon as both took their respective places the fight would begin at her signal. Micheal rolled his neck a bit as the door to the training room opened and he stepped out into what he was told was a mirror image of the sparring room at the Clock Tower. He activated the bounded field that triggered his electricity and thought idly that he really should come up with a name for it as he walked to his spot in the room. Upon arriving there he saw what looked like a pile of iron, bronze, and steel scraps piled where his opponent would be. He arched an eyebrow and glanced at where he felt he was being scryed from.
A few seconds later the 'referee' formed out of the loose sand that was inbetween the floor tiles. Micheal nodded at the ref and amped up the amount of mana in his body as he pulled four ball bearings from his pocket. He held three between his fingers and let the other one loop around the palm of his other hand. As he did this the pile of metal began to vibrate and float into a vaguely humanoid form. Micheal watched as it continued to grow taller and taller until its head was almost scraping the ceiling of the room. His lips tightened into a line and he reinforced his legs right as the ref dropped their arm signaling the start of the fight. Micheal pushed backwards right as a metal arm punched the ground where he had been not even a second before. Micheal activated his eyes with a low level of mana and watched as in the next five seconds the golem would retract its extended arm and shoot its other arm forward as if it was on a spring.
Micheal dodged to the left as the golems other arm shot past him and he was buffeted by the wind coming off of it. He frowned and looked back at the golem trying to figure out where its core was. Normally golem cores would be in the centermost point so as to provide as much mana as equally as it could but he briefly felt something tug his attention behind the golem right as the first arm began to shoot towards him again. He swore ducking down to avoid it and felt some of the metal catch his jacket tearing through it and cutting his shoulder a bit. He pushed off to his left in a roll right as the arm crashed down where he had been before cracking the floor. He remembered that this golem was supposed to be on an even footing with his mother and grimly realized he might be out of his depth. He glanced behind the golem again as that feeling of being nudged once again tried to tell him to move him behind the golem. He refocused on the front of the golem as it finally began to move towards him the pile of metal that formed its feet shifting over the ground like it was skating on tanks treads. Micheal changed tact and placed his hand on the floor pulsing it with mana causing spikes made of hardened stone to shoot forward into the golem who just muscled past the spikes like they were nothing.
Micheal grimaced, "Should have known that wasn't going to work but had to try…" and reinforced his legs again as he dashed around the side of the golem trying to get behind it. As he rounded a pillar he caught a brief glimpse of the back of the golem. Where normally there would be bricks or stones or something there was instead what looked like an antenna. Micheal narrowed his eyes and then his sixth sense blared at him making him push off at an angle as a metal fist crashed through the pillar he had been behind. He glanced at the golem and clicked his tongue seeing that he didn't have a clear shot at the antenna. Seeing it did get his brain turning and he tried something he hadn't before with his eyes. He put more mana into them then he would normally and activated his mana sense at the same time. That same feeling that had nudged him from before seemed to approve of this as he pumped mana into his eyes causing that itching sensation to intensify. He watched as his mana sense manifested in his field of vision as a heat map for concentrations of mana. The golem was cold in that it had no mana but there was a stream of mana going from its back…..to a giant orb of mana roughly 5 meters behind it.
He deactivated his eyes as he felt them begin to water and narrowly dodged another attack from the golem. He had a target. Now all he had to do was get to it.
=Amelias PoV=
Amelia tried to look calm as she watched her son battle the golem from the observation room. Beside her Desmond watched the screens with a small smile on his face as he tapped a rhythm on the arm of his chair. She had no idea Micheal could move like he was. She'd almost cracked the arm of her chair from stress when he ducked the first strike from the golem with what looked like millimeters to spare. He had kept dodging like that for two or so minutes until finally the Golem clipped his shoulder tearing his jacket a bit and drawing some blood. Desmond hummed appreciatively as Micheal slid and reinforced his legs to dash behind a pillar in the golems blind spot.
"True to his French ancestry it seems all your boy is good for is running away, Madam Lafaire." came the smug voice of Lord Bravontile, owner of the golem currently fighting her son. She grit her teeth and said nothing focusing on Micheal as she thought she saw his eyes glow purple right before the golem crashed a fist through the pillar he had been hiding behind. He dodged back but still got pelted with some of the rubble, some of which cut a line across his cheek despite him covering his face. He landed and rolled backwards to disperse the momentum onto his feet and then seemed to move faster and with more purpose than before. Amelia narrowed her eyes trying to figure out what had changed when he skidded to a stop to the left of the golem and his hands glowed bright blue as electricity began to arc down his arms to his hands.
Amelia narrowed her eyes at the glow trying to figure out what it was as Desmond's tapping increased. She glanced over at him and was caught off guard by the almost feral pride on his face. He looked to his right and quickly schooled his face to neutral but winked at her and motioned to watch the displays. She hesitantly turned to look at the monitors right as the blue glow seemed to peak in brightness only for something bright white to streak out from between Micheals hands with enough force to knock his hands apart. She watched as the white streak flew past the golem and shot past a spot a few meters behind the construct which immediately responded to whatever Micheal had taken a shot at by turning around faster than it should have been able to and swinging an arm in a wide sweeping motion.
"…..He shouldn't have been able to discern it that quickly…" came the worried mutter from Lord Bravontile as he watched the displays with concerned interest. Amelia pretended to not have heard anything but instead refocused on the fight trying to see what her son had seen. She briefly wished that she could use her mana sense and see mana over image signals right as Micheal held out his hand and they started glowing blow again. The metal monstrosity had caught on by this point and whirled around swinging an arm which forced Micheal to cancel his casting and dodge.
"Alright Micheal...It knows what you're aiming for now. Now how will you outsmart it…" Desmond muttered to her left as he leaned forward in his chair steepling his fingers and watching intently. Amelia made a mental note to ask Desmond what he and Micheal had been doing in their training. Desmond had been handling his physical training which was endurance, stamina, etc while she had been in charge of educating him on mana control, spells, and everything associated with that. Movement caught her eye and she looked back at the screen to see Micheal had reinforced his legs while getting down into a sprinters starting stance. She watched as electricity began to arc off of his legs right as the golem swung for him. Right as he was about to be hit the arcs of lightning peaked and Micheal shot forward like a bullet cracking the floor tile under him as he launched himself towards a pillar behind the golem. He twisted in mid air, landed feet first on the pillar lightning already arcing off of him again as he pushed off the piller cracking it badly and holding out his arm like a hook.
Amelia unconsciously stood up to watch as Micheal launched himself towards the golem but his arm seemed to catch something inbetween him and the construct. He swung around whatever he had caught in his arm, locked his legs around it, and used his momentum along with twisting his hips to lift whatever he had leg locked over him in mid air and slamming it down into the floor with enough force to crater the floor slightly. Immediately a smaller golem appeared out of thin air its head and torso shattered completely from being smashed headfirst into the floor. Micheal unhooked his legs and pushed off to land several meters away with his hands in his pockets as he watched what was actually a giant metal puppet slowly fall apart, pieces sliding off each other as it crashed to the floor. He had a savage smile on his face that eventually settled into a smirk.
Amelia walked over to the microphone to the speaker system,
"The winner is Micheal Lafaire. All participants may leave the sparring room and enter the ante-chamber for their respective sides to recover."
She took a step or two back as what she had just watched finally hit her. She turned to look at the clocktower lord who's face had paled considerably as he stared at the monitor showing Micheal walking away from a fight with one his families golems.
"A monster….the Lafaires have borne a monster…." he breathed out finally causing Amelias eye to twitch as she walked over too him and folded her arms.
"I believe my son has more than earned a recommendation letter for his clock tower entrance Bravontile. Now if you would be kind as to explain something to me," Icy venom slipped into Amelias voice as she glared at the Lord Bravontile who swallowed nervously, "It looked to me like your golem was trying to kill my son. None of those attacks were on a level to just incapacitate."
"Erm- You see- when the golem faces a threat larger than what its protecting-"
"Need I remind you that you said that that pile of garbage would beat me? Yet the pride of your family was beaten...by a 14 year old boy."
"Well maybe if this 'boy' was even remotely human my golem would have won!!!!" Bravontile shrieked as he stood up slamming the tip of his cane into the floor. Amelia narrowed her eyes at the Clocktower lord in front of her and briefly let some mana slip free of her control which made Bravontile visibly flinch.
"I- I'll write the letter. Just...don't let that monster-"
"Refer to my son as anything other than human again and then next thing you'll see is that 'Monster's mother when she is ticked off and out for blood. This farce is over. You've lost. Collect your pile of garbage. Desmond will escort you to the entrance hall where you will leave, go back to the Clock Tower, and write the letter my son earned with his own blood. Am I clear Bravontile?"
Bravontile swallowed and she could almost see the two rusted gears that was his entire brain creak and move as he tried to think of a way out of this. Right as she was about to press her point he visibly brightened
"As the son of a Clock Tower Brand he doesn't need a letter of recommendation from me. He could be completely inept and get in entirely on the value of being the child of a Bran-"
"Let me stop you there Bravontile," Amelia cut him off and fixed him in place with a glare that could have punched a hole through a reality marble, "I am well aware of all of that. In fact I am counting on it to help secure him the teachers and education he needs to have to thrive. I am, however, having you write this letter of recommendation not because it will sway the administration of the clock tower. After all the sole child of the famous Lafaire family, a family with almost as long a family history as the Pendragons, is going to the Clock Tower. No...The reason I am having you write this letter is as both a punishment and a warning."
"A- A punishment?"
Amelia almost licked her lips at the sheer look of terror on Brevontiles face but schooled her face into one of casual judgement,
"You only recently came into your lordship after your previous head died in a…. 'Rogue Golem incident'. There was no body, naturally. However you, as the former next in line, had been bragging about a new type of golem to anyone who would listen mere months before. Upon examination of the 'rogue golem' we found traces of adjustment magecraft in its logic core but there wasn't enough there to condemn or accuse anyone of causing this golem to go rogue and kill its creator."
Amelia stared holes into Brevontiles face as it went through various shades of colors before finally ending on sheet white. Before he could say anything she continued speaking casually,
"Given that only someone with an intimate knowledge of the Brevontile golems make up could have done that needless to say we didn't investigate any further. However...I did hear a rumor about how the previous Brevontile head was considering naming your younger brother the inheritor of the family secrets due to the next in line having some…."
Amelia narrowed her eyes, taking pleasure in the mans trembling, "'Issues with authority'. However before the change could be made official he died a tragic entirely accidental death at the hands of his own golem that surely only he had access to. Its a shame really. I was planning to order some of those golems to till the fields on the Lafaire estate but I can't have any potential threats to me and mine within my own fields now can I~…"
Amelia reached over and gently patted Brevontiles cheek causing him to flinch as she smiled with venom at him, "Now you'll be a dear and write that letter of recommendation. Am I correct, Lord Brevontile?"
The clock tower lord squeaked and nodded before he ran for the door. Desmond, who had been watching this entire show from his seat, finally stood up and arched an eyebrow at her as she rolled her eyes and waved him off to guide the moron out of the Lafaire estate. As soon as Desmond left and the door closed behind him she sagged and almost fell into one of the chairs in the room. Having to deal with idiots like Brevontile was an unfortunate necessity of being a Brand but he did make an excellent point on Micheal getting into the Clock Tower purely on her status. She closed her eyes and massaged her temple with one hand as she felt a headache coming on.
"Before I do anything I need to make sure Micheal is okay and grill him on everything he pulled off in that fight. Him dodging makes sense given his eyes but dodging like that I don't see how he could do it with just his eyes. Also if I couldn't see the real golem powering the puppet than how did he manage to do so…. Not to mention those movements at the end. None of that is possible with normal reinforcement magecraft…."
Amelia tapped her chin with a finger and left the room swiftly, closing the door behind her causing the lights in the room to flick off.