Micheal pumped more mana into his body forcing it to keep going. It took him several minutes of running around Orleans before he felt comfortable enough to run back to his home and even then he could feel the amount of mana he had continue to drop. He sprinted past the city limits of Orleans and into the French countryside clearing farm fences easily and narrowly avoiding farm animals. He kept mentally going back to that scene with Arnehearte tied to that chair, his legs bending at wrong angles, his hands a mangled mess of bone and tissue, while his eyes had been remove-
Micheal felt himself heave as his body tried to vomit from the scene in his mind as well as his exertion. He swallowed the feeling and continued running. Eventually he found himself alongside the southbound side of the motorway he had taken with Arneheart earlier and was about to vault over and onto it when his origin screamed at him to dodge directly to the right. He planted his left foot and pushed off at a 90* angle to where he had been going right as a white lance of energy impacted where he had been not even half a second before.
He knew on instinct what that bolt was and who had fired it in the split second he took to look at it. He gritted his teeth feeling his mana begin to run out and tried to move even faster zig-zagging on his origins direction continuing to dodge the bolts. After several minutes of this the lances stopped landing right as his mana finally sputtered out. If he continued to go as he had been he'd be burning through his own body. He shook his head and kept going. His mother had to know. Had to know that the Church was in France, had attacked him, and killed Arnehearte. As he put his foot down he felt his mana finally bottom out. He stumbled falling head over heels right into a traffic barrier, the impact knocking the wind out of him. He slowly looked up and saw a final bolt of light arcing over the horizon from the direction of Orleans. He glanced to his right and saw a Km marker that said 15km. He smiled as he coughed up blood and watched as the lance grew closer knowing he was going to die.
Only for a massive surge of heat to flare up in his jacket pocket where he had put the relic which he felt stimulate his origin to the point where it was burning him from the inside out. Suddenly full of an energy he didn't know he had, he rolled to his right, got his feet under him, and pushed off as the world around him blurred. He felt as though he was being stretched between two infinitely distant locations. His body felt like it was going to be torn in half. He looked over his shoulder and watched as the lance got closer and closer only to go out of focus as the blurriness fully enveloped him. He turned his head forward and watched as an image in front of him began to come into focus. He squinted trying to make out what he was looking at and realized too late that it was the kitchen in the Lafaire mansion. He saw his mom stiffen and look in his direction. The image got clearer and more defined over the seconds and Micheal watched as his mother's eyes widened and she yelled something he couldn't hear, jumping to the side, right as the world finished coming back into focus around him. He flew across the kitchen and blew through a wall before crashing into the other room. He coughed up blood again as he felt his origin turn off while his body felt like it was on fire as his magic circuits burned. His mother leapt through the hole in the wall and ran up to him her hands already glowing with healing magic.
He looked up at her, his mind dimming, and said two words,
"Arneheartes dead."
######
It was quiet. Eerily so. Micheal tried to open his eyes only to find himself looking at darkness. He tried to move his arm and found he could barely budge it. He tried to think back to whatever happened before and it all cascaded around him. He tried to sit up yelling only to hear his mothers voice yell in shock to his right. He sensed her run up to him and could barely make out her voice over the ringing in his ears. Then the blindfold was lifted off his eyes and he squinted at the sudden brightness. He looked around to see he was in the medical wing of the Lafaire mansion and then he looked down to see he was strapped to a table his limbs completely immobilized. He began to panic and move around as he finally heard his mothers voice
"-cheal! Micheal! Calm down! You're safe! God Dammit. I SAID CALM THE FUCK DOWN."
Micheal froze his eyes wide and slowly turned to look at his mother who was staring at him her mouth in a firm line.
"...You just said fuck. You. The woman who made me scrub every bathroom in the house with a toothbrush because I said 'shit' in front of you."
Amelia grimaced,
"Looks like your memory is intact then. I'll lift the restraints in a moment. I had to seal off your mana to stop you from hurting yourself. Can you explain what happened? And can you also explain why you are holding a piece of burnt wood in a deathgrip thats practically waterfalling mana?"
Micheal looked down as much as he could and saw the relic in his hand. It was still emitting a small amount of heat and he stared at it as it suddenly cooled down. Amelia glanced at a screen and muttered something to herself before focusing back on her son.
"I- ….Its going to take a while to explain and…I'm not sure your going to believe it. Also I signed a geass with Arneheart almost two years ago that prevents me from-"
"Oh god dammit. You too? What is it about that damn fucking ritual thats gotten everyone acting like they have a 2 meter long wooden dildo shove up their ass!?!?!?"
Micheals head snapped around to stare at his mother again who saw his utter bewilderment and grimaced. She then explained that he had been unconscious for the past four days, his mana was out of control, and his origin had been trying to assimilate him into it due to overstimulation.
"So needless to say dear. I'm a little stressed right now about this on top of the fact that I received reports that the Church was seen lobbing Holy Lances at someone who was moving across the countryside at such a speed that it boggled the imagination. The entire Mages Association has been hounding me for an explanation for the past 3 days every two hours like clockwork and the only person who could explain what happened has been in a multi day coma."
Micheal looked at his mother as she tried to calm herself down. After a few seconds she walked over to him and rested a hand on his chest right over his heart. He saw her glance at the relic and sigh running her other hand over her face.
"...Let me…explain from the beginning then." Micheal started, "Do you think you could unstrap me first? Its really awkward having to look up at you from this angle."
Amelia walked around to look at the displays and sighed a sigh of relief. She pressed a button and the restraints removed themselves from Micheals body allowing him to sit up wincing a bit as his body filed numerous complaints to his brain.
"You had a broken rib in addition to two severely cracked ribs, you managed to crack your shoulder blade, and your internal organs all suffered some form of impact trauma. On top of this you almost fried your circuits beyond repair while your origin was stimulated somehow to the point where it was trying to assimilate you into it." Amelia said clinically before her gaze softened, "Micheal….whats been happening? What haven't you been telling me."
Micheal looked into his mothers eyes, took a deep breath, and explained everything he could. He told her about the grail war, how that same day he had dreamwalked into another timeline that was both in the past and future he had gotten a set of command seals, how he had made his promise to the woman, and everything else. He finally stopped speaking and eventually looked at his mother who was looking at him with pursed lips.
"If this came from anyone else I would have had them declared mentally unfit for civilian or magus life and either killed or sealed completely," She sighed and snapped the fingers of the same hand she had placed on his chest causing a fog that Micheal didn't even notice to lift from his brain. He rubbed his forehead and glared at his mother who just stared at him impassively.
"Before you ask. Yes. It was necessary to put you under that heavy of a suggestion spell. If I didn't I'd be put on trial for not fulfilling my duties as a Brand of the Clock Tower by having biases for my own offspring." She sighed, ran her hand over her face again, and made a gesture with her hand causing a chair to fly over. She caught it and sat down on it in one fluid motion causing Micheal to raise his eyebrows impressed. She saw and blushed a little, "That was your fathers trick. Its how he got me to give him the time of day. A decision that eventually led to you."
"Teach me it sometime. Alongside anything else he might have left."
Amelia nodded smiling sadly before she shook her head and focused back on Micheal,
"The grail war starts in just under a year. You have to train, summon your servant, and then somehow make it to, take part in, and survive a Grail war within that sub year timespan. I knew that Desmond and Arnehearte were training you for something but if any of you three idiots had told me I'd have been able to come up with a better regimen than whatever crap the US uses for their soldiers."
Amelia folded her arms and glared at Micheal in full Brand mode. He stared right back his hand tightening around the relic.
"I am going to put you through hell, Micheal Lafaire. By the time I'm done with you you'll be able to take on a Superior apostle with two limbs tied behind your back and blindfolded. You walked into this hell. Now you have to walk out of it."
Micheal nodded
"Yes ma'am."
Amelia nodded and some softness briefly snuck back into her gaze as she said,
"Whatever happens in a year…promise me you'll come back safely."
"I promise."
Micheal realized as he said that he now had two promises to keep but that only made him more determined to do so. His mother nodded at him, all kindness now gone from her expression, and she walked away from the table. Micheal moved off the table and started after her.
It was going to be a long ass year.
-Two Months Later-
10 months, 3 weeks, 5 days, 13 hours, 32 minutes until the Grail war starts-
-Micheals PoV-
Micheal flew backwards and crashed through the wall of a small cottage. He felt himself cough up blood as his vision swam but instinctively rolled away from the wall and launched himself to his feet charging his legs with mana as he moved several meters away while loading another ball bearing into the mystic code he had been working on for the past two months alongside his training his mother had had him doing. He landed on his feet, whirled around into a crouched shooting position, and immediately had to roll out of it to his left as his mother launched several sections of the wall that he had collided with at him mere moments earlier where he had been crouched,
"Faster! You need to be Faster!"
Micheal gritted his teeth as he poured more mana into his legs causing him to crack the stones beneath his feet as he pushed off half a second before an orb of energy impacted where he had just been, dissolving the ground into a perfect two meter wide hole.
He dashed forwards 5 meters and leapt over the wall of another ruined cottage, landed on the wall of the one next door and ran along it, and jumped off to get as much height as he could as he took aim with his rifle. He sighted down it, putting his mother into the crosshairs, and began to charge it as the sounds of cicadas filled the air. His mother stabbed her sword into the ground like it was butter and twisted the blade causing stones to crack, separate, and float out of the ground. She stood up, cocked her free arm back as if about to throw a ball, and swung her arm forward launching the sections of stone at Micheal right as he finished charging the rail gun. He swore, twisted in midair, and fired straight up into the sky using the recoil of the shot to push him out of the way of the stones which missed his legs by centimeters. He twisted again in the air, using his mana–enhanced electromagnetic field to orient himself up and down, landed, and moved pushing off again at speed.
He glanced at his watch and saw through the now cracked and dirt covered face that they had been going at this for three hours now. He had to either get a solid hit on his mother or survive for six more hours to pass this test. If he passed then he got to summon his servant and go to the grail war in Japan in ten months. If he didn't he had to swear off the grail war and resume his studies at the Clocktower.
Which meant he had to win.
He quickly pushed off the ground again and again zig-zagging through the debris and ruined houses that were all that remained of the small town that they had been fighting in.
"If all you can do is run then you have no chance of winning the grail let alone against me Micheal!"
His mother shouted from somewhere behind him as he felt the ground shake from her levitating even more stones. He swore, leapt towards the remains of a half-broken cottage, and crashed through the window rolling forward while forming a sign with his free hand that caused moisture to freeze, directing the spell at the wooden door which flash froze, and it shattered as he kicked through it rolling again as several hunks of stone a meter cubed crashed through the cottage he had just been in.
He needed to think faster and more creatively. What did he have on him right now besides his ever dwindling internal supply of mana,
I've got about 10 more ball bearings, some ward stones, and an entire library of scientific knowledge. None of which I can use right no-
…wait...
Micheal quickly devoted a section of his brain to go through all of his accumulated knowledge to see if there was anything he could use as he loaded another ball bearing into the chamber of his rifle while he continued running from cover to cover. Suddenly a stone impacted a meter away from him, blowing him to the side and through the wall of another cottage. He attempted to roll out of the crash only to roll back into the opposite wall slamming his head into it causing a spike of pain to shoot through his head right as his brain came back with a result from its search. His head swam but he latched onto the result and immediately wondered how the fuck he didn't think of it before given the area they were in.
He froze and crashed through the front door to that cottage and started gathering water around him with him as the centerpoint as he continued to move,
Not enough… I need to find some natural source of water as well as figure out how to force clouds to gather… Lets focus on finding water. If I remember correctly there was a river somewhere…. To the northeast of the center of town.
Micheal quickly pulsed his EM field with mana to get his bearings and began to run to his left continuing to dodge the stones his mother lobbed at him. Two minutes later he was at the river and he jumped into it feet first feeling the water rise above his knees. He grinned, knowing that this was more than enough to do what he wanted. He quickly gathered some water into a sphere, loaded two ball bearings with a positive and negative charge, and tossed both of them into the sphere making the electricity ran through the water causing it to bubble slightly. He got out of the river and quickly sunk the sphere into the ground as he set the two ball bearings to follow him at a distance. He felt a shiver run down his spine as his sixth sense screamed at him to duck and move.
"Whatever you're doing I won't let it happen!" Came his mothers voice loudly not even two seconds after Micheal had begun to move. He heard a crack behind him and felt his mothers rapier slice over where his head had just been. He fell to his knees and pushed off the ground placing his palm on the dirt to carbonize it with electricity. He then reinforced his other arm and punched down into the now brittle dirt hard enough to eject it into the air creating a smokescreen. He ran off pumping his legs as he evaded more rocks. He heard his mother yell after him but ignored her. He quickly checked the sphere and saw that was still following him on top of becoming more basic by the second due to the constant electricity flowing through it. He grinned and palmed some ball bearings loading them with copious amounts of water, fire, and lightning mana. Enough mana to hopefully load clouds to the point of raining and, if he was lucky, even redirect lightning.
His plan was coming together nicely.
Now to plant the trap….
-Amelia's PoV-
Amelia was impressed not that she'd ever admit it mid-fight. They had been going for almost five hours now and Micheal kept escaping by the skin of his teeth. She thought she had had him at the river but right as she accelerated towards him he had ducked under her blade by mere millimeters and ran off again. She looked up at the artificial sun from her spot on the hill and then back down at the small village that had been mocked up for this test. She squinted, enhancing her vision as she scanned the village for any movement.
The entire area they were in had been something she had 'borrowed' from the Clock Tower vaults years ago and just never bothered to give back. It was a semi-complete reality marble that had been stolen from some Superior apostle over a hundred years ago. It could reflect anything from the mind of the user that they had seen in their lifetime, be it a medieval village like this one or a plague from the Age of Gods in all its horror. The only problem is that the user had to be inside the thing to control it which limited its usefulness. Amelia stabbed her sword into the ground again and pulled up more stones as she saw movement from the southeast corner of the town.
He's in the market now? He's been zipping all over the place…whatever his plan is I have no intention of letting him win this.
Was it a low blow? Yes.
Would it mean that the past two months of training and growing were wasted as she grew ever more proud of him as he surmounted every challenge she threw at him?
…..
Amelia shook her head clear and refocused on the village, noticing that Micheal had vanished again. She huffed and pulled her sword out of the ground, tapping the blade in her hand. Suddenly she felt her sixth sense activate before she heard cicadas behind her and she whipped the sword around so that the flat of the blade caught the ball bearing that had been shot at her deflecting it. She launched the stones at Micheal who ran again.
If nothing else he's good at running…..
Amelia summoned more stones and paused as she saw Micheal vanish into thin air. She firmed her grip on her sword and wondered what trick he had done this time when her sixth sense activated again this time from right behind her. She whirled around her sword already moving to cut and before she could stop it she cut Micheal clean in half.
Amelia panicked and screamed Micheals name as she reached forward to catch him… only for him to dissolve into water and splash past her arms. She blinked, staring at her now soaked sleeves, and the water that was being absorbed into the ground too quickly to be natural as well as the sudden level of humidity in the air,
"Oh you brilliant child…" Amelia muttered to herself as her sixth sense activated again and she looked up and turned around to see about 10 or so "Micheals" staring at her all with the same shit eating grin. She extended her hand and snapped her fingers causing clouds to form and suddenly cover the sun which made the water reflections vanish one by one.
"Good….but not good enough!" Amelia yelled as she launched more stones through the now fading water reflections. She saw movement zip away to her right followed by the sound of cicadas and several more cracks of Micheals rifle. She quickly pulled up a stone wall to protect herself but nothing seemed to impact the barrier.
Amelia frowned, dropped the barrier, and was about to float more stones when a raindrop hit her nose making her blink. She blinked again in surprise and looked up as it began to rain. She was fairly certain she hadn't instructed the clouds to rain. Only to cover the sun. She snapped her fingers but the rain didn't stop. Instead it intensified.
Amelia quickly made sure that she still had control of the sphere by making some nearby trees switch entirely different species. She frowned, taking her attention away from the trees, and watched as the rain continued to intensify around her to the point where she couldn't see more than a few meters in front of her. She stayed put knowing that Micheal would have to come to her and raised a few more blocks of stone. She suddenly heard cicadas again from her back left and launched stones through the rain towards them only for the noise to move and get louder to her right. Suddenly there were three cracks of Micheals mystic code firing and Amelia quickly shielded herself with a stone wall again…only for nothing to strike the wall once again.
Cautiously she formed a small hole in the wall and peeked out to see….nothing. She frowned and wondered what Micheal had been shooting at when she smelled ozone. Not a little ozone either. Enough that it made her head spin a bit….and she was standing right in the thick of it. She felt a chill go down her spine as her hair physically lifted itself into the air and on instinct she launched herself forward right as a bolt of lightning struck one of the trees she had changed barely a minute earlier, shredding it to pieces. She swore and yanked up another wall of stone in mid-air to block the remains of the shredded tree from blowing holes through her or cleaving off her limbs. She landed on her feet, sword at the ready about 10 meters away from where the bolt had dropped. She looked around cautiously, ears still ringing as she clicked her tongue given she still couldn't see through the rain. She pulsed mana to see her surroundings but all she got back was a blinding wall of white noise. She blinked and couldn't stop herself from smiling.
Micheal had infused the rain with lightning mana effectively blinding her own mana sense. She smiled grimly and stood up closing her eyes, instead focusing on her own natural senses to find him. For him to be able to do all of this he had to be nearby if not right on top of her. She frowned as she didn't detect…anything. She opened her eyes and looked around wondering where he was when she felt the ground give way under her as the soil under her turned into a bog. She tried to jump out but couldn't as she had already sunk past her knees and continued to sink. The feeling of being immobilized continued up her body as she sunk deeper and deeper into the bog. It eventually stopped right when it had reached her armpits.
Amelia sighed feeling both incredibly proud and not a little sad
"..Alright, Alright. I concede. You win Micheal."
The rain stopped like someone had flipped a switch. Standing not even 12 meters away stood Micheal, hands on his knees, breathing hard, his head low.
"Awesome... Flood the bog with some wind mana and it should collapse around you into the surrounding soil. I only had time to make the one trap." came the breathless reply. Amelia did so and felt the bog flow away from her body entirely until she was standing in a hole that reached up to her nose and was just a few centimeters wider than her shoulders. She poked a finger into the soil wall surrounding her and her finger sunk right into it. Her eyebrows shot up. Micheal had manipulated the water's Ph to a degree of finesse that astounded her. She quickly tapped her sword on the stones beneath her and she used them to float out of the hole. She landed softly and walked over to Micheal as he straightened up swaying slightly.
"You've come far. I have no right to stop you from going now."
Micheal grinned at her as she ordered the sphere to open a door to the outside world. Micheal left first using his rifle as a crutch while Amelia followed more slowly as she measured Micheals mana. It still wasn't enough to summon a servant. He had the control down to a science but…
She sighed and walked out of the marble. As soon as she was fully out of it, it collapsed into itself taking the form of an unassuming cherry oak box
She picked it up and began to move it to its shelf when she stumbled a bit only catching herself on a nearby table. She sat the box down and watched as Micheal sat down heavily on a nearby lab chair. She had opened the marble in the ritual section of her workshop.
"You have the control but-"
"I don't have the mana level. Yeah. I figured that out a month ago."
Amelia pursed her lips at Micheals snark but decided to give him a pass. She snapped her fingers and pushed off the desk as an operating table rose out of the floor nearby. Micheal had looked over at the sound of movement but now eyed the chair warily.
"We don't have time for you to be scared. Sit down. I need to strap you in so I can increase your mana." Amelia said tiredly as Micheal scoffed and looked at her like she was insane. She ground her teeth together too tired to be patient,
"Get in the damn chair."
Micheal's face fell into a frown but he followed her directions laying in the chair with his back facing up.
"Take off your shirt."
Micheal arched an eyebrow but sat up and took off his shirt before laying back down. Amelia strapped him into the table and heard him take a shuddering breath no doubt remembering the what he had been told about how the crest implantation process had gone.
"You were born with your magical circuits already activated," Amelia began explaining as she bit her thumb and dripped blood onto micheals back. As she did so she used her other hand to draw symbols with the blood, "Shocked the literal hell out of me as well. You were a 15lb tesla coil."
Michea grunted clearly wanting this to be over with as soon as possible,
"Arnehearte suggested we seal about 2/3rds of the mana you had at birth so that you couldn't use it until you had better finesse and control over it. Keep your head down I need to focus on drawing these correctly."
Micheal lowered his head that he had raised to look back at her.
"The sealing method we used meant that instead of sectioning off the mana entirely it would grow with you even though you couldn't use it. Do you understand?"
"I understand that I am about to be in a lot of pain." Micheal said icily as Amelia stopped what she was doing to grab an oak dowel. She wrapped it in leather and bent down to hold it in front of Micheals mouth. He grimaced but opened his mouth to bite down in the dowel, Amelia stood back up and walked around to the symbols she had been drawing. She dropped some more blood from her thumb before she healed the injury and placed her right hand in the center of the magic circle she had drawn in her own blood.
"Micheal. Whatever you feel in the next minute. I want you to know I love you."
Micheal grunted and tensed up as Amelia flooded the circle with her mana and Micheal screamed.