CHAPTER 3

Louise was desperate. She had never succeeded in anything. Everything she did had always gone wrong. The summoning ritual of their familiar was her only change to prove everyone that she could do something right, that she was a noble and worth her title. They would finally give her the respect she deserved and no one would call her Zero again.

Those had been her thoughts the night before. She had studied the ritual with many different books and was confident that she would be able to summon the most powerful familiar. She had even bragged about it by the other students. Now she regretted doing so. She had lost her confident over night when she had thought about the worst possible outcomes that could happen. What if she only caused an explosion again? What if she didn't summon any being at all? Or worse, what would happen if nothing happened at all?

She dreaded the moment were it would be her turn and tried to disappear in the crowd, but no such luck. When Mr. Colbert had asked if they had all their turn she had thought that she somehow had succeeded in her attempt to disappear but that Kirche just had to say that she still hadn't. With that she was called to the front while having to bear all the looks the other students threw at her. In front she prepared herself for the worse scenario and started to chant the spell required for the summoning ritual.

"My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers, heed my summoning, and bring forth my Familiar!" She had thought about using her own chant but had stopped herself. It was a childish chant that she had thought of and it definitively wouldn't have worked. It would also have given the other students a reason more to make fun of her. She pushed her thoughts to the corner of her mind and concentrated on the flow of her magic power. An explosion occurred but it had been expected and the students had already moved to a safe distance. It wasn't really surprising since Louise always created nothing but explosions. The smoke slowly cleared to reveal nothing, nothing at all. The students started to laugh and Louise wanted to disappear or at least be deaf so she wouldn't hear the insults that were thrown her way. She scraped all her courage together that she still had and looked at Mr. Colbert before asking.

"Can I please try one more time?" The desperation could be clearly heard as she said that. He had already moved his mouth and was about to say no when he heard the desperate tone in her voice and the pleading look on her face. He closed his mouth and thought about it for a moment. He knew about Louise's problems and it wouldn't hurt to at least let her try one more time.

"Very well Miss Vallière, you can try one more time." The grateful look she gave with was enough to prove him that he did the right thing. Louise had already decided that if he would say yes and allow her to try again that she would use her own chant. It may be childish but she needed to try something else since the normal one hadn't worked, even if she would die from shame through it, if it did something and made something appear than it was at least worth a try. She readied herself and started to chant her own spell while concentrating on her magic.

My servant that existed somewhere in this vast universe.

My divine, beautiful, wise and powerful servant, heed my call.

I wish from very bottom of my heart and add to my guidance.

Appear!"

She put every ounce of power that she had behind her words. She put all her hope in those few words and for the first time she wasn't rewarded with another explosion. A circle started to appear on the ground and a similar one in the sky with runes and symbols that they had never seen before. Rings with similar symbols started to appear out of thin air and moved above the circle on the ground and below the one in the sky. Soon the circles and rings, which had been blue before started to shine a red so intense that they all had to close their eyes to not go blind. A loud cracking noise that almost destroyed another of their senses was the only thing that they noticed before the shine stopped and the summoning ritual ended. Where the circle had been before was now a very wide rip on the earth crust where very hot steam and smoke was coming out.

The smoke cleared, giving all of them all a good view of what Louise had summoned and not even a second after they started to laugh. It looked from head to toe like a commoner. The 'human' before them had very strange looking clothes on but they were dirty and on some places ripped. Louise had a hard time holding back her tears. Why did she always have to fail? Soon Kriche made another hurtful comment that started a verbal fight between the two. Louise knew that she was a failure but she didn't need others to tell her. She hated Kirche for always rubbing dirt into the already open wound. Still sometimes she was a bit grateful since the fights with Kirche let her concentrate on something different then what the others said, how they looked at her and how she felt about her own failure.

The students were so concentrated on mocking Louise that no one really paid attention to her familiar that had already woken up. Had they taken a closer look at his body or the things that happened to him after he awoke then they probably would have noticed that he couldn't quite be called a commoner or a human. Since they didn't, they hadn't noticed the little details that would have distinguished him from other humans, like how the young boy seemed to have little scales all over his body that suddenly disappeared or the golden eyes that changed to brown after he had awoken. They also didn't see how he suddenly breathed fire from his mouth and reformed it into a different shape. The ones that noticed could only stare in wonder. Colbert who was the only one from the humans that noticed was very interested to what this human was. The familiars only knew that he was dangerous and they should stay away from him.

Duncan was bored. He hadn't been allowed to leave the cave for a while now. His father had ordered him to study and he wasn't allowed to leave till he finished the exercise. He had lived with his father for a while now. His love had died young because of an accident and his mother had died soon after from an illness. He didn't want much human contact after that and so he had moved to his father to live with him. His father gave him a huge smile on the day when he moved in with him but there was a hidden sadness in that smile. Duncan knew that his father would have already guessed why he suddenly moved in with him the second he had seen him. Duncan hadn't wanted to move in with him for the reason that he wanted to live with his love and with his mom and moving to his father meant that those connection would have disappeared. His father had soon concluded correctly that his own love and the love his son had died through whatever means. He didn't ask thought and Duncan was grateful for that. He still mourned the loss of those close to him.

He was about to die from boredom when a blue shimmering oval appeared right before him and before he could even do so much as move or react he felt a pull coming from it and blacked out. When he awoke again he found himself in the middle of a field, before him many humans in weird uniforms that stared at him. It didn't take long before their attention moved away from him to a pink haired girl. They started to argue about something while completely ignoring him. He took the time to look at his surroundings. It didn't take long before he concluded that he was in some kind of front curt from a castle with a bunch of people that looked like students. A teacher who was watching his every move with interest stood a few meters away from him. He thought back on the oval that resembles a mirror and how it had pulled him in. Duncan remembered how his father had told him about those things. They were signs that you were summoned by someone. So he had probably been summoned by the pink haired girl that stood closest to him and she had had the power to pull him into another dimension since it could only be that. Only then did he notice that something was wrong with his own spell that he had cast on his body. He had changed to a half dragon without remembering doing it. Maybe he did it out of self defense when he had been pulled into the oval. He quickly changed back so that his whole body looked human. He looked up only to notice that no one expect the teacher had even as much as looked at him since the beginning and his pink haired summoner was now engaged into a fierce verbal battle with a red haired girl.

It was soon after that his boredom had had started to let itself be noticed again so he tried to occupy himself with his fire breath. It didn't take long for it to also bore him so he tried to look for something else that would interest him. His eyes soon fell on the animals that stood next to the group of students. They were probably other beings that had been summoned from this dimension by the students. There was also a dragon between the animals but it was on a very small size compared to his dad. He would even say it was puny and he wondered if it was because it still hadn't grown fully or if the dragons were so small here in general. Still he went over to the animals and looked at them. The animals instinctively took a few steps away from him. Their instincts told them that he may have a human form but wasn't a human and they felt how he radiated power and might with every step he took. They knew that he was dangerous and weren't so dumb as to fight him even if they had the higher number. Their instincts screamed at them to flee and hide but the contract they had stopped them from doing just that.

Duncan went to the salamander with the burning tail right away since it had caught his the most. The flying eyeball was also fascinating but the salamander radiated more warms and he liked it warm. He stretched out his hand to pet him but the salamander flinched away. He didn't let that stop him from petting the salamander nonetheless. Soon the animals noticed that the being before them didn't show any hostility toward them and the bravest ones even went a few steps toward him. He started to pet them as well and soon he was surrounded by animals of all kind. The warmth they radiated and the feeling of being safe started to make his eyes heave and it was soon after that they closed and he fell into a dreamless sleep. Soon he lay on the ground, curled together and snoring softly while the animals around him moved a bit closer to him to also get a bit warmth that he radiated.

Louise and Kirche had finally stopped their fight when Louise finally noticed that her familiar had disappeared. She quickly started to looked around in fear that her familiar had maybe run away and that would give the other kids even more reasons to make fun of her. It was Mr. Colbert that pointed at the spot that her familiar had moved to. Her familiar was lying curled up in the middle of the other familiars that had been summoned. When she looked at her familiar she remembered her own failure and was about to ask Mr. Colbert if she could try again when she remembered what happened the first time and that he had already allowed her a second chance. At least this time she had summoned something. Maybe the next time she couldn't even do that.

"Miss Vallière you need to finish the contract!" Mr. Colbert cut true her musing like a knife through butter. She didn't want to but she also wanted to have at least a familiar of her own. With a crestfallen and forfeit look she started to move toward the human, no commoner that she had summoned and was ready to precede the contract between her and her familiar when she suddenly heard a hiss that was followed by many other noises. She looked down to see that the other familiars had moved in front of her own in a protective manner and were now glaring and hissing at her. She took a step back out of surprise and fear and looked at her teacher Mr. Colbert and the other students for help.

"Call your damn familiars back or do you think it is funny that they are hissing at me?" She was about to accuse them that they had on purpose ordered their familiars to do that just to mock her when she noticed the confused looks that had formed on their faces. They soon started to call for their familiars but they didn't move away from their protective spot in front of her familiar and moved even farther back. It was when they had begun to shout that a few of the familiars moved toward them, but they were still small in number and the most remained on their spot. The shouting proceeded for a few moments before everyone became quiet. The commoner had awoken through their shouting and was now yawning and stretching in front of them. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. The first think he saw was the flame from the tail of the salamander and so he began to resume the activity of petting the said salamander that started to purr out of delight.

Louise, noticing her change since the familiars were distracted with trying to catch her familiar's attention and quickly closed the distance between her and her familiar. A few steps away from him she stopped and looked down. She notice how his eyes moved toward her before it wandered away again. It didn't take long for her to become angry since even a commoner seemed to ignore her and didn't give her the prober respect she deserved.

"Commoner, what is your name?"She asked out with a cold tone and his eyes moved to her still form a second time. Only now did she notice that they seemed to glow a bit golden but she tried not to think about it too much. It was probably through the light.

"Duncan" her familiar said simply and short. The look he gave her seemed to be out of disinterest and she almost hit him because of it. She was a noble and could control her emotions. She gritted her teeth and leaned forward.

"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 gave him a quick kiss on the mouth before quickly making distance between them again.

Duncan looked up to see a little girl with strawberry colored hair. She had just asked him what his name was, or more like commanded it. Two things confused him when she did. The first thing that confused him was that she had spoken French and not the language that he was used to. At the same time he was never more thankful than at this moment that his dragon mind even thought half human could proceed and learn thinks much quicker than any average human one and that he had learned the different languages that existed on earth when his boredom had been too great. The second thing that confused him was that she had called him commoner. The different between commoners and nobles hadn't existed since a long time ago in his dimension. Did that mean that here they were still existing? He didn't like the thought of that.

The next words that she spoke broke him out of his own musing and before he could even understand what happened she gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. He was about to open his mouth to breath fire out of instinct when he stopped himself. There should be a plausible reason for that kiss. He had learned from his mother and father that not everything is always as it seems.

Suddenly he felt something burn itself into his skin along his neck that stretched itself from under his ear to the beginning of his shoulder blade on his left side. It wasn't really that hot and so he wasn't really in any discomfort that normal humans would fell. He touched it with his fingers only to find out that some kind of symbols or runes that he didn't know had engraved themselves into the side of his neck. He looked up to the pink haired girl with a confused and questionable look so she would explain to him.

"What did you do just now?" He asked in a calm manner but underneath that calms was a tornado of thoughts that were making him go crazy.

"I formed a contract with you. You should be grateful that you received a kiss from me, a noble you commoner. It was a sign of contract but never less a kiss. Still don't think to high of yourself because of it." Louise felt her confidence return to her while talking to her familiar. It wasn't very noble like but she would let out her anger at him. He would at least be good for something. What he suddenly said thought surprised her since she hadn't expected anything like that.

"We are so screwed." He said out loud while letting his head fall into his open palms. Everyone in around him became curious. What did the commoner mean by that? Duncan himself thought about his dad and he wouldn't be happy to hear what had happened to him.

"What do you mean?" Louise asked letting her curiosity take over. Everyone was thankful for that since they were all wondering the same. Duncan looked up again before answering the question truthfully.

"My dad will come when he noticed that I disappeared. He had ordered me to study while he is away." Duncan didn't even want to think what his father would do. Duncan also knew that his father had the power that would let him travel between different worlds and that he could follow the magic that had been left behind in the cave to this world. Duncan had quickly learned that his dad was very overprotective of him and when he thought that someone threatened his son's life he would kill them without mercy. It would be a massacre.

"What could the commoner father of yours do?" Louise asked. If the father attacked them he would be death before he could even move as much as a finger. She had an image of a man with a hoe raised above his head and attacking them in her head. The man wouldn't last a second.

"What do you mean with commoner?" Duncan asked already making up his mind that he wouldn't tell them what he was but also wouldn't let them think that he was of a lower statue. They would probably treat him like dirt. He also wouldn't technically be lying since his father was a king, just not over human beings."My father is a king, not a commoner!" The students around him and mostly the girl before him started to gasp like fish.

"That can't be true! Your father can't be a king. You don't even act like a prince!" The girl before him screamed. He seriously needed her name. He couldn't call her girl all the time. He mused a bit about her sentences for a bit before he answered:

"I lived with my mother for a long time. She was normal." That also was true, just not the way they thought. "When I meet my dad he suddenly declared me his heir since I was his only son. I didn't really know him before that" That was also true since he had never meet his dad before that. "I started to live with him after my mother fell ill and died from her illness so I am not very prince like and don't know much about how I should carry myself or how I should talk." They all stared in disbelieve at him. They still didn't believe him but that would at least be a plausible reason to why he didn't act like one. There was only a little chance that he what he said was true but if it was and they treated him with disrespect that could mean war between two countries.

"Is the army from your father strong?" Someone from the crowd suddenly asked. Duncan smiled a little at the memory. He didn't really need to think about that.

"My father burned down a whole city one time all on his own so you could say that he is very strong. My mother stopped him thought before he destroyed everything so the city still stands." Duncan had a few flashbacks from when his mother told him how she had met his father and what he had heard from stories about that incident. He didn't notice the look of pure horror that some of the students before him had or how some of them looked at him with skeptic looks.

Louise herself was one of the people that looked skeptic but she also had a look of horror on her face since she didn't really know what to think or do anymore. She had just now found out that the familiar she had summoned probably wasn't a commoner but a prince and that his father was a very strong individual. She might have just caused a war between two countries to start if what her familiar said was true.

"Mr. Colbert, can I somehow break the contract?" She finally asked hopefully. Maybe she could still undo her actions. Her hope was ruined when her teacher looked at the ground with a grim look and shocked his head. This contract could only be broken when one of them died and he wouldn't allow her to kill herself. Louise just looked shocked at the ground before falling to her knee, the overuse of her magic to summon her familiar and the news what her actions could mean finally taking a tool on her.