Going Rogue

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: See chapter 3 for disclaimer.

He just knew that he shouldn't have tried to learn that last spell – Nekane grounded him for a week last time he fell asleep in the Academy's library. How was he supposed to resist; they didn't have a huge library back in their old town! His old town… But he shouldn't be thinking about that right now; he needed to concentrate on not slipping on wet patches of grass.

Just a few moments later, the little red-head running through a grassy field heard a faint voice cry out for help. Or at least, he thought he did. Firmly planting his feet in the earth, he listened quietly as the morning winds rustled the greenery around him.

There! He dashed off to where the voice was coming from; he wondered if someone was hurt, whoever it was sounded pretty panicky. Maybe this would be a good excuse to tell Nekane when she eventually delivered her scolding?

Pushing through a patch of reeds nearly taller than he was, he came across a strange sight: a snow-white weasel stuck in a miniature bear trap. His confusion turned momentarily to shock when the weasel suddenly spoke, "Hey, you aren't a hunter, are you kid?"

"You're a magical weasel!" He blurted out, amazed at encountering his first wild magical beast. He'd read about all sorts in books, but hadn't imagined they came quite so small.

"Common mistake, kid," the little creature said, "I'm an ermine, of noble ermine-elf descent, to be precise. Now, if you're not planning on eating me, could you give me a hand?" It gestured towards the trap with his forepaw.

"Ah, sure!" the boy said, opening the trap with only minimal effort. Why anyone would want to eat a little weasel – ermine, was beyond him. Almost immediately it tried to bound away into the grass, but fell onto its side instead; his newly-freed leg looked rather red and swollen to the boy. "You're hurt, aren't you?"

"Looks like it," the ermine sighed. "Don't know if I can even walk like this, much less get food."

"Hmm… I think I can heal that for you, if you want." The boy said, pulling out a thin stick with a golden star on it. It could not have been a more stereotypical magic wand.

The ermine perked up significantly, "Could you really? You look a little young to be casting spells."

"Sure! Just let me remember the words… Practe Bigi Nar: May the grace of Jupiter be with you! Cura!" A soft glow coalesced on the young boys wand as he spoke the incantation, only to diffuse as he tapped it against the ermine's injured leg. Its leg glowed for a moment as well, before the redness vanished, leaving the creature to experimentally step with it.

Turning to the boy, it proclaimed, "Kid, I owe you a big debt. You've saved my life once, maybe twice over today – that's a pretty big thing for the Fae, even if I'm only half." It paused, murmuring to itself for a moment. "I can't repay you right now, but in a few weeks I'll be done with some business in the main town. If you give me your name then I'll be able to find you."

The boy hesitated for a moment; he was always warned not to make deals with fairies – but he had just saved this one's life. And from what little he'd read of life debts, they did take those seriously. "Negi Springfield." He eventually said, cautiously.

The ermine nodded. "Careful, aren't you kid? I like that, good to see in youth these days. The name's Albert Chamomile, at your service. Call me 'Chamo' for short."

"Sure, Chamo!" Negi said, smiling widely.

The ermine looked ready to say something else before his ears perked up. "Sounds like whoever set this trap is coming by; I've gotta run. I'll see you later, kid!"

"It's 'Negi', not 'kid!'" the ermine heard him say as he scampered off into the bushes.

"Springfield, huh?" the white weasel mused to himself, "And that hair… I wonder…"

It was nearly a whole month later that Negi heard next from his new little friend. Anya was visiting relatives somewhere in Scotland, and the library was closed on Sunday, which meant that Negi was practicing his magic in the grass behind his and Nekane's house. As he completed the incantation for his magic archer spell – which still had yet to do anything besides make a fizzling flash of light – he heard a familiar voice call out, "You won't get anywhere like that, kid."

Turning around, he instantly spied the white tail sticking out amongst the plants. "Chamo, you're back!"

"I told you I'd be back, kid. And like I said, you're not going to improve if you keep practicing like that."

"What? Why?" He said, confused. He'd been training like that for nearly a year, and he'd improved a lot since he started.

"Because that spell's too much for you to control right now. That light you're getting means you've got the power, but you don't have the finesse. Master spells you can control first, and you can learn more taxing ones faster."

"Huh," Negi said, absorbing the new information. "How do you know that? None of the books I read talked about how to learn new spells, only how to use them."

"Well, I do so happen to be a master at my own personal brand of ermine-elf magic!" Chamo declared, standing on his hind legs and puffing out his chest as he did so.

"Can you teach me?" Negi said abruptly, "Like that finding-person spell, can you teach me that?"

Chamo frowned, "I don't think our magic is that compatible, unless… kid, do you have a familiar yet?"

"No, you're supposed to do that after you graduate, normally."

"Well, that settles that!" he said, producing a piece of chalk from… somewhere. "I'll be your familiar, and you can be my apprentice in the Chamo-style magical arts, among other things. C'mon, over to the patio, it's easier to draw up circles on flat surfaces."

"Oh, you mean a magical circle?" Negi asked curiously, as he watched the ermine scamper around the stone, creating perfectly formed hexagrams and scribbling various sigils around the circle's edge. "And what other things are you gonna teach me?"

"Life stuff," he said, "Stuff that every kid should know but doesn't get caught. Alright, now hop inside."

The circle began to faintly light up as he stepped inside, where Chamo had taken out a needle from nowhere again. He pricked his paw, causing a small dot of red to stain his fur. "Alright, now you poke your finger."

Taking the needle, Negi suppressed a wince as he saw a red drop of blood well up from the puncture. "Now what do I do?"

"Press it against my paw. Basically, it promises that I'll help you if you're in trouble, and that you'll do the same for me. There's a lot more to it, but that's the only obligation you have to remember."

The moment their blood mixed together, the light from the circle rose into a blinding flash, before fading away entirely leaving bare stone beneath them.

After a moment of anticipation, Negi complained, "I don't really feel any different."

"Well, as far as beasts go, magical ermine aren't really high on the scale," Chamo said dryly. "If I was a dragon you'd probably get scale armor or fire breath or something." A beat later, he added, "Of course, you'd probably have died of magical exhaustion trying to contract a dragon, so that wouldn't be the best choice."

Negi pouted, given that having dragon breath was obviously worth any risk. "So what do I get from having you as my familiar, then?"

"Basically, the ability to use ermine magic. Sorry, that's about it, kid. You might get some ermine-like traits later on, but you can never be sure with that."

"Ah…" Negi said, nodding his head sagely. "So does that mean I can find someone with their name, now?"

"Sure, as soon as I teach you how to use your magic ermine style. Since they're made for someone with my rather small level of magic reserves, you won't have any trouble learning them."

"Great!" he exclaimed, more excited than ever. "When can we start?"

"Hold on a second there, kid, I've got something to ask you first. You're looking for someone, right? That's why you want to learn my name locating spell so badly." At Negi's surprised nod, he said, "It's the Thousand Master, isn't it?"

"The who?" Negi asked, perplexed.

"You know, kid, the Thousand Master. Man of a thousand spells? Hero of the Great War? Wait…" he mumbled, "Does he not know?"

"Kid," he said, speaking up, "I'm talking about Nagi Springfield."

"What?" Negi gasped, startled, "Did you know my father?"

"So I was right…" he murmured. "Kid, there's not a single mage in all of the worlds who doesn't know your father's name."

As Negi's eyes went as wide as saucers, Chamo bit back another sigh. "Looks like we're going to have a lot to talk about…"

"Oi, Chamo, who the hell've you been getting your info from? That's the second time this month we caught someone from customs!" complained a hooded figure in a cramped alleyway. Shaking off the traditional magus outfit, a noticeably-taller Negi proceeded to pluck a little white creature out from his hair.

"Sorry 'bout that, kid," the ermine said, "Word is that there's some new management over at the gate, and they've been cracking down on a lot more of us small-time traders. It might be better to keep it to the Old World, for now."

Negi sighed, "And we were so close to being able to get that Elysian artifact, too…" Even at the tender age of nine, Negi had already amassed a startling collection of various magical tools and antiques, which had begun expanding at an even greater rate after Chamo began teaching his various "life skills" to the impressionably young child.

Negi had been skeptical at first about how valuable learning to inscribe magical circles. Even after Chamo described their combat potential, Negi was still reluctant to give up his previous studies of more traditional combat spells. It wasn't until Chamo typed those magic words into Nekane's computer that he finally came around.

The MagiNet. Negi couldn't have ever imagined such a wondrous thing could exist in the world. There was information everywhere! Even the public-access archives were on the level of his first-year textbooks, and the forums that Chamo frequented… well, his burgeoning antiquarian interest turned into a full-time obsession soon afterward.

An obsession which was funded by his growing involvement in the MagiNet's underground markets. It was a quite a shock for Negi, when Chamo revealed exactly how he managed to afford his foreign cigarettes and raw magical materials. Chamo assured him that he refused to deal with the less savory elements of the net, keeping his wares limited to complicated inscribed charms and stored spells and the like; even so, Negi was surprised by how much people were willing to pay for them.

Sometimes it nearly got the both of them caught, like the fiasco they still weren't entirely out of, but it reminded him of the stories he read about of his father. He might not be single-handedly destroying secret evil organizations, but it was still pretty exciting – not to mention good practice for the different spells he'd learnt from Chamo over the past few years.

"Conceal," Negi softly muttered, thankful ermine magic didn't need long incantations. He stared at his hands as they slowly turned the dull red of the brick behind them. Wrapping his cloak around himself like a blanket, he hunched down in the corner of the alley, becoming almost perfectly invisible in the dim light. Seconds later, he heard several sets of feet catching up to him. He couldn't make out the angry mutters of the people at the entrance of the alley, but he could see the ball of light they sent out to scout around his hiding place.

He quietly sighed in relief when the light retreated and his pursuers continued their search down the magical district of Cardiff. "See?" Chamo said, "Ermine magic is pretty resistant against normal detection spells and the like."

"To which I'm eternally grateful," Negi said, stretching out his back, "But yeah, let's stick to the local buyers for the time being. Most of our stock isn't even considered contraband here. Oh, and we should get back soon; we can't have Nekane calling the academy asking for us, can we? Mea virga."

A rustle came from overhead as Negi's staff flew down from where he'd previously hidden it up on the rooftops. "You know what kid, let's get that little artifact of yours; consider it an early graduation present."

"Really?" Negi exclaimed as they lifted off – Chamo was well known for being stingy in his business.

"Sure, sure. You're only down a thousand drachma or so, right? I should help get my little apprentice something for learning the ermine arts so diligently the past years!"

Negi noted in his head he wasn't sure if you could call black market operations an "art," but had to admit that Chamo's magic was all sorts of helpful, and was starting to suspect that he was just starting to make up new spells after Negi had mastered his first four.

"Great, I've been wanting a quality spell ring for a while now!"

"Why do you even want one? You've got your dad's staff, right?"

"Yeah, but it's also big and recognizable; pretty much the opposite of what we want to be when we're trading. Plus, it's rather nerve-wracking to be limited to ermine magic when I'm not with it. Now hold on, we're almost at Nekane's."

"Alright, just drop me off at the ward line, best not let your cousin know we're still talking."

Negi laughed, leaning down into a spiraling descent. "Sis never did like you very much, did she?"

"No, something about 'hanging out with criminal elements' and 'poor influences on a developing boy' and other blather."

"Well… You can't exactly argue with that."

"I don't see you complaining, kid."

"And have I ever?" Negi said, smirking.

"That you have not," Chamo replied, hopping off Negi's shoulder onto the ground. "I'll be gone for the next few months; some problems have been cropping up with my pactio circles, so I'm going around to my bigger buyers to replace them personally."

"But I'll be gone from Wales by then on my journeyman assignment! I know that location spells don't work over long distances. Do you have to go now?"

"Gotta please the customer kid – fifty big ones is nothing to sneeze at, even in ermine dollars. And didn't I tell you? I can use the familiar bond to find you. We'd have to practically be on alternate planes to move beyond range."

"Wow," Negi said – somehow Chamo constantly managed to find new ways to impress him. "Would that work with any magical bond?"

"Oh, sure, if it's strong enough between the caster and the target. Master-apprentice contracts, nearly all blood rites, and of course pactio contracts as well – although probationary contracts wouldn't be as effective." The little weasel looked past Negi at the cottage, before pulling out a small stack of bills from out of thin air. "I think that's Nekane over there, I've gotta go. Here's to hoping you don't get stuck with some boring assignment in the middle of nowhere!"

"Jeez Chamo, you don't have to jinx me that badly. And teach me how to do that sometime, will you?"

Negi heard receding laughter from the bush. "Learn it yourself, kid! An old man needs a few tricks up his sleeve!"

Pocketing the bills, Negi chuckled lightly. "Typical Chamo, dodging border security and still can't deal with Nekane." Although when he thought about it, she did look pretty terrifying when she found out who Negi's "little buddy" was several years back. He still hadn't been able to figure out the spells she used to conjure those thunderclouds…

Keeping his hobbies secret was probably for the best. At least he wouldn't have to worry about her finding out about it anymore. Her or Anya – that girl was way too perceptive for her age. "Hey Nekane!" He called out, waving happily to his older cousin. "You're coming to the ceremony Saturday, right?"

"Of course I am, silly! I'm staying for the whole week so we can all see you off! Now come on in, a growing mage needs their supper, and I made your favorite!"

"Yes!"

Lexicon Negimarum Falsum

Ermine Magic – Of the innumerable species of magical beasts and creatures that occupy the two known worlds, a select minority of them possess the capability to perform magic of their own. Breeds of dragon ad griffin are known for their effective magical barriers, and naiads, dryads, and other elementally-tuned species naturally can use magic of their own. Of them, elves are one of the greatest non-human practitioners of magic, known, respected, and at times feared for their abilities. As an alleged half-elf, Chamo can utilize those branches of magic still unreachable to mages, and share them with his master.

Locate – In the times where accusations of witchcraft were taken deathly serious, there was a greater awareness of the connection between an individual's spirit and body, and their valued possessions. It was common to burn one's hair and fingernails after cutting them, since something that was once a part of you could be used to fuel evil magics. While not so inherently harmful as "traditional" witchcraft, utilizing any object connected to a person to determine their location is a sympathetic magic Negi was understandably eager to learn.

Conceal – "Out of sight, out of mind." While changing the color of skin and clothing may not be the flashiest magic, it is nonetheless effective against targets not possessing considerable magical awareness. Adding an inherent resistance against basic forms of magic detection only makes it a more effective tool, though naturally it is most effective in dark conditions, and is almost completely shattered by quick movements on the part of the caster.

A/N: Yes, there is a new story, and its name is indeed terrible! Updates every... 5 days? For several more chapters, at the least. I'll get a beta for this story soon, so please excuse the inevitable spelling/grammar errors. Now for the fun parts: I always found it rather strange how Chamo supposedly had a life-debt towards Negi when he was five or six at most, yet we see almost none of his influence on him.

Negi just seems entirely too naive for having an enormously perverted and generally street-smart familiar. And the lexicon was honestly one of the best parts of Negima, which is why it's being continued here. If that's not your thing, there won't be anything too plot-relevant in there, just explorations of spells and techniques that would be difficult to include in-story. Till later.