Well, after reading the sixty-two messages that weren't in my inbox about
twelve hours ago concerning the future of the FFML, (Did anyone else catch a
reminiscing memory of improfanfic while reading through them?) I felt
compelled to send out an older fic of mine. You can thank me later. :p
Before started, I'd like to question the complete lack of Rune Soldier fics.
An extensive search of the interweb turned up five, all on ff.net. It's a
shame because it's a damn funny and enjoyable show, IMO. But anyway, onto
the disclaimer.
Standard Disclaimer: I, Dragonboy, nor my co-writer and brother Stiel, own
Rune Soldier or anything therein. They are the sole property of Ryo Mizuno
and...ADV Films, I think, and are being used without permission. Enjoy
please! ^_^
----------
Dragon-Stiel Inc. Presents: A True Champion Is...
A Rune Soldier fanfic
Part 1--That Magical Feeling
"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT?!"
Several street merchants and other fine citizens of Ohfun quickly ducked
into safety as the young thief stomped by, looking more than a little bit
livid.
"He just up and vanishes for four days without so much as a word to anyone,
and then no one sees or hears anything from him since! Damned inconsiderate
moron!" the thief continued to rage, leading a passing priest to give a
quick prayer for the soul of whoever it was the lady was referring to.
Merrill, along with her adventuring companions Melissa and Genie, as well as
Ila, had searched every bar and pub in the city without luck. It wasn't as
though they had any reason to go look for him; there wasn't any big
adventure planned or anything, it just wasn't like their beloved (?)
magician/hero to disappear on them like that.
That, and none of them really had anything better to do anyway, and were
willing to do just about anything to fight the boredom.
Merrill's raging soon brought her to the edge of the city. With a heavy
sigh, she was about to turn back when she spotted him.
He stood a few hundred yards out in a field: eyes closed in deep
concentration with his Mage's Staff raised in front of him, glowing brightly
at the tip.
"No way," she muttered. "Don't tell me he's actually practicing his magic?"
She watched silently as Louie's eyes snapped open and he thrust his staff
forward.
"FORBLAZE!" he shouted.
Nothing happened for a few seconds, then a giant pillar of flame shot out of
the ground, completely engulfing Louie within it.
A large sweatdrop appeared on Merrill's head.
The pillar vanished, leaving a very charred and confused Louie.
"Okay, so that still wasn't quite right, but I'll definitely get it next
time. After all, forty-three's my lucky number."
Then he collapsed.
Merrill calmly made her way over to the fallen Rune Soldier and knelt down
beside him. "Don't tell me you've been wasting your time botching up magic
spells like this for the last four days?"
"Hey, I haven't messed up all of them," he said defensively. "I've learned
a lot of new spells in the last four days."
"Such as...?"
"I learned how to levitate things!"
"What kind of things?"
"Small rocks and sticks, mostly, but that's not the point. The point is I
learned how to do it! Oh, I also learned to teleport!"
"How far?"
"My record so far is seven meters," he said proudly.
Merrill shook her head. "Well that should be REAL helpful the next time
you're too drunk to walk to the bathroom."
Louie sniffed indignantly. "Yeah, yeah, make your jokes, but deep down, you
know I'm improving."
"You sure are. You've gone from being a completely useless magician to
being an almost completely useless magician."
Louie drooped. "You're so mean, Merrill."
"Maybe I wouldn't be so mean if you'd learn some magic that we could
actually use on our adventures," she retorted.
Louie suddenly brightened and jumped to his feet. "Well if that's what you
want, wait till you check out my new fire magic!"
"If you're talking about that spell you just used to flamb� yourself with, I
wasn't impressed," Merrill told him.
"Naw, that's a more advanced spell and I haven't mastered it yet. But watch
this!"
Louie raised his staff again and quickly began chanting.
"FIREBALL!"
A flaming orb shot from the tip of his staff and flew towards a nearby
boulder, blowing it into a shower of fiery rubble.
Louie laughed triumphantly. "Ya see that? What'd you think?"
Merrill stared blankly at him for a few seconds, then smiled the most
insincere smile that she could muster. "Congratulations Louie, you've been
a magician for god knows how many years and you've finally mastered the most
basic of all fire spells!"
Louie drooped again. "You can tone down the sarcasm at any time now."
"But it's so much fun!"
Louie stared at her for a second and grew thoughtful. "Hey Merrill?"
"What?"
"I was just wondering, you know, you and the other girls all badmouth me and
hit me quite a bit, but you do it like it's going outta style or something."
Merrill frowned. "What's your point?"
"I was just thinking that maybe the reason you do that is because you
secretly want me."
"GET A CLUE, DUMBASS!!" the thief bellowed as she sent him flying with a
mighty punch to the jaw.
Louie crashed to the ground as Merrill spun around and stormed back into the
city.
"Frickin' idiot! Want him!? As if anyone..."
Louie lay on the ground, holding his jaw in pain. "A simple 'no' woulda
sufficed, you know," he mumbled.
----------
Part 2--Doubts Over Draughts
"So he's really been practicing his magic out there for the last four days?"
Merrill, Genie, Melissa and Ila had regrouped to a local pub after
discovering the whereabouts of Louie, and were now in the process of doing
what they always did when they weren't adventuring: drinking and insulting
the Rune Soldier.
"You should have seen him," Merrill told them. "He's out there trying to
learn some of the most basic magic in existence, and he gets so proud of
himself whenever he performs a spell without injuring himself in some way."
"So what's with the sudden urge to start learning magic now?" Genie
wondered.
"I think I know," Ila informed them. "The day before he left, Louie was
asking me lots of questions about why so many of the spells he was casting
were going wrong."
"What did you tell him?" Melissa asked.
"Because he's an idiot?" Merrill guessed.
"No, I just told him that some people are more adept at certain spells over
others, and I advised him to practice with a few of them and see which ones
he could handle. I have to admit though, I didn't expect him to be working
at it for four days straight."
"Well, that still doesn't explain why he took off without telling any of
us." Genie grumbled.
Ila's mind drifted back to the rest of the conversation she and Louie had
had.
"I'll just have to learn the most kick-ass magic in the book! That'll shut
those girls up for sure! I won't have to listen to anymore of Genie's 'You
stupid greenhorn!', or Melissa and her 'Oh Mylee, this is against my will!',
or Merrill and her 'What kind of magician can't use magic?'. I'll be the
greatest damn magician they've ever seen! EVER! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"I have no idea." she said finally.
"So do you actually think that moron can master _any_ useful magic?" Merrill
asked her.
"Well, I did suggest Fire magic to him."
"And I've seen how well that turned out." Merrill mumbled.
"Why would you want a loose cannon like Louie to learn fire magic?" Melissa
asked.
"It just sounded right for him, I guess. After all, fire is meant to
symbolize strength, courage, and passion, and that sounds just like Louie,
right?"
Genie snorted. "If by strength you mean built like a gorilla and just as
dumb-"
"And by courage you mean jumping into any battle or fistfight just for the
fun of it-" Melissa added.
"And by passion you mean being a dirty, skirt-chasing pervert-" Merrill
added.
"Then yes, that sounds just like him." they all finished together.
Ila just chuckled and took a long drink.
The group sat in relative silence until several people burst through the
doorway in a mixture of horror and grief, quickly catching the attention of
the entire pub.
"Wonder what's up." Merrill whispered.
Ila stood up. "Those are some of my classmates from the guild. I'll go see
what's wrong."
The three women watched as Ila began conversing with them, then her face
quickly turned to shock and she ran back to the table.
"What's wrong?" Genie asked.
"Big trouble!" she told them.
----------
Part 3--Opportunity Comes A Knockin'
Louie walked back through the streets of Ohfun, feeling a mixture of pride
and frustration.
Pride, because he'd made some great improvements in his sorcery in the last
four days.
Frustration, because for all his improvements Merrill was still badmouthing
him and he knew that Melissa and Genie wouldn't be any different.
He absently kicked at some gravel on the road. Just what did those girls
expect from him anyway? After all, before he had met them he hadn't given a
flying flip about magic, or anything else besides booze, women and fighting
for that matter. He probably would have given up magic completely by now if
it hadn't been for them.
So maybe he was a novice who was way behind all his classmates and preferred
to fight with his fists rather than his sword or staff, it still got the job
done, didn't it?
And the whole thing probably wouldn't even have been such a big thing if it
weren't for Melissa and her whole 'serving a hero' thing. Was it his fault
that all the greatly-known heroes were supposed to be sword-wielding,
white-horse-riding knights in bright, shiny armor?
No, it wasn't, and yet that's exactly what she expected him to be. And
where was the fun in that? He didn't want to be just another hero like all
the others. He wanted to be the hero that stood out from the rest. When
people saw him he wanted them to say 'Look at that Louie, he's not like any
other hero around, but dammit, he's still great!'
Louie grinned at the image, then sighed. That obviously wouldn't be
happening for a long time. Right now, the Rune Soldier was in dire need of
a beer.
As he neared one of his favorite pubs, he reached for the door, only to have
it fly open and smash into his face.
"Oh Louie, thank goodness!" Ila said from the doorway next to Merrill, Genie
and Melissa. "This is terrible!"
"I'll say!" Louie said as he clutched his face. "I dink you jus broke by
dose!"
"Louie, this is serious! The Magician's Guild has been overrun by demons!"
"WHAT?!"
"I just heard the news myself." she said grimly. "It happened just a few
hours ago. A large horde of demons appeared at the other edge of town, then
headed straight for the guild."
"But that's impossible! Gramps would have-"
"Master Carwess received an urgent letter from a nearby village two days
ago." she interrupted. "He and several of the other teachers left to see if
they could help. There hasn't been any classes since then, either."
Louie shook his head. "Man, of all the rotten luck. Having my old man get
called away right before an assault on the guild!"
"God, you're thick!" Genie grumbled. "The letter was obviously a fake to
get them away in order to _allow_ the demons to get inside!"
Louie grimaced. "Oh man, this is bad."
"Indeed." Melissa said as she bowed her head and clasped her hands together.
"Think of all the young students who-"
"If gramps finds out that the Guild was taken over while he was gone, he's
gonna blame me for sure!" Louie cried.
"IDIOT!!" Merrill shouted while giving him a swift kick to the head. "This
isn't about you!"
"Melissa is right, though." Genie said. "With the guild master and the
teachers gone, any students still in the guild will be at the mercy of those
demons."
Louie scratched his head. "Yeah but...if there weren't any classes, then
the guild was probably empty, right?"
The women gave him a hard look.
"Believe it or not, Louie," Ila told him. "There are actually some students
who use their days off to _study_ rather than hang around bars all day. And
yes, there were approximately a hundred students in the guild at the time of
the attack."
"Damn." Louie muttered.
"So what do we do?" Genie asked.
"Whatdaya mean, 'what do we do'?" Louie shouted. "We go and save them,
that's what!"
Merrill facepalmed. "I _knew_ he was going to say it, but it still doesn't
lessen how much of an idiot I think he is for it."
"Louie," Ila said softly. "We all want to help them, but the guild is
filled with over two thousand demons, including a group of dark elves:
demons who are impervious to almost all forms of magic."
"All the more reason to go and save them!" Louie shouted. "You seem to
forget, everyone trapped in there are novice magicians. They may be better
at it than I am, but unlike me, they don't have their fists to fall back on
against magic-resistant demons!"
Melissa sighed. "This is against my will! Louie, you do realize that what
you're suggesting is suicide, right?"
"Has that ever stopped me before?" he demanded.
There was a long silence.
"You really, really are not going to live a long life, you know?" Genie
said.
Louie crossed his arms. "Look, you guys do what you want, but that's _my_
home and those are _my_ classmates that are trapped there. If you don't
wanna help me, that's fine. I can handle a couple thousand demons on my
own."
Louie turned and headed in the direction of the Sorcerer's Guild, stopping
only briefly to grab and chug a bottle of sake from a street vendor, then
continued on as the women stared at him with mixed feelings.
"I hate when he acts all heroic like that." Merrill fumed.
"This is against my will." Melissa said.
"No matter how good we all are, we can't hope to beat an entire army of
demons." Genie stated.
"This is so against my will." Melissa said again.
"But we can't just leave all those students there to die, can we?" Merrill
asked.
"This is really, really, against my will!"
Everyone was silent for a long moment.
"You know," Ila said casually. "Since Louie seems dead-set on doing this-"
"Nice choice of words." Genie interrupted.
"-This might be a good opportunity to make up for that Magical Weather
Control Device quest that you all had to keep quiet about. I'm sure that
people near and far would cheer for the hero who saved the Magician's Guild
from an army of monsters."
Melissa's eyes slowly glazed over and an unhealthy-looking smile appeared on
her face.
Merrill glared at Ila. "Sometime, someday, when you're least expecting it,
I'm going to kill you in your sleep." she growled.
Ila just smiled. "Shall we be on our way?"
-----------
That's all we've got for you for now. I hate to jinx us like I normally do,
but we'll try to get the next parts out within the week. Til then.
Dragon-Stiel Inc.
Ten years behind the times, but writing just to spite you!
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