The Destruction of AGFFU - Chapter 4
Tekhne
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Chapter 4 - Something Blue
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T minus 14 hours
Tekhne thought back on all of the events in his life which had led up
to this point.
Yes, it's going to be one of *those* chapters...
He was adopted by a human family at the age of two. He remembered
nothing of his real parents and his foster family had told him
nothing about them. Strangely enough, all of his foster family died
in a series of freak accidents. Both his parents and three of his
brothers had been killed when their car had run over a cliff. The
next day all of his remaining siblings were killed when a ceiling
collapsed on them. Then, at their funeral, all of the rest of his
foster relatives were killed when a meteorite crashed into the
church.
Tekhne had been at home, asleep, during all of these tragedies. At
least, he thought he had been asleep; his memory was a bit unclear...
Tekhne thought back to his first couple of days in AGFFU...
<wavy lines>
He had come to AGFFU to take a course in Black Magery. This involved
studying general spellcasting, the science of magic, the elements,
alchemy/chemistry and offensive magic. It also involved attending
more lectures than Tekhne could count, which is why he was taking
some extra classes in mathematics.
When he had arrived at the front gates of AGFFU he was greeted by a
man by the name of Dibbler, who offered to sell the elf a T-shirt
with the AGFFU logo imprinted upon it. "All the students'll be
wearing them," assured Monsieur Dibbler in his Cockney accent.
"You'll be really pop'lar wearing dis. C'mon sir, how 'bout it?
Only 2000 gil a piece."
"2000?" he had replied. "That's a rip-off! I'll give you 1500."
"1900"
"1600, and not a gil more."
"1750, an' dat's cuttin' me own throat!"
"Deal."
So Tekhne had bought the T-shirt and gone to find his room and
unpack. He also bought one of Mr. Dibbler's fine meat pies.
And so he had started off the next day wearing the T-shirt and
experiencing acute bowel problems. However, it turned out that
Dibbler was right about one thing: all the other students were
wearing the T-shirt - at least, all the other freshmen were... You
see, it had all been a big plan by the seniors to be able to easily
identify and target all of the newbies and play numerous supposedly
funny pranks and tricks on them. It mightn't have been so bad if
the teachers hadn't all joined in.
In most other universities the seniors might play pranks by, say,
throwing eggs at the freshmen, or tarring and feathering them. At
AGFFU they weren't so easy. Newbies sometimes spent entire weeks as
frogs, imps or miniatures. Many of the seniors used the control
spell to great effect. (That's the only reason why Tifa took magic
class.) Look again at that statue of a student in midstride - it's
probably a newbie who's had Stop cast on him and been covered in
grey paint. Or in quick-drying cement. And the things some people
could get up to with the Morph command...
The first lecture Tekhne had attended was "An Introduction to
Magicke" by Dana Crysalis. Turned out that Dana was giving a
complete introduction to magic, intended for students who didn't
even know what it was, yet almost all of the freshmEn had attended,
thinking that something worthwhile could be gleaned. Dana droned
on and on for what seemed like forever. Some students were starting
to fall asleep when Dana finally looked at his watch and said, "Oh,
I'm terribly sorry, it seems my watch has stopped."
"That's no excuse," said one of the newbies. "There's a calendar on
the wall." The student suddenly found himself possessing a somewhat
amphibious complexion.
"Now then, are there any questions?" asked Dana in the tone of voice
that suggested what he really meant to say was: "If you value your
life you will walk out of here immediately." Everyone did, except
for the student that cracked the joke, who had to hop out instead.
After that it was another long lecture from Professor Cid. Now,
don't get me wrong, Cid is a perfectly nice guy, but when you get him
started about airships the old fool never shuts up. So, after a few
minutes of hearing about just how amazingly fantastic airships are,
Tekhne decided to learn from his last lecture and casted haste on
the professor's watch.
Unfortunately Cid looked at the watch before the haste had worn off
and, not knowing much about magic, suddenly screamed, "Oh my Bob!
Time is falling apart!!!! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DDDDIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!"
It just so happened that many of the newbies in the lecture theatre
were willing to believe anything that a professor told them, and
they all suddenly panicked and ran around screaming their heads off.
The panic spread and soon the whole university was in chaos. Most
people didn't have a clue what was going on but rioted just for the
hell of it. Tekhne felt guilty about the incident until he later
discovered that something like that happens every night in AGFFU.
<wavy lines>
Tekhne smiled at the memories. It had been fun here at AGFFU, and
life here was a big contrast to what it had been like at Unseen
University. But it had its low-points, too - a picture of Justin
flashed in his mind. But this spell would make all that go away.
After Karen loved him it wouldn't really matter any more, as long as
they were together...
He remembered back on that fateful day. Everything had gone wrong,
except for her. He had had one of the worst days of his life when
she came along and transformed it into the best. And now it would
be like that day over and over again. He had a feeling that this
spell would completely transform his life and the lives of those
around him. He somehow knew that the next few days would be nothing
like he'd ever imagined; not just for himself, but for everyone in
AGFFU.
If only he realised just how right he truly was...
* * * * *** * * * *
"It is almost time. What shall I do Master?"
"We have already discussed My intentions," He said. "If She
interferes, you know what to do. And make sure the elf does not get
in the way."
"Yes, Master."
* * * * *** * * * *
Eight grey candles were placed in an octogram. Seven of the sides
of the octogram had been chalked in with seven different colours:
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet, the seven
colours of the normal spectrum. There was one space left in the
octogram, one space where no normal colour would go.
At the centre of the octogram the Crystal Bands lay, the two smaller
ones at either side of the larger band. Tekhne stood before the
unchalked side of the octogram with the Crystal Amulet about his
neck and the spellbook on a stand in front of him. He began the
incantations that would change his life completely.
As he went through the rituals of the casting he felt the magical
tension around him rise greatly. It was the magical equivalent of a
storm brewing. Tekhne looked on this as a good sign, meaning that
the love spell would work well and be very effective. But what he
didn't realise was that this was no normal storm; it was a hurricane.
As it happened, there was an actual storm brewing outside, complete
with strong winds, pitch black clouds, deafening thunder and the
occasional stroke of white lightning. Note that this was not as a
direct result of the spellcasting, but was simply for dramatic
effect.
Tekhne chanted and moved his hands around the air at the same time,
weaving the magic, pulling together and shaping the mana around him.
He found that the magic responded quickly, almost urgently, as if it
were desperate to be used. He thought it was simply down to true
love and the fact that he was very horny. But the real reason was
that his body knew what his brain did not. It remembered, and it
desired...
The first candle, the one between the empty line and the red line,
lit. Then the second candle lit, and the red line glowed brightly.
The third candle lit and the orange line began glowing as well.
"Pyros!" he shouted and a roaring column of flames appeared, filling
one quarter of the octogram and stretching upwards, through the
ceiling. Tekhne suppressed a snigger as he heard a scream from the
above floor. He couldn't allow a lapse in concentration now, not
after all he'd been through.
He continued chanting and the fourth candle lit, causing the yellow
line to start glowing. Then the fifth candle lit and the green line
began glowing. "Gaia!" he shouted and a column of shifting earth
appeared next to the fire. There was another scream from above, but
Tekhne did not hear it. All of his senses were now concentrated on
the casting of the spell and nothing else could touch him. The sixth
candle lit and the blue line glowed. Then the seventh lit and the
indigo line glowed. "Aqua!" A column of clear, swirling water
appeared in the third quarter of the octogram.
The spell was well under way now and Tekhne sensed that there was a
huge amount of magic now gathered in the octogram, and yet there was
much more to come. Around the university magical detectors were
going wild, or in some cases exploding, and magically operated
machinery was going haywire. A number of magitek suits crashed out
of one of the science labs, ran into the main quadrangle, and started
break-dancing. High level wizards around the university were having
severe cases of migraine, or in some cases cranial-explosion. Most
people were still asleep and did not notice any of this, but very
soon they would *all* be awake, and they would *all* know exactly
what was going on.
The seventh and final candle lit and the violet line began glowing.
Then the empty line began to be filled by a line moving from the
seventh candle to the first. The line moved slowly at first, but
gradually picked up speed. It seemed to be trying to resist the
movement and squirm from side to side. But Tekhne had it firmly
under control and kept it stuck in place. It was a greenish-purple
colour, and it glowed intensely. It was Octarine, the colour of
magic.
When the octarine line was complete Tekhne shouted "Aero!" and a
column of dense air shot upwards, filling the last quarter of the
octogram. Tekhne weaved his hands through the air like a conductor
in front of an orchestra, and the fourth movement of his symphony was
now at hand. The octogram rose a few centimetres into the air and
began spinning. The revolutions got faster and faster, and as they
did so the edges of the octogram began to smooth out until, finally
it became a circle.
The four elements began mixing and intertwining, and at the same time
the eight colours in the circle began spreading together and merging.
In the end all of the colours had joined together to form a bright
white and all of the elements had joined together to form solid
mana. I would say that solid mana is the most dangerous substance
known to man, but the fact is very few have lived long enough to
realise just how dangerous it truly is.
The circle of white light spread up from the base of the cylinder and
encompassed the whole of the solid mana. There was now a very loud
screeching sound emanating from the cylinder; like hot steam in a
kettle, only much much louder. It was so loud that Tekhne had to
scream the last words of the incantation: "VOCA TA IN NOMIN TEKHNE!"
`Strange,´ thought Tekhne. `This doesn't really seem like a love
spell...´
Tekhne looked down at the spellbook on the stand in front of him and
noticed the position of the Pikachu paperweight on the page. He
moved the paperweight aside and read the words "Daemon Summons".
"Whoops."
But it was too late.
The cylinder of solid mana imploded and exploded at the same time and
the force of a thousand supernovas was applied on a very small space,
puncturing a hole through Reality and out into Unreality. Many
forces tried to barge their way through into the light of reality,
but only one was expecting the rift and only one was strong enough to
overcome all of the others.
The rooms around Tekhne's were blasted apart leaving his room soaring
the sky. In front of the elf appeared a gigantic figure. A spark
of lightning reflected off his dark blue daemonic features. There
was a head with two red glowing eyes and sharply pointed chin, nose
and ears. There was a muscle-bound torso with the look and
complexion of hardened titanium. There were two long arms with
clawed hands at their ends. There were no legs, but rather the torso
sharpened off into a long tail with spike on the end. Four insectoid
wings came out of it's back, making the whole figure look like a
cross between a giant dragonfly and a behemoth, except it was far far
larger than either. Around it's neck and wrists were the Crystal
Bands.
Every muscle in Tekhne's body froze with fear. That is, every muscle
in his body except for the ones operating his bladder, which seemed
to want to go into overdrive.
"AH, TEKHNE," it said from between it's pointed tongue and spike-like
teeth. Its voice was redolent with ancient evil. "YOU HAVE FINALLY
CALLED ME. I AM THE DAEMON, KORSAAK."
"Y-you're a d-demon?"
"NO, NO! I'M A DAEMON, WITH AN 'A'. PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS GETTING THAT
WRONG! IT MAKES ME SO *ANGRY*!!!!!" raged the daemon.
Tekhne's bladder problem disappeared. Well, I say disappeared, but
it actually transformed into a laundry problem.
Suddenly the daemon rocketed himself upwards and hovered high above
the university. "PEOPLE OF AGFFU!" its booming voice reverberated
around the university. Everyone was wakened by the sudden sound and
sleepy heads snapped to attention as they recognised the malevolence
in it's voice. Not even Justin had ever managed to get the students
this awake. For in them now was the sort of alertness that only
comes when one knows that one's very life is in jeopardy.
"I AM KORSAAK, A GREATER DAEMON FROM THE DUNGEON DIMENSIONS,
SUMMONED HERE BY TEKHNE." The elf winced at his mentioning. "I
NOW RULE THIS UNIVERSITY AND ALL OF YOU SHALL BOW BEFORE ME! BY MY
COMMAND ALL PRACTICING OF MAGIC IS PROHIBITED, AS ARE ALL SCIENTIFIC
EXPERIMENTS. FAILURE TO ABIDE BY THESE RULES SHALL BE PUNISHED BY
DEATH AND NOTHING LESS! IF YOU ATTEMPT TP FLEE YOU WILL BE SLAIN!
I AM IN POWER NOW AND ANYONE TRYING TO STOP ME WILL BE DEALT WITH.
I TRUST THIS IS FULLY UNDERSTOOD BY YOU ALL."
Tekhne whimpered and then fainted.
Avenger
[SNIP]
Crap. I have missed all the other chapters in this fic, and, therefore, they do
not yet appear in the Compilation.
Could you e-mail them to me or something? final_...@yahoo.com
- Avenger