498 Faceless - White-Serpent Pirates
AN: Shout-out to Tobizone for supporting the work at Ko-Fi
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Sunday, 11 June 1989
Diagon Alley
11:00 pm
The meow woke her up as if it had entered her dreams. As instructed.
Darcie lazily twisted on the bed before sitting up and blinking away the blurriness. On her lap, a palm-sized black kitten with red eyes was resting on its hind legs, purring gently.
Darcie snatched him up and cuddled hard. She was excited. Too much, in fact.
Mr. Ollivander had finally nodded to her request. She was going to learn it. The Wandlore.
And that, too, starting the very next day. The rush of excitement awakened her completely. In her arms, the kitten winced in pain, terror, and doomed anticipation.
"I am not that bad!" Darcie said, flicking the kitten's forehead. "You need another lesson, Lea. A thumping good one!"
The kitten, Lea; the transfigured 3-years old Nundu, Leander, meowed.
He was Madam Villanelle and Millicent Bagnold's (-the minister of magic-) gift to her on her birthday. She had been asking them to let him live with her for ages! Like, seriously… She had used a storming Lethifold as a headband on her birthday, for god's sake! Couldn't they see it?
Moreover, remaining away from Darcie was bad for him. Leander was no ordinary magical creature. He was her Spirit Companion.
Only last week did the minister and her mentor thought it was safe enough for her to have him. But not before transfiguring him into this cute-looking kitten.
Darcie grabbed Lea from the back of its neck like a rag-doll and slid out of her bed.
She pulled the suitcase out from under her bed and stepped down.
Not much had changed about the library within the suitcase, other than the sheer number of books that now decorated the shelves in a pristine, orderly manner.
Bookshelves were not only divided by type but also by region. India, China, Philippines, Brazil, Russia, Arctic, Mexico, hidden European societies, and the remotest and most terrifying voodoo circles from Africa.
Over 1 year it had taken them. To know and remember them all.
Darcie walked lazily toward the hearth, a fire burning in it even now. In her hand, Lea, the Kitten, dangled like a doll, and he kept meowing as if saying - Now, look. Let me go, lady! Come on!
Darcie began humming, instead.
She kept walking and walking toward the hearth, uncaring of the flames that were only a foot away from her.
And then, shockingly, she entered the flames.
The entire wall rippled like a mirage, as if someone had thrown a stone into a tranquil lake.
On the other side, a different world awaited her.
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Kai walked out of the library and entered his kingdom.
This was a grand world, or at least, it looked like one. A giant serpent-headed white spire was towering in the middle of it.
On top of the serpent's head, the Jolly Roger of White-Serpent Pirates fluttered majestically, or wickedly.
In front of the white-serpent spire, there was a giant lake, and behind it, there was a giant forest.
On the spire's left, there were domed buildings for different purposes, including a Botanical Garden, 3 Scientific Labs, and a Training Center. On its right, there was a grand manor, not as tall as the spire itself, but still grand, nonetheless.
Kai dropped the kitten, who meowed at him, but licked his naked feet the next moment.
He narrowed his eyes at him.
Specific. Belief. Intention.
Madam Villanelle and Millicent Bagnold were unknown to Darcie's transfiguration prowess. He wasn't.
The kitten swelled and became a waist-high leopard-lion-like creature. Well, waist-high was an exaggeration because his waist was lower now.
The creature's skin was gray-green-black, and there were many needle-like hairs around its neck, like a mane. When the change stopped, Leander, the Nundu, stepped on the grassland and let out a powerful roar.
Kai reached out and caressed its back. "Go!" he said, pointing toward the forest. "I will call you when it's time to go."
Grrr!
The Nundu growled and licked Kai's fingers, and then with a powerful jump, it ran off toward the forest.
Kai looked into the distance and noticed that Leander's roar had announced his arrival.
He gave the blurry wall behind him a look and walked toward the spire.
This wall was no mere Concealing Charm.
It contained the breath of Bounded Fields in it.
Kai still couldn't implement what Darcie had learned from the two ghosts in these years about the Bounded Fields. Nevertheless, with her boundless magic and his mastery over the Parselscript, Kai had finally succeeded in creating what he called a Lesser Bounded Field.
The weakness of this magic was obvious. In the end, it wasn't a Bounded Field. Thus, the world and powerful wizards could still find it if they wanted to.
The strength almost countered its weakness, though.
It didn't need the continuous pouring of magic to remain in action.
Kai strolled with his naked feet on the grass and neared the white-serpent tower. Suddenly, a black cloak descended from the sky and wrapped around him like a robe.
Two Dementors followed the Lethifold and posted themselves behind him like sentries. His children.
Despair was their identity. A Despair that couldn't sway him anymore. He had become and achieve something more than that.
Time did that to people. And so did Love, Friendship, and Power.
As he crossed the lake, where a scarred Croconaw (-the evolved form of Totodile-) was leisurely swimming with his eyes closed, his eyes landed on the three ladies.
Item-M, now a 6th-floor Contestant, was dressed in a green-yellow dress, contrasting the brown color of her eyes. Her red hair was loose and angelic. When she saw him, she beamed and kneeled. "Your majesty."
He hadn't made them call him that. They did, anyway. They all did.
Item-S was dressed in a long red greatcoat, a manifestation of her Spawn's powers. She could manipulate her "flesh" to regain her old looks, she had told him. And now she was a 5th-floor Contestant after following the well-laid-out plans of his Party members.
She didn't smile, but kneeled, a touch more eagerly and loyally. "Your majesty."
Item-E, Moraine the Elegant, stood tall, dressed in a bulging red t-shirt and denim jeans. She had ascended to the 7th floor already.
Moraine looked down at him, her pupils trembling. The marquise-shaped, black sealing mark on her forehead flashed in the false light.
Fear was and would remain the greatest source of loyalty.
But Kai had stopped believing that he could or should do all the menial things by himself. Not when he was needed to complete a near-impossible task, given by Death itself; Itself, better to say.
He hadn't told Moraine and Red Sun about his Glitch outright. Still, it was hard not to guess a few things when they saw him like this.
Kai hadn't changed his beliefs, but his vision had expanded drastically. The changes that would have felt too superfluous, erratic, and sudden to others, only he, Cersei, and other Book Characters knew the truth about them, and their history.
There was nothing sudden about his decisions. He had just grown and lived a millennia-long life in an instant.
If there was a defiant look in Moraine's eyes once, then now there was nothing but pure reverence.
Moraine looked at him as if she was looking at a god. A Blasphemy!
She dropped to her knees. "Your majesty."
As the Captain, Kai had the privilege of assigning missions to his Party Members anytime he wanted. The thing was, time differed between the Primordial Tower and Harry Potter World (-this one-) because of D-Mail. Hence, though he had called them here for 2 years, now they were stuck with him for 10, with only one mission.
Assist him with his mission.
This he had done almost a year ago with Item-M, then Item-S, and with the others.
All magical contracts had been fulfilled, too. And there was something else he had done.
Kai looked toward the lake again, but this time his gaze went deeper... toward the depths.
There, in the dark blues, he could barely make out the outline of something enormous, like dozens of feet large egg.
Among the two eggs he had given Professor Elm, one was an egg of the Golden Snidget.
The other was that of a Runespoor.
As per the contract, after hatching, Kai could take one of them. Obviously, he had taken the Runespoor, whose true age, if counted from when the egg was laid, must have been a thousand at least.
And, obviously, he had fed the magical creature to Selene.
She had always remained on the verge of evolution, only held back by Island X's setting and restriction. The moment she devoured the snakelet, she shed her skin and became an egg.
She had been evolving ever since, going through who knows what changes for the last two years.
Kai was still brooding over Selene, when a black blur tore through the clouds of his kingdom, and landed with a boom between him and the three Items.
Armored in black, with bat-like wings, his prize stood there with her otherworldly curves.
They had rebuilt the armor, along with all things they could, based on the technologies they had developed during the over 1300 years of life in the 3rd Stage. Still, that technology had used Yautja materials as the basis, making it impossible to replicate in its entirety.
The black armored twisted and rolled toward her back like a backpack. Her wings disappeared, and so did her tight shadow suit.
What remained was a beauty, like no other.
Well, Item-M had her head down, so she didn't count now.
A Cersei of 20, the beginning of her prime, walked toward him, smiling, giggling, and shaking her head.
Kai smiled back at her. "Follow us," he said. "And call those two fools to the Throne Hall."
Kai and Cersei walked by the three kneeling figures. Behind them, Item-M flicked her hand, sending a paper figurine toward the labs.
They entered a grand hall, with a high-back throne propped up on one side on a dais.
Kai sat down on it, his feet dangling in the air. The Dementors hovered behind him, swaying, their breaths rattling.
Cersei took a chair by his side, a step lower than him. But not too far for her to not touch his hair, pushing them back around his ears.
"Stop it."
"But it's so fun!" Cersei pouted.
In front of them, on a long table, with chairs facing toward him, Item-M, Item-S, and Item-E took their seats.
"I HAVE COME!" the doors threw open with a bang, and Rintaro walked in, carrying what looked like a mouse, but, somehow, different. "Hahaha!"
Even if Kai were to give them the Book, it was not possible for the two Characters to remain out at the same time and yet be out of the 8 ft range from each other.
But Rintaro and Kai had successfully developed the device that could imitate Book's signature within this Concealed kingdom of his, letting them walk around freely.
The constraint of only 2 Characters out of the book remained, though.
Otherwise, one would have easily figured out that all three Characters had undergone tale-upgradation in these 2 years.
Item-R, Red Sun, wearing white a white lab coat, followed Rintaro, mumbling to himself. When he saw Kai sitting on the throne, his eyes bulged. "Mother of my grandparents! You little rascal! That's the throne of my old buddy! Who let a little girl sit there, huh?!"
Kai looked at the 10th-floor Contestant and the corners of lips twitched ruefully.
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AN: 2 years... We will cover all things one by one. But another skip is coming not too far.
A Question?
Q: Did you catch the most important keyword hidden in this chapter?
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