Patrol Abroad Chapter 7
By Captain Gaul
“Reporting as requested, sir.”
Magus looked up from his work. “Drop it, Gaul. No need for you to be calling me ‘sir’.” Magus motioned for the captain to sit, and began: “In all honesty, I don’t know what the deal is with this spontaneous timeshifting business. I don’t have enough information, except that the whole thing is innately magical and beyond the realm of science; if science had anything to do with it, I’d ask Lucca or Robo. All I know is, if the effect is magical, than the effect will be altered by an aura of magic.”
“Then I need an aura of magic? How do I get one?”
Magus sighed. “A magical artifact would be good, but the pickings are slim these days for an artifact of sufficient energy. The next best way would be to simply obtain the gift of magic. Have you talked to Spekkio yet?”
“Yeah. He called me a loser and blew me into the next week.”
Magus groaned. “He doesn’t like you? Damn. That’s about the only way to get the gift of magic anymore.”
The two sat in silence for a bit. Then a thought crossed the Captain’s mind. “What could you do with a Zealian Magical Resupply Canister?”
Magus looked up in amazement. “Do you even know what one is?”
“Yeah. I picked one up off the Blackbird.”
Magus reached over and plucked a book off of a nearby shelf. He skimmed through it, read a page, skimmed some more, and read another couple of lines. “Give me three hours to prepare, and it could be used to give you limited magic. How do you feel about Shadow?”
“Don’t know. Do many people use it?”
“About four, two of them are dead and one of them isn’t really alive.”
“Sounds good. Sure, I’ll take it.”
“Fine. Give me some time.”
.
“Kefka, what the hell happened?”
“I got the crap beaten out of me, what does it look like?!”
“Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know…six-foot one, two hundred pounds, blond with a crew cut, blue eyes, really hard fists.”
“Is this him?” The emperor held up the photograph that Reno had given Ray.
“Yeah, that’s him. Where’d you get a photo of him?”
“GUARDS! Why don’t you ask this person?” The emperor stepped backwards, and two Imperial soldiers dragged Ray into the room and forced him to his knees in front of Kefka. “This man was found unconscious at the exact spot of the brawl.”
Ray looked up at Kefka, his broken glasses hanging off the tip of his nose. “You pissed at that guy too, huh?”
Kefka, glad to see someone weaker than he was at the moment, grabbed him by the shirt collar. “What’s your connection to him?” he growled.
“No—no—nothing! I was just sent to go kill him! But he fought dirty, and when I woke up, I was in your dimension!”
“Our dimension?” Kefka paused. “What dimension are YOU from, boy?”
“I—I—I don’t know what it’s called! I just know I had to pass through yours to get to his!”
“HIS dimension…” Kefka thought some things through, and then arrived at his conclusion. He pulled Ray closer to him. “You are going to show me exactly how to get there…got it?”
Ray whimpered.
.
The room was lit only by a few blue flames. Magus, Gaul, Chi, and Moe were dressed in ceremonial robes.
“Magus, before we begin, I’ve gotta ask—is this ceremony really necessary?”
“It’s best not to leave out details when you’re dealing with magic—I don’t know what part of this is superstition and what part is necessary to get power from the entity; so, safest to do it all. Places, everyone.”
Moe and Chi ran down to the hall’s entrance. Gaul turned to go to his place, before Magus tapped him on the shoulder. “You’re an Undei, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Better change the text a bit; wouldn’t want you to take any pagan oaths in this ceremony. Don’t worry, it’ll all be religiously safe after the corrections.”
Gaul blinked twice, and then went to his position. The ceremony began, and with Magus chanting in Zealian all the while, Gaul was led up to the platform by Moe, dressed in black and his face colored the same. He then knelt down before Chi, dressed and face-colored in white, who made a cross on his forehead with palm ashes. Moe and Chi then brought him to his feet, and Gaul and Magus exchanged dialogue in the ancient tongue of the enlightened:
“(Gaul, the Captain, Servant of the One God, do you heed the call of [untranslatable proper noun]?”
“(Magus, Prince Janus, the Prophet of Zeal and the Warrior against Lavos, I do heed the call of [the same untranslatable proper noun] and in [untranslatable possessive pronoun] name do I come.)”
“(Hearer of the One God’s call, through your God, the entity, I have been blessed to grant you the gift of magic. How do you respond?”)
“(Speaker for the One Most High God, the entity, though unworthy, I accept the awesome gift of magic.”)
“(Do you offer your fealty?)”
“(I pledge that my will shall be [same untranslatable possessive pronoun], and that I shall use the gift for [same untrans. poss. pronoun] sake and in [same untrans. poss. pronoun] name, when [untranslatable personal pronoun] should call the servant to.)”
“(Then in the entity’s sacred name, I do grant you the gift of magic. Use it the name of your God Most High.)”
The capsule burst, and sparks of light danced from it to the captain. A beam of light shown from nowhere onto Gaul, and with a sudden flash, he became a magic user. The lighting in the room returned to normal, and all of the ceremonial gear and dress returned to it’s typical state.
“Seems to have a bit more meaning than Spekkio saying ‘Ipso facto magic’, doesn’t it? I think it was better in the days when magic wasn’t so easy or free—it put a lot more responsibility in the hands of the user. The enlightened ones would have been much more enlightened had we not built the Mammon Machine and made magic free to anyone born with purple hair, methinks.”
Gaul was about to nod his head to agree, when a blue flash of light hit, and yet again he hopped dimensions.
.