Mentor (Negima/???? crossover)

[Comartemis]

The following material doesn't belong to me and wasn't written by me, it was written by a fella named ZipCode on FF.net and SpaceBattles.com. I'm just pimping his stuff a bit (with his permission) because it's extremely relevant to my interests.

***

i.

Two summers before a certain young boy got a graduation letter proclaiming that he was to become a teacher in Japan, an ancient vampire of unfathomable power got an evening visitor.

His name was Gateau Kagura Vandeburg.

Thing was, he was supposed to be dead.

ii.

It wasn’t often that Evangeline was surprised.

Call it five hundred years of experience, reading too many crappy American comic books, vampire wisdom or whatever the hell you wanted Evangeline knew what was too good to be true probably was.

No one stayed dead. Ever.

That’s why she knew Nagi was off gallivanting about the world instead of doing what he had promised to do. That is to say take her stupid curse off. And then marry her. Preferably in that order but she could deal with the opposite.

(It was entirely possible that he hadn’t promised to do the latter but, details)

Still, she was surprised. Gateau Kagura Vandeburg (also known as Kanka Kagura, and Cake Kagura) was supposed to be really dead. Corpse found, salt on the grave, full rites, a holy seal of ridiculous power, honours and all the rest. It would have taken some serious mojo to get his corpse or spirit mobile. An Old God or two dozen Kemmlers, at the very least least.

Or unfinished business.

Crap.

“Takamachi,” she told the apparition, “that better not be you in there. It’s bad taste to ape your deceased master.”

Gateau took a drag from his cigarette and gave her a crooked, tired smile. “I’m cashing in my favour.”

Crap on a stick and damn.

“You’re dead,” Evangeline pointed out, somewhat irritably. The number of favours she owed Ala Rubra was just stupid and if they all came back from the dead to cash in on them she’d be running errands for the rest of her immortal existence. “I don’t owe you nada.”

The old man raised an eyebrow. “Reneging? You?”

She might have been five hundred years old, but Evangeline’s cheeks still burned at Gateau’s tone. “A favour is owed between the living,” she told him huffily. “Your descendants can cash in on your stupid favour.”

“You’re a vampire,” he told her reasonably. “You’re not exactly among the living either.”

“You’re ruining a perfectly good evening to tell me that?” Evangeline muttered. With ill grace, she conceded. “What do you want?”

The grizzled old man replaced his dying cigarette with a new one and lit up. After taking a drag he exhaled and looked into the evening sky.

“I need you to do some baby-sitting.”

iii.

The World Tree – more specifically, the Sacred Tree Bontou – was Mahora’s claim to fame. It really should have been the other way around but that was mortals for you. Ignorant louts.

At its base, heaped together in one awkward pile were five girls as wildly different as could be imagined. Blond, black, teal, red, pink. The oldest could have been at the age of majority given her figure but Evangeline doubted it.

Vampires, historically, made poor baby-sitters. Something more was going on here. Evangeline took a shot in the dark.

“Don’t tell me they’re pregnant.”

Gateau actually choked on his stupid cigarette. It was amusing for all of five seconds.

“N-no,” Gateau finally managed to say. Growling: “What made you think that?”

Oh this just got better and better. She recognized that tone of voice. Alarmed paternity.

“One of them is yours, isn’t she?” The vampire said, almost gleeful, as she examined the girls with more interest. The blonde, perhaps. It would fit, given their hair but she had never known Gateau’s lover. It could really be any one of them. None of them had Gateau’s looks which was a net positive, in her opinion.

Mmm, the brunette would look great in an outfit she had stashed away somewhere. Definitely had the face to pull off Victorian era.

“More like a niece,” Gateau said, recovering his cool. “And none of them are pregnant.”

Evangeline rolled her eyes. Men.

“Right,” she told him. “So what do you want? You could get any baby-sitter in the world but you’re haunting-”

She felt it then. A stiff, thready pulse. Like the beating of a heart. If that heart was filled with putrid motor oil. Almost involuntarily she reached out and picked out an object from the brunette’s pocket.

It was shaped a bit like an egg and stunk of a magic so alien it almost hurt to hold onto. The pale purple light was almost mesmerizing.

Evangeline’s eyebrows rose.

“Yeah,” Gateau said quietly. “That’s why.”

iv.

“Lichs.” Evangeline said disbelievingly. “You brought me five lichs.”

She examined the phylactery. “And they’re degenerating too.” Evangeline started to chuckle as she realized why she had been called. “Gateau, you naughty child - you’re trying to hide them. So you come to me. I’m almost impressed.”

The man took another drag from his ethereal cigarette. “Yes.”

“If the Headmaster catches me at this, you know what he’ll do.” Evangeline reminded him. “It won’t just be a tap on the wrist. He’s a softy but lichs require souls. Magic doesn’t get much darker than that. Even if she’s yours, she’s gone. Let her go. Evil doesn’t begin to describe the process of destroying a soul.”

Gateau was silent.

Evangeline continued. “And even if they haven’t eaten a soul yet, the ritual just to create a phylactery demands the most innocent of souls. Purity that could call a unicorn. Even if you’re too squeamish to do the deed yourself, admit that these five are long lost. Let them go. Better kill them now then watch them become monsters that they are.”

Gateau was silent for another minute.

“I thought that at first too,” he said quietly. “But… I got suspicious. As far as I can tell… their own souls were used as the base.”

Evangeline snorted. “Why would anyone-” her eyes widened as she re-examined the phylactery and then the relative youth of the five girls. “That’s – they – someone turned them into lichs?” Her mind raced but she couldn’t see a single plausible reason for doing so other than cruelty. Really expensive cruelty. “Why?”

Gateau shrugged his shoulders, looking uncomfortable. Takamichi got like that as well when feeling murderous and having nowhere to expend the energy. “I’m looking into it. Will you help them?”

Evangeline wanted to say no. Should have said no. Having five lichs underfoot would be worse than a little annoying. It might even be, in her weakened state, suicidal. She couldn’t even measure their magical potential, that’s how weak she was.

And there were few things that had more magical capacity than a lich, living or dead.

Still. Turning into a monster?

She could sympathize.

“Fixing them is going to cost extra,” Evangeline decided. “I like grovelling though. Five minutes, every day, you’re manifesting in my cottage and you will grovel.”

Gateau bowed. He sounded relieved which was not the usual reaction to her asking someone to grovel. Was he an M? “Thank you, Evangeline.”

Tentatively, she tried: “And I want puppets. Servants. Chachazero unsealed. Talk to the headmaster about it. I don’t care what excuses you weave.”

“Yes, of course.”

Evangeline smiled toothily and went for broke.

“And while you’re at it I could – I mean they could really use some nicer clothes and since there’s gonna be more people crowding my house we could use a maid – ooh, how about a robot one? Y’know, discretion and loyalty and all that -”

v.

He even carried the five of them on his metaphysical back all the way to her cottage.

It was official: Gateau was her new favoritest ghost ever.

***

Those of you who recognize the crossover, go here for a bit more material. Those of you who don't... well, you've been exposed to one hell of a spoiler for the crossed over series, and you'll get more of them if you follow that link. Don't say I didn't warn you.

[Frog]

This is also relevant to my interests. Thanks for bringing this up. I'm afraid I wouldn't have run across this otherwise.

And since this is in C&C, I suppose I should point out that Eva's comment concerning phylacteries is off, either on purpose or by mistake of the author. The phylactery contains the soul of the lich so Eva recognizing them as liches and not connecting that their own souls would be used in the creation of their own phylacteries seems off.

[Pale Wolf]

This was awesome where I found it in Spacebattles, and it could well go to interesting places.

Regarding frog's question, I think what ZipCode meant was that making a phylactery (it's a little disturbing that the forum spellcheck considers that a real word), aside from putting the soul into a jar, also requires you to sacrifice someone else's, like Rowling's Horcruxes. Though it perhaps could've been made clearer.