Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Lancet didn’t rest for too long. Knowing time was of the essence, he picked himself up and dusted his clothes, tucked in his uniform and slicked back his ruffled hair.

The training room was as good a place as any to summon a created Heroine for the first time. So Lancet extended his hand and called upon the Unforgiving Princess.

The training room filled with a strange sound first, not a roar or a crack but a low, coiling hiss that seemed to slide under the floorboards and curl up the walls.

Green light bled into the air in twisting ribbons, followed by two long, serpentine shapes that spiraled around the center of the room as if they had risen out of a dream.

They were ultimately not snakes, but snake dragons — probably the very same ones Kestrel had bound in her swords. They were colored white and green, and for a breath they moved together like living blades of smoke and scale, circling each other with eerie grace before their forms thinned into shimmering magic and vanished.

When the light cleared, Kestrel Highcastle stood in the middle of the training room, one hand half-raised and the other instinctively angled as though it should be resting on a sword that was no longer there.

For a second, she did not move.

Her emerald braids hung slightly askew, but even in confusion she carried herself with a sharp, dangerous poise, the kind that made stillness look deliberate.

Her eyes flicked across the room at once, taking in the strange lamps overhead, the smooth white floor, the practice weapons, the marble-like walls, the unfamiliar shape of everything around her.

Her breathing slowed only after that first sweep, as if she had decided that confusion could wait until she had mapped the room.

Then she frowned.

”This is not my castle in Crescent City,” she said.

Her voice had a clean, cutting edge to it, noble and proud, but beneath it Lancet heard the deeper note of genuine disorientation.

Kestrel turned toward him fully.

She stopped cold.

Lancet stayed still, hand half-lowered, careful not to move too quickly. He had expected curiosity and suspicion from her, and he knew how dangerous she could be if he made her believe he was a threat.

But he really had not expected the aura emanating out of her. It was so arresting and a little hostile.

She looked at him like she was thinking in her mind: ’If this is an illusion, then it is a badly designed one.’

”If this is an illusion, then it is a badly designed one,” she said to him.

Lancet paused awkwardly. ’I didn’t know I knew my characters this well.’

To answer her, he cleared his throat and said; ”This is no illusion, Princess Highcastle.”

She raised a curious brow. ”You know who I am.” Her shoulder moved up. ”That makes one of us.”

She eyed him up and down. Then again. ”Very well then. Since I have to utter it, who are you?” she asked.

Lancet swallowed once. ’Speaks like a princess alright.’

”Lancet Leogardt,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed.

”Well that’s simply not enough is it, Lanc-et?” she said his name like it was mould, and as if the answer itself was irrelevant, she went on. ”I mean where am I? And why do you have the look of a man who has just stolen something expensive?”

A few inches away, Lancet very carefully decided not to ask how she had already managed to insult him in the first ten seconds of knowing him.

”I didn’t steal anything,” he raised his hands up in retreat. ”I promise you. In fact... the only thing I stole is you,” he said, pointing at her. ”I stole you from the past.”

That made her pause.

She didn’t believe him, but the words clearly landed in a place where disbelief had to fight with memory. Kestrel’s brow tightened, and she looked down at herself, then at the room again, then back at him.

”Explain,” she said. ”Fast.”

”I summoned you,” Lancet shrugged, slowly getting his courage.

”Summoned,” she repeated slowly. ”From where?”

”The past,” Lancet said.

She stared at him, a look of offended disbelief in his face.

”The past,” she repeated, more dryly this time. ”I heard that Temporomancers existed but not only is that impossible, you are also very stupid to think I would believe it.”

Lancet winced. ”I know how it sounds.”

”No, I do not think you do.”

He almost laughed, but the tension in her gaze told him she was one more strange answer away from deciding he was either a lunatic or an enemy. Maybe both.

Kestrel folded her arms, the motion elegant despite the plain frustration in her face. ”The last thing I remember,” she said slowly, ”is dying.”

The room went quieter.

She did not look sad when she said it. Not exactly. But there was a brief, dangerous stillness in her expression, the kind that came from someone who had already made peace with an ending and was now being forced to confront a continuation.

”I remember the stone,” she continued. ”The blood. The spear. And then emptiness.”

Her fingers tightened slightly against her own forearm. ”A long emptiness.”

Lancet said nothing for a moment, allowing her to relive the pain he had built into her life. Well, it wasn’t like he wanted to anyway. The system made him do it, and the Narrative Coupon wasn’t really appreciative of it anyway.

So annoying.

Kestrel lifted her chin and Lancet quickly snapped back to the present.

”I do not know how you pulled me out of death,” she said, ”but if you have done so, you had better have a reason.”

”I do.”

Her eyes sharpened.

Lancet took a breath and decided that the fastest way to survive this conversation was to be honest.

”I need you to teach me swordsmanship.”

Kestrel blinked once. Then she frowned in absolute, immediate disdain. ”Are you an utter fool? You daring nincompoop! So that is your reason?!”

Lancet stepped backward, fearing her eyes and retreating from sword range — not that it mattered to a Swordsmaster of her caliber.

”Pretty much,” he said sheepishly.

”Why would I do that?”

Lancet opened his mouth, then closed it again because the answer he wanted to give was not the one that would keep her from walking out of the room and challenging the nearest wall to a duel.

She noticed his hesitation at once and gave a short, humorless laugh. She couldn’t believe this.

”You summoned me from death, dragged me into a room I do not recognize, and now you want me to teach you the sword,” she said. ”That is a remarkable amount of arrogance for one morning.”

”It’s not even a morning,” Lancet muttered.

She stared at him.

He sighed. ”Fine. It was a metaphor.”

Kestrel’s expression did not soften in the slightest. ”I will give you one more chance to tell me why I don’t just kill you here.”

Lancet looked at her properly then. He hadn’t even taken the time to admire his creation.

Her hair was vibrant and emerald woven into a long braid, and adorned with a delicate marble headpiece designed like flowers. Her eyes were teal, and a deep red lipstick complemented her serene face.

Decorating her ravishingly feminine body was a form-fitting white gown with emerald and gold trims and a high-collared cutout bodice that showed a great deal of cleavage.

Her thighs flared out of her sensual hips, before sinking into high golden greaves that reached the high of her knees. Behind her, the glorious Dragonswords waited, crossed on her back.

Lancet hid a happy smile. It was always a good feeling whenever he saw his creations manifested for the first time.

He took a deep breath and answered plainly.

”Killing me is a bad idea because you would die too.”

”I’ve died before,” Kestrel said. ”I do not fear it now.”

”But then you would lose this chance to fight again.”

Kestrel didn’t reply.

”And that’s what I want to do,” Lancet continued. ”I want to fight again. Last time, I fought this really powerful guy, Renan Falconhart.”