A Fake Familiar Reborn

Chapter 1: The Summoning

Beta read by Paragon of Awesomeness.

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-Kuoh-

Rias Gremory was, to put it simply, bewildered.

Twelve days ago, her life had been perfectly normal. Well, as normal as things could get for a young, beautiful and — if she may say so — incredibly sexy female Devil living a double life as a simple high school student could get. That same young and beautiful Devil also just so happened to be the younger sister of the strongest Devil in history whose best friend also happened to have a Maou as a sister.

Aside from school activities, she either spent her time completing contracts from her customers while spending time with the members of her peerage. 

All in all, an average day.

But then just as school came to an end for the day, she and her peerage gathered in the old school building for "club activities". A request was left on her desk, making her wonder if this was another Stray request. She read the paper and discovered that it pertained to a certain magical signature present in Kuoh since the last few days, and the location. This magical activity had apparently arisen in an abandoned warehouse near Kuoh's docks. 

"This is… weird." She murmured to herself, staring at the building she’d just teleported to, accompanied by her childhood friend and Queen, Himejima Akeno, alongside her only Knight, Kiba Yuuto and lone Rook, Tōjo Koneko. "The report of an unusual burst of magic in the area said that it started a few days ago, but this doesn't look like something a Stray would do."

Koneko's nose scrunched up, a frown emerging on her face. "It stinks, something died inside." 

"It certainly looks like the lair of a Stray. Be careful, Buchou." 

Rias nodded at Yuuto's words, and the group carefully went inside the building, looking around for any traps or potential sneak attacks from whatever monster inhabited the place. Yet nothing happened and surprisingly, what they found wasn't a Stray at all.

The place was dimly lit with a single flickering light bulb, though their Devil nature allowed the group to see their surroundings as if the sun was at its peak.

What they found inside were walls covered with some weird writing and hundreds of magic circles carved inside the metal itself. All connected to a giant magic circle in the middle, written in a language no one in the group could make head or tail of.

"This is… disturbing." Even Akeno was disturbed by the sight. "Look, there is someone over there!"

In the middle of it all, was a body garbed in red robes. They could see this person had died long ago with the stench of rot and decay. Though another disturbing sight was how emaciated the person looked before his death — nothing but skin and bones. 

"That's a mage robe, what's one doing in Kuoh without either my or Sona's permission?" Rias sighed in frustration, Kuoh was a shared territory belonging to the Sitri and Gremory, for anyone to enter the place would need to notify the owners. And in certain cases, even for permission whether they could stay or not. So having this person here without her knowing proved that this was a rogue mage. Curious about his death, she went to check her body and stepped over the magic circles — much to the others' shock.

"Buchou!" Yuuto shouted, noticing the area light up with the circles coming to life. 

"Ah!" Rias screamed in pain, as with no warning whatsoever, she started feeling a burning pain in her left hand. Panic spread amongst the group and herself, everyone wondering if she had been cursed or attacked by some sort of latent magic in the circle that their King had awakened. They quickly retreated from the area, Akeno launching a powerful lightning strike to damage the circle and interrupt whatever spell had taken effect — but it was already too late. The entire warehouse started to become overloaded with magic and the area started to break down till it exploded.