Interlude I Petra and Louis

*roswaal's mansion*

Hearing a ruckus the two maids of the mansion: petra and frederica, as well as the resident archbishop louis, made their way over to the meeting room. When they finally got there what they saw shocked them to their core.

There was the left edge of what was supposed to be a table, the rest of which assumed to be underground, violently convulsing. Some of the former occupants of the room, nowhere to be seen.

Garfiel, one of the two remaining occupants of the room, had a pained look of frustration on his face, his hand curled up into a fist.

Fredacrica: "what happened here?

"It see~ms that that some of the occupants of this mee~ting have fallen through the floo~r" said roswaal with an unreadable expression on his face.

-what!

-uau!

Louis, understanding that Subaru was gone, her instinct told her to touch the violently convulsing table. So she immediately dived into it without hesitation.

"Wait!" shouted Frederica, as she tried to grab her, but to no avail. She had already entered a nocliped state and fell though the floor.

Meanwhile, Petra was lost in thought. Her instincts were screaming at her to follow Louis, that maybe she could help Subaru and the others. But she knew she was weak and there were far stronger people with them that were way more qualified to do so than her.

But still maybe this would be her chance, maybe she could finally help someone.

Perhaps it was her desire to be useful, or perhaps there was something alluring about that violently shaking table, or maybe a combination of the two.

Regardless, she slowly shifted her way toward the small part of the table that remained above ground, slow enough that no one noticed until it was too late. She then quickly grabbed the slowly sinking and convulsing piece of the table.

Petra heard muffled screams as she, and then the remaining edge of the table finally sank underground.

*thump*

Petra landed on what seemed to be some sort of stone floor. Luckily she didn't seem to be hurt besides a bit of pain from landing on a stone floor.

She looked around. The first thing she noticed was louis nearby, her hard to miss bright blond hair catching her eye's immediately. She saw that she was in a narrow hallway, some sort of strange tubes of metal that seemed to radiate heat covered one of the walls; and some sort of strange glowing rectangles hanging from the sealing.

It was safe to say Petra hadn't seen anything like this before.

Petra steeled herself. she needed to find the others!

Being the only other person there, Petra walked towards louis.

Petra: "you want to find a Subaru right?"

"Aauh uuh" said? Louis rapidly nodding her head. That had been her whole reason for coming down here after all.

"Then we'll work together!" said petra bringing her fist up to her chin with a determined look on her face.

She then took Louis's hand and began walking down the seemingly impossibly long hallway.

They had been walking for a while now with no luck on finding anyone

They hadn't found much at all except for the occasional strange device that produced a lot of heat.

*boom*

And also occasionally exploded.

Petra remembered Subaru telling him about when he met beatrice; specifically how she looped the hallways. maybe this is like that?

She also remembered that Subaru said that he had to find the door that Beatrice was in.so maybe… we just need to find the right door? it was worth a shot.

Although she didn't remember seeing any door so far, but she decided to keep looking.

About 40 minutes had gone by, they found a few doors over that time but all of them seemed to be looked; until finally…

*click*

A door opened.

Petra: "ah finally."

The room seemed to be messy with piles of paper scattered across the floor, as well as a few pieces of strange almost paper-like brown material, and a single wooden box.

Petra and Louis enter the room with caution but there doesn't seem to be anyone there.

Wondering if this was the right room, Petra approached the small wooden box in the middle of the floor and opened the lid.

Inside the box was a strange looking… thing (*it's a black pistol, but of course petra doesn't know that*)

She then proceeded to pick it up and examine it. She had no idea what this was; she's never seen anything like it nor did she have anything similar to compare it to.

Petra: "what's this weird lever thing-"

*bang*

Petra: "ah!"

Louis: "gugh"

Louis and petra yelped and jumped at the loud noise: petra droping the strange object. Petra then examined the small hole it left in the stone floor; woah. she then deduced that this was some sort of powerful weapon, so she decided to hold onto it.

(*petra has equipped glock*)

(*well technically a pistol but whatever*)

She then took another look inside the box and found a small metal box. Inside the metal box were shiny cylindrical pieces of metal. Taking another look at the weapon she noticed similar pieces of metal inside it and reasoned that these must be what the weapon uses, so she put one in the empty slot, and put the box into one of the pockets in her maid dress.

Taking another look around the room she examined the pile of paper some of it had writing on it but she didn't understand any of the symbols. She also decided to take some of the material (*cardboard*) with her, just in case.

With that, they left the room and continued down the halfway.

About a minute or two had pase which went by relatively uneventfully until

-gggggrrrrrrraaaaaaa

They immediately looked up to see an almost human looking creature (*hound*) running towards them, it's large mouth agape and full of sharp teeth.

Louis took up a defensive stance. Petra, thinking fast, pulled out her weapon, squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

*bang*

In the nick of time she fired a shot straight through the creature's upper mouth and into its brain. The creature then fell onto the floor limp.

"What was that, is it some kind of witchbeast?" asked petra to now one in particular knowing louis couldn't speak. She looked over at it and once again she hadn't seen or even heard of anything like this. Although she wasn't any kind of expert on witchbeasts, so she didn't think too much of it. She did think however that it was very cruel to have a witchbeast that looked so much like a human.

Without much else to do they then continued walking.

It hadn't been too long since "the witchbeast incident" when Petra noticed something in the corner of her eye. She turned her head to look at it when her eyes widened in absolute horror.

In the shadows near a connected post in the walls were two pairs of glowing white eyes with glowing white, sharp, teeth arranged in a maniacal smile. (*smiler*)

She immediately froze up before slowly pulling Louis closer to her. She slowly looked around as to not disturb the creature; in search of anywhere, anywhere to hide.

Luckily she found one. She then slowly backed away and into an indent in the wall between two connected post's and pressed herself tightly against the back, taking louis with her.

-tap. Tap. tap. Tap

Petra then froze up again as she heard far off footstep as she began to tremble.

She slowly pulled her weapon to her chest pointing it outwards towards the hallway.

She wanted nothing more than to seal her eyes shut, cover her head and pretend that nothing was wrong; that she was just asleep and this was all just a bad dream, that she'll wake up any moment now. but she couldn't. She had to stay strong, for subaru. She had to show them she was strong, and she could help. She had to! She she needed to So she kept her eyes open.

-tap. tap. tap. Tap.

With each step Petra's trembling grew stronger.

-Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

She was trembling so much that it was almost unbearable. The steps, getting louder and louder.

-Tap. Tap. Tap. TAP.

The sound of footsteps was getting unbearably loud. At this point, shadows were beginning to enter her sight. she couldn't take it anymore!

Forgetting her weapon she sealed her eyes shut. Stood up. And charged...