Le Paladin du Bouillon
Posted on Fri May 16th, 2025 @ 12:57pm by Kurt Wagner & Jennifer Bryant & Drew Williams
0 words; about a 1 minute read
Mission:
Episode 6: X-Fernus Agenda
Timeline: January 10th, 1991
Kurt didn't knock. There was no need, not when a quiet bamf brought him into the hallway just outside the rec room where the scent of popcorn lingered and the low hum of music drifted behind the cracked door. He poked his head in, tail flicking behind him.
Drew and Jennifer were curled up on the couch, side by side, the TV playing some old rerun neither of them was really watching. When Kurt cleared his throat, both pairs of eyes turned toward him.
"Sorry to interrupt," Kurt said with a crooked grin, "but I hef a favor to ask of ze bosth of you. For so long, I hef searched und searched for ze final missing piece to somesthingk. But I need help getting it open. Vould you be available to help?"
Drew didn't even notice Kurt until he spoke. His attention had been on Jennifer. One of the younger students had departed a few minutes ago and he had just performed the Greg Brady yawn and stretch to wrap one arm around Jennifer's shoulder that had just appeared on the rerun of the Brady Bunch they were watching on television. He extracted his arm and turned to Kurt. "Of course, Professor Wagner."
Jennifer had been perfectly comfortable leaning into Drew, though the Greg Brady yawn and stretch made her giggle a little. "You don't have to..." she started and then realized he was speaking to a professor. She jerked upright, dark eyes shooting to Professor Wagner.
"Uh, bitte, but 'Professor' is far too generous," he said modestly, his golden eyes glinting with self-deprecating humor. "I never finished my monastic training, und technically I hef no formal training in anything beyond acrobatics, theology, und... fencing, I suppose." He gave a sheepish shrug. "I am merely a humble instructor in service to Herr Professor Xavier in exchange for room, board, und his help locating my beloved Vanda." That quiet note lingered for only a moment before he perked up again, energy returning to his voice. "Vhich brings me to vhy I disturb your... leisurely time."
Kurt’s tail flicked with amusement as he gestured with one hand toward the space between them. “If you vould kindly join hands vith me… I vill take you bosth to Spain. Montserrat, to be exact,” Kurt said, his German accent dancing on his tongue. "Zhere is a library, ancient und sacred, high in ze mountains. I beliefe it hides something… important. But it is locked behind some strange mechanism, und your talents may help in opening it."
Drew had never been to Spain. London and Paris, yes; while on holiday with his family. He turned to Jennifer and smiled. "I'm game if you are.
"I'm game," Jennifer said. She rose and held Drew's hand, offering her other hand to Kurt. "What exactly is it we're looking for?" She had never been to Spain either or to London or to Paris. She wondered what it would be like.
Drew gave Jennifer's hand a gentle squeeze as he reached out to take Kurt's free hand. "I guess we're ready to go, sir."
Joining hands, the trio disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The scent of musty parchment and melted candlewax hit them first.
Then came the dizzying silence, the sort only found in places built for study, with walls thick enough to mute even the noise of time itself.
Jennifer and Drew blinked into the dim glow of the Library of Montserrat.
The room around them was cavernous, carved into the very rock of the mountainside. Shelves of hand-carved wood rose up in dizzying tiers from floor to ceiling, packed with books so old they seemed more fossil than text. Leather spines and faded script, written in Latin, Catalan, and other older tongues, peered out from shadowy alcoves. Some shelves were behind thick glass, sealed by iron clasps. Others were open, their volumes stacked haphazardly like old secrets forgotten by time.
Arched stained glass windows overlooked a vast drop into the valley beyond, throwing fractured light onto the marbled floor in hues of blue and gold from the moonlight beyond. Religious iconography adorned the tops of each window, saints and angels in reverent poses watching silently over the room.
In one corner, a fire crackled quietly beneath a stone hearth carved with Benedictine symbols. High above them, wooden rafters groaned softly, as though reacting to the very presence of outsiders.
Kurt, visibly winded, doubled over beside them with one hand braced on a carved pew. His tail twitched with residual energy as he huffed out a breathless, "Ah.... vell, zhat... vas ze last one for now."
Drew moved to Kurt and placed a hand on his shoulder. His expression one of concern for Kurt. "Are you okay?"
Jennifer turned as she saw Kurt catching his breath and Drew move to make sure he was all right. She stook a step towards them but things seemed fine. The man just needed to catch his breath. But it as nice to see how much Drew always thought of others.
Having finally caught his wind, Kurt straightened slowly and gave a nod, pride softening the exhaustion in his eyes. "Montserrat is home to more zhan just monks und relics. Beneath this library is a sealed room." He nodded toward the far end of the chamber where an unassuming iron-wrought door stood ajar. "Und I suspect zhat between ze two of you, ve may find what ve need to open it.”
He turned toward the stairs and gestured for them to follow. "Come. Ze abbots gave permission earlier today, but zhey do not know about zhis after-hours research Let us hurry."
As they followed Kurt down the spiraling stone staircase, worn smooth by centuries of sandaled feet, the air grew cooler and more still. Their footsteps echoed softly through the ancient halls as though the very stone was listening.
At the bottom, the air changed again—thicker, older. The corridor opened into a rounded chamber, its walls curved like the inside of a bell. A glowing spherical apparatus was suspended above a dais. Ethereal lines hummed around it, pulsing faintly in the presence of the new arrivals.
"Here it is," Kurt said. "I expect ze dais opens up to reveal a passage way even further below. Somehow I triggered zhis floating sphere but it evades all attempts to interact visth it, und I am uncertain of how to proceed."
Drew looked at the sphere and then to the walls. He walked about the chamber, inspecting his walls. "What have you learned so far?"
"I'm not sure..." Jennifer looked up at the sphere. Her brow furrowed. She wasn't exactly sure how to proceed. She reached out with her power to see if there was an electrical element to it she could touch. She doubted it would be that easy, but she thought she would at least try. Might get lucky.
Jennifer's fingers sparked faintly as she extended her hand toward the sphere, her powers grazing its surface in a harmless test—but the moment her electricity touched it, the orb flared. Its glow intensified in a flicker of warning blue, then reversed its polarity with a sudden, almost eager lurch.
A low hum built in the chamber like a deep intake of breath.
Before she could react further, the sphere moved. Not with idle rotation or a sluggish drift. It lunged.
"Look out!" Kurt called just as the orb shot toward Jennifer with the urgency of a magnetic bolt locking into place. She yelped and ducked instinctively, but the orb veered with uncanny accuracy, pursuing her with single-minded intent.
Drew caught the orbs movement as it rushed towards Jennifer. He turned and dashed at the orb, heedless as to what might happen to himself. The only thought was his desire to protect the young woman he was deeply in love with. He slammed into the orb at an angle.
Drew hit the orb like a linebacker, shoulder-first—but instead of stopping it, he ricocheted off with a crack of expelled air and a thud against the far wall. The conservation of energy reacted against the force of attraction which sent his own momentum back at him. His body crumpled in a dazed sprawl beneath one of the ancient archways, a groan escaping his lips before he could even gather a full breath. But the orb wasn't finished.
Though momentarily jostled off-course, it slowed in midair with a graceful pivot, humming once more as its glowing runes shifted from blue to gold. Like a heat-seeking missile reconsidering its lock, the orb floated backward several feet—then resumed its pursuit of Jennifer.
Now hovering just above the dais, it pulsed again with increasing brightness, reacting to the residual energy still crackling from her fingertips.
Kurt stood rigid for a heartbeat, caught between running to Drew and shielding Jennifer, until his brain caught up. His tail snapped behind him like a whip.
"Jennifer! Zap it again!" he shouted, pointing to the orb. "Don't run—shoot your lightning! Zhat may be ze key!"
Jennifer spun towards Drew when she heard him hit the wall. Her gasp was audible and she started running towards him. Then the orb was after her again, pulsing, homing in. She dived to the side, hitting the ground but trying to push up quickly. She had been a cheerleader, after all. She was new at this and panicking a bit. She wasn't sure what to do. Then Kurt's words cut through her panic and things seemed to clarify. She had a task. She spun and faced the orb and, this time, she didn't just test it. She gave it all she had in a big bolt of lightning that shot straight at it.
The lightning cracked through the air like a whip, striking the orb dead-on. A sharp pop echoed off the cavern walls as the orb shot upward, rebounding off the carved ceiling with a metallic clang before dropping to the floor in a spinning tumble.
Kurt blinked once, then laughed under his breath, a short, relieved sound.
"Exactly vhere I found it," he said, pointing with a gloved hand. "Embedded in a slot... right over zhere."
He jogged over to the dais, his boots skidding slightly on the worn stone floor. Crouching beside the vacant socket at the center, he gestured for the others to see. The slot was circular, about the same diameter as the orb, with shallow grooves like a cradle.
"So eet is not just attracted to us," Kurt mused aloud, glancing between Jennifer and the orb. "Perhaps it is alternating between pull... and push... from ze electrical charge."
He snapped his fingers and stood up sharply, excitement flashing in his golden eyes.
"If it repels after a surge of energy, zhen... if ve herd it carefully, ve can guide it back to ze slot vith a full charge!"
Before they could answer, Kurt bamfed across the chamber in a puff of sulfurous smoke—appearing just behind the orb. The sudden displacement of air nudged it forward, slow at first, but sure. The orb drifted a few feet toward the dais, the blue runes beginning to shimmer faintly.
Kurt bamfed again, appearing to the orb’s right flank this time, nudging it leftward. Another bamf to the rear-left, another careful nudge.
Kurt nodded, breathing a little harder now from the rapid teleporting. "Ja, ja! You see ze pattern? Ve can... how you say... triangulate our positions und chase it into position."
He turned to Jennifer and Drew, who was now sitting up with a hand gingerly cradling his ribs.
"You two, get on either side of it but do not get too close. Ve vant to guide it like herding an animal. Easy... easy... I vill keep nudging from behind."
The orb was responding to their presence, backing away as though scared.
Jennifer moved to Drew first who was tenderly cradling his ribs. "Are you ok?" she asked. She would have asked any teammate, she thought, but there was a special note of concern in her voice for him.
Drew got to his feet. "I'll be OK. Let's do as Professor Wagner suggests." He stepped off to the left side of the orb and gestured to Jennifer to take the right side. He glanced at Kurt and nodded.
Jennifer nodded. "Just checking," she said and she went off to the right side of the orb.
Working together, they managed to use the repulsive effect to maneuver the orb over top the hole. Kurt bamfed to the ceiling right over it, adding a vertical repulsion. The orb was forced right into its slot.
As the orb fell into place with a thunderous click, the dais groaned beneath them. Runes lit up around its perimeter, golden veins spreading like roots across the marbled floor, then stopped.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then the center of the dais trembled. A hiss, not of steam or escaping gas, but of air that hadn't breathed in a thousand years. Stone groaned. With a grinding twist, a panel slid open to reveal something none of them expected: a metallic sarcophagus, encased in frost.
Its shape was oblong and tall, made not of any recognizable alloy but some ancient brushed silver—almost pewter, with inlaid gold that had long since tarnished. Arcane patterns were etched along its sides: interlacing crosses, alchemical glyphs, and a lion rampant—all engraved with exquisite care. One side bore a sigil none of them recognized: a crusader's helm split in half, wrapped in thorns.
Kurt drew closer, hand extended but cautious. "Zhis is no coffin of stone or saintly relic..." he murmured. "Zhis is... forged. Und cold—so very cold."
He reached out, and even through his gloves, the surface bit at his fingers like ice blessed by a curse. "It’s like touching liquid nitrogen."
Without warning, the sarcophagus shook. The frost shattered like glass. A pulse of pale blue light burst from the seams as the lid shot off with a deafening blast, striking the chamber wall and clattering to the floor in a cloud of frigid mist.
From within, a figure stirred.
He rose slowly, as if gravity was reluctant to release him. Tall, even hunched, his body strained with effort. Shoulder-length dark hair clung in damp strands to his angular face. His beard was half-grown, patchy in places as if sleep had halted its full return. His bronze skin was ashen from long stasis, and his eyes—sunken but still burning like coals—glowed faintly gold beneath heavy lids.
His attire was the remains of gilded crusader armor, ornate and archaic. A faded tabard, once crimson, now darkened with time, was fastened by clasps shaped like lion heads. Parts of his armor had fused to his skin. Where the metal had cracked from the freeze, sinew and strange fiberoptic cords pulsed faintly with dim bioluminescence—like some lost fusion of sorcery and biotech. Across his chest was etched a phrase in Latin: "Custos Fidei, Umbra Lux."
Exhausted just by standing up, he dropped to one knee with a rasping exhale.
"Qui ose troubler Le Paladin du Bouillon?" His voice was strained, deep, heavy with medieval French. He planted a gauntleted fist into the stone to steady himself. "Êtes-vous démons? Sorciers? Déclarez vos noms ou périssez!"
Kurt’s golden eyes widened. "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur!" he replied quickly in modern French. "Nous ne sommes pas vos ennemis. Je suis Kurt Wagner, et ceci est—"
"Mensonges!" the man spat, trying to rise. A flash of golden psionic light flickered along the seams of his armor. "Ton esperit... envoilé..." he said. "Sorcelerie ou la maleçon de Babel? Es-tu lié au Sarrazin? A Akkaba? A l’Enchanteor? Au Bestial?"
With a pained grunt, he stood to his full height of nearly 2 meters and raised one trembling hand. From his palm unfurled a glowing tether of hard-light energy, shaped like a flanged mace. It trembled in his grasp, flickering erratically. His body arced with feeble kinetic field emissions—unstable, leaking energy from dormant psionic generation beneath his skin.
Kurt instinctively stepped in front of Drew and Jennifer. "Zhis is a misunderstanding," he said quickly. "Ze Paladin is scared, confused. Und... ancient. Ve should..."
BAMF!
Dodging a blast of energy, Kurt cut off his own sentence and reappeared with on the far side of the dais behind the Paldin. "... find vhat ve came for und leave him be!"
"What if he doesn't leave us be?" Jennifer asked the, to her, rathe r obvious question. She raised her hands, sparks coming up defensively, though she didn't attack. She would rather avoid a fight if she could and that had been Kurt's instruction. She glanced over to Drew and then back to Kurt as she continued her long arc.
As the Paladin of Bouillon raised his hard-light mace and staggered forward, his armor sparking in chaotic bursts, he narrowed his eyes at the tongues spilling from his visitors' lips—words that twisted the air like smoke and broke no pattern he knew.
His mouth curled into a scowl, and he barked in Medieval Latin now, harsh and clipped:
"Cur ista barbarica lingua blateratis? Quis vos docuit verba sine ordine nec sanctitate? Dicite, quo regno paratis, aut damnabimini!"
("Why do you babble in this barbaric tongue? Who taught you words with no order nor sanctity? Speak—what kingdom do you serve, or be damned!")
Kurt straightened, grimacing as he searched for the right words from memory. His Latin was liturgical, classical, filtered through monasterial training, but it was better than nothing.
"Domine Palatine," he began cautiously, "tu dormivisti… dormivisti longissime. Mundus mutatus est. Tempora transierunt. Terra... non est sicut olim fuit."
("Lord Paladin, you have slept... slept a long time. The world has changed. The ages have passed. The Earth… is not as it once was.")
But the Paladin would not have it.
"Haeretica mens tua!" he shouted, voice booming off the stone chamber. "Lingua est corrupta! Non dormivi, fui captus! Captivus Akkabae!"
("Your mind is heretical! The tongue is corrupted! I did not sleep, I was taken! A prisoner of Akkaba!")
A thunderclap of psionic force slammed outward from him, striking the walls with a radiant shockwave. Cracks raced along the stonework like spiderwebs. And then something shifted.
The Paladin's power surged again—but this time not with light or fire. His hand fell to his temple as the golden flame in his eyes wavered and dimmed, replaced by something raw. Internal. His psionic faculties, once locked in stasis, came roaring back.
He gasped. "Memoriae..." and staggered then back, nearly dropping his weapon.
The rush of centuries collided in his mind all at once: The betrayal. A thousand false dreams. The slow decay of time encasing him like ice. The languages he did not know. The faces he could not place.
He clutched his head with both hands and howled:
"Miserere mei, Domine! Vidi Abyssum!"
("Have mercy on me, Lord! I have seen the Abyss!")
His feet left the ground, levitating on a pillar of psionic light. Power licked the edges of his broken armor like fire grasping dry parchment. The chamber shook as he rose through the collapsed ceiling of the crypt, stone falling in his wake like raining bones.
As he ascended toward the storm-lit sky above Montserrat, he bellowed with righteous fury:
"AD GLORIAM GODEFROI! AD POENAM AKKABAE! UT REDEAT LUX!"
Kurt stared after the flying figure in utter astonishment. "I do not know vhat I vas expecting," he said to the others just above a whisper, "but it vas not zhat."
Jennifer's eyes were wide and she looked very confused as she stared up after the figure. She frowned slightly and looked between Kurt and Drew. "So what do we do now?" She looked back up again, where the knight had disappeared into the sky.
Drew stood in awe for a moment before turning to Jennifer and Kurt. "Uh, did we just release a new Big Bad into the world?"
Kurt stood silent for a beat longer, watching the swirling clouds above where the Paladin had vanished. Then, with a brisk shake of his head—like snapping out of a trance—he turned away. "Nein," he muttered, almost to himself, "not yet, at least."
He looked to Jennifer with more clarity now. "Vhat ve do now is simple: Ve see vhat he vas buried with."
In a blink, he vanished from their side and reappeared beside the shattered remains of the sarcophagus, careful not to touch the scattered debris until he could assess it.
Most of the interior was frostbitten stone and warped metal, but nestled into a shallow recess beneath where the Paladin had lain was another relic shard. This one was jagged but unmistakably resonant, humming in sympathy with the piece already in his possession. Kurt carefully retrieved it and held it up, golden eyes gleaming with vindicated joy.
“Ja!” he beamed. “Another fragment! Zhis... this is part of it!”
He turned to Drew, gesturing toward the base of the sarcophagus where ancient Latin inscriptions curled in concentric rings around a weathered emblem. Some were chipped, others stained by old chemical burn—but most were intact.
"Drew, do you see zhe carvings?" he asked. "I need a rubbing. Can you get something—paper, fabric—anything ve can use? I vill need far more time to decipher zhis than ze monks vill give us."
Drew pulled off his sweater and white undershirt and handed the t-shirt to Kurt before donning his sweater again. "Sorry, it's the best I can do."
Jennifer gave a small, half-smile as she watched Kurt and Drew. She stepped closer to the fragment, dark eyes watching intently, taking in the carvings around the emblem. "I wish I'd taken Latin," she said off-handedly.
Kurt accepted the offered undershirt with a pause that could only be described as incredulously reverent, staring at the white cotton like it had insulted his ancestors.
“Ach, Drew... Der meint es ja nur gut..." he murmured with a weary smile, the kind that sat somewhere between "bless your heart" and "this is why I drink tea before teleporting." His tone, however, remained unfailingly polite. "Zhat vas... very creative. But, bitte, put your shirt back on."
Before Drew could respond, Kurt had already bamfed away in a puff of sulfur.
When he reappeared, there was soot on his gloves, a leather-bound Latin psaltery tucked under one arm, and the unmistakable self-satisfaction of a man who had bypassed absurdity with ecclesiastical proficiency.
"It is never too late to learn," he said, handing the book to Jennifer with a soft smile. "Ze chants... zhey helped me far more zhan any grammar text ever did. Music teaches ze heart as vell as ze mind." He opened the psaltery briefly, revealing beautiful line-notation with side-by-side English translations, then gently tucked it under Jennifer's arm for her to keep.
Turning back to the sarcophagus, Kurt unrolled a blank parchment from within his coat, laid it gently over the inscription, and took the piece of charcoal he had used earlier in the library. With smooth, deliberate strokes, he rubbed the design onto the parchment until the concentric foreign phrases emerged in dark relief. He rolled it carefully, sealing it in a protective leather tube.
"Zhis I can study later. I zhink... perhaps ve have all we came for." He looked from Jennifer to Drew, his tone softening into warmth. "Unless zhere is something else either of you vanted to see before ve go?”
The ancient vault settled into silence again—no more traps, no more shrines, only the sound of wind whispering softly through old stone.
"Or," Kurt added, glancing back toward the now-empty sarcophagus with a raised brow, "you vould rasther not vait around for zhis 'Paladin of Bouillon' to remember he left his sword behind."
His cheeky comment notwithstanding, there was also the matter of the monks who would likely take issue with what would amount to desecration. The trio vanished in a puff of brimstone before anyone caught them red-handed, leaving the credit for the discovery to whomever would claim it.
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