A Fake Familiar Reborn

Chapter 1: The Summoning

Everyone was safe, having flown a great distance away until they were on the opposite side of the port. The explosion itself wasn't violent, just strong enough to have the walls of the warehouse crumble without even damaging any of the nearby buildings.

A minute later the ache in her hand faded, and a mark became clearly visible on the skin instead, bearing great resemblance to the Gremory crest but divided into three sections with a half circle around it, and a serpentine creature circling the entire symbol.

"What is this? It's not coming off!" Rias exclaimed, instinctively coating her hand in her Power of Destruction, but the symbol remained.

Confused and just a little bit frightened by this sudden phenomenon, she and Akeno immediately set about determining the reason for this mark appearing on her body the way it had, as well as what it might mean. They quickly were able to find out that each section of the mark contained magic, and a rather astounding amount of it, but it was dormant and no matter what Rias tried she was unable to use it. 

This further threw them out of the loop as it put into question what that mage was planning on doing. Was he experimenting on a way to stockpile magic for later use? 

Eventually, after three days without any progress, she reluctantly set aside her monumental pride, and sent a message to her mother, Venelana, to give to her father, explaining the situation and asking for his help. She figured that since the mysterious mark was shaped like the Gremory family crest, it would make sense that the lord of House Gremory might know something about it.

As they waited for her parents' reply, Rias and the rest of her peerage had been more than a little surprised when instead of sending a message, her overprotective father teleported right into the ORC's club room not even ten minutes later along with her overprotective brother, and they both immediately began bombarding Rias with questions as to who or what had "violated her body."

Although in hindsight, Rias realized that she really should have seen that coming.

After her father and older brother finally calmed down, thanks in no small part to Grayfia and Venelana arriving and pulling none-too-softly on their respective husband's cheek, her father had examined the mark personally for several minutes, and a few theories were thrown in the air but none were conclusive. But these two definitely knew something, as both even left the room to continue their discussion in private. Why they didn't want her to hear it was a mystery she found to be unfair. It was obviously a serious matter as she'd never seen them with such a grave expression. They didn't elaborate much though and just told her to not look into the matter too much and to never show her mark to anyone.

Fortunately, she came up with her own idea with the help of Sona, both speculating that the magic within had something to do with the sort of contract made with a familiar. 

They weren't able to determine what type of creature it could have been, but it could possibly turn out to be a powerful kind of familiar. After all, why else would so much magic be needed just to secure the contract? Every hour a large chunk of her magic would slowly slip inside the mark, forcing her to take breaks as she wasn't sure if the rate of absorption would increase with time. Sona advised to let her system get used to it first before going on any other Stray related missions, or at least until she got the familiar.

'No wonder that mage died; I was born with exceptional magical reserves as a Devil with our enhanced recovery while he was only human.' she thought, shivering at finally knowing the reason behind the mage's shriveled corpse. He had basically been sucked dry of all his magic to the point of death by attempting a spell he didn’t have the reserves to actually provide sufficient power for.