Pride X Familiar ReVamp (Pride X ReVamp Book 1) (32 page)

Caprice muttered loud enough to be heard, “They’re going for broke. Today’s the day.”

Severin chuckled. “I’m afraid so, Miss Steiner. We’ll wait for them to breach the layer and disable the security around the Vault. That should open the door…I hope.”

I cocked my head at the door. “Severin, you said Alucard gave you data on other tunnels and stairwells leading down. Does that mean there’s more than one way to the Vault?”

“That would appear to be the case. The stairwell you’re in was our best bet because it actually appears to be closest. Then again, I don’t know if the data we were given is real or not.”

I closed my eyes upon hearing this. “What happens if Crimson Crescent chooses to open a different entrance to the Vault?”

“Then feel free to break down that door, or run over to the Vault as fast as you can.”

Caprice asked, “And what if this is the door they unlock?”

“Then I guess you will be having company in a relatively short amount of time.”

#

(Haruka)

From the elbow down, the girl’s right arm was encased in a sleek cannon that resembled a crystal shard comprised of many smaller shards.

It was around five feet in length.

She aimed it easily enough at the mobile med centers on the sports field.

I stared at the students waiting in line. Some of them had noticed us, especially since the cannon’s muzzle was starting to sparkle with particles of violet light.

Would they run? Or would they remain where they were?

Beside me, the Countess was crouched as though preparing to make a suicide leap onto the girl. The distance was only twelve feet. I’d managed to jump twenty feet during last year’s sports carnival, so I knew she could do it in a single bound.

The girl wagged her left index finger at the Countess.

“Ara ara, Countess. Think you can do it? Ready to try your luck? I can fire at the drop of a hat.”

“What?”

“Oh, don’t you know? That’s the thing about Fragments. They’re fantastically powerful weapons with specifications well above anything humanity has produced so far. Like I said, I can fire in a heartbeat. And I can do it again, and again. So, do you want to take the chance?”

Simone slowly straightened.

The girl looked puzzled, arching an eyebrow at the Countess. “No? You don’t want to? Well then how about this? If you run away, I’ll shoot them. If Haruka runs away, I’ll shoot them.” Her eyebrows arched into a sharp vee and her face took on that predatory look again. “And if those drones try to snipe me, I’ll fire even as I die.”

I blinked. Did she say drones? What drones?

Both the Countess and I began cautiously looking around.

“Up there,” the girl said, “up in the sky. They’re behind you, and behind me.”

I looked in the direction she mentioned, and saw in the distance a number of dots just under the artificial sky. Because they weren’t moving, I hadn’t noticed them before.

Yet somehow this girl was able to see them and know them for what they were.

How did she do that?

The girl laughed, but her eyes remained hungry. “Actually, it doesn’t matter if they shoot.”

I squinted at the drones. They looked to be well over a kilometer away but I just wasn’t sure. Could they really snipe from that distance? The Countess and I were standing within fourteen feet of the girl. Would the drone operators take the chance and shoot regardless of our proximity to her. I glanced at the Countess and saw her watching the drones and the girl. She appeared to be locked in a dilemma that kept her from making a choice.

“How about this?” the girl said. “Why don’t you tell the people listening in to call off those drones, and I won’t shoot the good little Aventis out on the sports field.”

The Countess looked confused. “Listening in to us? Who’s listening in to us?”

The girl waved her left hand at the palm-slate lying on the ground beside Simone’s feet. “You never ended the call on that slate. The line’s been open all this time. I noticed the drones showed up a couple of minutes after we began to talk. I’m guessing whoevers listening in on us figured out who you were with, and called for backup.”

Simone looked down at the palm-slate, then glanced at the girl.

“Go on,” the cannon wielding girl urged. “I won’t shoot just yet.”

The Countess picked up the slate. “Who’s listening? President? Did you call those drones?”

I tried listening to the conversation coming from the slate but couldn’t make out more than a word or two. My attention drifted to the students near the med buses. The final lunch break bell had sound only a few seconds ago. Was a gym class scheduled now? If so, then a classroom’s worth of students would be making their way to the building. Surely they would see the three of us.

Simone’s voice was admirably calm. “President, can you do it? Can you get the drones called off?”

“Thirty seconds,” the girl said. “Then I shoot. They snipe me, I shoot.”

She reached up and lowered over her eyes what I initially mistook for a headband, but it was actually a wraparound visor.

The Countess said, “Severin, you heard her. Please, do something.” Simone’s gaze was locked on the girl, but her attention was split between the girl and the party on the other end of the line. “Please, call my uncle or my cousin—or my sister if you have to.”

“Twenty seconds. Tick tock.”

I swallowed and asked, “Is this really what Celica wants? I knew Celica. She was always good to me. She treated me like a little sister. I can’t believe she would condone what you’re doing.”

“People change, Haruka Amiella. Life changes them,” the girl said. “Sucks but it happens.” She swallowed and called out, “Ten seconds.”

I took a half step forward. “You say she’s changed. Then I want to hear her condone this from her lips. I want to hear it from the girl I looked up to—the girl who told me to be there for her brother.”

“Time’s up,” she said.

The particles of light at the tip of the barrel began a spiral dance.

The Countess held her palm-slate outstretched to the girl. “No—wait! Listen to her!”

A woman’s voice emanated from the palm-slate. I didn’t recognize it, but the girl surely did since her eyes grew wide.

The woman spoke calmly, in contrast to the urgency we all felt.

“I will recall the drones, Capella Leone. Don’t shoot the students.”

For a moment the girl hesitated, then her lips curled into a rictus grin. She started to laugh. “Ah, is that the Raynar Witch? Too late!”

I felt my stomach drop and my heart almost stopped when the particles of light coalesced into a single point.

Simone screamed in despair.

A shrill whistle built up in the air.

The cannon fired…but not in the direction of the mobile med centers.

The cannon fired at the drones in the distance to my left.

The girl blurred when she re-oriented her arm and body.

Shot after shot of violet light sniped at the drones hovering a kilometer or more away. The shrill whistle accompanied each shot.

I turned to watch all the dots hovering in the air burst apart like small fireworks.

The girl spun around and sniped the drones hovering in the opposite direction, blasting them all away in rapid succession. The burning remains rained down on the habitat buildings in the distance.

Simone dropped the palm-slate, crouched, and then leapt toward the girl.

She covered the fourteen feet between them in a heartbeat.

Yet she wasn’t fast enough.

The girl darted back, a leap that gave her the distance and time she needed to pivot her body and slam the body of the crystal cannon into Simone’s midriff.

The Countess folded over the cannon like a rag doll. For a moment she hung in the air, draped over the weapon. Then the girl completed the swing and Simone’s body flew into the air, sailing high for a dozen meters before coming down hard on the grassy border of the sporting field. Her body rolled over and over until it came to a stop, and her eyes were closed.

I didn’t know if she was alive or dead.

I didn’t even have time to pray for her to be alive.

In the next moment, I too had leapt at the girl. I knew full well I would fail, but in that moment I knew I had to do something or I’d never be able to live with myself.

The girl aimed the cannon at me but there were no sparkling particles of light dancing before its barrel. Instead, I hit what could only be described as a wall of air that felt both soft and firm.

Then I too was flying through the air only backwards as though kicked away by that invisible wall.

I hit the ground on my back, and rolled over a couple of times before sliding to a stop on the pavement. Agony trapped a scream in my throat – that and the fact I was completely winded by the hard landing.

Lying on my stomach, I raised my chin and stared in pain at the girl.

She was watching me.

She wagged a finger, admonishing me.

Then she turned in the direction of the medical buses. I could barely move, but I could see that the students out in the middle of the sports field were beginning to run. I could hear the sound of their screams too.

The girl aimed the cannon, and the light particles spiraled wildly before the barrel.

Please…someone…stop her.

The violet light intensified to a single point. The shrill whistle filled the air.

Dear gods in Heaven, please no!

A bolt of crimson light flashed overhead and broke into an incandescent shower of sparks against the girl. I watched her stagger forward, until a second crimson bolt knocked her to her knees.

The air around the girl shimmered, and I realized it was an effect-field of some sort – one capable of shielding against energy based weapons fire. I couldn’t see where the crimson bolts were coming from, but it might have been from the school building behind me.

In moments, the cannon wielding girl was up on one knee, and while the crimson bolts struck her protective barrier, she aimed her cannon at a point high over my head. She began trading shots with her opponent, and the ground at her feet blew into a cloud of heated dirt and soil.

Pushing myself up onto my elbows, I craned my neck around and looked at the building behind me.

Someone was running along the rooftop, firing a crimson bolt every few seconds. Violet light beams chased the shooter, tearing up the building’s façade and parapet. That debris was beginning to rain down to the ground in large chunks. When a light beam struck the shooter, the air shimmered and I realized they were protected by an effect-field of their own.

I looked back at the cannon girl.

She was running now, the ground around her exploding with furious energy as the crimson bolts tore it up.

It seemed like both shooters were evenly matched, though the cannon girl had a higher firing rate. She ran toward the unconscious Countess. As soon as she reached Simone’s side, the rooftop shooter stopped firing.

The cannon girl took the advantage of that. She picked up Simone’s limp body and held it before her like a shield. At the same time she aimed the cannon at the building and resumed firing at her opponent. She was laughing madly, firing repeatedly and tearing up the rooftop. Whatever didn’t come crashing down as rubble was turned into a powdery grey mist.

She was so intent on taking down the rooftop shooter, she failed to see what Simone held in her left hand.

A high heeled shoe.

I didn’t notice her take it off, but it was in her left hand now, and in the next heartbeat Simone twisted her body while still in the girl’s grip.

She buried the heel into the girl’s left eye.

An ear-splitting scream tore from the girl’s throat. In agony she fired wildly into the sky, razing the artificial clouds.

Simone threw her whole body at the girl, knocking her down onto her back. Thankfully the cannon went silent after only one more wild shot.

I forced myself up onto my knees.

I watched the Countess struggle with the girl. She raised her shoe high, then slammed it down again only to be knocked aside by a wild swing of the crystal cannon. Simone rolled away, and the cannon girl tried aiming at her. Before she could shoot, a crimson bolt struck the crystal cannon’s effect-field. Sparks flew, and the next bolt hit the ground between the girl and the Countess.

Simone used the cover fire to run away. She tore off her right shoe and then sprinted barefoot toward the building behind me.

I gained my feet just as Simone arrived at my side, and together we ran for the safety of the building.

I could hear the air crackle behind us as bolt after bolt covered our escape.

We pushed the glass doors open, almost breaking them in our efforts to flee into the building.

Then I heard the shrill whistle that accompanied every shot made by the cannon. We had barely run a few feet into the foyer when the entrance behind us shattered with a loud roar. It came crashing down and large pieces of ceiling struck our backs, knocking us to the floor.