Pride X Familiar ReVamp (Pride X ReVamp Book 1) (9 page)

Or maybe it was steam blowing out her ears.

Whichever the case may be, she was flushed bright red, breathing heavily and her azure eyes were as wide as saucers.

I asked politely. “Shall I continue?”

She nodded absently. “Yes, please do—no, no, no! Wait—stop. Stop! I take it back.”

She moved with astonishing speed, picking up my shirt and jacket from the floor and tossing them at me. She turned away from me so quickly her hair billowed around her like a radiant spiral galaxy. “Hurry—put them on!”

“Very well, your Highness. There’s no need to shout,” I informed her.

“Dear gods,” Maya Khayman growled. “You have absolutely no shame.”

“May I point out that it was her idea.”

“Even so, for a man to undress at the drop of a hat is surely reprehensible.”

“May I also point out that I’ll only undress for the right woman.”

Her eyes narrowed considerably at my words. They weren’t cold anymore. They burned like embers from Hell.

I slipped on my shirt and started buttoning it up. “Like I said, I’m simply atoning for my earlier infraction upon the Princess.”

From behind me, the girl seated on the desk said, “Prissila, I thought you didn’t like being called Princess?”

“I don’t mind. I mean, it’s not like he’s being disrespectful.” She tossed her hair with one hand. “At least he appreciates a fine woman when he sees one.”

The girl behind me laughed. “Ho ho ho. Is that the spark of interest I hear in your voice?”

The Princess started to turn angrily but at sight of me she quickly turned away.

I finished slipping on my jacket. “Your Highness, I’m done dressing. You may turn around at your leisure.”

I watched her shoulders tremble.

Damn, this girl was adorable. A real handful in many, many respects, but still adorable.

“Ah, is that so,” she muttered, then hesitantly turned to face me. Seeing I was dressed once more she seemed to relax, releasing a long heavy sigh as she pressed down upon her bountiful chest.

Then she slapped me, and I flew sideways to the floor.

“How dare you,” she growled. “Undressing before a lady without a hint of restraint. You should be ashamed. You’re a menace to the female student body. I will campaign to have you expelled before the week is out.”

“Aren’t you being a little unfair,” I complained while lying on the floor. “There seems to be no pleasing you. I could praise you to kingdom come and you’ll still find fault in my efforts.”

“Silence.” She snapped a finger at me. “How dare a lowly Familiar talk to me this way. Don’t you know your place?”

I stood up smoothly then walked up to her, ignoring the painful sting of her slap.

She retreated away from me. “Wh—what are you doing?” Her back hit the closed wooden doors.

I didn’t stop until I slammed both my outstretched arms against the doors, fencing her in with my body.

“I can assure you, Princess, that I most certainly know my place. I’ve spent the last sixteen years of my life knowing my place. I don’t need to be told where I stand by a naïve child born of the silver spoon. A child who knows
nothing
about the pain of loss.”

“What are you blabbering about?”

My voice darkened at the ignorance in her tone. “I lost both my parents because of your kind!”

“What? What does my Pride have to do with your parents?”

“Shut up!” I yelled. “If not for your kind Crimson Crescent would never have planted that bomb. If not for your kind they would never have detonated it. My parents would be alive, and so would hundreds of others.”

My face must have matched or exceeded the fury in my voice.

I saw her eyes widen and her lips tremble.

“I…I…I didn’t know.”

“That’s your problem. You don’t
know anything
. You go through life thinking your little world is the only one that matters. You’re an ignorant, spoilt little child. A dose of reality and hardship would do you some good.”

“I didn’t know. It’s not my fault,” she protested shaking her head in a clear panic.

I couldn’t hold it in.

I pulled back my right arm and then punched the door.

I wasn’t as strong as an Aventis.

But I was strong enough to splinter the door.

Everyone must have heard it crack.

I hissed loudly. “I curse your kind to Hell and back.”

Suddenly she screamed and pushed me back with a strength that exceeded mine. She spun around and opened the door, yanking it back before racing into the corridor outside the room.

I watched her run away, for the second time in one day.

Gods I hated their kind – I hated the Prides.

Then I heard a voice from behind me.

“Caelum, calm down. My kind—my Pride—is as guilty as hers.”

I turned to look at the girl on the desk.

She had a look of deep remorse on her face, and I thought I saw her eyes water.

“My family failed to prevent that attack. The Raynar Pride here in Pharos had assured the other Prides that Pharos was safe. After all, we had maintained its safety for almost a hundred years.”

She shook her head as she climbed off the desk, and then walked up to me with gentle steps. Reaching out, she tenderly straightened my shirt, my jacket and the pins above my left breast pocket.

She spoke softly. “The fault lies with my Pride, Caelum. Don’t blame Prissila.”

Her remorseful look, and the gentle smile she then bestowed on me helped ease my anger.

After a few moments I felt foolish and ashamed of my actions.

I shook my head. “I apologize. I had no right getting angry at her. I couldn’t help myself.” I sighed loudly and couldn’t help my shoulders from dropping. “I’ve made things worse between her and I.”

The girl looked at me. Our eyes were almost level with each other.

“Caelum Desanto, I will tell you this. Arisa Imreh Lanfear is a good friend of mine. She asked me to look out for you and for Caprice.”

I swallowed and said, “Thank you…?”

“Don’t sound so unsure. I know you hate us Aventis, but I also hope to at least change your opinion regarding a few of us.”

“Like the Princess?”

“Oh, don’t say it that way. You’re right about Prissila. She’s naïve, and innocent. I guess a better way to describe her would be ‘inexperienced’.” She leaned closer to me. “Play your cards right and you’ll have that girl eating out of your hand.”

I frowned at the beautiful girl before me. “May I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Who are you?”

She laughed softly under her breath. “I’m the Student Council Vice-President. My name is Simone Alucard Raynar.”

“Alucard? You mean as in ‘Dracula’ spelt in reverse?”

She looked embarrassed. “Eh…yes. Unfortunately so.”

I allowed my gaze to wander over her. “So you’re a Raynar.”

Her azure eyes widened slightly. “Oh…I see.” She sighed softly but I still heard it. “Caelum, please understand, my family—the Alucards—had no part in what happened to you that day. There was no Alucard involved in the actions taken against you.”

“How much do you know about what happened?”

She folded her hands over her midriff. “I know that it was foolish for those individuals to strike at the Lanfears.”

“But it wasn’t just the Lanfears they picked a fight with. They made a move to prevent the Avenirs from reaching me as well.”

She nodded faintly. “Yes, they did.”

“Why do you think they saw me as a threat?”

I almost missed the shrug she gave me. “Caelum, I don’t know.”

“Could it have something to do with my sister? Did she do something to them—to the Raynars—that convinced them I was a danger?”

For a long moment, Simone was very still and quiet. “You know about your sister?”

I nodded just once. “Yes, Arisa told me the truth after I became a Familiar.”

She looked down at the floor. “I wasn’t privy to the interrogations, and even when I asked, my family told me ‘not to ask’. So, I have no answer for you.”

I swallowed as lightly as I could. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked because now I felt as though what happened seven months ago was not put to rest.

A really bad feeling crept up my spine. I tried shaking it off by changing the subject.

Let me describe it as a hard right turn in the conversation.

“Simone…that’s a lovely name.”

She blinked a few times, then broke into smile. Reaching up, she pressed a fingertip to my lips. “Silly boy. Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Arisa told me to be on my best behavior around you.”

I felt her fingertip slide along my lips.

She leaned forward a little more. “However, she never told me how tempting you would be.”

I felt my heart jump.

For just one moment I’d forgotten this girl was an Aventis, an entity enhanced by the Symbiote inside her.

For just one moment, I forgot I was supposed to hate her kind.

Simone smiled and spoke in a breathy voice that made my knees weak and other parts extremely hard, “I fear you’re going to bring out the bad in me.”

#

(Haruka)

“We’re wasting time, Haruka. You’re wasting time.”

I ignored Siobhan at first, but now I was tired of her harping. “Go home, Siobhan.”

“Not without you.”

“I’m waiting here until I talk to him.”

“How do you know he’ll come out this way?”

“Because the shoe lockers are here. He has to come out this way.” With my arms crossed I shifted my weight onto my other. “I’ll wait another half hour.”

“Uggh, you’re impossible,” Siobhan exclaimed. “This guy broke up with you. Why are still so hung up on him?”

“We didn’t break up. We were never together.”

“That proves my point even more.”

“Another half hour. That’s all I’m going to wait.”

“Fine, then I’ll sit here in the meantime.”

Siobhan found herself a spot on the steps outside the building’s entrance.

I stood with my back against a support pillar.

Alistair had run off to get snacks from a vending machine.

The torrent of students leaving the building eventually petered out into a trickle.

I glanced at my wrist watch.

Half an hour and not a minute more.

Reflections – 3.

Let me explain the important aspects about the Fragments.

We already know Fragments are incomplete or locked down devices the Prides refer to as Artifacts, and these Artifacts were recovered after the Cataclysm from deep inside the Hurakan Nebula.

Who made them is a point of contention, because Fragments – and Artifacts – are simply too advanced and amazing for humans to have created, and there are no records of Fragments and Artifacts existing before the Cataclysm during humanity’s First Golden Age.

However, if they were not created
by
humans, they were at least created
for
humans.

Specifically, they were created for Familiars.

On this point, there is overwhelming agreement in the scientific community.

Another point of consensus is that the majority of Fragments are designed for conflict. They’re weapons, not toys, and they’re meant for chaos and destruction.

They’re meant to kill.

The whole story behind Fragments and Artifacts would undoubtedly require a separate volume. I’m not privy to all the details, just a
fragment
of them, so I have no intention of writing such a book. Instead, I’ll simply summarize what I knew then and complement it with what I know now.

Let’s begin with the definition of a Fragment.

As I explained earlier a Fragment refers to two types of Artifacts.

The first type refers to an Artifact that is incomplete, and missing the pieces that would allow it to achieve its full potential. It’s like saying, it’s missing bits of inventory from its armory.

The second type of Fragment is an Artifact whose Core is in a locked down state, and as such is unable able to manifest its true form. Thus when summoned, the Fragment is only a
fragment
of the completed, unlocked Artifact. In game terms, it’s a device with abilities that are locked and can’t be used. The player or Familiar needs to overcome challenges that will unlock the Core, and release the full potential of the Artifact.

Now we need to describe the two types of Artifacts – those with a Core and those without.

When the right pieces are combined in the right order, they form a complete Artifact. The Core of an Artifact determines what pieces it will accept into the mix, or
armory
. This means that an Artifact with an armory can swap out its components for other components depending on the situation at hand. I’ve come to learn that those Artifacts with a Core are by far the most powerful and dangerous. Invariably, they are weapons.

That said, there are a great many Artifacts that lack a Core, and their pieces come together by
mutual agreement
. While less powerful as weapons, they tend to possess abilities that can make life very difficult for the rest of us. For example, there are Artifacts that can manipulate data, thereby re-writing the information contained in photronic data stores and digital archives. They possess the ability to rewrite your recorded history, and can go way beyond turning a failing grade into a passing one.

They can turn you from a respected member of society into a fugitive.

My Fragment was quite clearly a weapon. How powerful a weapon would not be revealed for many, many months. I only learnt what kind of Fragment or Artifact it was shortly after entering Galatea Academy, and that was more than seven months after I first received it. Even the Lanfear researchers didn’t know what kind of Artifact it was until the fateful events that befell me deep under the Academy.

But…we’ll get to that in due time.

While my Fragment was tucked away in Pocket Space, I wore a piece of it shaped like a wide bracelet about three inches across. For many, many months, I had to wear it over bare skin, and specifically over my right forearm, or the bracelet ring would refuse to close.

The Lanfear researchers explained that the bracelet was my link to the remainder of the Fragment in Pocket Space. In other words, the rest of the Fragment was inside a ‘pocket’ of folded space that had no visible interaction with the space I was able to perceive around me.

However where I went, the
pocket
went.

It was like dropping a collection of keys into a pocket, leaving only the key ring hanging outside.

The bracelet around my right forearm was the ‘key ring’.

While they remain in Pocket Space, it’s easy to picture the pieces of the Fragment or Artifact floating around in a black empty void. However, that’s quite far from the truth and the components of the Artifact or Fragment reside within a container called a Sarcophagus. It is the Sarcophagus that generates the bubble of Pocket Space around it, hiding it from reality while travelling incognito near the
relative
vicinity of the Familiar.

For the record, I will state that my Fragment’s Sarcophagus does indeed resemble a sarcophagus from ancient times, though there’s no mummy inside. It’s a huge thing, some nine to ten meters tall, and sufficiently spacious to fit a large car inside with room to spare.

When my Fragment is retrieved from Pocket Space and manifests in the real world, a distinct cold accompanies it. A real chill that frosts my breath in the air. It’s like opening the door to an industrial refrigerator for a short amount of time. Depending on the outside temperature, it could take a while for that chill to dissipate.

The chill is one thing, but the black mist that accompanies a manifestation is something else.

Downright creepy is an understatement.

It took me a while to grow accustomed to its appearance, but not the cold.

When fully manifested, the gauntlet over my right arm resembled a fantastical elliptical shield with a blade, much like a short sword, extending forward. Two other blades ran over the top of the shield and extended out the back by a few inches. These reminded me of the blades you find on ice-skates.

For simplicity’s sake I’ll refer to the fully manifested blades and shield as the Gauntlet.

My Gauntlet had a couple of useful features.

One, when used as a shield it would generate a really strong effect-field. To put it simply, this field or barrier could handle everything from physical to energy based attacks. To test it out, the researchers once fired a small scale particle cannon at me – the kind of cannon found on a main battle tank.

That was as close as I’ve ever come to pissing myself in outright fear.

They also used a catapult to fling a small car at me. To my surprise, the shield reconfigured into a wide ellipse. I thought I was going to be crushed, but the barrier extended around me and not just in front of me. It took the impact, and the car broke in two right before my eyes, passing to either side of me before crashing to the ground.

I haven’t mentioned the blades. Well, they were just as impressive as the shield feature.

Those blades could cut through almost anything with a single swipe.

In fact, I had to be really careful when practicing with the Gauntlet, lest I lose a limb or two.

I found most of the early experiments and practical tests to be rather terrifying.

But I did find the Fragment to be rather cool.

It was like a magical weapon without being magical. An example of super advanced science at work. That was one of the reasons the researchers believed Fragments and Artifacts were not of human origin. They were simply too advanced.

Yet considering how well some of these Fragments appeared to suit the fighting styles of us humans – dare I say Familiars – then perhaps whoever made the Artifacts really did intend for humans to use them.

There was one other possibility to consider when contemplating the origins of the Artifacts and their Fragments – the possibility that these devices came from a time and place far, far into the future.

I did mention these Artifacts only appeared after the Cataclysm.

Well, some researchers believed that the Cataclysm was a form of space-time quake.

They theorized that an event took place in the future, which translated into the past. The result was the massive shockwave in trans-space that propagated at super-luminal speed and ended billions of lives.

If that was indeed the case, then wouldn’t the Cataclysm have an indelible effect on our future? After all, if the Aventis were not supposed to inhabit our galaxy for a long time to come, then their appearance in the past would most certainly alter the future yet to take place.

I listened to the arguments and the theories.

Before becoming a Familiar, and before being allocated a Fragment, those arguments and theories were just talk. They were intangible speculation that had little impact on a tiny cog in the wheel such as myself.

But now I didn’t think so anymore.

Now I was a part of those theories and speculations.

So when the researchers talked about the Fragments, Artifacts, Aventis and Prides, I listened and I learned from them.

There is one more thing I need to mention.

While the things my Fragment could do amazed me most of the time, they also scared me a great deal.

That old saying ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ was potently fitting.

I had great power.

But what the Hell did I know about great responsibility?

I was a sixteen year old kid turning on seventeen, with an unhealthy passion for large breasts and women’s lingerie.

Give me a break already.