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.
T
hat 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.
Chapter 3.
(Caelum)
I studied the School Council president when he walked in.
Severin Kell Avenir.
Tall, well-built, and handsome.
He looked reliable, composed – a man for all seasons. Someone the student body could look to for guidance and support.
He was the sort of man I had every reason to hate.
So I decided to hate him and the Symbiote that probably had a hand in his good looks.
Simone noticed the look on my face so I hurriedly wiped it off.
The president greeted the two girls first, shaking their hands like a well-polished gentleman.
One of the girl’s he impressed from head to toes. I heard her introduce herself as Rina Sayen. I thought the girl was going to burst into flames or faint when he shook her hand.
My level of hatred reached a new low – or is that a new high?
However, Maya Khayman gave him a dead fish handshake. I could see she wasn’t impressed with him at all.
Was there history between these two?
Then he stepped up to me. We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries that I certainly didn’t mean.
Then he asked us all to sit down.
I chose to remain standing.
Simone gave me a sour look, but I ignored her.
Severin looked at us all, then turned to Simone. “Aren’t we missing one?”
Simone tipped her head slightly. “Caprice has been apprised of the situation.”
Severin stared at her for a long moment.
Simone stared back.
Eventually he shrugged and turned back to the girls and I.
Clearing his throat, Severin said, “I’m glad you could all join us. This is the first time in years we’ve had so many Familiars attending our school. I consider this a bumper year.”
He didn’t sound like he was deriding us. He actually sounded grateful.
Aventis tended to look down on us Familiars probably more so than Regulars.
Even the researchers and medical technicians I’d encountered tended to treat us with thinly veiled disdain. There were times I was tempted to take my Fragment and ram its blade up their asses.
Thinking of my Fragment reminded me I had a training session this afternoon.
I discretely glanced at the clock hanging on one wall.
Maya asked drily, “What do you mean a ‘bumper year’?”
“Simply that it’s been a while since we’ve had so many Familiars attending Galatea. For the last five years we’ve had to make do with only one or two at any given time.”
Maya looked confused. “Huh?”
Severin sighed. “To have four Familiars attending, and all in their second year of high school is extremely fortuitous.”
“Is that all we are to you?” she groused. “Tools?”
“Not at all,” he replied apologetically.
Simone chimed in from her place on the desk. “Mr. President, we’re wasting time.”
At the interruption, Maya gave the girl a thin look.
Severin waved his hands gently in the air. “Now, now. Let’s all get along, shall we?” He took a deep breath. “My apologies for asking, but have all of you been assigned a specific Fragment?”
I narrowed my eyes, fully intending to remain silent.
Neither Caprice nor Arisa had told me how to handle such a question.
However, Maya faced the question head on. “What makes you think we’d tell you?”
Severin’s eyes widened then he broke into a smile. “I’m sorry. I truly didn’t mean to pry. I was simply asking because having a Fragment would have been helpful.”
“How so?” she asked.
“Well, the reason I called you all here is because a situation has developed within the Academy.”
I glanced at Simone.
The Vice-President of the Student Council was half lying on Severin’s desk like some chanteuse on a piano, with an unreadable look on her face.
Severin continued. “I’ve spoken to your Guardians, and I have their consent for calling you here, and enlisting your assistance.”
I held back a surprised frown.
The Student Council President had spoken to Arisa? It appeared Caprice knew this, so why hadn’t she told me?
Maya looked taken aback. “You—you spoke to my mother?”
Severin nodded. “Yes. I discussed the situation with her over a most pleasant lunch. She agreed this would serve as good experience for you.”
I got the feeling that was multifaceted response – an answer with many sides to it.
For a heartbeat Maya looked hurt, and then she sat straighter in the chair, and folded her arms. “What do you want from me”—she flicked a glance my way—“I mean from ‘us’?”
Severin smiled proudly at her. “Always to the point, Maya.”
I frowned.
Definitel
y some history between these two.
Hey, why was she blushing just now?
I realized I was staring at her. She gave me a hard glare, so I shrugged nonchalantly and turned away.
Severin pulled out a pen remote from his jacket’s breast pocket. Waving it about like a wand, he activated an overhead holovid projection system. The lights dimmed and a holovid winked to life in the center of the room.
An emblem floated there – an emblem I recognized.
“Crimson Crescent,” I hissed, unable to restrain the antagonism I felt toward them.
Severin nodded. “Yes. We have reason to believe, and reason to fear, that Crimson Crescent has taken in an interest in Galatea Academy.”
I heard collective gasps from everyone but Severin and Simone.
Maya shot to her feet and glared at Severin. “Don’t make jokes like that!”
“It’s no joke, Maya,” he replied calmly. “In truth, I wish it was.”
I swallowed before asking, “How do you know this?”
“While it’s true we are not absolutely certain, it’s fair to say they’re our number one suspects.”
“Why?”
He crossed his arms slowly. “Three months ago an incursion into our Academy’s network took place. The first of seven security levels was breached in under a minute. These incursions continued for a month, and a total of five levels were penetrated. I consulted with some trusted individuals who found the breaches were executed with phenomenal speed. In fact, they described it as downright frightening.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that whoever is breaking into our information network has some serious hardware at their disposal.”
I stared at him for a moment. “Pretend I’m ignorant.”
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before rubbing it. “In simple terms, the hardware capable of breaking in so quickly is decades, possibly a century more advanced than anything currently available.”
I saw the light. “A Fragment.”
“Precisely.”
“Even so, why suspect Crimson Crescent?”
Pride X Familiar ReVamp (Pride X ReVamp Book 1) Page 8
