This was Crimson Crescent we were facing. These people were accustomed to fighting the Prides as a matter of survival. But Rina and I were new entrants into the struggle. As they say, we’d barely gotten our feet wet.
I took a deep breath, and slowly edged toward a decision.
I promised Ms. Fauntine I would protect this school. I could do that just by holding still, but deep down that didn’t sit well with me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and that’s when I heard a girl’s voice clear across the cafeteria.
“It’s him—he’s the one who took Reina. He’s the bastard who took her!”
I opened my eyes and stared at the large man. “Is that true?” I was surprised to hear my own voice, but the question couldn’t be retracted.
He cocked his head to a side. “You say something, little girl?”
“Is that true? Were you the one responsible for taking a student of this academy?”
“Yes. Nothing personal, just following orders.”
I ground my teeth. “Nothing…personal….”
He snorted. “What are you, my echo?”
I shook my head slowly. “No, I’m no echo. But I’m going to ask you one thing. Have you ever heard the tale of David and Goliath?”
“Nope.”
“It’s a really good tale. It’s all about a giant of a man who gets taken down by a smaller one. It’s the classic big versus small encounter.”
“So, you’re drawing a parallel here?”
I clenched my hands, and felt my blades grow a few inches longer. They already extended two feet past my fists. “What am I saying, is that if you take one of ours, we’ll take one of yours.”
He gave me pitying look. “Is that supposed to be threat?”
“I’m just letting you know, that you won’t be returning to your ship.” I held up arm with their gauntlet blades for him to see. “At least, not in one piece.”
“Big words from a little girl—”
I leapt toward him, clearing the guardrail and the thirty foot span of the atrium in a single bound.
This was my God Speed, the power of the Valkyrie Legs. It was something I couldn’t handle unless I over-clocked.
My Artifact sensed his barrier field, and I raised my right arm in order to slash downwards. My intention was to cleave through the barrier, and my piercer-field did just that.
I saw surprise on his face, but it lasted only a heartbeat. He already had his right arm back, ready to deliver a pile-driving blow. As he punched toward me, I sensed a tremendously thick barrier-field form around his fist.
Rather than meet his barrier with one of mine, I willed a piercer-field to envelope my left blade, then thrust it into his oncoming fist. It felt like stabbing through a wall of thick jelly, but the blade carried through. Though deflected, it managed to graze the length of his gauntleted forearm.
I frowned inwardly.
Up close, I could see his Fragment clearly.
There was armor around his fists, feet, forearms and shins. The joints of his limbs are protected too. The torso armor reminded me a little of Jaxon’s Kaiser, rippling like snake skin.
As my blade cut a groove over his gauntlet, I pushed down, using his arm for support. That allowed me to push off him and thus avoid his right fist altogether.
It was perfect, and left him wide open – open for a kick from my Valkyrie Legs.
I swung my left leg up, and even if it left me unbalanced, I put everything I had into that kick.
It connected.
Its barrier-field slammed into the field protecting his sternum.
Damn it. I didn’t expect his field to be so hard.
But it wasn’t over yet – I still had some momentum left.
I brought up my right leg and kicked straight at his chest. It lacked force, and would have barely cratered a permacrete wall. But it sent him back a few steps, and gave me the time to touch ground safely, though I landed hard and awkwardly.
Move. Keep moving. Don’t falter.
I was prone to delaying after finishing a combination move. My fight with the Artemis girls had highlighted that. I needed to keep moving. Not so much reacting, as acting.
My encounter with Jaxon had gone a little better because I’d kept up my pace.
I needed to do the same here, or I would be pummeled by this giant man.
“Ho ho, not bad,” he praised. “Certainly faster than—”
Bastard talks too much.
I launched myself at him.
A second and third kick, one to his chest and the next to his flank, robbed him of his words.
But he took the blows, and I barely avoided his counter, a scything palm strike that would have doubled me over had it hit my chest. I bent backwards, losing my footing but saving my body. I heard the air whistle behind his palm as it cleaved the space where my body had been a millisecond ago.
I landed on my backside, but used the effect-field my Valkyrie Armor projected to push myself off the ground. I scrambled clear of his next strike – a fist that punched down into the ground a heartbeat after I rolled my body out of the way. I glimpsed his hand disappear into the floor, shattering the permacrete and thin linoleum into small fragments.
Gods, that power was more than I’d ever faced before.
But I realized it a quarter second later.
His hand was temporarily stuck.
I was out of balance. My posture on the ground was awkward, but I took the chance regardless.
It was an opening I wasn’t going to a miss.
Using my left arm to push up and off the ground, I slashed diagonally with my right blade, aiming not for his gauntleted arm but for his tricep bulging under his skinsuit.
The piercer field sliced through the barrier around his arm.
It sliced the skinsuit and the flesh underneath.
For a moment there was no reaction.
Then his blood splattered against the barrier-field protecting my face.
He roared in pain.
Amazingly, he tore his right fist out of the hole in the floor, and then came at me swinging.
So he’s a Power Type after all, just like in those role-playing games I’d heard my male classmates talk about before homeroom and during lunch break.
So what did that make me?
A Speed Type? An Agility Type? A Blade Type?
Maybe all three.
Yes, definitely all three.
I realized I was grinning. No, I was smiling.
I’d drawn first blood, and I had no desire to stop there.
*Rina, he’s mine. You take care of the effect-field gravity generator in the northern courtyard. Make things lighter for me.
It felt like an eternity before she replied.
*I’m on it. Don’t get hit.
I grinned, but it was more inward than outward.
My body was too busy dodging his fists and the stomping kicks he was sending my way.
*I won’t get hit. I can finally feel it.
Yes, I could feel a calm flow through me.
I had the edge, and I knew I could win this.
But by the same token, recognizing the possibility of winning meant accepting the possibility of defeat.
He shifted his attack pattern, favoring his wounded right arm for defense. If he’d ingested Aventis blood like I had, that wound would heal in minutes because I was certain that’s how quickly my body would heal.
Come on you bastard, keep coming.
I leapt back, rolling backwards onto the table behind me. I came up on my feet and leapt again, avoiding his sweeping left arm.
My left foot touched down on the table, and I spun clockwise, lashing out with my right.
The barrier field around my right heel struck his face, knocking his head back as though he’d run into a permacrete wall.
I saw blood fountain from his broken nose.
Was my field really that strong?
Or was he simply just weak?
Something felt
wrong here.
A moment later I felt his right hand clamp onto my sweeping right leg.
I had no chance of breaking free.
A heartbeat later he swung me through the air and then down into the cold floor.
The extra gravity aided my descent.
I had enough to time brace my arms before me and mitigate the impact by using my barrier-fields. But while it slowed my body down tremendously, I struck the floor with enough force to knock the wind out of my lungs.
I didn’t get the chance to scramble away.
A kick to my flank, barrier-field against barrier-field, sent my body flying a foot off the ground and some distance across the cafeteria floor.
My back struck the pedestal leg of a table. The impact knocked the table several feet away, and brought me to a quick stop.
I couldn’t move.
The barrier-field around my body had been too thin. It had taken the brunt of the impact, but my body hadn’t been spared the blow.
I gasped, wondering if my ribs were broken, wondering if my organs had ruptured.
Wondering if my vertebrae had fractured.
Given time, I was confident I would heal quickly. I had Prissila Ventiss Raynar’s blood in me, and Raynar blood was close to Lanfear blood, so I was pretty well powered up.
But I needed to time heal – time to deal with the punishment I was being handed.
Move. Move. Move!
The effect-field around my upper body and arms hardened. I used it to launch myself to my armored knees, then kicked off with my feet. I avoided being stomped on, by the merest of margins.
“Damn it,” he cursed behind me.
I rolled forward, and came up in a crouch, twisting my body so that I turned a full one eighty degrees.
I paused for a heartbeat, watching him move quickly toward me though I was fully over-clocked.
He lowered his body while keeping upright and level.
His right fist cannoned toward me.
His attention was riveted on me and me alone.
He never saw Rina send a bolt of violet light at a steep angle into his back.
His barrier-field spared him from being immolated by the intense energy.
I had no time to squint as light flashed and colors reversed.
I barely had enough time to raise my blades toward him. I didn’t even think of sharpening the piercer-fields that surrounded the blades.
Catapulted forward by the bolt of energy crashing into his barrier-field, his fist connected early, striking the barrier around my left shoulder.
But his torso rammed into my outstretched arms, despite the barrier-field protecting it.
I felt the piercer-fields penetrate his barrier.
I felt the blades slide into his body.
His momentum carried him bodily into me, and I was knocked back a half dozen feet, landing against empty chairs, scattering them like bowling pins before coming to a stop with his body on top of me.
I couldn’t hold onto my barrier field; my concentration was failing me.
My over-clocked state reverted back to normal, and I felt his full weight on my arms.
I managed to concentrate enough of my will onto my gauntlets. The blades retracted, sliding back over my forearms and elbows – sliding out of his body.
I felt a warm wetness splash onto my chest, making it hard for me to hold him up and off my body. But the Symbiote inside me strengthened my limbs and muscles, and I was able to push the large man off me.
He fell away to my left, rolling onto his back as he did.
I struggled to my knees, and crawled up and over him. As I did, I extended my blades once more, and aimed for his chest and throat.
“Give her back,” I croaked, my voice breaking and failing me.
He was wheezing loudly, and I guessed I’d punctured a lung or two. But he looked at me with mirth in his eyes even as bloodied spittle stained his lips.
I raised my right arm high, and yelled, “Give her back!”
He laughed and more blood escaped his mouth.
“Then die!” I screamed.
“Enough!”
The shout rocked the air, probably amplified by a skinsuit mike. It was a woman’s voice, and for a moment my body trembled.
I didn’t turn to face her, but kept my right arm at the ready for a downward strike that would stab through his heart.
*Cappy—wait! Wait!
My whole body trembled.
Below me the large, barrel chested man jerked faintly, and coughed up more blood. But that smile never left his lips. He kept looking at me with amusement in his eyes.
I wanted to plunge my blade into his face.
The woman addressed me in a calm voice that contrasted with my feelings.
I heard her clearly as though she were standing beside me.
“That’s enough, Caprice. We’ll do as you ask.”
I swallowed.
It can’t be. It can’t be. That voice. That voice.
What? Why—why am I crying?
“Caprice…you’ve done enough. Don’t let this end in bloodshed. You’re too young to be taking a life.”
I swallowed hard, then worked up the strength to rise to my feet.
I could barely see the man anymore, let alone much of my surroundings.
My tears were like a thick veil covering my eyes.
Nonetheless, I turned and faced in the direction of the woman who called out to me. The Valkyrie Armor fed my Awareness spatial information, and I knew exactly where to look.
I blinked away the moisture in my eyes, and looked at the woman dressed in a black skinsuit and long, flowing coat.
“…Mother…?”
She smiled at me, and favored me with a faint nod. “Hello, Caprice.”
My thoughts fell apart.
I could do nothing more than sway and stare at her.
She took a few steps closer. “Induran, this is Gabrielle. The girl I instructed Dumas to take aboard…release her. Set her down with an effect-field. Be gentle with her. I don’t want her harmed.”
Slowly, coherent thought began to form inside my mind.
Slowly I began to sift through the multitude of questions.
I settled on one.
“You…you’re alive?”
She nodded sadly. “Yes, Caprice. I am alive. I had to leave you. I had to leave Pharos, and Artemis, and my precious daughter. My death was faked, and it allowed me to hand my Valkyrie Armor to you. It was a parting gift.”
I stared at her, barely comprehending her words.
She indicated the man on the ground. “Caprice, step away from him. You don’t want to continue this. He is a comrade, and I will fight you if it means protecting his life.”
I swallowed heavily. “You would fight me?”
“Yes. You are my daughter, and nothing will ever change that nor the love I hold for you, but I made the choice to cut my ties to the past. Whether I love you or not, I will fight to protect my comrades and my new family.”
I stared at her with confusion plainly written on my face. “New…family?”
“Crimson Crescent is my family now.”
Now I felt anger well up inside me. “Why? Why did you leave me? Why did you make me believe you were dead?”
“For the righting of a wrong. For the promise of tomorrow.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to. I expect you to listen to me, and to do as I say.”
The anger inside me wavered, like a candle flame caught in a breeze.
Then it strengthened.
I clenched my jaw, working the muscles for a heartbeat. “You’ve cast me aside for them, yet you expect me to obey you?” I snorted derisively. “Don’t make me laugh.”
She nodded gently. “The girl will be returned to you. You said it yourself, if she was taken then you would take one of us.”
I swallowed again. I had indeed said something to that effect.
I stepped away from th
e man lying supine on the floor.
I gave him a wide berth as I watched the woman that looked and sounded like my mother walk between scattered tables and chairs.
She arrived at the man’s side and picked him up easily, her strength as a Familiar enhanced by the black skinsuit she wore.
“Damn fool,” she muttered as she put her shoulder under him. “I told you to inject a vial of Aventis blood into your body. Now look at yourself.”
He laughed in shame. “Yeah, you were right.” Then he looked at me. “She’s a lot tougher than I expected. She definitely takes after you—” He coughed again and my mother shook her head in pity.
“Damn fool,” she repeated. “Induran, we’re done. Pick us up on the roof of the cafeteria.”
I forced my hands to relax as I watched my mother half carry the man across the cafeteria’s top floor.
Rina asked, *Cappy, what do we do?
I sucked in air helplessly. *Nothing. We do nothing.
I continued watching my mother and the man she supported.
Rina gasped loudly in my head. *I see the girl. They’re using an effect-field to lower her to the courtyard.
Rina walked over cautiously to the curved glass wall of the cafeteria overlooking the northern courtyard. I noticed one of the window panes had a large hole in it.
Rina must have shot out the generator in the northern courtyard while I was busy fighting with the large man.
My mother stopped walking. “Induran, can you give us a hand”—she jerked in surprise—“what was that?”
A loud boom rocked the cafeteria. I looked up and through the trans-steel ceiling I saw the massive black starship drift sideways.
A flash of golden light against its portside, followed by a second boom a millisecond later.
Through the transparent ceiling I saw something dart around the ship. It looked small, and I wondered if it was some kind of fighter craft. But when it slowed down for a moment, I saw that it had a vague humanoid shape, with sharp angular wings extending from its back like leaves off a branch.
What the Hell is that?
Another flash of light, and another boom.
The darting humanoid figure repeatedly struck the quantum reaction shields and barrier-fields protecting the starship, rocking it with each attack.
I looked around me at the interior of the cafeteria and noticed that almost all the students had crawled away from east side of the building. They had crawled away to escape the fight between myself and the large man.
Pride x Familiar Page 43
