I returned to my bed…no, to Ronin Kassius’s bed…kicked off my sandals, and then slipped under the covers.

After tapping the bedside lamp to turn it off, I lay in darkness, exhausted and hollow as I looked up at the indistinct ceiling.

And sometime later, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, slivers of morning light intruded into the room around the edges of the curtain drawn across the window wall that separated the enclosed balcony from the apartment.

This is the second version of Chapter 2, Part II.
It's a little closer to what I had in mind but still not perfect. However, I decided to remove some of the uncharacteristic behavior exhibited by Mirai in verison 1.
Also, I felt I was wasting an opportunity for Mirai to continue puzzling through her circumstances.
Anyway, I'll wait to see how this version is received.

Continuing the almost weekly releases of the GPR 3 draft. Sorry for the delay.

I’d like to think of my actions as unconventional.

Unpredictable. Unexpected. Difficult to fathom.

Dare I say crazy?

I’d like to stress that there is a method to my madness; a reason behind my irrational behavior.

In other words, I’d like to say that I didn’t jump off the side of the building without a plan or a reason.

Let’s begin with the reason.

I wanted to get away from Erina.

I had much to think about on the night flight from the marina to the apartment complex in Ar Telica as the civilian VTOL flew us over the horseshoe shaped harbor, its waters glistening with light from the city-state’s immense pyramidal buildings.

My decision to live as Isabel and to fight as Mirai weighed heavily upon my shoulders.

From the author of the Gun Princess Royale, and with Book Two's imminent release in mid-July, comes a sneak peak at Book Three.

There is a marked difference between me and the other girls.

They take a bullet to the head…their avatar dies.

I take a bullet to the head…I die.

Game over. Farewell life. Adios muchacha. Head for the light—the light!

The Fragment the Lanfear Pride allocated to me went by the name, Kaiser’s Blessing.

Upon summoning its first form, otherwise known as its basic or starting configuration, I knew that it was quite clearly a weapon.

How powerful of a weapon was something I wouldn’t learn for a long time to come, but even with the little I’d unlocked of its abilities, I knew that it held promise.

It’s fair to say, that shortly after entering Galatea Academy, I had a glimpse of its potential, but I have yet to acquire it.

From the author of the Gun Princess Royale, comes the continuing saga of a young man that should know better and the girls who toy with him...

That’s how I died and was resurrected as a Familiar, and came to be affiliated with – or under the thumb of – the Lanfear Pride.
After the incident, I spent three weeks lying unconscious. and every waking month afterwards deep in physical training all the way to the beginning of the subsequent school year.

More often than not, upon graduating from high school, a Familiar is faced with two choices.

Giving up their Artifact or Fragment, or continuing to use it.

If they choose to continue mastering or unlocking their Fragment, they can proceed down a number of avenues.

One of those avenues leads to tertiary education, or employment by their affiliated Pride. Alternatively, they can attend tertiary studies while being employed by the Pride.

Not all Artifacts were the same.

Some were weapons and some were not.

Within this separation, they were classified into classes and types.

For example, there are Artifacts that fall into the Ruler Class.

Then there are those that fall into the Celestial Class.

Others belong to the Pantheon Class.

Within a class, they are further distinguished by types, and sometimes the classifications become messy. One example of this are the Valkyries.

The Prides called them Artifacts.

To the people of Pharos and the colonized systems under the control of the Prides, these Artifacts were powerful and mysterious devices found after the Cataclysm had torn our little corner of the galaxy apart. That is indeed true, since the Artifacts were fished out of the thick cloud of the Hurakan Nebula by numerous starships built for this kind of salvage.

Artifacts were also referred to as Fragments.

This is because Artifacts came in two packages.

When the Cataclysm ripped the galaxy apart for a radius of fifty three light years, it left behind the Hurakan Nebula.

Basically, the nebula formed from the remains of numerous planets, moons, and stars blown to bits by the trans-light shockwave.

That was more than two centuries ago.

Two hundred and thirty seven years to be exact.

Twenty years later, humanity had picked up the pieces and put together two spheres of political influence.

Class 1-D at Sanderson High School for Regulars.

Pharos Colony. Island Two. Habitat One.

Semester One – School Week Twenty.

Friday morning Homeroom Period.

Today was the big day – the final day of the school semester.

The mid-year break would start tomorrow, Saturday.

Needless to say my classmates and I were all looking forward to our measly five week break before starting Semester Two.

The photographer takes the pictures, capturing me at various moments in time.

I turn. I smile. I pose as he wants me to, or at the least I try for this is something I am unaccustomed to. Though he’s a practiced hand, I can read the disappointment in his face as he’s not getting the pictures he wants. Normally I’d say ‘tough biscuits’ but instead I can feel my heart beating quickly, unable to calm down, and sense the onset of an anxiety attack encroaching upon me.

From my window seat in the classroom, I watched the gulls ride the thermal currents flowing over the ocean waves. Looking small in the distance, they resembled tiny pieces of paper littering the air, rising and falling, sometimes lazily circling about. Nonetheless, I knew they were gulls and not paper, and for much of the afternoon homeroom period they had persistently nagged at my attention.