A sequel to the Gun Princess Royale. Yanked off the streets of New Angeles by the tenebrous Pantheon organisation, and gifted with a deadly avatar known as a Diva, Nikola 'Sola' Raynar is a Lanfear - a huntress of Bloodliners and Wolvren. When she isn't hunting down the denizens of the night, she's busy finding ways to build up her nest egg for the day of her retirement from Pantheon. But when her rampant greed carries her a little too far, she finds herself in a mess that wasn't entirely of her own making. And things only get worse when the one who recruited her, the Goddess Aphrodite, decides to use Nikola to draw an enemy of Pantheon's out of the darkness and into the light.

Author's Note: This is a sequel to the GPR series, not to GPR Book Three. Gun Princess Royale is a planned 9 book series.
I am writing Remnant Fiestas and GRP in parallel to save time.

In the beginning, there were eight Bloodlines.
Now, there are only seven.
Vesper. Umbra. Nosfer. Tenebris. Erebus. Stryga. Lamia.
Remember them well.
Burn their names into your heart.
Make them fear the darkness.
Make them fear you.
Make them feel the might of your Fury.

Anthea’s strength was abnormal.

No flesh and blood creature could exert such physical power from a body her size without tearing itself apart. However, her strength was not to the degree where she could flip a two-tonne truck over onto its side, though she could probably wrestle a tiger or lion to the ground.

That said, I couldn’t be certain since I’d never tried to outdo Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle.

However, just like Tarzan, I needed to travel the high ground to make best speed across an urban jungle of permacrete and krono-steel.

The question was how to make my way up to the city’s skyline a few thousand feet above me.

The answer was by jumping up the walls of the megascrapers that loomed over the alleyway.

To be specific, I employed a method of teleporting we Lanfears and Aventis called Shifting.

It involved Anthea bursting apart into a cloud of whatever dark matter she was composed of then have the Anima crystal teleport from one location to the next.

Shifting was line-of-sight only, meaning that I couldn’t travel through walls because I need to see where I’m going in order to jump between places. Thus, by seeing through a window, I could Shift into and out of a building or a room.

I could only speculate on how the teleport was achieved.

Pantheon’s tech is Godly, but they were loathe to divulge its secrets.

However, I suspected that the Cradle hiding in Pocket Space was responsible for folding space around the Anima Crystal, then throwing it from one location to the other. But I stress that this was purely speculation on my part.

Looking upwards at the building walls around me, I then focused on a distant point of open air between them.

Anthea could Shift farther than 100 meters, so I could travel from street level to rooftop in a handful of jumps. With that in mind, I executed my first Shift for night.

It was a weird sensation.

I felt myself sucked inwards toward the crystal deep in Anthea’s chest, while simultaneously breaking apart. My vision narrowed, turned grey, then black for a mere instant before it expanded and grew clear again as Anthea’s body rematerialized. The whole process took less than a second, though I once used the Cradle to time myself and discovered that if Anthea was in a hurry, she could Shift between locations in the blink of an eye. Not only that, she could successively Shift several times with nary a pause between them, and travel nearly a kilometer before she needed to take a breather. That was something I kept to myself, especially after learning that Anthea’s stamina and range was significantly greater to that of a Fury like Zenovia’s, Ravena. It was just one of a few areas where my Diva’s abilities outstripped and outpaced those of a Fury. However, it was a secret that I kept for good reason.

After Shifting a handful of times in rapid succession, Anthea arrived at a point a hundred or so feet above the surrounding megascrapers. I Shifted once more to an area over one of the rooftops, and after popping back into existence, Anthea landed in a crouch on the roof of a machine room.

Standing tall, I looked around me at the city’s skyline.

The building I was standing on wasn’t the tallest in New Angeles. Quite a few of the nearby megascrapers towered even higher over the streets far below. The light coming from their upper floors was diffused by the rain and low-lying clouds, giving the night sky an ethereal, otherworldly ambience. Perhaps I should describe it as ghostly, as though light from the afterlife was bleeding into my reality.

In truth, I’d often wondered what would happen if I ran toward that ghostly light.

Would I cross over into a netherworld?

Was it Heaven or Hell that awaited me?

It was nothing more than an idle curiosity – a flight of fancy – that I entertained from time to time on nights like these. Yet, in some respects, I was indeed gazing upon a different world since life on the streets of New Angeles was not the same as life in the upper echelons of the city. In some circumstances, they were literally almost a mile apart, but it was the quality of life that separated them the most, a fact that made me sneer at my surroundings.

Despite having lived all my life in New Angeles, most of my existence had been spent surviving amongst the lowest levels of the city. It was only this past year that I’d come to experience the rooftops of the megalopolis. Thus, I couldn’t claim that I knew the high ground like the back of my hand, but thankfully, I had a guide for this concrete jungle.

Glancing over a shoulder, I called out to the Cradle with a thought pulse.

*Send out Speedy.

The air behind me warped and wavered as the Cradle slightly unfolded the Pocket Space enveloping it. A second later, a disc shaped object about eighteen inches across, shot out of the distorted air. It quickly circled around and came to a stop a couple of feet away.

It was Zenovia who’d nicknamed my bot Speedy Gonzales. Until then, I’d never heard of the self-proclaimed Fastest Mouse in all Mexico. However, the machine didn’t look anything like its namesake. Instead, it bore a striking resemblance to those hubcap UFO’s from Plan 9 From Outer Space. Again, that was a bit of movie history I’d learnt from Zen. But what set Speedy apart from the Plan 9 UFO’s were the four grilled domes arranged symmetrically around the center cap. They housed high speed rotors that could propel the craft at well over 100 klicks an hour at altitudes exceeding 5,000 feet. Ergo, the reason why Zen had called it Speedy Gonzales, since it had to keep pace with Anthea.

I wasn’t the only one with a bot.

Zen had one too, as did the other Aventis girls.

While not indispensable, they were handy to have around. Surprisingly, they weren’t manufactured by Pantheon. Instead, they were mostly built from high tech, off-the-shelf parts. As to why Pantheon chose not to supply us with bots of their making was up for debate. I chalked it up to the gods and goddesses lounging in Olympus working in mysterious ways. However, leaving their reasons aside, the flying bots we sourced for ourselves were fast and nimble, capable of scanning their surroundings, mapping out the urban terrain, and plotting an efficient course through the city in milliseconds. They could eavesdrop on wireless and wired communications within a kilometer’s radius, hear through walls, and listen to a mouse squeak in panic at two thousand feet. In short, they were spy hardware at its modern best, and we were free to customize and upgrade them to our heart’s content. So perhaps this was Pantheon’s way of giving us some freedom on how we went about our duties as Lanfears and Aventis. In other words, they allowed us to choose our toys.

The foggy air swirled around Speedy in little vortices as it hovered about five feet above the ground. Its four impellers were whisper silent, and what little noise they made was lost in the rain. With its surface lights turned off, its matt-black polycarbonate body was like a shadow floating in front of me, allowing it to sneak about in dark alleyways with little risk of being discovered. However, it did have powerful lights that it could use to blind people.

For now, Speedy was operating in stealth mode.

“Awaiting your command,” the bot reported in a slightly metallic voice that was intentional since a lot of people were bothered by machines sounding too human.

That said, people were also bothered by not knowing if they were talking to a machine or a person, so making them sound metallic helped assuage their phobias.

As for me, it didn’t bother me at all.

Instead, I sometimes wished Speedy was someone that I could talk to, like a sounding board of sorts, but I’ll refrain from calling it a ‘friend’.

“My command…?” I gave the buildings a sweeping look. “Find me a fast route to the Century Tower. I don’t mind jumping on a maglev to save time.”

“Understood.” A couple of seconds later, Speedy reported, “Course plotted. Estimating arrival in 23 minutes at best speed. Maglev departing from overhead platform at District 11, Block 7, outside the Wallcot Tower in 3 minutes.”

I clenched my jaw unhappily. “Best speed?”

Though I had asked for a fast route, running flat out at my Handler’s beck-and-call nonetheless didn’t sit well with me. I also felt like kicking myself for earlier wanting to pit Anthea’s speed against that of a fast-moving maglev.

Exasperated, I threw Speedy a look. “The Wallcot Tower, was it?”

“Correct. Shall I provide directions?”

“No, I know that building.”

While turning around in a circle, I looked through the mist in search of a narrow, permaglass and krono-steel building that resembled a giant spinnaker.

The Wallcot Tower was also known as the Wallcot Sail. It was so distinctive it should have been easy to spot from miles away if not for the dozens of towering megascrapers surrounding me.

To better gain my bearings, I searched for magnetic north.

Anthea had the ability to sense magnetic fields. Provided it was strong enough, she could point a few degrees off the north pole in a couple of heartbeats. Combining that talent with my knowledge of the buildings around me and using them as landmarks, I sought out the Wallcot Tower, but the strong mist at this altitude, the steady drizzle, and the clutter of surrounding megascrapers all worked against me. At this altitude, and with poor visibility, the megascrapers all looked the same, leaving me with little recourse but to rely on Speedy to point the way.

“Okay, fine. Which way do I go?” I asked the bot.

Speedy spun swiftly, then shone a green laser light through the mist. “That way. Distance 915 meters.”

My gaze followed the laser light.

I was both surprised and annoyed to hear the building was almost a kilometer away. However, after a brief nod at Speedy, I took off at a run.

“Don’t fall behind,” I warned the bot as I rushed across the rooftop.

Anthea’s sharp hearing caught the sound of Speedy’s rotors whirring up as the machine hurried after me, however, they faded quickly as I opened up a gap between us.

I had my Diva running at a sprint that took me to the edge of the rooftop in seconds.

Jumping onto the waist-high ledge wall, I kicked off the coping and launched myself high into the air.

The megascraper ahead of me was taller than the one I’d leapt off. I knew that because I could see the light from a dozen odd floors above me, but the mist and low-lying rain clouds hid the rooftop from view, denying me a glimpse of its true height.

Cursing inwardly, I picked a point in the air overhead, and then concentrated on Shifting toward it. However, without a reference point, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d teleported, so while dropping like a stone after emerging in the misty air, I decided to Shift toward the tall building instead. Bursting back to life from a cloud of dark matter, I found myself close enough to grab onto a ledge that then I hauled myself onto.

It was time for Plan B.

Standing against the building’s wall, I pointed skyward and called out to Speedy.

“Get up there.”

Speedy would be my reference point.

I would simply Shift to wherever the bot was.

It wasn’t the first time I’d relied on Speedy to lead the away, and it was somewhat humbling for the mighty Anthea, scourge of the night, to be reduced to following a bot in order to travel across the city. But when life gives me lemons, I make lemonade.

The flying bot had been trailing behind me, but it caught up when I stopped on the ledge. Despite the rain and city noise, Speedy received my command with its sharp, spy worthy hearing, then quickly changed direction and raced high into the air toward the rooftop of the building lost in the clouds.

Picking a point just behind the bot, I teleported over to it, emerging into the open air, but finding myself in freefall shortly afterwards.

“Keep going,” I yelled up at Speedy, who rose fast on its four, powerful propellers.

When the bot had almost disappeared from view in the glowing mist, I Shifted toward it again, and caught up to it a second later. I did this twice more, until I’d cleared the roof of the megascraper. After one more teleport, Anthea touched down on an air-con machine room wedged between a stack of satellite transceiver towers.

In frustration, I kicked the hard, wet roof beneath me.

“This will take forever!”

The mist, the rain clouds, and the rain were making it difficult for me to Shift with any accuracy. If not for Speedy leading the way, I would have struggled even more. In the end, I had no choice but to admit Anthea had been humbled by Mother Nature. However, what really got my goat was that this wasn’t the first time. Whenever the weather went south, things got tough for us, and not just for a Diva of Anthea’s caliber, but for the Furies as well.

I pointed at the saucer bot. “To the Wallcot Tower.”

Speedy barrel rolled, then raced off to the opposite end of the rooftop.

Following the bot would be simpler, easier, and a lot quicker. So that’s what I ended up doing – traversing rooftops, jumping between megascrapers, and teleporting in pursuit of the Fastest Flying Hubcap in all New Angeles, and after what felt like an eternity chasing down Speedy, Anthea touched ground on a wide ledge of the Wallcot Tower about half a mile above the streets.

With the bot hovering nearby, I looked down the side of the building and spotted the brightly lit maglev station far below.

What I had to do next was a freefall jump to the station’s rooftop.

“Here we go,” I whispered.

Stepping of a ledge and plummeting several hundred feet to the ground is not for the faint hearted, especially when there’s no parachute or safety harness involved. What makes the experience even more frightening is having buildings around you, because they add to the scale and speed of the drop. For me, it was less terrifying going up than down, something I could admit surviving dozens of freefalls since becoming a Lanfear, so in that respect, every jump was still almost as frightening as the first.

With a gentle leap, I left the safety of the ledge behind and dropped like a rock beside the building, but seconds before crashing through the station’s beetle-like shell, I Shifted and re-emerged a few feet above it. Gravity quickly grabbed onto me, but I landed lightly, nonetheless.

That scared me the most about every drop – missing my Shift point and emerging too close to the ground. In my early days, I frequently made the mistake of emerging either too high or too low, but tonight, I got it just right.

The next step was actually getting into the station.

That proved a trickier and it involved Shifting through a window into the Wallcot Tower standing tall beside the maglev station. Once inside, I had to swap my real body – Nikola’s body – with Anthea’s and then stow the latter into the Cradle. Fortunately, I’d teleported into a deserted public washroom, so I did the swap with Anthea from inside a toilet stall.

I felt like Superman changing into Clark Kent while inside a phone booth. But it all worked out and I casually walked out of the washroom, and then traversed the building’s lower floors, soon crossing over to the adjoining station. Swiping my phone over a scanner built into the turnstile gate, I was granted access to the station’s platforms. I would be charged when I left the station at my destination. For now, the system merely recorded my entry into the maglev transport network.

On a crowded platform, I waited for the maglev to arrive.

I’d abandoned using Anthea as a means of travelling to the Century Tower. Instead, I chosen to commute like the vast majority of the city’s bottom dwellers and less privileged. No expensive sky taxi for me. Pantheon paid me a decent salary through a private security firm I was ‘officially’ contracted to, but I had to be careful with how I spent it. Most of my money went into a bank account as part of my post-retirement plans, thus for now I lived a frugal existence.

The sleek maglev swept into the station, dragging along with it a strong breeze that carried cold rain that smelt like stale, dirty water.

I was used to the smell, having grown up with it, but that didn’t mean I liked it.

Wrinkling my nose at first, I held my breath for a while as I waited for the gusting breeze lagging the maglev to fade away.

Then I braced myself for the crush to board a carriage.

It was like an ocean wave breaking onto a beach.

People surged out of the carriages, then a host of new people surged into them.

I was swept along with the wave ‘heading back out to sea’ so to speak and once aboard a carriage, I found myself wedged tight between the other commuters. It smelled as bad inside the train as it did out on the platform, but unfortunately there was no escaping from it. Thankfully, my nose grew a little accustomed to it after a short while, though I didn’t care for the stench.

To avoid being groped – whether deliberately or otherwise – I backed myself against the carriage door so that I had my butt pressed firmly to its permaglass. But I was still able to twist my neck around and peer outside the carriage to see the station slide by as the maglev pulled away from it. However, as the city buildings came into view, I stiffened sharply as I suddenly remembered leaving something important behind.

Speedy.

I’d left Speedy out in the cold.

In the mayhem to catch the train, I’d forgotten all about my trusty sidekick. And since I was hard pressed against the carriage’s door, I couldn’t safely pull out my phone to send the saucer bot any commands.

I felt like kicking myself, but instead I cursed inwardly at my stupidity.

If I had done things properly, I would have stowed Speedy in the Cradle when I arrived at the Wallcot Tower. Instead, I’d jumped off the building and fallen toward the station while leaving my saucer behind.

Fortunately, all was not lost.

When I had to change maglevs at a station a few kilometers down the track, I used my phone to send Speedy an urgent instruction, directing it toward the Century Tower. Then after arriving at the station closest to the building, I hotfooted it through the crowded sidewalks to my Handler’s apartment, hoping to meet Speedy along the way.

Unfortunately, there was no sign of my bot, and I arrived at the Century Tower lamenting the loss of the late Speedy the Fourth.