The ongoing trials and tribulations of Ronin Kassius as he assumes the identity of Isabel val Sanreal and returns to Ar Telica City. Having survived the encounter with the Gun Queen of Ar Telica, Ronin returns to Ar Telica and begins his/her new dual life as Isabel val Sanreal, illegitimate daughter of the uber rich Sanreal Family, and as the Gun Princess, Mirai, an artificially created entity with preternatural abilities. But as he struggles to deal with the reality of living the rest of his life as a girl, Ronin/Isabel is caught in the middle of an ever-expanding web of deceit and intrigue as House Elsis Novis spars with the Aventisse Empress over possession of the research on the Angel Fibers conducted by Ronin’s sister, Erina Kassius.
The new reimagined series, The Gun Princess Royale - Book 1 is now finally available on Amazon KDP. Over two years in the making, I'm happy to present it to readers. Please check it out on Amazon KDP or Kindle Unlimited. 873 pages.
It was a hard splashdown.
At the last possible second, Mirai avoided a belly flop that would have certainly broken her back no matter how strong she was.
Abruptly shifting her posture, I plunged feet first into the water.
However, the impact was severe and for a moment I blacked out, only to snap awake when my booted feet struck the bottom of the pool.
The cold water helped insofar as shocking my body into desperate action.
Kicking off the bottom, I swam with forceful strokes up to the surface, breaking through seconds later, and then I gulped air while treading water.
Mirai’s enormous strength came in handy and I found it easy to keep my head well above the gently, lapping waves as I hastily looked around.
A few seconds later, Arnval burst into view when his head and shoulders emerged from the water, but as time went by there was no sign of Erina.
A dire sensation crept through me as I turned my head left and right in search of her.
Not good. Not good!
There were several people clustered along one side of the pool – girls dressed in maid uniforms looking visibly frantic – but the person I was searching for wasn’t there.
Damn it! If she hasn’t come up yet—!
Inhaling deeply, I dove underwater.
Erina!
I despised her.
I hated her for what she’d done to me.
I’d claimed to have cut my ties with her, no longer thinking of her as my sister.
And yet I found myself searching the depths of the pool for her.
Why?
Perhaps because this wasn’t how I wanted her to meet her maker.
She wasn’t going to escape my retribution this easily.
I wasn’t alone in my efforts to find her – Arnval had dived along with me – though our reasons for doing so may have been disparate. However, he’d undoubtedly arrived at the same conclusion I had – that Erina was human and thus the weakest of us. That said, I still didn’t know what Arnval was, but I had a fairly good idea he wasn’t entirely human. Regardless, Erina wasn’t like him or I, so the impact from the water landing had probably knocked her unconscious. At worst, it may have killed her.
I chose to swim in one direction, and Arnval chose another.
We had three things working in our favor.
The first was that the pool was shallow, no more than fifteen feet deep.
The second was the clear nature of the water. It was so clear that I could see for dozens of meters all around me.
The third was that the pool was illuminated, making it even easier to see into the distance.
Because of all this, I soon located my former sister drifting unconscious along the bottom.
Erina!
No, this wasn’t how I wanted to see her die.
She had too much to atone for before I’d let her kick the bucket.
Swimming up to her, I reached out and shook her brusquely, but she failed to respond.
With my heart thumping anxiously in my chest, I quickly wrapped an arm around Erina’s waist, then swam hard back to the surface.
I broke into open air a couple of seconds later.
It wasn’t long before Arnval arrived to lend me his support.
With Erina between us, we swam for the closest end of the pool.
The maids greeted us and tried offering us their support, but I angrily waved them back.
They’d been standing uselessly by the side of the pool, so I could do without their help.
First hauling myself with ease out of the water, I then lugged Erina onto the stone tiles bordering the pool. But with Arnval’s assistance, we carefully yet quickly carried her to a soft, grassy bank a few feet away.
Laying her down supine, I searched for Erina’s pulse by pressing my fingertips to her neck.
I found none.
“Frek!” I cursed loudly, and then abruptly realized I had no idea what to do.
I had never trained to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
While on all fours beside Erina, I turned to Arnval who was on his feet, dripping wet, and talking to someone on the phone.
“Arnval—I don’t know CPR!”
Ghost materialized in a corner of my vision. “Princess, calm down. I can advise you of the proper procedure.”
Both hearing him and having him nearby quelled a little of my panic, but I was still frantic. “Ghost, what do I—?”
Someone skidded on the grass, coming to a sudden halt in front of me.
Looking up, I was shocked to see Severin Straus standing over me.
He was sporting a change of clothes, but his hair was damp.
Despite having arrived at a run, his avatar was a machine so there was no reason for him to be out of breath, and yet he was clearly breathing hard and fast.
It took me a moment to realize why: Straus was frantic just like I was.
“I don’t know CPR!” I cried up to him.
Straus pushed me away from Erina and quickly straddled her body. “I do.”
“But you’re a mechanical—”
“This body is fully equipped—remember?”
I was incredulous. “What? You have lungs?”
“How else could I pass myself off as human?” he snapped as he quickly unbuttoned Erina’s blouse, exposing her chest and belly.
From somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, I remembered an ancient superstition that said your spirit wore the clothes you died in. At sight of the expensive looking bra Erina was wearing, I sarcastically thought, Well, if you have to go, at least go in style.
Then I recognized it as a push-up bra, and despite the gravity of the situation, I sniggered inwardly.
Ah, so that’s how you’re making mountains out of molehills.
Abruptly I felt a sharp pang of guilt that stole my breath, and I hastily shook my head.
No, no, no! What the Hell am I thinking at a time like this!
Desperately shaking off my shallow thoughts, I quickly shook my head.
She may be a bitch—but I don’t want her dead!
Straus misread my body language. “Relax, I know what I’m doing.”
While I’d been preoccupied scoffing at Erina for wearing a push-up bra, Straus had been busy attempting to save her life.
He’d tipped back her head, opened her mouth, and then buried his fingers into it.
“I have a lot more than just lungs…,” he muttered solemnly.
Watching him at work, I felt utterly useless, guilty, and increasingly frustrated. But for a heartbeat, I remembered questioning him if he was anatomically correct, and the memory made me blush.
Wait—why the Hell am I blushing? This is no time to be blushing!
Kicking the thought aside, I focused my attention on Straus as he probed deeply into Erina’s mouth, then frowned as I realized something.
Shouldn’t she be reflexively gagging?
My frown deepened.
Is it because her heart has stopped? Is that why she’s not responding?
An unpleasant cold crept through me, and it had nothing to do with being soaked to the skin. Rather, it was slowly dawning on me that Erina may very well be dead.
No, no, no! Think positive! She can’t kick the bucket like this. Not like this!
I realized I was clenching my hands into fists.
Okay. Maybe she’s not clinically dead yet! But how long can she stay like this before she suffers serious brain damage?
Straus muttered, “Her airway seems clear.”
A shadow crossed over us, and I glanced up to see Arnval pacing slowly while talking urgently to someone on his phone. “Yes, she’s unresponsive. I do suggest you hurry, Fatina. It doesn’t look good. Another three minutes and she may suffer serious neurological damage. Yes, yes, I know it can be repaired but that will take time, and we can’t afford the setback.”
I felt myself grow pale. Simultaneously, my eyebrows rose sharply.
Brain damage can be fixed? What the Hell kind of technology do they have? But if he’s talking about a setback does that mean it’s not perfect?
I looked down at Erina.
Will this affect her status as an Alpha?
Straus breathed air into Erina’s open mouth, then placed his hands low over her sternum and began the chest compressions.
On impulse I asked, “Can I help?”
Straus shook his head quickly. “No. I can blow clean air into her lungs.”
“Clean air?”
“Average oxygen content in the air is twenty-one percent. Humans consume about five percent of that when they breathe. That leaves about sixteen percent left over when we exhale.”
He compressed Erina’s chest some thirty times, then leaned forward to breathe twice into her open mouth before resuming the chest compressions and his explanation.
“But I don’t consume more than two percent oxygen so that means I can breathe cleaner air into her than you could.” Without stopping, he glanced up at me. “Actually, we don’t know how much or how little oxygen you consume.”
Dismissing the question, I leaned toward him and pointed at his hands on Erina’s sternum. “Then shouldn’t I be doing the compressions while you breathe into her?”
He stared at me blankly for a few seconds, yet his CPR didn’t miss a beat.
A moment later, he hurriedly nodded. “Good idea. You compress, I breathe into her. But we need to establish a rhythm.”
We changed positions with me straddling Erina’s legs and Straus kneeling beside her head.
I placed my hands on Erina’s sternum where I’d observed Straus place his.
Erina’s skin was warm to the touch, and I remembered that Straus’s avatar had warm hands.
Again, it was something I couldn’t dwell on, and instead concentrated on compressing Erina’s chest.
“Don’t push too hard,” Straus sharply warned me. “With your strength you’ll crush her chest and rupture her organs—”
“O—okay. I get it. I get it.” I grit my teeth together.
Yeah, no pressure. No pressure at all!
Straus began to act as a breathing apparatus, while I cautiously compressed Erina’s chest at one second intervals.
Straus timed his breathing with my actions.
I don’t know for how long we did this, perhaps only a minute, but it felt like an eternity.
When I felt my rhythm begin to falter, Ghost began counting for me with a precision I lacked.
Then Straus surprised me.
He lifted his head away from Erina’s mouth, and then sharply punched her chest.
He punched it again, and I felt the blow work its way through Erina’s skeleton.
When he punched it a third time, I was certain I felt her breastbone crack.
“What the frek are doing?” I yelled at him.
“Shocking her heart,” he answered. “Come on, Eri! Don’t frekking give up on me now!”
He punched her chest a fourth time.
Now, I was convinced he’d fractured her sternum.
“You’re killing her!” I snapped at him.
But Straus ignored me as he yelled, “Erina!” and punched her a fifth time.
And then it happened – I felt something go ‘thump’ inside her chest, and a moment later Erina convulsed.
Water spouted out of her gaping mouth a handful of times as she coughed violently.
With my hands on her chest, I could feel her heart beating irregularly, but it was beating, and after regurgitating the pool water, Erina was gasping for air on her own. The sickly wheezing coming from her throat reminded me she was still in trouble, but I believed the worst had passed.
Then the sound of running footsteps grabbed my attention, and I looked up to see three more maids arrive. Unlike the useless bunch standing around, the newcomers carried silver metal cases with them, and they moved with a purpose.
“Excuse us, please,” said a young woman with short chestnut hair wearing a headband with cat’s ears. She crouched beside Erina and a waved a medical wand over my former sister’s body while holding a data slate in her other hand. While studying the results displayed on the slate, she spoke quickly to one of the other girls. “Tamara, the breather please.”
Another maid, this one wearing fox ears over her short auburn hair, knelt beside Erina’s head. Placing her silver case on the grass, she opened it to extract a breathing apparatus that she quickly strapped over Erina’s mouth. The device was connected via a ribbed hose to a lung shaped device nestled within the silver case. When it started up, gills along the artificial lung opened and closed like those of a shark.
The maid with the wand then addressed the third girl who’d arrived with her – a buxom blond wearing bunny ears – who was busy laying out something on the ground nearby.
“Penelope, the stretcher please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The blonde maid finished attaching a couple of black rectangular boxes to the stretcher. The device shook to life and abruptly launched into the air.
“Stretcher ready, ma’am,” the girl reported with a sharp salute that made her bunny ears and voluptuous chest bounce.
However, the stretcher had other ideas and suddenly rocketed off from a standing start.
“What?” The bunny maid cried out in disbelief, shot to her feet, and chased after the flying stretcher. “Come back here!”
Have you ever filled up a balloon with air, and then let it go? The balloon will jet around erratically, making it hard to follow. That’s what happened with the stretcher, and the bunny maid was running all over the place chasing after it.
Straus and I watched her with mouths agape.
“What the Hell?” he muttered.
Standing nearby, Arnval regarded the fruitless efforts of the bunny girl as he addressed the maid with cat ears. “Fatina, answer me this please.”
The maid in question continued scanning Erina’s supine body with the medical wand. “What would that be?”
“Why the Hell hasn’t she been recycled yet?” Arnval asked in a blunt tone.
The young woman sighed softly. “She has her uses, Geharis.”
“Really? You’re not saying that in jest, are you?”
Fatina glanced up at him. “They’re my girls, Arnval. I decide their fate, not you.”
He gave her a steely look and hardened his tone. “Then tell me you have a plan-B, Fatina.”
She finished waving the wand over Erina, then calmly nodded at him. “I do indeed.”
“Then let’s hear it,” he demanded.
“Shoot the stretcher,” Fatina instructed.
Arnval exhaled loudly through his nose. “You should have said so earlier.”
From the wet innards of his trench coat – yes, he was still wearing the damned trench coat – Arnval pulled out a gun.
My eyes widened at sight of the firearm.
That bastard had a second gun?
In one fluid motion, he aimed at the stretcher and fired twice in rapid succession.
Sparks flew from the device and it crashed to the ground some fifty feet away from us, then quickly skidded to a stop.
My mouth fell open in disbelief.
He had a second gun? And it was loaded with LIVE AMMO?
“Straight through the kisser,” Arnval quipped.
Straus leapt to his feet and ran over to the fallen stretcher, ignoring the bunny maid who’d collapsed to her knees beside it.
“Oh, thank the gods,” Penelope whined loudly as she labored to catch her breath.
With the stretcher under an arm, Straus hurried back to Erina.
I scooted back to give him room, but my attention was on Arnval.
He was watching the bunny maid kneeling on the grass, and for a while, I genuinely suspected he would put a bullet through the girl.
A sense of malice and the desire for carnage radiated into the air around him. But then he gave his oversized gun a fancy spin before holstering it within his trench coat.
I swallowed quietly, and in the corner of my eye, I noticed Fatina exhale softly as she subtly shook her head. However, she held her peace, and I chose to focus on helping Straus load the unconscious Erina onto the powerless stretcher.
Straus then took the contraption’s front handles while I took the pair at the rear.
In the meantime, the fox maid, Tamara, closed the silver case with the gilled lung, but an opening through the casing allowed the ribbed hose to remain connected to the mask strapped over Erina’s mouth.
“On the count of three,” Straus called out. “One, two, three.”
In unison, Straus and I hefted the stretcher up off the ground, careful not to drop Erina in the process.
“Which way?” I asked in a hurry.
Arnval quickly strode past us. “Follow me, ladies,” he instructed us tersely.
Straus threw him a biting look, and the cat maid, Fatina, spoke in monotone. “Yes, by all means, follow him.”
Her voice may have sounded flat, but there was a hint of contempt somewhere in there.
I held back an uneasy sigh as I carried my end of the stretcher.
Together with Straus, we followed Arnval who guided us away from the pool and onto a wide path made of paving stones. Gently snaking through the well-maintained garden, the path led in the direction of the palatial two storey villa in the distance.
Fatina chose to hurry on ahead, no doubt to prepare the house for our arrival, while Tamara walked beside the stretcher with the breather’s case in hand.
As for Penelope, the bunny maid dragged her feet as she trudged in our wake.
Soon, she fell behind though I heard her pitifully mutter, “Why…why does this always happen to me…?”
– II –
I grimaced in discomfort as I followed the path up to the steps leading into the house.
I was cold, wet, and my black business suit clung tightly to my skin. However, because it was black it hadn’t turned translucent when wet. But to my surprise, Marinette’s blouse that I was wearing had also remained opaque thus keeping her white sports bra safe from perving eyes.
I was grateful for small miracles such as these, yet it was still unpleasant to walk in soaked clothing.
My breasts felt uncomfortable in the wet sports bra, as did my butt in the sodden briefs.
The only part of me that wasn’t waterlogged were my feet. Incredulous as it may seem, the ankle high boots fit so snuggly that my feet felt mostly dry.
It was the one saving grace that kept me from losing my stack as I carried Erina on the stretcher.
Looking down at the unconscious woman, my feelings warred with each other.
On the one hand, I despised her for various reasons already mentioned. Yet on the other hand, she was still my sister and I couldn’t cut that last thread of familial attachment that tied me to her. Thus, I was in a quandary over how I should deal with her. The only thing I was certain of was that I couldn’t let her die – not while she had yet to atone for what she’d done to me.
About a minute into the journey, the path branched in two directions.
One circled around the lagoon pool, the other angled toward the palatial villa in the near distance. Naturally, Straus and I followed Arnval on the path leading toward the enormous house on the wide plateau.
Sparing a puzzled look at Straus’s back, I quietly cleared my throat before asking him, “Hey, when did you get here?”
My question appeared to blindside him, and he gave me a distracted glance over a shoulder. “When? Oh—a few minutes before you did.”
“Did you land in the pool?”
He suddenly snorted angrily. “More like drove into it.”
“What do you mean?”
Straus shrugged as though frustrated. “They translocated the car while I was on the move.”
“Sorry, they did what?”
“I said they translocated the car while I was driving on the highway.”
“…are you serious…?”
“Of course, I’m serious! One minute I’m on the overpass. Then everything went pitch black. I felt like I was being sucked through a drainpipe. When I was squeezed out back into daylight, I’m literally driving through the garden, then straight into the pool!”
I stopped suddenly, almost yanking the stretcher out of his hands.
Straus halted in a hurry and glowered back at me. “Hey, what gives?”
“You drove into the pool?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Were you driving one of those big black cars?”
“No, I was driving Erina’s car.”
I didn’t believe I could be more surprised, but I was wrong. “Her sports car? Why?”
He shrugged heavily. “Erina’s car has an auto-drive function to get it back home, but Spartan decided I should take her car for a ride and maybe throw off Hexaria. A few minutes later—wham—I’m out of the city and here at the Estate, ploughing through hedges and into the water.”
I slowly gaped at him. “You drove Erina’s car into the pool?”
“Yes, I drove it into the pool.”
“Erina’s car is at the bottom of the pool?”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
It started as a chuckle that quickly grew into an earnest laugh that made my whole body tremble, thereby shaking my end of the stretcher. “She is so going to be pissed when she finds out.”
I imagined the look on her face when she learnt of the fate of her car, but then Straus burst my bubble.
“She has six more in her garage.”
I stopped laughing and gaped at him again. “What?”
“She has six more sportscars in her garage. One for each day of the week. That car in the pool was for Wednesday.”
I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.
Instead, I glared down at Erina’s unconscious body.
I realized that I didn’t know my former sister nearly as well as I thought.
“Greedy bitch,” I growled, then abruptly pushed into Straus with the stretcher, forcing him to start walking again. “Hurry up, pretty boy, before I dump this bitch back in the pool.”
Straus gave me a reproachful look but didn’t complain.
As for the maid, Tamara, she remained stoic and silent as she walked alongside the stretcher with the respirator case in hand.
Having resumed our journey to the immense villa built on a wide, grassy plateau, I gave our surroundings a sweeping, slightly distracted look that concluded with me wondering where the Hell we were.
The air was fresh and clean, with the hint of moisture it carried from the pool. Generous, fluffy clouds drifting lazily across the sky overhead, while a breeze wafted through the garden, rustling the brush, and in the distance, I could see a vast ocean spanning the horizon.
Taking it all into account, I suspected we’d fallen onto yet another of House Novis’s islands, possibly a secluded family retreat far from prying eyes. However, something about the place felt wrong to me, and it took me a short while to understand why.
I couldn’t sense magnetic north, and the ground beneath us was moving.
It was a faint, almost imperceptible motion, yet I was certain of what Mirai was feeling. Perhaps it was how some people on the upper floors of a skyscraper can discern when it sways gently in the wind even if it’s only a couple of centimeters at a time.
I had to admit that it was a rather freaky talent of Mirai’s, but both observations made me wonder if this wasn’t an island, but an off-world station or a very large starship.
The Sanreal Family was uber rich, and I’d read how some billionaires lived aboard immense vessels, travelling from planet to planet, visiting their investments and such.
What if I was no longer on Teloria? Would it even matter? After all, what could I possibly do either way?
I was helpless.
Tossed from one situation to the next, I had no say in any of the decisions that affected me.
It was enough to make me despair as I carried Erina on the stretcher, but she drew my attention when she stirred, and my hopelessness turned into cold, self-reproach.
How could I possibly care about someone like her?
Erina and I had drifted worlds apart, but our estranged relationship wasn’t my doing. I hadn’t left her behind. It was she who walked away from me, and that’s why I felt both foolish and naïve for still caring about her, even though I told myself it was because I wanted her to live to atone for her misdeeds. But it felt like I was trying to convince myself with a weak, sophist argument, and that made me more bitter with myself than with Erina.
I watched her stir again yet she failed to awaken.
“How is she?” I asked the fox eared maid.
The young woman glanced down at Erina. “We’ll know more when we place her inside a med-capsule.”
That reply made me feel stupid for asking in the first place.
Of course, we would know more when Erina was given proper medical care. But as a layman – or laywoman – with only cursory medical knowledge, the fact that Erina had failed to regain consciousness was concerning, and that once again made me question why I cared.
Maybe, some bonds were a little harder to cut than others.
Perhaps, I’d never be able to completely sever myself from her.
Thinking that, my mood spoiled further.
Arriving at the foot of the wide steps leading up to the palatial villa’s broad entrance, I gazed up at the building looming before us, then carefully climbed the steps, mindful of the need to keep the stretcher level between Straus and I.
At the landing before the double doors, I paused to give the exterior of the abode a good look.
While in freefall toward the lagoon sized pool, I’d noticed that the house was built in the shape of a square – a quadrangle – with an immense garden in the middle. Overall, the villa must have measured a hundred meters wide. Balconies with repeated archways spanned the length of the first and second floors. The windows on both levels were broad, tall, with semi-circular fanlights, and there were glass doors leading out onto the balconies at regular intervals, each of them probably belonging to a separate room or suite.
The more I looked at the house, the more it reminded me of a cross between a Spanish and a Roman villa – the kind I remembered seeing in documentaries of ancient Earth.
A sour thought crossed my mind as I realized those memories belonged to Ronin Kassius. But I had accepted my role as the keeper of those memories, so I pushed the resentment aside.
Little by little, I’ll make memories of my own.
In fact, I was already doing so, but unfortunately few if any of those memories were pleasant or worth keeping.
With a heavy sigh, I directed my gaze at the closed doors.
Considering the events that had led to this moment, I was actually reluctant to step inside, and I found myself recalling the lyrics of a song that swam up from the murky depths of my subconscious.
“Welcome to the Hotel California,” I sang softly. “Such a lovely place…such a lovely face….”
“What?” Arnval half spun around and stared at me with a mixture of shock and distrust. “Where did you hear that?”
At first, I was surprised by his reaction, but then his tone rubbed me the wrong way. And yet, I belied that with a casual, shoulder shrug. “I don’t know. I just remembered it now.”
Disquiet settled upon his face. Arnval started to say something, but he was interrupted by a loud bang as the doors to the house abruptly flung open.
The maid, Fatina, emerged in the company of a half dozen other girls, each of them wearing a maid uniform and different animal ears, though one girl was wearing reindeer antlers.
What kind of weird fetish does Phelan Sanreal have? I pondered uneasily.
Quickly, the maids surrounded us.
Since I was still in Mirai Mode, I decided to concentrate my awareness on them, observing by their pale orange aura that they were all Simulacra, making me wonder if House Novis and the Sanreal Family suffered from a lack of manpower. Then again, considering the goings on around the Sanreals, perhaps it was best to have staff you could trust and easily dispose of if you didn’t.
“We’ll take it from here,” the cat maid, Fatina, declared in a respectful and patient tone.
This woman had yet to earn my ire, so I chose to be civil toward her while refusing to stand aside or relinquish my hold on the stretcher. “Where exactly is here?”
“The Sanreal Estate,” she replied smoothly, then gestured at the open doorway into the house. “Please, we mustn’t delay.”
Straus had half turned to look back at me. “Isabel…?”
I stared uncertainly at the unconscious Erina.
Regardless of whether I cared for her or not, I was anxious over what Tabitha had told me. That is to say whether the Sanreal Family meant to harm Erina, and whether Mirai’s survival depended on her. Not knowing if either was true made me reluctant to hand her over.
In the corner of my eye, I saw someone other than maids stand beside me.
“Princess,” Ghost gently called out to me. “It will be fine.”
“Really?” I barely whispered.
“Please, allow them to care for her.”
I regarded my former sister lying on the stretcher. “If something goes wrong—”
“I will handle it,” Ghost assured me. “Trust me.”
I swallowed hard before exhaling heavily. “Fine….”
Stepping back slightly was my way of giving my consent, and the maids moved in and quickly took the stretcher from Straus and I.
I watched them maneuver through the wide, open doorway.
I can’t say I wasn’t anxious when they disappeared with Erina into the villa.
What if Mirai really needed her alive? What then? Did that mean that everything else Tabitha told me was true?
Fatina interrupted my grim musings.
Standing in front of me, she indicated the blonde maid with the bunny ears. “If you’ll follow Penelope and I, we’ll lead you to your rooms. Dry clothes have been prepared for you.”
Changing out of these wet clothes was something I welcomed. However, I crossed my arms and fixed a hard stare on Arnval who was quick to notice it.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
“We’re not on Teloria, are we?”
Arnval narrowed his eyes slightly. “And what makes you say that?”
“The gravity is weird here, the sky overhead looks weird, and I can’t tell which way is north.”
“Ah, yes. Your ability to sense magnetic waves—”
“Which is it?” I brusquely cut him off. “A station, an orbital city…or a starship?”
Straus exhaled loudly as he watched the exchange between Arnval and I. “No, we’re still on Teloria. We haven’t moved off world.”
“Oh?” I pointed up at the sky. “So what is that then?”
I’d failed to notice it at first, but later when peering up at the house, I saw that the overhead sky was covered by a faintly visible grid of hexagonal panes. It gave me the impression that our surroundings were under a transparent dome of some sort.
Straus glanced upwards. “A mimetic sky-field combined with an aegis-field that’s protecting the Estate from outside weather conditions.”
The Estate?
I frowned inwardly. “What weather conditions?”
Arnval laughed lightly but it wasn’t a friendly laugh. Rather, it was condescending and patronizing. “Perhaps it’s better if we showed you.” He gave the patiently waiting Fatina a somewhat amused look. “Well, Fatina? Shall we show the lady what lies beyond?”
The maid displayed the first sign of indecision since stepping onto this fool’s stage. “Are you certain?” she asked Arnval.
“Indeed, I am.” He broke into a thin smile. “I do believe her reaction will be priceless.”
Fatina studied me for a moment then politely nodded just once. “Very well. Please follow me.”
Stepping past me, she descended the steps down from the landing to the paved path.
Wondering why Arnval and the maid were being so dramatic, I hesitated before hurrying after the young woman. In turn, Arnval and Straus followed close behind me as Fatina first retraced our steps along the path, then led us onto a route that circled the pool.
When the path branched again, she followed the one that dove into a lush, verdant garden away from the pool. As I walked through the garden, the place was beginning to remind me more and more of those palatial villas that rich Romans had enjoyed millennia ago. However, once exiting the garden, I was astonished to step onto a beach of warm, golden sand.
Fatina had come to a stop, and I chose to halt beside her.
Beyond the beach was a vast ocean of green and blue stretching out to the distant horizon. It looked perfectly real and I could hear the sound of the waves, but I noticed the very faint hexagonal grid extending down to the sand a few feet shy of where the water lapped the beach.
“It really is a dome,” I muttered half to myself and to Fatina.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed as she reached up and touched one of her cat ears. “Grania, can you hear me? Good. Could you shut down the mimetic sky-field, please? Why? We have a guest who hasn’t seen what it’s like out there. Master Arnval wishes to see her reaction.”
I stared sidelong at the young woman, noticing Arnval standing abreast of her with a smirk on his face. The disquiet he’d betrayed earlier was but a distant memory, and he’d lost the tension he’d been carrying back in Ar Telica.
Prick, I thought at him, then quickly turned to Straus and asked in a low voice, “Is that what those headbands are for? Wireless communication?”
Straus gave me a faintly apologetic smile. “Pretty much.”
“Well, at least they’re ergonomic,” I whispered.
“And it’s part of their charm,” he ruefully added.
I pouted thoughtfully before admitting, “I guess so. I did find those maids were cute.”
I was being honest with my opinion. The Simulacra maids had been rather pretty. Dressed in their short maid outfits and wearing cute animal ears had given them a peculiar charm – though I wasn’t sold on the reindeer antlers.
Straus shook his head lightly. “No, that’s not what I mean, but I’ll tell you about that another time.” He pointed in the direction of the ocean. “The sky-field is coming down.”
The sky darkened rather quickly, and I soon realized it was because the dome’s hexagonal panes had become transparent, and the lack of light coming in from outside was due to the unexpected, frightening vista surrounding the Estate.
In terror and disbelief, I struggled to find my voice.
Eventually, I feebly whispered, “Where the Hell are we…?”
Beside me, Straus chuckled uneasily. “We’re inside a Category Six hurricane.”
“…oh….”
The ocean storm of unbelievable scale and ferocity raging before me was truly one of Teloria’s nightmarish seven wonders of the world.
– III –
For decades, the creation of a Category Six classification for hurricanes was considered superfluous.
After all, why create another level on the Saffir-Simpson scale when Category Five already guaranteed catastrophic destruction.
Then the storms grew worse, and humanity had to build bigger, better, and stronger…or die at the hands of an increasingly bipolar and psychotic Mother Nature. With cities protected by newer and better technologies, total destruction was no longer a given at Category Five, and thus Category Six was born.
When humanity spread throughout its local arm of the Milky Way, they carried with them the knowledge they had gained in their efforts to survive on an Earth that had become hostile to them. Amongst the many worlds people settled upon was the third planet of a thirteen-body solar system – a severe, unforgiving blue, green, and red world they would name, Teloria.
A world that made Earth look like Paradise.
A world humanity was committed to taming because it was one of a precious few that could be terraformed to support human life.
However, until it was fully tamed, humanity had a need to build its city-states as befitting their environment. A century of terraforming had yet to calm down the planet into the relatively placid Earth-like climate and ecology of yesteryear. Atmospheric and ocean storms continued rage, and though weak compared to what Telos had once endured, they were still fierce. Hence, Ar Telica and its sister states had been constructed to withstand the raging ferocity of a Category Five hurricane.
Telos Academy was no exception to this design doctrine.
As a first line of defense, the tetrapods that surrounded Telos Island could project a layered barrier-field to diminish the force of the waves before they reached the school’s buildings. They could also partially divert the intense winds so that they blew well clear of the island.
As a second line of defense, strong effect-fields could form a protective bubble around the school. It was one of the reasons why the main faculty building was circular, and why the gymnasium, aquatic center, and clubroom buildings were constructed with rounded corners and arched rooftops. At the prospect of being submerged under the storm’s waves, the academy’s Assisting Intelligence could engage watertight doors and shutters to isolate the interior of the school into sections. Pressure doors also prevented the underground power generators, shelters, and life support systems from being inundated.
In effect, the school could become a waterproof environment to protect the students and staff from the lethal intensity of a hurricane. However, Telos Academy and Ar Telica city would not survive a collision with a Category Six hurricane unscathed. In short, there would be damage, until bigger, better, and more powerful barrier-field emitters could be designed and constructed…like the one protecting the Estate’s dome from harm.
This is what I realized while watching waves large enough to completely swallow Telos Academy slam harmlessly against the dome’s exterior. I was witnessing a perfect example of how our technology lagged behind that of the Empire’s. In other words, they possessed barrier-fields that could shrug off a Category Six hurricane as though it was nothing more than a summer drizzle, something that humanity from my universe was yet to achieve.
And there was something else I concluded with a grim heart.
“We could have died out there.”
It came out as a whisper, but it was heard by those around me.
I nodded at the storm outside the dome. “Erina and I, even that asshole Arnval—we could have died out there.”
Off to my right, I heard a muffled cough. “I would appreciate you not calling me an ‘asshole’, young lady.”
I turned my head and looked at Arnval standing beside Fatina. “It was your idea to translocate us to this location—wherever this is—and Erina’s injuries are a direct result of that.” I pointed at the towering waves crashing against the dome. “Mirai is strong, but I wouldn’t have survived out there, and neither would you.”
Arnval clenched his jaw and was quiet for a long moment. “I am aware of that.”
“Then why do it? Why use this translocation technology if it’s so risky?”
I watched him take a deep breath. “Getting you and Erina Kassius out of the city was a priority. Her being injured wasn’t part of the plan.”
“But there was a chance this could happen, right?”
Fatina cut in. “The margin of error associated with your translocation was deemed acceptable.”
I stared at her in cold disbelief. “Meaning what?”
“The point of emergence was calculated well within the volume of space protected by the dome surrounding the Estate.”
Pushing my disbelief aside, I smiled at her, but it felt more like a snarl. “Oh really? And what would have happened if we hadn’t emerged above the pool?” I pointed to the villa in the distance so immense it was visible over the garden brush. “What if we’d translocated over the house? Does crashing into the roof factor into the margin of error?”
“The manor and surrounding gardens are equipped with effect-field emitters. They would have acted as a net and caught you safely,” Fatina explained. “You would not have been harmed, and Doctor Kassius would not have been injured.”
“And what about the pool?”
Fatina stiffened and hesitated for a moment before offering me a deeply apologetic bow. “I regret that the effect-fields do not provide coverage over the pool.” She bowed even deeper. “I am truly sorry.”
“So you didn’t factor that we would come out above the pool?”
“We did. However, we were unable to place portable effect-field emitters around the pool in time. Your trans-location occurred ahead of schedule.” She bowed to me once more. “Once again, I offer you most sincere apologies.”
I clenched my hands into fists, digging my nails into my palms until they hurt.
Did this woman think I was a fool?
I didn’t buy her explanation for a heartbeat. Haste notwithstanding, not being prepared for our arrival simply didn’t wash with me. Hence, I suspected the accident had been staged, and if true then the question was why?
Maybe Tabitha was right. But something feels off.
Erina dying from drowning seemed a little too excessive for me. But what if they only meant to scare her? What if this was only a warning?
I took a deep breath and relaxed my fingers. Within moments, the pain in my palms faded away into nothing, no doubt because the skin had flawlessly healed.
If only my doubts and questions could be dealt with as easily.
I looked Arnval standing beside Fatina. “Is Tabitha that much of a threat to you?”
He was staring at the hurricane with a taunting look, like a man watching a caged tiger pacing furiously behind the bars, safe in the knowledge that it was locked away, but he did answer after a moment or two. “Sanreal wanted you and Kassius out of the city. Orders are orders.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I complained.
Turning slightly toward me, he gave me a sidelong version of the taunting look he’d been giving the storm.
Was I now the tiger in his eyes?
“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. “So what will you do? Or rather, what can you do?”
At first, I was taken aback by his question, and I had no quick answer for him, but then I had a sudden suspicion that made my stomach clench unpleasantly.
Is he challenging me?
Arnval wasn’t entirely human, and I was beginning to suspect his body was partly mechanical, implying he was some kind of cybernetic entity. I didn’t care how he’d become that way. Neither did I care whether his body parts were based on technology from this universe or from the Empire’s, because in all honesty I had little knowledge of what cybernetic tech was capable of accomplishing in this day and age.
What concerned me was whether I could be beat him in a one-on-one fight.
I’d felt his strength and witnessed his speed, and so I was certain that fighting him would be a painful, bone breaking encounter. Thus, if I was going to take him on, I’d rather do it as a Gun Princess with my guns and with my Regalia.
Having made my decision to brush off his challenge for now, I folded my arms with deliberate calm under Mirai’s bosom, however, I was going to stick it to Arnval where it hurt.
“You’re afraid of her. Tabitha gave you a run for your money all through the morning. And then she shows up at the park. That must have been a real pucker moment for you.”
The provoking smile faded from his lips, but his eyes now revealed a very real anger.
Having locked proverbial horns with him, we both glared at each other for a long while before Arnval bluntly stated, “If you have a complaint, I suggest you bring it up when you meet Lord Sanreal. It was his decision to have you translocated here with all possible haste.”
A sudden bout of uncertainty made me swallow hard. “Sanreal is here?” I glanced around quickly, my gaze briefly settling on the mansion sitting on the grassy plateau. “He’s here?”
“That’s right. And whether you return to Ar Telica or not will depend on you,” Arnval replied, then added, “Amongst other things….”
In other words, my return to the city depended on whether I behaved or not, strongly implying it was reliant on me co-operating with the Sanreals. But with him adding, ‘amongst other things’, I suspected he was alluding to the involvement of the unpredictable Tabitha Hexen, a.k.a. Taura Hexaria of House Cardinal.
I gave the maid, Fatina, a suspicious glance.
A lot had been said and revealed in her presence.
I wondered if that was wise.
Arnval noticed and smiled insincerely. “No need to worry. Fatina is well aware of who you are and what you are. She undoubtedly knows more about you than I do.”
His statement motivated me to give the maid a hard look while asking him, “Why is that?”
He met the question with a chuckle. “Because Fatina is Master Sanreal’s personal assistant. Isn’t that right, Fatina?”
The corners of her eyes crinkled faintly, and she avoided looking at him when she replied, “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t refer to me so familiarly.”
“Yes, yes. So you’ve told me before….”
“And you fail to remember that time and again.”
Watching them banter, I felt like a spectator. That didn’t bother me. Rather, it was the fact they were having a moment at my expense that set my proverbial tail on fire.
Very nearly grinding my teeth together, I had a little trouble finding my voice. “And when do I get to meet Lord Sanreal?”
Arnval flicked a glance at Fatina.
With Mirai’s preternaturally wide field-of-vision, I could see her fairly well without looking at her directly. Thus, I saw the brief reluctance she failed to hide before she courteously said, “Mistress Isabel, may I suggest first settling into the manor. Rooms have been prepared for you. I recommend a long hot bath with scented oils to replenish and rejuvenate your skin, and a change of clothes before your audience with Master Sanreal.”
The mention of clothes reminded me that I was a bit cold and still wet.
To clarify, the black business suit had dried but my underwear remained dank, therefore a change of clothes sounded good. I could also do with a shower, but I wasn’t so sure about soaking in a bathtub. That was something that girls did…even though I was now a girl.
Argh—there’s just no escaping it! Even the maid is prodding me down the path of femininity.
Arms folded beneath Mirai’s bust, my hands balled into fists.
I’m just not ready for a bath!
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Room. Shower. Clothes.” Turning slightly toward Fatina, I stared stubbornly at the maid. “But I’m not taking a bath.”
She smiled faintly at me, as if hinting that she believed otherwise, making me suspect she had something up her proverbial sleeve when she replied, “As you wish, Mistress Isabel….”
Thank you for getting this far. I haven't posted recently because I've been busy with work and writing a brand new series, while working on the sequel to the new The Gun Princess Royale that's on Amazon.
I will continue to post the rest of this book while chapters remain.
