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.
- I -
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!
True, the Sanreal Family, House Novis, and my cold-hearted bitch of a sister could imprint the most recent backup of my mind into another copy of Mirai…if they can make one. Please recall that my beloved cold witch of a sister called me a miracle—a miracle she said with a zealous light in her eyes—so enough said on that count.
True, a copy of my mind could exist within a virtual space like Clarisol, waiting for a new Mirai to be produced and installed into…when they make one…if they make one and get her to wake up.
Regardless, it wouldn’t be me.
It wouldn’t be the me that I am now.
That me would die, and perhaps fly off to Heaven or Hell, depending on whether I’ve been a good or bad girl because I do believe that Mirai has a soul. At least, I want to believe that she does. She has Angel wings, so why not a soul?
Nonetheless, that instance of me would perish and be no more, so why do I care about what happens to the copy? Or why would the copy care about what happened to me? After all, I’d blown it so now it was up to her to pick up the pieces.
If anyone has ever watched that really, really old movie from a few centuries ago called “The Sixth Day” then you’ll know what I mean.
My copy would probably laugh and call me stupid for getting my head shot off.
From my perch in Heaven or Hell, I’d give the copy the one-fingered salute.
Let’s see how well you do, Bitch!
However, the truth is that I don’t want to die.
I don’t want a copy to be made of me, because I am the true, one-and-only Mirai.
So I don’t want to die.
And that’s what I thought to myself as I listened to the bullets from a sextet of Gatling guns rip through the air, tear up my surroundings, and turn the dozen odd Gun Princesses around me into perforated metal dolls.
I mean those six guns were ripping the buildings, the ground, and the girls to shreds.
They were turning the plaza into Swiss cheese.
We’re talking chunks of permaglass and permacrete clouding the air; bits and pieces of artificial arms, legs, musculature, and risqué clothing tossed into the wind.
Hell, I can hear one of the high rise buildings nearby groan as it crumbles to the ground after being struck by a flock of missiles.
Those tough hombres from days long past who served in those wars that did nothing but drain their countries’ coffers dry – they ain’t seen nothing like this.
But those metal Princesses wouldn’t go down. They were screaming and yelling and cursing a blue streak – yes, girls can curse too – as they shot back round after round of heavy ammo at the owner of those six Gatling guns…until one of a few things happened.
One, they took a salvo of bullets to the head which meant the Meister could no longer control the mechanical avatar because the quantum link was broken. No head. No connection.
Or two, they took a shot through the heart which happened to double as their power core, effectively killing the avatar.
Or three, they lost their arms or hands or fingers and couldn’t pull the triggers no more.
Until then, they were pumping those triggers like there was no tomorrow, lighting up that metal monster from Hell, cursing it to kingdom come.
All the while, I’m hanging back because this is one shit storm I don’t want to get mixed up in. It’s going to be a long night and I have plans for tomorrow, such as deciding whether or not to be fashionably late to class as Telos Academy’s bitchy new filthy rich Princess.
But then the blasted metal demon catches sight of me exiting stage left, and sends a few dozen rounds of tanking killing bullets my way.
Seriously, I don’t want to die, so I dodge those bullets like that hero from that ancient film where you can see bullets tunnel through the air in slow motion.
I don’t have a cool black coat, but I do have a long, flowing midnight-blue skirt, and boy is that thing whipping around as I do my best to imitate the hero from the movie.
With my Awareness hyper-accelerated, I can definitely see those bullets coming at me whenever Mirai’s giant bouncing boobs aren’t blocking my view.
That’s why I don’t like my new outfit – it doesn’t offer me the same support – and I’ve got cleavage hitting my chin as I twist through the hail of bullets stitching the air.
Good thing I emptied my bladder before being dropped into the battle ground, or else I’d be peeing myself dry about now.
So how the Hell did I end up playing Twister with my life on the line?
That, dear readers, is a very long story…but I’ll try to keep it short…and I’ll probably fail…so it’s going to be a long story.
Dear readers of the Gun Princess Royale series, with Book Two to be released on July 14 (at the latest July 21), I thought I'd post the Intro to Book Three which is currently in development.
Book Three picks up where Book Two ends.
As you may recall, I only posted to the end of Chapter 6.
However, book 2 has 8 chapters, plus the Outro, and comes in at a pretty decent 120,000 words.
So there's about 30% of the book that wasn't posted here on TG BigCloset.
And that 30% is crucial to the story. You'll see if you read it when it's out on Amazon Kindle in three weeks time.
For those of you interested in Book One, as always I'm posting the link below:
Amazon Link: here!
When Book Two is released in mid-July, I'll post the link to it and make the general announcement.
The serialization of Book Three's draft one, will begin properly i.e. regularly in August, 2017 (knock on wood three times).
This is just a sneak peek that my editor has yet to approve for release. Hahahaha. I'm going to get it from him later though.
The title of "The Thousand Yard Princess" is tentative as of this writing.
Cheers and thank you for sticking with this weird series for so long.
Dear readers of the Gun Princess Royale series,
I'd like to present the new and improved Introduction to Book Three, The Thousand Yard Princess.
This is the version that wasn't written by the seat of my pants while suffering from sleep deprivation and too much Coca Cola.
I hope you find it more to your liking.
Cheers!
- I -
There is a marked difference between the other girls and I.
If they take a bullet to the head, it is the mechanical avatar that dies – the Gun Princess and not the Meister.
If I take a bullet to the head, I die – both the Gun Princess and the Meister.
There is another significant difference between them and I.
It takes more than one bullet to the brainbox to bring down a Gun Princess because they have very hard heads.
In contrast, I don’t have an adamantine skull or adamantium coating over my skeleton.
Thus, all it takes is a single armor-piercing round to the cranium, and it’s Game Over for me.
Farewell Mirai, and better luck to your next incarnation.
It’s true that the Sanreal Family, that is House Elsis Novis, and my cold-hearted bitch of a sister could imprint the most recent archive of my neural map into another copy of Mirai…but that’s only if they can make one.
You may recall from the previous installment of my progressive memoires that Erina called me a miracle. A miracle she said, with a zealous light in her eyes. So producing another Ultra Grade Mirai doesn’t happen at the snap of the fingers, although it does start with the push of a button. However, in the event that they are successful, and the archive of my neural map can be implanted into the new brain, the new Mirai wouldn’t be me.
It wouldn’t be the me that I am now.
That me would die, and perhaps fly off to Heaven or Hell, depending on whether I’ve been a good or bad girl because I do believe that Mirai has a soul. At least, I want to believe that she does. She has Angel wings, so why not a soul? Nonetheless, the existence that I am now would perish in this reality, and the copy would only be a copy.
The real Mirai, the first Mirai, would be no more.
I have asked Erina what would happen to me if I was shot in the head.
Would the Angel Fibers repair the damage? If so, then perhaps installing the latest archive of my neural map would compensate for the loss of information in the regenerated portions of my brain. But there would certainly be a lot to repair because Mirai’s skull – as strong as it is – isn’t armor plated.
Erina said she didn’t know.
She and her research team that developed Mirai are continuously collating the data they collect on me, so they have yet to determine the extent to which the Angel Fibers can heal my wounds. But if I died from head trauma and the Angel Fibers subsequently put me back together, would I be the same person I was before? Perhaps, it really does come down to whether Mirai has a soul or not.
Yet even if Mirai could survive a bullet to the noggin, I have no intention of finding out, and I don’t want a copy to be made of me because I am the true, one-and-only Mirai.
I want to survive and I want to live.
That’s what I decided for myself as I listened to the bullets whiz by, ripping through the air, not quite indiscriminately tearing up my surroundings.
Maybe I’m jumping too far ahead, revealing too much too early in this the latest volume of my memoires.
Maybe I should let the story run its course, but having said that I’d resolved to live, I would like to explain a little of my circumstances at the time.
Just a sneak peak, a teaser, of what is to come.
I’d heard the term once before, spoken in conversation during a rather stressful period of my life.
It was something I’d forgotten about until blared out by the Game Master circling high overhead in the Battle Commission’s observation airship, a giant zeppelin the size of a cruise ship.
I certainly knew what the term meant in my reality, but it should have been clear that terms from my universe may not carry the same meaning in the other universe.
But knowing what I did know, a shiver of fear trickled down my spine as I watched the giant gunmetal grey egg fall from the airship, and crater the middle of the plaza when it landed with a deafening boom that smashed permaglass shopfronts, buckled the nearby mag-lev station supports, and caused the ground to undulate and ripple, tossing the Gun Princesses and I like plastic dolls into the air.
Some of them crashed through shop windows and deep into the stores.
Others rolled along the ground like helpless tenpins.
A few collided with walls, benches, tables, and signs.
And I crashed into an interactive information board, snapping its supports, and knocking it to the ground.
In a heartbeat, the center of the plaza was ruined, and the girls and I were scattered about.
Lying on the wrecked board, I looked up to see fireworks launch from the Game Master’s airship.
They exploded brilliantly in the evening sky, signaling a start to the festivities.
Then the gunmetal grey egg broke apart…and it emerged.
Of course, I couldn’t see it because the middle of the plaza was shrouded in a dense cloud of powdered rubble.
But I could hear it and I could feel it due to the deep thrumming that spread through the air and resonated with my bones.
I could smell it too – the scent of ozone that follows a lightning strike.
One by one the mechanical girls either picked themselves off the ground or hurried out from the shops they’d crashed into.
In quick succession, they checked their weapons and readied themselves for whatever would come bursting out of the cloud filling the center of the plaza.
I too prepared myself, first rising from the wrecked information board, and then checking my weapons – two Mag-Hauser railguns – as I took cover behind the remains of a permacrete fountain mostly demolished by the egg’s explosive landing.
Maybe those Meisters thought they’d be ready for what was to emerge.
Maybe I thought so as well.
After all, there were fifteen Gun Princesses in the plaza…and only one opponent.
However, I didn’t know how wrong we would be.
I didn’t know that we'd be facing something that wasn’t from my reality, but from a harsher realm.
A realm where a war had been fought and it razed the face of an entire planet.
Then a century later, the survivors fought another war.
A war that began with Simulacra.
A war that ended with machine versus machine.
Not long ago, Ghost told me that a Gun Princess has no natural enemies because her enemies are all unnatural.
They are all machines, metal predators, and among their ranks is one that even a Gun Princess has reason to fear.
The Gun Slinger.
As a Gun Princess, I too learnt to fear the Gun Slinger.
But a Gun Slinger has never met a Gun Princess like Mirai, and I was determined to cut my name into the metal demon that emerged from the cloud of rubble to the tune of six Gatling guns and a swarm of missiles.
Before the night was out, I promised to make this Gun Slinger tremble at the mere whisper of the name, Mirai.
And then I would blow the metal mother frekker up and send it straight into the machine afterlife!
I would like to take this opportunity to let readers know that the Gun Princess Royale - Book Two - The Measure of a Princess has finally been released to Amazon Kindle Select and Kindle Lenders Library.
Those of you who are interested in purchasing the eBook version can find it by following the link below, although Amazon does retail it in thirteen other countries:
The eBook version is significantly improved and noticeably different in important places from the draft posted here. Also, it is complete at eight chapters, rather than six, so it's roughtly 30% longer than the TG BigCloset release.
I will be serializing the draft of Book Three starting late in August. I need some time to get things together before then.
So please be sure to read the complete Book Two, because the ending is particularly important to where Book Three picks up.
And if you enjoy it, please let other readers know by posting a review on Amazon.
Thank you for your time, and best wishes to you all.
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.
Knowing that I was abandoning any chance to return to my old life squeezed my heart and chest. But I didn’t know what else to do. My options were few if any, and I wasn’t in a position to fight back. Moving forward as both Isabel and Mirai was the logical course of action, and in truth it wasn’t one I’d taken lightly. It also meant that I believed what Clarisol had told me, and Erina’s reaction when I questioned her had proven Clarisol’s assertion that my life as Ronin Kassius was a thing of the past.
So what kind of what life could I look forward to?
Feeling as though I was living minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, reluctant to think of what the sunrise would bring, should I even allow myself to ponder my future. When I did so, there was the question of whether I could live on as a girl, or was it something that would come to me gradually now that I was inside Mirai’s female body and brain?
As the VTOL flew over the harbor, my gaze wandered through the large window beside me, and by chance it floated over one of the three islands poking their heads above water. I didn’t think it was Telos Island that I glimpsed, but the sight of that island was enough to send an anxious jolt through me as I thought of what returning to the academy would be like now that I was Isabel val Sanreal, and not Ronin Kassius. But was it something I should worry over? In other words, was it not the least of my problems?
That depressing line of thinking made me turn away from the window, and I regarded the plush interior of the passenger cabin with its forward and reverse seating.
The VTOL was moth shaped, with six landing struts and wedge-shaped levitator wings fanning out from the dorsal superstructure. With a body thirty-feet long it had plenty of space for the passenger cabin. Despite my mood and situation, I nonetheless appreciated the lavishly appointed interior that was outfitted like a limousine with comfortable leather seating, wood paneling, climate control, and noise dampening for a whisper quiet ride.
However, my appreciation for its luxury was tempered by my troubled thoughts exacerbated by the company that I shared.
The Cat Princess, to whom Erina referred to as Akane, was sitting beside me to my right and facing forward. For now, her stun baton was clipped to her thigh, and the handgun she carried was holstered and hidden beneath the windbreaker jacket she wore. However, it wasn’t the heavy caliber handcannon she’d threatened me with aboard the yacht, but a smaller sidearm she could easily conceal under the jacket. I was hesitant to call it a lady’s gun, but that’s how I viewed it.
My sister, Erina, sat directly opposite me and faced the rear of the cabin with her eyes closed as her head rested back against the seat. She had changed her attire to an all-white affair – an ensemble of slim trousers, blouse, blazer, kitten sling backs – and once again she looked resplendent. Should I say, worth a fortune? In fact, she looked so good my feelings soured into a gloomy mix that swirled around in my stomach and gave me a belly ache.
The last of my companions in the cabin was a petite young woman wearing thin glasses, a business skirt-suit, and a long summer coat. She was waiting for us at the marina’s wharf, and introduced herself as Doctor Umi Pearson, a member of Erina’s team that put Mirai together. When she offered me her hand, I gave her a cruel smile that portrayed my intention to rip it off. Erina saved her by stepping between Pearson and I. At the very least, I had conveyed me feelings to the young woman, and she wasn’t going to make the mistake of being friendly with me.
Seated beside Erina, Pearson tapped away at the large magazine sized tablet on her lap.
“This is her schedule,” Pearson handed the device to my sister who blinked away for a while before wordlessly taking the tablet.
I watched Erina study the contents on display, and couldn’t refrain from sniping sarcastically at her. “Do you need a blood and urine sample?”
Erina shook her head faintly, her attention on the tablet she held. “No, we obtained those while you were unconscious.”
“How considerate of you.”
“It was simply less trouble that way.”
“Won’t the samples be contaminated by the tranquilizer?” I asked.
“We factored that into the analysis,” Pearson replied with a weak smile. “We won’t need another sample until tomorrow”—she glanced quickly at her slender wristwatch—“I mean, later this morning.”
I clapped softly. “So what’s next? Do you want me in a rat’s wheel? Shall I show you how quickly I can run?”
Erina exhaled unhappily yet continued reading the contents on the tablet’s screen. “Isabel, grow up.”
“Into someone like you? No thank you. I’d rather jump out of this VTOL now.”
The Cat Princess yawned. “Eri, just say the word—”
“And you’ll what? Shoot me?” I asked her.
The Cat Princess tapped her stun baton. “No. I’ll shove this up your—”
“That’s enough! Both of you,” Erina warned us, suddenly alert. She placed the tablet on her lap as she regarded me with a stern light in her eyes. “You assured me you would behave.”
I thought back over my conversations with her. “I don’t remember saying that.”
Erina clenched her teeth and exhaled loudly. “Then will you behave? You do realize you can make this a lot easier on yourself.”
“You mean a lot easier for you.”
Again, Erina exhaled loudly. “You’re going to give me gray hairs.”
I clapped softly again. “Why stop there? When I’m done, you’ll be bald.”
“That does it,” the Cat Princess snarled. “Time to stick this up your—”
“Not happening!” I reached over and started grappling with her.
As we tussled on the back seat of the VTOL’s cabin, the craft lurched abruptly causing Erina and Pearson to cry out in panic.
The Cat Princess and I stopped fighting as we listened to the pilot’s voice enter the cabin.
“Apologies, Doctor Kassius. Mild turbulence over the city.”
The VTOL lurched again and suddenly Erina and Pearson clutched at the armrests fitted to the cabin doors.
Forgetting about the Cat Princess for a moment, I stared at my sister as a distant memory came bounding to the forefront of my mind.
“Are you…still afraid of flying?”
Erina glared at me and clenched her jaw as the craft bounced in the air with enough force to make me feel weightless for a heartbeat.
“Hah,” I scoffed, then resumed scuffling with the Cat Princess.
The tussle ended minutes later when the pilot announced we would be landing soon
The Cat Princess relented on her choke hold, and I was able to breathe again, though I was shocked to discover Mirai could hold her breath for more than two minutes before turning blue.
At the same time, I released my hold on the girl’s head, and the mechanical avatar could straighten her body after I’d deliberately pinned her into an awkward posture against the starboard side of the cabin that would have broken a human girl’s back.
Moving to opposite sides on the back seat, we fixed up our tattered clothes.
My top had a long rip down the middle that exposed my bra and voluptuous cleavage. “Bitch.”
Her jacket was missing a sleeve. “Whore.”
I turned to her and pointed at my crotch. “Hey, at least I have all the right parts now, Machine Girl.”
“What? You want a prize?” she hurled at me.
My mouth fell open. “Wait a minute. Are you a guy? Are you a guy operating that body?”
“No, I’m not! I’m a girl. Okay.”
“Yeah, right.”
The Cat Princess gave me a dumbfounded look before growing angry. “My name is Akane Straus. I’m a girl. In fact, I’m twenty-three years old. So you should be showing your elder some respect.”
“Aren’t you a bit old to be calling yourself a girl?”
“Huh?”
I waved a hand. “I thought you were like those online male gamers who pass themselves off as girls by using female avatars.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” I muttered, then noticed the exhausted look Erina was giving me, and the disbelief plastered on Pearson’s face. “What?”
Though she kept her attention on me, Pearson half turned to Erina and hesitantly asked, “Are you sure the transfer worked?”
Erina rubbed both her temples. “Yes, it worked.”
“But…I thought your brother was more—”
“More what?” Erina asked her bluntly.
Pearson inhaled deeply before blurting out, “Compliant?”
Erina gave Pearson a troubled look before she resumed rubbing her temples. “Don’t ask.”
“So something went wrong,” Pearson murmured.
“Hey, Glasses,” I snapped at her. “Of course something went wrong. I’m a guy in a girl’s body all because of you”—I pointed at my sister—“and this megalomaniac.”
Erina lowered her hands and frowned at me disapprovingly. “I’m not obsessed with power.”
“From rags to riches, huh, Sis?”
My sister’s expression grew hard and sharp. “That’s enough.”
I crossed my arms, aware that by doing so I pushed up my big breasts. “So, when do I get to meet this rich fiancé of yours?”
“When you learn to behave,” she replied.
“Better make sure you put in me in a lion’s cage”—I made clawing gestures at her—“or you never know what might happen.”
“Eri, put me in a cage with her,” the Cat Princess requested. “I’ll pull out her claws.”
I raised a fist at her. “Why wait for a cage!”
“This time I’m choking you blue!”
“And I’m tearing your head off!”
“ENOUGH!” Erina screamed.
A loud rip underscored her cry.
“My bra!”
“My sleeve!”
A heartbeat later I felt the VTOL lurch gently as it touched down.
“Doctor Kassius, we’ve landed at the complex.”
Pearson pressed a hand to her chest and wilted into the leather seat. “Thank the gods. Down in one piece.”
The sliding cabin door beside Erina and I opened to reveal a man wearing a ground crew jacket with fluorescent stripes.
He took one look at the Cat Princess and I locked in combat, and froze.
“Ex—excuse the interruption.”
Then he hastily closed the door.
Erina dropped her head into her hands.
Pearson cautiously reached out and patted her shoulder. “Eri? Are you all right?”
“Do I look all right?” my sister mumbled.
“Um…maybe you should let me take over.”
Erina swiftly raised her head and stared at Pearson in disbelief. “Do you think you can handle them?”
Pearson gave the Cat Princess and I a long, thoughtful look, then visibly shrank back in her seat. “I—I get your point….”
Erina turned her attention on us. “Akane. For the love of the gods, act your damn age. You’re the team leader for Team Novis. How the Hell do you expect to lead if you can’t control yourself? You’re acting like you used to back in high school.”
The Cat Princess slackened her grip on me. “Oh, right….”
Erina regarded me. “I will box you. Is that clear? I don’t care what happens. Damn the consequences, but if you don’t behave, I swear to the gods I will box you.”
I released my hold on the Cat Princess. “Fine. For now.”
“Not for now!” Erina shouted. “Forever! Do you hear me! You will learn to act your age, and behave like a lady of proper standing. Is that clear!”
I frowned at my sister who was trembling in rage. “Okay. I get it. I’ll be good. For now.”
“Isabel!”
“For now!” I yelled back at her with a rage of my own. “Don’t ask more of me!”
Pearson’s eyes suddenly widened to the size of platters. “Oh my gods!”
Her reaction cut through my anger, and I stared at her in confusion until I noticed my dark locks of hair in the corner of my eyes.
I changed again?
Pearson covered her mouth for a heartbeat. “What—what is that?”
Erina was breathing heavily but staring at me with worry. “I don’t know. I don’t know what that is. For all we know, it could be the dark side of her personality manifesting itself.”
“The dark side?” Pearson whispered, then her eyes brightened with a sudden passion that made me glare at her. “We need to examine her immediately.” Noticing my glare, she squeaked and quickly shied back. “Her—her eyes glow!”
“Yes, I know,” Erina replied, then quickly shook her head. “We’re not examining her now. Later, but not now.”
There was a series of loud knocks on the cabin door beside me, then it slid back a few inches and the man from before peeked in.
“Um, excuse me. But we’re expecting another flight.”
Erina sighed heavily, and nodded equally so. “Yes, we understand. My apologies.”
The man pulled back the door, exposing the side of the cabin, and Erina was the first to disembark from the VTOL, using the steps that had extended down from the flank of the craft to the ground.
I followed after her, with both arms thrown across my chest to cover my exposed breasts after the Cat Princess ripped my top and bra.
The mechanical bitch climbed out close behind me, and Pearson was the last to exit the VTOL, visibly giving us a wide berth as she hurried over to Erina’s side.
The man in the ground grew jacket called out to me. “Uh, Miss.”
I stared at him, wondering what he wanted and expecting his eyes to be glued to my chest. Instead, I was surprised to see him take off his heavy jacket and offer it to me.
“Here. You should take it,” he said while averting his gaze.
I weighed my options: walk half naked to wherever we were going, or put on someone’s sweaty jacket.
Holding back a groan, I smiled weakly as I took the jacket, and then turned away from him and everybody else so that I could put it on. “Thanks…,” I muttered over a shoulder.
“Uh…sure….”
At the very least he hadn’t peeked at my chest, though he was probably holding himself back through a monumental effort. Or maybe I was just imagining all that in my head.
I really needed to stop being so self-conscious about Mirai’s huge bust.
Zipping up the jacket, I could smell the man’s scent on the material through Mirai’s sharpened senses. This was despite the strong wind blowing over the top of the landing platform. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant but it wasn’t pleasant either, and I resolved to strip out of my clothes and take a shower at the earliest convenience. However, he’d been a gentleman after noticing my state of undress, so I wasn’t going to throw his jacket back at him. Instead, I bowed slightly toward him in a show of gratitude.
There were other ground crew on the platform, and they ushered the four of us urgently though politely away from the parked VTOL that had flown us from the marina to the city. Moments after we’d been escorted into an enclosed lounge area adjoining the platform, the moth-shaped VTOL pointed its levitator fins downward, revved up its engines, then smoothly hopped into the air.
I watched the craft spread its levitator fins before it banked away southward. As my gaze followed it across the sky, I ended up looking out over the city.
I’d never observed Ar Telica from this high up and the lounge treated me to a resplendent midnight view of the sprawling city-state.
The building the VTOL had delivered us to was one of the dozens of pyramid-like megascrapers that bordered the west end of the horseshoe shaped harbor. That meant we were in Ar Telica’s Ring Zero that followed the shape of the harbor, with a thousand more megascrapers towering behind us to the west in Rings One to Twelve. Looking eastward at the immense watery expanse, I saw the lights of the city undulating with the waves, and my gaze traced the bridge connecting the shore to Telos Island. Shrunk by distance, the school buildings resembled miniatures illuminated by their rooftop floodlights.
I was growing tired of seeing the academy by night.
Turning around, I looked through the transparent walls of the waiting lounge at the building we were standing on.
From what I could see of the megascraper, it was a hexagonal, steep sided Aztec pyramid. Because we were standing at an elevation that was level with most of the megascrapers around us, I guessed the building was around the average of two hundred stories high. If this was an apartment complex, then I assumed the top floors would be home to spacious suites that could house a few dozen students. They would certainly be far larger than the apartment I used to share with Erina when we were younger.
My sister was watching me, and I met her gaze without flinching.
After a moment, she indicated that I should follow her.
When I sensed the Cat Princess fall in behind me, I looked at her over my shoulder.
“Don’t think of running away,” she warned me.
“Can you fly?” I asked her.
“Why? Are you thinking of jumping off the building?”
I grinned at her. “I have wings, remember?”
The Cat Princess missed a step, then hurried to catch up. “And I have a gun, remember?”
Unzipping the top of my jacket by a few inches, I reached in between Mirai’s boobs and the remains of my clothes to pull out my hard-earned prize. Then I turned around smoothly and pressed the muzzle of a small yet hefty handgun to the Cat Princess’s forehead.
“You mean this gun?”
The Cat Princess froze and I heard a gasp that could have come from either Erina or Pearson.
I grinned broadly at the mechanical girl and cocked my head slightly. “You feeling lucky, Punk?”
The girl remained completely motionless except for her mouth and lips. “How…?”
“Back when you and I were scuffling aboard the VTOL.”
I pushed the gun’s muzzle into her forehead, forcing her back a step.
Then I took a step back myself.
Relying on Mirai’s imprinted familiarity with weapons, I ejected the magazine from the gun’s grip, then slid the receiver to empty the chamber of the bullet within, all without having to stop and think about the process. Nor did I look directly at the weapon itself, though in truth I could see it clearly because of Mirai’s unnaturally wide field-of-vision that probably rivaled that of an owl’s.
Twisting the gun with both hands, I succeeded in bending the grip so that it couldn’t be reloaded with a fresh magazine. Then I tossed the weapon to the ground where it subsequently slid under a lounge seat.
The Cat Princess took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You really are a pain.”
“Like I said before, Kitten, you’re not so tough when I can see you.” I turned around and walked up to Erina. “Lead the way, Doc.”
The petite Umi Pearson discreetly hid behind my sister who regarded me with an anxious look that brought a smile to my face.
“What?” I asked her.
“Where’s the stun baton?” she inquired.
I shrugged and answered her honestly. “I have no idea. Probably back on the VTOL.”
“What the—!” The Cat Princess shouted abruptly as she realized she’d been disarmed. “You bitch.”
I looked at her over a shoulder and then shrugged. “You didn’t think I was picking a fight with you for nothing, did you?”
The cat ears on her head suddenly popped up and began twitching madly as she glowered at me. A moment later, I realized that the ground crew hadn’t mentioned or noticed her cat ears, and it was because she’d folded them down and hid them in her long platinum hair.
“I am going to teach you to respect your elders,” she promised me.
“Meow,” I replied and made clawing gestures at her.
Erina exhaled tremulously. “You truly are devious.”
I faced my sister. “No. I’m a Gun Princess.”
From behind Erina, a pale looking Pearson was muttering, “…not cute…not cute....”
I chose to ignore her as I pointed in the direction of the escalators leading down into the building from the far end of the enclosed lounge. “I’m tired and I want to take a shower. Are you going to lead the way or not?”
Erina wet her lips before revealing, “Akane likes to keep a knife around.”
I pulled the aforementioned knife out of a pocket. “You mean this one?”
“Aaaah!” The Cat Princess yelled. “You thief!”
I handed the knife to Erina, who took it reluctantly. “Worried I’ll stab you in the back?” I asked her.
“The thought did cross my mind,” she admitted as she pocketed the knife.
Pearson’s mumbles fell to a whispered, “…not cute…not cute at all….”
Continuing with the weekly postings of the GPR3 draft.
Initially it was a surprise, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me.
The Cat Princess was a mechanical, remote controlled body.
I didn’t know what it was like for the operator to experience their surroundings through the interface with the avatar, but it was possible they lacked the tactile sensitivity a human or Simulacrum possessed. In other words, the Cat Princess’s Meister didn’t feel her surroundings as much as I did. This was something I only realized while grappling with the Cat Princess aboard the VTOL.
When I felt the knife in her back pocket, I was able to steal it from her without being discovered. As we continued to scuffle, she made no mention of the knife, so I went further and succeeded in removing the gun from the holster she wore under her jacket. It wasn’t easy, and I honestly feared she would notice my intent, yet she didn’t. Uncomfortably hiding the small gun in the band of my denim trousers, while keeping that side of my body facing away from the Cat Princess, I once again waited for her to notice she’d been disarmed but she remained oblivious to the fact.
It was then apparent that as realistic as she was – which included breathing – she didn’t possess the same degree of touch sensitivity as a real person. She wasn’t aware of all the changes in pressure to her body, and that certainly surprised me. It also made me curious as to how a Meister operated the mechanical avatar. What was the experience like for them? How did they view and feel the world around them? If the result was limited like the Cat Princess demonstrated, then their perception of their surroundings was woefully trivial compared to how clearly I could experience my environment.
I decided it was something I’d ask Erina or Ghost about later.
Scratch that.
I’d ask Ghost about it later when we were alone.
With the Cat Princess glowering at my back, I followed my sister and Pearson out of the waiting lounge and into the innards of the apartment complex. The landing platform was constructed on one corner of the six-sided building, but it wasn’t located at the top of the megascraper. In fact, the middle of the hexagonal pyramid towered a dozen or more floors above the platform. After a short walk down an opulent hallway, we arrived at a bank of elevators and caught one up several floors. Exiting the lift car, I trailed behind Erina and Pearson, and came up to a pair of doors at the end of a short corridor. I expected Erina to unlock the doors, but instead she touched the doorplate to the right of the jamb, and with Mirai’s acute hearing, I listened to a chime sound faintly somewhere ahead of us.
When one of the doors unlocked and then opened gently, my eyebrows rose dramatically to the ceiling and try as I might I couldn’t bring them back down.
A young woman in a traditional maid outfit poked her body out into the corridor.
No, no, no. Allow me to properly elaborate upon that observation.
A young woman in a traditional French Maid’s outfit, with a bodice that clung tightly to her well-endowed chest, poked her body out into the corridor. At sight of Erina, she opened the door fully, revealing the rest of her, and I ran my gaze quickly over her short skirt, and slender shapely legs perched atop a pair of black high heels. Her long, auburn hair was arranged into what I guessed was a thick braid, and I judged her to be a little older than me, though still in her teenage years. It was then that my eyebrows lowered, when I found myself wondering if she was a Menial, and perhaps this was all the employment she could find herself after graduating from second tier education, otherwise known as high school. When I realized what I was thinking, and I flinched in shame as I averted my gaze.
Who was I to judge her? I wasn’t even human. I was a fraud. But more so, what right did I have to be critical of her?
While I felt contrite over my supercilious thoughts, Erina had no qualms or regrets in regarding the girl as an inconsequence.
“Lady Kassius—” the maid started to say but hurriedly stepped aside when my sister walked into the wide hallway beyond the doors, almost pushing her way past the pretty girl.
Pearson gave me a hasty look before hurrying after my sister.
I exhaled slowly, aware of the Cat Princess standing close by and when I glanced at her, I noticed the veiled reproach on her face and wondered if she was directing at Erina.
She can display subtle emotions, yet she can’t feel her surroundings the way I can. How strange.
Seeing that the maid was looking anxiously at me, I took a quick breath, then entered the apartment through the open doorway. As I stepped past the girl, I bowed my head to her, and offered her a softly spoken apology.
“Sorry….”
The girl blinked quickly, then her lips curled into a faint smile, but she said nothing until after she’d quietly closed the door behind the Cat Princess who followed me silently into the apartment.
“This way, please,” the young maid suggested as she ushered us down the wide hallway to a spacious rectangular living area with a sunken floor at one end that was furnished with sofas, a low table made of tinted glass, and a holovid projection system that belonged in a private cinema. A permaglass window spanned the length of one wall, and offered access to an enormous balcony that was several times larger than my dormitory apartment. An open kitchen area was situated adjacent to the living room, and two hallways led deeper into the apartment, undoubtedly to the bedrooms, guestrooms, bathrooms and so forth. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all a light creamy color, and that included the soft pile carpet underfoot.
Everything about the place projected luxury, comfort, and convenience, and that included the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
In terms of opulence, the apartment was on par with Mat’s family home in Ring One, District Ten where society’s affluent lived.
It was a richness that made me uncomfortable as I slowly walked around the living area, aware that my sister and Pearson were watching me, while the Cat Princess gawked at the interior of the apartment.
As for the maid, she was keeping to herself at the entrance to the living room.
I faced my sister. “You planning on living here as well?”
“Yes, I am.”
That brought a snarl to my face that I had trouble clearing away. “Just frekking wonderful….”
“I need to be here,” she stated sternly.
“No,” I shook my head at her, “you don’t.” Walking up to her, I folded my arms under my big chest. “I don’t need you around, and you don’t need to be here. I have no doubt that you have a surveillance system installed in this apartment, so you can watch me from somewhere else, you voyeur. But I won’t tolerate having you here.”
I turned around and started walking toward the hallway leading to the apartment’s entrance.
As I’d expected, the Cat Princess stood in my way.
I punched a fist into a palm. “Ready for round two?”
She gave me a disappointed look, and that wasn’t what I was expecting.
From behind me, Erina’s voice reached my ears. “It’s important that I be here.”
“Why?” I asked without turning around, my attention on the Cat Princess who stood before me with arms folded under her bust. “I’m not your lab rat, Erina, so you don’t need to be here.”
“I’m still your sister.”
“No. You’re Ronin’s sister.” This time I threw her a glare over my left shoulder. “You’re not my sister.”
I’d finally made the long overdue admission that I no longer considered that woman as my sister, and I felt lighter for it.
However, Erina’s response was to sigh at me as though I were a stupid child. “According to legal documents submitted to the Civil Registry, the Sanreal Family has made me your guardian.”
“That’s a stupid thing to do. If I’m a member of their family, shouldn’t I be living with them?” Taking a step back from the Cat Princess, I half turned to look at Erina. “Just what’s the deal here.”
“I’m your guardian, though you are soon to be my sister-in-law, even though officially you’re only a half-sister to the Sanreal siblings.”
“You mean, Mat?”
“I’m speaking in terms of what’s recorded in the Civil Registry. Matrim is a Praetor. You are a Sanreal.”
“So who are my other official siblings? Clarisol?”
“She is one of them.”
“Does that mean a Simulacrum of Clarisol will eventually be unleashed upon the unsuspecting masses?”
Erina started to sigh but stopped herself abruptly. “Her absence would be problematic, thus the answer is ‘yes’.”
I mulled that over, wondering if this version of Clarisol would be less extreme than the previous incarnation, and wondering why it would be a problem if she disappeared from society’s pages. “So who else is a half-sibling of mine?”
“Simon Sanreal. The head of the Sanreal Family.”
Abruptly, I frowned and turned to look behind the Cat Princess at the maid standing silently by the hallway’s entrance, wearing a confused expression that she failed to hide.
“Hey,” I asked her, “who are you?”
The girl’s eyes widened in a heartbeat and she bowed frantically. “I—I’m Cecilia. I was hired as the maid—I—I mean housekeeper. It—it’s a pleasure to serve you.”
I winced at her reaction, but tore my attention away from her chest bouncing wildly in her bodice. “Okay—okay! Stop it. You’re making me dizzy.”
The girl stopped bowing and regarded me anxiously.
“Could you please…give us a moment?” I asked of her.
I noticed the glance she threw at Erina before bowing to me quickly and then hurrying off into one of the hallways connected to the living area.
With the maid now having left the scene, I took a deep breath, then turned to face Erina. “How much does she know?”
“She knows that you’re Isabel val Sanreal, the youngest member of the Sanreal Family, and that you’re also an illegitimate child.”
“You mean a love child,” I grumbled harshly in a low voice.
“Yes. You are.”
“What else does she know?”
“That you’re lacking in manners, good graces, and you’re a tomboy. That despite your appearance as an attractive girl, there is nothing ladylike about you.”
I heard the Cat Princess snicker but decided not to confront her, and instead directed a scowl at my former sister. “Anything else I should know?”
“You’re also convinced that you are a teenage boy.”
“What?” I growled.
“You have delusions of being a boy in a past life. In other words, you believe you’re a boy reincarnated as a girl.”
I swear I could hear my tendons pop as I clenched my hands. “No thanks to you….”
To my surprise, Erina folded her arms under breasts and smiled at me like someone about to say ‘checkmate’, yet she said, “We have all the bases covered.”
“Yeah, I can see that. You have the maid believing that I’m crazy.”
“Oh, and you like girls.”
This time I blushed. “Well of course I do—” I cut myself off as I realized I was about to say something that would further incriminate me as being delusional.
I’m a straight guy in a girl’s body. Of course I’d like girls. But now this makes me a lesbian!
Abruptly feeling drained, my shoulders slumped and I relaxed my hands.
The Civil Registry keeps a profile on people. I wonder what they have on me.
“You sure laid it out nicely, didn’t you,” I applauded her.
“What choice did we have?” she asked in return. “You’re not aware of it, but you don’t move like a girl. Your mannerisms are barely feminine in passing. Other than your looks, there’s little else that’s feminine about you.”
I frowned at her. “Meaning—”
“Meaning that come Monday morning, everyone in Telos Academy who encounters you will start to wonder what kind of upbringing you’ve had.”
I began to realize what she was implying. “Because I don’t act like a girl.”
“Correct. And soon it’ll be all over the social media waves that the youngest daughter of the well-known Sanreal Family is a tomboy…and that’s putting it politely.”
Taking another deep breath, I planted my hands on my hips. “So what?”
Erina’s eyebrows rose and fell. “Indeed. So what. Well, you’ll find out eventually. By then, you’ll have dug yourself into a social pit of your own making. Frankly, it’s not my concern. As I’ve said before, you have a purpose and so long as you meet that purpose, it’s not my problem if you ruin your school and social life.”
“Wow, and here I thought you cared about your lab rat.”
She stepped up to me. Since our heights were comparable, I met her gaze at eyelevel.
“Only the lab rat, Isabel. You make it impossible to care about the rest of you.”
I wet my lips slowly. “Then get out. Or better still, have the school assign me to a dormitory, and I’ll continue living on my own—as I’ve been doing for the past three years.”
“Not happening.”
I smiled at her. “Then I plan to make your time here as unpleasant as possible.”
“Do you want to be boxed?”
“Go ahead and do it,” I answered with an unwavering stare.
From behind me, I heard a heavy sigh. “Eri, you’re going to give yourself ulcers again. Remember what your doctor told you? This time it could be a lot worse than last time. If you end up hospitalized—oops!”
Hospitalized? Did she say hospitalized?
While I had trouble hiding my shock, Erina shifted her attention onto the Cat Princess standing behind me to my five o’clock. “Unlike many people, I learn from my mistakes.”
The Cat Princess sighed again. “And now you’re going to make a new set of mistakes.”
I narrowed my eyes at Erina. “You were hospitalized? For real?”
She snorted loudly and regarded me with contempt. “It’s none of your concern.”
I nodded. “You’re right. And I don’t intend to go easy on you. When I’m done, you’ll have sworn off having kids for life.”
Without warning, Erina violently flung her hands and arms into the air. “Oh have it your way! Do whatever the Hell you want!”
I have to admit she took me by surprise to the point where I almost took a step back.
Almost.
Erina poked me hard in the collarbone. “You want to live alone? Fine. Live alone. I’ll have you assigned to a dormitory in time for school next week. But until then, you’re going to live here for the next five days, and learn how to be a lady! At the very least, learn how to walk like one!” She took several deep breaths. “Is that clear?”
Erina stared at me hard until I replied with a curt nod, while holding back a grin.
It might seem like a small victory, but no one had ever won a war overnight.
Well, no one I’d ever read about.
Invariably it was a series of poignant victories that led to ultimate success.
Even dropping the A-bomb on that island nation back on Earth centuries ago was the result of years of conflict that brought the American forces ever closer to their enemy’s homeland.
I watched Erina inhale deeply, and then squeeze her eyes shut while pinching the bridge of her nose. Unexpectedly, she turned and sluggishly walked off without a word, exiting the living area and disappearing into one of the hallways. However, a few moments later she re-emerged, crossed the living area, and entered the hallway on the opposite side of the large room.
Did she get lost? I wondered, then proverbially patted myself on the back. Wow, I really got to her. Hooray!
Pearson was standing in the middle of the living area, looking in the direction Erina had wandered off.
I gave her contemptuous look. “Go. Run after your master.”
The young woman flinched but didn’t wait for me to tell her twice before fleeing after Erina.
I exhaled loudly and let my shoulders slump. “Shit. She’s so exhausting….”
“I bet you feel really proud,” the Cat Princess said.
I half turned around to look back at her. “Yeah. I’m clapping madly inside. Woo hoo.”
“Then why do it?”
“That’s a stupid question,” I retorted.
“Then when are you planning to stop lashing out at everyone around you? What good will that do you? You’re not going back to being Ronin Kassius.”
I straightened as I stared at her. “So you knew about that.”
“Yes.”
“I bet you enjoyed watching me think that I had some hope of being a man again.”
She shook her head and seemed sincere when she replied, “It wasn’t fun at all.”
“Well, you sure looked like you were having fun.”
“That was the intention. It doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.”
This time I turned around and faced her properly with my hands on my hips. “You think I’ll believe that bullshit?”
“The point was to give you a traumatic experience so that you would want to wake up.”
“You shot me.”
“And you woke up,” she stated as though it was a natural result.
“No. I died.”
“You were already as good as dead. That Simulacrum wouldn’t have lasted more than a week at best. But the truth is that your consciousness was already mapped into Mirai’s brain. You were connected to the Simulacrum’s mind, so that you could experience everything it experienced. But you were already inside Mirai.” The Cat Princess glanced away. “It still sounds weird no matter how much Erina explained it to me….”
I felt something wasn’t adding up. “Clarisol told me that my sister—I mean, Erina—knew that the Empress wanted my mind inside Mirai two months ago. So why put me in a Simulacrum that wasn’t going to last?”
“We knew about her intention to stick you in Mirai. What we didn’t know was that she was going to throw Ronin Kassius into Limbo. Everything happened so fast. And then we found out we couldn’t wake up Mirai. She was experiencing some weird dream state after Ronin’s mind was imprinted into her in a rush. So the Simulacrum of Ronin Kassius was produced on short notice.”
Was this really the truth? It sounded probable, but why the rush to wake up Mirai? Was it because they were trying to keep up with the Empress changing the rules on them? Despite what my sister had said about standing up to the Empress, they were still dancing to her tune.
I gave the Cat Princess a sour smile. “When you put it that way, I’m surprised I’m still sane.”
“I’m not following you….” She looked genuinely confused.
“I mean that I’m surprised Erina did anything right. I could have ended up with multiple personalities or a complete nut job in a padded cell.”
The Cat Princess remained silent for a while before declaring, “The night is still young.”
“Oh wonderful.” I rolled my eyes and started turning away.
“If you want to blame someone,” the Cat Princess continued, “then blame the Empress. Blame her and not Erina. She doesn’t deserve your scorn.”
“Oh, she deserves it,” I countered. “Every bit and more. She has treated me like nothing more than a science project. And she made it clear just now that that’s all I am to her. So she can get frekked for all I care.”
Once again, the Cat Princess was studiously quiet for a long while before declaring, “She may have said that. But to me you’re a lot more.”
“Huh?”
“You said you wanted to see the real me. Fine. I’ll show you. Maybe then you’ll understand how important you are to us in different ways.”
Puzzled, I watched the Cat Princess walk past me toward the far wall of the living area. This was the wall that was composed of floor to ceiling permaglass with a view of the city and the apartment’s balcony. Sliding aside one of the permaglass partitions, the Cat Princess stepped out onto the balcony, allowing the cold night air into the apartments temperate interior.
“Follow me.”
She didn’t wait for me to do so, and instead walked out to the middle of the balcony floor space. Then she sat down cross legged on the ground, and closed her eyes.
Standing by the open permaglass partition, I wondered what she was up to when I abruptly sensed a wrongness in the air around the balcony. It was disconcerting, like experiencing weightlessness and disorientation simultaneously. For a moment, I feared a translocation was imminent and I clenched my gut to keep myself from feeling overly sick as I hastily swept my gaze over the balcony. Moments later, I noticed a warping of my view of the city buildings beyond the balcony, something akin to a fish eye lens effect, and a deep thrumming filled the air. I could feel that thrumming work its way into my bones, and quickly recalled experiencing something similar when I stood near a Sarcophagus, but never at this scale.
The phrase, ‘speak of the Devil and he shall come’ rushed through my head as I watched the lens effect warp my view of the city even more before a giant gunmetal grey Sarcophagus emerged from the distorted area, and float inches above the balcony. The giant device towered over me and the motionless Cat Princess as it belched a cold white fog much like an ancient locomotive venting steam. Within moments the thick billowing fog nearly obscured the balcony, and I was able to glimpse the shadow of the Sarcophagus as it opened up and deposited something on the ground. But I could also see the dark shapes of many tentacles reach down and pick up the silhouette of the seated Cat Princess, quickly drawing her into the machine’s dark innards. The fog began to dissipate quickly after the Sarcophagus closed its doors and disappeared back into the warped area above the balcony.
As soon as it vanished, the disorienting sensation went away and I felt my surroundings return to normal.
Whatever the Sarcophagus had delivered was slowly moving on the ground.
I waited until the fog had evaporated some more before cautiously venturing out onto the balcony to see what it was. However, after walking a few meters toward it, I stopped and stared uncertainly at it.
A young woman with long, blonde hair, wearing a white leotard, was half-lying on the balcony like a beached mermaid. She had propped up her torso on her arms, and was shaking her head slowly while blinking in a staccato rhythm.
Swallowing quietly, I stepped closer to her.
Sensing me draw near, she looked up at me with a strained expression, and my innards tightened when I recognized her.
“It’s you…,” I whispered.
She swallowed a few times before saying in a hoarse voice, “You remember me.”
I nodded absently though I was looking at her intently. “You were there at the game center the day my nightmare began. You were playing the Gun Princess Royale, and Class Rep—I mean, Shirohime—she called you stupid.”
The young woman snorted softly. “Yes, she did. And you were hiding in the crowd.”
Remembering the wheelchair she’d used – the one with the Telos Corporation logo – I regarded her legs. There were odd grey rivulets running all over them, scarring their skin. Sweeping my gaze over the rest of her body, I noticed it was waifish, and her arms had the same rivulets running their length. I recalled that back at the game center she’d been wearing long sleeves and her legs were sheathed in stockings. At the time, I’d thought she was a burn victim, but now I understood she was hiding the condition of her skin.
“What’s wrong with you?”
With a groan, she shifted her body, indeed much like a mermaid.
“Humanity hasn’t solved all medical conditions,” she replied. “There’s a few they haven’t fixed yet.” She looked up at me again. “My body looks horrible to you, doesn’t it.”
“…yeah….”
Her laugh was gentle yet bitter. “This is the result of your sister saving my life.” Seeing me frown slightly, she smiled in pity and I felt it was directed at herself. “I suffered from muscle dystrophy, and your sister tried to save me by using the Angel Fibers she had cultivated. It was illegal, and contravened scientific practices, but I had nothing to lose, and she was running out of time. So I became her first human test subject…and her last.”
“It didn’t work…?”
“Yes and no. The Angel Fibers stopped my muscular dystrophy, but they paralyzed my legs and scarred my body when they ripped out of me.”
I winced in reaction to the image her words painted in my mind.
Akane Straus nodded slowly. “That’s right. I wasn’t a pretty sight. But I survived, and whatever changes they made to my body stopped the muscular dystrophy in its tracks. But they also disrupted my motor controls, crippling my legs. I can feel them so in that respect I’m not a paraplegic, but I can’t use them. I can’t even crawl on them.”
“What happened afterwards?”
Straus looked at me puzzled. “Afterwards?”
“You said my sister operated on you illegally.”
“Oh. Her superiors suspended her, but the Sanreal Family who own the Telos Corporation stepped in and re-instated her. However, rather than using human subjects, they provided her with Simulacra instead. That’s when she learnt about the other universe and the truth about the Sanreal Family.”
“Akane!”
Startled, I turned toward the apartment and saw Erina standing by the permaglass entrance to the balcony. Umi Pearson was there too, with the large magazine sized tablet in her hands, but it was Erina who rushed out and dropped to her knees beside Straus who was now sitting on the ground.
“What are you doing? What were you thinking?” Erina asked the young woman.
“It was something I needed to do,” Straus answered her.
Erina looked aghast. “What? Why?” She shook her head in condemnation. “No. It wasn’t. You didn’t need to do this at all.”
“Yes, I did. She needed to see me.”
“We can argue about this elsewhere. It’s cold out here. We need to get you inside.”
Erina attempted to pick up Straus, but she was unable to cope with the young woman’s weight.
She looked pathetic to me, and I held back a sigh because it would have sounded too much like a derisive snort as I stepped closer to Straus. “I’ll do it—”
“Get away from her,” Erina shouted at me.
Surprised, I stepped back and stared at her with eyes wide.
“Don’t touch her,” Erina snapped, and resumed her feeble attempts to pick up Straus.
However, the latter reached out with her hands and stopped the woman that I no longer considered to be my sister. Facing me, Straus spoke in a manner that did not reflect her personality as the Cat Princess. She sounded quite calm and composed while supported by Erina as she half lay helplessly on the ground.
“Do you still want to hit me? Or am too pathetic?”
I couldn’t tell if she was taunting me or asking honestly for my opinion.
I chose to be honest. “If I hit you with Mirai’s strength, I’d probably kill you…and I don’t want your blood on my hands.”
Straus smiled wistfully up at me. “I don’t know whether to be grateful or not.”
I started to shrug indifferently. “I’ll find another way to make you suffer.”
Erina stood up swiftly and spoke in a heated, menacing tone. “You will do no such thing—”
“Eri!”
She looked down sharply at Straus who wore an admonishing expression on her face.
“This is between her and I,” Straus stated calmly then painfully rearranged her legs on the balcony floor so that they stretched out before her.
When she looked up at me, I could see the strain on her face.
“I told you, to me you’re a lot more,” she said. “To me, you’re my hope.”
I understood what she meant, and I didn’t like it at all.
I felt she was being unfair to me, and I could have said as much, but instead I shook my head slowly and replied in a perfunctory manner, “At least you have something to hope for. I don’t.”
I walked around her, leaving Straus and Erina behind me as I approached the edge of the balcony.
To prevent people from jumping off the balcony, it was bordered by a permaglass wall around ten or twelve feet high that also deflected the wind blowing strongly this far above sea level.
I pressed myself against the almost perfectly transparent material, and peered down at what lay below, before stepping back a couple of steps. Leaping upwards, I caught onto the rounded top of the permaglass wall, then easily levered myself over it and down onto the other side. Because of the sound damping properties of the transparent wall, and the blustering wind, I barely heard Erina shout at me in protest at my escape.
Landing on the ledge running along the outside of the balcony, I used the permaglass wall to steady myself against the wind, before jumping off the side of the pyramidal megascraper.
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.
Pure and simple.
So what was the fastest, most reliable method?
If I decided to leave via the apartment, I would need a means to operate the elevator. I had noticed Erina touching her fingertips to a sensor plate beside the elevator doors. Undoubtedly that was a security measure. Were Mirai’s fingerprints recorded in the building’s security system? Alternatively, would the elevator take me straight down to the ground floor lobby or foyer without the need for fingerprint recognition?
I didn’t know, but in the event that I couldn’t operate the elevator, I would need to either return to the apartment, or descend via the fire escape.
Thinking about it now, as I jumped from balcony down to balcony and in the process having to repeatedly to climb over permaglass fencing, the fire escape was certainly the logical choice.
But instead I stupidly fled over the side of the building.
Why?
Because Erina worked her way into my thoughts, disrupted my rationality, and flipped my switches.
In short, I had to get away from her or I was liable to lash out with tragic results.
Yet, I wasn’t angry.
As contradictory as that sounds, as I jumped down the building, level by level, I wasn’t angry at Erina.
Instead, I felt wounded and hollow as though from that wound all my emotions had bled out, leaving a vacant shell behind.
Not even despair lurked within me.
Emptied of feeling, a calm had settled upon my mind, and I moved without thought – jumping and falling from balcony to balcony – until finally a new emotion was born.
It started with a mild soreness, but as it grew it birthed irritation.
What was the source of this soreness and the irritation it sired?
Mirai’s giant boobs!
Without a proper bra, the Princess Regalia, or other means of support, those perfectly shaped mounds of womanhood bounced every time I landed on a balcony, and by the time I’d descended fifteen or sixteen floors, I was in some real discomfort, and the pain coupled with the emptiness I felt within me to distract me, and eventually became my undoing.
Having leapt onto the edge of a permaglass balcony wall, I didn’t check below me.
Mirai’s mountainous breasts made looking down a little cumbersome, but I could still have taken a peek at where I was going to land before I jumped down from the top of the transparent wall.
I didn’t, and a moment later I splashed feet first into someone’s pool.
The cold water stunned me far more than the shock of suddenly finding myself submerged in a balcony pool. Because it was shallow, I touched the bottom with my sneakers as soon as my head sunk below the surface. I pushed upwards, broke through the surface, and gasped for air. After flailing for a heartbeat or two, I swam to the nearest edge of the pool, and started hauling myself out of the water.
In the corner of my eye, something small and white sped toward me. At first I suspected a security droid, but soon recognized it for a small dog. Neither I nor Mirai recognized the breed, but I can describe it as small, white, and covered in long shaggy hair. Running full pelt, it circled around the pool, yapping at me madly with a mouth full of small flat teeth.
I was halfway out of the pool when it launched itself at me, and tried to bite my face.
I splashed water at it, but it moved faster than I expected, making me wonder for a heartbeat if it really was a dog.
Dodging the water, it latched onto my right arm with its mouth, but the jacket sleeve proved too tough for its small teeth to penetrate. However, once it latched on, I couldn’t dislodge it, and given Mirai’s enormous strength, I was afraid of swinging my arm around too forcefully. If the little dog flew off, it might sail over the balcony and into the night sky, or it could fall in the pool and drown, or hit the ground with bone breaking force.
Hampered by sentimentality, and reluctant to cause it harm, I found myself at a loss on how to deal with the pesky mutt that was defending its realm.
If dealing with the pint sized pet wasn’t troublesome enough, the apartment lights soon turned on, and I glimpsed shadows moving behind the curtains drawn across the balcony window wall.
It wasn’t long before I heard a woman yell from inside the apartment.
“Harold! Shut up!”
From the tonal properties of her voice, she sounded middle aged, but it wasn’t until she drew the curtains aside with a wave of her hand that I saw that was true.
“It’s one in the morning. What the Hell is wrong with—huh?”
She stopped short as our eyes met.
“Who are you?”
I was kneeling by the side of the pool, soaking wet, my long blond hair drenched, wearing a heavy ground crew jacket, and looking like a runaway caught in the act.
I could very well imagine what was running through her head.
With her dark blonde hair tied into twin buns, and wearing a tracksuit in place of pajamas, the woman stared at me for a full second, before she waved her hand at the permaglass balcony doors. They opened in response and she rushed outside.
“What the Hell happened to you?” she demanded as she circled around the balcony pool. “Where did you come from?”
I stood up with the dog clinging by its teeth to my jacket sleeve. Its feet kicked the air as it refused to let go. “I fell from the sky.”
The woman stopped a few feet away, regarded me from head to toes, looked up at the early morning sky, and then stared down at her dog in confusion.
I held out my right arm to her, offering her the dog that stubbornly clung to my sleeve.
“I’m sorry. I can’t get him off. And I really need to be going.”
“Huh?” Her face contorted in confusion. “Going?”
“Yes. I need to be going.” I sounded a lot calmer than she had expected. In a way, I sounded rather mechanical, and it surprised me. “Could you get it off me?”
She crossed her arms. “First you tell me what’s going on, or I call the police.”
I sighed and began taking off the heavy jacket, then remembered my torn clothing. Giving up on that, I chose the next best option – I walked away.
I arrived at the permaglass wall fencing the balcony, judged the jump I needed to make, then leapt upwards with the dog clamped onto my jacket sleeve like a giant clothes pin.
“Hey—come back here! My dog—!”
Standing on the top edge of the permaglass wall, I looked quickly at the next balcony below me, then dropped onto it, landing with a wet sounding squelch. I winced when Mirai’s heavy boobs once again bounced with a sharp sting.
The dog must have been blessed with the jaws of death because it continued to cling onto my sleeve. At that point, I frowned at it then concentrated my vision upon the small animal. It wasn’t long before my senses sharpened to a razor’s edge, and I could now see people’s auras. But when I studied the dog, I noticed that it had none and realized then that it was an automaton constructed in the form of a small canine.
“Ghost, can you do something about it?”
“Princess, I thought you would never ask.”
I watched the mechanical canine jerk twice, before opening its death trap jaws. It dropped with a cringe worthy thud and lay still on the balcony floor. “Did you—kill it?”
“No, I merely reset its functions.”
“A factory reset?”
“No, that wasn’t necessary. A mere off-on was sufficient.”
“Oh….”
Free of the small mechanical mutt, I considered the permaglass wall surrounding this balcony, and looked up to see the woman thumping on the glass bordering her balcony, her yelling muted by the permaglass. Even without hearing her, it was clear to see she was pissed at me.
Hoping to appease her a little, I picked up the mechanical dog that was still in the process of resetting – though it was twitching on the ground as though electrocuted – and threw it up and over the transparent wall of the balcony above me. The woman had the presence of mind to catch the small machine before it could land on the ground and break. Afterwards, she continued to throw what I presumed were choice words down at me, before hurrying off somewhere, perhaps back into her apartment to report me to the authorities.
“Wonderful….”
Deciding to turn the page on that brief installment of my life, I once again regarded my surroundings with displeasure as I gently massaged my huge breasts under the jacket.
“This sucks….”
“Princess, if I may suggest.”
“Sure…,” I replied somewhat absently as I threw the floors above me a quick look in search of signs of pursuit.
I wonder if the Cat Princess will come after me?
“Princess, make a right turn. This is the corner of the building so you will find a terraced wall connecting the east face with the south-east face. I assure you, it will be far quicker to descend down that wall. And less painful.”
I looked down at myself. “I need a change of clothes.”
“Do you wish to summon the Sarcophagus? I can have you outfitted in your Regalia in a matter of seconds.”
I gave that some thought as I walked to the transparent wall fencing the south side of the balcony. “No. I don’t want them knowing yet that I’m linked with that coffin.”
“Please, don’t call it that….”
Whatever, I muttered inwardly as I looked through the permaglass at the terraced wall beyond it that resembled giant steps running steeply all the way down to street level. As Ghost had said, it was more like a wide join between the east and south-east faces of the building. It didn’t take me long to get over the permaglass and onto it, and with one arm supporting my boobs, I proceeded down to street level, one terrace at a time.
It took me a good ten minutes to descend to the last terrace that overlooked the base of the megascraper some twenty meters below it.
Cradling my breasts in my arms, I frowned at the drop I’d need to make, then took a deep breath before stepping off the terrace and falling to the ground.
Did it hurt?
Hell yes.
The impact worked its way up my legs and all the way to my eyeballs, and I fell to my hands and knees with a short sharp cry that turned into a hiss of pain when I tried to stifle it.
If it wasn’t evident before, it was certainly clear to me now just how beneficial the Princess Regalia was to me. Not only did it provide excellent support for Mirai’s voluptuous chest, but it seemed to absorb, distribute, and disperse physical impacts away from body. Perhaps it was more accurate to say that it acted like a bumper between me and harm. Regardless, as I picked myself up off the ground, I seriously considered revealing my hand and summoning the Sarcophagus for a change of clothes.
Gasping a little, I looked myself over. “Next time I spread my wings.”
“Princess, are you certain you can summon them?”
I pouted in thought, realized what I was doing, and cleared my expression in a hurry. “Honestly. No idea. Maybe they would spread on their own if I was falling to my death.”
“…you are not considering putting that hypothesis to the test, are you?”
My face twisted as I scowled at Ghost whom I could now see standing before me, a few feet away. I guessed he was projecting himself into my vision through the wetware, and thereby superimposing his image into my surroundings.
“Do you really think I’m that suicidal?” I grumbled at him.
He averted his eyes in thought. “I have yet to formulate an accurate profile on your personality.” He met my stare with a calm gaze. “Shall we say, the jury is still out?”
“Ha ha. You are so funny.” I indicated my boobs that I was cradling. “Why don’t you start being helpful instead and do something about these?”
In my vision, the ghost of Ghost regarded my breasts studiously. “Princess, might I inquire?”
“Inquire what?”
“Well, what exactly is wrong with them?”
My lips drew back into a snarl and I hissed at him, “They need support!”
“Very well. Follow me.” I blinked sharply and gaped at him as he then smoothly flourished upon me an elaborate bow. “Princess, this way if you please.”
“Ah…okay….”
Ghost turned around and began walking away from the building.
I stared at him in bewilderment for a few seconds before chasing after him.
The base of the megascraper apartment complex was a hexagonal stepped plaza leading down to street level. As I hurried away from the building, I looked behind me at the lobby visible through the ground floor windows.
“I thought the Cat Princess would be here by now,” I muttered to myself.
Naturally, Ghost heard me. “No need to worry.”
“Yeah? Why not?”
“I temporarily suspended her security rights within the building. The elevators will not respond to her, and the fire escape doors have been automatically locked to her.”
“What about my sister—I mean, Erina?”
“Likewise.”
“Hah,” I exhaled loudly. “Aren’t they going to know it was you?”
“Eventually.” He shrugged. “Or maybe not.”
I looked up at the building towering over me, and pictured Erina losing her cool and tearing up the apartment.
“Princess, please don’t dally.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Cradling my boobs, and feeling the chill through my wet clothes, I hurried after the ghost only I could see and hear.
Courtesy of Mirai’s wetware, I knew that local time was 1:15 in the morning. Not surprisingly, there was plenty of pedestrian traffic in Ar Telica’s Ring Zero. I wouldn’t describe it as the city that never sleeps, but there were numerous of shops open serving food, coffee, and drinks. Ring Zero bordered the harbor, so there were restaurants a plenty, and more than enough patrons to keep them running well into the bright side of the morning.
To say I was conspicuous was an understatement, so I ducked my head, hiding my face under my long dark locks – yes, Mirai was still in powered up mode – and kept an eye on Ghost a few feet ahead of me who nonchalantly walked through people like a phantasmal entity. Though I knew he was merely a projection into my vision, I have to admit the effect was a little creepy.
However, while he could pass through people without worry, I had to avoid bumping into them. I kept my attention away from their faces, refusing to make eye contact. But because of Mirai’s wide field-of-vision, I could see the curious expressions I drew, as well as looks of disgust from the women I walked by. No doubt some of them thought of me as I was a runaway or drugged out teen prostitute. I can’t say I felt pleasant when I garnered such looks, and I cursed Ghost for leading me down busy sidewalks.
After a few minutes of this torture, I followed him down a narrow side street, that was sparsely lit. A hundred meters further on, Ghost turned into a wide alley, and I trailed after him until he stopped a dozen meters from the previous corner. Halting beside him, I looked up to see the entrance to a shelter with numerous donation bins clustered nearby.
“What is this?” I asked him, sensing there were people inside the building, and despite knowing what it was.
“A charity organization,” he replied. “Frequently, the services of the Health and Welfare Division fall short of meeting the needs of the population. A non-profit organization such as this one helps fill the gap between the haves and the have nots.”
“Why is the entrance so far away from the street?”
Ghost stared at me with a faintly puzzled air. “Perhaps because the citizens do not wish to be reminded there are those less fortunate than them.”
“Ah…you have a point….” His answer was depressingly reasonable.
Ghost pointed at the bins I’d noticed. “You should find something in those donation bins.”
I chuckled softly without humor. “From riches to rags—” My chuckle died in a hurry when I noticed the stern expression on Ghost’s face. “What…?”
He regarded me in silence for a long while before saying flatly, “I suggest you hurry, Princess.”
What’s his problem, I asked myself, not liking the way ‘Princess’ rolled of his phantasmal tongue. Ah, whatever. I’m too tired to care.
Ignoring him, I stepped up to the bins, and then opened their lids.
After a few minutes rummaging inside, I found a surprisingly large plastic bag filled to bursting with clothing that must have belonged to a teenage girl. It was full of tops in various colors and styles, most of them quite trendy and revealing. But more importantly, I found a wide selection of bras and sports tops.
Closing the bin lids, I moved with my spoils to a dark corner of the alley.
Mirai’s night vision made it easy for me to see in the dark, but even so it was hard telling colors apart. I picked out items that I guessed would fit me, then peered around to see if I was being watched as I contemplated changing clothes here in the open.
Ghost indicated what looked like a narrow laneway. “Princess, I suggest that entrance over there. I’ve disabled the security camera watching over it.”
For a moment, I stared at him in both awe and fear at the ease with which he could interface and dominate photronic systems.
This is the entity that destroyed a Citadel with half a million people in it. If he wanted to, could he destroy Ar Telica just as easily?
The thought made me shiver and I hugged the plastic bag to my chest.
“Princess, time is precious,” Ghost warned me as he swept his gaze down both directions of the alley. “Please hurry.”
“You’re not going to peep on me?”
He looked perplexed or should I say, astounded that I would ask such a question. “Princess, you wound me.”
“Well are you?”
Ghost sighed as he placed an arm across his chest. “I promise not to peep on you.”
Does it really matter? I asked myself. It’s not like he has a body, but could he grow aroused at sight of me naked?
I shiver ran through me at the creepiness of the thought, and so I swallowed hard, nodded once, and then rushed over to the laneway that wasn’t a laneway but a basement entrance into one of the megascrapers occupying this district block.
After descending a dozen or more steps, I found myself well below street level as I approached a closed metal door and dropped the plastic bag at its foot. Throwing off the wet jacket, I quickly stripped out of my torn clothing, tossing them to the ground as the cold air bit into my skin, and chilled my arms and torso. I expected to sneeze, but Mirai was sturdier than she looked. Certainly, I felt cold but if I was Ronin Kassius, I’d be sneezing my lungs out by now.
After quickly drying myself by using a dark satin top from the bag, I found a grey sports bra that stretched fittingly over my breasts, then pulled out another top I’d noticed before. It was black, with short, ruffled sleeves, a modest neckline, and a frilled hem. It fit so well, that I guessed its owner must have been a well-endowed girl, and I wondered why she’d thrown all these clothes away. From what I remembered of teenage girl fashion, these articles of clothing were quite expensive. In other words, they weren’t items you’d purchase at a department store, but at a boutique.
Feeling curious, I dug deeper into the bag, discovering a handful of short, tight skirts, and a pair of dark capri pants that I decided to trade for my soaked denims. But that meant I had to do something about my underwear, and again I resorted to fishing around in the bag until I found – shock, shudder, horror – black lacy panties that were at least dry.
Who the Hell was this girl?
I had an epiphany as I stared at the silk panties in my hands.
Did her mother toss out all her sexy clothing?
Quickly slipping out of my wet clothes and into the dry panties and capri pants, I proceeded to donate my soaked belongings by pushing them into the bag.
The only pieces of clothing I couldn’t replace were my deck shoes, so I slipped my feet back into them, grimacing as I did so, and then fled the basement entrance. Having returned to the side street, I skulked back to the donation bins and tossed the plastic bag into one of them.
Ghost was keeping a lookout in a very humanly way that unnerved me, but he did run his gaze over me at one point.
“Good choice,” he praised me. “Ah, about your shoes.” Pointing at a specific bin, he added, “Try that one.”
When I peered inside, I soon realized it was meant for donated footwear.
I wasn’t keen on slipping my feet into someone else’s shoes, both literally and figuratively, but my deck shoes were dank and unpleasant to walk in.
After a couple of minutes looking at what was on offer, I found some heeled sandals that looked to be Mirai’s size, and put them on. They were cold but clean and dry, so I decided trade them for my wet deck shoes.
Feeling better about my appearance, I pondered what I should do with the man’s ground crew jacket, eventually deciding to fold it up and take it with me.
Ghost nodded in satisfaction at me, then arched an eyebrow as he expressed curiosity. “I am surprised by how well you are taking all this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Changing clothes without arguing. Not making a fuss over your body.”
I stared at him but in truth I wasn’t looking at him. Instead, I was picturing myself changing clothes beside the basement entrance with little regard to my surroundings.
“Yeah, that was a little too willing on my part,” I replied with a bitter nod, “but I was cold, wet, and uncomfortable. What would be the point in arguing about it?”
“Perhaps.”
“Are you suggesting I should have kicked up a fuss?”
“I am merely making an observation that you demonstrate a surprising willingness to adapt to your circumstances.”
“Is that a compliment?” I warily asked.
“Indeed it is.”
I took a deep breath, and admitted to him, “It’s not like I’m comfortable being Mirai. And getting changed out in the open isn’t my idea of fun. But there are times when put up and shut up make the most sense.” I hesitated before asking, “Does that make any sense?”
“It does.”
I sighed after a moment. “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.”
“Does that imply you are accepting of Mirai?”
“I don’t have a choice, do I.”
“And if you did?”
I sighed again and looked away. “I’d prefer going back to my old life.”
But that would mean dying prematurely.
Feeling trapped on all sides, I felt anxious and could only quell it by taking slow, deep breaths while focusing on the damp, folded jacket in my arms. But by looking down, I was conscious of the clothes I was now wearing, and how well Mirai’s body filled them out. I blushed in shame as I realized I was being vain, and yet I couldn’t deny that it felt pleasant to take pride in my appearance.
“Princess?”
I looked up at Ghost, and wondered if one day I would wake up and no longer think of myself as Ronin…but as Mirai or Isabel.
If so, what sort of person would I be when that happened?
What would my life be like afterwards?
Would I have learned to walk like a girl by then?
“Hey Ghost, can I ask you something?”
“By all means.”
“Do I walk like a girl or a boy?”
His eyebrows arched steeply, then came down in a frown. “If I may be so bold as to present my opinion.”
“You may.”
“From my many observations of Ronin Kassius, I can safely say he was never the manliest of men.”
“I think you’ve mentioned that already.”
“My point is that he lacked the—dare I say—swagger that most teenage boys have.”
“So I walked like a girl?”
“No, you simply walked. That is to say, you lacked the physique of girl but you also lacked the physique of a boy.”
“So I was somewhere in the middle.”
“Correct. As a consequence, I can say that your manner of walking is rather neutral.”
I felt my forehead begin to furrow. “Is that what Erina meant?”
“No, she most clearly exaggerated.”
I exhaled long and slow, feeling oddly relieved perhaps because I didn’t feel I was at an extreme. In other words, my body language wasn’t something that would naturally stand out. It may draw attention to me, but not in an untoward way.
So that begged the question, did I want to walk like a girl?
Folding his hands behind his back, Ghost observed me studiously for a moment before interrupting my train of thought. “Princess, I propose you not dwell upon it deeply.”
“Why?”
“Because in Mirai’s body, you will naturally learn to adapt your manner of movement. You simply need to give it time.”
I felt a cold emptiness begin to hollow out my chest, and I found myself speechless so I kept my mouth closed as I turned away.
Ghost had stated the obvious, that little by little I would become Mirai and Isabel, and discard the traits of Ronin Kassius.
Yet, apparent or not, it was still an unpleasant truth that I didn’t want to accept.
In the corner of my eye, I watched Ghost regard me with the air of a teacher, or a counsellor. “Princess, where to next?”
I realized he was choosing to distract me from my troubled thoughts, and I silently thanked him.
Looking around me at the quiet, deserted side street, I gave the question my full attention for a short while. After clearing my throat, I wet my lips slowly and I looked up at him. “I…I need some time…to myself.” I frowned slightly before concluding, “I’d like to go somewhere where I can think.”
Ghost’s eyebrows rose and fell in a subtle response to my answer.
Was he surprised by my reply? Why would that be?
I was still wondering why when he soon favored me with a gentle nod. “In that case, Princess, may I make another suggestion.”
I wet my lips again before deferring to his judgement with a hesitant nod of my own.
Apologies for the delay and rough cut of this chapter, and thank you for sticking with it for so long.
For those of you interested in reading or purchasing Book One and Book Two, they can be found on Amazon KDP here:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
They are also available on the Kindle Library.
If you do enjoy them, please, let others know by posting a review.
In other words, please, spread the word.
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My editor informed me that Listopia can make a big difference to the sales of a book, so if it helps to spread the word, then I'd be grateful for any votes they can get.
Arigatou!!!
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.
As I followed Ghost, or at the very least his superimposed image, the bustling sidewalks grew busier the farther we walked and the closer we drew to Ring Zero’s entertainment districts that resided due west of the horseshoe shaped harbor.
Ghost wouldn’t tell me our destination within the district, so I decided pressing him for an answer would be a waste of time, but I had another reason for keeping silent.
No longer wet and uncomfortable, I wasn’t trying to hide from the sidewalk traffic anymore.
I had become one of the many in the crowd, and thus, I was able to soak in my surroundings.
Standing at an intersection, surrounded by people waiting for the light to change, I brushed aside locks of blonde hair, and looked up at the city buildings.
Even when she wasn’t powered up, Mirai’s eyes and senses were crystal clear, allowing me to perceive the environment with greater clarity than at any time during my existence as Ronin Kassius. Because of this, I was able observe and experience the city like never before.
My olfactory organs were nearly inundated by the rich variety of smells they were capturing and cataloging. The smell of people, the smells from the shops, the smell of vehicles on the road, even the subtle smell of metal from the mag-levs racing overhead on elevated rail lines – I could sense all of it, including the veiled scent of the ocean carried on the back of the breeze drafting in from the harbor a few hundred meters away to the east.
On my bare skin, I could feel the cold air, and the warmth of the people around me. When their bodies brushed by me, unable or unwilling to avoid contact on the wide, populated sidewalk, I could feel the texture of their clothes and their skin.
Conversations, shouts, laughter, footsteps, music, the hiss of electro-fusion drives from cars and mag-levs, the whirring of drones overhead, the high frequency hum of photronics lights, the rustling of clothes, all blended into a collage of sounds absorbed by my ears.
There was a great deal for my eyes to feast upon as well.
When no looking at the people around me, I gazed upwards at the giant pyramidal megascrapers of Ar Telica, rising a thousand feet high, lit by countless exterior lights rather than by light coming from their windows since the majority of the city’s population was asleep, a fact belied by the number of people crowding the sidewalks, shops, and malls at this hour. Because of their slanted exteriors, the buildings avoided the canyon effect, leaning back to offer as much of the sky as they could. Thus while they loomed over me, I didn’t feel oppressed by them. I doubted there were any engineering benefits, but perhaps this was one reason why the general architecture of the city-states was reminiscent of the Aztec pyramids.
All of this combined to immerse me in the mélange of sights, sounds, smells, and textures of the city and its people.
Yet this was only the proverbial cake.
The icing was the emotional impact it had upon me.
For me, this was a new experience that went beyond the physical.
I had never walked these streets during the dark side of the morning.
I had never lived in the city as I was living in it now.
My life was a sheltered routine existence that was safe and secure, and adhered to a mandatory curfew for young people.
From my dormitory balcony I had looked down at the city, but never looked up at it the way I could now.
I could never have indulged in my surroundings to this extent.
All of this was possible because Mirai was an entity that perceived her surroundings at a preternatural level. She was an existence that was naked and raw.
I remembered reading how autistic people experienced the world to such a degree of clarity that the sensory overload overwhelmed them.
Yet while it was true that I now lived in a world where the proverbial curtains had been drawn aside, the windows opened, and the scales removed from my eyes, Mirai’s mind was coping.
I wasn’t hampered by the rich, vibrancy of Ar Telica’s nightlife.
I was absorbing and relishing it, and seeing the world like no other human could.
And as I realized this…my euphoria evaporated and reality crushed me to the sidewalk.
Mirai was an existence like no other…and because of this she was alone.
I couldn’t share what I was feeling with anyone else because they wouldn’t understand it.
Describing it with words would never suffice.
They had to be like me to appreciate what I was experiencing.
But that meant no longer being human, and knowing that I wasn’t human added to the isolation that now fettered my state of heart and mind.
The sights and sounds of the city grew muted, vague, and indistinct.
What was once so clear was now dull, and I turned my attention away from the city above me, unable to bear the weight of the vista.
The light turned green for pedestrians, and I was swept along across the street by the impatient crowd.
Trailing quietly behind Ghost, I began to feel incorporeal, an existence that now lived in a separate reality from the rest of humanity, seeing things they couldn’t see, feeling in ways they couldn’t feel, able to do things they couldn’t do, and like a vicious spiral it served to reinforce my uniqueness and isolation.
I suddenly thought of another existence that was like mine.
A fictional character in a novel written hundreds of years ago – Frankenstein’s monster.
The lonely monster that had initially beseeched its creator for a mate to dispel its solitude; for a companion that could understand it.
Would I become like the monster?
I knew that I wasn’t a loner, but the deeper question was would I crave companionship like the monster had?
That made me wonder what kind of companionship I was after – male or female – and my feeling soured as a result. I liked girls but there were times after awakening as Mirai where I’d caught myself thinking of Mat in embarrassing ways.
So while I was drawn in one direction, I was also being tugged in the other.
Wrapped in my thoughts, I didn’t notice Ghost had stopped walking until I passed through him.
A shiver ran through me and I turned around to look at him now standing behind me.
Okay—that was creepy!
“Why did you stop?” I hissed at him while wrapping my arms tightly about me.
“Because, Princess, we have arrived.”
Looking around at my surroundings, it took me a short while to gain my bearings as I found myself standing before a short squat, circular building with an immensely tall tower stretching far above me into the night sky. Because I had visited this place before with Mat, I recognized it as a civic center that served as the foundation for Ar Telica Tower. That was another reason for me to recognize this locale – the Tower was the tallest structure in the city-state, rising some three and a half thousand feet above sea level. Serving as a tourist spot, it was unusually open at all hours. Entry into the building was free, though I would have to pay an admission to ride the fast mag-lev elevators up the Tower’s various observation decks and restaurant levels.
“Ghost?”
“It will be fine, Princess. Follow me.”
“No, I mean, why are we here?” I sincerely was baffled by his decision to guide me to the Tower.
“Princess, you need a change in perspective.”
I frowned inwardly, wondering how looking at the city from above was going to help me.
That said, did Ghost know what was troubling me?
I followed him up the long, wide steps to the building. Once inside, I saw a short queue of people waiting at the top of a stepped dais surrounding a white column more than twenty meters in diameter occupying the middle of the floor space. Running through the ceiling, the column served as part of the Tower’s internal support structure, and contained the elevator shafts for the lift cars that travelled up and down the Tower’s length. To access the elevator bank at the top of the dais, I would need to pass through the security scanning gates, and so I hesitated as I was unsure of how they would react to Mirai’s body. There was also the matter of how I would pay for the trip up the tower.
In a whisper, I asked, “Ghost, am I going to set off alarms?”
“Princess, you may walk through. I have taken care of the security gates.”
I shivered again, as Ghost calmly reminded me of the extent of his abilities.
If he ever turned against us…we wouldn’t stand a chance.
I swallowed nervously before bringing up the matter of money. “How am I going to pay?”
“You place your right hand on the scanning plate. The cost of admission will be deducted from your account.”
“My account? Ronin Kassius’s bank account?”
Ghost shook his head and looked amused. “No, Princess. Isabel val Sanreal’s account.”
I blinked quickly. “She has money? I mean—I have money?”
“Most assuredly. Considerable funds.”
I noticed I sounded reluctant when I asked, “Just how much is considerable?”
Ghost hesitated. “Enough to ensure you will not be short on change.”
“Ha ha. Funny. So how much money does she have?”
“Approximately four million dorans.”
“Four million…?” I swayed on my feet for several heartbeats before catching my balance. Pressing a palm to my forehead, I whispered uneasily, “Did you say…four million?”
In the corner of my left eye, I saw Ghost look at me with concern. “Princess, why are you surprised? As a member of the Sanreal Family, you should expect your net value to be substantial.”
With my palm still pressed to my forehead, I looked crookedly up at Ghost. “Four million dorans, Ghost.”
He started looking puzzled. “Yes?”
I lowered my voice even more. “Don’t you get it? Four million dorans! I could buy a mansion with that much money.”
Ghost made an ‘ah’ expression and clicked his fingers. “Yes, indeed. A very wise investment.”
Taking a deep breath, I asked, “Why do I have so much money?”
“A welcoming gift from the Sanreal Family to their long absent daughter.”
“I can use all that money now?”
“The terms and conditions stipulate that a stipend is available to you each month out of the four million in your account. Also, a portfolio has been established under your name. At present your investments total an impressive amount.”
I wasn’t just reluctant but scared to ask, “How…how impressive?”
“Three hundred and sixty million dorans…give or take a few million.”
It took a long while for the amount to register within my brain.
“…I…I need to sit down….”
Turning drunkenly, I looked for somewhere to sit until Ghost pointed to a row of vacant sofa seats near a display stand running a holovid projection tour of Ar Telica’s Tower.
Trudging over to it, I sat down on an empty seat and hunched over my lap with my head in my hands, distinctly aware of my heavy breasts pushing at the sports bra’s material. However, even Mirai’s boobs weren’t enough to distract me from Ghost’s devastating revelation.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what, Princess?”
Exhaling heavily, I looked up at him. “Why would they do that? Do they really have my long term interests in mind? Or is it all just a front?”
“Both. To support the veracity of Isabel val Sanreal’s identity, the Sanreal Family has created her existence from the ground up. Financial security will add to her realism.”
I shook my head slowly. “Why? Why go that far? This body was meant for Clarisol, but why go that far for her?”
Ghost fell silent with a faintly troubled frown.
I continued looking up at him, until a thought crossed my mind. “Ghost, where is Clarisol’s Virtual Prison? Is it here in my reality or in hers?”
“Not long ago the construct maintaining her virtual space was brought over to this reality. Think of it as a concession on the Empress’s part.” He frowned slightly before amending his reply. “Perhaps it is more fitting to say, Clarisol’s imprisonment was downgraded to a house arrest.”
“You mean it was worse than it is now?”
If the bleak environment her mind was in now was equivalent to a home imprisonment, I didn’t want to think of what her previous virtual prison was like.
However, Ghost shook his head. “No. She has been contained in that representation for ten years. But it is only recently that she was given access to material from the outside world. In other words, the conditions of her isolation were relaxed.”
“That’s still cruel,” I muttered under my breath.
Naturally, Ghost heard me. “I agree.”
“Then why was the Empress so gracious?”
Ghost folded his arms and assumed a pensive pose. “I do not know. It puzzled House Novis as well. However, they were not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Ghost, what did her family have planned for her?”
Ghost stiffened slightly.
I found it strange that his projected image would do so, and for a heartbeat I wondered if it was an act on his part, rather than a reflex reaction that slipped past his control. “Ghost?”
“I cannot say.”
“I doubt they’d be able to keep it a secret from you.” Cocking my head slightly, I stared at him reproachfully. “So that means you won’t tell me.” After straightening my posture on the seat, I added, “You told me you wouldn’t lie to me, but that doesn’t mean you will tell me everything.”
“It is a question of trust, Princess.”
“Trust is a two-way street.”
Again he fell silent, and stood stiffly before me.
I chose to sit back and softly murmured, “I don’t understand why she would be given the existence of Isabel val Sanreal if she already lives as Clarisol val Sanreal.”
Ghost bowed his head for a moment, before sitting down on the sofa seat vacant to my right.
To me it felt like a movie moment, where spies sit on the same bench in a park, acting all discreet while sharing state secrets as children play in the background and the unsuspecting populace walks by. Ghost certainly was projecting the air of a troubled spy as his image sat beside me.
“There is no guarantee the Empress would ever release Clarisol. Isabel is an existence that could offer her a way out, albeit for only a copy of her.”
“What about the Simulacra versions of her?”
Ghost shook his head. “They have finite lifespan.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Again, he shook his head. “It is by design. One year. Twelve months.”
I turned to look at him, cautious of how that action would be seen by others but quickly noticed the place was deserted, and the visitors waiting at the elevator bank had boarded the high-speed mag-lev lifts that would carry them up the Tower.
I swallowed quietly and then softly asked, “Because her Simulacra is a Master Grade body?”
“No. Because the Empress decreed it.”
“She what?”
Ghost raised his head a little, and looked at the foyer’s opposite end. “Kateopia decreed that Clarisol’s Simulacra that live in the physical world would expire after one year. Before then, they would need to dump their memories into the Clarisol living in the virtual space.” He looked down and sighed. “Of course, the Simulacra did not know of this…until one of them discovered the truth. Unfortunately, she dumped her knowledge into Clarisol before she could be stopped. Because of this all the Simulacra made from Clarisol are imprinted with that knowledge. And some of them do not take it well.” He released an unexpected chuckle. “That last version of her was by far the most unrestrained. I would go so far as to describe her as unreconcilable with the real version.”
I turned away. Resting back, I looked up at the ceiling many meters above me.
Was that why Clarisol acted the way she did? Was she unhinged by knowing that she would only live for a year? Did she choose to live her life literally to the fullest because it was so short?
Even so, I won’t forgive her for what she did to Angela and Felicia.
Then I remembered the difference between the two Clarisols, and wondered if holding a grudge against her was worth it.
The real version? Is it even possible to call her that?
“Ghost…I just don’t get it.”
In the corner of my eye, I watched him glance at me.
Clearing my throat, I asked, “If Kateopia loved Clarisol’s mother that much, why treat her daughter like a mass murderer?”
“She is not punishing Clarisol. She is punishing House Novis.”
“Ghost, that’s a contradiction.”
“I am aware of that.” Abruptly, he stood up and began pacing before me. “It is a contradiction not lost on anyone.”
“So House Novis concocted the plan to use a fake existence to give at least a copy of Clarisol a chance at a new life.” I shook my head, demonstrating my confusion. “Why not create an identity for her that was far and away from House Novis and the Sanreals?”
“They did create an existence that was far removed from them. They spent considerable time and resources creating the identity of Isabel Allegrando. She was to live safe and comfortable on a colony world. Far away from Teloria and from the bridge between our respective universes. But in the end it was all for naught.”
“Because the Empress found out about her?”
“Correct. She found out about Mirai. She learnt about Isabel and the plan to copy Clarisol into her.”
I cocked my head at him. “Where did the Angel Fibers fit into all this?”
“The Angel Fibers were to give her abilities she would need to survive. To live beyond the lifespan of a Simulacra. That is what your sister promised the Sanreals, and House Novis.”
It seemed that the Angel Fibers were always involved in the question of mortality and immortality. Yet I found it extraordinary that Clarisol’s family harbored such guilt over her imprisonment that they would go to such lengths to atone for the punishment she endured. In a way, wasn’t their plan treason against the Empress?
“Ghost, who chose the name, Isabel, for Clarisol’s new identity?"
He gave the impression of taking a deep breath. “Your sister chose the name Isabel.”
Was it true then? Did my mother truly wish to name me Isabel if I was born a girl?
I had distinctly troubling thought follow on the heels of that question.
Everything Erina had told me indicated she had no intention of throwing Mirai into the Gun Princess Royale. Everything I’d been told by Ghost and Clarisol confirmed that premise. Mirai was a vessel – a host for the Angel Fibers – and thus too valuable to risk being killed or injured in the championship. Erina had made it quite clear that my predicament was of the Empress’s making. So why create Mirai for the intention of giving Clarisol a chance at life? Why would Erina be willing to give up Mirai – something and not someone that she considered so precious that she would face down an Empress?
The thought of Erina relinquishing Mirai made no sense to me, not when Mirai could affect the lives of thousands of diseased people.
But what if she wasn’t playing the game the Sanreals thought she was? What if Erina never intended Mirai to be a vessel for Clarisol?
I swallowed and couldn’t help averting my gaze away from Ghost.
What if Erina had always intended Mirai as a vessel for me? But why would she do that? Did that mean that Erina feared she could not save Ronin Kassius? Was she preparing for the possibility of failure? Or was it something else?
With the plans laid down by Erina and the Sanreals exposed to the Empress, an instance of Clarisol could not take ownership of Mirai and flee to the outermost realms of human control space. Thus Mirai was stuck here on Teloria and now a participant in the Gun Princess Royale.
However, that left her under Erina’s watchful eye.
I held back from biting my lower lip as I pondered the dangerous thought.
Was that it? Was that the reason why everything fell apart?
If Erina was plotting betrayal behind the backs of the Sanreal Family, she would need a dangerous degree of motivation, and if she wasn’t preparing Mirai for either Clarisol or myself, then perhaps she intended to use Mirai as a vessel for Akane Straus.
Either way, Erina was playing with fire.
Bowing my head, I cast my gaze down at the carpet below my sandaled feet and suppressed a cold shiver.
If Erina was playing with fire, this wasn’t going to end well for her…or for me.
Sensing Ghost watching me closely from a near distance, I realized I’d been thinking for too long. My silence could betray my thoughts.
“Hey Ghost?”
“Princess.”
“If I had money all this time, why did you make me raid the charity bins?”
“Walking into a shop in your disreputable state would have raised questions. It might have led to unforeseen consequences later.”
I see. If Isabel val Sanreal was recognized later by the shopkeeper, they might have written about the encounter on social media. Rumors and gossip would have been born out of it.
That was what I thought, but I decided to play another card with Ghost. “I could have talked my way out of it.”
“Perhaps, but accessing your account would have alerted your sister to your location.”
I nodded inwardly, but outwardly I expressed surprise as I looked up at Ghost. “They have tabs on my account?”
“They do.”
“Then paying for admission here would have alerted them as well.”
Ghost was silent for a long, telling moment. “My bad.”
“Do you want me to be caught?” I asked him with a voice laced with suspicion.
He folded his hands behind his back and assumed a sheepish expression. “I had presumed that the view from above would have calmed you down. Perhaps, you would have been more agreeable to an open discussion with your sister.”
“Ghost, don’t call that woman my sister.”
He looked troubled for a heartbeat before bowing politely to me. “As you wish, Princess.”
I exhaled loudly as I raised my gaze at the foyer’s high ceiling.
“Ghost, there’s someplace I’d like to go.”
He waited expectantly for me, and after a few heartbeats, I exhaled softly this time and it could have been mistaken for a sigh.
“I’d like to go home....”
My voice failed me unexpectedly, embarrassing me, so I pressed my lips tightly together as I continued looking up at the ceiling.
Yet I wasn’t just embarrassed.
I was also struggling with the weight of my decision, knowing there would be pain while believing it was something that I needed to do. I didn’t think of it as a rite of passage. It was just the necessary turning of a page in order to begin a new chapter. After all, back aboard the Sanreal Crest I had pretty much declared that I would live as Isabel val Sanreal, and fight in the Gun Princess Royale as Mirai.
However, saying it and accepting it were not one and the same.
I was holding back or rather being held down by my ties to Ronin Kassius.
It was painful to acknowledge that truth, but I had already taken a step away from my previous existence – I no longer considered Erina Kassius as my sister.
However, ties remained waiting to be cut.
I couldn’t be certain if Ghost misunderstood what I meant, or was simply acting that way when he tipped his head ever so slightly to ask, “You wish to return to the apartment?”
I swallowed as discreetly as I could, and not trusting my voice, I replied with a succinct, “No.”
“In that case, Princess, where do you wish to go?”
It should have been easy to say, yet the words wound themselves around my chest, making it hard to breathe.
This is something I need to do. If I don’t do this…I won’t be able to move forward.
My heart beat heavily as I stood up from the comfortable sofa seat, and looked into Ghost’s eyes.
“I’d like to go home, Ghost…back to my dormitory….”
I swallowed after my voice failed me again, unable to say the rest.
…to pay my respects to my life as Ronin Kassius.
Ghost’s eyes studied me in silence for a long while, before he broke into a weak smile. “I understand, Princess.”
This time I sighed for real, and was surprised by the degree of relief I felt. “You do?”
He gave me a warm nod, and yet I caught the hint of sadness in his smile as he stepped aside with a polite bow.
“Well then, Princess. Shall we be off?”
For those of you interested in reading or purchasing Book One and Book Two, they can be found on Amazon KDP here:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
They are also available on the Kindle Library.
If you do enjoy them, please, let others know by posting a review.
In other words, please, spread the word.
Thank you for sticking with it despite its troubles. I'm interested in what people have to say about this version.
Best wishes.
Continuing the rough draft release.
As I followed Ghost, or at the very least his superimposed image, the bustling sidewalks grew busier the farther we walked and the closer we drew to Ring Zero’s entertainment districts due west of the horseshoe shaped harbor.
Ghost wouldn’t tell me our destination within the district, so I decided pressing him for an answer would be a waste of time, but I had another reason for keeping silent.
I was enthralled by my surroundings.
No longer wet and uncomfortable, I walked straight rather than slightly hunched over with my head bowed.
I wasn’t hiding from the crowds anymore.
I had become one of them, and I wasn’t looking down but ahead of me and upwards.
Standing at an intersection, surrounded by people waiting for the light to change, I brushed aside locks of blonde hair, and looked up at the city buildings.
Even when she wasn’t powered up, Mirai’s eyes and senses were crystal clear, allowing me to perceive my surroundings with greater clarity than during my existence as Ronin Kassius. Because of this, I was able observe and experience the city like never before.
My olfactory organs were nearly inundated by the rich variety of smells they were capturing and cataloging. The smell of people, the smells from the shops, the smell of vehicles on the road, even the subtle smell of metal from the mag-levs racing overhead on elevated rail lines – I could sense all of it, including the veiled scent of the ocean carried on the back of the breeze drafting in from the harbor a few hundred meters away to the east.
On my bare skin, I could feel the cold air, and the warmth of the people around me. When their bodies brushed by me, unable or unwilling to avoid contact on the wide, populated sidewalk, I could feel the texture of their clothes and their skin.
Conversations, shouts, laughter, footsteps, music, the hiss of electro-fusion drives from cars and mag-levs, the whirring of drones overhead, the high frequency hum of photronics lights, the rustling of clothes, all blended into a collage of sounds absorbed by my ears.
Looking up, my eyes feasted upon the sight of the giant pyramidal megascrapers of Ar Telica. They rose a thousand feet high, lit by countless exterior lights rather than by light coming from their windows since the majority of the city’s population was asleep. Because of their slanted walls, they avoided the canyon effect. Rather than take away the sky, they leaned back to offer as much of it as they could. Thus while they loomed over me, I didn’t feel oppressed by them. I knew little about the engineering benefits – in fact, I doubted there were any – but perhaps this was one reason why the general architecture of the city-states was reminiscent of the Aztec pyramids.
I was drowning in the mélange of sights, sounds, smells, and textures of the city.
But while this was the proverbial cake, the icing was the emotional impact.
For me, this was a new experience that went beyond the physical.
I had never walked these streets during the dark side of the morning.
I had never lived in the city as I was living in it now.
I had lived a sheltered routine existence that was safe and secure, that adhered to a mandatory curfew for young people.
From my dormitory balcony I had looked down at the city.
I had never looked up at it the way I was now.
But then again, I could never have indulged in my surroundings to this extent.
Mirai was an entity that felt naked and raw because all of her senses were so sharp.
I remembered reading how autistic people experienced the world to such a degree of clarity that the sensory overload overwhelmed them.
Yet while it was true that I now lived in a world where the proverbial curtains had been drawn aside, the windows opened, and the scales removed from my eyes, Mirai’s mind was coping.
I wasn’t hampered by the rich, vibrancy of Ar Telica’s nightlife.
I was absorbing and relishing it.
I was seeing the world like no other human could.
And as I realized this…I suddenly felt alone.
I was an entity that couldn’t share what I was feeling with anyone else because they wouldn’t understand it.
Describing it with words would never suffice.
You had to be me in order to appreciate what I was experiencing.
But that meant no longer being human.
And knowing that I wasn’t human added to the isolation that now fettered my state of heart and mind.
The sights and sounds of the city grew muted, vague, and indistinct.
What was once so clear was now dull.
I turned my attention away from the city above me, and focused on the immediate surroundings.
Trailing quietly behind Ghost, I began to feel incorporeal, an existence that now lived in a separate reality from the rest of humanity.
I no longer wondered where we were going because the city had stopped feeling real to me.
When we finally stopped, I found myself standing before a civic center, and looked up to see Ar Telica Tower rising some two thousand feet over me.
The place was a tourist location, and one that happened to be open at all hours, though entry was by paid admission.
“Ghost?”
“It will be fine, Princess. Follow me.”
“No, I mean, why are we here?”
“Princess, you need a change in perspective.”
I frowned inwardly, wondering how was looking at the city from above going to help?
I could have easily sighed as I followed Ghost up the long steps to the building’s entrance, but what would be the point? Would I feel better afterwards?
I wasn’t required to pay to enter the ground floor of the civic center building that served as the foundation for Ar Telica Tower. However, I would have to pay if I wished to ride the fast mag-lev elevators to the observations decks that ringed the tower at various points along its length.
There was a short queue of people waiting on the stepped dais surrounding the elevator bank.
To get up there, I would need to pass through the security scanning gates, and so I hesitated as I was unsure of how they would react to Mirai’s body. There was also the matter of how I would pay for the trip up the tower.
“Princess, you may walk through. I have taken care of the security gates.”
A shiver ran through me again as Ghost calmly reminded me of the extent of his abilities.
If he ever turned against us…we wouldn’t stand a chance.
I swallowed nervously before asking, “How am I going to pay?”
“Isabel val Sanreal has considerable funds to her name. The cost of admission will be deducted from her account when you press your right hand to the scanning plate.”
“So I do have money?”
“Most assuredly. Considerable funds.”
I noticed I sounded reluctant when I asked, “Just how much is considerable?”
“Approximately four million dorans.”
“Four million…?” I collapsed to my knees and then swayed drunkenly. “…four…four million….”
“Princess, please. Compose yourself. As a member of the Sanreal Family, you should expect your net value to be substantial.”
I looked crookedly up at a Ghost. “Four million dorans, Ghost.”
Crouching beside me, he nodded firmly. “Indeed.”
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Don’t you get it? Four million dorans! I could buy a mansion with that much money.”
“A wise investment.”
Taking a deep breath, I asked, “Why do I have so much money?”
“A welcoming gift from the Sanreal Family to their long lost daughter.”
“I can use all that money now?”
“The terms and conditions stipulate that a stipend is available to you each month out of the four million in your account. Also, a portfolio has been established under your name. At present your investments total an impressive amount.”
I wasn’t just reluctant but scared to ask, “How…how impressive?”
“Three hundred and sixty million dorans…give or take a few million.”
I promptly passed out on the spot…
…and woke up to find myself lying down on something comfortable while a young female medic with short dark hair, and large expressive brown eyes, watched over me.
Seeing me open my eyes, she spoke to someone over her shoulder.
“She’s coming around.”
A male security guard came into view when he stepped up to the bed. “How is she?”
“Like her scan says, she’s in perfect health.” The young woman waved scanning wand over me. “Miss, can you hear me?” she asked while reading the results of the scan on a tablet she held in her left hand.
I blinked slowly at first then a little quicker as my mental faculties rebooted. Giving her a short nod, I cleared my throat and cautiously asked, “What happened to me?”
“You fainted,” the woman replied. “The security drones brought you to the guards’ station, and they carried you to the med center.”
I propped myself up on my elbows. “Where am I?”
The medic looked at me puzzled before saying, “As I just explained, you’re in the med center at the civic tower. You fainted in the foyer and were brought here by the security guards.”
Looking around me, I saw a few other beds, all empty, with flat display screens above their headrests. The place definitely looked like a sickbay, and it certainly smelt like one.
This is bad. They’ll realize Mirai isn’t human.
I turned to the young woman and asked, “Am I free to go?”
The medic glanced at the security guard standing beside her, watching me quietly with an intent expression.
“Miss Sanreal, before we can let you go—”
I flinched. “You know who I am?”
He nodded with a faint frown. “We verified your identity via handprint. Your registered guardian has been notified of your situation. She’s on her way to pick you up. I suggest you lie down and wait for her.”
Erina is coming here! Shit!
In a panic, I swung my legs off the bed. “I have to go.”
The guard stepped up to me. “Miss, you really should wait for her.”
I swept my gaze over him and judged how much of a threat he posed. He was middle aged, and quite trim. His security uniform looked padded, and a stun baton hung from his belt. There was also a thigh holstered electro-dartgun to be wary of.
Looking up at him, I asked, “Are you detaining me?”
He shook his head. “Miss, at this time we have no authority to detain you. I can only suggest that you remain here while waiting for your guardian.”
“Good, then I’m free to go.” Climbing off the bed, I tested my balance and was reasonably confident I wouldn’t be falling over on my way to the door.
I cursed myself inwardly.
What an idiot! Fainting just because I’m rich! How frekking stupid!
While the guard regarded me with suspicion, the medic waved her scanning wand over me one more time, then tapped at the tablet displaying the results.
I stared at the device fearfully until I noticed Ghost standing behind the medic, peering over her shoulder while nodding to himself in satisfaction at what I presumed was his handiwork. No doubt, he was ensuring the device revealed no abnormalities with Mirai’s body.
Sure enough the medic announced, “Well, I can see nothing wrong with her.” Turning off the scanning wand, she added, “If you wish to go, I can’t keep you here.”
“Great.”
“But I would recommend you visit a hospital in the morning. There could be something I can’t detect with the equipment here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Bowing to her quickly, I said, “Thank you. I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused.”
The guard who’d spoken to me, looked reluctant to let me go. “Miss, shouldn’t you wait for your guardian.”
“I’ll be fine.” Slipping between him and the medic, I made my way out of the large room without a glance behind me. Finding myself in a short corridor that I didn’t recognize, I whispered hastily, “Ghost?”
“Yes, Princess?”
“Which way out of here?” I asked, while quickly reading the signs mounted to the walls.
“That way,” he said, indicating down the corridor to my left.
Walking fast, I then asked, “Where is my sister? How close is she?”
He frowned faintly as he walked with long strides beside me. “Turn right here.”
Rounding the corner, I began to jog, grateful for the sports bra keeping my boobs in check. “Ghost? About Erina—”
“She should be arriving within the next couple minutes. Princess, do you think it is wise to run from her?”
“I don’t want to see her face. I don’t want to be anywhere near her.”
“Princess, eventually you will need to face her.”
I shook my head curtly. “Not now. Not yet.”
Ghost pointed at a set of double doors. “Through there.”
Pushing through the doors, I found myself at end of a short corridor. I hurried to the doors at the opposite end, and pushed them open to see a wide open circular room with a tall ceiling, and a thick column rising through the middle of it. Seeing the security gates and the dais surrounding the base of the column, I recognized the room as the foyer of the civic center.
“You know your way from here,” Ghost quipped.
I didn’t reply, instead jogging to the wide permaglass entrance on the diametrically opposite the double doors I’d come through. At the entrance, I had to wait a moment for them to open automatically, before I could rush outside into the morning air.
“If you wish to avoid her,” Ghost said after coming up beside me, “I suggest you make your way left. There is a mag-lev station nearby.”
I was sweeping my gaze over the city streets before me, watching the cars driving by, when a business grey two-door sports saloon pulled into the civic center’s temporary parking area. Something about the way the car moved made my heart jump, and I stared at it warily. My heart jumped again when I saw Erina jump out of the passenger side of the car, and look about quickly before walking hurriedly to the building’s entrance.
I turned away, but not before she looked up and saw me standing on the landing outside the permaglass entrance.
Erina’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. A heartbeat later she cried out, “Isabel.”
Turning swiftly, I ran away to my right, in the opposite direction Ghost had suggested.
“Isabel!”
I ignored my sister as I leapt from the edge of the landing all the way to the sidewalk with a jump that carried me a dozen meters through the air.
“Isabel—wait!”
Landing hard at the foot of the steps leading up to the building, I cushioned the impact by dropping onto all fours, and after a breath, I pushed myself back up to my feet and ran down the sidewalk, away from my sister.
“Isabel—please wait!”
The sandals I was wearing were not made for running, and I briefly considered taking them off and sprinting barefoot. However, by then I was weaving through pedestrian traffic, and my pace slowed dramatically.
“Princess, I recommend making a right turn at the next corner. There is another mag-lev station at the end of this district block.”
I could hear Ghost, but I couldn’t see him, as I hurried between the slow moving traffic on the sidewalk.
Half-running, half-jogging past people, I arrived at the corner and saw the underground entrance to the subway mag-lev station.
With barely a thought, I worked my way across to it, and descended the steps in a hurry, though again I was hampered by the number of people riding the escalators down to the subterranean station.
“Princess, a train will be arriving at Platform Four in the next minute. I suggest you board it.”
“Where’s it going?” I asked while slipping between a young couple holding hands on the escalator. I had to jump over their clasped hands, catching myself with outstretched arms as I landed awkwardly on the stairs. Paying their surprised outcries no mind, I continued downward, leapt onto the landing at the foot of the escalators, and then ran over to the security turnstiles with a steady stream of people flowing through them.
If I’d had my phone, I could have waved it over the scanning plate. Instead, I had to press my palm to the plate, wait for the device to recognize me, then beep its approval before I could pass through the turnstile gate.
Ghost directed me to Platform Four, so all I needed to do was run rather than stop to read the overhead signs.
The mag-lev with a dozen odd carriages pulled up to the platform with a loud sigh as it came to rest on the supporting rail line.
I was still some ways from it when the carriages opened their doors and disgorged their contents, so I broke into a run. The usual innocent pushing and shoving ensued as those disembarking merged with the individuals waiting to board.
Arriving at the mag-lev, going with the flow was the best option, and I was soon swept into a carriage. Once inside, I found myself a spot near the opposite doors, and then held onto the nearest vertical pole stretching from the cabin’s floor to the ceiling. With an eye on the open doors, I peered at them between the bodies of the commuters standing before me, and refrained from sighing in relief when the doors closed exactly sixty seconds after they’d opened.
When the mag-lev smoothly pulled away from the platform, I exhaled loudly – no, I didn’t sigh – and sagged a little against the carriage wall behind me. After a moment, I gave into the luxury of closing my eyes and resting my head back.
“Princess?”
“I can’t keep doing this,” I whispered, and then placed a hand over my stomach. “Tired. Hungry.” I opened my eyes and grimaced. “And I need to pee.”
Ghost wasn’t visible. It would have been disturbing seeing him standing merged with the bodies of the passengers crowding the inside of the carriage, so I assumed he’d reverted to voice-only mode.
“I should get off at the next stop,” I whispered.
It might sound strange, but the truth was that I hadn’t felt the need urinate or otherwise since waking up in Mirai’s body. With everything going on around me, I hadn’t consciously thought about it. But it seemed that lunch aboard Erina’s superyacht had finally caught up with Mirai. I cringed inwardly as I thought of the mechanics involved, but if I didn’t make a pitstop in the next ten odd minutes I’d have a disaster on my hands – I mean, panties.
I stared at the ceiling while holding back the urge to urinate. With there being different muscles involved, doing so didn’t feel the same as from when I was male. In addition, I had to consciously think about what I was doing to keep my bladder from voiding and making a mess.
“Princess, what then? Will you continue running?”
I turned away from the inside of the carriage and faced the doors.
There was nothing but darkness outside as the mag-lev raced through the underground tunnel, so the interior of the carriage was reflected in the glass doors, and that included me.
Staring at myself through lidded eyes, I answered him in a whisper. “I don’t know…I just don’t want to face her…just looking at her…turns my stomach….”
“You cannot continue to run away. I will assist you, but I must tell you this will only prolong the inevitable.”
I took a quiet breath, and leaned my forehead against the glass door. “At least until morning…I don’t want to see her….”
A short melody played by soft chimes sounded in the carriage, indicating we were approaching the next station.
I looked up at an overhead display indicating where we were and realized we’d travelled north through Ring Zero. With my eyes, I followed the mag-lev line on the display, reading the district numbers it intersected.
When the doors opened, I remained aboard the carriage.
“Princess?”
“Next two stops,” I replied in a hushed tone. “Not here.”
My decision not to disembark meant travelling aboard the mag-lev for another six minutes while restraining my body’s urge to pee.
When my stop finally arrived, I bolted out of the mag-lev, raced up the escalators to the station promenade, then searched for the ladies restroom. Finding one, I dove into the anteroom and through to the toilet area, narrowly avoided colliding with a woman making her way out, apologized in a hurry, then found an empty stall. Locking the door to the stall, I hurriedly unclasped my tight capri pants, hardly thinking about what was to come next as I dropped all articles of clothing in the way, and then sat down to urinate – but not before hastily lowering the toilet seat.
It wasn’t until it was all over that I felt the weight and significance of what had transpired.
Hunched over, I held my head in my hands, and bit my lower lip to distract myself from the unwanted tears slowly trickling down my cheeks.
Frek! Frek! Frekking frek!
I squeezed my eyes shut causing fireworks to explode behind my eyelids, but I couldn’t run away from the truth.
Frek! I’m a frekking girl! Erina made a frekking girl!
My chest ached as I kept my tears and sobs silent for what felt like an eternity. But in truth, it was only a few minutes that went by before I recovered enough of my composure to dry my face with toilet paper from the dispenser mounted to the stall’s wall. Next was the humiliating and embarrassing business of drying myself down below.
I kept my eyes closed as I did so, my gut muscles clenched tightly as I carefully cleaned up.
I didn’t rise until a short while later, dressing myself, and then flushing the toilet after lowering the toilet cover.
Leaning against a stall wall, I took deep, slow breaths for half a minute, then unlocked the door and stepped outside.
The restroom wasn’t vacant. A handful of women were making use of the other stalls, and couple were finishing up at the hand basins mounted to the restroom’s longest wall. I chose not to glance at them. I didn’t need to with Mirai’s wide field-of-vision.
Walking over to the hand basins, I went through the motions of washing my hands, then regarded my reflection in the large mirror before me.
I had to admit, even when tired Mirai still looked good.
Exhaustion diminished her manufactured beauty by only a little.
With a heavy sigh, I reluctantly wet my blonde hair, brushing it with my fingertips for a few strokes, before hanging my head as I leaned on the hand basin with both hands.
Ever since awakening as Mirai, the truth that she was a girl – that I was a girl – was something I’d subconsciously struggled to accept. Surviving against the Gun Queen had kept my mind from delving or dwelling on the truth for long, and during the relative peace and calm aboard the Sanreal Crest, I hadn’t thought about myself as a girl. I’d been preoccupied with puzzling through my circumstances, and in a way, I had been operating on auto-pilot. I was conscious of being female, yet I hadn’t fully accepted it as though my subconscious was rejecting reality. Maybe it was acting like my last line of mental defense, keeping me sane when all other measures had failed.
But now it was impossible for me to deny it any longer on any level.
I couldn’t run away from Erina, and I couldn’t escape from myself either.
Having performed a most basic act of nature, there was no hiding from the reality that I was now a girl.
Raising my head, I looked at my tired visage, but my heart skipped a beat when I noticed the reflection of a beautiful teenage girl standing beside an open stall with her arms folded across her chest, watching me in silence. She had long silky black hair, an oval face, and green almond eyes.
Exotic encapsulated her in a word.
However, it wasn’t her beauty that captured my attention, or the fact that she was watching me keenly. It was knowing that she had materialized out of nowhere, and there was only one person I knew of who made it a habit of appearing unexpectedly.
I sighed and shook my head slowly as I stared back at her, aware that I was alone with her in the restroom.
She waited until everyone else was gone.
Still watching her cautiously in the mirror, I was first to break the silence between us. “Akane Straus, I presume.”
The girl smiled faintly. “That’s right.”
I turned around and faced her with my arms at my sides. “So that’s another body you have.”
“It is.”
“Just how many avatars do you control?”
Her subtle smile turned into a grin. “That’s a secret.”
“You were driving the car, weren’t you?” I asked her. “That’s why Erina climbed out of the passenger seat.”
“I was.”
“How did you find me?”
“I followed you onto the train. I followed you off the train. You were taking a long time in here, so I decided to check up on you.”
Ghost didn’t tell me I was being followed. Was it because he didn’t know about this body of hers? No, more than likely she was using her thermoptic camouflage to hide herself.
Taking a breath, I stated flatly, “I’m not going back. Not yet.”
She nodded once, then shrugged a shoulder lightly. “I figured you’d say that.”
“Your move,” I told her.
“Huh?” She blinked in surprise.
“You’re here to take me back, so it’s your move. Let’s get this over with.”
For a long while, she stared at me with open confusion, before laughing softly. “I’m not here to take you back. I’m just here to keep an eye on you.”
Not the reply I was expecting, and it showed on my face as I asked, “Why?”
“Because I think we should talk.”
I raised my fists at her. “With these?”
The brunette girl that was another of Akane Straus’s mechanical avatars stepped closer to me. “No, with these.” She pointed at her lips.
This change in her approach to dealing with me made me nervous. “What is it that you want? Tell me the truth.”
Straus glanced away as she smoothly planted her hands on her hips, and eventually replied, “To be normal.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
She wet her lips in a very human and girlish way that was surprisingly thoughtful as well. “Fighting you head on is pointless. You won’t change. You won’t give an inch. You’re stubborn like Erina to a fault. I figure this time I’ll just zig-zag.”
“Okay. It’s still your move.”
She pouted in thought, before breaking into a solemn smile. “I forfeit my move. The ball’s back in your court. What will you do?”
I tried to judge her intentions but I couldn’t. I wasn’t accustomed to dealing with her like this, so I was hampered by trying to figure out all the angles at once.
What was she really up to?
What did she want?
In other words, what was her immediate objective?
Confused and uncertain about her ulterior motives, I found my options limited by her passive approach.
“Did Erina put you up to this?” I asked her.
“No.”
She answered without hesitation and it made me believe her, though I remained suspicious and on guard.
Straus stepped around me and walked up to a wash basin. She stared at herself in the mirror for a while before saying, “Erina and I shared some words.”
“About what?”
“About you.” Straus gently turned her head left and right, and continued studying her reflection in the mirror. “I think it’s the first fight we’ve had in a long while.”
“Are you telling me you had a disagreement? Seriously? Why?”
“Because I didn’t agree with how she’s been treating you.”
I narrowed my eyes at her and snorted. “Like you would care.”
She looked at me. “I have something I need to tell you.”
I shook my head, and began walking away toward the exit. “Not interested.”
“It’s about why Erina shouted at you on the balcony.”
I stopped walking but didn’t turn around. It made it easier to hide the anger that flashed through me. “I don’t care why she shouted me.”
“At least let me tell you why—”
I half spun around. “I told you I don’t care—!”
The door to the restroom was pulled open, startling me.
Two young women, both of them brunettes wearing an unhealthy amount of makeup and dressed for a fun night on the town staggered into the room. Neither of them smelt fresh, and one of them pushed me aside as she helped her more inebriated friend into the room.
“Scuse me! Scuse me! Make a hole. Coming through!”
Straus gave them room as they made their way on rubbery legs to the nearest vacant stall.
Then the least sober of the two promptly wretched her guts out into the throne.
I stared at them in mild disgust before turning to leave the restroom.
Straus approached me from behind. “I’ll tell you why, but not here. Will you come with me?”
Again, I spun around to face her. “Look, how many time to do I have to tell you—?”
“It’s important,” she replied in a low, firm tone that matched her gaze.
I contemplated walking out on her, but I was distracted by the nauseating sounds and smell coming from the nearest stall as the drunkards took turns throwing up into the toilet bowl.
“Okay, fine. Whatever. Tell me.”
“Not here. Will you come with me?”
I didn’t bother hiding my suspicions when I asked, “Where to?”
Stepping around me, Straus opened the door to the restroom leading to the anteroom. “I know a little place nearby. They make great pancakes.”
At the thought of pancakes, my stomach rumbled in response, but it was drowned out by the sounds of vomiting and heavy coughing.
Unable to tolerate another moment in the restroom, I followed Straus out of the toilets and back into the station promenade.
Apologies for the delay and rough nature of this chapter, and thank you for sticking with it for so long.
For those of you interested in reading or purchasing Book One and Book Two, they can be found on Amazon KDP here:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
They are also available on the Kindle Library.
If you do enjoy them, please, let others know by posting a review.
In other words, please, spread the word.
I know that I've lost quite a few readers, but all I can say is that they're the ones that are going to miss out when the story takes a turn shortly.
Thank you to everyone else still following this series.
Cheers and best wishes.
– I –
I had to walk nine city district blocks to arrive at the sixty storey apartment complex that served as a dormitory for students of Telos Academy.
Equipped with apartments that ranged from single bedroom to three-bedroom layouts, the complex was large enough to house the entire academic student body that numbered around six thousand, but at present it was home to around half that quantity. Because of this, many students that should have been sharing an apartment with others found themselves effectively living alone in family sized dwellings. Others, like myself, found themselves in hotel sized rooms that were spacious but hardly awe inspiring. However, it wasn’t just the students that lived there, but teaching faculty, administrative staff, and maintenance workers as well, though they were on separate floors.
So why such a large building for just one school?
Well, the truth is that Telos Academy was only half full itself, with numerous classrooms waiting to be opened as and when the student body swelled. The school had been designed for a maximum attendance of around twelve thousand students. Eventually, as Ar Telica continued to add Rings and expand its footprint, there would be more demand for the school, and so the apartment complex was purchased by the Telos Corporation and converted into a dormitory for students, and lodgings for the faculty.
That’s the story behind the dorm building I was now observing from a shadowed entrance far across the street.
I was troubled but not by thoughts of breaking into the building early in the morning.
Rather, I was bothered by the thoughts of deceit swirling around in my head after my conversation with Ghost.
Just when I thought I understood what was going on around me, a new bombshell was dropped. Some questions were answered, but more surfaced.
To be frank, my suspicions behind Erina’s actions could be unfounded. There was probably a perfectly logical and understandable reason behind the way the situation had unfolded prior to my involvement. I was certain that if I kept digging, I’d unearth the big picture, and even if it wasn’t a pretty view, I still needed to see it. However, asking questions of Erina felt like the wrong choice. So could I ask? Could I pry more information out of Ghost and risk him suspecting Erina of deceit? What if there was no deceit? What if the answer was simple and standing before me?
My questions kept circling back to the beginning.
Eventually, I took a couple of deep breaths, and stopped the playback of thoughts looping in my head, and shelved them neatly aside.
Time to see what’s in front of me.
I looked up at the apartment complex, counting the floors until I reached the thirty-fifth floor where my old dorm apartment was located on the south-east face of the building.
The light to my room – I mean, Ronin Kassius’s room – was off and the balcony window wall was dark.
It wasn’t something that inspired certain relief within me.
The light being off didn’t guarantee the room was unoccupied. If my room was deserted, I would be entering it as a stranger though I was intimately familiar with it. But if it was occupied, then the fact it was assigned to someone a mere day after my disappearance was disconcerting, as was the question of who was now in my room. Then again, the latter was purely a flight of fancy on my part, but not knowing was beginning to both unsettle and frustrate me.
“Hey, Ghost? I’m kind of sticking out by standing out here.”
I was in a dark area beside a towering megascraper, but street level security systems viewed the world in a wide visual spectrum so I doubted Mirai was hidden from view.
“Rest assured, Princess. I have commandeered the security grid surrounding you. You are quite secure where you are.”
That chill ran through me again, the one that was stirred to life every time Ghost exerted his godly powers over technology for my benefit.
When I considered what Clarisol and Ghost had told me about his war time achievements, a distinct fear settled around my heart, and I struggled to keep myself from shivering.
He’s technological god. And a techno demon too.
However, every once in a while, a god encountered a wall they had trouble breaking down. In this case, it was a firewall that was hampering Ghost’s efforts to secure entry for me into the building, and this firewall had been keeping him busy for the past two minutes.
Swallowing hard, I cautiously asked, “How much longer?”
“Another forty-three seconds, Princess. I will have broken through by then.”
I started biting my lower lip and hastily forced myself to stop. “Why is there so much security around my building?”
“A very good question. It was most unexpected. But a Category Nine Ancile firewall is like any other firewall. Porous.”
“But you said it was military grade.”
“Correct. Your military uses it protect its autonomous vehicles from outside interference.”
“You mean hacking.”
“No, I mean cracking.”
Again, I started biting my lower lip, but this time I gave up trying to stop myself, briefly wondering if it was a subconscious habit of mine, or a habit of Mirai’s. “So why is there a firewall like that around my dorm building?”
“As I said before, a very good question.”
I pondered for a moment. “Ghost, when I was returned to my room as a Simulacrum, how did Erina get me inside without raising alarms?”
“I was not involved in that aspect of the operation. However, I presume they had access to the building’s security systems. Then again, they may not have required it. Your passcode or handprint would have been sufficient to grant them entry into your apartment. Ah, there we have it. Open sesame—oops.”
I stiffened sharply. “What do you mean, oops?”
“I mean that the breach is temporary. The firewall is rewriting itself. Hmm, how intriguing.”
“Ghost?”
“Princess, you will need to hurry into the building. You have fifteen seconds.”
“What?” I blurted out.
“Princess, fly if you will. Thirteen seconds.”
I growled as I hastily removed my sandals, in the process almost ripping them off my feet.
“Eight seconds, Princess.”
I wanted to yell at Ghost to shut up, but instead I bolted out of my hiding spot, clutching my sandals by their straps with one hand.
Thankfully, there was a gap in traffic that I exploited as I ran faster than an Olympic sprinter across the six-lane city street. But I was certain the people in the vehicles I raced past were shocked to see a blonde girl run barefoot and dangerously close to their cars as she dashed madly toward an apartment complex.
I covered the distance from the sidewalk and to the landing outside the building’s entrance in two bounding leaps, then stumbled through the open permaglass doors as my feet slipped. I landed on my knees inside the foyer, and slid to a stop while behind me the transparent doors closed with a soft swish.
Recovering my breath took a few seconds, after which I climbed up to my feet and patted my sore knees under the material of my Capri pants.
“That hurt,” I grumbled, but I wasn’t complaining about my stinging knees, the pain of which was fading quickly. Instead, it was Mirai’s giant boobs that hurt the most as I cradled them in my arms.
“Princess, congratulations on setting on a new record for the one-hundred meter sprint, though the distance was actually one hundred and twelve meters.”
“Oh yeah? So what was my time?”
“Across the one hundred and twelve meters to the entrance? A mere seven point three seconds.”
I stared at him nonplussed for a moment before asking, “You mean, I covered the hundred meters in…around six and a half seconds?”
Ghost nodded and then clapped enthusiastically. “Fabuleux, Princess. Magnifique.”
I felt his praise was coming off as clownish. “Aren’t all Simulacra above human spec?”
Ghost wagged a finger, and answered me in a gently chiding tone. “Princess, as strong as Simulacra are, none has demonstrated your fleetness of foot. Your sister should have named you, Atalanta rather than Mirai.” He clicked his fingers. “Yes, of course. Why not have you re-registered in the Gun Princess Royale as the Princess Atalanta, the huntress of mythology that left all her suitors eating her dust.”
I couldn’t help staring sullenly at Ghost’s image standing beside me. “Atalanta was never a princess.”
“Details, details.”
“I’m not changing my mind. I’m competing as Mirai. Case closed.” Quickly looking around me at the foyer’s interior, I hastily asked, “More importantly, should I be standing around here?”
Ghost looked startled before he too gazed about with concern. “Indeed, Princess. It is best if we continue this conversation elsewhere.”
I started to glare at him. “Are you telling me all that running was for nothing.”
“No, the foyer security is temporarily distracted. So you should make haste.”
I wanted to hit him, but since that wasn’t possible, I decided to make my way swiftly across the foyer to the wide corridor leading into the building’s ground floor where a bank of elevators awaited.
Standing before a pair of closed elevator doors, I reached out for a button affixed to a panel and labeled with an upward pointing arrow, but I was forestalled by Ghost abruptly advising in an apologetic tone, “Princess, I suggest taking the stairs.”
I fixed a disgruntled stare upon him. “What?”
“I am having difficulty disabling the elevator security system.”
“Are you telling me to climb thirty-five floors of stairs?”
“Princess, it should be a breeze for you.”
I really want to hit him.
I looked down at the sandals I was carrying by their straps in my left hand, and then sighed heavily as I strapped my feet into them. I then trudged over to the foot of the wide stairwell leading all the way to the top floor of the apartment complex, one of six such stairwells within the hexagonal building.
Looking upwards, I asked in a hushed voice, “What about the stairwell cameras?”
“I can disguise you from those, but the system watching over the elevator cars is another matter.”
The stairwell seemed to go on forever above me. “Ghost, you promised not to lie to me.”
“I assure you, Princess, I am not deceiving you.”
My shoulders rose and fell in surrender to what lay ahead, then I started climbing up the stairs. “Why would the two be different?”
“To prevent tampering, no less. However, I do find the architecture of the internal security networks somewhat baffling.”
“Ah huh. And why is that?”
“It is as though the upgrade has yet to be completed. Patchwork is how I would describe it.”
Arriving at the second floor, I turned at the landing and began climbing up the steps to the third floor. “Maybe this is your fault.”
“Princess…?”
“Have you broken into this building before?”
“You have such a low opinion of me,” he complained.
“Hey, I was just asking,” I hissed back.
“In answer to your question, no. This is my first offence on this establishment.”
At the landing on the third level, I stopped and peeked down the adjoining corridor. “Okay, okay. So why upgrade the security systems now?”
Ghost was quiet for a few moments before remarking, “I can only suspect there is someone or something of great value to be found here.”
I flinched inwardly as I understood what he implied. But what came out of my mouth was instead, “Well, maybe they wanted to keep you out of here.” When I glanced at him, I noticed he looked troubled but I failed to put on the brakes. “Maybe they don’t trust you anymore.”
His concerned expression deepened briefly before he shrugged it off. “I did not earn the name, Revenant, for nothing.” Clapping his hands together, he continued on a jovial note. “After all, I did succeed in securing your entry into the building.”
I retorted with a harsh whisper, “Yeah, but I’d prefer not to have to sprint through traffic again!”
“You cut such a dashing figure.”
“Was that supposed to be a pun?” Ghost smiled sardonically at me, while I ground my teeth together. “Ghost, I need your support. Don’t ruffle their feathers. If they take you away from me, I’ll be really troubled.”
He regarded me quizzically. “Princess, need I remind you that your actions have led to this situation.”
“Wh—what?” I almost tripped while climbing the stairs.
“Please, take responsibility for your behavior. If I am taken away, as you say, it will be because I have been supporting your erratic decisions.”
I arrived at the fifth-floor landing and stopped.
He’s right. I put myself in this mess by jumping off the building. I can blame Erina all I want, but it was still my decision to make that jump.
“F—fine. Whatever….”
Still, did he have to be so blunt about it?
I resumed my upward journey. However, I sulked on the way so I bit my lower lip and climbed the remaining floors in silence. At the thirty fifth floor, I looked cautiously both ways down the corridor before sneaking into it from the confines of the stairwell landing.
Like a thief, I hugged the walls as I crept along.
“Ghost,” I whispered, “about the cameras—?”
“All secure, but you need to hurry. I can only distract the system in short stretches and a few seconds at a time.”
Clenching my jaw, I breathed in through my nose as I pussyfooted down the corridor, hesitating only for a heartbeat at the sixty-degree bend, before continuing down the next corridor until I eventually arrived at the door to my dormitory apartment.
“We’re here,” I whispered, and reached for the door panel, intent on entering the security passcode that would unlock the door.
“One moment, Princess,” Ghost asked of me, and true to his word, I only had to wait a second before the door unlocked.
I frowned at him. “What? Why did you—?”
“Please hurry inside, Princess.”
I was still frowning when I pushed the door open, and snuck into my old apartment.
Closing the door behind me, I rested my back against it for a short while as I my eyes adjusted quickly to the dim interior.
“Ghost, is it safe for me to move?”
“Oddly…yes. The security within the apartments is rudimentary. It has yet to be upgraded.”
“Why didn’t you let me enter the passcode?”
“Because that code had been disabled. We gained entry by applying the building administrator code instead.”
“Isn’t that going to raise alarms?”
“That depends on how long you plan to remain here. Although, I did succeed in preventing the security system from sending a notification message when the passcode was employed.”
Ghost walked down the corridor and into the living area, and after hesitating for a short while, I swallowed hard and then followed him.
“Couldn’t you have used the same passcode to get me into the building?”
“First I needed to obtain the passcode. To do that, I needed to breach the firewall.”
Stopping at the entrance to the living area, I gazed over the interior as I absently replied, “Oh…I hadn’t thought of that….”
Walking to the silhouette of the bedside table, I tapped the lamplight and a moment later soft amber light spread throughout the living area.
It felt like a lifetime ago that I was last here, yet it was only two days at best.
The bed sheets had been changed, and the bed remade by the automated cleaning service that employed the ubiquitous bowling pin shaped droids seen across the city. No doubt the carpet had been vacuumed as well. The air inside the apartment smelt clean, with a scent of lilac coming from an aerosol dispenser sitting on a shelf beside the flat holovid projection screen.
The contents on my shelves and book cases were unmoved from where I remembered them.
I walked up to a shelf, and ran my fingers over my collection of Mercy Haddaway photo albums. Although I had her assorted holovid and digital releases, I’d purchased her printed material as well. Pulling out an album, I leafed through it as I walked over and sat down on the edge of my bed. I continued paging through the big book, aware with every page turn of how closely Mirai resembled Mercy. When I reached the end of the album, I gently closed the book, and placed it beside me on the bed.
Again, I slowly gazed about the interior of the apartment.
Now that I was here, I began to wonder if there was a point to returning to the apartment at all. I had come here to establish a sense of closure with my past life, but as I sat on the bed, all I felt was a growing lethargy that mired my thoughts and weighed down my limbs.
Dropping back onto the bed, I stared up at the ceiling
I was tired, and a little hungry, but I also felt aimless.
However, what troubled me was the lack of emotion I was feeling.
The emotional impact I’d felt certain would strike me when I entered the apartment failed to manifest.
Instead, I was lying on my bed in my dorm apartment, and yet I felt nothing but a heavy set exhaustion.
I’d read how some people would describe a distinct lack of grief after losing a loved one.
Was this what I was experiencing?
Was I unable to grieve over losing my life as Ronin Kassius?
Were my feelings all bottled up, or had they bled away unnoticed?
Throwing an arm over my face, I closed my eyes, then called out to the apartment Monitor.
“Lights off.”
There was no confirmation, so I propped myself up on my elbows and repeated the command. “Lights off.”
The apartment’s Monitor continued to ignore me, and I felt a twinge of irritation toward it. With a soft growl, I crawled over the bed to the lamp on the bedside table that I had turned on a few minutes ago. After tapping its base, the lamp turned off, and I then rolled onto my back. Lying with my head on the pillows, and my hands over my midriff, I took a handful of deep slow breaths as I looked up at the darkened ceiling.
“Ghost…?”
“Yes, Princess.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I thought coming here was the right thing to do. I thought I’d feel something. But I don’t feel anything. It’s like I’m dead inside. I should be grieving or mourning over what I’ve lost, but I’m not, and that’s just too weird. Too wrong.”
I breathed in deeply and released the spent air slowly.
“Maybe I’m broken.”
Sometime after entering the apartment’s living room, Ghost had reverted to being just a voice in my ears. In other words, he was no longer projecting himself into my vision, so I had no idea what kind of expression he was making in the ensuing silence. But as the silence dragged on, I began struggling to find words to express what I was feeling which wasn’t much at all.
“After everything that’s happened to me, maybe I’m burnt out,” I whispered. “Maybe I was done grieving about my past life without knowing it.”
If that was true, and I’d already come terms with the loss of my existence as Ronin Kassius, then perhaps coming here only served to make that clear to me.
However, it didn’t change the fact that everything about my return was anticlimactic, leading to a belated sense of frustration that grew gradually, eventually inducing a restlessness that spread through my body.
Trying to shake it off, I rolled onto my side but was quickly irked by the hefty weight of my Mirai’s boobs as they shifted beneath the tight sports bra.
Groaning in annoyance, I rolled once more onto my back and closed my eyes.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I was irritated by an unpleasant pressure in my nether regions. I’d noticed it before while I was waiting out on the street for Ghost to break through the building’s firewall, but it had receded during my sprint to the apartment complex, and the subsequent climb up the stairs to the thirty-fifth floor. However, in the still quiet of the room, while I was restlessly lying on my bed, it came back with a vengeance.
I clamped down on it with unfamiliar muscles, but that only served to delay the inevitable, so with a loud huff, I swung my legs and sandaled feet off the bed and then sat up.
“Lights,” I grumbled but was ignored by the room’s Monitor. “Damn it. Ghost, can’t you do something about it?”
“Unfortunately not, Princess. You see, at present the apartment’s Monitor is completely oblivious to your presence. And with good reason.”
I started to grumble but it died in my throat. “…oh…that's right....”
Right now, I'm an intruder.
Exhaling heavily, I pushed myself up and off the bed, swaying slightly for a beat before gaining my balance. “Damn it…,” I complained as I pressed a hand to my lower midriff.
“Princess?”
“I need to pee.”
“Oh. I see. By all means.”
I scowled at him, though I couldn’t see him, then walked to the bathroom I was so intimately familiar with.
Turning on one of the lights, I blinked once before Mirai’s eyes adjusted, and then stepped up to the throne.
Reaching down to flip up the lowered seat, I grumbled under my breath.
“Ghost, if you—”
I froze with my fingertips hooked under the edge of the plastic seat.
“—peek on me….”
My voice faded away as I stared down at my long slender arm and feminine hand touching the toilet seat.
“…oh God….”
At that moment, I felt as though I’d stepped under a waterfall, drenched by the undeniable truth of my existence.
All those emotions I’d believed I’d burnt away, flooded through me, and from deep within my chest, a weird strangled laughter bubbled up, making my body shudder.
But the call of nature was too strong to ignore by now, and so I had no choice but to answer it by hastily dropping the necessary garments and then taking a seat on what was now a Queen’s throne.
Yet the laughter that gurgled in my chest and throat wouldn’t stop, even as Mirai went through the natural, human process of emptying her bladder.
It carried on after my tears began to fall, and it ended when sobs began to wrack my body.
Hunched over with my large breasts pressing into my thighs, my arms wrapped around my belly, and my long blonde hair curtaining my face, I cried softly, desperate to keep the volume down though I knew the soundproof walls would prevent my neighbors from hearing my distress.
I don’t know how long I cried, but it felt like an hour had gone by when I finally regained a semblance of calm.
It was a while longer before I ventured to clean myself up – nervously and hesitantly feeling around a delicate, unfamiliar place.
I had my eyes squeezed shut the whole time my trembling fingers felt their way around Mirai’s womanhood, opening them only when I needed to dispose of the biodegradable paper wad.
An equally long time went by before I found the strength to stand, pulling up my clothes with unsteady hands and shaking arms.
My sobs threatened to perform an encore, but I clamped down on them, and then shuffled to the wide washbasin.
Letting it fill with warm water, I washed my face carefully.
Because my skin felt raw, I patted it rather than scrubbed it dry with a hand towel I pulled from a rail.
When I found the courage to look at myself in the mirror, I saw a girl watching me, her beauty marred by the exhausted yet hollow expression she wore.
Anyone who saw her would have been convinced she had just lost everything and every loved one she’d ever known, and they wouldn’t have been far from wrong.
I had thought coming here to my old dorm apartment would be the catalyst that helped me come to terms with my new life. After all, I had come here with the intention of closing the door on Ronin Kassius while opening a new one that welcomed Mirai and Isabel.
But it wasn’t.
It was the sole gesture of answering a call of nature that closed the proverbial door on my old life.
In one fell swoop, Mirai’s body had forced me to accept that I was now a girl…and there was no going back.
Sincere apologies for the late posting.
I had some personal matters that intruded upon writing over the last several days.
Also, my editor needed to review and there were some critical amendments to be made.
For those of you interested in reading or purchasing Book One and Book Two, they can be found on Amazon KDP here:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
They are also available on the Kindle Library.
If you do enjoy them, please, let others know by posting a review. In other words, please, spread the word.
Thank you for sticking with this series for so long. I know the updates are slow, but I'm sincerely trying to produce the best writing that I can.
Best wishes to you all.
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.
Without needing to look at the clock on the bedside table, I knew the time was seven fifteen in the morning. That was thanks to Mirai’s wetware.
I wonder if I can use it like a daily planner?
Lying on my back, and this time regarding the grey ceiling above me, I realized that I’d never thought much about Mirai’s wetware beyond its capacity to interface with weaponry. I knew now that Ghost could use it to project himself into my senses, namely my hearing and vision, allowing him to interact with me on a more human. But what else could I do with it? That is, what other special talents did the wetware possess?
And what hidden talents did I possess?
Lifting an arm before me, I turned it over slowly and thought of the Angel Fibers running through my body.
Can I do more than sprout wings?
I dropped my arm down across my belly under the sheets, and noticed they were still neatly spread over me, indicating a distinct lack of tossing and turning.
I guess Mirai is a heavy sleeper.
Or maybe I was so tired that I literally slept like a log.
On the other hand, considering the twin peaks on my chest, I doubted Mirai could sleep on anything but her back, so other positions were not an option for her.
Shaking my head in annoyance at the aforementioned restrictions, I then began to wonder what the day held in store for me.
How long before Erina or the Cat Princess discovered I was here and broke down the door?
But what would come after that?
I could hear the faint sounds of movement out in the corridor beyond the apartment’s door, but that didn’t surprise me. This was the dormitory complex and there were always students who left early to head to the academy, whether for practice or other reasons. However, what did surprise me was the fact that I could hear them, something I had never experienced before from within my dorm apartment due to the soundproofing.
Just how far above normal was Mirai’s hearing?
At the thought, I cocked my head while resting it on the pillow, and listened to the sounds around me.
I could hear faint humming on different frequencies, and the sounds of a handful or more students traveling down the corridor, including their conversations.
Below that, I could also perceive activity in the apartment neighboring mine that was closest to the wall behind my bed.
Because I was so focused on the sounds around me, I sensed someone walk up to the door moments before they touched the door plate that triggered a soft sing chime consisting of seven notes.
My immediate reaction was to freeze in bed.
When the melody played through a second time, I turned my head to look at the door at the end of the hallway.
There was a short period of silence before the melody played through a third time.
By then I had run through the list of suspects who would have reason to be at the door.
I crossed Mat off the list since he was currently under observation – according to Erina.
Then there was Shirohime. I crossed her off even quicker.
Angela and Felicia were two suspects I considered but dismissed when I remembered only a day had passed since we’d returned. I didn’t believe they’d be given new Simulacra bodies to move around. On the other hand, if it was them in their human bodies at the door, this was one of the floors occupied by male students, so girls were very unlikely to visit this level unless they were visiting a boy they wished to accompany to school. Since it wasn’t uncommon, and Angela and Felicia were former friends of Ronin’s, perhaps it was a likely scenario.
As for Erina venturing into the apartment complex at this hour, it could be put down to a relative visiting a younger family member, though the time of day was odd.
Lastly, I considered the Cat Princess, and that distinct possibility made my heart skip several times before it regained its natural footing.
Subconsciously, I pulled the covers up to my chin. “…Ghost…?”
“Princess, if you are wondering who is at the door, I suggest you answer it.”
His reply made me frown fleetingly, and I asked, “Why aren’t you going to tell me?”
“Because, it would be far easier and more efficient for you to simply answer it.”
“That is totally not true,” I snapped at him while keeping my voice down. Climbing out of the bed, I padded barefoot down the hallway to the apartment’s door, but stopped halfway there. “Wait a minute….”
“Correct, Princess. It is someone who already knows who you are.”
I sighed heavily and my shoulders slumped as I leaned on a wall for support. “Why didn’t you just tell me it was her….”
Stepping up to the door, I tapped the console plate beside it, and looked at the image projected in a holovid bubble between me and the door.
It displayed the corridor area outside my apartment.
Expecting to see Erina standing there, I was instead shocked speechless by whom I saw.
“…huh…?”
The individual on the opposite side of the door range the chime melody again.
I looked down at the door plate, and seeing the red light displayed there, I knew the door was locked.
“Ghost…unlock it please….”
“As you wish, Princess.”
I heard the lock mechanism click softly, then reached down and turned the knob to open the door.
The girl with long auburn hair standing out in the corridor smiled languidly at me. “About time. I was beginning to think you were ignoring me.”
“…what are you doing here…?”
She held up a canvas sports bag. “I come bearing gifts.”
“…no, really, why are you here?”
The girl looked down the corridor, and I heard someone approaching. “A girl in a boy’s dorm room is a no-no.”
“You’re right.” I started closing the door. “You should go.”
However, she stuck her foot in the doorway and used a free hand to force the door back into me until I pushed against her, finding my strength equal to hers.
Damn it—she’s definitely a mechanical.
“You’re being predictable and boring,” the girl stated in a disinterested manner.
“Then leave.”
“No can do.”
The sounds of someone drawing near grew louder.
Yanking the door open, I reached out and pulled the girl into the apartment before quickly closing the door behind her.
Then I pushed her against a hallway wall, using my weight and strength to keep her there.
“Which one are you?” I asked.
“The wicked witch of the west,” she replied, smiling drily.
“Tabitha….” Pushing her once more, I backed away to the opposite wall of the hallway. “Or is it, Taura Hexaria?”
“Tabitha Hexen will do fine.”
I shook my head in faint displeasure. “How did you know I was here?”
Tabitha turned and then swayed as she walked down the hallway into the living area. “I like what you’ve done with the place.” She sleepily regarded my collection of Mercy Haddaway merchandise filling every able space of the apartment. “It’s the Temple of Mercy.”
I followed her into the living area, and repeated, “How did you know I was here?”
“Early this morning, we noticed tampering with this building’s security grid. Following the bread crumbs, we arrived here.” Tabitha turned to look at me over a shoulder. “It was easy to guess the intruder was you.”
“Who is we?”
She walked over to the bed and dropped the sports bag onto it. “I’ve been transferred to the Battle Commission’s Cardinal Division. My job is to observe you.”
“Cardinal? Like a church cardinal?”
Tabitha wandered around the room. “No, nothing like that. Cardinal is simply the division’s title.”
“So why are you watching me?”
“That’s a silly question.” She stopped and frowned at me. “Obviously, because the Empress has taken an interest in you. Though the Battle Commission is mostly independent of the Empress’s influence, she has graciously granted Cardinal additional authority to act in her name.”
“Why doesn’t she just kidnap me then?”
“Because your sister told her that any attempt to do so would result in your death.”
I frigid wind blew through me. “What…?”
“I meant to say destruction.”
Another frigid gust raced through me, constricting my lungs, and robbing me of my voice. However, Ghost had chosen to materialize in my vision, and I threw him a tense glance that he ignored as he regarded Tabitha with a complicated expression.
Unaware of Ghost’s scrutiny, Tabitha studied me for a short while before holding her palms up and shrugging apathetically. “Hey, that’s what she said.” Lowering her hands, she added, “The Empress decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Without the data on your body, there was no way to tell if Erina Kassius was lying, although you were scanned during the translocation process between islands.”
Suppressing a shiver, I swallowed hard before whispering, “Ghost?”
“…this is news to me,” he replied in a low monotone.
“Don’t lie to me,” I hissed under my breath and out of the side of my mouth.
“Princess, I am upholding my promise,” he answered without relaxing his expression.
Crossing my arms stiffly, I hid my unease by staring hard at Tabitha. “And? What did you find?”
“Nothing. No bomb. No capsules. Just the wetware in your head that we couldn’t scan deeply.” Tabitha studied a life-sized poster of Mercy I had up on a wall. “That was indeed surprising. The fact that Remnant tech is embedded in your head.”
“Why is that such a big deal?”
“Because Remnants are produced by Fabricators, and House Novis is not supposed to have one.”
“Why not? Aren’t the Sarcophagi Remnant tech as well? How else is House Novis supposed to make them?”
“The Sarcophagi are produced and allocated under the authority of the Battle Commission. And they don’t belong to the competing Houses. They are simply on loan to them.”
I bit my lower lip as I proverbially joined the dots. “Are you saying House Novis—the Sanreals—broke the rules?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Tabitha listlessly pouted at the image of Mercy on the wall. “Such big boobs….” Abruptly she turned that pout on me. “Speaking of boobs. I noticed you have quite the fulsome rack.”
“Does that really matter now?”
“Hmm. I wonder which of you is bigger?” Tabitha mused softly, alternating her attention between Mercy’s poster and I.
“Like I said, does it matter?”
“Of course it does,” she replied with surprising honesty but it was dampened by her drowsy voice. “Do you think you’re going to participate in the Gun Princess Royale solely as a competitor?” She shook her head and smiled weakly as though pitying me. “You have no idea what your sponsor has planned for you.”
I froze as a variety of dreadful possibilities paraded before my eyes.
Get a grip! She’s trying to unhinge you!
Forcibly relaxing, I rubbed a palm over my face as I attempted to follow my own advice. “Can you just tell me what’s going on?”
Tabitha pointed at the poster. “Hey, can I have this one?”
“No,” I immediately snapped.
“By the way, have you thought about dressing up like her?”
“Huh? No. No, I haven’t.”
Surprisingly, that was indeed the truth. But now that she’d asked the question, I couldn’t help wondering if I could pull off such a feat.
Aggggh! What the Hell am I thinking?
While chastising myself, I once again palmed my face, reminded myself to keep it together, then took a step closer to Tabitha. “Can we stay focused?”
“Poster.” She pointed at it. “Gimme.”
“Get your own. Ah—actually, that one was given out only to the first one hundred attendees at her handshaking event last year.”
That event was what started my nightmare as Princess Silver Blue. Giving in to temptation, I had accepted the Cosplay Club’s terms in exchange for a ticket to meet Mercy at a handshaking event.
Ah, but that’s a story already told.
Tabitha made a voice like that of a dirty old man. “How much for the girl? I want to buy the girl.”
“Cut that out. You’re sounding like a real creeper.”
She held up a finger. “The price of knowledge is one precious article from your collection.”
“Forget it,” I retorted.
Tabitha folded her hands behind her back and regarded me with disappointment. “So you really don’t want to know?”
“The price is too high.”
Besides, I could always ask Ghost to investigate for me.
However, my certainty was chipped away by doubts when I noticed him wearing a distinctly troubled expression.
“Princess, perhaps you should make the trade,” he suggested cautiously.
Wait—does that mean there’s something he doesn’t know about?
I tried not to gape at him in shock, and barely succeeded. However, I blurted out, “Heh?”, and immediately attracted Tabitha’s attention. “I mean—why do you want something from my collection?”
“To sell it and make money,” she replied perfunctorily.
“What?”
“Limited edition posters of Mercy go for a steep price.”
“I’m not selling my Mercy poster. I even had it framed. That cost me money. So forget it. No way.”
Tabitha frowned at me. “Why are you so obsessed with this girl?”
“Because she’s a goddess!”
“I think you have your definition of a goddess messed up.”
I crossed my arms unhappily. “Look. I’m not giving you my poster.”
“House Novis is in deep shit.”
I jerked back, surprised by her blunt admission. “Ah…so what? Not my problem.”
“Actually, it is. You see, they had a Fabricator hidden away. The fact that none of the Fabricators are missing from the Imperial inventory means that they procured this Fabricator from elsewhere. Or they had an extra Fabricator no one else knew about, and didn’t return it after the war. In other words, it wasn’t stolen from the Empire. Regardless, the Empress is not amused. On top of that, it seems they were quite liberal with its use.”
“In what way?” I muttered.
“The design of your Sarcophagus.” Tabitha swayed drunkenly on her feet. “After claiming Mirai was never intended for the Gun Princess Royale, they certainly went to some extreme lengths to provide you with a very non-standard Sarcophagus. It may look regular on the outside, but the inside is a different kettle of fish.”
“So what?” I repeated. “I’m not a mechanical Princess. Wouldn’t it have to be different to support me?”
“True. But there are things about its design that House Novis is keeping close to the chest.”
“Okay. So they’re not playing ball with the Empress.”
Tabitha shook her head and exhaled wearily. “They’re being sneaky, sneaky.”
“Like I’ve said already, so what? The Sanreals gave me a non-regulation coffin. Big deal. Blame the Empress for pushing them that far. Aren’t they just looking out for their investment?” I indicated myself with a fingertip. “Me.”
“True. At least, that’s what they’re arguing.” She straightened and began pacing around the low coffee table that also served as a dinner table. “It’s all too complicated and boring for me.”
I watched her circle the table as though she were shackled to a ball and chain. “Are you responsible for the security system in this building?”
“Not me per se.”
“Then is the Battle Commission responsible?”
“Actually, no. The upgrade was conducted at the request of the building administration, and the building happens to be owned by the Telos Corporation. So it had nothing to do with us.”
The Sanreals controlled the Telos Corporation. Did that mean they were behind the upgrade to the building’s security?
I held back a frown as I continued watching Tabitha trudge her way around the low table. “Were you monitoring the building?”
“Yes, we were.”
I flinched and glanced sharply at Ghost who was now staring at Tabitha with veiled suspicion. Feeling uneasy myself, I swallowed to give myself a moment before asking the girl, “Just how far does the Commission’s influence spread through Ar Telica?”
“Very far,” she replied with a smirk that looked painfully exhausting. “Our Conquistador Class Awarenesses monitor all the city-states. We do it in a manner that doesn’t interfere with the existing infrastructure. We watch the watchers. What they see, we see, because we’re looking over their shoulders. But to be specific, we watch the interests of the competing institutions.”
“Meaning what?”
“Anything and anyone related to the Gun Princess Royale—we keep an eye on them.”
“Including me….”
Tabitha nodded and smiled as though on her last breath. “Precisely. Though you proved quite elusive last night.”
To me, it felt as though the temperature in the room had fallen.
To think that these people from another universe could assume such a superior position over our society.
Tabitha soldiered on. “So when the Conquistador monitoring various interests within Ar Telica noticed glitches in this building’s firewall, it began to pay close attention. After that, Cardinal was informed and they deployed someone on the ground to investigate.”
She stopped walking when she circled back to me.
Standing before me, the girl’s deep brown eyes met mine, and I was in danger of falling into a stupor just by looking at them.
“That would be me…,” Tabitha concluded.
I blinked sharply a couple of times before asking, “Why you?”
Tabitha looked subtly startled for a second, then her gaze swam around the apartment as she fell into thought. “Well…because we’re…friends?”
“You have to be kidding me….”
“Sisters-in-arms, then?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself!” I snapped and felt myself come back to life.
Tabitha shrugged her shoulders indifferently to my heated retort.
I palmed my face a third time, and took a couple of deep breaths, before asking, “You already knew it was me before I broke into the apartment. Correct?”
“No. We determined it was you after you broke into this apartment,” she explained dispassionately.
“But weren’t you watching the interior of the building?”
“You could say the wool was pulled down over our eyes. So it wasn’t possible to see who was interloping. But if you add one plus one, you get two. So it was easy to know who was in here.”
In the corner of my eye, I watched Ghost’s eyes narrow coldly at Tabitha.
I had a very good idea why.
Maestro versus Conquistador, I thought to myself. His pride has been wounded. Then I had another thought. I wonder who’s more powerful.
Shelving the question quickly, I slowly folded my arms under my breasts. “Why are you here? Tell me the real reason.”
“Cardinal has a proposition for you.”
“It does?” I cocked my head as I looked down at Tabitha. “Is it something the Empress put you up to?”
Tabitha lifted a fingertip to her lips and whispered in a detached tone, “I’m not supposed to say.”
Planting my hands on my hips, I regarded the girl with suspicion on my face. “Whatever. Let’s hear it.”
Tabitha sighed. “Nope. Not yet. Certainly not on an empty stomach.”
I stared at her, dressed as she was in a Telos Academy uniform. “What are you talking about? That body is a mechanical. So you don’t eat.”
Tabitha sighed again. “This body is more than just mechanical. Consider it the latest tech from the Pantheon Group. It’s special.”
Again, I stared at her from head to toes. “How special? Wait—the Pantheon Group? Isn’t that a huge military conglomerate?”
“The Pantheon Group is owned by House Aventisse.”
I gasped in shock. “The Empress’s family….”
Tabitha clapped half-hearted. “Bingo, Princess. As such, the Battle Commission occasionally gets equipment from the black technology divisions within the Pantheon Group. Even your military doesn’t have the tech we do. More to the point, we have tech they don’t know about.” Dressed in her uniform, Tabitha assumed a pose that faithfully copied that of Mercy in my framed wall poster, sans bikini. However, she looked so utterly bored it completely ruined the effect. “What do you think? Impressive, ne?”
How can she ask that while making such a face?
Nonetheless, I looked her over yet again. “Nice legs, but your boobs are too small.”
“Yes, well. The designers ignored my enhancement requests. But in answer to your question, I can enjoy food in this body, although it’s somewhat vicarious.”
“This isn’t the same type of body you used back in the match between the Gun Queen and I?”
“This is the covert operations model. Significantly more lifelike. And it doesn’t set off the security scanners when I pass through checkpoints.” She smiled lazily as she stepped up to me. “Squeeze my boobs.”
“What?” I darted back a step. “What are you saying?”
“Don’t you want to know how real they feel? You can compare them to the pair you have.”
Since I wasn’t a girl – merely a boy inside the body of a girl – I should not have reflexively crossed my arms protectively over my chest. But that’s exactly what I did, and having realized that, I dropped my arms in a hurry. “Knock it off. I’m not doing something like that. Mechanical or not, you’re still a girl. Show some modesty.”
“Geh. How dull,” she drawled like a windup toy on its last legs.
“Whatever,” I snapped.
Tabitha held up a finger. “Anyway, as I was saying. I can enjoy a good meal. So let’s have breakfast.”
I stared at her, not bothering to hide my unease. “Fine…but I have no money,” I lied.
“Not a problem. I’ll charge it as a business expense to Cardinal.” Tabitha pointed at the canvas sports bag she’d deposited on my bed. “But first, you should change.”
“What?” I glanced at the bag. “Why?”
“Because there’s a uniform in there.”
Now I edged away from the bag as though it contained a bomb. “A uniform.”
“A Telos Academy uniform.”
I retreated another step from the bag and bed. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“If you put it on, I’ll let in on a secret or two over breakfast.”
“I’m not wearing a uniform.”
“You’ll have to eventually. I understand that you’ve been enrolled at Telos Academy and will be starting on Monday.”
I flinched at being reminded of my impending fate.
She knows about that? Just how much do they know about me?
Tabitha pressed in a mercilessly exhausted manner. “Therefore, you might as well give the uniform a test run.”
“Not a chance.”
“Really?”
A faint spark of life flickered in the girl’s eyes, and I suddenly felt truly uneasy. However, I continued to protest. “There is no way I’m wearing a girl’s uniform. Besides, I’ve been there and done it already.”
“Ah yes. During your stint cosplaying as the female Ronin Kassius.”
“I wasn’t cosplaying—okay, maybe I was.”
Tabitha sighed and then slumped as though she’d expended a month’s worth of energy. “I knew it would come to this.”
She slipped a hand into a dress pocket and retrieved a white slip of paper with black printing that suspiciously resembled a concert ticket.
“Maybe this will change your mind,” she declared wearily and held up the ticket for me to see. “Do you know what this is?”
“A concert ticket?”
“Dinner with Mercy Haddaway as part of a charity promotion she’s organized.”
“Geh!”
I stumbled back and collided with a bookshelf replete with Mercy Haddaway merchandise. “No. No way. You’re lying….”
Tabitha stalked me, and waved the ticket sluggishly before my eyes. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you.”
She didn’t express it like a question because she could already see the answer written on my face.
I did indeed know what that ticket was all about. How could I not? After all, I was Mercy’s self ascribed number one fan.
The story behind that ticket was that people who donated X amount to a charity of Mercy Haddaway’s choice would earn the privilege of a romantic dinner for two with the goddess.
There were only five such dinner events on offer, and the five highest donations would win.
When I read about it on her blog page, I felt the gap between her and me widen to span the star system. The dream of eating dinner with the woman of my dreams was simply that – a dream. And yet here was Tabitha tempting me with a ticket I never believed I would see in my entire life. It was so close to my face that I stared at it cross-eyed.
“You are getting sleepy. Sleepy,” she droned slothfully.
“Stop—stop that!”
“Very sleepy. Your eyes are getting heavy—”
“How—how did you get that ticket?”
“Oh, about that.” Tabitha stopped moving the ticket about. “Cardinal’s Maestro Awareness ran simulations on how best to coerce you into cooperating with us. It decided that Mercy Haddaway was the answer to many problems. So, using the funds allocated to the division for special circumstances, we made a sizeable donation to Mercy’s favorite charity and scored ourselves a ticket in the name of Isabel val Sanreal.” She resumed waving the slip of printed paper in her hand. “This ticket.”
They made the donation in my name? Ah, so they knew my fate in advance. Yeah, of course they did.
I was troubled by that realization, but it wasn’t enough to draw my attention away from the ticket. Seeing double, I struggled to swallow before muttering, “That’s not fair.”
“I have it on good authority that Mercy will be wearing a slinky red number designed by Dolce Gambatta. Guaranteed to expose her soft, luscious curves.”
Hearing Tabitha describe Mercy’s figure as such while sounding half asleep was almost a crime committed upon my goddess.
But rather than express outrage, I shook my head and pressed back into the bookshelf. “No—no way. That’s—that’s too much!”
Tabitha pressed home her advantage. “Think about it. Dinner for two with the girl of your dreams.”
I had trouble swallowing and almost choked. “Dinner…for two….”
Tabitha drew back the ticket a few inches from my face. “And all you have to do is wear the uniform…and hear us out.”
For a racing heartbeat, my attention jumped to the bag lying on my bed before immediately returning to the ticket.
Then I made my fateful decision.
Faster than a cobra could strike, my right arm slashed the air as my hand reached up to steal the ticket from Tabitha.
Fortunately, I moved faster than she could register.
Unfortunately, the ticket tore in two when I snatched it from her fingertips.
That morning, a loud, feminine scream was unexpectedly heard piercing the soundproofed walls of a boy’s apartment on the thirty-fifth floor of a towering residential complex with lovely views of Ar Telica city.
Thank you for hanging in there. I know it's tough, so I applaud you, and sincerely thank you.
For those of you interested in reading or purchasing Book One and Book Two, they can be found on Amazon KDP here:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
They are also available on the Kindle Library.
If you do enjoy them, please, let others know by posting a review. In other words, please, spread the word.
Best wishes to you all.
After I calmed down, Tabitha informed me that the ticket was only a copy, and could be reprinted at any time. What was important was the fact that my donation under the name of Isabel val Sanreal had been registered and accepted.
Apparently, it wasn’t an issue for a girl to be having dinner with Mercy Haddaway.
At the least, Mercy didn’t appear to have a problem with it.
Nonetheless, I was left somewhat disoriented and thus before I knew it I had showered and put on the Telos Academy female uniform provided by Tabitha – including the black, lacy underwear she included.
Oh and before you ask, I dressed myself in the bathroom and I kept the door locked. I had enough presence of mind to keep Tabitha from peeking.
However, it wasn’t until I regarded myself in the full-length mirror mounted on the inside of a hallway closet door that the magnitude of being dressed as a girl in uniform finally struck me.
“What the Hell…?”
Perhaps now is an appropriate time to mention the design of Telos Academy’s uniform for girls.
The summer uniform, which is what I was wearing now, comes in two flavors.
The first is a one-piece dress, dark brown, almost black, that is designed to give the appearance of a combined skirt and blouse, with the tail ends of the blouse flowing over the fake skirt’s waistline. The dress’s hemline ends at the knee, and the blouse bears a distinct ‘sailor girl’ appearance with its white trimmed collar and lapels. The sleeves come in two variants at either short or three-quarter length, and bear the Academy’s emblem printed in white either on the cuffs or the shoulders.
The second flavor of the uniform consists of a separate skirt and blouse, that combine to resemble the one-piece dress in both length and appearance. In other words, the blouse retains the sailor girl look and different sleeve lengths, but is distinct from the skirt. Because of this, it gave the more adventurous girls of the academy the opportunity to flaunt their midriffs, though girls caught wearing a blouse too small for their size faced detention.
In both versions of the uniform the skirt has two zippered pockets, and the blouse is complemented by a short necktie that comes in three colors: white for first years, yellow for second years, and red for third year seniors.
As for the shoes, rather than being dark, boring, and squarish, I found them to be rather stylish and comfortable due to their blend of a deck shoe and a sports sneaker that could be worn with and without socks.
Dressed in the two-piece, long sleeve version of the uniform, I stared at myself in the mirror with a sinking feeling in my gut as I noticed that though the blouse was a perfect fit for my shoulders and arms, Mirai’s abundant chest pushed it out, thus making it appear shorter than it really was and threatening to expose a sliver of my narrow waist.
“What the Hell…?” I repeated while tugged down on the blouse, before glaring at Tabitha. “This is too short.”
“Oh contraire, mon’amie.” Tabitha gave me a dreary thumbs up. “I approve.”
“You approve? Are you serious? I’m not an exhibitionist.”
“There’s nothing wrong with showing off a little skin. Besides, you have nothing to be ashamed off. Most girls would kill to look as good as you do.”
“Yeah. Most girls will want to kill me.”
“You’re a Gun Princess. They’re no match for you.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I glanced at my reflection. “Other than the blouse, I’ll admit everything else fits fine.”
“Including your bra?” she inquired with bored sincerity.
I flushed hotly when I remembered the racy appearance of my underwear. “Y—yeah, that too.” An unpleasant thought jumped up and caught my attention. “How did you know my size?”
“We scanned your body when you were translocated. Remember?”
“Ah…oh. That’s right. You did mention that….”
“I know all your dimensions.”
“Well isn’t that just wonderful!” I lashed out.
Tabitha folded her arms, blithely ignoring my exclamation. “Barefoot, you are one hundred and seventy-four centimeters tall. Your weight is sixty-eight kilograms.”
“Huh? Did you say sixty-eight?”
“Your three sizes are, ninety, fifty-four, eighty.”
“Wait—how can I weigh sixty-eight kilograms? There’s no way I’m that heavy. At least”—I regarded Mirai’s slender body thoughtfully—“I certainly don’t feel heavy.”
“Oh?”
I bit a corner of my lower lip. “I feel as light as a feather….”
Tabitha was quiet for a short while before venturing, “That’s to be expected. You’re a Simulacrum. Your body is extremely strong, so it’s no wonder you feel weightless. As for your skeleton, it’s strong, heavy, yet flexible. How else would you survive so many hits without breaking?”
“I thought that was because of the Angel Fibers.”
“Undoubtedly, they add to your durability.”
Tabitha’s matter-of-fact reply temporarily distracted me from the issue about my weight when I noticed she said durable rather than indestructible.
As I regarded my appearance in the mirror, I asked Tabitha, “How strong do you figure I am?”
“From our observations, you’re easily six or seven times stronger than a girl your size. As for your stamina”—Tabitha snorted softly—“it really is incomparable. You’re not a machine, but you’re no regular Simulacrum either. You’re quite clearly well above the specs of a Master Grade.”
Rather than feeling amazed at Tabitha’s description of my physical abilities, I felt a cold chill run through my body, and it left me with goosebumps all over my skin.
Restraining the urge to rub my arms, I pressed on with a statement I felt was a fact.
“You say that I’m that strong, but I couldn’t close the door on you.”
“That was because I had my foot in the doorway,” Tabitha reminded me. “This body may be mechanical, but if you’d pushed me I wouldn’t have been able to stand my ground.”
“So you believe I can stand toe-to-toe with a Gun Princess.”
“Gun Princesses are built differently to this body I’m operating. They’re a lot stronger, and heavier too. Depending on her internal design, a Gun Princess equivalent to your size can weigh between ninety and a hundred kilos.”
“That’s still light for a machine, right?”
“You consider that light?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Considering how strong you make them out to be, I think they’re rather light.”
“Make them too heavy, and they lose their mobility.”
I wasn’t certain, but I had the suspicion someone had mentioned that to me before. However, unable to remember when and where, I once more ran my gaze over my body reflected in the mirror. While doing so, my mind belatedly remembered what Tabitha had said about my dimensions, and I regarded my chest with sudden mixed feelings.
“Bust ninety.” I breathed deeply and released it slowly, but failed to expel my troubled emotions. “One centimeter bigger than Mercy.”
“Yes, you beat her in that category,” Tabitha nodded sagely. “You’re also two centimeters taller than her.”
I realized I was starting to feel embarrassed comparing myself to my goddess, and my heart began to thump loudly in my chest. Quickly closing the closet door with the mirror fitted to it, I then leaned against the closet, and waited a short while for my heart to relax. But when it refused to comply, I chose to distract myself by focusing on the next problem.
Straightening where I stood, I faced Tabitha who had resumed wearing a droopy expression.
“Okay. I’m dressed. Now what?” I asked, grateful my voice was steady and not influenced by my pounding heart.
“Now breakfast,” she replied without hesitation.
Her reply failed to ease my heart in the least. If anything, it thump louder. That was because I knew what she meant – leaving the confines of the apartment and heading out into the world dressed as a high school girl attending Telos Academy.
Tabitha handed me the sports bag. “I put your other clothes inside.”
By other clothes, she was referring to the attire I’d pilfered from the charity donation bins.
I took the bag, slung the straps over my right shoulder, then hesitated for a handful of seconds before walking to the middle of the apartment’s living area. I gave the place I’d called home for three years a long, lasting look, while Tabitha waited silently at the entrance to the hallway.
Turning one last time in a full circle, I took a couple of deep breaths.
Was it Shakespeare that said parting is such sweet sorrow?
If so, I found myself disagreeing.
There was nothing sweet about the hollow, empty feeling in my chest that pressed upon my lungs and back, making it uncomfortable to breathe.
I understood part of the nature of my distress.
This apartment had indeed been home to me for three years, and yet there was not one memento of myself or my family in evidence. The bookshelves and walls were replete with memorabilia dedicated to Mercy Haddaway, but not a single photo of I, my sister, or my parents was anywhere to be found.
Why was that?
Because I had chosen to turn my back on them, just as they had abandoned me.
I wasn’t an orphan, yet I had preferred to think of myself as one.
The end result was a dorm apartment that held no memories or lingering attachment to my family. But it also held no attachment to Ronin Kassius either. As Tabitha had pointed out upon arrival, it was a temple dedicated to Mercy Haddaway.
When I acknowledged this, my ambivalence toward staying or leaving shifted slightly in favor of a swift exit, and so I made my way to the hallway where Tabitha waited.
As I walked past the girl on my way to the apartment’s door at the end of the hallway, Tabitha raised an eyebrow and asked, “You’re not going to take something? A keepsake?”
I stopped and shrugged my shoulders. “There’s nothing here that belongs to me.”
“True. There’s nothing here that belongs to Mirai or Isabel val Sanreal. However—”
I threw her a scowl over a shoulder. “That’s right. There’s nothing here that belongs to Mirai or Isabel, and that’s who I am now.”
The lethargy Tabitha was displaying faded away and she spoke in a firm tone. “It’s true that your body is not that of Ronin Kassius. But you are the holder, the bearer, of his memories. Don’t dismiss them so easily.”
I turned away and faced the door. “I’m not going to forget who I was. But I need to accept the way things are now.”
Tabitha sighed, a first for her, and moments later I heard her walk into the bathroom. She came out a few seconds later, and handed me something that I quickly recognized as my toothbrush. I started to laugh but caught myself when I looked at her serious, uncompromising expression as she continued to hold out the toothbrush. Unexpectedly, I had the impression she would take it for herself if I chose not to accept it, and that didn’t sit well with me.
“Fine. I’ll take…,” I grumbled softly.
Watching me intently, Tabitha’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly when I hesitated for a heartbeat just before plucking the toothbrush from her palm. Though I fumbled a little when opening the unfamiliar skirt’s left zipper, I was able to slip the toothbrush inside, and then tug the zipper back up without having to drop the sports bag to the floor.
Looking at Tabitha, I gave her a curt nod and then shrugged my shoulders, wanting to shake off the mood and the moment. “Lead the way,” I muttered.
At my invitation, Tabitha opened the door at the far end of the hallway, and exited out into the corridor.
I followed her out of the apartment, missing a step when I heard the door close and lock behind me.
A sense of finality washed through me then, squeezing my heart, and I held tightly onto the straps of the sports bag as I walked down the wide corridor. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to restrain me from looking behind me at the closed door, and it wasn’t until I’d rounded a bend and arrived at the elevator bank at the southeast corner of the building that I finally began to breathe a little easier as my troubled feelings began to settle like sediment at the bottom of a pond.
However, I soon had something else to keep my mind occupied as a new problem reared its unpleasant head.
Originally, female students of Telos Academy had been assigned to the north side of the dormitory building. To be specific, they were allotted apartments in the northwest, north, and northeast sides of the complex. The male students were thus distributed to the southwest, south, and southeast sections of the megascraper.
However, and I don’t know why this happened, it was decided a few years ago that girls and boys would be allocated to separate floors, rather than segregating them to the north and south sides of the immense building.
Naturally, this resulted in a widespread reallocation of the dormitory apartments, and the disruptive move was conducted over the span of end-of-year summer break.
I was spared having to experience this period of upheaval because I had yet to transfer to the academy, but I’ve heard stories about how difficult the transition was with thousands of girls and guys lugging boxes and belongs up and down the building. Undoubtedly, they were all supervised by academy staff, and mover bots had been called in to assist the students, but even with six wide stairwells, twelve people elevators, and four freight elevators in service, it proved to be a monumental undertaking fraught with arguing and bickering between harried, flustered, and frustrated students.
However, as consequence of this significant change to the distribution of students within the building, girls and boys found themselves sharing both stairwells and elevators as they travelled up and down the enormous megascraper. Yet, it was uncommon for two female students to be encountered waiting for an elevator on a floor reserved for male students.
Thus, Tabitha and I attracted curious glances from the guys who arrived to wait at the elevator on the southeast side of the building. However, while they chatted softly to each other, none of them made an attempt to speak to us, though that wasn’t to say they weren’t staring at us with interest, especially since my dress skirt appeared to a little shorter than regulation.
I had no doubt that Tabitha was responsible for that.
When staring at myself in the mirror, I had noticed the skirt was tad shorter, but then tossed it into the ‘my imagination’ basket when I compared it to Tabitha’s dress.
However, now that I was standing by the elevator doors, I realized I’d been duped.
Tabitha had hitched up her skirt, and then dropped it once we left the dorm apartment.
I truly felt like punching her but that would serve no purpose since she was operating a mechanical body. To be truly effective, I would need to unleash my anger upon her real body. On the other hand, venting upon her mechanical form wasn’t such a bad thing as I could pound her to my satisfaction. But instead, I clenched my hands tightly and endured the attention I was drawing, all of which was making me as self-conscious as during my stint cosplaying – I mean cross-playing – as Princess Silver Blue over a year ago.
However, back then I could always escape the identity of Silver Blue.
That wasn’t an option for me anymore.
I was stuck as Mirai or Isabel, drawing attention like honey to a bear, and it wasn’t my imagination running rampant due to my insecurities and self-consciousness. I really was garnering interest, more so than Tabitha, and feeling the gazes from the handful of guys around us crawl over my body, I neared breaking point when the lift suddenly announced its arrival.
As the doors opened, I was presented with a new problem.
The lift had passengers, and if everyone waiting on this floor boarded it, the situation would be a crowded one. Compounded with the prospect of riding an elevator loaded with students, nearly all of whom happened to be male – with the exception of Tabitha – it was more than I could handle.
Whirling on the spot, I fled down the corridor, cutting a beeline for the wide stairwell.
There were more male students ahead, something to be expected since it was now a little before eight a.m. and the student body would be making the morning journey to Telos Academy.
Again, the presence of a girl on a male dominated floor raised a number of eyebrows – what with my flustered appearance – but I ducked my head and barreled past the guys who’d paused to stare at me. Hurrying down the steps, at times pushing my way between students, their faces an indistinct blur, I don’t remember how many floors I descended before I belatedly noticed I was surrounded by girls. I quickly realized I had arrived at the building levels allocated to female students was soon swallowed into their midst.
Girls can be quite receptive to their environment, and it wasn’t long before a number of them noticed my state of distress, and indeed I was distressed.
I couldn’t understand it.
I had disguised myself as a female student before.
I had walked the city streets during the early morning hours.
And I had endured combat as a Gun Princess clad in a black and purple bodysuit that emphasized Mirai’s curves.
Yet not once had I experienced the degree of anxiety that I felt now, and I struggled to understand it.
What was wrong with me?
Was this an early sign of agoraphobia? Was it a side effect of mapping a male mind into a female brain? Or was something else at play?
While lying in bed, I had wondered why I didn’t feel like I was wearing the wrong skin, so was this an indication that the gender dysphoria I had expected to suffer was manifesting under a different guise?
Or was it because I subconsciously feared that I would be seen right through?
Was it because I was terrified they would see me as I guy with the appearance of a girl?
Would they see me as a freak?
As my fears and insecurities tumbled through my head, I almost took a tumble myself when my right foot missed a step, causing my left foot to slip behind me. But I was saved by the girls around me, who reacted quickly and spared me a nasty fall by grabbing onto my arms.
“Hey? You okay?”
“Watch your step.”
“You go down, we all go down.”
They had a point. The stairs were wide, but they were crowded and growing more so by the minute as a few thousand students descended the building as they embarked on their journey to Telos Academy. If I fell down the steps here, I’d be certain to take a few girls with me.
Steadying myself on my two feet, I nodded once more, and quietly thanked the girls for their support. Then I noticed one of the girls, a willowy blonde with deep blue eyes, frown at me, then peer at me intently.
Abruptly, her eyes widened sharply and she exclaimed, “Hah!”
The girls around her stared at her in confusion.
“Hey, Sierra. What’s up with you—?”
“I can’t believe it!” The willowy blonde snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “I know you. You’re my brother’s favorite bikini girl!”
I gasped loudly and jerked back in shock, before hastily rejecting her declaration. “No, no, no! Definitely not!” I shook my head and waved my hands. “I’ve never worn a bikini in my life!”
That was indeed the truth.
A bra and panties, yes, but a bikini. No, sir.
However, my denial fell on deaf ears.
“Of course you have,” the girl overruled me. “You’re that chick in his posters.”
The girls around her traded looks before turning to face me.
A brunette with a short bob nodded thoughtfully as she studied my appearance. “You know, I think she’s right. It is her.”
Sierra was nodding eagerly now. “Of course I am. That jerk’s room is full of her stuff. Remember, I showed you what his room is like.”
The girls surrounding her began to nod.
I waved my hands at them. “No, no. I’m definitely not her! I just look like her—I mean, I resemble her! I just resemble her!”
Sierra ignored my attempt to repudiate her, and threw her friends a glance. “That idiot spent his summer working, then spent a chunk of that money on her holovid collection.”
The brunette with the bob asked, “Didn’t he line up for a couple of hours to meet her when she was promoting something?”
“Oh, last year’s handshake event.”
I froze for a moment thinking, Was it that handshake event?
Another girl started to giggle madly. “Sierra, your brother will wet his pants knowing she’s here.”
“Hey, let’s call him.” A fourth girl with dark blonde hair and amber eyes pulled out her slim phone from a skirt pocket.
“You have his number,” the brunette inquired with a visible scowl. “Why do you have his number?”
“Oh, ah, well,” the girl with amber eyes fumbled for a reply. “Well, he—he gave it to me.”
“He gave it to you?”
“Why would he give you his number?”
“Hey, Karen, is there something you’re not telling us?”
Under the combined pressure from her friends, the girl began to flee while making the call. “No—there’s nothing going on. Nothing to tell.”
“Why are you running away?” one of her companions asked.
Sierra clapped her hands. “Girls, focus please.” Quickly stepping closer to me on the stairs, she studied me keenly. “You’re Mercy. Mercy Haddaway.”
I raised my hands higher. “I keep telling you I’m not—”
“Mercy!” A bored voice called out loudly from above me. “There you are. Why did you run away?”
I jerked sharply and then hastily looked around.
Mercy Haddaway is here? Why is she here—?
Then the proverbial penny dropped.
Wait—that voice! Damn her!
I haltingly turned to look up the stairs behind me to see Tabitha standing on the overhead landing, wearing a languid façade. Yet behind it, I could see a faint smile curling the ends of her mouth.
“Mercy, what did I tell you about running away?” she droned. “I warned you about attracting too much attention.”
The girls on the steps weren’t the only ones that had stopped.
It was fair to say that all traffic on the stairs had come to a standstill, and dozens of faces now turned to look at me.
“Sheesh,” Tabitha sighed lethargically. “Deciding to play high school even at your age. What were you thinking?”
“What do you mean, my age?” I snapped unhappily. “And stop calling me Mercy—huh? What?”
The sounds of phone cameras shuttering away ripped my attention away from the woman pouring gasoline into the proverbial fire.
In dismay, I stared at the students – mostly guys – taking snaps of me.
“…that’s her…?”
“…shit. That’s Mercy, right…?”
“…never thought I’d see her in person….”
“…why’s she wearing a uniform…?”
“…she’s going to our school…?”
“…but I thought she was older than us….”
“…who cares. I got no problem with older women….”
“…damn. Check out her rack….”
“…she’s bigger in real life….”
“…what a slut. Look at her skirt….”
“…that’s way shorter than allowed….”
“…someone’s going to get in trouble today….”
“…I want her legs….”
“…shut up, Christine….”
“…I want her breasts….”
“…shut up, Megan….”
Everywhere I looked, students from Telos Academy were either taking photos or talking about me—no, about Mercy – and being the center of attention brought back traumatic memories from a year ago.
It was the Princess Silver Blue experience all over again.
Except this time I was being mistaken for Mercy Haddaway.
“I—I’m not her. I’m not, Mercy. I’m not…I’m…I’m….”
The commotion drowned out my denial. It didn’t help that my voice had failed me and fallen to a whisper.
The straps of the sports bag I’d been carrying slipped off my shoulders and the bag hit the ground as I stumbled back against the guardrail in the middle of the stairwell.
“…please…stop it…I’m not her….”
The girl, Sierra, had been staring at the students gathering on the stairs, but sensing my retreat, a look of concern crossed her face when she noticed my mounting distress.
“I…I’m not her…stop it….”
From within me, the urge to flee welled up.
But just before it reached critical mass, Sierra lunged toward me without warning, grabbed my right hand, and pulled me along as she descended the steps at a near run, her school carry-bag bouncing at her hip.
“Hurry!” she yelled.
Overwhelmed by the situation, I presented no resistance as I hurried down the steps with her.
After descending a few floors, Sierra exited the stairwell with me in tow, and turned sharply down a wide corridor.
“This way,” she insisted, her grip firm on my hand.
Addled, it took me a while to realize this was a first for me – being pulled along by a girl by the hand.
If this had happened to me while I was Ronin Kassius, I might have died happily.
It didn’t hurt that Sierra was actually quite pretty.
At the least, my male mind thought of her in such a way.
Half walking, half running, Sierra led me to a T-intersection. Turning into the branching corridor, I saw a set of wide translucent doors at the far end, and recognized what lay beyond them as a bridgeway connecting this apartment complex to its southern neighbor. This I knew because of Mirai’s bird-like ability to sense magnetic north, thus I was able to tell our direction of travel as though I had a compass in my head.
Her hand is soft.
I glanced down at it as we passed through the entrance into the bridgeway, its perma-glass doors silently parting aside.
It feels warm.
Because I was looking at Sierra’s hand, I only glimpsed the view outside of the bridgeway, and again that was only because of Mirai’s abnormally wide field-of-vision. Yet, the scenery of towering buildings failed to draw away my attention, distracted as I was by Sierra and her hand wrapped around mine.
It wasn’t until we’d traversed the bridgeway and entered the adjoining building that my composure began to recover.
Hesitantly, but then forcefully, I rapidly slowed to a halt.
“Please—please, stop,” I called out to Sierra.
Unprepared for the strength I demonstrated, the girl’s feet slipped on the smooth floor. However, she caught her balance quickly, supported by the hold she had on my hand.
“Woh—that was fast,” she muttered then regarded me curiously. “You’re pretty strong.”
“Sorry.” I apologized for almost causing her to fall, yet felt uncomfortable when she called me ‘strong’.
You have no idea what I can do, I mused with troubled feelings.
Sierra released my hand, and dropped her weight onto a hip. Folding her arms, she regarded me studiously, and I grew quickly uncomfortable under her intense gaze.
“What…?” I asked her.
“You can tell me the truth. You are Mercy Haddaway, aren’t you?”
I exhaled loudly and my body wilted. “Look. I’m not Mercy.”
“Oh really.”
“Why would Mercy be dressed in a school uniform? Why would she even be in this building? And she’s too old to be attending high school.”
True. Despite her teenage looks, Mercy was twenty-three years old.
I attributed her youthful appearance as the product of exceptional genes.
Sierra nodded subtly. “Okay. I get that. But you look like her.”
“I am well aware of that,” I grumbled.
“So if you’re not Mercy, who are you?”
I blinked sharply for a second then felt my composure – what little of it there was – washed away by a wave of misery frothed by disquiet.
“That’s…a really good question…,” I whispered.
“Huh?” Sierra cocked her head at me. “Do you have a name?”
I blinked sharply again. “A name?”
“Yes, a name.” Sierra frowned at me. “What is wrong with you?” she muttered, half to herself and half to me.
I snorted softly, and glanced away. Where do I even begin?
But as I averted my attention, my gaze glimpsed my reflection in the polished façade of a nearby wall. Giving myself another long look, I noticed the harried state of my appearance, and the distressed aura I was radiating.
I shook my head slowly.
This isn’t good. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t fall into a funk like this.
I turned away from my reflection, closed my eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths.
Keep it together. And stop being so afraid. I don’t have to be so afraid. After what I’ve gone through already, this should be a piece of cake.
Opening my eyes, I met Sierra’s gaze. “I’m not Mercy Haddaway.”
Sierra’s frown grew crooked. “Okay…so who are you?”
Who am I?
I held back a sigh, or rather, dispelled it under my breath.
“I’m Isabel.”
I offered Sierra my right hand in greeting.
“Isabel val Sanreal.”
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Before Sierra could accept my greeting, I heard a song begin to play from nearby.
I recognized it after a dozen or so bars as a catchy pop tune sung by a trendsetting young chick by the name of Ami Amuro.
Before you ask, yes, I was introduced to her by the girls in my class last year.
Remember, they never really saw me as a boy, so I was included in many girl discussions.
And no, I do not own Ami’s posters or music. Her songs were catchy, but they weren’t my cup-of-tea.
In any event, Sierra looked startled for a heartbeat before pulling her phone out of a skirt pocket. After reading whatever was displayed on it, she gave me a quick smile, muttered, “Gimme a sec”, then walked away a handful of steps to answer the call.
Deciding to give her the privacy she needed, I took a look at my surroundings, then slowly wandered deeper into the building.
I’d lived in the apartment complex for three and a bit years, yet I’d never set foot in any of its neighbors. Thus, it was my first time inside the megascraper to the south of the dorm pyramid. The building was hexagonal – no surprises there – and open in the middle with an atrium that extended from the ground floor to the highest level. Balconies overlooked the open space of the atrium at each floor, and after peering up and down the center of the building, I guessed the complex had some fifty floors to its credit. Not the tallest megascraper in the city, but taller than a few.
Leaning on the balcony guardrail that circumnavigated the hexagonal atrium, I looked around at the commercial shops located on the current floor, and regarded those visible to me on the two floors above and below me. I could see restaurants, cafés, a handful of fast food outlets, a few mini-marts, and an assortment of clothing boutiques and photronic goods retailers. The rest of the floors appeared to be home to businesses, and I presumed the top levels held luxurious residential suites. It seemed that only the commercial premises were located on these three floors because of the bridgeways on this level that connected the building to its neighbors.
Wondering what floor I was on, I looked around to see Level 20 indicated above the entrance to the bridgeway that Sierra and I had used to enter this building.
That surprised me, as I didn’t realize I’d descended so many floors while in a daze.
But it was more shocking to know that Sierra hadn’t broken a sweat on the mad dash down the stairs.
I cocked my head slightly as my mind was tickled by a memory.
Come to think of it, isn’t she—
“Princess, might I have a moment of your time?”
Ghost had reverted to interacting with me in voice-only mode. I had no idea why. Perhaps he felt it would be less distracting for me. Whenever his image was superimposed into my vision, I had a natural tendency to look at him when he spoke to me. Not good when I was in the presence of other people who probably suspected there was something wrong with me as my eyes kept looking away from them. However, while there were other people coming and going from the cafés and shops on this level, there was no one else in my immediate vicinity.
“What?” I whispered, keeping my attention on the vista across the open expanse in the middle of the building.
“Might I show you something?”
“Show me?”
“Yes. You may find this a little distracting. Please bear with it, Princess.”
“What are you—ah?”
I gasped when multiple holovid windows popped up in my vision. For all intents and purposes, it was as though they were floating before me, but instead they were being projected into my eyes or rather into Mirai’s brain where it processed images.
“Wow….”
“I believe the term is…cool.”
I blinked a few times, giving myself a moment to grow accustomed to the sight of holovid windows that moved in conjunction with my line of sight.
I swallowed quickly and asked, “So what am I seeing”—then the penny dropped—”…oh….”
“Yes, indeed. Oh is a most appropriate verbal reaction….”
I pressed my lips together, feeling my stomach sink as I looked at each window and read what they were displaying.
An unexpected Mercy Haddaway sighting was making a splash on social media.
Rather, as her approximate Doppelganger, I was making a splash on social media.
Each of the holovids was showing me comment after comment that spread from those who saw me in the stairwell to their online friends who then shared the news. The more degrees of separation from the source, the further from the truth the retelling deviated. For example, someone wrote they’d heard I was traipsing up and down the building wearing only a bikini and high heels.
“What the Hell?”
Right now there was a hunt being organized to find Mercy Haddaway and collect her academy uniform as a memento.
“What the frekking Hell?”
“I agree, Princess. You have made quite an impression on the impressionable students of Telos Academy.”
I grimaced. “That’s because they’re a bunch of retards.”
Ghost was silent for a moment. “Princess, allow me to ask you this. How would you react had you sighted Mercy Haddaway no more than ten feet away, clad in a school uniform?”
My grimace froze on my face. “Well…I guess…I’d…take lots of photos?”
“…is that all…?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have glomped her!”
“Oh, really?”
“Hey—don’t mix me in with this mob!” I pointed at the holovids though they weren’t floating around me, but the net effect was more or less the same from my point of view. “Organizing a hunting party? What the Hell is up with that? What am I? A rare exotic beast?”
“Princess, do you not mean a rare exotic beauty?”
“Ah, yeah. That as well….”
“There is something else I must show you.”
“What? There’s more good news?”
One holovid window pushed the others aside, moving front and center, then quickly enlarged to fill half my vision.
I saw that it was a gossip column, the kind that reported on society’s high life in Ar Telica and around the world. The article on display had a photo of a girl that looked remarkably like Mercy, and remarkably like me, alighting from a VTOL and wearing a dark safety jacket with fluorescent strips.
I read the caption above the photo.
SANREAL HEIRESS ARRIVES IN AR TELICA.
I read the caption below the photo.
ISABEL VAL SANREAL, YOUNGEST HEIRESS TO THE SANREAL FORTUNE, ARRIVES IN AR TELICA TO BEGIN A NEW LIFE.
“…great…,” I whispered.
“There is more, Princess.”
Another holovid pushed aside the window and took center stage in my vision.
Another photo of me on the landing platform but from a different angle.
The caption above the image read, FROM RAGS TO RICHES – ISABEL VAL SANREAL LANDS ON TELORIA.
“Is this a setup?” I asked softly, my voice lost in the low din of my surroundings.
Yet Ghost heard me and replied, “No, Princess. Your identity has been established. With this, your existence as a member of the Sanreal Family is being promoted. In addition, it will serve to distinguish you from Mercy Haddaway while drawing comparisons to her.”
I wet my lips slowly and murmured, “They should never have made Mirai in Mercy’s image.”
Whatever Ghost was thinking, he kept to himself.
I wet my lips again as I read the article. Then I noticed something odd.
“All these photos were supplied by the Sanreals, right? I mean, they don’t show me wearing torn clothing.”
Back aboard the VTOL, the Cat Princess and I had scuffled, leading to my top being ripped. A member of the ground crew had handed me his jacket, which was now in the sports bag I’d left behind on the stairs of the dorm building. The photos accompanying the articles had been captured after I’d slipped into the jacket.
“I would assume as much,” Ghost stated. “Your state of undress would have made for bad publicity.”
Remember how I’d been hiding my chest with my arms, I blushed hotly.
“Thanks for reminding me,” I grumbled.
I was a male consciousness mapped into a female body, but that didn’t mean I didn’t possess a sense of shame or embarrassment.
At a subsequent thought, I asked Ghost, “Won’t the ground crew remember that I wasn’t saintly in appearance?”
“Even if they do, none of them were busy taking snaps of you as you disembarked from the VTOL. Furthermore, I believe they would know better than to risk releasing images of you in a compromising appearance. The Sanreals do have an army of lawyers to threaten people into silence.”
“Oh….” I cocked my head at the images in the articles. “So then these photos were taken by?”
“Undoubtedly by photographers hired by the Sanreals.”
I shook my head as I rubbed a temple. “Okay. So what now?”
“A very good question, Princess—ah, you have company.”
“Who are you talking to?” a girl’s voice asked from behind me.
I stiffened in surprise, and then spun around to see Sierra standing a couple of feet away. At the same time, the holovid windows in my vision vanished, no longer obstructing my view of the world, and I saw Sierra looking at me with a perplexed expression.
I waved a hand quickly. “Nobody. Nobody at all.”
Sierra’s confused expression grew visibly suspicious of me. “Ah huh.”
Behind her, I saw a group of girls hurrying toward us, triggering within me the urge to flee. But then I noticed the brunette with the stylish bob, and recognized her as one of the girls on the stairwell. They arrived in short order, and stopped in disarray behind and around Sierra.
The brunette with short hair warned Sierra, “You shouldn’t run off like that.”
“Hey, who are you? My mother?” Sierra retorted, looking slightly miffed.
“You know what your doctor said,” the brunette replied.
Sierra stiffened visibly, then waved a hand lightly at the brunette. “I’m fine, Maria. I’m fine.”
“Not fine enough to return to the—”
“I said I’m fine,” the willowy blonde stressed then turned away from the shorter girl. “I’m not pushing myself at all….”
My eyes widened as I remembered who this girl was, but I pressed my lips together and held my silence, waiting until the moment the tension between the two girls had eased and I could intercede.
“I’m sorry, but I need to go,” I announced firmly.
“Go? Go where?” the brunette inquired.
“None of your business,” I answered her with an abrupt edge to my voice.
“Nice attitude,” the brunette snarked.
I felt anger well up in me, and after clamping a lid on it, I strode up to the shorter girl and glared down at her. It actually felt nice to be looking down at girl rather than upwards. There was also the fact that Mirai had a much, much bigger chest than the brunette with a bob.
“Are you giving me lip?” I asked harshly. “After the shit you people pulled and announced to the world that I was Mercy Haddaway—who I am not—I’m now the number one morning topic on the CyWeb. And now you’re going to give me more shit?”
“Hey, take it down—”
“Shut up,” I growled at her. “I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything. And you”—I pointed at her meagre chest—“don’t talk back to me.”
Sierra held her up hands placatingly and tried to step between the shorter Maria and I. “Okay, okay. Look that was my fault. I mistook you for Mercy Haddaway. No need to fight. Maria, stop interrogating people. That’s a really annoying habit you have.”
“I’m not interrogating. I was simply asking a question.” The brunette continued meeting my glare, and I had no intention of letting up on it.
In the corner of my eye, Sierra sighed. “Yeah, well. You can be pretty cutting when you want to be.”
“Why are you taking her side?” Maria snapped at Sierra, and in my peripheral vision I noticed the other girls nod in agreement.
“I’m not taking her side,” Sierra protested calmly. It made me wonder if she was accustomed to being accused as such or she was innately with a calm persona. Maybe she knew it was better to deal with the fiesta Maria this way, and not meet anger with anger.
However, seeing how Sierra was handling the situation made me consider that I wasn’t approaching the encounter in the best possible way. I also didn’t feel that a confrontation with the fiery brunette was worth my time or effort. In other words, it wasn’t in my best interests to be drawn into a protracted argument with her.
I quietly turned and began walking away.
I had better things to do with my time, though if you asked me ‘what?’ I wouldn’t be able to give you a good answer, although—
Breakfast does sound like a good idea.
“Hey, Isabel, wait,” Sierra called out to my back.
I slowed to a stop and looked over a shoulder at an anxious Sierra a few feet behind me. “What now? You want me to pose for photos? Want to plaster them on your MyBook page?”
“No, not at all. Though my brother wouldn’t mind a photo or two.”
“You do realize I could get arrested for impersonating Mercy even though I’m not trying to impersonate her.”
Maria snorted. “I guess it sucks to be you.”
I frowned at her. “You have no idea how right you are.”
She gave me a crooked smile. “I was being sarcastic.”
“I wasn’t. It really does suck to be me.” I turned and began walking away—again.
“Jeez, what an attitude,” Maria quipped.
Attitude? You want attitude? I’ll give you attitude!
I may have thought that, but it didn’t stop me from leaving her behind.
“Isabel,” Sierra called out. “Wait—at least let me apologize.”
Once again, I slowed to a stop. After expelling a sigh – mostly at myself since I really had no reason to halt and listen to the girl other than it felt rude not to do so – I half turned and stared at her over my left shoulder. “Apologize? How?”
Sierra glanced away before hastily replying, “How about breakfast?”
At the thought of food, I felt my stomach twinge. “…maybe….”
“Okay,” she eagerly clapped at my non-committal answer as though she’d been thrown a lifeline. “Then let’s go for breakfast.” She turned to the girls around her. “How does that sound?”
A slender girl with ash blonde hair and long toned limbs meekly raised a hand. “Ah, Sierra. We have to check in at the club before homeroom.”
“Yeah, we don’t have practice in the morning, but the seniors want us all there today,” added a slim redhead with pale skin and shoulder length hair. “Something about promoting the club and picking up new recruits to fill up the ranks. Ah—” The girl suddenly blanched before hastily averting her attention.
I noticed Sierra gape a little then break into an awkward smile. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I heard the recruitment campaign is next week.” Her smile grew sheepish as she ran a hand through her long blonde hair. “Sorry. Forgot. My bad.”
I realized I was frowning and cleared it away from my forehead, but I was noticed by Maria who had been watching me with a veiled glare.
Ignoring her, I regarded Sierra carefully.
So it is her—the Sprint Queen.
Feeling another frown on the cusp of breaking out, I bit my lower lip instead and wondered if the girl had forgotten her companions had club activities or if there was another motive at play.
Doesn’t matter. Not my problem.
I may have thought as much, yet I noticed the girl was wearing a short white tie like I was, indicating she was a first-year high schooler. Yet her companions – including the somewhat hostile Maria – wore yellow ties, signifying they were second year students.
I guess she repeated a year. I didn’t think her injuries were that bad.
My gaze was drawn down to her legs.
Maybe I was wrong.
While the other girls’ legs were bare, Sierra was wearing sheer dark stockings.
Not my problem, I muttered inwardly.
And yet, though I had the opportunity to leave, I remained standing where I was and watched Sierra who in turn watched her friends – sans Maria – excuse themselves and bid her adieu.
I looked at Maria and asked, “Don’t you have a club to go to?”
She folded her arms across her meagre chest and smiled thinly. “I’m a proud member of the Going Home Club.”
“Admirable.” I felt an unpleasant kinship with this girl.
Maria narrowed her eyes slightly. “Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all. I was member of the same club too. Three years running. Never missed a day. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Not entirely true. While I never attended a day of club, I didn’t always go home directly from school. But the point was that I never attended a day of club activities.
Wait—does cross-playing as Silver Blue count as a club activity?
I wasn’t a member of the Cosplay Club, so perhaps I was in the clear.
“Now you’re really mocking me,” Maria narrowed her eyes further.
“If I’m mocking you, then I’m mocking myself as well.”
Sierra cautiously asked, “Does this mean you’re getting along?”
Both Maria and I glanced at the girl before resuming to stare at each other.
After a while I stepped up to the brunette with the bob cut.
“I’m Isabel.” I offered her my hand. “Isabel val Sanreal.”
Maria’s eyes widened slightly but I couldn’t tell if she was reacting to my greeting or to my name.
However, after a few seconds of silent contemplation, she reached out and shook my hand.
“Maria Palermo del Castillo.”
I realized I was starting to grin.
“What?” she snapped. “Have a problem with my name?”
“No. Not at all. I think it sounds kinda cool.”
“Heh?” Maria’s handshake grew limp for a moment, before she hastily withdrew her hand and arm. “Well…if you think so….”
“Bravo, Lady Isabel. Bravo. How magnanimous of you.”
My innards clenched at the sound of that lackluster voice.
“You…,” I grumbled as I watched Tabitha approach us from the direction of the bridgeway.
The mechanical girl wore an exhausted look as she glanced at Maria before asking me, “Did you make new friends?”
This earned her a darkly suspicious glower from Maria. The girl looked ready to retort but held herself back when she glanced at me, perhaps noticing the acutely unhappy look I was giving Tabitha who trudged toward me.
“You left this behind, Lady Isabel,” Tabitha said, tossing me the sports bag containing my pilfered belongings.
I caught it by the straps, my hand and arm blurring in the process, something that visibly shocked Sierra and Maria. However, I chose to ignore their reactions and instead focus on the troublesome mechanical girl. “I’m not going to thank you.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to.”
“So now you’re calling me Isabel? You’re not going to call me Mercy again?” I asked.
“That was then. This is now.”
“Thanks to you, I’m a social media hit.”
“Oh, that’ll blow over.” Tabitha shrugged. “Eventually.”
I clenched my jaw, and the urge to turn her into scrap metal made me tremble for a moment or two.
Tabitha held up her phone for me to see. “Besides, Isabel val Sanreal makes for more interesting news.”
“I doubt that,” I muttered as my attention was drawn to the news article displayed on her phone. “I’ve already seen it.”
“You have?” Tabitha looked mildly surprised. But given her understated nature, I heard warning bells ring in my head when I noticed she was showing any surprise at all.
Knowing that I’d slipped up, I decided not to make excuses for it. “So the world knows about me now. Big deal.”
“Well, some people may find this of interest.” Tabitha shrugged again and then turned to show the silent Sierra, and the irritated Maria, the article on her phone. “Ladies. Take a bow. You are in the honored presence of Lady Isabel val Sanreal—”
Eyes wide, I reached out for Tabitha’s phone. “Hey!”
“—one of the richest girls on the planet.”
I snatched the device from her hand. Actually, I should have punched her instead. Either way, the damage was done.
Then again, they would have learned about me eventually.
After staring at me for a short while with a blend of confusion and surprise on their faces, Sierra and Maria cautiously retrieved their phones and began thumbing through their respective screens.
Tabitha smiled like it was a chore. “That’s Isabel spelled I-S-A-B-E-L.”
I sighed and pondered just how far Tabitha would fly if I punched her now.
Would I break a hand?
“Princess. A moment please.”
Startled, I feared my reaction had been noticed but both girls were intently working their phones, and Tabitha was stifling a yawn.
“What…?” I whispered out the side of my mouth.
“Please hold onto that phone for a while longer.”
I didn’t bother asking why. I would do that later. But then I wondered if Ghost was covertly hacking into Tabitha’s phone.
What could he possibly find in there?
In the meantime, Sierra looked up from her phone and stared at me intently with disbelief before asking, “You…are you really—?”
“Of course she is,” Tabitha answered in my stead before I could decide whether to punch her or not. “It’s only natural that a beauty like her would be the daughter heir of one of the richest families in the colonized systems.”
Maria’s head bobbed slowly as she alternated between looking up at me and down at her phone. “No way. This is a joke, right?”
Tabitha smiled drearily at me. “Don’t you find her reaction priceless?”
“I find you annoying,” I growled at her. “Did you have to go this far?”
“Call it a test of character,” Tabitha replied, then she raised a finger weakly. “Think of it as sign of things to come.”
I felt my innards tighten as I realized what she was implying.
How will the student body react to me come Monday morning?
But there was another side to the coin.
How will I react to them…come Monday morning?
As the worrying thoughts crossed my mind, I noticed Sierra was looking at me with a complicated expression. When our eyes met, the girl swallowed then hesitantly stepped closer to me.
“Is this really you?” she asked, and held her phone out for me to see its screen.
I briefly considered lying to her, until I noticed the faintly troubled look on Sierra’s face. It was subtle – something in the way her eyes met mine – but it made me reconsider lying. I also realized that lying to her was akin to lying to myself. I’d be running away from my decision to accept my role as Isabel val Sanreal.
Swallowing quietly, I gave Sierra a faint nod. “Yeah, that’s me.”
The girl blinked slowly a number of times. “Are you…rich?”
Her question made me wince. It was fleeting, but I was certain Sierra noticed it because she was looking at me intently with that veiled discomfit I’d noticed moments ago. Honestly, the light in her eyes troubled me and because of it I was unsure of how to respond. I had the impression she was reluctant for an answer yet wanted one all the same.
Does my identity as Isabel bother her? Or is it something else?
Eventually, I nodded again and replied, “Yeah, I’m rich.”
At least for now, I added inwardly.
With my situation being a fluid one, who could tell what tomorrow would bring.
Sierra remained silent for a long while, her gaze sweeping all over my face before muttering half to herself, “You really do look like Mercy Haddaway.” However, after giving her phone’s display another look, she sounded remorseful. “But I guess you were telling the truth….”
Surprisingly, I found myself scowling at her faintly. “I’ve been telling you the truth the whole time.”
Maria was both glaring and staring at her phone in disbelief, but it didn’t stop her from snarking, “So you’ve gone from rags to riches.”
If Sierra had said it, I was certain I would have winced again. But Maria made it sound like a taunt, so I chose to answer her with a flat stare. “You don’t know the half of it.”
The ghost of a smirk played over her lips as she then asked, “So why is a rich girl like you going to our school?”
I folded my arms under my voluptuous chest. “Because the Sanreals decided to enroll me there,” I answered her bluntly.
“The Sanreals?” Maria asked, and her eyebrows rose slightly.
I swallowed and felt a twinge in my gut. Maria made me feel as though I’d slipped up somehow. Was it because I didn’t refer to the Sanreals as ‘my family’?
Swallowing again, I eased up on my brusque tone when I admitted, “I don’t know why they decided to enroll me at Telos Academy. I didn’t ask either.”
Maria did have a reason for asking.
Since I was supposed to be a rich heiress – though Clarisol was actually first in line to the family fortune – the Sanreals should have enrolled me at the truly prestigious all girls’ school, Saint Something Or Other, located in a district of Ring One. That’s where all the affluent Princesses of society studied. Telos Academy was no small fry when it came to reputation, but anyone who was anyone enrolled their daughters at Saint Something Or Other. The same went for the boys. They had their own private academy in Ring One near the girls’ academy.
Tabitha clapped softly and said, “Well then, I do recall breakfast being mentioned.”
Sierra glanced at her as though she’d forgotten about Tabitha, but then frowned ever so faintly when she faced me. “Oh yeah. Breakfast. Sounds good.”
I was convinced that I wasn’t imagining things.
Sierra was indeed uncomfortable around me, and although I didn’t know why, I was certain it would make for an awkward breakfast.
Waving a hand about, I chose to decline the offer. “It’s fine. It’s fine. I won’t hold you to it. Forget all about it.”
Sierra stiffened before laughing lightly. “No. No. I made the offer for breakfast. I’m not—I’m not taking it back now.”
“So what’s the problem?” I asked bluntly, surprising myself as well as the girl.
Sierra’s smile froze but it was only for a heartbeat, then she was calm once again.
In fact, I sensed that some of her uneasiness – dare I say wariness – had been dispelled as she almost casually asked, “Then what kind of breakfast do rich girls eat?”
I gaped at her. “Huh?”
Tabitha started to chuckle but coming from her while looking utterly disinterested made it downright creepy, something that wasn’t lost on either Sierra or Maria who quickly shared disturbed looks before edging away from her. In contrast, Tabitha’s laughter rubbed me the wrong way, and I quickly dragged her away by an arm.
“Excuse me for a minute,” I threw over a shoulder at Sierra and Maria.
Once we were some ten feet away from the two girls, I released Tabitha’s arm but then used my free hand to grab her by the blouse that was part of her dress. Yanking her close to me until our noses bumped, I asked her with a snarl, “What are you plotting?”
“Who? Me?”
“I thought you wanted to talk to me about a proposition from Cardinal?”
“Oh, I still do. But don’t you want to make good on your new friends?”
“Then stop creeping them out,” I hissed at her.
Tabitha smiled at me from under her lidded eyes. “I can’t help it. You’re so amusing.”
“And they’re not my friends,” I corrected her.
“Friendship redoubleth joys and cutteth griefs in half.”
I blinked in confusion. “Meaning what?”
“Think of it this way, Isabel. You can do with more friends in this world. Especially since you’re going to be attending school as a girl now. Guys can get away with being loners. Girls not so much.”
I stiffened and hissed, “I can deal with it.”
Tabitha’s eyes grew even more lidded. “To quote someone famous from your universe, ‘the worst solitude is having no real friends’.”
I thought of Felicia and Angela, and my chest tightened unpleasantly.
Friends. Did I need them? Or rather, could I trust anyone as a friend ever again?
Mat’s face crossed my mind, distracting me such that I barely noticed Tabitha reach up and pat my shoulders.
“Shall we be going, Lady Isabel?”
The unpleasant pressure in my chest, one born of uncertainty, suspicion and distrust of Tabitha and almost everyone else I’d come to know in life, flared briefly before gradually ebbing away.
However, although the pressure had faded it didn’t mean that I chose to trust the girl.
The problem was that I didn’t know what it meant.
Was I being worn down by Tabitha? Dragged along at her pace, manipulated and coerced – had she outmaneuvered me without my realizing it? Had she found a chink in my armor that I wasn’t aware of?
I released my grip on her blouse. Realizing I still had her phone in my other hand, I pressed it against her chest as I pushed her back a step.
After taking a deep breath, I warned the mechanical girl, “One of these days, Tabitha, karma is going to bite off your ass.”
Tabitha took back her phone, dropped it into a skirt pocket, then lethargically straightened her dress and white tie.
“Oh dear. That does sound painful.”
Sorry for the delay. I had some issues crop up and I originally wrote a much, much messier and convoluted segment to the chapter.
So it was back to the drawing board when my editor told me, "REJECTED".
Good thing because it really was a mess. The story went off the deep end. The characters went completely off character.
As always, if you'd like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Thank you for sticking with it so long.
With certain design requirements now out of the way, I'll be able to focus more on the book and get the chapters out sooner.
When released this book is certain to be much longer than the previous two.
Cheers and best wishes.
– I –
It was convenient to find ourselves in an area of the building replete with cafés, restaurants, and so forth.
We had five floors worth of shops from which to choose a suitable venue, and Sierra took her merry time deciding on her choice.
That meant wandering around for a while past the various food outlets.
With a veiled sullen look, I followed behind Sierra and Maria, and was kept company by Tabitha who was looking about with disinterest.
“What are you playing at?” I asked her, keeping my voice low yet certain she could hear me.
“Aren’t you interested in knowing where this will lead?”
“Even if I am, what’s it to you?”
Tabitha glanced at me sidelong. “Do you believe everything is a conspiracy?”
I’d been watching her in the corner of my eye, but now I turned my head and faced her. “Why wouldn’t I believe that?”
“Then isn’t it better to make friends who are unrelated to your circumstances? In other words, friends less likely to be involved in a conspiracy.”
Again, I thought of Angela and Felicia, and again I felt my chest tighten.
Turning away from Tabitha, I replied curtly, “I told you before, I don’t need friends.”
I was somewhat relieved when Tabitha opted to accept my words with silence because I had nothing more to say to her. At the very least, I had run out of words and didn’t feel like verbally sparring with her. But she had set my thoughts in motion, and despite asserting that I would be fine on my own, I sensed the lie beneath my words.
Truthfully, a lonely school life made for an unpleasant school life.
I’d been fortunate as Ronin Kassius by having Mat around, and Felicia and Angela too, before their treachery. But as Isabel, I was certain I wouldn’t depend on the latter two for company, and I had no idea when Mat would be returning school. I only had Erina’s words to go by, and since I couldn’t bring myself to trust her ever again, I had no way of knowing what condition he was in. All I could do was hope for the best, although that meant accepting that Erina had spoken the truth about Mat being alive and recovering. That brought me back to the problem of trusting her, making any attempt to deal with her feel as though I was experiencing a paradox.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Tabitha whispered conspiratorially with her customary disinterested visage.
I scowled at her. “How about an arm and a leg?”
She waved her left arm then skipped on her left leg. “You mean these two?”
“No, your real ones.”
“Hmm. The price is rather steep.”
“Think of it as the going rate when factoring inflation and bad karma.”
“Can you imagine anyone naming their child Karma?”
My scowl was kicked aside by a perplexed frown. “Where the Hell did that come from?”
“From out of left field.” She tapped her left temple. “So, can you?”
“Can I what?”
“Imagine naming your child Karma.”
“I wouldn’t even dream of it. Wait—I don’t even know if I can have children. Wait—why am I even thinking about children!”
Tabitha looked bored yet pensive. “If you tell him bad Karma, it’ll sound like Bad Karma.” She gestured with a finger at an imaginary child. “Bad Karma. Good Karma. Bad Karma. Karma play nice. Karma don’t flip the girls’ skirts.”
“You are strange.”
Tabitha’s eye widened. “Oh. I have a better one. How about calling your cat Help?”
I was gaping at her by now so I quietly closed my mouth.
Tabitha droned on. “Imagine calling your cat down from a tree. Help. Help. Help.” She paused and looked at me. “What would the neighbors think?”
“They’d probably call for help.”
“Precisely.” She raised a finger. “And if they found the cat wandering around, they might read the name on its necklace and think the cat was calling for help, or sent to find help.”
“Then wouldn’t it be better to call a dog Help?”
Tabitha nodded in agreement. “Have you seen that ancient cartoon of the white St. Bernard that works as a mountain rescue dog?”
“No…can’t say that I have….”
“Well, it has this little whisky keg around its neck. So when it sights someone in distress, it rushes out into the snow and delivers a glass of whisky to the victim.”
“Why?”
“Because the alcohol kickstarts them back to life.”
I realized I was frowning at the logic behind that. “Would that really work?”
“Alcohol keeps the cold away.”
I noticed I was cocking my head in thought.
Seriously, would that really work?
However, what I asked was, “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Are dogs more reliable than cats?” Tabitha asked in return.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.
“So which of the two is better to name Help?”
“None of the above.”
“Which of the two can you depend on for help?”
I bit my lower lip. “The dog?”
“Do you know that cats think of us as big mother cats?”
“That’s weird….”
“You see, cats have never been domesticated. Cats are creatures of convenience. They give the illusion of agreeing with us when we tell ‘don’t do that’, but in truth, they are following the path of least resistance.”
“By not putting up a resistance?”
“That’s right. So they give the illusion of obedience but only while it’s convenient for them.”
“Are you implying cats aren’t loyal to their owners?”
“These aren’t my words, but I have read that cats see us us roommates rather than owners. We are big cats that happen to share the living space with them.”
I paused in thought before asking, “Why are we talking about cats?”
Tabitha was quiet for a moment before remarking, “Perhaps you should make like a cat.”
“What?”
“Follow the path of least resistance,” she added. “Make like a cat and bend in the wind.”
“That’s make like a reed and bend in the wind.”
“Are you saying cats don’t bend in the wind?”
“Of course not. They’d either roll into a ball, or lie flat on the ground.”
“Have you ever visited a cat café?”
“No. I don’t have a cat, so why would I?”
“You should get a cat. Learn from your cat.”
I stopped walking. “I don’t want a cat.”
Tabitha stopped beside me. “Why not?”
“Have you met Akane Straus?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.” Tabitha’s eyes rolled slowly as she searched her memories. “Why do you ask?”
“Her Gun Princess avatar has cat ears.”
“And a tail?”
“No. Oddly, no.” I made a mental note to ask Straus about the lack of a tail, then remembered she’d already explained it was inconvenient to have one. Shaking my head quickly, I pressed on. “Forget about the tail. The point is that having a cat would remind me of her, and I do not get along with her.”
“So she would spoil your relationship with your cat.”
“Exactly.” I turned away and resumed walking, having fallen behind Sierra and Maria. Hurrying to catch up, I noticed they’d stopped to window shop at a boutique that was preparing to open early for business. Perhaps because the girls were rivetted to the window, the shop owner opened up early for them. I watched Sierra and Maria disappear inside.
“What about breakfast?” I wondered to myself.
“She’s an odd one,” Tabitha said.
I stopped and faced her. “Who? Sierra?”
“No. Straus. Her medical file is kept under lock and key. Other than the basic diagnostic of her condition, we know little about the treatments she’s endured to halt her muscular degeneration.”
“Oh?” I don’t know why but I was feeling defensive in the face of Tabitha’s prying. “So what?”
Standing beside me, Tabitha answered, “Our suspicion is that she is Prototype One.”
I swallowed involuntarily as I remembered what Akane Straus had said to me on the penthouse balcony.
You are my hope.
I swallowed again and then hardened my voice when I asked, “Whose suspicion? Yours or Cardinal’s?”
Tabitha stood still and silently regarded the clothes boutique with a flat gaze before turning toward me. I suspected she wasn’t going to answer me, and I was right.
“Shall we join them?” she inquired with a lazy wave in the direction of the boutique.
I gave the boutique a faintly sour look but a moment later a young man’s voice addressed us from behind.
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
There was no mistaking it as a warning. The blunt tone with which it was delivered immediately set me on edge, and I hastily spun around to see a tall teenage boy with sandy blonde hair striding smoothly toward us. Dressed in the Telos Academy summer uniform for boys, he wore a white necktie marking him as a first-year high schooler. From the way his uniform hung on his body, and the strong arms that stretched out from his shirt sleeves, it was easy to see he had an athletic body. If anything, I’d call it a swimmer’s build.
Who is this guy? I thought in a hurry, shifting to a defensive stance on reflex before I realized what I was doing.
Then I was startled to notice Tabitha’s bored expression had become one of guarded confusion as she eyed the newcomer who came to a stop a few feet away from us.
With arms akimbo, the young man swept his gaze over me from head to toes, then did the same to Tabitha.
“Taura Hexaria,” he said, breaking the silence with no discernible hesitation, his voice as blunt as before.
“I prefer, Tabitha Hexen,” she countered.
“Also known as The Witch of Mischief,” the young man added. “The one who wrecked the Walpurgis Festival.”
Tabitha closed her mouth and regarded him with added caution for a while before asking, “You play?”
“When I have free time,” he replied.
Play what, I asked myself.
“Oh, what class?” Tabitha inquired.
“Archer. Type Odysseus.”
“Hmm. I play as—”
“Witch. Type Hecate. I know. And your sister plays as a Witch, Type Medea.”
Tabitha pressed her lips into a thin line and for the first time I saw a cold light in her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Someone who’d rather you didn’t interfere with a member of the Sanreal Family.” The sandy haired boy crossed his arms and stood with feet shoulder width apart. “You can go back to Cardinal…empty handed.”
I stared hard at Tabitha. “What is he talking about?”
Tabitha ignored me, her attention focused on the high school boy staring at her with steely calm. “The Sanreal Family sent you?”
“On this occasion, I represent their interests.”
“And so you rudely butted in,” she remarked dryly with a faint snort, then turned toward me. “Cardinal has a proposition for you. Do you want to know what it is?”
I noticed the boy shift his stance as though on the verge of dashing forward, but he held himself back when he saw me throw a stony look his way.
I didn’t know who he was, but his claim that he was acting on the Sanreal Family’s behalf didn’t endear him to me. Neither did the fact he hadn’t properly introduced himself. Thus, I gave Tabitha a nod while holding him back with nothing more than my stern visage.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Join Cardinal’s team in the Gun Princess Royale.”
I frowned immediately and turned to stare at her. “Why would I do that?”
“Cardinal has interests and you could serve them well.”
“As a Gun Princess.”
“Correct. Winning affords you more than just money and prestige. Winning can earn you privileges within the scope of the Empire.”
“I can do the same with the Sanreal Family, can’t I?”
“If you compete for us, Cardinal can smooth things over between the Empress and House Novis.”
The sandy haired boy unfolded his arms and took a step closer. “House Novis doesn’t need your help.”
Tabitha eyed him askance. “House Novis would do well to enlist our support. You’re a stone’s throw from losing your prized Fabricator. Right now, House Novis is weighing the benefits of keeping it as opposed to keeping Mirai. This has compromised Erina Kassius’s research, putting her in a tight situation.”
“They won’t hand her over to the Empress. She’s too valuable.”
“Are you so certain?” Tabitha questioned. “A Fabricator isn’t the only thing they stand to lose.”
Although I didn’t enjoy being spoken of like a commodity to be traded or bartered with, I was gaining a picture of where I stood with the Empress and House Novis.
“And if I agree?” I interceded, mildly surprised at how calm I sounded despite being annoyed.
Tabitha shifted her attention onto me. “Cardinal has a few cards it can play with the Empress. We can assuage her displeasure at House Novis possessing its own Fabricator.”
“Is it really that important?” I asked her.
“Fabricators are prized Remnant technology.” Tabitha smiled thinly. “Trust me. It is.”
The teenage boy folded his arms again. “That Fabricator was gifted to House Novis by the Emperor before his passing. Kateopia has no say over it. And acting like she didn’t know about it is a lie. She knew it was given to House Novis by her father.”
“What the Empire giveth, the Empire taketh,” Tabitha quipped. “Cardinal can help you keep it…amongst other things.”
“I didn’t come here to discuss the Fabricator. It’s not my problem,” he declared. “Keeping your claws off Mirai is my problem.”
I couldn’t help glowering at him as my annoyance spiked. “How about you keep your claws off me, and tell me who you are. Start with a name.”
His gaze shifted onto me for a heartbeat before he ignored me and spoke to Tabitha. “House Novis doesn’t need Cardinal meddling in its business or troubles. And it doesn’t need you filling her head with ideas. That’s all there is to it.”
I inhaled loudly as I clenched my jaw and continued glaring at the teenage boy. “Tabitha, I don’t have to give you an answer right away, do I?”
“Give us an answer by Friday. That’s the deadline.”
“Why?” I asked, throwing her a puzzled look.
“Because Friday is the cutoff date for all final entrants into the Gun Princess Royale Minor League,” she explained.
The unknown boy stepped closer to me. “You’re a member of Team Novis—”
“I haven’t agreed to be a member of anything,” I heatedly snapped.
“You told Erina you would compete as Mirai. You gave her your word,” the fair-haired youth retorted. “Or do you make empty promises as and when it suits you?”
I drew my lips back, fully intending to give him a piece of my mind, but then I saw the hole in his argument.
“I said I would compete as Mirai. I never said I would represent House Novis or the Sanreals.”
I watched him grow rigid before anger spread across his face. “And what about your identity as Isabel val Sanreal?”
I shrugged. “I can still play the part.”
Tabitha tilted her head slightly as she regarded me. “Then are you ready to give me your answer now?”
I faced her again. “Let me ask you something. The Empress isn’t one to keep her promises. I get the impression she doesn’t care much for her father’s legacy of goodwill either. And she rewrites the rules when they don’t suit her. Sounds like a despot. So what makes you think Cardinal has any leeway with her?” I turned toward her and planted my hands on my hips. “From what I’ve gathered, the only reason I’m here and not in her hands is because my sister threatened her with my life and for some reason I’m valuable to her as well as to House Novis.”
“If Cardinal says it can, then it can,” Tabitha replied easily.
“Why? Does Cardinal have the key to her closet full of skeletons?”
“Does it matter what Cardinal has over her?”
“And what does Cardinal hope to get out of me? Planning to study me like a lab rat?”
“They want you to win the Gun Princess Royale.”
“Why?”
Tabitha didn’t answer me right away. In fact, she was silent for a long while during which she glanced at the unknown teenage boy several times.
Eventually, she exhaled loudly as she bowed her head.
“There is a prophecy—”
“Oh, come on!” I yelled. Flourishing my hands and arms into the air, I staggered in a full circle before facing the girl again. “Seriously? A prophecy? Are you shitting me?”
Tabitha was strangely silent, and it abruptly made me uneasy. Adding to said unease was the fact that the teenage boy was staring apprehensively at Tabitha.
Slowly I lowered my arms down to my flanks and assumed a cautious posture.
“Seriously?” I asked. “You’re not shitting me…?”
“No. I made that up.”
I lunged forward and grabbed her by the throat. “I am going to kill you!”
As I throttled the mechanical girl, Tabitha spoke with an eerie calm unbefitting a girl being strangled. “The winning Princess who is crowned Gun Empress is granted one wish.”
I stopped shaking the girl back and forth. “What wish?”
“Ask of the Empress one wish that is within her reason and power to grant. That is the rule of the Gun Princess Royale—a rule set in stone. Even Kateopia cannot violate it.”
I eased my grip on her cold neck. “But she gets to decide whether or not to grant it.”
“If within her power—her authority—she must grant it. If she fails to do so, the Gun Princess Royale falls apart.”
“Oh yeah? What then? Darkness falls and it rains cats and dogs?”
“More likely missiles and bullets.”
I felt a chill run through me. Hoping to hide it, I frowned at the girl. “What if I win and then ask to be Empress?”
Tabitha shook her head. “The wish has to be reasonable.”
I wet my lips slowly before asking, “Am I the only one who gets a wish?”
“No. You earn a wish for your sponsor as well. For the House you represent.”
My hands fell away from Tabitha’s neck as I understood why House Novis wanted me to win.
“A pardon from the Empress,” I whispered.
And yet….
“What makes them so sure they’ll get it?” I stepped back from Tabitha and turned my head to look at the teenage boy angrily staring at the mechanical girl. “Even if by some miracle I win the Gun Princess Royale—what guarantee do they have—?”
“None,” he stated in a hard tone. “But that’s not my problem. Neither is you winning the Gun Princess Royale. My problem is keeping you with House Novis.”
Taking a deep breath, I strode up to him and met his gaze from inches away. Because he was an inch or so taller than I, that meant looking up at him. But only a little.
“Who are you?”
His gaze searched my face for a short while before he softly asked, “Would it explain if I said you’re my hope?”
It was like a cold wind blew through me the moment the words left his lips and registered in my mind.
The sandy haired youth observed me quietly for a second, then spared a glance at Tabitha standing nearby. “Would it also help,” he asked me, “if I told you she’s not being honest with you?”
I retreated a step from the tall boy. “What?”
“Hey, what do we have here?” Sierra’s surprised voice pierced my thoughts yet failed to draw my attention away from the teenage boy. “Who might you be?” she asked, sounding oddly amused. “I should tell you, that’s not Mercy Haddaway.”
Without warning, the teenage boy reached out and took a hold of my left hand. “Yeah, I know,” he stated brusquely then hurriedly tugged me along behind him as he turned and fled with me in tow.
“Hey—!” Sierra cried out behind us. “What are you doing? Why are you running away?”
He didn’t reply, instead picking up the pace as he ran with me toward a stairwell.
“What about breakfast?” Sierra’s voice grew faint as we left her behind.
For a moment, part of me harbored the belief that Sierra would run after us, but with Maria around the latter was likely to dissuade her from giving chase. Yet I still threw a look over my right shoulder as the boy and I arrived at the stairwell.
But it wasn’t Sierra’s eyes that I met – it was Tabitha’s, and the knowing smile on her face wasn’t lost on me.
You can run but you can’t hide.
Or maybe it was more along the lines of:
You can’t run from me forever.
As I thought this, I felt something perceptible – tangible – come down between Tabitha and I, leaving me with a bitter feeling in my heart as I was spirited away.
Speaking of running, I guess you’re wondering why I didn’t protest and pull free of the teenage boy’s hand.
The truth was that everything had happened so suddenly, and while bothered by the shift in my relationship with Tabitha, I was also trying to wrap my mind around his unexpected revelation.
Thus I found myself in a state of confusion, running behind him down the stairs with my hand firmly in his grip.
Then another distracting thought served to muddle me up some more.
Large. His hand is large. Why are boys’ hands so large?
Although I may have thought that, I knew that thinking of him in male pronouns was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself from falling into the trap.
It’s not cold, but it’s not warm like hers.
Another marked difference between his hand and Sierra’s.
Another marked difference between his hand and Ronin’s.
There was nothing manly about me…was there….
Lost in troubled thoughts, we continued down the stairwell for a long while. But when I glimpsed a plaque with “Level 10” imprinted on it, my thoughts suddenly lined up nice and neatly behind one important question.
“Hey, where are we going?” I asked him loudly.
“To where we can talk in private,” he threw back over a shoulder.
“I don’t think so.” At the next landing, I dug my heels in and jerked my hand out of his grip. “This is far enough!”
The teenage boy had been pulled to a harsh stop when I yanked my hand free. After catching his balance, he watched me with a complicated expression before stepping up to me.
“We need to talk,” he stated in a low, grim voice complemented by a serious light in his eyes.
I placed my hands behind my back as I looked up at him. “Good. Let’s do that. You can start by giving me a name. What do I call you? I can’t very well call you, Cat Princess, now can I? You don’t look like a Princess anymore.”
His face grew blank and unreadable, but a short while later he huffed to himself, and then broke into a confused smile as he gave himself a quick look. “You have a point…,” he muttered softly.
“Well? Do you have a name?” I questioned him bluntly. But after folding my arms under my breasts, I added with a smirk, “Or should I give you a name?”
Surprisingly, he glanced at my boobs before leaning toward me and replying with a smirk of his own. “Actually, I do have a name. So don’t bother.”
“Then let’s hear it.”
“Severin,” he announced.
“What?”
“My name. Call me, Severin.” He grinned as he favored me with an informal bow. “Severin Straus, at your service.”
I pressed my lips together, feeling a rush of anger flow through me.
Ronin Kassius had swung punches before but they rarely if ever landed.
Mirai on the other hand was gifted with abnormally high hand-to-eye co-ordination.
The right cross I delivered to the boy’s jaw knocked him backwards, down the stairs, and out of sight.
After wincing at the intense pain that briefly incapacitated my right hand before being mended by Mirai’s preternatural healing ability, I walked to the edge of the stairs and glared down at Severin Straus sprawled on the mid-level landing.
He met my glare as he sat up. “What the Hell was that for?”
With both hands clenched at my sides, I shouted angrily, “Two reasons!”
I held up a finger.
“One! You were rude to Sierra!”
I held up a second finger.
“And two! You tricked me—you bitch!”
“Huh?” Slowly rising to his feet, Straus looked visibly taken aback.
As I was on a roll, I added for good measure, “And you’re a pervert!”
At this Straus bristled visibly for a beat. “I’m not a pervert. This is a disguise. Okay? It’s just a disguise to get around.”
“I can’t believe this.” I shook my head slowly and repeated, “I can’t believe this.”
“What’s so hard to believe?”
“That you’re a girl using a male avatar!” I stomped a foot. “You’re like those guys that play MMO’s as sexy female characters.”
Straus flinched, and suddenly I recalled what he – I mean she – had told Tabitha.
Pointing a finger accusingly at him – I mean her – I grated out, “You’re the opposite side of the coin. You’re a girl playing as a male character.”
“I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Straus protested.
“Oh yeah?” I aimed lower with my finger. “Is that thing anatomically correct?”
Surprisingly, Straus started to blush. “Aren’t you ashamed for asking?”
“Don’t answer a question with a question. Well? Is it?”
“I have a constitutional right to remain silent.”
“Pervert!”
“Okay—okay! It’s anatomically correct.”
“Double pervert!”
“Will you stop calling me that?” He started climbing the stairs back up to me.
I retreated from him. “Stay away from me.”
“Stop acting like an abused girlfriend,” he warned me. “And keep your voice down. People will get the wrong idea.”
“I’m saying it for your own good,” I retorted and waved a fist at him.
Straus arrived at the landing, inhaled deeply, then allowed his shoulders to slump. “Would you calm down and listen to me?”
“I have been listening to you.”
“Great. Then I don’t need to say it again, do I?”
“Say what?”
“That we need to talk.”
Noticing a handful of office ladies glancing at us as they walked by on the balcony beyond the stairwell landing, Straus grew quiet and I too waited for them to move on. I did catch their conversation and their comment about young couples not knowing their place, but otherwise they ignored us.
Feeling a tad relieved, I crossed my arms under my bosom and stared sourly at Straus. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“Have you calmed down?” he asked.
“I’m calm enough to hear you out.”
“Good.” He looked exasperated as he planted his hands on his hips.
I chose not to mention it, but even though I knew it was a woman operating that body, it was surprising to see the avatar behave just like a teenage boy, from its mannerisms all the way down to the way it walked.
Damn creepy. Damn pervert. Just how much practice has she had getting around in that body?
Straus raked his fingers through his long sandy hair. “Are you hungry?”
“Huh?” I was jolted out of my observations. “Why are you asking?”
“Because I heard that girl yell out ‘what about breakfast’ as we were running away.”
“You mean Sierra.”
“Yeah, Sierra. Well? Are you hungry?”
I was indeed hungry, so I replied with a curt nod and grumbled. “Are you buying?”
“I’m offering, aren’t I?” He pointed at himself. “Besides, I’m the guy here so I should be paying.”
I snorted under my breath. “In case you missed the news flash, it’s the age of gender equality.”
“Good chivalry never dies young.”
“What’s with the twisted quotes?”
“Fine. Then you buy breakfast.”
I lowered my arms swiftly down to my sides. “Hey, what happened to chivalry just now?”
Straus clenched his jaw, a gesture that unsettled me because I knew his body wasn’t human. It reminded me of Tabitha’s body, and so I briefly pondered if it was made along the same lines, that is, a mechanical body designed with stealth and infiltration in mind.
Venting a loud breath, Straus shook his head then turned his back to me. Walking back to the stairs, he descended them in silence until stopping halfway to the mid-level landing. Looking up at me over a shoulder, he asked, “What are you waiting for? Did you twist an ankle? Want me to carry you down?”
“You want to get punched again?” I warned as I strode toward him, my surly look back on my face.
“I pity the guy that falls for you,” Straus muttered as he – that is she – resumed walking down the stairs.
“And I pity the girl that falls for you—you fraud.”
He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “Better to live a lie than to not live at all.”
I can’t explain why hearing him twist the famous quote angered me so much, but before I’d realized it I’d caught up to Straus and then kicked him in the middle of the back, launching him down the stairs face first.
“Stop twisting other people’s words,” I snapped as I watched him roll to a stop at the next landing. But as he slowly picked himself up and regained his bearings, I couldn’t help but add, “And it’s better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all. Get it right.”
It wasn’t until later that I learnt I hadn’t quoted the quote correctly myself, but that’s a moot point for now.
Once again shoving his hands into his trouser pockets, the mechanical avatar calling itself Severin Straus rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, then shot me a heated look from the landing below me.
It was truly unnerving to see a machine glare at me so well.
“Like I said before…I pity the guy that falls for you.”
It's late. Sorry. I just can't keep to a schedule. Plus, it needed a lot of work before it was kosher.
As always, if you'd like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Thank you for giving this series a chance.
Best wishes to you all.
– II –
Trailing behind Straus, I followed her – him – whatever – out of the massive commercial and residential building via a bridgeway some five floors above street level.
Continuing southward, we crossed into an adjacent megascraper then descended via five sets of escalators to the ground floor, eventually exiting out onto a sidewalk running parallel to a six -lane street packed with morning commuter traffic.
After reluctantly asking Straus where we were going, he muttered something about a pancake shop and pointed across the street at an establishment with its name, The Hardboiled Café, written in an austere font on its storefront windows.
“Huh…?”
With a name like that I wondered what kind of café it would be on the inside. However, since it was only a stone’s throw away, I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.
Arriving at a set of lights, I waited to cross the busy street along with a few dozen other people. Before long the sidewalk became overly crowded and I was propelled into Straus by a businessman – a salaryman – who didn’t even bother to apologize when he shoved me aside.
I snorted as I sourly thought, Girls really have it tough.
Just because they couldn’t defend themselves, that wasn’t a reason to walk over them. Then again, I’d recently discovered that some girls could defend themselves quite well, though two of them were Simulacra and one was a martial arts prodigy.
I found myself clenching a fist as I glared sourly at the salaryman who’d pushed me aside.
However, my sourness spiked when Straus moved to shield me from the people around me, including the aforementioned salaryman cruising for a bruising.
“What are you glaring at?” Straus whispered loudly.
“I was glaring at him, but now I’m glaring at you,” I growled back.
“Care to explain why?” he asked.
“I’ll explain when you explain what you’re doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he retorted.
“It looks like you’re getting in my way.”
“No, I’m sparing you from getting arrested for beating someone up.”
“If I beat someone up it’s because they had it coming.”
Straus inhaled long and loudly and raised his hands in surrender. “Okay. You want to get bumped, be my guest. You want to get arrested, don’t claim I didn’t warn you.”
I sneered up at him. “No, I’d prefer you get run over.”
Straus lowered his hands. “That’s a really cruel thing to say.”
“It would be if you were human but you’re a fake.” I sighed bitterly. “These days I seem to be surrounded by fakes. Hey, even I’m a fake—oomph!”
Straus clamped a large boyish hand over my mouth, shutting me up in the blink of an eye.
Then he leaned hastily leaned down toward me, and heatedly whispered, “Could you not announce it to the world?”
It wasn’t the shock of having my mouth palmed that left me speechless.
Nor was it his hand plastered over my mouth that stifled my retort in my throat.
No. It was finding myself face to face, in close proximity, with a very human looking boy that was actually a remote controlled mechanical avatar.
It was just too much for me to bear, and a soft, pitiful whine piped up from my throat.
Straus blinked and looked faintly startled. “Hey, are you all right—?”
I snapped.
I know it sounds strange, having spent time in the presence of Simulacra, a Gun Princess, and fought off a Gun Queen, but for some reason that I can’t pin down, I couldn’t bear Straus’s presence. Something about knowing that the teenage boy inches away from me wasn’t real set my hairs on end and made my skin crawl.
Picture coming face to face with the nature of your worst phobia, and then double – no, triple – the resulting anxiety.
I snapped.
With my right hand clenched into a fist, I unleashed a piledriving punch that caught Straus under his chin.
But seeing Straus fly back several feet and then land supine on the sidewalk pavement, I realized in horror just how hard I’d hit him.
Had he been a human teenage boy, there was no doubt my punch would have broken his neck and killed him.
That realization had me trembling like a leaf and I looked down at my discolored right hand balled into a bruised fist.
It burned in agony for a handful of seconds before the Angel Fibers and my ultra-grade Simulacrum body mended the damage I’d incurred.
As the burning sensation faded to a dull throbbing, I flexed the fingers of my hand, both amazed and frightened by how quickly it had healed.
By then Straus was sitting up unsteadily.
Not knowing what it was like to operate a mechanical avatar, I assumed that I’d knocked the avatar’s senses or sensors into disarray, because Straus looked addled as he clutched his jaw.
Yet regardless of how hard I’d hit him, Straus was a machine and I was made of flesh and blood. Thus, I didn’t believe he’d suffered any damage.
But the two salarymen in suits that came to his assistance didn’t know any better. They helped him up, and Straus thanked them.
When one of them suggested going to the hospital, Straus shook his head and assuaged the man’s concerns with a grin.
The other man suggested he call the authorities, but again Straus brushed it aside with a grin.
Then he spoke something in a low voice while looking sheepish, and the two men backed off.
One of them slapped Straus’s back, and muttered something about treating his girlfriend better.
It was then that I noticed the mixed looks I was garnering from the pedestrians surrounding us. Expressions of shock and disbelief, as well as many reproachful glares were directed at me.
More than a few people were muttering deriding remarks, and I heard phone cameras click away, but none of them approached me.
More than a few warning bells had been rung in their minds after watching me knock Straus to the ground with a single punch. Perhaps they subconsciously recognized me as a predator, a lioness amongst antelopes, a shark amongst minnows, a hawk amongst pigeons.
They watched me, they muttered, but they kept their distance.
And though I was quite aware of them, I chose to ignore them and focus on regaining control over my scattered emotions.
Straus bowed politely to the two salarymen, then walked quickly toward me.
Keeping his voice low, he didn’t lean down at me as he spoke in a hushed, guttural tone. “Do you know how close you came to being arrested? What the Hell is wrong with you?”
I sucked in air and reflexively clenched my hands as I hissed back, “You freak me out!”
Straus’s eyes widened before narrowing. “You didn’t have a problem with me before.”
She – I mean he – no, I mean she – was right.
I didn’t have a problem with her when she was operating her Cat Princess avatar.
But I was having a severe emotional reaction to her pretty boy avatar.
And yes, it was a pretty boy looking intently at me. Except it wasn’t a real pretty boy.
So was this some kind of twisted fear of machines that looked like human males?
Was I experiencing an andro-mechano-phobia?
Abruptly I gasped both inwardly and outwardly as I realized a new problem.
What the Hell had I been thinking? Did I really think of this machine boy as a pretty boy? Was this also part of my phobic reaction to him?
I swallowed hard and then took a couple of deep, controlled breaths, as I struggled to rationalize my adverse emotional reaction to Severin Straus who was staring at me impatiently.
“Well?” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Why do you have a problem with me now?”
My breaths were growing slower and shorter, and I could feel my heart gradually easing up. When I felt steady enough to give him an answer, I retorted in a low whisper, “You really wanna know why?”
“A straight answer would be appreciated.”
“That’s because you weren’t giving cross-play a whole new meaning.”
Straus grew still for a long moment before exhaling loudly, just a like a real teenage boy expressing simmering frustration. However, before he could say anything, the pedestrian light behind me began to play a chime and I recognized it for the ‘walk’ melody.
“Come on,” Straus growled and stepped out onto the street along with a hundred other pedestrians.
The people that had been avoiding me now swept me along with them, so I didn’t have much of a choice but to follow Straus across the street.
Arriving at the opposite sidewalk, I took a couple of seconds to regain my bearings as the crowd rushed by me. Being a good twenty centimeters taller than I was accustomed to, I was able spot the sign for the Hardboiled Café above the heads of the sidewalk traffic. But I’d lost sight of Straus, so I decided to walk up to the café’s entrance. I was almost at the door when I saw Straus standing by the entrance looking anxiously for me. At sight of me, he first looked relieved then annoyed.
Shaking his head, he yanked the café’s door open, and stepped inside.
“Thanks for waiting for me,” I muttered acidly as I hurried to door before it closed shut. “Asshole couldn’t even hold the door open for me.”
If she was going to pass herself off as a guy, then she should adhere to the basic rules of social interaction, one of which was holding the door open for a girl.
I made it a mental note to etch that into her psyche…then realized with a stark chill that I was expecting Straus to treat me like a girl.
That brought me to a sharp standstill within the entrance to the Hardboiled Café.
When the heavy door closed behind me, it bumped my backside, propelling me deeper into the establishment and jolting my various trains of thoughts back into motion.
However, the question remained unanswered – did I want Straus to treat me like a girl?
It was true that men held the door open for other men out of politeness as well, but it was something of an expected common courtesy that men treat the fairer sex with respect.
Maybe Straus hadn’t treated me like a girl because I was a girl. In other words, being a girl herself, Straus had felt she didn’t need to afford me any special courtesy and had treated me like an equal. She could also have been pissed at being punched in public. But as a consequence, and perhaps due to my misreading the situation, I was forced to face the broader question of whether or not I wanted people to treat me like a girl.
And I had no answer for it.
On the one hand the notion repulsed me. I had lived for years fearing that one day I would turn into a girl, and now I found myself living as one – albeit as a girl that possessed extraordinary abilities.
But I understood that whether or not I was treated as a girl wasn’t entirely up to me, because leaving Straus aside, if people saw me as a girl then they would naturally treat me as one.
So the question was then what should I expect from them?
I’d read about how girls and women often complained of getting the short end of the stick, so should I expect the same?
Standing in the small foyer, Straus grumbled at me, “Took you long enough.”
I stopped and stared at him.
Was being treated fairly, equally, with common decency and respect too much to ask for?
I decided to reply to Straus in a manner that I felt was justified under present circumstances.
“Up yours,” I swore at him and gave him the finger.
Then I wondered, Is that even possible for him?
A second later, I made two important observations.
One was that being preoccupied with Straus, and questioning how I expected people to treat me, had pushed my andro-mechano-phobia into a back seat.
That was good.
What wasn’t so good was that I was still giving Straus the finger when a young waitress – a pretty, brunette with shoulder length hair – came to greet us.
The girl looked at Straus, at me, then my finger, before asking with a troubled smile, “Um…table for two?”
Feeling distinctly ashamed, I lowered my finger and then hid my hands behind my back.
Straus made a show of exhaling loudly before replying, “Yes, please. Table for two….”
Bastard, don’t sound so disappointed. This is your fault!
Nonetheless, I realized that this time I’d slipped up.
Thus, I trailed silently behind him as the girl guided us deeper into the café to a booth without a window view.
I sat down somewhat absently, taking the bench seat opposite Straus.
When the girl took our order, Straus took the lead and ordered for the both of us. At that, I threw him an icy glare that he pointedly ignored as he sat back with an arm draped casually over his seat’s backrest, and confidently dictated our breakfast order to the young waitress.
Watching him through narrowed eyes, I wondered once again how Straus had been practicing passing herself off as a teenage boy.
And then I was incensed by how natural and cool he looked, and I realized with a pang that the Ronin Kassius part of me envied him.
Straus looked the way I would have wanted to appear to a girl.
Cool, calm, collected, with an air of unbridled confidence.
Even though my envy was misplaced, my emotions swirled painfully within my chest because I knew that I would never be seen that way by a girl.
There was no going back for me, and knowing that made my heart twist unpleasantly in my chest.
Yet I remained in my seat, and allowed the envy within me to burn away.
I had decided back in Ronin’s dorm apartment that I needed to start accepting who I was now, and part of that was not to run away from a situation like this.
But no sooner had I resolved to face my feelings when I glanced up and noticed the girl blushing pink as she jotted down the breakfast order.
My mouth had fallen open and when I closed it shut with an audible clack, the pretty waitress glanced at me, and blanched.
It took me a moment to realize why – I was glaring at her.
I wasn’t staring at her fiercely because I was being territorial.
I was glaring at her because I couldn’t believe how easily she’d been charmed by Straus’s pretty boy avatar.
Afraid to look at me, she smiled sheepishly at Straus, jotted down the last of the order and hurried away.
Watching her retreat to the kitchen, I realized Straus had been expecting her to dart a glance over her shoulder, because he delivered a perfectly time wave with his hand draped over the back of his seat.
At sight of that, my temper spiked and I kicked one of his shins hard under the table.
To my surprise, Straus winced hard as though experiencing the kick for real.
“What are you doing?” he complained.
“I could ask you the same question,” I snapped at him.
“I was having a little fun.”
My mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”
“Of course, I’m serious.”
I shook my head at him. “You’re unbelievable.”
Straus looked equally annoyed at me. “You’re one to talk.”
“Heh? What the Hell do you mean by that?”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “What? You didn’t notice the way men were looking at you out on the street?”
“What? You mean after I decked you?”
Straus blinked in apparent disbelief at my response, then frowned at me. “No, before that.”
“Then I have no idea what you mean.”
Again, he blinked at me as though perplexed by me. “How oblivious are you?”
I winced and retorted, “I’m not oblivious. I was just having trouble dealing with you so I had other things on my mind.”
“Then you didn’t notice how she felt challenged by you?”
Startled by his question, I drew back. “What are you talking about? Weren’t you asking me about how men were looking at me?”
“I was. Now I’m asking about her reaction to you.”
I bit my lower lip for a moment, then admitted, “No, I didn’t.”
“Then take a look,” Straus suggested.
I pressed me lips unhappily into a thin line, and then looked over in the direction of the counter separating the eating area from the kitchen.
Perhaps it was coincidence, but the young waitress happened to be staring in our direction, and our eyes met. The girl paled in a heartbeat then ducked her head quickly. Conveniently for her, a couple of salarymen happened to enter the café moments later, and she hurried off to welcome them.
Although she had caught me glaring at her earlier, I was still confused by her frightened reaction, and faced Straus. “What’s her problem?”
Straus’s eyes widened before he shook his head slowly.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said in a low voice. “You may be new to being a girl, but you sure know how to scare away the competition.”
My feelings went from confused to sour in an instant. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
“And why is she the competition?”
Straus snorted softly. “You can be surprisingly obtuse.”
“Just answer the damn question.”
This time he sighed. “To you, she’s not. But from her point of view, you definitely are the competition.”
“And why the Hell would she see me that way?”
“Because I’ve been coming here a few times, striking up a little friendly conversation with her in the mornings.”
The absurdity of what he’d just told me made my vision swim, and I slumped in my seat. “Oh my gods, you’ve been hitting on her….”
“I prefer to call it testing the boundaries.”
“…of what….”
“Of how convincing I can operate this avatar.”
I didn’t sit up as I stared at him vacantly for a while. “Why?”
Straus shrugged a shoulder. “That’s a secret.”
“Yeah, don’t tell me. I don’t think I can handle it on an empty stomach.”
A chuckle escaped from him, briefly triggering my andro-mechano-phobia – yes, I was convinced by now that I suffered from said phobia – and thus seeking a distraction, I turned my attention to the interior of the café.
Fortunately, it genuinely caught my interest and I found myself intently staring at the various images of men and women captured in time in numerous photos, posters, and murals plastered throughout the innards of the café. I belatedly realized many of the photos depicted movie scenes in which most of the men wore trench coats while the women were attired in long form fitting dresses that emphasized their feminine charm.
Some of the women were depicted as smoking from long cigarette holders while reclining on sofas. I found it puzzling to see those pictures in a commercial establishment such as this café because smoking died out as a widespread public habit a long time ago, thought it was still something of a private pastime.
However, I felt I understood the café’s theme.
“Hardboiled…I get it now.”
“Really?” Straus asked in a faintly snide tone, as he slouched back in his seat, his arm annoying draped over its back.
“Well, I didn’t think hardboiled eggs had anything to do with it,” I replied equally snidely.
“And here I thought you only had Mercy on your mind.”
“If I had nothing but Mercy up here”—I tapped my forehead—“I wouldn’t have scored tenth place in my grade last year.”
“And yet you only qualified for the Delta Tier.”
I pressed my lips together as I exhaled loudly through my nose. “That’s because my brain isn’t malleable enough.”
“So you’ve got a rock in there instead of clay.”
I ground my teeth together and started to flip Straus the bird. But remembering my earlier faux pas, I restrained myself to a harshly whispered, “Frek you.”
Straus snorted. “No thanks. You’re not my type.”
I flinched but not because I felt insulted. Rather, I was startled. “Your type? What? You have a type?”
Straus huffed under his breath. “Every girl has her type.”
I stared blankly at him for a second. “Every girl has her guy type? Or every girl has her girl type?”
Straus cocked his head at me in slowly spreading confusion. “What exactly are you asking?”
After mulling the question for a moment, and sparing the pretty waitress a glance, I decided to just come out with it. “Are you a lesbian?”
Straus’s mouth fell open and stayed open for a long while. “Why the Hell would you ask something like that?”
“Because I noticed you gave my boobs a good look back at the stairwell.” I jutted my chin at the waitress busy greeting another batch of patrons. “And you were watching her ass as she walked away.”
That last bit was a lie, something I spouted on a whim, probably because I wanted to get a reaction out of Straus and I wasn’t disappointed.
Straus slapped a hand loudly on the table and hissed, “I am not a lesbian.”
“Then what are you? Bisexual?”
Straus clamped his mouth shut for a long moment before sitting back and crossing his arms. “No. I’m not.”
“Are you a virgin?” I asked bluntly.
Straus looked shocked then regarded me with a simmering glare. “Mind your own business.”
“I’ll take that for a Yes.”
For a moment, I thought Straus might actually strike me. It was odd that a machine could express such a frightful expression, but I can recognize true anger when I see it, and Straus looked unmistakably angry before turning away to look into the café rather than at me.
Hmm…I struck a nerve.
I thought back to the Akane Straus that had emerged from the Sarcophagus that inexplicably materialized above the apartment’s spacious balcony.
The young woman I saw back then could barely push herself up off the ground.
I acknowledge that my way of thinking may offend some people, but I couldn’t imagine her enjoying a physical relationship with anyone if she was afflicted with such a debilitating disease.
Then again, I knew very little about Akane Straus so perhaps the disease didn’t hamper her life until recently.
But a relationship isn’t a solo experience.
It requires two to tango and two to make it work.
This is where my low opinion of people darkened my outlook on Akane Straus’s chances of finding love. Whether it’s part of my nature, or a trait carved into me by life’s experiences, I have difficulty seeing the good in people – both men and women. Recent events and my present circumstances have done nothing in the way of changing it. So when I thought of Akane finding Mister Right, someone who would accept her and love her for who she was regardless of her disability, I equated it to finding a needle in a haystack.
It wasn’t impossible, but it would be extremely challenging.
Of course, the proverb falls apart if you introduce a superconducting magnet or metal detector to find the needle, but surely you understand my point.
I’m not saying there wasn’t someone out there for her.
I’m simply saying finding that someone would be difficult.
“When did it start?”
The words left my lips before I could stop them.
Straus looked faintly puzzled, shedding some of the anger she’d been silently radiating.
“Your muscular dystrophy…when did it start?” I asked her, my voice and feelings subdued by that memory of her on the balcony. “Was it long ago…?”
“My last year of high school,” Straus replied in a flat tone that was surprising because he regarded me with uncertainty and very little anger, as though he was trying to figure out why I was asking. “Nine years ago.”
Nine years, I thought to myself. “Did you know Erina back then?”
Straus’s uncertainty grew but then he exhaled loudly, and sat back a little deeper in the booth’s high-backed seat. “She and I attended Telos Academy. We weren’t classmates, but we were in the same year. She was the star student, and I was the star of the Track-and-Field team. As friends, we were an odd couple.”
I frowned inwardly. If they were friends in high school, I was tempted to ask if Straus knew of me back then.
Did she know Erina had a younger brother?
But then I felt it didn’t matter. In a way, it was something of a redundant question.
So I discarded it and asked instead, “You were a Track-and-Field star?”
“My times in the inter-state competitions were good enough to earn me silver—twice. But in my third year…well…shit happens….”
Straus turned away. His tone had been flat, but there was a bitter look on his face.
“You dropped out of Track-and-Field in your third year?” I asked.
“Nope. I tried to the bitter end but I failed to qualify for the inter-state championships. I’d lost my edge. I wasn’t the Sprint Queen of Telos Academy any longer.” His lips twisted in resentment. “When life deals you lemons, you can’t always make lemonade…no matter how much you try.”
I waited for a little while, to see if he would continue on his own. When he didn’t, I asked, “So what did you do?”
He looked at me. “You really want to know?”
I nodded.
Straus exhaled again. “I went into a treatment program and underwent therapy. The docs told me I had ten years at best.” I watched him clench his jaw for a telling moment. “That was hard to take.” Straus laughed stiffly. “But Erina took it harder still. She was already doing research into motor neuron disease disorders and a whole lot of other shit, including Prometheus’s Curse. She just added my problem to the long list she had. Eventually, she whittled down her list to just two problems – yours and mine.”
Straus faced me.
“By then she was working for the Telos Corporation. By then they’d pulled her into their dark depths. And that was because of him.”
“Him…?” I tipped my head at Straus. “Who is him?”
“Simon val Sanreal. The lord and master of the Telos Corporation. Eldest son of House Novis and their representative in this universe under the guise of the Sanreal Family. And he’s your sister’s fiancé.”
I blinked slowly as I digested this tidbit of information. “Her fiancé?”
“That’s right, little girl. Your sister is engaged to one of the richest, most eligible bachelors in the known galaxy.”
“So she went for the money,” I muttered sourly. “That’s just like her….”
“Actually, you ignorant twit, your sister was relentlessly pursued by Simon Sanreal for almost two years before she finally caved in and accepted his marriage proposal.”
I expressed a puzzled frown at Straus. “She was being chased around?”
Straus looked annoyed at me. “Are you paying attention or not?”
I bristled a little. “I am paying attention. But you’re telling it thick and fast.”
“Then start keeping up.”
I started to snap out a retort, but then held myself back at the last heartbeat. “Fine. Care to explain in a little more detail?”
“Simon Sanreal expressed a surprising amount of interest in your sister. For some reason she just happened to be his type.” Straus folded his arms across his chest. “Still with me so far, little girl?”
I’d ignored her the first time she called me that, but this time I bristled. “Don’t call me that,” I warned her.
“Then don’t call me kitten,” Straus snapped. “Agreed?”
I really felt like throwing something at him, but instead I just gnashed my teeth a little. “Is that all? Nothing more to add.” I planted my hands on the table. “Because if not, I’m out of here.”
“Like I said already, he pursued her romantically for almost two years before she caved in and agreed to marry him. By then she’d already been working at the Telos Corporation for four years, and was a member of one of their black research division for two years. And that was his doing. At first, he was interested in just her – probably saw her as a worthy challenge – but then he grew interested in her research as well. It wasn’t long afterwards that Erina was transferred into a clandestine division conducting sensitive research.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Sensitive? You mean…the Angel Fibers.”
Straus snorted as he nodded. “He pulled her into the dark side of science.”
The dark side of science? Is that an understatement or an overstatement?
But that begged the question: how should Project Mirai be viewed?
From what I knew of how research was performed and monitored, there were a lot of checkboxes to tick. By that I mean that there were rules and regulations on how it should be ethically, safely, and morally carried out. When taken into context with everything that had happened to me, I had trouble imagining that Project Mirai would have ever received government approval. It was undoubtedly made possible because Erina’s black research division wasn’t conducting itself in a sanctioned manner.
In other words, quite a few checkboxes had been skipped over or left unticked because to Erina the ends justified the means.
And now Project Mirai was sitting in a café waiting for breakfast to be delivered.
Project Mirai was also guilty of illegally entering a school boy’s apartment.
Project Mirai had committed the crime of stealing clothes from charity donation bins.
Project Mirai had caused a scene by punching a boy to the ground.
Indeed, Project Mirai was building up quite the rap sheet.
When I thought of Project Mirai that way, I was reminded of those holovid movies where the protagonist is the product of illicit research and escapes from a secret lab and finds themselves in a town or city of unsuspecting humans. Before long the bad guys would come after the escaped research project, and it wasn’t always a happy ending.
I looked down at my right hand and saw no sign of the bruising earned after knocking Straus to the ground.
Like in those holovid movies, I was in a city of blissfully unaware humans, so was I headed for bad ending too?
My thoughts and fears must have been written on my face because Straus was looking at me intently.
I cleared my throat and tried to relax my facial features before asking, “How do you know all this? I mean how long have you been a part of this?”
At first Straus looked ready to fire back an answer, but he stopped and seemed to give his reply a little more thought. “How long have I been involved…?”
I gave him a nod.
“Do you mean to ask, how long have I been a part of Project Mirai?”
I wet my lips quickly. “How long have you known about the Angel Fibers? About Mirai? About the other universe?”
“Ever since Erina pulled me into her world. Ever since she began working for their black division.”
I was puzzled. “Why?”
“Because I became her test subject. She used their biomedical research labs to try all sorts of various things to keep me alive. But things didn’t look up for me until your sister shoved the Angel Fibers she’d cultivated into me. Yeah, she came close to killing me—the closest anyone has come—but it stopped my muscular dystrophy. It didn’t make it any better, but it didn’t make it any worse, and best of all I was still alive.” Straus leaned toward me over the edge of the table. “Do you know what that meant to me? Knowing that I wasn’t getting any worse? Knowing that I wasn’t going to die?”
I shook my head slowly. I wasn’t going to lie to her.
Straus sat back. “Erina and I have had our share of differences over the years, but I owe her. She saved my life. And she opened a new world to me. The world of the Gun Princess Royale avatars.” He pointed at himself. “Without them, without this technology, I’d be an invalid in a wheelchair living a confined life.”
“But you still are,” I pointed out.
Straus shrugged a shoulder and nodded, taking my comment in stride. “I’m aware of that. I’m not denying it. But without one of these, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this freedom.”
I bit my lower as I considered her point-of-view. Then I chose to probe her a little more. “So you were Prototype One for the Angel Fibers.”
“That’s right.” Abruptly, Straus narrowed his eyes at me. “Hey, where did you hear that?”
“From Tabitha. She said there’s not much on you. All your records are under strict lock and key—or something to that effect.”
Straus humphed in contempt. “Nosy little bitch….”
I wasn’t going to disagree with her. However, what I said instead was, “So you’re the same age as Erina. Twenty-seven?”
I’d been doing the math in my head. Erina was eleven years older than me, and the big reason our parents left her in charge when they abandoned us for the sake of their research. She graduated from high school and commenced third tier education at age nineteen. Her studies were funded by the Telos Corporation. In other words, she’d earned herself a scholarship from them, and they pulled her into the fold when she graduated five years later after studying a range of sciences that only an Alpha had the mental propensity to accomplish. And to top it off, she completed her four-year doctorate in three.
She really is special, I grudgingly acknowledged.
Yet I felt no pride in being related to her.
No, that wasn’t right. Let me rephrase that.
I felt no pride having been to related to her when I was Ronin Kassius.
I exhaled long yet softly.
So she was twenty-four when she started working for them.
I swallowed quietly.
Or was she working for them before then? Was the scholarship all part of it? Did they see something in her while she was still a high school student?
“If you keep frowning like that you’ll get wrinkles,” Straus said.
Lost in thought, I’d been staring down at the table. Now I looked up at him nonplussed. “What wrinkles?”
Straus regarded me thoughtfully for a long moment. “You need to talk to your sister.”
I leaned back as though avoiding a slap to the face. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. You and Erina need to talk to each other.”
“I can’t talk to her,” I snapped and almost banged my right hand on the table.
But the waitress had returned with our breakfast order on a tray she wielded deftly on one upturned palm, so I restrained myself and sat quietly as she placed cups and plates on the table before us.
When she departed, I resumed from where I’d left off. “I can’t talk to that woman.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t stand the sight of her. I can’t—I just can’t tolerate the way she talks to me. I can’t stand how she treats me. I’m not a thing. I’m a person. But that’s not how she sees me.”
Straus took a deep breath and glanced away.
I took a deep breath of my own. “You know that I’m right. You know how she treats me.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
“So how can you expect me to compromise with her.”
With a glare, he once again leaned over the table toward me. “Because it’s for your own good. You need to stop facing your sister head on. There are other ways for you to deal with her.”
“You mean that passive aggressive nonsense.” I snorted and shook my head. “I don’t know how to do passive aggressive.”
Unexpectedly, Straus bowed his head and closed his eyes. “I told you before you’re my hope.”
I frowned at him. “Yeah. Stop reminding me. It makes me feel really uncomfortable.”
Opening his eyes, he looked up at me. “Well right now, you’re not acting like my hope. Right now you’re the obstacle to achieving my dream of living a normal life.”
“You’re making me responsible?” I replied with a mixture of disbelief and annoyance. “How conceited—”
Straus cut me off by banging a fist on the table, making the cups and plates bounce. “You are not the only one having problems with Erina.”
I only noticed my mouth had fallen open when I needed to swallow.
Straus was making a visible effort to remain calm. “You’re making it difficult for everyone.”
I pressed my lips together unhappily. “That’s a selfish thing to say.”
“No, it’s not. Don’t you understand? With you and Erina butting heads every time you’re in the same room, you make it hard for everyone else to manage the both of you.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. “Manage?”
“Of course.”
“Manage?” I repeated coldly this time.
“Is there something wrong with you ears?”
I folded my arms under my breasts. “I don’t need to be managed.”
“You and Erina are behaving like a pair of Divas.”
I gaped speechlessly at Straus.
As he continued to lean forward over the table, he tapped his fingers slowly on the table. “I know that every time you succeed in pushing Erina’s buttons and launching her into the stratosphere you think you’ve won against her.” He shook his head. “You’re not winning at all. All you’re doing is making life harder for her and for yourself. And when you do that you make life harder for everyone around you.”
I sucked in air noisily, and tightened my folded arms. “Well, that’s just too bad.”
“You and your sister are cut from the same cloth. You’re both recalcitrant and egocentric. And right now both of you can’t see past your own noses.”
I glared at him. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
Straus lowered his voice. “I get it perfectly. I get that you hate what happened to you, but you’ve got it wrong. You’re blaming her when you should be blaming Kateopia.”
“Oh, I blame Kateopia. Rest assured. I definitely blame her.”
“And you’re wrong about one more thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’re not Ronin Kassius. You’re Mirai. You were never Ronin Kassius.”
Her words were like a knife driven into my chest and they hurt. But it was a hurt that I’d already experienced and had cried over. It was a hurt I was slowly coming to terms with on my own.
“I know that,” I grated at him. “I know that all I am is the keeper of his memories. But I’m dealing with it. I’m dealing with knowing that my mind is male but my body is female. I’m dealing with knowing that there is no going back. So I don’t need you reminding me of what I am.”
“If you’re dealing with it, then cut yourself and your sister some slack.”
This time I banged the table and made the plates and cups bounce. “Never!”
“Why are you being so stubborn? Can’t you see that it makes your life harder—?”
“Because I can’t accept how she treats me! Even if I was never Ronin Kassius but just a copy of his mind, I’m still me. I have feelings, memories, thoughts. I am not a machine.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Do you really?”
“I know what you are,” Straus insisted.
I dropped my voice to a hiss. “Then do you know how hard this is for me?” I paused and held his gaze refusing to let him look away. “Do you? Do you know why I’ve managed to stay sane after everything that’s happened to me? It’s because I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive. But now? Now I’ve got some downtime and it’s catching up to me.”
“You were calm on the boat.”
“Because I was exhausted. I was so completely overwhelmed by what I was told that my mind was still catching up back then.”
Straus didn’t appear to believe me and I didn’t care.
I pushed on. “Erina could have found another way. But she didn’t because her research is more important to her than anything else. And the proof is that she was willing to face an Empress and not back down an inch.”
“Because that research isn’t just important to her. It’s important to humanity.”
I leaned over the table toward Straus. “You see, that’s where your wrong. I get that it’s important and that it has the potential—the potential—to save lives. That doesn’t mean that it can or it will. But when Erina looks at me, she’s not seeing humanity’s salvation.” I shook my head firmly. “No, no, no. To Erina, I’m not humanity’s savior.”
“Then what are you?”
“In her eyes, I’m humanity’s future.”
In a very human way, Straus’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly and a frown faintly creased his brow as he regarded me in silence.
I watched him too, aware that I was looking at a machine and not a handsome teenage boy, but somehow I felt as though I’d moved past my troubles reconciling the illusion with reality. So I was able to meet his gaze as though I was meeting that of a real boy, and not feel unsettled all the way to my bones as my andro-mechano-phobia slumbered in the back seat.
Straus slowly sat back. “If I say that I agree with you…will you listen to my advice?”
My eyebrows rose sharply revealing my surprise. “You…agree with me?”
Straus appeared deeply troubled and bowed his head, breaking eye contact with me. “It’s just a gut a feeling I have…a feeling that Erina is looking for something more in you.” He looked up at me. “A feeling that she has something else planned for you and the Angel Fibers. Something other than what she has told the Sanreals.”
“…like what…?”
“You said it yourself. Like becoming humanity’s future.”
I felt cold – so very, very cold – and broke into a shiver that made my hands tremble so I pulled them out of sight under the table.
“Isabel?”
The concern I heard in his voice made me flinch, but it helped me regain control. “What?”
“Will you listen to my advice?”
I snorted softly and turned away. “I know what you’re going to say, so don’t bother.”
“Then what are you going to go? Keep going the way you have? Leaving aside whatever plans Erina truly has for you—and I’m not comfortable with speculating behind her back—”
I huffed this time and threw him a glaring sidelong glance. “So it doesn’t matter what she has planned for me?”
“That’s not what I meant. Would you let me finish?”
I sat back in my booth seat, and then shrugged my shoulders at him. “Fine. Let’s hear it.”
Straus looked briefly annoyed but then exhaled loudly as though expelling his frustration toward me. “If you continue on this path, if you keep going the way you’re going, butting heads with Erina at every turn, then she won’t be able to protect you.”
I frowned hard at Straus. “Erina is protecting me?”
“Yes. She is. Do you know the reason why are living as Isabel val Sanreal?”
“Wasn’t that something House Novis arranged with the Empress?”
“No. The Empress only wanted Mirai fighting in the Gun Princess Royale. The part about you living as Isabel was a proposal that Erina pushed through. Using the influence she has over Simon Sanreal, she convinced him to have you assume the identity of Isabel val Sanreal.”
My frown deepened. “Back on the boat, Erina said that House Novis planned to introduce Clarisol back into the family as Isabel val Sanreal. But I was also told that House Novis planned to have Clarisol live a free life away from them—away from Teloria—by living as Isabel Allegrando, a fake identity.” I cocked my head at Straus. “So which one is true?”
“The latter,” he replied flatly.
So Ghost was telling the truth.
Straus continued in a measured voice. “You’re wondering why she lied to you?”
“Yes….”
“Because she wanted to give you the opportunity to experience living in the real world.”
My frown faded as I thought of Clarisol’s consciousness living in her virtual prison, but I didn’t know if Straus was aware that I’d spoken to her so I treaded cautiously.
But there was another reason for me to be wary.
Back on the Sanreal Crest, Erina had warned me about being ‘boxed’.
So I cleared my throat and guardedly asked, “What do you mean by living in the real world?”
“You are valuable to Erina and to the Sanreals. But Kateopia twisted their arm and had them enter you in the Gun Princess Royale where they stand to lose you. With that in mind, the Sanreals had decided to keep you safe when you were away from the GPR. That meant confining you to your Sarcophagus, and using its technology to have your mind experience living in a virtual reality.”
I slowly raised my chin at Straus. “So I was going to be boxed.”
Straus arched an eyebrow questioningly. “Where did you hear that term?”
I lied with a straight face. “From Erina.”
Straus was quiet for a brief moment, but then nodded to me. “That’s right. You were going to be boxed. You’d be released out into the real world when it was time for you to fight.”
“So why wasn’t I boxed?”
“I told you. Because of Erina.”
Straus again leaned forward, and this time rested his elbows on the table as he pinned me with a hard stare.
“The Sanreals didn’t want you exposed to the outside world. To them, it was a huge risk. Think about it. You’re special. You’re the culmination of years of research. By having you out and about they ran the risk of losing you to an accident, to injury, to a whole variety of unexpected circumstances.”
I leaned forward and tapped the table with a fingertip while returning his hard glare. “You’re telling me I’m special, and that they couldn’t risk having me out in the real world. Yet they were planning to send Clarisol away in this body. They were planning to have her live far away from Teloria. That makes no sense to me.”
Straus gave me an incredulous look. “Not right away. They weren’t planning for that until it was certain that Mirai would live for a very, very long time. If it turned out that Mirai fell short of expectations, then they would suspend the plan and wait until Mirai could be perfected or another better Mirai could be made. They were being careful to tick all the boxes. Putting Clarisol in a defective Simulacra was not an option.”
I tapped the table again. “Then about the Angel Fibers. Could they afford to have Mirai or Isabel leave their grasp? Wouldn’t they need her for more research?”
“Erina said she could make another Mirai to continue the research. Once she didn’t need the first Mirai—once she was sure the prototype met the Sanreals requirements for a suitable body for Clarisol—then Clarisol would be free to assume the life of Isabel Allegrando.”
I pressed my lips together and inwardly disagreed.
No, not Clarisol, but a copy of her consciousness. The real Clarisol would still be stuck in that prison for her mind.
However, this wasn’t something I would mention to Straus.
Instead, I gave him a nod and said, “Go on. I’m listening. Tell me the rest.”
Straus gave me a puzzled frown, perhaps baffled that I was expressing this much interest, but continued explaining my circumstances.
“The Sanreals also feared that Kateopia might make a move on you, and steal you from them. Erina had told Kateopia that if Mirai was stolen, Mirai would die.”
Tabitha had said the same thing, so I gave Straus a questioning look and asked, “Is that true?”
Straus looked uncomfortable as he shrugged a shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know. Your sister won’t tell anyone what precautions she took, and I don’t have a reason to doubt her. You’re precious to her but I don’t know if she’s willing to lose you permanently. With her it’s a war of wills with the Empress and that gives birth to a contradiction. On the one hand, she’s adamant that you’re too valuable to hand over, but on the other she’s determined that her research will remain safe in her hands at the expense of your life. In that context, to the Sanreals, keeping you in the Sarcophagus under the proverbial lock and key suited them just fine. And I like said, your mind could be kept busy living in a virtual world so perfect you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
“So why am I out here and not in there?”
“Because Erina had other ideas. She didn’t want you boxed. She wanted you to experience real life. To live in the world. And so she convinced Simon to make use of the identity of Isabel Allegrando – an identity the Sanreals had carefully created over the span of many months for Clarisol – and to bring Isabel into the Sanreal Family. To amend her existence so that she was the illegitimate daughter of Phelan Sanreal, otherwise known in the other universe as Phelan Erz Novis, the head of House Novis.”
“Why? Why would she do that? Why go that far?”
Did she know that I was going to take my new life hard?
That is, did she know I would have trouble accepting my new existence?
Erina was an Alpha, so perhaps she’d used her enhanced intellect to plan ahead.
But that implied that she cared about Mirai. It implied that Erina had a heart.
I shook my head inwardly at the notion, and dismissed it quickly.
Before disembarking from the Sanreal Crest, Erina had admitted that she wanted me to mature, to evolve, to be more than I was now. I still believed that was a rare moment of honesty from her, and because of that I couldn’t shake off the impression that Erina had long term plans for me. This brought my thinking back to the issue of Clarisol, and if what Straus told me was true, it clashed with the Sanreals’ intention to have Clarisol live out her life in Mirai’s body as Isabel Allegrando.
When I joined the dots this way, I arrived at the same worrying conclusion I had when sitting in Ar Telica Tower’s foyer.
Erina had her own agenda, and it went contrary to those of the Sanreals.
My former sister was indeed playing a dangerous game.
Dear gods in high heaven. Did Erina reveal Project Mirai to the Empress? Did she do all this, challenging the Empress to a dangerous game of threats and counter threats so that the Sanreals couldn’t give Mirai’s body to Clarisol?
I closed my eyes tightly as I leaned my head back against the top of the seat’s headrest.
Why? Why go that far? Is Mirai so special that you would risk my life, your life, and your brother’s life too?
I opened my eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling.
My gods, Erina. What have you dragged me into?
Straus cut in smoothly into my thinking. “Isabel, listen to me carefully.”
I swallowed but continued looking up at the ceiling as I nodded. “I’m listening….”
“The Sanreals are watching you. They are watching me. They are watching Erina. They are watching how you behave around her. They are watching the decisions you make. They are considering how much or how little control Erina has over you.”
I lowered my gaze and met Straus’s eyes.
Those perfectly realistic yet mechanical eyes held my gaze, ensuring that he had my full attention as he folded his arms across his chest.
“If you continue to challenge Erina the way you have been, they will make a judgement call, an executive decision, and take matters into their own hands. They will take you away from Erina.”
He paused and I knew what was coming.
“Isabel, they will box you.”
My deepest apologies for posting this after such a long break.
This part of the chapter require a large amount of work in order to get it up to scratch. There were a lot of issues with it that my editor and I had to work through.
However, we managed to get through it.
I just want to assure readers that I have not abandoned the series. Nor do I have any plans to abandon it.
As always, if you'd like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Thank you for giving this series a chance.
If you feel other people may enjoy it, please, let them know. The more the merrier.
Best wishes to you all.
Was I at risk of losing everything?
Had I gained nothing after winning my fight against the Gun Queen?
Just what had I achieved? What had I earned for myself?
As my questioning thoughts slowly drifted through my mind, the empty, hollow feeling in my chest returned, making it hard to breathe as though my lungs were being distended by the vacuum within me.
I swallowed hard a few times, and tried to regain control of my breathing.
I understood that the emptiness was born from the oppressive feeling of being trapped, walled in from all sides, with no way out of my situation.
I realized then that to some degree I was already boxed.
No matter the choices that I made, I was a captive of the Sanreals and House Novis.
While I was of value to them because of the Angel Fibers, I was also their gladiatrix and slave, and there was no freedom in that. And while there was no going back to my previous existence, going forward would only be on their terms. Thus, my life was not mine to live because my existence belonged to them.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I gripped the edge of the table and fought down a new sensation – the urge to retch.
“Isabel? Isabel. Isabel--stop!”
A loud crack startled me and I opened my eyes to see Straus leaning over the table, grabbing onto my arms. But the damage was done. The long edge of the table had been snapped by the pressure my fingers had applied to it. It hadn’t broken away, but there was a lengthy crack in its surface that would be impossible to miss.
Straus’s gaze worked its way from the table to my hands, up my arms, and eventually onto my face.
Through my hazy consciousness, I thought I glimpsed a flicker of fear in his eyes – quite extraordinary since he wasn’t a boy of flesh and blood – before his lips set into a thin angry line. Then he grabbed a pancake from the small pile the waitress had delivered as part of the breakfast order, and unceremoniously shoved it into my mouth.
“Eat,” he commanded, before exiting the booth.
Circling around to my side, he grabbed me by an arm, then picked up the plate with the pancakes on them before dragging me out of the booth.
“Let’s go.”
With my mind in a foggy state, I failed to put up a struggle, and was thereby pulled toward the exit of the café by Straus.
In the waiting area, Straus instructed me gruffly, “Wait here”, then hurried off to pay for breakfast.
My mind may have been addled and fuzzy, but my body recognized its need for food.
Thus, I distractedly munched on the pancake sticking out of my mouth.
Swallowing it down seconds later, I watched Straus pay for breakfast and then hurry back to me with a paper bag containing our pancake order and a few other bits, though I would need to look in the bag to know what they were.
“Come on,” Straus said as he passed me by, dropping the bag into my hands.
With a little food working its way down toward my stomach, my emotions a tad more settled, and my mind a little clearer, I followed him out of the café onto the sidewalk.
It seemed that nothing had changed during the time we’d spent inside the café.
The city sidewalk was as busy as ever as people hurried to work.
I didn’t need a wristwatch to tell the time. Mirai’s wetware informed me with a thought pulse that it was now 9:15 am, and since most companies were in business by 9:00 am, I figured a great many people were either going to be late, or they had more flexible schedules than I
knew of. But all of this was of little consequence to me as I merged with the flowing sidewalk traffic and then followed Straus down the district block.
All the while, my mind was slowly picking up the pace as it chugged away at various trains of thought. But it wasn’t until we reached an intersection and waited for the light to change in our favor, that I reached out and yanked Straus by the arm.
Startled and wary, Straus regarded me with caution in his eyes.
“What if I took her offer?” I asked loud enough to be heard above the surrounding din of vehicular traffic and people. Seeing the faint confusion on his face, I added, “What if I accepted Tabitha’s offer to fight for Cardinal?”
The confusion in his eyes turned to restrained alarm. “That would be a mistake.”
“Why?”.
“Because she lied to you.”
“About what?”
“About Cardinal.” Straus shook his head. “There is no division of the Battle Commission by that name.”
“There’s no Cardinal—?”
“There is no Cardinal division. But there is a House Alus Cardinal.”
I released his arm, and my arm fell away limply. “What?”
“Taura Hexaria Erz Cardinal. That’s her name. That’s who she is.”
I stared at him with disbelief on my face, but deep down I wasn’t surprised to learn that she had lied to me like so many people thus far.
Was it so unexpected to learn that one more liar had entered the fray?
Indeed, it wasn’t, yet nonetheless I couldn’t help feeling acutely disappointed in her.
Perhaps my thoughts were written on my face, because after a moment or two, Straus gave me a sympathetic look. “I’ll tell you more later. For now, let’s keep moving.”
I swallowed, pushing down my disillusioned, slightly bitter feelings, and hesitantly asked, “Wh—Where are we going?”
Straus pressed his lips tightly together before waving a hand eastward. “You know the gardens by the harbor waterfront?”
I nodded. “Of course, I do.”
“Well, I thought you could do with some fresh air.”
I stared at him, my mind still rocking after hearing of Tabitha’s deceit, and wondered what his angle was. However, before I could come to any conclusion or guesses, the traffic light changed, and once again we were swept across a wide street by a torrent of pedestrians rushing to work.
Eventually, after a fifteen-minute walk where I trailed behind Straus while weaving between people, and clutching my bag of pancakes tightly to my chest, I noticed the sidewalk traffic thin out dramatically the farther we travelled east toward the harbor, taking with it the oppressive feeling
of being walled in from all sides. A short while later we escaped from the shadows of Ar Telica’s towering megascrapers and left the frantic commuters behind when we crossed a multi-lane avenue into a strip of sparse parkland running north-to-south before the harbor.
It was only then that I relaxed my grip on my pancakes.
There was another avenue to cross before we arrived at the narrow parkland that paralleled much of the harbor foreshore.
I followed Straus to a picnic area encircled by a sparse tree line.
A few people wandered through the parkland, some walking their dogs, others using the wide paved path between the park and sea wall as a jogging track.
Straus headed for an empty table with bench seats a lthat was a little way away from the other deserted tables in the clearing.
“Wait here,” he instructed, then hurried off at a jog to a row of vending machines about a hundred feet away.
I sat down at the bench table, and threw a glare at his back as I opened up my bag of pancakes, annoyed at being ordered around.
I failed to quash my feelings, but I did manage to lid them as I looked inside the bag and found about a dozen pancakes, a handful of paper serviettes, and a couple of sealed plastic cupcake containers filled with jam. After emptying the bag of its contents, I flattened it and used it as a placemat. Then I opened one of the jam containers, and poured a little of the rich strawberry sauce onto a pancake. Rolling it up carefully, I then speared it into my open mouth, and ate it in a hurry.
However, I took my time with the next pancake.
By then, Straus had returned with an armload of soda cans that he quickly placed before me on the table top.
“I didn’t know what you preferred,” he admitted, “so I bought the popular brands.”
I swept my gaze over them, then chose a soda can with lively green and white livery. “Thanks…,” I grumbled as I popped it open.
Straus rested his arms on the tabletop after sitting down opposite me at the picnic table.
I devoured a third pancake, then washed it down with a mouthful of soda before slamming the can onto the table.
I threw a dark glare at Straus who watched me with a keenness that was making me uncomfortable as well as irritated.
“Tell me about Cardinal,” I demanded in a low grumble. “Tell me the truth.”
Straus gathered himself by straightening for a moment then leaning forward, once again resting his weight on his elbows.
“House Alus Cardinal fought in the war in support of Kateopia. After the war, and after House Novis’ fall from grace, they gained Kateopia’s ear and have since been her closest allies. When Kateopia wanted to exile House Novis for their genocidal act of wiping out House Patraeon, it was House Cardinal who swayed her decision.”
I arched an eyebrow at Straus. “So they’re allies of House Novis?”
He snorted curtly. “Hardly.” After shaking his head, he said, “No, they’re rivals and not the friendly sort.” He paused for a second with an uncertain expression before continuing. “After the war, Taura and her sister Alexia, competed in the Gun Princess Royales held in their universe and ours. They won the respective championships, earning House Cardinal a generous amount of prestige as well as two wishes granted by the Empress. They rose from the noble rank of Catun to Alus in one fell swoop. Ever since then, they’ve been holding onto that rank by supporting the Empress both publicly and privately.”
I slowly swallowed down my fifth pancake, and noticed the image of Ghost standing idly behind Straus, nodding slowly as though confirming what Straus had just told me.
“You know a lot about them,” I pointed out coldly.
“I know what I’ve been told,” he replied easily, shrugging off the frigid look I was giving him.
“So why did she do it?”
He looked bemused for a moment. “Why did she make you that offer?”
I nodded.
Straus shrugged a shoulder. “You would have discovered the truth sooner or later. I guess she was testing your commitment to House Novis.”
“As if I ever had a choice.”
Straus made an odd expression with his lips as he looked away while pondering my remark. “I don’t know about that. It’s one thing for the Empress to steal you away from House Novis, but it’s another for her to tempt you away through House Cardinal. If you left of your own will, I have no idea what would happen to you.” He shrugged both shoulders this time. “I don’t know what House Novis would do if you betrayed them.”
“Betray? Are you serious?”
Straus gave me a dry look. “You know what I mean.”
Yes, I did. But nonetheless, I didn’t appreciate him phrasing the situation that way.
I cleared my throat with another mouthful of soda from the aluminum can. Putting it back down on the table, I favored a glare upon Straus. “It would have been nice if I’d known all this before I ran into her again.”
Straus folded his arms on the tabletop. “You’ve been a little hard to talk to you—what with you running away by jumping off balconies.”
I started to grimace in response but stopped myself quickly.
He had a point. I wasn’t exactly being accommodating, but they were to blame.
“Maybe if you’d treated me better I wouldn’t have had a reason to run away. You ever consider that?” I asked him brusquely.
Straus pressed his lips together tightly. “Are you angry about the way she shouted at you?”
“Oh, I’m definitely not going to forgive or forget her shouting at me.” I folded up my sixth pancake after moistening it liberally with strawberry sauce from the second container. “But I haven’t decided how I’m going to pay her back for treating me like dirt—”
“She was protecting me.”
He said it so smoothly, so matter-of-factly, that it stopped me cold with the pancake at my open mouth.
“What?”
“She was protecting me, Isabel.”
I lowered the pancake away from my mouth. “Protecting you from whom?”
“From you.”
A dark frown furrowed my brow. “Why? I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
Straus shook his head slowly. “She was afraid of how the Angel Fibers in my body would react to you.”
For a short while, I forgot about the pancake in my hand until I felt the strawberry sauce trickle onto my fingers.
I had little choice but to it quickly, wipe my hands on a paper serviette, then wash down the pancake by gulping down mouthfuls of soda.
Planting the can back on the table, I narrowed my eyes at Straus. “Care to explain?”
Straus opened his mouth but then glanced away westward in the direction of the city.
Standing behind him, Ghost did the same and a grave look spread across his face. “Princess, I would advise you to remain calm.”
I couldn’t reply to him without giving him away, but I was also curious and concerned by the manner in which both Ghost and Straus were looking off in the direction of the city.
Somewhat reluctantly, I turned my head and followed their line of sight.
Standing beside the door of a sleek, low slung sports car, was my former sister, dressed in casual black slacks, white high heels, and a white blouse with ruffled sleeves and neckline.
As usual since our reunion, Erina looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine reporting on Ar Telica’s upper class society, and indeed she was since her fiancé was none other than Simon Sanreal, eldest son of the extravagantly rich Sanreal Family. Even from a distance, I could see the sparkle of her engagement ring as it caught the morning sunlight.
When our eyes met, Erina pushed herself away from the matt silver sports car, and began walking toward us.
At that moment, I heard Straus curse softly under his breath. Again, I found that quite impressive for a remote operated machine.
Rising from the bench seat, Straus bade me, “Wait here,” then quickly walked to intercept Erina long before she could arrive at the table.
I decided to continue eating my remaining pancakes, though hunger had deserted me at sight of the woman that I despised.
“Ghost, did you tell Straus where to find me?”
In the corner of my eye, I watched him glance at me. “Aye, Princess.”
“You used Tabitha’s phone, right?”
“Aye….”
“You are a sneaky bastard.”
“Princess, I was concerned about Taura Hexaria and the lies she was feeding you.”
“But you didn’t tell me it was a lie.”
“No. Had I done so, and had you confronted her with the truth, it would have diverted her from her objective. I wanted your reactions to be completely natural to her offer.”
“So you were testing me, just like Tabitha was testing me.”
“I was observing you, my Princess.”
I took the time to eat my seventh and final pancake, drank liberally from the soda can, then burped quite un-lady like. “Ghost, whose side are you on?”
“Yours, Princess.”
Tidying up after myself, I placed the unused serviettes into a skirt pocket and the empty strawberry sauce containers into the paper bag before rolling it up.
Then I looked at Ghost and shook my head slowly at him for a short while.
“No. You’re on Clarisol’s side.”
For an Artificial Awareness, regardless of its origins, Ghost displayed a remarkable human reaction – a faintly pained expression that briefly flickered across his face.
After holding his gaze with an unwavering stare, I sighed, and Ghost chose that moment to reply.
“Princess, I hold both yours and Clarisol’s interest at heart.”
“Is that so….”
I turned away from him, proverbially turning my back to him, and waited with forced calm for Erina and Straus to arrive at the picnic table.
Wisely, Erina chose to stop several feet away from me, while Straus assumed a position that would allow him to step between us with only a couple of strides.
Erina watched me with an unreadable expression, but I had no doubt the wheels were churning madly in her head as she played out various opening exchanges in her mind.
I didn’t.
I simply waited for her opening move, and would play the rest by ear and gut intuition.
True, I wasn’t one for strategizing.
Wetting her lips, Erina broke her silence with a gentle tone that immediately had me wondering what the game was.
“You look good in uniform,” she observed.
“Thanks. Tabitha said it was tailor made.”
Not entirely true, but she did admit to knowing my sizes.
Erina grew rigid for a mere heartbeat. It was so faint and quick that I had I not been looking at her keenly, it would have escaped my notice.
But I’d mentioned Tabitha deliberately to gauge her reaction.
I see. Straus was right. There’s no love between House Novis and House Cardinal.
Then I had another thought.
Does Erina see herself as a member of House Novis…or the Sanreal Family?
I turned on the bench seat, straddling it with my legs such that I was now facing her properly.
Erina didn’t appear to approve of my decision, sparing my skirt a pointed glance.
I smirked inwardly. “I take it Straus told you about my encounter with her?”
“She did.”
I considered how easily she had replied.
Was she listening in on our conversation?
I glanced at Straus.
That’s a mechanical avatar. Does that mean Erina can see and hear whatever Straus sees and hears through the avatar’s senses? Was she watching me through the avatar’s eyes?
I chose to proceed under that assumption as I leaned forward slightly toward Erina.
“So, give me your honest opinion. Should I take up her offer?”
“That would be problematic.”
I snorted and then broke into a strained laugh. “So I’ve been told….”
Erina had been standing with her hands folded lightly over her midriff, but now she chose to fold her arms under her breasts. “Are you considering it?”
I inhaled slow and deep, thinking my answer over. “No.”
“May I ask why not?”
“Because she wasn’t honest with me. So I have no reason to trust her offer. End of story.”
“…I see….”
I made a show of frowning up at her. “Do you?” Miming the act of moving game pieces on a board, I asked her, “Have you played out the
situation all the way to checkmate? Do you know what I’ll do next?”
Erina pursed her lips and didn’t reply.
“Why are you here?” I asked. It was what I should have asked first, but I’d been playing my opening moves in response to hers.
“I came to talk.”
This time I made a show of looking surprised. Then I sneered at her. “To talk and not shout at me?”
“Isabel, there are things I must explain to you.”
Still sitting astride the bench seat, I leaned back, resting my weight on my arms stretched out behind me. “I’m listening.”
“You are aware that Akane’s body contains the Angel Fibers.”
I gently nodded once. “Yes, she’s Prototype One.”
A faint wince flickered across Erina’s lips before she swallowed and continued. “I don’t know what effect the presence of your body will have on the Angel Fibers.”
I raised my chin slightly. “You mean when I’m close to her?”
“Correct. You told me that the Angel Fibers in the ampules reacted to your presence—to your intentions.”
This time, my nod wasn’t so certain as I remembered the tiny sparkling particles swimming in that silver sea within the ampule.
Erina sounded cautious as she continued. “I reacted out of fear…fear of not knowing what would happen to her. For that, I’m sorry.”
My eyebrows rose markedly toward my hairline. “Are you apologizing?”
Erina wet her lips again. “Akane is a dear friend. I wanted to save her. But instead I almost killed her.”
I was puzzled.
Was Erina apologizing to me or wasn’t she? Granted, she did say she was sorry, but was she now rationalizing why she’d yelled at me?
I decided not to ask her again because it seemed she wasn’t done talking.
“I got ahead of myself,” Erina continued. “I was reckless, overconfident, desperate, and I made a mistake…one that almost killed her. And now she lives with the consequences of my mistake.”
In my peripheral vision, I noticed Straus flinch faintly. For a moment, I thought he would break his silence but instead he pressed his lips tightly together and said nothing.
However, it made me wonder if Straus didn’t agree with Erina blaming herself, and so I said, “Akane told me you saved her.”
“Saved her?” Erina swallowed quietly and looked faintly pained as she glanced at Straus standing silently off to a side. “I didn’t save her. Her condition no longer deteriorates, but neither does it improve. And you’ve seen how the Angel Fibers have disfigured her.”
I read Erina’s regret in her voice, and it distracted me a little because it irked me to believe she would care more about someone who wasn’t family – that she would care more about Straus than about me.
Then again, I wasn’t family to her.
I was her creation.
And yet, didn’t that also make me her child, or was I just the monster to her Victor Frankenstein?
I expelled a loud sigh. “Yeah…breaks my heart….”
And there it was, a flicker of anger in Erina’s eyes, and I had my answer.
It was the answer I had expected, yet heartache made my chest tighten. In response, I clenched my hands on the bench seat, and bit down hard on the inside of my mouth, the pain of which distracted me from the emotional anguish, allowing me to pull myself together after an irrational moment of weakness where part of me had held a fragile hope that I meant more to Erina than Akane Straus.
How very stupid of me….
When I’d regained a grip on my composure, I leaned forward on the bench seat. “If that’s an apology…you need to work on it.”
Then I swung a leg over the seat, stood up, and with hands on hips, I fixed a cold glare on Erina.
“Now, tell me why you’re really here because I don’t believe for a frekking heartbeat that it was just to apologize.”
Erina stepped closer but stopped a couple of meters shy of me.
“You’ve been making waves,” she said. “And that’s made some people unhappy with you…and me.”
“Your Sanreal masters?” I scoffed at her.
“They’re your masters, too.”
She said it matter-of-factly, and I bristled at her, but then I saw worry in her eyes – real worry – and it stalled my retort somewhere in my throat.
They will box you.
Perhaps Erina guessed at my thoughts, because she nodded subtly.
But more so, I was certain now that Erina had been following the conversation with Straus. However, I wasn’t sure if she had done so with Straus’s knowledge or consent. The reason that I doubted the two were on the same page was because Straus had looked shocked to see Erina waiting by her car, and now she was watching Erina with poorly veiled suspicion.
Thus, it could be that things weren’t kosher between them, but was this something I could use to my advantage?
I chose to shelve the possibility for later consideration, and gave Erina my full attention. I was facing a grand master after all.
“Cut to the chase, Erina. I don’t have all day.”
“Neither do I,” she replied.
“So let’s hear it then.”
“The Sanreal Family isn’t happy with your lack of co-operation.”
“You have a hand in that.”
She nodded faintly. “Agreed. Managing you has been unexpectedly difficult.”
I smiled angrily at Erina. “Managing me?”
“I am your Guardian.”
“Managing me?” I repeated, twisting my lips into a rictus grin.
Erina paused and took a deep breath. “He wants to speak with you.”
“Who?”
“The head of the Sanreal Family…and House Novis”
My eyes widened in response to the sudden anxious pang I felt in my chest. “Phelan Sanreal Erz Novis…?”
Erina gave me a subdued nod, her expression grim. “Isabel, I came here to pick you up. To take you to him.”
“In that case,” Straus suddenly moved between Erina and I, his attention directed toward where Erina had parked her car in the narrow street between the two strips of parkland. “What are they doing here?”
Erina glanced first at Straus, then half turned to look over her right shoulder in the direction of her car.
I diverted my gaze as well, and in the distance I saw numerous men and women in black business suits disembarking from a trio of equally dark suburban vehicles that gave off the impression they were both heavy and armored.
“Damn it,” Erina hissed, then spun around to point sharply at me. “Don’t even think about running away! Not this time. You stay right there!”
I snarled at her while clenching and unclenching my hands. “Yelling at me again?”
“This is for your own good, Isabel. I am not joking around. You run away now—you make a single wrong move, and this will not end well. I mean it.”
I made a point of sweeping my gaze over my surroundings. “Why? Are they going to try something out here? In a public place? With these people around?”
“Public or not, it won’t make a difference. Trust me on this!”
“Why the Hell should I?”
Erina surprised me but stepping right up to me. “Listen to me, Isabel. If you only ever listen to me once—do it this time.”
I stared slightly up at her with swirling emotions, some of which burned my innards while others chilled me.
“Don’t—go—anywhere,” she instructed and with those words, Erina strode off in the direction of the waiting men and women clad in black business suits and dark sunglasses.
However, Straus chose to wait behind with an anxious expression directed at the sinister newcomers.
Ghost stepped into my peripheral vision. “Princess, I strongly urge you to heed her advice.”
“Why?” I asked softly, barely even a whisper.
“I fear you are being watched from above.”
“…what…?” I looked up but could see nothing but a partly overcast morning sky. “…what are you talking about…?”
“Princess, you are aware that I am able to infiltrate photronic systems within your vicinity.”
I muttered a reply with a whisper that even I barely heard. “Yeah, you mentioned that before.”
“The truth is that I use the wetware in your head as a node point. From there, I can connect to the surrounding grid.”
I felt my eyes widen a little. “You’re using me like a part of a network.”
“Correct. I am tethering myself to you from within the Sarcophagus.”
I lowered my whisper to a hiss. “You’re using me like a smartphone?”
“Indeed. Through you, I am able to establish a connection to the grid surrounding you.”
I closed my eyes as I took a deep breath. “You can’t do it directly from the Sarcophagus?”
“No, I am not that omnipotent. But since I am streaming through you, the vast bulk of my processing power is within the Sarcophagus so it does not tax your wetware.”
“How comforting,” I whispered as I folded my arms under my bust. “So? So what?”
“By using the parkland’s surveillance grid, I have been able to redirect a handful of the cameras to the buildings across the street to the west of us.”
“And…?”
“And I have noticed someone on the seventeenth floor of the building due west of your position.”
I opened my eyes, blinking twice to clear my vision, then focused on the building Ghost’s projection was pointing toward.
“There, Princess, on that garden balcony.”
I squinted and focused hard in the direction he was pointing.
The permaglass of the building’s façade was coated with an anti-reflective material that prevented the sun from reflecting harshly off its surface.
The same could be said for the sniping scope mounted atop a rifle aimed in my direction. Because they were making use of the garden on the balcony to hide themselves, I couldn’t determine what kind of weapon they were aiming at me, nor could I see the sniper, but I felt it hardly mattered.
“…wonderful…,” I breathed out softly, then noticed Straus giving me a curious look.
“What are you mumbling about?” he asked.
“Did you know about this?” I asked in reply.
Straus looked troubled before shaking his head tightly. “No.”
I tipped my head away from him. “Oh? They pulled a fast one on you and Erina? Blindsided, were we?”
“Damn well looks that way,” he replied and turned back to look at Erina in discussion with one of the men in dark suits.
“Who are they? Sanreal hunting dogs?”
Straus gave me a reproachful glance. “Sanreal executive security.”
I pouted for a moment before asking, “Are they human or Simulacra?”
Straus glanced at me again, curiously this time. “Can’t you tell? I thought that was your talent.”
“It is. But I can’t use it from this distance,” I lied. “I need to get closer.”
Then the proverbial penny dropped and I felt a chill run through me.
Does she know about my ability to see the aura around living things? When did she find out? Or was she referring to something else I can do?
I stared at Straus with a modicum of suspicion, but he didn’t appear to notice as he hurriedly stepped between me and the executive security personnel in the distance.
“Oh no, no, no!” he cried out. “You’re not going anywhere—certainly not over there. You’re waiting right here with me.”
Staring at him askance, I slowly pushed my suspicions aside as I planted my hands on my hips. “The Sanreals have come for me, right?”
He exhaled loudly and his shoulders slumped slightly in resignation. “More than likely.”
“So there’s a chance they came for someone else.”
He exhaled again, and nodded subtly on this occasion. “It’s possible they came for your sister. But I believe they came here for you.”
I held back a frown.
Would they really come for Erina? Does that mean they suspect her…?
Raising my chin slightly, I continued to look sidelong at Straus. “Then does that mean they came for Isabel val Sanreal, or for Mirai?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then let’s find out,” I suggested smoothly.
“Nope. No way. We wait here.”
I shook my head and turned my head toward Straus, adding with a smile, “Show a little backbone.”
“Courage is not the problem.”
“Then what’s the problem? Is it the sniper aiming at me from the building across the street?”
Straus’s eyes widened so much I could see the whites surrounding the irises. “What?”
I broadened my smile and pointed in the direction of the building where the sniper was hiding. “They’re over there. Seventeenth floor.”
As Straus turned to look where I was indicating with an outstretched arm and finger, I slipped around him and strode quickly toward Erina and the executive security people. As I walked across the strip of parkland, I made it a point to wave at the sniper hiding on the garden balcony.
“I can see you,” I mouthed in their direction.
In the event they couldn’t read lips, I made matters clearer by pointing at my eyes then I pointed at them.
Straus ran ahead of me and then stopped to block my path. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
I looked at him innocently. “I told you. I’m going to find out if they came for me.”
Straus shook his head quickly. “You can find that out soon enough. Let Erina handle this.”
I dipped my head at him. “Are you worried about the sniper?”
“Yeah, I’m worried. And how the Hell did you know there’s a sniper out there?”
I arched my eyebrows. “You saw them.”
He nodded stiffly. “Yeah, I saw them. Now how did you know they were there?”
“My invisible friend told me.”
“Your what?” Straus made no effort to hide his confusion.
I sighed and smiled thinly up at him. “Don’t you have one too?”
“I most certainly do not.”
Again, I sighed. “Straus, I know you’re worried. But trust me. I’m not going to make any sudden moves.”
“You don’t need to go over there.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
Straus was looking and sounding frustrated with me.
In contrast, I was mildly surprised by how calm I sounded, and it seemed to frustrate Straus even more. “Because I’ve been doing this too often.”
“Doing what—misbehaving?”
“No,” I shook my head gently. “Running away.”
The noticeable scowl he’d been wearing slowly faded off his face.
I sighed a third time, and felt it was once too often but it was already out the door. “Straus, I ran away from Erina. I ran away from the students in the stairwell. I ran away from Tabitha.”
“I had something to do with that,” he admitted, sounding contrite.
Shaking my head again, I said, “I could have stopped you. In fact, I did stop you.”
“So what are you saying?”
“That I’m not going to run away from the Sanreals.” I jutted my chin in Erina’s direction. “I’m going over there as Isabel val
Sanreal. If Daddy Dearest wants to meet me, then who am I turn down his invitation?” I grinned at Straus. “As the saying goes, take me to your leader.”
“I don’t think you’re using it in the right context.”
My grin ebbed away as I shrugged a shoulder. “Whatever. You get what I mean.”
“Yeah…I do.”
“So…are you going to be a good boy and escort me over there?” I glanced in the sniper’s direction. “Like I said, I won’t make any sudden moves, but I’m not going to be putting my hands on the back of my head.”
For a long while, Straus looked over his shoulder at the building across the street. Eventually, he turned away and paid Erina and company a tense glance before facing me.
“No sudden moves. Right?” he asked.
“No sudden moves,” I affirmed, then tossed my hair like I’d seen some of the girls of Telos Academy do. “Well, let’s go meet the family.”
Straus looked disappointed at my effort. “You need a lot more practice.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Care to teach me?”
He pointed at himself. “Not like this I’m not. But I’m sure we can find you a few instructional holovids on how to be a spoilt Princess.”
“I just want to learn how to toss my hair.”
Straus looked puzzled. “Truthfully, I’m surprised to hear you say that. It’s not something I expected to come from you.”
My breath caught in my chest as I realized what he meant.
He’s right. Why am I choosing to act like a girl now?
Feeling my emotions sower, I humphed bitterly, and then stormed around him.
Straus fell into step beside me a couple of seconds later, sounding clearly uneasy as I cut a beeline toward Erina and the Sanreal security people. “You will try to behave, right?”
“I’m going to be the perfect spoilt princess,” I grumbled under my breath.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Sorry this took a couple of weeks to post.
I'd like to thank all the readers who are still following this for sticking with it.
I know it feels like torture at times, so you have my sincere gratitude for taking the time to read this latest installment.
As always, if you'd like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Thank you for giving this series a chance.
If you feel other people may enjoy it, please, let them know. The more the merrier.
Best wishes to you all.
– II –
One young man with a long sandy hair, a medium build, and fine facial features stood apart from the other security personnel, and it wasn’t because he was nearest to Erina.
Nor was it the easy manner in which he conversed with her, standing casually as though he was chatting to an old friend…an old friend that looked less than pleased to see him.
It certainly wasn’t his slightly unkempt appearance, the tad bedraggled way he wore his suit, or his tie hanging loosely from his neck.
No.
He stood apart because I sensed something different in him – something I felt deep in my gut, in my bones, in the muscles wrapped around them, and in the faint hairs along the nape of my neck.
It was the impression that we had met before, but I couldn’t call it déjà vu.
Rather, it was a sense of knowing him on a deeper level than just a passing glance or brief encounter, as though my body recalled an unpleasant experience at his hands.
I came to a stop several feet away from him, with Straus a couple of feet off to my right.
Erina, standing about two meters away from the young man, stared at me in disbelief that quickly turned to anger. But before she could chastise or berate me for disobeying her instruction, the young man reached up, removed his sunglasses, and met my eyes.
At that moment, as our gazes touched upon each other, something inside of me was unlocked, and invisible shackles I’d been unaware of suddenly fell away. However, the deep unease I’d been feeling all the way down to my bones now jumped up a rung, and a chill slithered its way down my back.
The impression that I knew this young man, that there was history between us, grew stronger.
A faint smile curved his lips as he cocked his head slightly and regarded me for a silent moment.
“So you’re Isabel.”
His voice was quiet and yet it carried, tickling my senses with that damnable feeling that I somehow knew him despite having no memories of him.
He turned his body toward me, pocketing his sunglasses into his shirt’s breast pocket.
“But if you’re Isabel…where’s Mirai?”
It was extraordinary how swiftly he moved.
The moment the words slipped past his lips, his right hand dove in and out of his jacket with no noticeable acceleration.
Normally when someone moves, no matter how quickly, their limbs will visibly accelerate. But with him it was as though his arm had already gone past the accelerate stage and straight into maximum velocity. It was one of those ‘blink’ and you’ll miss it moments, or rather, it was as though that moment had been cut out from the flow of time, causing the scene to jump as though a dozen or more frames were missing.
Regardless, this lack of discernible acceleration threw me off and was the primary reason why my reaction trailed behind his by a wide margin.
However, even if I reacted a late, I wasn’t going to stand still and do nothing because despite his incredible speed, he had yet to aim his weapon at me, and that gave me a narrow window of time within which to counter him.
From a standing start, I bolted forward like lightning toward him.
I felt as light as a feather as my right foot touched ground, a millisecond before I kicked upwards with my left foot.
It connected with his right hand, throwing off his aim, and the black sidearm he held discharged a small round that sailed over my left shoulder.
It certainly felt like it missed my left ear by millimeters, and might have taken some of my raven hair with it.
As expected, the moment he reached for his gun, Mirai transformed from blonde to brunette.
In other words, she had powered up in the blink of an eye.
With my senses sharpened to a razors edge, I was able to perceive him and my surroundings with remarkable clarity.
In my peripheral vision I could also see the lifeforce surrounding Erina who appeared frozen in shock, her mouth slightly ajar. But her lack of movement was simply because time had slowed down for me. My Awareness was overclocked and yet I noticed it wasn’t the same as I had experienced when I fought the Gun Queen.
Time seemed to be moving slower.
Rather than at a quarter speed, it felt as though time had slowed five-fold.
And there was something else that was different.
For a brief moment, my body had moved in harmony with my overclocked mind. As a consequence, my left leg must have blurred in real time as I kicked the gun upwards.
It was this unexpected acceleration that saved me from injury.
That said, pain lanced through my left foot, and to my consternation, the agony faded slowly while my consciousness was overclocked.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on the pain.
I had avoided the first shot, but I wasn’t ‘out-of-the-woods’ yet.
Despite the heavy blow I’d dealt his hand, the bastard still held onto the gun.
I was surprised by that.
Considering that I hadn’t held back, I expected his wrist to have broken when I landed the upward kick.
No matter. If I hadn’t disarmed him then, I was committed to disarming him with my next kick, or the next one, otherwise I ran the risk of taking a bullet from his gun.
And equally as I was intent of relieving him of his weapon, I sensed he was intent upon shooting me.
Behind these concerns was another and it bothered me as much as it puzzled me.
My body was performing actions ingrained upon it.
It was adhering to techniques that had been honed through countless hours of training, and yet I no conscious memories of ever having performed physical training of the kind that would turn my legs into lethal weapons. It reminded me of Mirai’s skillful operation of firearms as though she’d been using them for years. However, operating weapons wasn’t the same as executing precise martial actions.
So why was I able to do so?
With my left foot back on the ground, I pivoted on it as I swung my right foot around in a fast arc.
I had to kick high because his right arm had yet to come down.
Fortunately, I was wearing a skirt that fluttered upwards and didn’t impede my movements.
Unfortunately, said skirt was short and held nothing back as my slender, toned leg scythed through the air.
With time moving slowly for me, I had plenty of time to observe his reaction.
As expected, his attention focused on the racy black panties I was wearing.
His eyebrows shot up in slow motion as his eyes widened.
Damn that Tabitha!
I imagined his memory taking rapid snaps of the vista between my legs even while the side of my foot succeeded in knocking his arm wide.
If this is going to be norm, I’m going to start wearing shorts under my skirt!
Using the kick’s momentum, I continued turning my body, pivoting on my right foot as soon as it touched ground, and lashing out with my left leg.
Again, I gave him a view to remember and write home about as my skirt billowed upwards.
Tomorrow—no, today—I’m wearing shorts!
The kick I delivered planted my left foot into the young man’s belly, and the impact knocked him back several feet into the flank of the black SUV parked behind him.
But like Newton said, for every reaction there’s an equal and opposite reaction, and I felt as though I’d kicked a wall as I rebounded away from the young man.
I had to spin my body in order to regain my balance, and quickly dropped into an offensive stance, determined to charge into him while he was still addled.
But as I leapt forward, I noticed something strange about the aura surrounding his body – it wasn’t complete.
What the Hell is he?
I avoided crashing into him as I grabbed onto his arms, preventing him from aiming the gun at me, but I immediately felt something was wrong and panic began to gnaw at my consciousness.
Gods damn it—why is he so strong?
Tabitha had said I was six or seven times stronger than a girl my size. But it was taking every ounce of that strength to compensate for the difference in mass between us as I pinned him against the dented side of the black suburban.
Wait a minute—the car is dented?
His eyes met mine as they were widening in surprise and confusion, and through the lifeforce radiating from them I could tell they were real.
“What are you?” I hissed through clenched teeth, my breath coming in short and fast due to the effort I was exerting as I pressed him into the suburban.
And yet he was breathing easily as though he was standing leisurely with his back against the vehicle.
I sucked in air, then cried out, “Answer me—”
Distracted by the aura I was seeing, I didn’t notice him bring up a leg until I was winded by his knee burying itself into my gut.
Doubled over, I tightened my stomach muscles, and refused to let go of his arms.
But when I sensed his knee come up again for a second strike, I straightened hastily and then darted back by kicking off against the side of the suburban.
I avoided his effort to hit me, but I released his arms in the process.
However, I had one more desperate move up my sleeve.
As I retreated from him, I grabbed his gun and twisted it harshly with all the grip strength my left hand could muster.
Since he wasn’t going to let it go, then the least I could do was render it inoperable.
It wasn’t my first time wrecking a handgun.
I had twisted and bent Straus’s firearm back on the landing platform, although on that occasion I’d had the luxury of time on my side.
That wasn’t the case now.
I’d have a second at best during which to break my opponent’s handgun.
But I was determined to wreck the weapon so I gave the gun a vicious twist as I leapt backwards.
I landed around ten or eleven feet away from him. With a glance, I took stock of the situation around me.
The security personnel had drawn their sidearms and were aiming them at me. In response, Straus had yanked Erina out of harm’s way, and retreated out of the line of fire. Now he was shielding her behind his body.
I could understand him wanting to protect her from stray gunfire, but it needled my ego.
Hey—shouldn’t you be protecting me? I’m you’re hope, aren’t I?
Movement caught my attention, dragging my focus back onto the young man I’d grappled with.
I was already on edge, but felt even more uneasy at sight of him slightly buried into the side of the large black suburban.
He’s alive but he’s not human either.
I frowned at another possibility as I considered his incomplete aura.
Wait a minute—could he be human after all?
He gave the mangled gun in his hand a sour look. “Damn, I really liked that gun.”
Tossing it down onto the grass, he then pushed himself free of the vehicle’s warped door.
“Damn, you kick hard,” he muttered.
Once free of the suburban, he raised his hands at the surrounding security personnel.
“Stand down,” he called out. “I said, stand down. No harm done. Everybody relax.”
I couldn’t tell if the order included me, but I had no intention of dropping my guard, and I assumed a slightly crouched defensive stance.
Most of my attention remained focused on him, though I could see the security agents in my peripheral vision continue to aim their sidearms at me in defiance of his order.
The young man had sounded faintly amused before, but now impatience darkened his tone. “I said, stand down. That’s an order. If I have to repeat myself, I’m going to be mad.”
Shifting my gaze slightly to the left and right, I watched the dark suited men and women slowly, reluctantly holster their weapons.
“That’s better,” he remarked with a thin smile of approval that quickly grew cruel. “But I’m going to have you running fifty laps around the compound when we get back. Disobey me again and I’ll make it a hundred.”
As he took a long stride away from the side of the suburban, I now clearly saw the depression his body had made into the doors and B-pillar.
“What are you?” I loudly asked him, falling well short of a yell.
The young man frowned curiously at me for a second or two but didn’t answer.
I swallowed quickly and pressed on. “I know you’re not a Simulacrum. And you’re not a mechanical either. But you’re not human. So what the Hell are you?”
He cocked his head at me. “What makes you say that?”
“Other than the fact that you’re stronger than me, kicking you is like kicking a wall, and you left your body imprinted on that car.”
“You do have a point or two….” He broke into a thin smile. “You’re remarkable.”
“Aw, you’re making me blush,” I snarked sarcastically but not knowing what he was meant not knowing the extent of his abilities. That made me nervous and it sapped my sarcasm.
He dropped his smile. “But is it enough for you to survive?”
A frown flickered across my brow. Had I been asked something like that before?
“Are you talking about the Gun Princess Royale?” I asked him.
He answered me with a nod.
Unwilling to drop my guarded stance, I tried to hide my nervousness behind a casual shoulder shrug. “I guess I’ll find out sooner or later.”
He nodded again, then glanced down at the gun lying on the grass. “That was a gift.”
“Then you shouldn’t have pulled it on me.”
He fiddled with his loose tie as he regarded the weapon for a moment longer. “I must say, your speed surprised me. For a second, I couldn’t see you move.”
So I had blurred in his vision. By why was he telling me that? Wasn’t it better to keep it a secret?
He stopped fiddling with his tie and directed a thoughtful gave at me. “You certainly exceeded my expectations.”
His expectations?
“Who are you?” I asked bluntly, intending to force the dialogue in my favor.
But he ignored my attempt to divert the conversation. “It looks like all the work they put into you paid off.”
Damn him, I muttered inwardly, but found myself quickly asking, “What work?”
“The training they imprinted into your body. I’m sure she’d be proud of how you turned out.”
My stance wavered.
She? And was he referring to my knowledge of guns or the martial prowess I’d demonstrated less than a minute ago.
I swallowed quickly.
Or was it both?
Taking a short breath, I reminded him, “You haven’t answered my question. What are you?”
“That’s true. I’ll save that for another time. But shouldn’t you instead be asking who I am?”
“I did ask you! Weren’t you paying attention?”
He blinked and glanced away as though spooling back his memory. “Did you?”
Frustration took a bite out of my anxious feelings. “Frankly, I don’t care who you are. You’re with the Sanreals. Enough said!” I clenched my hands into fists. “And you pulled a gun on me. Nice way to make a good impression, asshole.”
He snorted curtly as he looked away and ran the fingers of his right hand through his sandy blonde hair. “And here I was thinking brats these days have manners—”
A poppy tune started to play from somewhere in his jacket.
It was the kind of music I was accustomed to hearing vapid looking female starlets sing on variety shows.
But then I recognized the song and a grimace worked its way up from my gut onto my face.
“Great—another frekking Ami Amero fan,” I remarked sourly.
“Hey!” The young man pointed a finger sharply at me. “Watch yourself there.”
My grimace contorted my face another notch as my voice dropped to a hiss. “…what did you say…?”
Jabbing the air in my direction, he proceeded to lecture me. “For your information, brat. Her name is Ami Amuro. Pronounced, Ah Moo Roh.” He clenched his fingers into a fist. “Do not dare to disrespect her or I’ll spank you over my knee.”
I straightened from my defensive posture, then made a show of cracking my knuckles – although they made no sound – as I worked up my most Hellish grin onto my face. “Oh yeah? Just try it, you asshole. Next time I kick you, I’m putting you through that car.”
He held up hand as if to stop me. “Just a moment. I need to take this call.” Then he calmly placed the flat device up against his left ear. “Arnval here. What is it?”
No matter how much I tried, my knuckles just wouldn’t crack.
Damn it. Another weird quirk of Mirai’s body. I blinked quickly. Wait a moment—so his name is Arnval. Weird name for a weirdo.
“Oh, really,” Arnval mused lightly as he listened to whomever was on the other end of the phone line. “And they’re coming here? Well, can’t you do something about them? I don’t know. Shoot their tires. Well then you think of something. I can’t think do all the thinking around here. That’s why you’re my right-hand woman. Damn it. It’s just one problem after another.”
He lowered the phone away from his ear and ended the call with a thumb tap to its screen.
Then he faced me with an amused smile.
“Change of plans, Princess. We need to get you out of here pronto.”
I stopped trying to crack my knuckles and shook my hands in a drying motion. “Did you just call me Princess?”
Arnval hurried toward me. “If you’ll step this way, please.”
He walked past me, and then beckoned me to follow him with a wave.
I stared at him in disbelief.
What is wrong with this guy?
Arnval noticed I wasn’t following him. “Would you prefer to stay and be questioned by the authorities?” he asked nonchalantly.
At that moment, Ghost materialized before me, startling me back a step.
“Princess, I suggest you do as he says.”
“Why the Hell should I?” I gasped while recovering from my fright.
“Because they may ask questions of you that you may not be able to answer.” Ghost replied with his customary calm, though I may have sensed an undercurrent of trepidation in his voice.
But there was no mistaking the apprehension Erina was expressing as she ran up to me and anxiously implored me, “For now, please. Would you just do as he says?”
“Who?” I asked, looking first at Ghost before pointing at Arnval. “You mean him?”
“Yes, him. Who else do you think I’m talking about?” Erina swiftly grabbed both my arms and shook me – well, as much as was within her means. “Isabel, Ronin, Mirai – for the love of the gods. Please, just do what you’re told—even if it’s just this once.”
I shook off her grip on my arms. “Okay—okay. Fine. I’ll do it.” Then I frowned sharply. “Do what exactly?”
“Do this!” she declared, and to my surprise, Erina grabbed me by my right hand and then pulled me along behind her.
I could have stopped her. Her strength compared feebly to mine so I could have held my ground with ease, but her anxiousness eroded my stubbornness.
Fine. Just this once. Just this once! You hear me, Erina?
Towed behind her, it took me a moment or two to realize we were walking back toward the parkland and in the direction of the harbor to the east.
Sheesh, what the Hell is going on? Go where? There’s nothing but water in that direction.
“Erina, what’s the big deal?”
“Dealing with the authorities is the big deal,” she replied hastily.
“Well then somebody should have told him not to pull a gun on me.”
“For once we are in perfect agreement!” She scowled at me over her left shoulder. “But it would have helped if you’d stayed where I told you to stay.”
“It would have helped if you’d told me he was a weirdo!”
Erina clenched her jaw and glared at me before swiftly turning away. “You’re right. I should have told you he was missing a few million brain cells…among other things.”
We continued walking back to the picnic benches when Arnval abruptly raised a hand, urging us to stop.
“Ladies, if you would be so kind as to wait right there.”
Erina and I both stopped a single step later.
I looked around us and noticed the security personnel had chosen to remain by the parked vehicles. However, Straus had followed us and now stood a few feet off to my left.
I threw him a puzzled look. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Straus wore an oddly constipated expression that grew worse by the moment as he peered at our surroundings. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“A bad feeling about what?”
Being surrounded by nervous, harried people who were telling me diddly squat was doing little to alleviate my anxious feelings and my confused state of mind.
Arnval’s strange antics weren’t helping, either.
He was pacing back and forth a short distance before us while waving his phone through the air like someone searching for signal reception.
“Blasted app. What is wrong with this thing?” he muttered loudly, before repeatedly slapping the side of his phone.
The more I watched him, the more I unhinged I became. Eventually, my emotions exploded. “What the Hell are you doing?”
And once again he completely ignored me.
“Ah! There it is.” Arnval proudly held the phone aloft. “And now—Geronimo!”
Wearing a happy grin on his face, Arnval tapped the phone’s display with his thumb.
Erina inhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes shut.
Straus gasped and stood rigid.
However, I cocked my head at Arnval and asked, “What the Hell does Geronimo mean?”
“It means, grab your ass and tuck your head between your legs. We’re Trans-Locating!”
“What?” I swept my free hand in a half circle. “Out here? With all these people looking? Are you crazy?”
“Of course not, you silly brat.” From a suit trouser pocket, Arnval retrieved something that resembled a small peach. “That’s what this is for.”
My eyes widened as Arnval pitched the small peach into the ground between him and me.
“Kaboom!” he intoned with a laugh.
The peach exploded with a kaboom of its own, expelling a thick black, acrid smoke that rapidly billowed into the air and covered everything in sight.
I squeezed my eyes shut but felt them water when I opened them. Concurrently, my throat began to itch unpleasantly.
Beside me, Erina collapsed to her knees, gagging for air.
I crouched alongside her, but there was nothing I could do for her.
If not for Mirai’s Ultra-Grade specs I may have found myself as incapacitated as Erina was.
Even Straus, who happened to be a mechanical avatar, was waving a hand about in the thick black cloud as though he was trying to ward it away.
“What the Hell is this?” I choked after swallowing a mouthful of the awful, pungent black gas.
Arnval replied between coughs. “A smoke bomb.”
“Really? I thought it was chemical warfare.”
He coughed some more. “It’s my own design.”
“What did you use? An expired chemistry kit?”
Beside me, Erina was wheezing sickly as she struggled to breathe. She was using her blouse as a makeshift filter but it was having little to no effect.
I realized I had an urgent choice to make – one that went against my recent grain – but it was still a choice I had to make. “That’s it! I’m getting us out of here.”
Suddenly, a sharp tone sounded out from Arnval’s direction.
“What now?” I snapped at him, barely discernible in the thick black cloud.
“Finally,” he declared with evident relief before breaking into another coughing fit. “G—Geronimo!”
“You said that before—uggh!”
A familiar, disagreeable, and unwelcome sensation swept over me.
It was a combination of disorienting weightlessness that threatened to upend my stomach as darkness completely enveloped us.
Then it transmuted into the impression that I was perpetually falling into an all-encompassing abyss.
We probably endured the nauseating experience for only a handful of seconds, but it felt like it lasted a lot longer.
A moment later bright sunlight blinded me, as though someone had tossed the curtains wide open and ripped the shroud of darkness apart.
Reflexively I squeezed my eyes shut.
And then I noticed something was wrong.
The Trans-Location process had ended but my body continued to experience a sense of freefall. In conjunction with the roaring wind plastering my clothes to my body, there was no denying something was seriously amiss.
What the Hell is going on?
With a mounting sense of urgency, I pried my eyes open and struggled to look around me.
The sight of Erina, Arnval, and Straus swimming helplessly in the air had my heart skipping beats.
When I looked below me, I almost wished I’d kept my eyes shut.
A palatial luxury villa surrounded by acres of lush, verdant garden was rushing up to meet us.
Or rather, we were falling toward it.
To be specific, we were headed for a watery landing in an immense swimming pool easily mistaken for a lagoon.
In freefall beside me, Erina screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Arnval you—!”
Then all of four us splashed down into the cold, crystal blue waters of the pool.
Thank you for your patience with this next release.
For those of you who are new to the series and would like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
I will hopefully have the next part out by the coming weekend.
Thank you for sticking with it.
Dear Readers,
Chapter 6 Part II was rewritten but not reposted. As a result, readers may find some disparities in the character descriptions and in the way Arnval behaves.
The rewritten Part II will be released with the eBook, effectively replacing the version posted here.
– I –
It was a hard landing into the pool.
At the last second, I was able to right my body and plunge into the water feet first.
The impact was severe, and for a moment I thought I’d blacked out, but a combination of the cold water and my feet striking the bottom of the pool snapped my consciousness awake.
That surprised me…and concerned me.
Why, you may ask?
Because when I kicked off the bottom of the pool, and then broke through the surface of the water a couple of seconds later, I immediately looked around for my companions…and one of them was missing.
Straus and Arnval were treading water, the latter appearing somewhat disoriented from the splashdown.
But as I’d suspected – maybe even feared a little – there was no sign of Erina.
Treading water myself, I swept my gaze around me in a full circle once more, before inhaling deeply and diving 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.
Again, why? Perhaps because this wasn’t how I wanted her to meet her maker.
She wasn’t going to escape my retribution this easily.
And I wasn’t alone in my efforts to find her, though our reasons for doing so may have been disparate.
Straus had dived along with me, and I was briefly amazed to see the mechanical avatar swimming as easily as an in-form teenage boy.
He – I mean she – had probably realized the same thing I had: that Erina was human and thus the weakest of us. Hence, the impact from the water landing had undoubtedly knocked her unconscious. At worst, it may have killed her.
I chose to swim in one direction, and Straus went the other.
We had three things working in our favor.
The first was that the pool was shallow, no more than ten 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 was able to quickly locate my former sister…floating unconscious at the bottom of the pool.
Erina!
No, this wasn’t how I wanted to see her die.
She had much to atone for before I would allow her to kick the bucket.
Swimming up to her, I reached out and shook her brusquely, but she failed to respond.
I felt my heart thump loudly, before quickly wrapping an arm around her waist, then kicking hard back to the surface of the pool, breaking into the air a second or two later.
By then Straus had swum over to me, and lent me his support.
With Erina between us, we swam for the nearest edge of the pool.
First hauling ourselves then Erina out of the water, we carefully yet quickly carried her to a soft grassy bank a meter or so beyond the stone tiles bordering the pool.
Laying her down supine, I felt for Erina’s pulse by pressing my fingertips to her neck…and found none.
“Frek!” I cursed loudly, then realized I had no idea what to do.
I had never trained to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
In a panic, I looked up at Straus kneeling beside Erina. “I don’t know CPR!”
Ghost materialized in a corner of my vision. “Princess, I can advise you of the proper procedure.”
Before I could decide whether to accept Ghost’s offer, Straus pushed me away from Erina and quickly straddled her body. “I do.”
“But you’re a mechanical—”
“This body is fully equipped,” he replied less than calmly.
“What? You have lungs?”
“How else would I pass myself off as human?”
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 cupping Erina’s breasts, 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, and shook my head brusquely.
No, no, no! What the Hell am I thinking at a time like this!
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 tipped back Erina’s head, then opened her mouth and buried his fingers into it.
“I have a lot more than just lungs…,” he muttered solemnly.
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 with his fingers deep in Erina’s mouth.
I frowned deeply.
Shouldn’t she be reflexively gagging?
My frown grew deeper.
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 me being soaked to the skin. Rather, it was a slowly dawning reality 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 while concentrating his attention on the fingers in her mouth. “Her airway seems clear.”
I heard a young man’s voice, and recognized it belonged to Arnval. Looking up quickly, I saw him standing in his wet clothes, peering down at Erina while talking to someone through his phone.
“Indeed. She’s unresponsive. I do suggest you hurry, Kyoko-chan. The situation is dire. 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 complications.”
My face broke into a deep frown.
Brain damage can be fixed? What the Hell kind of technology do they have? But if he’s talking about complications does that mean it’s not perfect?
I looked down at Erina.
Will this affect her status as an Alpha?
I watched Straus breathe air into Erina’s open mouth, then place his hands low over her sternum, and begin 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.”
He compressed her chest some thirty times, then leaned forward to breathe twice into Erina’s open mouth.
When he pulled back to resume the compressions, he said, “Humans consume about five percent of that when they breathe. That leaves about sixteen percent left over when we exhale.”
I nodded absently though I was following his explanation.
Straus continued while performing the compression. “But I don’t consume more than two percent oxygen, so that means I can breathe cleaner air into her than you can.” Without stopping, he glanced up at me. “Actually, I wonder how much oxygen you consume…?”
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 stopped for a second and stared at me blankly before abruptly nodding hastily. “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 seen Straus place his.
“Don’t push too hard,” he warned me sharply. “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 carefully compressed Erina’s chest at regular intervals.
I would count a second, then push down on her chest, then count another second, and repeat the compression.
Straus timed his breathing with my actions.
I don’t know for how long we did this. It could have been 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, 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, and again I was certain I felt her sternum fracture.
“You’re killing her!” I snapped at him.
But Straus ignored me as he yelled, “Erina!”
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 felt the worst had passed.
The sound of running footsteps grabbed my attention, and I looked up to see a trio of young women wearing maid café outfits and carrying silver metal cases with them.
“Excuse us, please,” said a young woman with short chestnut hair, wearing a cat ears headband. 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. After a few seconds 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 and quickly strapped a breathing apparatus over her mouth. The device was connected via a ribbed hose to a black box with gills that opened and closed like those of a shark.
The maid with the wand then addressed the third maid, a buxom blond girl 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.
“Whaaaat?” The blonde bunny eared maid let out a cry of disbelief, shot to her feet, and chased after the levitating stretcher. “Come baaaaaack heeeeere!”
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.
The bunny maid was experiencing the same situation, running all over the place as she pursued the errant stretcher.
Standing nearby, Arnval regarded the fruitless efforts of the bunny girl as he addressed the maid with cat ears.
“Kyoko-chan, you do have a plan-B, right?”
The maid in question finished waving the wand over Erina’s supine body, and nodded calmly. “I do indeed.”
She placed the wand back into the black medical pouch hanging off her skirt, then stood up.
However, she turned her back to Erina and then smoothly squatted on the ground.
“I shall carry her on my back,” she announced.
Arnval nodded thoughtfully, his eyes tracking the progress of the stretcher and the hapless bunny maid trying to catch it. “I have a better idea,” he declared.
From the wet innards of his trench coat – yes, he was still wearing the damn trench coat – Arnval pulled out a gun.
My eyes widened at sight of the firearm.
That bastard had a second gun!
With a fluid motion, Arnval aimed at the stretcher and fired twice in rapid succession.
Sparks flew from the stretcher and the device crash landed on the ground a dozen odd meters away from us, and quickly skidded to a stop.
“That’s plan-C,” Arnval calmly stated as he returned the gun to the confines of his trench coat.
Straus pushed himself up 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,” she gasped as she struggled to catch her breath.
With the stretcher under an arm, Straus hurried back to Erina.
I scooted back to give him room, then helped him load the unconscious woman onto the powerless stretcher.
Straus positioned himself at the front of the stretcher, while I took up the rear, and the cat maid picked up the rebreather apparatus.
“On the count of three,” Straus called out. “One, two, three.”
Together we hefted the stretcher up off the ground, careful not to drop Erina in the process.
For her part, the cat maid carried the rebreather in her hands.
“Which way?” I asked her in a hurry.
Before the young woman could reply, Arnval strode briskly past us. “Follow me, ladies.”
He led us away from the pool onto a wide path made of paving stones that gently wound its way through the well maintained garden in the direction of the palatial two storey house in the distance.
The fox maid, Tamara, ran ahead of us into the house, undoubtedly to prepare the way for us.
However, the bunny maid dragged her feet as she trudged in our wake and quickly fell behind though I was able to hear her mutter in a pitiful tone, “Why…why does it always happen to me…?”
I grimaced in discomfort as I followed the path up to the steps leading into the house.
I was cold, wet, and my soaked uniform clung tightly to my skin.
However, because it was nearly black in nature, it didn’t turn translucent when wet.
As a result, my underwear was safe from perving eyes.
Also, I was wearing the black panties and bra that Tabitha had chosen for me, so when combined with my dark uniform there was little chance of them being exposed.
I offered a silent prayer of gratitude to whomever had decided that Telos Academy’s uniform for boys and girls had to be dark, for there were many other schools within Ar Telica that had light colored uniforms, including white. That said, significant advances in material and fabric technology over the decades had revolutionized school uniforms such that young girls wearing angelic and virginal white dresses, skirts, and blouses no longer feared being caught in a sudden downpour without an umbrella.
Naturally, those advances had been applied to Telos Academy’s uniform, so I had even less to fear. But while the uniform was designed to protect my modesty, it wasn’t designed to be waterproof.
After all, if it was waterproof, how could it be washed?
Actually, let’s not get it into that.
What I will say is that it was distinctly unpleasant to walk in soaked clothing.
My breasts felt uncomfortable in the wet bra, as did my butt clad in sodden panties.
But what really bothered me was the wet squelching of my feet in my water-logged shoes, so much so that I had to stop and kick them off. Luckily, Straus didn’t complain when I asked him to give me a few seconds to do so. And luckily, I had the bunny maid to help me remove my shoes and socks. I thanked her courteously, before resuming our rapid walk to the immense two-storey house.
The path branched in two directions, one that continued to circle around the lagoon pool, the other leading toward the white house with red-tiled roofing.
Naturally, Arnval chose to walk toward the latter.
I looked down at Erina as we approached a wide flight of steps leading up to a set of broad, double doors.
“How is she?” I asked the maid.
“Her vitals looked strong,” the young woman replied. “However, we’ll know more when we place her inside a med-capsule.”
I had more questions, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask them because they felt redundant, superfluous until Erina could be given proper medical care.
But to me, a lay man – or woman – with only cursory medical knowledge, the fact that Erina had failed to regain consciousness was concerning.
Again, I questioned why I cared or worried over her, and reluctantly acknowledged that some bonds were a little harder to cut than others.
It was going to take me some time to divest myself of any lingering ties to Erina, and truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I could completely cut myself free of her.
Arriving at the foot of the wide steps leading up to the broad entrance, I gazed up at the large house looming before us, then carefully climbed the steps, mindful of the need to keep the stretcher with Erina as level as possible between Straus and I.
At the landing before the double doors, I paused to give the exterior of the abode a good look, and despite the nature of our arrival, Erina’s injuries, and the fact that I’d been effectively kidnapped, I found myself wondering what I would find within rather than of whom I would meet.
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.
The side before us must have been around a hundred meters long.
Balconies with repeated archways ran the length of what I could see of the first and second floors. The windows on both levels were wide, tall, with semi-circular fanlights, and there were glass double doors leading out onto the balconies at regular intervals, each probably belonging to a separate room or suite.
The more I looked at the house, the more it reminded me of the houses I had seen in historical documentaries of ancient Earth. To that end, I would describe the building as the blending of a Spanish and Roman villa.
A sour thought crossed my mind as I realized those memories belonged to Ronin Kassius. But since I had accepted my role as the keeper of those memories, I pushed the bitterness aside.
Little by little, I’ll make memories of my own.
Truthfully, I was already doing so. Unfortunately, few if any of those memories were pleasant or worth keeping.
With a heavy sigh, I directed my gaze onto the closed doors.
Unexpectedly, the lyrics of a song swum up from the murky depths of my memories.
“Welcome to the Hotel California,” I sang softly. “Such a lovely place…such a lovely face….”
“What?”
Arnval half spun around to face me, and now stared at me with poorly veiled surprise, and when I glanced at him, I noticed the disquiet in his eyes.
“Where did you hear that?” he asked me in a serious tone.
I shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. I just remembered it now.”
Arnval’s disquiet darkened and he started to say something but he was interrupted by a loud bang as the double doors to the house abruptly burst open.
The maid, Tamara, reappeared 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 wondered uneasily.
Quickly, the maids surrounded us.
Since I was still in Mirai Mode, I decided to concentrate my awareness on the young maid and suddenly her aura came into view. Then I quickly surveyed the maids encircling us.
Simulacra. All of them. Why am I not that surprised?
Considering the goings on around the Sanreals, perhaps it was best to have staff you could trust…and dispose of.
“We’ll take it from here,” the cat maid, Kyoko, declared in a respectful and patient tone.
“Where exactly is here?” I asked, keeping my tone civil since this young woman had yet to earn my ire.
“The Sanreal Estate,” she replied smoothly. She indicated the entrance to the house. “Please, we mustn’t delay.”
Straus had half turned to look at me. “Mirai…?”
I gave the unconscious Erina an ambivalent look that reflected my mixed feelings. “Fine. Whatever….”
Damn it. Why was I reluctant to hand her over? Why should I feel this way? Did I fear for her safety?
I ground my molars together for a moment.
Why do I goddamn care?
The maids moved in and took the stretcher from Straus and I, and we then retreated a couple of feet to give them room to maneuver through the wide, open doorway.
I shook my head inwardly as I watched them disappear into the house.
Deal with it later, I told myself then listened to Kyoko address us as a group.
“If you’ll follow Penelope and I, we’ll lead you to your rooms.” The young woman briefly indicated the blonde maid with bunny ears who had chosen to remain behind. “Dry clothes have been prepared for you.”
She turned to guide the way into the house, but I crossed my arms and fixed a hard stare on Arnval who was quick notice it.
“We’re not on Teloria, are we?” I asked him in a low, flat tone.
“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.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “Ah, yes. Your ability to sense magnetic waves—”
“So where are we?” I asked, ignoring his remark. “A station, an orbital city, a ship?”
Straus exhaled loudly as he watched the exchange between Arnval and I. “We’re actually still on Teloria. We haven’t moved off world.”
“Oh?” I pointed up at the sky. “So what is that?”
I hadn’t noticed it until I stared up at the house, but the 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.”
Lowering my hand, I slowly frowned. “What weather conditions?”
Arnval laughed lightly. “Perhaps it’s better if we showed you.” He gave the patiently waiting Kyoko a somewhat amused look. “Well, Kyoko-chan? Shall we show the Princess what lies beyond?”
The maid displayed the first sign of indecision since her entry onto this fool’s stage.
“Are you certain?” she asked him.
“Indeed, I am,” he replied confidently breaking into a thin smile. “I do believe her reaction will be priceless.”
Kyoko studied me for a moment then politely nodded once. “Very well. Please follow me.”
She smoothly turned away from the house and descended the steps down to the path we’d followed not long ago. At the T-junction, she stepped onto the route leading around the pool and into the surrounding gardens.
I hesitated as I wondered why Arnval and the maid were being so dramatic, then hurried after her, with Straus and Arnval following suit.
It took a few minutes to circle the pool and then walk through the lush, verdant garden.
The place was beginning to remind me more and more of those palatial villas the Romans had enjoyed millennia ago.
Exiting the gardens onto a sandy beach, the maid came to a stop.
I halted beside her, and looked ahead at a vast ocean of green and blue stretching out to the horizon. But then I noticed the faint hexagonal grid extending down to the sand a few feet shy of where the ocean waves lapped the beach.
“It really is a dome,” I muttered half to myself, and half to the maid.
“Yes, it is,” the maid concurred 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 beside her with a smirk on his face.
Prick, I thought at him.
Then I quickly looked at Straus and asked in a confidential manner, “Is that what those headbands are for?”
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 added.
“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.”
I faced the ocean just as the grid of hexagonal panes grew dark.
At first, I assumed I was looking at the inside of a giant storm-grey dome until I soon realized the panes had become transparent.
In other words, it wasn’t the dome that was dark but the vista that lay beyond it.
My eyes grew wide and I had to swallow twice before I could weakly ask, “…where the Hell are we…?”
I heard Straus chuckle uncomfortably. “Inside a Category Six hurricane.”
I swallowed again…twice. “…oh….”
Mouth agape, I stared in disbelief and terror at the incredible sight before me.
Outside the dome raged an ocean storm of unbelievable scale and ferocity.
Truly, one of Teloria’s seven nightmarish wonders of the world.
Thank you for your patience with this series.
For those of you who are new to the series and would like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
I hope to have Part III out by next week.
Thank you for sticking with this series.
Dear Readers, due to the delay in getting this posted, we decided to release Parts III and IV in one hit.
– 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, near 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 turned 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. Hence, Ar Telica had been constructed to withstand the raging ferocity of a Category Five hurricane. After all, after a century of terraforming, the planet had yet to settle into a relatively placid Earth-like climate and ecology. Atmospheric and ocean storms continued rage, and though weak compared to what Telos had once endured, by Earth’s standards they were fierce and so the city-states were designed and built to weather their harshness.
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 over 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 Artificial Awareness could engage watertight doors and shutters to isolate the interior of the school in sections, and activate pressure doors to prevent 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-fields emitters could be designed and constructed…like the ones protecting the dome from harm.
This is what I realized as I watched waves so large they would tower over Telos Academy.
Our technology lagged 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 could not.
But 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.
“Erina, myself, even that asshole Arnval.” I nodded slowly at the storm before us. “We could have died out there.”
I heard a muffled cough from off to my right.
“I would appreciate you not calling me an ‘asshole’, young lady.”
I turned my head and looked at the asshole standing to the right of the cat maid. “It was your idea to Trans-Locate 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. “Regardless of what I am, I wouldn’t have survived out there, and neither would you.”
Arnval was quiet for a moment, before inhaling deeply. He released his breath slowly. “I won’t deny that.”
“So why do it?” I asked him coldly while feeling rage begin to simmer strongly within me. “Why?”
Are our lives not important? Don’t you value your life? Could it be you would throw away your life in the service of the Sanreals? Are you such a mindless, devoted slave? Knowing the monumental risk, why would you still press that button?
I could have shouted my thoughts, but there was no need to.
Just by looking at him, I knew he acknowledged the unspoken questions behind that single, Why?
But the reply came from the cat maid, Kyoko. “The margin of error associated with your trans-location was deemed acceptable.”
I had a vague understanding of what she meant, but I chose to play dumb. “Meaning what?”
“The point of emergence was calculated within a radius that fell within the volume of space protected by the dome.”
I smiled at her, but it came out feeling more like a snarl. “Oh really? And what would have happened if we hadn’t emerged above the pool?” I pointed to the house in the distance visible over the garden hedges. “What if we’d trans-located above that house over there? Does crashing into the roof factor into the margin of error?”
“The estate and surrounding gardens are equipped with effect-field emitters. They would have acted as a safety net and arrested your descent. You would not have been harmed, and Doctor Kassius would not have been injured.”
“And what about the pool?”
Kyoko 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 pop up 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.”
My palms hurt.
When I glanced down, I saw my nails digging into them as I clenched my hands into fists.
I took a deep breath and relaxed my fingers.
Within moments the pain vanished and undoubtedly my palms had healed.
But the same didn’t apply to the anger I felt, and it was anger I directed at Arnval. “Someone saw what was happening in the park, and reported it to the authorities. How am I expected to go back to Ar Telica”—I gasped sharply—“or was that what you wanted?”
Arnval stared at the hurricane outside the dome and offered me no reply.
Again, it was Kyoko who intervened. “Master Sanreal was displeased at the turn of events. Rest assured, Master Arnval will answer for his actions.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
I stepped around the cat maid and approached Arnval, but I stopped when I remembered he had a second handgun under his trench coat, possibly holstered.
And though his hands remained shoved in his trench coat pockets, Arnval had turned slightly in my direction.
I hid my wariness as I watched him break his silence.
“No, it doesn’t. So what will you do?”
I was taken aback by his question, and I had no quick answer for him.
Arnval took advantage of the opening he’d made for himself. “Or perhaps I should ask is there anything you can do?”
“Are you implying that I’m not going back to Ar Telica?”
“Whether you return to Ar Telica or not will depend on you,” he replied.
“Then what was the point of—?” I stopped sharply and cast a glance at the cat maid.
Arnval noticed and I saw him smile. “No need to worry. Kyoko-chan is well aware of who you are…and what you are.” He turned back to the dark vista outside the dome. “She undoubtedly knows more about you than I do….”
His statement motivated me to give the maid a hard look. “Why does a maid know about me?”
Arnval chuckled briefly. “Because Kyoko-chan is Master Sanreal’s personal assistant. Isn’t that right, Kyoko-chan?”
The corners of her eyes crinkled faintly however she didn’t face him. “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 time again,” she retorted smoothly without a hint of ire in her voice or expression as though she’d given up on holding hard feelings against him.
I looked at them both in turn.
Arnval stared into the surrounding darkness.
Kyoko faced in the direction of the house.
I felt as though time had stopped for us, or rather it had encapsulated the two of them, and made me a spectator to a moment with a hidden meaning that I glimpsed but failed to grasp.
However, I had no problem with being an outsider.
Instead, I had problem with being kept in the dark about matters pertaining to me, and so I bluntly crashed into their moment.
“What was the point of setting me up as Isabel val Sanreal?”
Turning slightly toward me, Arnval looked at me out of the corner of his left eye. “Ask Sanreal. But if you’re worried about the state of affairs back in Ar Telica, don’t be. It can all be smoothed over.”
How? I wondered but quickly reconsidered and decided not to ask.
The sinister implications behind Arnval’s casual reply warned me that perhaps it was better not knowing how the Sanreal Family would deal with the authorities.
However, it also left me with the question of whether or not I could return to Ar Telica.
I felt I understood what Arnval meant when he said the answer would depend on me.
It would depend on whether I behaved or not – on whether I co-operated with the Sanreals or chose to oppose them.
Was that really all I could do? Were there no other options open to me?
No, there was one other option – one slender branch I could reach out for.
Tabitha.
However, I knew little to nothing about what accepting her offer would mean for me. I could literally end up jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I knew little about Tabitha but if she was anything like the people I’d met thus far – the people manipulating me to their own agendas – then trusting her might be a mistake. Indeed, she’d deceived me about Cardinal, so what else had she lied about?
Then I remembered something I’d overlooked.
Tabitha had a twin sister.
So who was it operating that remote body back at the school dormitory complex?
“Mistress. Mistress? Mistress Isabel?”
I blinked rapidly, and noticed the cat maid had approached me. Reflexively, I took a half-step back, and reflexively slipped into a defensive stance.
The cat maid froze, and I was surprised by how easily I read the question running through her mind, perhaps because it was reflected on Straus’s face.
Was I going to run away?
Arnval, being better at concealing his emotions, merely questioned me with his eyes. Yet he wore a faint, thin, almost taunting smile that seemed to say, Go ahead and run. We can pick up where we left off.
I suddenly had an inkling into the workings of his mind, and it made my stomach clench unpleasantly.
Arnval wanted to fight me.
He wasn’t entirely human, and I was beginning to suspect the reason was because his body was partly mechanical, implying he was some kind of cybernetic entity. Why wasn’t the question, because I didn’t care for how he’d become that way. Neither was it a question of whether his body was based on technology from this universe or from the Empire’s, because in all honestly, I had little knowledge of what cybernetic tech was capable of accomplishing. So the real question was whether or not I could be beat him. I’d felt his strength and witnessed his speed, and so I believed that a one-on-one battle with him would be a painful, bone breaking encounter.
If I’m going to face him, I’d rather do it as a Gun Princess, with my guns and with my Regalia.
Having made my choice, I dropped my defensive stance and relaxed my posture, though I remained wary of Arnval.
The taunting smile faded from his lips but his questioning eyes now revealed amusement, and it was that which kept me on guard.
Without breaking eye contact with him, I addressed the cat maid. “So when do I get to meet Phelan Sanreal?”
I didn’t need to look away from Arnval to observe the cat maid. With Mirai’s preternaturally wide field-of-vision, I could see her fairly well, thus I saw the reluctance that briefly expressed itself on her face but there was none of it in her smooth, courteous reply.
“Mistress Isabel, may I suggest first settling into the Estate. A room has 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 my appearance right now wasn’t my best.
Ugh…what exactly is my best?
Leaving the question aside, a quick downward look confirmed what I felt through my skin. My uniform had dried considerably, but it and my underwear were still dank. Thereby a change of clothes sounded good, and I could certainly 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.
My hands balled into fists, and my arms trembled faintly at my sides.
I’m just…just…not ready for a bath!
“Fine,” I grumbled with my head bowed. “Room. Shower. Clothes.”
I raised my head and glared stubbornly at the maid.
“But I’m not taking a bath.”
Kyoko, the cat maid, smiled faintly at me. “As you wish, Mistress Isabel….”
Taking a deep breath, I blew away the soap bubbles drifting in front of me.
I should have realized she was up to something.
The small cloud of bubbles drifted into the air before floating back down.
She agreed way to easily to my demands.
They landed gently on the thick layer of soap bubbles coating the surface of the water.
I should have guessed she wasn’t going to play fair.
With a soft groan, I sunk up to my chin in the scented water.
But what was I supposed to do? I really didn’t have much of a choice.
I tipped my head back and stared annoyed up at the ceiling.
Besides they’d never understand why I didn’t want to take a bath.
The bathroom was obscenely large, easily four-fold the size of my former dormitory apartment, but it was necessary to fit a bathtub that could double as a small swimming pool.
Honestly, I could do laps in it, and right now it was filled almost to the brim with warm water coated in a thick layer of scented bubbles that had the entire room smelling of vanilla and strawberries.
Damn it. It’s making me crave ice-cream or a jumbo sized parfait.
My eyes widened in a sudden panic.
Wait, wait, wait—only girls eat parfait!
My hands shot up out of the water and I grabbed my head.
No! That’s just me being sexist. There are plenty of guys who indulge themselves in a pretty pink parfait.
I sat up in the tub, but it was so deep that only my head, shoulders, and the tops of my breasts were exposed.
What am I thinking? What is wrong with me?
Grinding my molars together I slapped myself twice.
“Come on, Isabel! Get a grip!”
I slapped myself again, then yelped.
“Damn it, that hurt—ah!”
I stared through the steamy air at the far end of the bathroom.
“That’s it! This is part of their master plan!”
Leaning back against the smooth, contoured end of the pool, I regarded the curved edge where the ceiling met the far wall.
“Why didn’t I realize it before…?”
This was how the Sanreals were planning to defeat me. By smothering me in wanton luxury. By seducing me with their wealth and money. By appealing to my vanity…though I wasn’t sure if I was vain. Regardless, I was now confident I had understood the crux of their scheme to win me over. As I did so, I remembered a quote from a distant past.
Every man has his price.
I frowned as my gaze drifted up to the ceiling.
But what about a woman?
My frown deepened as I grew troubled.
Okay? So if I’m something of a mixed bag then what’s my price?
My gaze drifted over the outlines of the swirling, flowery patterns embossed into the ceiling.
I’d honestly like to say I don’t have a price…
The warm water and steamy scented air were eroding my efforts to remain awake. Coupled with the stress and exhaustion I’d incurred at the hands of Tabitha, Straus, Arnval, and the maid from Hell – Kyoko-chan – it was becoming a real struggle to keep my eyes open.
…but the problem is that I can get used to this…
Little by little, my eyes began to close as each successive blink grew longer.
…and all this running around…is really wearing me out….
Eventually, my eyelids closed shut and I felt myself drifting toward slumber.
So how did I end up taking the aforementioned bath?
Well, it’s because that damn head maid exploited my Achilles Heel.
The one chink in my stubborn armor that an equally stubborn arrow could penetrate.
You may already know what I’m alluding to, but I’ll tell you anyway.
With Mirai’s preternatural abilities, it’s hard to ambush me. For example, if I concentrate my vision on my surroundings I can see the aura of living beings faintly through walls. Because I happened to be using this ability at the time, I wasn’t taken by surprise by the dozen or more maids lying in wait for me inside the living area of the luxurious suite I’d been allocated on the second floor of the palatial villa.
Note that I wasn’t certain they were maids, but from the aura alone I sensed they were Simulacra, and something about the way their lifeforce radiated made me suspect they were female. I honestly can’t put a finger to the reason. It’s just something that I knew on an instinctual level. For now, let’s leave it at that.
The first maid that came flying at me made a dull whump sound when she rebounded off a nearby wall that I tossed her into, and then collapsed unconscious on the floor.
The second maid screamed in pain when I grabbed the back of her head and slammed her face first into another wall, knocking her unconscious.
The third maid I sent flying into a living room sofa. She tumbled over it, her skirts fluttering, her shoes kicking the air, and disappeared behind it. Mind you, I did glimpse her white panties as she went over.
Then the remaining maids got serious and out came the weapons.
Handguns, stun guns, stun batons, a telescoping cattle prod, a flail masterpiece…and a broom.
At sight of their arsenal, my Awareness kicked its afterburners and accelerated into an overclocked state.
Honestly, I was shocked – no pun intended – at the nature of the weapons they had been hiding in their dresses. The saying more than meets the eye was a clear understatement when applied to these maids. With that firmly in mind, I was most concerned about the broom. Compared to the other weapons it was an incongruous choice, and thus demanded the most suspicion.
The maids spread out, and I dropped into a defensive crouch.
However, before the situation could escalate into an all-out melee, Kyoko blew a loud whistle while standing a safe distance behind me.
Clapping her hands, she forcefully announced, “Abort. Abort. All girls, stand down.”
A collective ‘Eh’ went up from the maids, but none of them relinquished or withdrew their weapons.
“I’m declaring Plan-A a failure,” Kyoko stated firmly. “We’re switching to Plan-B.”
Turning my head slightly toward Kyoko so that I could see her in the corner of my right eye, I asked her angrily, “What the Hell are you trying to do?”
“To ensure you take the bubble bath we’ve prepared for you.”
My head jerked back. “The bubble bath?”
“Correct.”
“You had them attack me because of a bubble bath?”
“Correct again. However, Plan-A failed so we’re now employing Plan-B.”
Not relaxing my guard for a heartbeat, I heatedly asked, “And what’s Plan-B?”
Kyoko snapped the fingers of her right hand. “This…is Plan-B.”
I waited. The maids waited. But nothing happened.
“What?” I queried her. “Was that supposed to be a magic trick?”
“Hardly.” Kyoko inhaled deeply and snapped her fingers again.
Again, we all waited for a short while, but nothing changed.
I started to relax a little. “So…is it third time’s the charm?”
Kyoko took a deep breath that shuddered with exasperation.
And once again she snapped her fingers.
I cocked my head at her slightly. “Is there a Plan-C?”
Kyoko trembled violently for a second or two, then retrieved a slim phone from an apron pocket.
“Penelope!” she shouted. “Where the Hell are you?”
“I’m here!” came the cry from the wide hallway connecting the suite’s entrance to the living room area, and the exhausted bunny eared maid staggered into view, her large bosom heaving mightily with each breath she drew.
Kyoko glared openly at the girl before striding over to her and yanking free the package the bunny maid carried in her hands.
“I told you to be quick about it!”
The bunny maid took fast, gulping breaths. “I had trouble finding it. I forgot what it was called.”
“As punishment you’re on bathroom cleaning duty for a week.”
“…nooooo…,” the buxom blonde girl whined pitifully and collapsed to her knees.
Ignoring her, Kyoko approached me but stopped a couple of yards away. She held up the rectangular package in her hands for me to see.
I recognized it as a holovid disk case, but a loud gasp bellowed from my gaping mouth when I saw the cover.
“…it can’t be….”
“But it is,” Kyoko said with the hint of a smile on her face. “Only a hundred were ever released. A limited-edition holovid production chronicling the making of her bestselling holovid album, and it includes the raw, unedited ‘A Day In the Life of Mercy Haddaway’. It was released when her career was at its peak and only available to the first hundred buyers.”
“Hey, take that back,” I demanded. “Her career hasn’t peaked yet!”
“Oh, really?” A smirk settled on Kyoko’s lips. “Her merchandise sales are down seven percent this year compared to last. And she’s fallen from third place to fourth place on the popularity rankings.”
“She’s still got steam in her. Don’t count her chickens yet!”
“Regardless. Her career has passed its zenith.” Kyoko held the rectangular case a little higher. “This little item was purchased on an online auction. Master Sanreal fetched it for a hefty price.”
“How—how much?”
“It’s best that you don’t know.”
I swallowed loudly and then cautiously asked, “Why would he do that?”
“Do you really need to ask? Are you not a Mercy Haddaway fan?”
I swallowed again as a feeling of unpleasant Déjà vu swirled through my chest. “So why are you showing me that?”
“Because if you take a bath, like a lady should, then you get to keep this. Consider it both a bribe and a gift from your…father.”
Though I’d relaxed it, my stance remained defensive, yet now it wavered. “How do I know you’re not lying? How can I trust you?”
“That’s not the question you should be asking,” Kyoko replied smoothly with an unreadable expression like someone holding the best hand at a card game. “The question you should be asking yourself is, ‘Do I want this or not’?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I could just take it from you.”
Kyoko nodded and betrayed a smile. “Is that what you think?” Then she opened the case to reveal it was empty inside. “Take the bath, and you’ll get what you desire.”
What I desire? Is that what you think I desire? How little you understand me….
I then had a flash of insight. Perhaps, I could call it inspiration.
Let them think what they want. I can use this to my benefit.
Telling her what I truly desired would be a waste of time because she wasn’t in a position to grant my wish.
However, I recognized what the Sanreals were offering me.
It wasn’t just an extremely limited piece of Mercy Haddaway’s gravure existence.
It was an olive branch that came with strings attached.
At least, that was what I suspected.
As the saying goes, time would tell if I was wrong or not.
Thus, I chose to accept the offer and took the bubble bath the maid platoon had prepared for me in the swimming pool sized tub.
For the time being, I would play along.
If the Sanreals believed they could use my obsession with Mercy Haddaway to play me like a marionette on strings, then so be it. I’d string them along as they were stringing me, and gain important items to include my collection. I also realized that I would have to start anew, since my existing collection of Mercy memorabilia belonged to Ronin Kassius.
That realization pained me, and I sank deeper into the water.
Who am I kidding. I gave into my obsession. Those bastards know me too well.
I felt like grabbing my head again, but instead blew bubbles just below the water’s surface.
I’m so tired of all this crap…tired of all these weirdos messing up my life…tired of being manipulated…tired of being told Mercy Haddaway is past her prime…give me back my delusions…give me back my peaceful life…give me back my old life….
Arnval’s face with its provoking smile and amused eyes drifted unbidden behind my closed eyelids.
Annoyed, I wondered why I was thinking of him now, while grudgingly conceding he was a new problem I needed to contend with.
I’m going to wipe that smile off his face.
His expression was an open challenge, but I didn’t feel I was ready to fight him yet.
No, there was too much I didn’t know or understand about this body – about Mirai.
There was too much that was a mystery about her.
I had moved pretty well back at the parkland, but I need to know why that was possible. What kind of training did Mirai’s body possess, and how had she been trained. Those were among the questions I wanted answered.
The ancient adage of knowing yourself and knowing your enemy such that won’t fear a hundred battles could be twisted to suit my situation.
Before I knew my enemy, I needed to understand myself because stepping onto the battlefield without preparation was to invite defeat.
With that understanding in mind, I realized that I had all but acknowledged that Arnval and I would fight.
It didn’t mean I was willing to fight him. Rather, I was resigned to fight him, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Arnval was an unexpected and unpleasant obstacle that had popped up, and the only way to get past him was to give him the battle he wanted and resoundingly defeat him.
As such, our reasons for fighting couldn’t be more different.
Arnval desired pitting himself against me.
I was going to fight him simply because he was standing in my way. In other words, it had little to nothing to do with the trans-location fiasco that nearly cost Erina her life. Nor did it have anything to do with him pulling that gun on me back at the park. Therefore our inevitable duel would have all the depth and meaning of a schoolyard bout.
How pathetic. I snorted softly under my breath. Is this my true nature?
After so many years avoiding the spotlight and not drawing attention to myself so that I could live a relatively peaceful, uneventful school life, was I now showing my true colors?
Was resorting to violence the only way I knew how to deal with problems?
Was I nothing more than a bully?
I didn’t know how to deal with situations the way Straus had suggested. I honestly couldn’t do passive aggressive. So how was I supposed to handle Arnval, Kyoko, and the Sanreals?
“…princess…Princess…Princess…wake up now, please….”
My eyelids fluttered open, but I had some difficulty keeping them open, and my eyes had trouble focusing.
Had I fallen asleep?
Noticing someone to my right beside the pool – I mean bathtub – my heart jumped into my throat. Then I saw that it was Ghost dressed in a butler’s suit, complete with a neatly folded hand towel over one arm. His projection into my mind was so realistic, even the way I initially had trouble bringing him into focus, that it elicited a shiver from me.
“Princess, if you fall asleep in the bath, you may catch a cold.”
Had he noticed my shiver? I had to wonder if he was watching me from the outside despite projecting himself into my mind from the inside of my head. That implied he’d hacked into the bathroom’s surveillance cameras and was using them to observe me.
If that wasn’t enough to warrant me hurriedly crossing my arms over my breasts and sinking into the water up to my eyeballs, then I’m not sure what is.
From underwater, I yelled at him, “What the Hell are you doing here? Are you a pervert?”
At least, that’s what I wanted to yell, but it came out garbled and muffled by the water.
And yet Ghost understood me. “I came to see if you wanted to talk?”
Glaring at him, I felt a frown crinkle my brow. “Talk?” I bubbled.
“Indeed.”
I raised my head until my mouth was out of the water, then pointedly swept my gaze over the luxurious bathroom. “Is it safe…?”
Ghost bowed his head slightly. “I have infiltrated the bathroom’s surveillance systems. We have a few minutes at least before they notice the anomaly in the system and respond to it.”
My suspicion was on the money.
With it confirmed, I glanced at the bathwater.
The surface was still covered in bubbles, and though they had lost much of their volume, I decided that for the moment my modesty was safe.
I nonetheless remained submerged up to my chin as I eyed Ghost with open suspicion. “Don’t you dare peek.”
“I assure you, Princess. I would do no such thing.”
“As if I’d trust you. You’re a guy. I’m a guy. I know my kind all too well.”
Ghost arched his eyebrows at me. “Indeed, one could say your perspective is unique. Do you know the story of Tiresias?”
I shook my head.
Ghost nodded thoughtfully. “I suggest you look him up.”
“Who was he?”
“According to ancient Greek mythology, he was a blind prophet of Apollo who was turned into a woman for a period of seven years. Afterwards he returned to being a man, though his life was tragic.”
“He was blind as a woman?”
“No, he was blinded after regaining his masculinity.”
I couldn’t help frowning up at him. “Why? I mean how?”
Ghost sighed. “Well, accounts vary but one popular theory is that he was the victim of an argument between the gods.”
I hesitated before asking, “What was the argument about?”
“Who enjoys sex more? A man or a woman?”
“Eh?”
“His sorry tale does make for interesting reading.”
I wasn’t so convinced, and decided not to take Ghost’s word for it, but I will admit that I was intrigued. Usually there was a moral to be found in the stories surrounding ancient myths. Would I find something pertinent to me in the story of this Tiresias?
Holding onto my frown, I realized Ghost’s conversational side trip had settled my state of mind a little. That didn’t mean I was entirely comfortable with him standing beside the bathtub, but I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it.
However, as I moved my body and sat a little higher in the bathtub, I made request of him.
“Okay. I guess I do have a few questions for you.” Lifting a hand out of the water, I twirled it in a circle. “But could you turn around, please.”
Ghost expressed a hint of confusion in his eyes. “Princess?”
“I’d feel more comfortable if you turned around.”
“Ah, I see. If it helps, I can”—he snapped the fingers of his free hand—“disappear.”
“No, no.” I made a stopping motion with the hand I held out of the water. “Don’t do that. Just…turn around. I know that you can see me anyway so it won’t make a difference, but I still feel more comfortable seeing you face the other way.”
Ghost considered me with a thoughtful look, then nodded before turning around. “As you wish, Princess.”
I resumed covering my breasts with both my hands and arms. “You probably think I’m weird.” I chuckled bitterly. “I’m a boy in a girl’s body. I shouldn’t care if you see me. I mean, guys don’t care if they see each other naked, right.”
“Not at all, Princess. It is quite all right.”
“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t care, but for some reason I do.” I stared at the water for a while before looking up at Ghost. “Do you know that back at the dorm when I put on the uniform I kept my eyes closed most of the time.” I chuckled softly but anyone could have heard how pitiful I sounded. “I—I couldn’t even look at myself, and I made sure I was facing away from the mirror above the vanity.” A shiver ran down my back and I resumed looking down at the water. “Erina really did a number on me. I’m totally messed up.”
“On the contrary. Considering all you have endured of late, you are doing remarkably well.”
My feelings soured in a heartbeat, and I threw him a sullen glance. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Ghost was quiet for a short while before breaking his silence. “Princess, may I remind you of what you said to me aboard the Sanreal Crest?”
I shook my head weakly. “What did I say…?”
“That you had chosen to move forward. That you would live as Isabel and fight as Mirai.”
I stiffened slightly as I regarded the multicolor bubbles covering the water above my body. “I did say that, didn’t I….”
“I guess it is not as easy as it sounds.”
My breath caught in my chest. “That’s true….”
“Was it all a lie?”
His question felt like it stabbed me, and I threw him a sharp look. “No, it wasn’t a lie.”
“Have you changed your mind since then.”
I started to shake my head but then stopped. “That’s not it.”
Ghost turned slightly to peer at me over a shoulder. “Then what is it.”
I didn’t give him an answer right away. That was because I had trouble voicing the reason why I was having doubts about my decision back aboard the superyacht.
“Princess?”
I took a deep breath, and felt my large breasts rise and fall, buoyed by the water. “Because it means truly giving up.”
“Giving up?”
I nodded gently while looking at the multicolored bubbles floating on the water. “Giving up on any chance of going back.” I raised my head, and met Ghost’s gaze. “Giving up on life as a boy.”
Regarding me over his shoulder, he pursed his lips into a thin line before reminding me, “Princess, that is not possible. The longer your mind spends in that body, in that brain, the more you will adapt to being female—”
“I know!” I tucked my legs and knees up against my large breasts. “I know. I know that…I know that….” Clenching my hands, I rubbed the heels of my palms into my eyes. “I know….”
I felt tears well up in my eyes, so I squeezed them shut as tightly as I could, and continued pressing my palms into them.
“…it just…really sucks…really frekking sucks….”
Even if time was ticking along, and my opportunity to talk to Ghost and gain answers to the questions I had was slipping away, I couldn’t bring myself to look up and ask them because at the moment they didn’t feel important anymore.
I was awash with intense feelings of regret and denial, but burning resentment clamped around my chest, making it hard to breathe and impossible to talk. Thus choked, I couldn’t bring myself to say or do anything but huddle up against the back of the bathtub, and sob quietly.
“Princess, I understand this is hard for you. I imagine that in your position, I would feel the same. But you must see this through. Do not be anchored to the past. See this as an opportunity to—”
“To what?” I yelled at him as I lowered my hands away from my tear streaked face. “To what, Ghost? To live as a girl. To accept that I’m now a girl! That I have no choice but to be Isabel and Mirai!”
Ghost’s expression reflected momentary surprise before he calmly replied, “Yes. To be Isabel val Sanreal. To be the Gun Princess Mirai. To live as a girl and much more. To accept what you are now and move on. To keep your promise to me.”
I clenched my jaw as I shot to my feet, splashing water out of the bathtub without regard. Despite past assertions, I was angry enough not to care that I was standing naked before him. “I never promised you that.”
“Well it sounded like a promise to me. You said it yourself back in Ar Telica. You cannot go back. You can only go forward. But you have a choice to make. You can either fight what you are and inevitably drive yourself into a ditch. Or you can accept it and make new opportunities for yourself.”
My arms trembled as my anger and resentment bubbled over the edge of my control.
“Frek you,” I hissed at him.
Ghost met my glare with stoic calm. “What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid? I’m not afraid of anything!” I screamed at him, and kicked the bathwater in his direction but it passed right through his body “You piece of shit! Get a body so I can punch you—you frekking asshole!” I kicked more water at him even though it was pointless. “Face me like a real man would!”
“Is that what it will take?”
I stopped in mid-kick and had to recover my balance in a hurry. “What?”
“Is that what it will take to make you accept reality? If you can punch and kick me, will that shake some sense into you?”
Rage continued to make my body tremble, but I wasn’t lashing out anymore, though my self-control was paper thin.
Ghost crossed his arms without dropping the hand towel he carried. “I am waiting for an answer.”
I sucked in air through clenched teeth. “Are you calling me a coward?”
“Pardon me?”
“Is that what you’re saying? Is that what you’re implying?” I dipped my chin at him. “Are you saying that I’m afraid of being a girl?”
“You are jumping to conclusions.”
“Am I wrong? Stop mincing words and give me an answer.”
“I have never thought of you as a coward.”
I nodded tersely. “That’s good because I’m not a coward.”
“Very well. Then what are you?”
“I am not a coward.”
“Then what are you.” Unlike my gesture, Ghost raised his chin and looked down at me. “Or should I be asking, who are you?”
That was a very good question.
Who was I? Was I still Ronin? Was I Isabel? Or was I Mirai? Or was I all of the above – a composite entity and thereby an amalgamation of different people?
I flinched inwardly.
Was that what I was afraid of becoming? Was it the reason I couldn’t let go of my past despite claiming that I would? No, that wasn’t right. I never made that claim. I merely said that I’d accepted my past and would move forward. But I wasn’t moving forward at all because I hadn’t accepted the choice I’d made.
I was lying to myself and I was lying to the people around me.
Why? Because I believed there had to be another better option, and thus I couldn’t give up.
I refused to accept the situation was purely black or white.
But that didn’t answer Ghost’s question.
“I don’t know,” I admitted through clenched teeth. “I don’t frekking know who I am….”
“Then perhaps that should be your goal. Determining who you are. Finding your true self.”
I shook my head. “No. My goal is going back.”
“And here we go again.” Ghost exhaled softly in evident disappointment. “Princess, you cannot return to that life that was never yours.”
“There has to be a way.”
“You are not Ronin Kassius. You have a copy of his mind, his memories, but you are not him. Ronin Kassius lies in a med capsule undergoing regeneration—a process that will take months to complete due to the extent of the injuries he sustained.” Ghost leaned slightly toward me. “Or is it your intention to terminate him and somehow assume his identity?”
“Shut up.”
He sighed heavily as he straightened. “I expected more from you.”
“I said, shut up!” I strode through the water until I reached the edge of the bathtub. “I’m tired of hearing your sanctimonious crap. Speaking down to me like you know better!”
Ghost shook his head slowly. “So you’re not going to listen to me?”
I glared up at him. Truthfully, if I could throttle him, I would. “Not if you’re going to say the same thing over and over again.”
“That is the kettle calling the pot black.”
“Oh, shut up!” I pointed at the bathroom’s exit. “And get out.”
“That is not how it works.”
“Then get the Hell out of my head.”
Ghost sighed again and almost sounded condescending. “Truly, Princess, you need to stop acting like a child.”
“I am a child. I’m sixteen years old. You can’t expect me to act like an adult.”
“You are a teenage girl, and I remind you that human females mature earlier than males.”
“I am not a teenage girl.”
“Then what are you?” Again he leaned toward me. “From where I am standing you look like a girl to me.”
“Only on the outside.”
Ghost blinked rapidly then unexpectedly scratched a cheek. “Is that what you think?”
“Huh?” I blinked sharply too before narrowing my eyes at him. “Stop beating around the bush. If you’ve got something to say then say it.”
“Does that mean you will listen to me?”
“I’ll hear you out this time!”
“Very well, Princess. No need to shout.”
I growled at him while trembling in anger. “Well, let’s hear it then.”
“According to your data, you are a girl on the outside…and the inside.”
Confusion shattered the glare on my face. “What was that?”
“It seems that your unique Ultra Grade Simulacrum body is a girl on the outside and the inside.”
Yeah, that’s what I thought he’d said.
Shivers broke out all over my body. “I’m a girl…on the inside…?”
“Correct, Princess.”
“No way….”
“Yes way.”
My stomach clenched painfully and my heart beat anxiously in my chest. I was almost too afraid to ask, “How…how much of a girl?”
“Be on your guard during Prom Night.”
I stopped shivering and grew rigid with shock. “You—you can’t be serious….”
“I am completely serious.”
At this my voice broke and fell to a whisper. “I…I can get pregnant…?”
“Well, that remains to be seen. Your body is fresh out of the maturation tank. However, according to your sister’s notes, it is highly likely that you will ultimately experience the monthly monster.”
It took a moment or two for the words to sink into my consciousness.
A heartbeat later, I felt as though every string holding me upright was cut at once.
My legs lost their strength and I fell back into the bathtub with a big splash that spilled water over its rim.
The impact jarred my spine and numbed my buttocks, yet failed to jolt my awareness free of the abject disbelief clouding my thoughts.
“…what kind of body is this…?”
I heard the question leave my lips, yet it sounded as though someone else had asked it.
Then I looked down at my large breasts bobbing in the water.
“…what the Hell kind of body did Erina make…?”
A short while later, I listened to Ghost’s solemn reply. “An Ultra-Grade Simulacrum of the highest caliber. And a girl to boot.”
Under different circumstances I may have thrown Ghost either a heated or frosty glare.
But sitting spread-eagled in the bathtub, and with water lapping the tops of my breasts, all I managed was to gape at him in a stupor before closing my mouth with an audible click.
In one fell swoop, all the fiery fight had been doused from my body, and nothing but embers remained.
Thank you for your patience with this series.
For those of you who are new to the series and would like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Currently working on Chapter 8.
Thank you for sticking with this series through its ups and down.
Dear Readers, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Apologies for the delay. Here is the full Chapter 8.
I sat on the edge of the bed, in a bathrobe, and held my head in my hands.
Why a bathrobe?
Because the maids had ensured there wasn’t a single scrap of clothing in the entire suite other than a bathrobe and fluffy slippers for me to wear.
Oh, and those slippers were shaped like bunnies.
After stumbling out of the bathtub in a daze, it was Ghost who directed me to the bathrobe. With my mind in a discombobulated state, I would have stumbled about naked had it not been for his intervention. Afterwards, when my cognitive functions recovered to the point where I could think for myself, I’d searched the suite to find all the drawers, shelves, wardrobes, and closets completely empty.
My options had been limited.
Flee the suite while wearing only the bathrobe, or regain my composure and calmly take stock of the situation. I chose the latter, and this is why I was now sitting on the edge of a four-poster Empress-sized bed.
For a while, bowed over and with my head in my hands, I stared absently at the bunny slippers until I succumbed to a sudden irrepressible urge to kick them off and flung them across the bedroom.
“Princess….”
“…I don’t want to hear it…,” I whispered to Ghost. “Just…just be quiet.”
“I am sorry, but I cannot comply. You had questions to ask, and your meeting with Sanreal is nigh upon you.”
“I’m not ready to see him….”
No, I wasn’t ready to see him or deal with anyone else.
I could barely think at all, let alone listen or hold a conversation.
I’d read about the five stages of dealing with loss and grief. The first is denial, followed by anger, then a need to bargain, then getting depressed before finally reaching acceptance. In my case I wasn’t facing a loss and I wasn’t overcome with grief but instead overwhelmed by disbelief laced with cold dread. So was it possible to apply the five stages to my circumstances and state of mind? Was disbelief another form of denial? Assuming it was then I could expect anger was next in line for me. I had kicked the bunny slippers clear across the room, but that had been on a sudden impulse. I didn’t feel I was at the anger stage just yet. But when the time came who would I lash out at? I thought of Erina. Perhaps the next time I saw her I would throttle her, but right now I didn’t feel the urge to strangle her.
Moving on past anger came the bargaining stage. This was something people do before a loss, such as attempting to bargain with a higher power, but in my case I’d already lost something. No, again that wasn’t right. I never had that something to begin with. So what had I lost? My innocence? No, my ignorance. As they say, ignorance is bliss. Give me back my ignorance. Nonetheless, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that I could make a bargain. The question is who would I bargain with, and what did I have to offer?
Abruptly, my thoughts came to a stop and I raised my head slightly to look at the carpeted floor beneath my bare feet.
Of a sudden, I’d remembered that my true problem wasn’t becoming pregnant but being boxed in a virtual prison.
If Sanreal tells me I’m going to be boxed, how will I bargain with him?
I pondered the thought in silence, and my gaze fell on the bunny slippers lying on the opposite side of the spacious bedroom.
So girly. So feminine. So…revolting.
Yes, part of me found those slippers utterly repugnant.
And part of me didn’t.
I really am inside a female body, with all the right plumbing. Inhaling deeply, I mulled another thought. This body was meant for Clarisol. Is this why it can fall pregnant? Was it to give Clarisol a chance to start a family of her own, far away from the danger posed by the Empress?
I lowered my head back to my hands.
I don’t belong in this body. I know it’s not my fault but I feel like a thief—
“Princess.”
Without looking up, I sensed Ghost approach me. At another time I would have felt unsettled by that fact, especially since he was merely a projection into my mind so how was it possible for me to sense his presence, but with my thoughts at a near standstill the realization barely caused a stir in the still waters of my mind.
As I mentioned, I sensed Ghost approach me. I then sensed him drop to one knee, and true enough when I looked up a little I saw him on bended knee before me.
“Princess, I am sorry.”
A frown flickered faintly across my brow. “You have a lot to be sorry about. So what is it this time?”
“I am sorry for revealing your potential to bear children. I had hoped you would find out in due time, and yet I torpedoed that intention.”
“In due time?” I snorted softly and shook my head weakly. “You mean after I’m pregnant.”
Ghost expressed alarm. “Princess!”
I shook my head again, and closed my eyes. “Forget it. Yeah, I would have found out eventually. But your timing does suck….”
Oddly, rationalizing the situation in that manner made me feel a little better. Maybe later I would resume wallowing in denial, disbelief, and self-pity, but for now my head felt a little clearer.
“Princess, you had questions for me, and time is short.”
I may have felt a little better, but I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. “I don’t feel like asking anymore….”
“Very well, then allow me to anticipate your questions.”
Irritation flickered to life within me. I truly didn’t want to talk or listen to Ghost. I simply wasn’t in the right frame of mind for more of his good news. The grip on my composure was too fragile to handle another reality shattering revelation. “Ghost, just let me be….”
“Princess, I talk. You listen. That is all.”
I exhaled curtly. “You’re not going to shut up even if I tell you to, are you?”
“You would be wise to heed advice when it is offered to you.”
I sat up on the bed. “You are beginning to piss me off.”
“And you are frustrating beyond measure.”
I tapped a temple. “Get out of my head.”
“Not until I get a few things through into that thick skull of yours. Starting with where you are right now.”
“My thick skull?”
Ghost bowed his head for a moment and took a deep, deep breath. “Princess, we are short on time. I ask you to simply listen. Nothing more. Is that so much to ask?”
I felt like I was back in the bathroom, and the prospect of having yet another argument didn’t appeal to me. I understood that arguing with Ghost solved little, but lately he’d progressively worked his way under my skin. However, by the same token I wasn’t making things easy either. I knew there was a limit to how stubborn and recalcitrant I could and should be, but I was having trouble controlling my emotions as though the dial in my head had been spun to Bitch Mode and was now stuck. So I understood why Ghost grew increasing vexed with me, and in truth I was growing frustrated with myself as well.
I needed to break out of this vicious cycle I’d fallen into.
But as the saying goes, easier said than done.
Ghost started to rise to his feet. “Very well. Have it your way—”
“I’m listening.”
He stopped moving and regarded me with distrust.
Straightening my posture a little more, I released a heavy breath and slowly folded my arms under my breasts. “Let’s hear it. Where am I?”
Perhaps engaging in a calm, rational conversation would nudge the dial in my head away from Bitch Mode. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to learn more about my surroundings. And Ghost had anticipated one of my questions, though not in the correct order.
Ghost’s eyes searched my face, undoubtedly gauging whether I really intended to hear him out. After a second or two, he took what sounded a satisfied breath, and resumed kneeling before me. “Princess, do you recall the Citadels you saw in Clarisol’s virtual prison?”
I nodded faintly. “Yeah, I remember them. Those big wheels with cogs. You said the cogs are like a docking mechanism for Citadels so that they can hook up.”
“That is correct. Transporting a Citadel through the Conduit is impossible. A Citadel is roughly nine kilometers in diameter. The Conduit is barely wide enough for a compact military truck to pass through. However, it is possible to transport a small Fabricator through the Conduit, and a small Fabricator can be used to make a big Fabricator. A big Fabricator can then be used to make a bigger Fabricator and then—”
I sharply raised a hand. “I get it. A bigger Fabricator can make the biggest Fabricator.”
“No. A bigger Fabricator can make the facilities to construct a Citadel.”
My eyes widened to their limit as I realized what he meant.
Aboard Clarisol’s boat, the Carnal Sin, Mat had told me the same thing. It was impossible for a Citadel to travel through the Conduit to this universe. What he didn’t tell me was that it was unnecessary because they could be built on this side using a Fabricator.
Was it because he didn’t know? Or was he keeping it from me so as not to worry me?
I was bothered by his omission, and swallowed to clear my throat before asking, “Are we inside a Citadel?”
On bended knee, Ghost looked up at me. “Yes, Princess. We are aboard House Novis’s Citadel.”
I thought of what I’d seen in the virtual prison, and comparing it to the house, the gardens, and lagoon sized pool. “I have to admit, it’s not what I expected.”
“How so?”
“Well, it’s a lot more…normal, I guess?”
“Normal?”
I struggled to give him a better answer. “I mean that it’s like a summer home. A coastal resort or retreat. It doesn’t look futuristic. It’s more like an homage to the villas of the past.”
Ghost smiled faintly at me but I didn’t feel he was mocking me. “The Noble Houses refer to them as Citadels but in appearance and design they are unlike those that you saw. However, they are nonetheless the blending of a starship, a city, and a fortress.”
I felt sudden apprehension prick at my heart. “It’s a warship?”
Ghost nodded at first but then shook his head. “It is more than a warship. Think of it as the castle for a Noble House. Its home fortress. A place from where the rulers of a Noble House can direct their affairs. However, it is well fortified and well armed. As such, it is fitting to refer to it as a Citadel.”
I swallowed again. “So…we’re inside a ship?”
Ghost nodded politely.
Remembering the size of the estate and the dome, I hesitantly asked, “How big is it?”
Ghost backed away, putting a little more space between us, and then waved his hand like a magician would.
In my vision, an image roughly fourteen or fifteen inches in size appeared. It was the image of a strange looking vessel. Oddly, I instinctively knew that I was looking at the representation of a ship, perhaps because of the context of our conversation, but it was quite unlike any vessel I’d ever seen or read about. It resembled a whale. It had no fins, instead possessing pontoons that hung off its flanks. There were no tail flukes either. The stern had a bulging, rocket-like appearance with two cannons mounted on either side. I had the impression the cannons could move and reorient because they were attached to bent mechanical arms that were themselves connected to the stern.
With a finger, Ghost indicated the image I was seeing. “This is the Sanreal Novis, named after the Noble Family that presently rules House Novis.”
“Presently?” I frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”
“There are other Noble Families beside the Sanreals within House Novis. The Sanreal Family happens to lead House Novis at this time. If they were to fall or be usurped by another family, then the Citadel’s designation—its name—would change.”
“Other Noble Families?”
“Correct. Your friend, Matrim, is a Sanreal but has been adopted into the Praetor Noble Family, a so-called lesser family within House Novis.”
So that’s how it is, I thought to myself, then wondered how the other families viewed the Sanreal Family’s leadership of House Novis. At that thought, I suddenly realized that House Novis was more like a corporation, one where its leadership could change if it were overthrown at the next board meeting. Therefore, did House Novis have family meetings? Could it face a leadership challenge? Was it facing a leadership challenge? How secure was its controlling grip on House Novis?
Do I have a part to play in that? Is that another reason why I was brought here? I shook my head inwardly. I’m speculating blindly and that’s dangerous.
Ghost was watching me keenly. “Princess?”
I wet my lips quickly and favored him with a hasty nod, hoping I hadn’t betrayed my thoughts. “Go on.”
A section on the ventral hull at the stern of ship’s image glowed a warm orange. It was a tiny area compared to the remainder of the so-called Citadel.
“This is the Estate,” Ghost explained. “The domed area you are currently inside. This house, the pool, and the gardens occupy a small percentage of the Citadel’s internal volume.”
Having briefly seen the scale of the house and surrounding lands while I was falling, I was having trouble accepting we were inside such a small section of the ship. By my estimates, it would make the Citadel comparable to an orbital city.
“Ghost, how big is this ship?”
“Her overall length is six thousand seven hundred meters. She is twenty-four hundred meters wide, and over a kilometer in height. Estimated displacement is an incredibly light ninety-six million metric tonnes.”
“You call that light—?” I swallowed hard in a hurry as Ghost changed the image to show me the Citadel in relation to Ar Telica’s harbor. “My gods…,” I whispered. “It’s bigger than a colony settlement ship.”
“Indeed. I should point out that the Sanreal Novis is not the only Citadel in this reality. Every Noble House that has secured a foothold in this universe will have been granted permission by the Imperial family to construct themselves a Citadel. By my estimates using the intelligence data garnered by House Novis, there are seventeen other Citadels, including one belonging to House Aventisse, the Feylan Aventisse.”
My innards tightened for a beat and I threw Ghost a questioning look. “Clarisol Sanreal Erz Novis.”
Ghost frowned. “Yes?”
“Back in the virtual space, you said Kateopia Feylan Aventisse. Shouldn’t it have been Kateopia Feylan Erz Aventisse?”
Ghost blinked quickly as he demonstrated mild surprise. “Indeed. You are quite correct.”
“You also said the Emperor’s name was Kateas Fantom Aventisse. Why not Kateas Fantom Erz Aventisse?”
“Consider it a privilege of the Imperial family to forgo the need to differentiate between Family and House.”
I leaned slightly toward him. “Why Feylan and not Fantom?”
“Feylan is Kateopia’s maiden name. Her mother hailed from the Feylan Family.”
I blinked slowly as I wondered if Kateopia did not approve her father’s noble family and had thus chosen the name Feylan. Then I frowned again at a sudden thought. “Clarisol and Mat’s mother. Was she a Praetor?”
Ghost raised his head slightly to look up at me. “Yes, she was….”
“I see. So that’s why Mat was taken in by them.”
I was beginning to understand how the families and Noble Houses fit together. The tradition and hierarchy wasn’t that hard to follow.
I chose to put what I’d learned aside, and stared at the image of the immense Citadel. “What does Kateopia’s ship look like?”
An odd expression crossed Ghost’s face. Was he wondering why I’d changed the subject yet again? Regardless, he soon waved his hand once more and the representation of a second vessel appeared beside that of the Sanreal Novis.
Its enormous size made my stomach turn over with worry. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, Princess. I am not. The Imperial family makes no effort to hide the true scale of their Citadel. It is a stark warning to all the other Noble Houses that they hold the most powerful card of all.”
Unlike the Sanreal Novis, the Feylan Aventisse had less of an aquatic shape. It was far longer and sleeker, and resembled two short swords placed atop each other. Wedge shaped sails extended from its dorsal and ventral hulls. If its representation was to scale with the Sanreal Novis, then Kateopia’s Citadel utterly overshadowed it.
I had a truly unsettling thought. “Ghost, do you know where that ship is?”
“No. None of the Noble Houses know the location of the other Citadels.”
Hearing that made me hesitate before asking, “Then do you think Kateopia is in this universe?”
Ghost looked uncertain for a telling moment, before growing thoughtful. “Why do you ask?”
“Why go to the trouble of building such a large ship if you’re not going to use it?”
His eyes narrowed and I wondered if he’d caught onto my train of thought. “You believe she is here?”
“Like I said, why build something on a such a grand scale, but not use it?” I wet my lips before apprehensively pressing on. “Ghost, what’s Kateopia like? Is she someone who craves power? Is she…ostentatious? Vain? Avaricious?”
“Most assuredly, on all four counts.”
I pressed my lips together as I mulled over my next question. “Ghost, what’s the conduit between our respective universes like?”
“The bridgeway consists of two circular structures, Remnant technology, roughly three point one four meters in diameter.”
“Huh…?” I stared at him blankly while thinking, Isn’t that a rough approximation for Pi? After swallowing quickly, I asked, “Can it be moved around?”
Ghost blinked in a very human demonstration of surprise. “Princess?”
“Can either end of the bridgeway be moved around?”
Ghost became still and quiet.
I had the impression he was doing either some heavy thinking or extensive data sifting.
When he blinked again, his gaze met mine with veiled curiosity, conceivably because he was puzzled by my line of questioning. “It was theorized but never attempted.”
“Why?”
“The risk of losing the Conduit—of breaking the bridgeway—was simply too high to contemplate.”
I bit my lower lip, keeping to my train of thought. “If it could be moved, would people on either end notice?”
“They would indeed.”
I held back a frown. “So we don’t know if it can be moved. And even if it’s possible, Kateopia wouldn’t be able to do it without others noticing, right?”
“Most assuredly. She already strictly controls its usage. But assuming complete control of it and restricting traffic through the Conduit would undoubtedly incite another rebellion against her.”
I tipped my head to a side. “Then could she make a conduit for herself?”
Ghost’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. “The construction of another Conduit is prohibited by Imperial decree.”
“That’s not what I was asking.”
“It has been attempted in the past and all efforts ended in failure.”
“Why?”
“Constructing or should I say replicating the Conduit gateways is possible with the Fabricators. The problem is a question of timing. Both ends of the bridgeway must be turned on at the same time. Precisely the same moment. A failure causes a temporary schism in reality—something like a fault line—that translates to a very big boom when reality returns to normal. More than a few research facilities have vanished from existence as a consequence of failure.”
“Vanished?”
“Reduced to subatomic particles.”
“Oh….”
“After the last such failure, the Emperor decreed that all attempts to create another Conduit were officially banned. Anyone in breach of this decree would face severe punishment regardless of their social or military status.”
“What about the Sarcophagi?”
Ghost flinched and grew rigid. “What about them?”
I narrowed my eyes at him and asked, “Can a Sarcophagi travel between our two universes?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because you told me the space between universes is Limbo. And Ronin Kassius was in Limbo when Akane Straus saved him. So how did she get there?”
“She was translocated there along with you.”
“What?”
“House Aventisse had used a Fabricator to make a sliver of the Proving Grounds island.”
“A sliver?”
“They copied part of the island and translocated it into Limbo. Ronin was later translocated onto the sliver. Because he was being tracked, Akane Straus was able to use her Sarcophagus to translocate onto the Sliver as well. She caught up to him before he could die, brought him into her Sarcophagus and then jumped back into this universe.”
I leaned forward toward Ghost excitedly. “So it is possible for a Sarcophagus to move in and out of a universe. Then they can be used to travel between your universe and mine.”
“No, it is not possible.”
Feeling disappointed, I leaned back and away from him. “Why not?”
“Sarcophagi need a waypoint to guide them.”
“So does that mean that they are used to travel between—?”
“No,” Ghost cut me off in a hurry as he swiftly stood up. “While their drive engine allows them to slip through the fabric of the universe—to escape the bubble from anywhere within the bubble—they cannot self navigate. There is no equivalent inertial guidance system for them. There are no stars to steer by.”
“Then—then how—?”
“I told you. By navigational waypoint. By a homing signal. A Sarcophagus knows at all times where you are because you are linked to it. It also remembers places it has visited in the past. That allows it to be moved from place to place. For example, having you aboard the Sanreal Crest allowed your Sarcophagus to be guided into the belly hangar. In fact, I was the one piloting it into its support cradle.”
I was confused by Ghost’s explanation. “Are you saying it can only go to places where I’ve been to?”
“Yes. That is the restriction that the Ancients, the builders of the Remnant technology imposed upon their design.”
“So it wasn’t a limitation human engineers implemented?”
Ghost shook his head. “Indeed not. And we are fairly certain the Ancients developed and constructed the Sarcophagi after the Conduit was established.”
“Do you know why they made them that way?”
Ghost rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders for added emphasis. “To make life challenging, I suppose. Or perhaps there was a problem they encountered and therefore had to limit the capabilities of the Sarcophagi. For example, even when establishing waypoints between the two universes, a Sarcophagus has failed to jump from one bubble to the other.”
My eyebrows rose to my hairline in disbelief. “Really? So if I go over to the other universe, my Sarcophagus won’t go along with me.”
Ghost nodded grimly. “Correct.”
“So then the Conduit is the only way to travel between our universes.”
“That is correct.”
“Hmm. Okay, food for thought….”
Did that mean Kateopia wouldn’t be able to move people and resources between the two universes without the other Noble Houses noticing? No, resources wouldn’t be necessary since she could use a Fabricator to make whatever she wanted, but people were another matter.
“Ghost, can a Fabricator make Simulacra…or people?”
“No.” Ghost shook his head sharply. “A Fabricator cannot replicate or make a living organism. Every attempt to make something living has resulted in failure. Even something like bacteria would be dead on fabrication.”
“So there are limits to what it can make?”
Ghost nodded sagely as he replied, “Without a doubt.”
I sighed inwardly in thought.
If people couldn’t be replicated, then who was crewing these immense Citadels? Was everyone here a Simulacra? Was the onboard automation so high they didn’t need a crew?
Yet more questions I would need to shelve. The alternative was to ask Ghost but I didn’t feel comfortable with that option because part of me worried that he would suspect why I was asking these questions.
Then quite abruptly, it became a moot point.
“Princess, are you concerned that Kateopia will invade this universe?”
I stared at him in shock. “Huh?”
Ghost somberly watched me. “You asked Master Matrim that question back on Mistress Clarisol’s yacht.”
I cleared my throat. “Am I that obvious?”
He shook his head gently. “No. You are not. However, I have been with you for long enough to understand your concerns.”
You’re pretty much saying that I’m easy to read.
I exhaled loudly and looked back down to my feet. “Ghost—”
“Princess, I understand your concerns and it is something we can discuss later. But for now, we must move onto question number two.”
Looking up at Ghost, I arched an eyebrow at him.
Changing the subject yet again, are we?
I had two questions in mind, but noticing Ghost grow even more somber, I whispered a name I’d rather forget.
“Arnval….”
“Yes, Princess.” Ghost sounded as grave as he looked. “Geharis Arnval.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, looking up at Ghost, yet thinking of a young man that I had come to intensely dislike in a remarkably short period of time.
It wasn’t a case of hate at first sight, but it was damn close.
“Is that his real name,” I asked Ghost.
“Yes, it is.”
I puckered my lips thoughtfully, and then asked, “So he’s a local?”
“A local?” Ghost looked puzzled before snorting softly and breaking into a thin grin. “A local. Yes, from your point of view, Geharis Arnval is a local. In other words, a native of this universe.”
I leaned back as I sat on the bed, and used my arms to support my weight. “What’s his deal?”
“You may have discerned by now that he is not entirely human.”
“Yeah, his aura is incomplete.” Remembering what his lifeforce looked like, I now wondered if I’d read it wrong. Sitting up straight, I slowly crossed my arms once more under my breasts hidden beneath the bathrobe. “His aura was incomplete, but thinking about it now, I guess it was more like it was weak in some places while strong in others.”
I was having trouble describing what I’d seen around Arnval, and it annoyed me a little.
However, Ghost appeared to accept my observation and said, “Geharis Arnval was born with a rare genetic defect. He was born without fully formed arms or legs.”
After gasping involuntarily, I stared wide eyed and wordlessly at Ghost.
He gave me subtle nod as he looked down at me. “Because of this, he has used prosthetics almost his entire life, replacing them with newer models as he grew from childhood into manhood.”
“…that’s…so sad….”
Ghost chuckled and I sulked.
“Why are you laughing?” I grumbled at him.
“Are you feeling sympathy for your antagonist?”
“I’m not heartless, Ghost,” I answered with an offended tone.
“No, you are most assuredly not heartless, Princess.” Ghost looked as though he wanted to say more, but then appeared to change his mind. “Tell me. In your eyes what stands out the most about him?”
“He’s an asshole,” I replied bluntly.
Ghost sighed. “Allow me to rephrase that. When you were exchanging blows with him, what caught your attention the most?”
I scowled faintly at him. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“My bad, Princess.”
I felt like I was being asked to jump tracks, so I mulled the question over for a handful of seconds. “His speed. He’s much faster than anyone I’ve fought until now.” I rolled my eyes and rocked my head from shoulder to shoulder. “I know, I know. I’ve only fought the Gun Queen and that wasn’t hand to hand. But he felt faster than a Gun Princess. Faster than a mechanical.” I stopped rocking my head and grimaced as I asked, “Does that make sense?”
“Perfect sense. And you are indeed quite correct.”
“You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”
“Saying what?”
“Indeed.” I waved a hand about. “Indeed this. Indeed that. Indeed Princess.” I folded my arms again. “Find another word.”
Ghost’s lips drew a thin line across his face. “As you wish, Princess. You are undeniably correct.”
“Better,” I said with nod. “Go on.”
Again, his lips drew into a thin line. “Because Arnval has been using prosthetics for the vast majority of his life, since his days as a toddler in a pram, his mind has developed rather uniquely.”
“You mean he can keep up with the speed of his prosthetics.”
Ghost looked like a teacher pleasantly surprised by his star pupil. “Indeed.”
“Ghost!”
He pressed on. “As you surmised, his mind is able to utilize the speed of his prosthetics.”
I sighed then briefly pointed at my head. “So he can overclock?”
“Apparently so. But his ability extends to his motor controls. You could say that his mind has developed an extremely streamlined process of operating his artificial limbs. However, I understand that it was also helped along by generous scientific research.”
“Scientific research?” I then realized what he meant and sat up ramrod straight. “He was experimented on?”
“Indeed—I mean, he was improved.”
“Improved? Oh wonderful.” Narrowing my eyes a little, I asked, “So who worked on him? Was it the military?”
“No. It was the Telos Corporation. Geharis Arnval was serving as a security officer at the time. When his potential was discovered, a division of the Telos Corporation worked on him—as you phrased it—and augmented his ability by using cybernetics—wetware—to increase the efficiency between his cerebellum, spine, and biomechanical limbs.”
“Why?”
“To see how far they could raise his abilities. To push the envelope, so to speak.”
“How lovely.” I cocked my head at Ghost. “And how did he feel about being augmented?”
“I do not know. You would have to ask him.”
“Yeah. I think I’ll take a rain check on that.” I cocked my head a little more. “Ghost, should I be worried about him?”
“Worried? In what manner?”
“He wants to fight me.”
“Yes, I gained that impression as well.”
“Well, he wasn’t trying to hide it.” I straightened my head on my neck, and folded my arms a little tighter under my bosom. “My gut’s telling me I’ll have to fight him sooner or later. But I don’t think I’m ready for him.”
Ghost’s expression became unreadable though I can say it also seemed a little distant.
“Ghost?”
“Are you considering facing Arnval in combat?”
“I’d rather not. But I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.” I unfolded my arms and punched a fist into an open palm. “What I mean is, I don’t think Arnval will give me a choice.”
“You seem rather eager.”
I blinked as my breath caught in my lungs. “Huh?”
“As I said, you seem eager.”
Slowly, I lowered my hands to my lap. “Is that how I sound to you?”
Ghost gave me a troubled smile. “Are you looking forward to facing him?”
I stared at him and didn’t reply.
On some level, I felt offended by what his remark implied about me. On another, I was annoyed for giving him that impression. But on a deeper level within my psyche and closer to my heart, I was disappointed to know that some part of me wanted to fight Arnval though it wasn’t because I wanted to test myself against him.
I dropped my gaze to the soft creamy colored carpet covering the bedroom floor, and searched my thoughts and feelings for a while before breaking my silence.
“Honestly, I don’t know why I feel that way.” I shook my head slowly, feeling my hair sway and brush my cheeks. “I don’t remember feeling this way before when I was Ronin Kassius. I never looked for a fight. I always avoided confrontations as much as possible. But maybe being inside Mirai has released my true personality.” I slowly raised my head to look up at Ghost. “But I can tell you honestly that even if I seem eager to face Arnval, I’d rather not fight him at all. This is something he chose by standing in my way. However, I’m not going to run away from it. And I don’t plan on going around him either. I’m going to go through him.”
As the declaration left my lips, I was startled to notice that my wet hair falling around my face was raven dark.
What the—?
Reaching up, I fingered my long dark locks.
Why am I still in Mirai Mode?
Did this mean that I felt endangered? Was my subconscious warning me not to let my guard down while aboard the Sanreal Citadel?
Feeling Ghost’s gaze on me, I looked into his eyes.
Despite my aforementioned concerns, I once again pondered if he was merely an image projected into my mind. At that thought, I did something I hadn’t done before, faintly surprised the idea had never crossed my mind until now since it was so obvious.
I looked for his shadow…and found it.
What? What the Hell?
Shock spread through me, catching my breath and locking my body rigid.
I remained that way even after Ghost abruptly looked off in the direction of the bedroom’s open doorway and announced, “Princess, you have company.”
“Wh—what?” Distracted, it was the most I could utter because inwardly my thoughts were scattered to the four winds.
How can he have a shadow? Wait—it could be nothing more than part of the projection. Maybe it’s to add to his realism. Yes, it’s natural to have a shadow but only if you’re real.
My eyes widened and I stared at the floor in a hurry.
Only if you’re real….
My chest tightened in apprehension that bordered on fear.
Only if he’s real.
“Princess. Princess?”
Only if I’m real….
“Isabel!”
“Y—yes?” I jerked stiffly upright and stared wide eyed at Ghost, unable to hide my anxious feelings. “Wh—what? What is it?”
Ghost regarded me with undisguised concern. “Princess, are you feeling all right? If not—?”
I pushed myself up off the bed, feeling my legs tremble beneath me. “I’m fine.” At his questioning look, I hurriedly added. “Ghost, I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s just a lot to take in. Okay? I’m just finding it hard to keep up.”
I didn’t know if he believed me, and honestly, I wasn’t in a state to argue with him if he didn’t, so it was a relief when he accepted my reply with a subtle nod.
Taking a couple of quick breaths, I abruptly remembered what he’d said earlier. “Ghost. Who—who’s coming?”
Again he regarded me with concern, then glanced at the open doorway. “The head maid, Kyoko, and her entourage are at the suite’s entrance.”
My gut tightened at mention of her name, and with a sudden sense of urgency, I struggled to bring my thoughts into order. Giving myself something to focus on, I ensured the fabric ribbon securing the overlapping ends of the bathrobe together was properly tied. Then, after a glance at the bunny slippers lying at the foot of a wall, I strode out of the bedroom as though I was fleeing it.
I hoped that Ghost would mistake my behavior as a knee jerk reaction to Kyoko, but I wasn’t going to wager on it.
Unlike most men, Ghost wasn’t oblivious and knew how to read the mood.
Wait—isn’t that the opposite of how girls think of guys in general?
Striding barefoot into the living area, I arrived a few moments before the troublesome maid stepped into the luxurious suite. When she came into view, Kyoko smiled at the sight of me in the bathrobe, but her eyes narrowed ever so faintly at my bare feet. Then she stared at my wet hair with displeasure.
“Now that simply won’t do,” she declared unhappily, and then snapped her fingers.
Within moments, a trio of animal eared maids entered the living room and spread out behind Kyoko.
“Girls,” she announced. “We have work to do.”
I hastily took a step back. “Wait a moment. What the Hell do you mean by work?”
I could see all of them clearly within my wide field-of-vision, so I kept my eyes on the head maid as she replied, “Obviously, we need to do something about your appearance. To put it frankly, you look terrible. Don’t you know how care for your hair?”
“No, I don’t,” I snapped back. “If it’s a problem I’ll just chop it off.”
Kyoko stared at me aghast. “Are you serious?”
“You bet your ass I am!”
She palmed her forehead and sighed heavily. “We simply cannot have that.”
With a wave, she gestured for the maids to approach me. However, the three girls remained behind Kyoko.
Perplexed, she regarded them over her shoulders. “What are you waiting for?”
The maids shared frightened glances before shaking their heads in unison at her.
I realized the girls were afraid of me, and Kyoko must have arrived at the same conclusion because she groaned in deep disappointment while slowly shaking her head at them. “Very well. Toilet duty for all three of you.”
The girls gaped briefly before breaking into relieved smiles.
“Thank you, Miss Kyoko,” they cried out happily, then fled from me and the suite at a run.
I snorted as I watched them leave. “Good help is so hard to find. Isn’t it, Kyoko-chan?”
Facing me with a melancholy expression, she cheerlessly murmured, “Never send a girl to do a woman’s job.”
I don’t know why, but the change in her mood made me feel unexpectedly guilty. But I hid it behind a mocking smirk, and planted my hands on my hips. “So what are you going to bribe me with this time?”
For a long while, Kyoko did nothing more than look at me with an increasingly sad expression that in turn made me more and more uncomfortable.
Eventually, I blurted out, “If you have something to say then say it.”
The sadness on her face deepened. “You are such a beautiful girl.”
I choked then stuttered, “Wh—what?”
“Do you not care for your appearance?”
Her question made my thoughts stumble and catch themselves. “Ah…it’s…it’s not that I don’t care—”
“Do you truly hate being a girl?”
That question brought my thoughts to an unexpected standstill.
I stared at Kyoko blankly, unable to muster or dredge up an answer.
I even forgot to breathe, reminded to do so only when I autonomously swallowed the saliva building up in my mouth. But while the gears in my mind had been brought to a grinding, screeching halt, the question continued to bounce off the inside walls of my head.
Did I truly hate being a girl?
Slowly, as my thoughts started back up and the gears resumed turning over, I began to ponder the question with greater clarity.
Did I hate being a girl?
The answer I eventually arrived at was that I didn’t have an answer.
I simply didn’t know because I hadn’t lived long enough to give the question proper consultation.
I had spent the recent years of my life terrified to wake up and discover that I had become a girl. And now that it had happened, though not in the way I had imagined, I had been determined to return to my life as a human male, though it was impossible for me to assume my previous existence as Ronin Kassius. But even that was a fallacy since I had never lived as Ronin Kassius. Mirai was not Ronin Kassius transformed into a girl. The two were completely unrelated to each other except for one element – her memories belonged to Ronin Kassius. And that lead back to the fallacy that I was Ronin Kassius, something I continued to struggle with after I’d decided to cut ties with my past or rather the memories of my past because it was a past that didn’t belong to me.
To put it simply, my situation was psychological nightmare that would take many, many pages to explain, and even then I doubted it could be fully explained as in many respects I felt as though I was chasing my own shadow.
It was my own version of the liar’s paradox.
Okay, maybe that’s a stretch, but you get my meaning.
However, any attempt to address the question – did I hate being a girl – was complicated by not having experienced life as a girl for longer than three days, and most of that time was spent trying to stay alive.
While in harried thought, I stared distantly through Kyoko.
I half expected the young woman to hurry me along for an answer, but instead she stood still and waited silently. It was that silence and her melancholy appearance that ultimately drove me to reply in a weak, uncertain voice that disappointed me.
I gave her the only answer I had. “I’m just not ready to accept being a girl.”
The pensive sadness she wore faded into a thoughtful gaze. Her voice was unexpectedly gentle when she asked, “Why not?”
I hesitated for a second, confused by the change in her and suspicious of her new approach. Yet, I answered her nonetheless. “I refuse to believe this is my fate—that there’s no choice for me other than to live as a girl.”
“Really?” Now she made an expression of open curiosity. “I thought it was because you were afraid.”
My emotions darkened in an instant and I glared at her. “Afraid of what?”
Kyoko stepped up to me.
She was shorter than me despite wearing shoes, and yet I felt as though I was looking up at her. That didn’t bother me nearly as much as having her step into my personal space.
This woman—what is she thinking?
Facing me from a foot or so away, Kyoko searched my face and then met my dark stare with a quiet, penetrating gaze that complemented her calm voice. “You’re afraid that you might enjoy being a girl.”
My glare hardened for a heartbeat, but Kyoko’s gaze pierced through it.
“Am I wrong?” she asked.
“That’s bullshit,” I growled at her but my protest sounded weak to me.
“Prove me wrong.” At that, she offered me the bundle of clothes she’d been holding onto all this time. “Open yourself up to life as Isabel val Sanreal, do it for a week, and then stand before me and tell me that I’m wrong.”
“I don’t need a week. I can tell you right now—”
“No,” she interjected calmly. “Give me your answer when you’ve experienced life as Isabel for a week or maybe even a month. Not before then. Not before you’ve given her existence an opportunity to live.”
She was telling me what I had already realized for myself: to give Isabel a chance.
Yet I stubbornly refused to concede or consider the notion. Why? Because in a way she had hit the nail on the head. I was afraid. I may not have ever desired to be a girl, but I had lived in terror of becoming one and it was that fear – coupled with my unrealistic desire to return to my life as Ronin Kassius – that effectively held me back.
But that wasn’t what I said to her.
After swallowing with some difficulty, I took another deep breath that made my body shudder when I released it. “Why? Why is it so important to everyone that I give up on my past?”
Kyoko gazed silently at me for a long, long while before asking me in a gentle, tender tone that sounded almost motherly, or at least how I would have expected a mother to sound when comforting her daughter.
“Isabel, don’t you wish to find happiness?”
Her voice and words were like a warm breeze passing through me, brushing against my heart and making it tremble. Yet my throat and chest grew even tighter, and I found myself unable to reply as I watched her smile at me with kindness of the like I hadn’t experienced for such a long, long time.
“Isabel, you don’t have to discard your past. I’m certainly not telling you to. Your past makes you the person you are now. Some people will tell you that you only need to look forward but that isn’t true. People that forget or deny their past—people that choose not to learn from its lessons—fail to grow. They make the same mistakes over and over, believing in the lie that history never repeats. That the next time things will be better. But that isn’t true. In order for it to be better, something has to change.” She paused for a quiet breath and then said, “Isabel, you’ve changed. You’re not the person you were before. But don’t you want to know about the person you could become?”
I felt helpless before her.
She had stepped through the wall I’d consciously and subconsciously labored to build up around me – a wall that had held back Ghost, Straus, and Erina. She had done so because something inside me and something I sensed in her aura convinced me that her sentiments toward me were sincerely without malice. Because of this, I saw myself standing on the edge of a precipice while facing Kyoko across a bottomless crevasse.
What would I find if I stepped toward her? Would I fall and be lost? Or would I cross the abyss and be saved? If not saved, would I nonetheless find a measure of inner peace on the other side? As such, would it be the first step in accepting my new life as Isabel?
I trembled before the abyss, unable to step forward yet unable to step away either.
Kyoko said nothing and continued to regard me warmly.
There was literally no trace of the young woman who had bribed me earlier so that I would take a bubble bath. And the melancholy she’d expressed was nothing more than a memory.
Why?
My hands clenched into fists.
Why do you look at me that way?
My fingernails dug into my palms.
Why? You don’t know me. I’m nothing to you. We’re not family or friends. We’re nothing to each other?
I closed my eyes.
So why? Why do you look at me that way? Why? When not even my mother ever looked at me—?
I gasped softly and opened my eyes.
That’s right. My mother…never looked at me…the way she looked at Erina.
I relaxed my fingers, and the pain in my palms faded quickly but now I experienced a painful emptiness within my chest.
Why am I remembering this now? No…why had I forgotten that about my mother?
Erina had always been her favorite child. It was something that I had come to understand even at a young age, and perhaps I had chosen to box those memories because they were painful to me. Perhaps, I had even acclimated myself overlook the occasions when my mother bestowed her affections upon Erina while ignoring me. And as my mother denied me, I chose to deny my mother’s existence. In short, I began to isolate her from my thoughts and feelings at an early age.
Did I cry when she and my father left Erina and I behind? I can’t remember. What did I feel back then? Did I feel anything at all? Was I glad that she was gone?
Blinking slowly, my focus gradually returned to the present and I found myself meeting Kyoko’s eyes.
She had continued to watch me kindly, and so I ran my gaze over the orange aura of her lifeforce as it glowed strongly around her. But I was thinking of my mother, pondering what I would see in her aura if I were to chance upon it with Mirai’s ability. Then I realized I was being foolish. I wasn’t Ronin Kassius and Mirai had no mother. And yet, while my mind rationalized in one direction, my heart pined in another, so it was difficult for me not to feel something when I thought of her.
Kyoko had said there was no need for me to discard my past, but I wondered if my declaration to cut myself off was premature, somewhat of a knee jerk reaction to learning that there was no going back. I had also voiced my intention to move forward, but as my argument with Ghost in the bathroom had demonstrated, I hadn’t moved forward at all.
So was my past holding me back? If so, then how could I expect to move forward if I didn’t shed it? And this brought me back full circle to my unwillingness to consider a life as Isabel val Sanreal because I was holding onto the hope that I could go back.
“Nothing’s changed,” I whispered.
Kyoko’s eyes showed veiled confusion. “Isabel?”
“I turn it over and over in my head, everything that’s happened, how I feel, my circumstances, and I come back to the same place. And because of that nothing changes, and I’m stuck.”
Kyoko briefly pressed her lips into a thin line as she studied me with thoughtful eyes. “Why is that?”
“Because I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of being a girl. Afraid of living as one. I spent so much time afraid of turning into a girl, that now I can’t deal with it. I don’t want to be a girl, but I’m afraid that the longer I spend as Isabel, the less I will want to go back—even though I know I can’t go back. But it all feels like a paradox. I’m afraid of being a girl, but the truth is that this body has always been a girl. It’s only that she has the memories of Ronin Kassius. I have the memories of being a boy, yet I was never a boy. And I want to go back to being to a boy, but again, I was never a boy so it’s not possible.”
“Then what will you do?”
I shrugged, and a feeling of utter helplessness washed through me. My voice broke into a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do….”
Then my throat and chest grew tight and I couldn’t say anything else, and a few moments later I was crying tears of despair before a stranger.
And before I knew it, that stranger was holding onto me tightly, and I heard her whisper into my ear.
“I’m sorry, Isabel. I’m so sorry.”
What did she have to be sorry about? Bribing me? I should have laughed off her apology, but I couldn’t.
Instead, I found myself reaching out to her, and embracing her as she embraced me.
I held onto her, because without her I didn’t believe my legs could support my weight.
But the truth was that I clung to this stranger because I needed the kindness and understanding she offered me.
The warmth radiating from her body flowed into me, warming me, and it comforted my heart.
Gradually my tears ebbed and I began to feel a little more at ease.
I hadn’t resolved my situation, and I was far from at peace with myself, but I was no longer in anguish.
I have no idea how long I cried, or for how long she held me, but it was long enough for my tears to soak the shoulder of her uniform.
“Sorry,” I whispered and though I tried to pull away, Kyoko continued to embrace me, and I realized I lacked the strength of will to break free. And part of me wanted to continue drawing comfort from her presence.
When Kyoko drew back she continued holding onto me as she studied me from up close.
“Feel better?” she asked me gently.
After probing my feelings for a short while, I gave her a shallow nod. “Yes….”
Kyoko smiled up at me, then eased back a few more centimeters. “That’s good.”
I studied the caring, motherly expression on her face, once again unable to reconcile the young woman before me with the Kyoko who’d cornered me not long ago.
Had it all been an act? Was this her true personality? Or was this the act?
I realized that I didn’t want to find out. I was afraid to know who was the real Kyoko-chan.
But why show me this side of hers now?
To that I needed an answer, and so I asked, “Why? Why are you being kind to me?”
Kyoko’s eyes widened and a moment later she smiled at me with intense sadness. “Isabel, I’m sorry for the way I treated you.”
My mouth fell open slowly, and I exhaled softly in surprise.
At my reaction, Kyoko laughed remorsefully. “The truth is, I expected you to be a difficult child, and I thought I knew how to deal with you. But I was wrong.”
“I’m not difficult?”
She laughed softly and it carried less regret. “Oh, you are indeed difficult. Make no mistake, you are a handful. But I approached things from the wrong angle. Despite knowing what I knew of you, I didn’t try to understand you. I guess I’m out of practice.”
“I don’t understand,” I admitted to her.
Kyoko held back for a moment before answering me. “Arnval spoke the truth. I know this may sound surprising but I know what you’ve been through, Isabel.”
“How do you know about me? Why do you know about me?”
“Because Master Sanreal asked me to help him with you.”
“Why would he do that?”
Kyoko smiled sadly. “Because he doesn’t know how to deal with you.”
Initially, I was thrown off by this revelation. Then I thought of Clarisol. I knew that Clarisol val Sanreal was his daughter, but I didn’t know what kind of relationship she and her father had. However, rather than mention Clarisol, I chose not to reveal what I did know.
When Kyoko spoke again she didn’t sound as though she’d noticed my troubled thoughts. Then again, she may have attributed it to me having difficulty digesting her explanation and that wasn’t far from the truth.
“I have served Master Sanreal for a long, long time. And in that time he has grown to trust me, and in some respects he has come to depend on me. And so he asked me to help him with you, and thus he entrusted me with the knowledge of who you are. Because of this I learnt of how much you’d suffered, but I only had an inkling of the intense turmoil within you. I didn’t know how much you were hurting. I didn’t realize you were putting up a brave front. Had I known, had I realized it sooner, I would have stepped in. I would have requested to see you, to meet you, and to listen to you. Instead, I made a poor choice that I deeply regret. I did nothing, and then I treated you wrongly.”
“Kyoko-chan….”
I couldn’t help thinking how differently the situation would have turned out had Kyoko greeted me at the park rather than Erina – rather than Arnval.
Shaking her head slowly, Kyoko continued softly. “What was done to you wasn’t fair. And since then you haven’t been treated fairly either. I should have treated you properly. I should have shown you the kindness and respect you deserve—the kindness, understanding, and respect you’ve been denied. For failing to do so, I’m sincerely sorry, Isabel. I’m so sorry. I should have seen the signs. I should have known better. Yet I missed them.” She bowed her head. “Please, please forgive me, Isabel….”
I struggled to close my mouth, then swallowed with difficulty as pained feelings welled up to flood my chest and choke my throat.
This young woman was nothing to me, and I was nothing to her. But what I felt now, perhaps radiated along with her aura was genuine kindness that was painful to bear.
This is the first time I’ve felt this from someone since I woke up as Mirai.
Then I realized I was wrong. I had felt kindness before but back then I’d also felt sadness, sorrow, and frustration fueled by helplessness. Back then I was intent on surviving and not so much on the people around me until it was too late.
Mat, I’m sorry for failing you. I promised Clarisol I would protect you and Shirohime, and yet I failed you all.
Since returning to Ar Telica, I had been caught up in one unexpected event after another, thus I’d spent little time thinking of Mat and the platinum haired beauty. I had no idea how I would react when I saw them again. But now wasn’t the time to ruminate over what our reunion would be like.
I needed to focus on what was in front of me, and I needed to regain control over my composure.
After breathing in deeply a handful of times, I felt my emotions retreat a little, and my throat and chest loosened up. But I wasn’t able to say anything, and thus I found myself listening to Kyoko’s subdued voice.
“Isabel, I know this may sound as though I’m prodding you down a certain path, but I believe you’re fighting too hard.”
What did she mean?
“You’re trying to find answers where there may be none. Conversely, you’re trying to find answers that may only come with time.” Kyoko looked pensively up at the ceiling. “That is why I suggested that you spend a week, or a month, living as Isabel. To find the answers. To face your fear. But in all honestly, I said that because I just want you to live.”
I shook my head slowly, relieved I’d recovered enough of my voice to say, “But it’s not that simple for me.”
“No, it isn’t,” she agreed softly. “But I believe you may find the answers you seek, and you may find your path only by accumulating new experiences. I’m not saying change your goal. But for now, why not simply live.”
“I’m not just Isabel. I’m also Mirai. And I’m a Gun Princess.”
The young maid nodded. “Yes, you are.”
“So my life isn’t exactly normal because I’m not a normal girl.”
“Yes, I know,” she acknowledged with another nod. “But right now you’re living in a closed system. If nothing changes, you’ll continue running in circles. You need new experiences, Isabel. Only then can you really be certain of what you want. And even if you can’t go back, maybe you’ll find another path. Maybe not even as Isabel val Sanreal. Maybe as someone else.”
I understood what she was telling me, and I realized that I would eventually have to take that leap of faith. It may not lead me down the path I believed that I desired. It may not even lead me down the path that I feared. I could find myself on a very different road. But I needed to take that first step.
Kyoko pressed on. “But as the saying goes, all good things in time.” She paused before adding, “And one thing at a time.” With that, she released me, took a step back, then once again offered me the bundle she held in her hands. “Your clothes, Isabel.”
One thing at a time, I repeated inwardly as I glanced down at the clothes in Kyoko’s hands. Despite recognizing them, I nonetheless asked, “Is that my uniform?”
Offering me a gentle nod, she answered, “Yes, it is. It’s been cleaned and is ready for you to wear.” Then she half smiled. “Or would you prefer a maid’s dress? I have just the right headband for you.”
Shaking my head weakly, I replied, “No. No, thank you. But why my uniform?”
“Truthfully, I believed you’d be more comfortable in it since this is what you were wearing upon arrival.”
Comfortable, yes. But did I welcome it? No. However, that wasn’t what I said as I pointed at the uniform neatly folded into a bundle. “What about my shoes?”
“A new pair is ready for you. I’ll fetch it shortly.”
Visibly reluctant, I took the bundle from her and looked it over, noticing the new item she had included. “Stockings?”
Dark stockings of the kind the girls would wear with the academy’s winter uniform.
Kyoko smiled at me. “It’s a little chilly out there.”
I frowned at her, the bundle of clothing, then back at Kyoko. “When do I meet Phelan Sanreal?”
“Are you ready to meet him?” she asked me, her smile fading a little and her tone laced with concern that unexpectedly made my heart twinge.
But I pushed it aside as I searched the rest of my feelings, and then admitted, “No, I can’t say that I am. But it’s not like I can choose otherwise. I was brought here because he wants to meet me.”
“That is true. But I’m certain he can wait until you are ready for him.”
Again studying the clothes I now held in my hands, I hesitated and then wet my lips with the tip of my tongue. “That’s the problem. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready…so I’d rather get it over with.”
“Then let’s go see him as soon as you are dressed.”
Huh?
Lifting my gaze, I met her eyes with uncertainty and apprehension. “Now?”
“When you’re dressed.” She stepped closer and reached up touch my dark hair. “You have such lovely hair, so why don’t we do something about it first?”
Rather than lead me to the bedroom or bathroom, she waited patiently for me decide. However, as the seconds ticked by and I failed to move, Kyoko nodded faintly and offered me an understanding smile.
“Well then. I’ll wait for you outside while you get dressed, Isabel. If you change your mind, let me know.”
After gently squeezing my arms, Kyoko turned toward the suite’s entrance.
Then quite suddenly I saw something that stole my breath away.
“Wait—!”
My left hand was reaching out for her, but my feet were rooted to the living room floor.
Wh—what? What was that?
It happened so quickly that I doubted my eyes.
What did I just see?
Arrested by my cry, Kyoko had stopped and then half turned to look back at me. “Isabel…?”
I lowered my hand, and blinked quickly as though clearing my eyes.
Was that real?
For a fraction of a heartbeat – for one fleeting instant – Kyoko’s lifeforce had radiated with a brilliant golden aura.
Did I imagine that?
Concentrating my vision on the young woman watching me anxiously, I searched for it again.
Maybe it was all in my head….
“Isabel?” Kyoko walked back to me, and held my face in her palms. “Isabel, what’s wrong?”
With her hands warming up my cheeks, I looked into her dark brown eyes.
But if it was real, then why would her aura change?
“Isabel?”
My heart was pounding so forcefully in my chest it was making my body tremble. Surely she could feel it as she cupped my face with her hands.
“Isabel, tell me what’s wrong?” Her eyes moved slightly left and right as they looked into mine. “I’m here. Talk to me.”
What could I tell her? That I could see the aura of her lifeforce? That for a moment it had inexplicably changed color? The problem was that I suspected she would believe me. She was a maid but a mysterious one, and she knew a great deal about me because she had Sanreal’s trust. I had opened myself up to her, but a little voice in the back of my head warned me about being too forthcoming.
“My hair…,” I whispered.
Kyoko’s gaze felt palpable on my face. “Your hair?”
“Would you…help me…with my hair?”
She blinked very slowly and I sensed she was confused by my abrupt change of her heart. However, she was soon smiling contently. “Of course, Isabel. Of course I’ll help you.”
I started to return her smile, but the memory of her aura flashing golden for a mere moment sent a shiver trickling down my spine.
Who is this young woman? Isn’t she a Simulacra? Her aura is like an orange sunrise, but why would it change? Or is there something wrong with Mirai?
The stark possibility that something was wrong with this body frightened me, and another creeping shiver made my body tremble.
Thankfully, Kyoko had released me before then and stepped back to study me quietly for a few seconds. When she spoke again, she sounded oddly uncertain.
“Isabel, would you like to visit your sister?”
I was still distracted by my worries so it took me longer than otherwise to respond. “My sister? You mean Erina?”
“Doctor Kassius has regained consciousness, and she is doing quite well. Would you like to see her? I’m certain Master Sanreal would understand if you wish to visit her before meeting with him.”
Erina was the question I never asked Ghost because he’d assumed the lead. Ghost had accurately surmised the questions I had in mind, but not in the correct order, and ultimately we were interrupted by Kyoko and her maids. But having heard that she was recovering well, I was faced with making a choice, and in the end my decision was based on how I was feeling rather than a logical or rational line of thinking.
That is, I went with my heart and not my head.
“No.” I shook my head firmly as I answered Kyoko. “I’ll see her afterwards.”
I simply didn’t feel the urge to see Erina. She was on my To Do list but getting to her could wait. Meeting with Sanreal was of a higher priority.
“Are you sure?” Kyoko asked.
“Is she in good hands?” was my reply.
Kyoko nodded faintly. “Yes, she is.”
I gave her a firm nod. “Then I’m sure.”
A look of sadness flittered across Kyoko face, but she acquiesced to my decision.
“As you wish, Isabel.”
As though closing the door on the matter – for now at least – Kyoko turned sideways and waved a hand gently toward the bedroom.
“Shall we then?”
Thank you for your patience with this series.
For those of you who are new to the series and would like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Currently working on Chapter 9.
Thank you for sticking with this series through its ups and down.
Happy New Year
– I –
Sanreal’s gaze swept over me from head to toes, then back up again.
I chose to keep my focus on his face, though with Mirai’s preternaturally wide field-of-vision I could see all of him in great clarity
For a long, long while we both stared at each other, until Sanreal finally grew visibly perplexed.
With his brow furrowed and eyes crinkled, he made a handful of attempts to break his silence before eventually finding his voice.
“Why…are you dressed like that?”
And those were the first words he ever spoke to me.
But let’s press rewind and back up a little.
After I used the excuse of having Kyoko help me with my hair so as to hide my shock at seeing her aura glow golden, I found myself taking a shower…with my eyes closed most of the time. Apparently, I’d allowed my hair to remain wet for too long, and so I had to wash it all over again, this time using a plethora of conditioners and shampoos that left my hair as fragrant as a rose garden. Next was getting it dried, brushed, untangled, and so forth until it hung silky smooth over my shoulders and down my back. I could have modelled for a shampoo commercial because my hair visibly shone with vibrancy. It was like a brilliantly dark waterfall shimmering down my back.
I have to admit, Mirai has awesome hair.
I also have to admit that after all was said and done, I found myself tossing it about like I remembered those attractive hair models would do.
And lastly, I must admit that I needed a lot more practice.
However, up until now all was going well. True, there had been an unexpected delay of more than an hour – Kyoko advised me to grow accustomed to such delays – but everything was progressing smoothly…until disaster struck.
Would you like to take a guess? No? Very well, then I’ll tell you.
My uniform no longer fit me. Why? Because someone with bunny ears volunteered on hands and knees to wash it – in order to avoid bathroom duty – and after she was done, my uniform was a couple sizes too small.
As I have mentioned frequently, Mirai is rather voluptuous.
Thus, after I squeezed into the dark blouse, I heard a very audible rip down the front, and my summer uniform wasn’t fit for attending school anymore. The only thing it was suitable for was the cover of a porn holovid featuring high school girls in compromising situations.
Oh, the skirt ripped a few moments later, completing my porn actress appearance.
The only thing the bunny maid hadn’t shrunk was my underwear.
Alas, after Kyoko promised to drag Penelope over hot coals, she resorted to Plan B.
And so I found myself a while later before a flummoxed Phelan Sanreal Erz Novis, the two of us standing on a paved path running through the verdant garden that occupied much of the inner courtyard, while I was wearing a maid outfit complete with white stockings, black shoes with butterfly buckles, a frilly apron, ruffled blouse, and short skirt.
Did it draw Sanreal’s attention? Well, he’s a man, isn’t he – though his self-control was admirable, his gaze pausing only briefly at my legs, the hem of my short skirt, and my chest before settling on my face.
“Why…are you dressed like that?”
I cleared my throat and wondered how best to reply.
Honestly, I was feeling strangely detached from reality as I stood a few feet away from him in the midst of the beautiful garden with schools of fish swimming its gurgling, burbling streams, around stone islands, under quaint arched bridges, and past countless flower beds and bushes. Because of its immense size and numerous winding paths, a visitor could spend a good deal of time wandering through the villa’s central garden.
Kyoko had brought me here after she was satisfied with my appearance, having fussed over it for almost an hour, especially my hair before finally putting in two butterfly pins to keep it in place. I was decidedly numb by then. Staring at my reflection in the full body mirror, and seeing myself looking like a maid that belonged in a fantasy RPG tavern serving drinks to rowdy, drunken patrons, had broken my stubborn spirit. Despite everything I had said to Ghost and Kyoko, I had essentially surrendered without a fight. Perhaps later I would rant and rave and tear off the dress, but for now I had succumbed to Kyoko’s will.
If I thought of her as a Force Majeure, then perhaps my current state of mind and dress could be forgiven.
Or was the bunny maid, Penelope, the real Force Majeure?
As I was saying earlier, Kyoko had brought me to the inner courtyard that harbored the central garden. With its sixty by sixty meters sides, the courtyard was large enough for the various streams, bridges, ponds, islands, bushes and so forth without the need to cram them together. In other words, it had spacious layout that made me forget I was standing in a tiny section of an immense vessel.
However, Kyoko had not introduced me to the man before. Instructing me to wait a short distance away, she had approached Sanreal, spoken to him in a hushed whisper that Mirai’s uncanny hearing failed to catch, and then returned to me.
“A word of warning. Be good. Be patient. And be on your best behavior.” With that she had left me behind and exited the garden.
After a few moments pondering what to do next, I had walked up to Phelan Sanreal Erz Novis, bringing us to where we were now.
Pursing my lips, I rummaged in my head for a simple way of explaining myself, then took a deep breath and explained, “I had a wardrobe malfunction.”
Sanreal’s gaze again swept over me, slowing at the usual places. “A wardrobe…malfunction?”
I made a tearing motion with my hands. “Rip.”
“I see….”
He turned away slowly and resumed what he’d been doing before my arrival – feeding the fish swimming in a nearby stream.
With my lips subconsciously pouting, I planted my hands on my hips and stared at the man who’d summoned me but was now ignoring me.
Phelan Sanreal Erz Novis was dressed in an outfit that was all about loose robes that came in a collection of greys, blacks, whites, and golds. Later, when I found the time to ask Kyoko about it, I would learn that Sanreal had acquired the antiquated dressing habits of an ancient people from a tiny island nation on Mother Earth. More specifically, they were the traditional dressing habits of the ancient Japanese feudal lords that consisted of various kimonos, a hakama, sandals and tabi socks.
When I asked her why, Kyoko would merely shrug and say, “He admires them.”
So while I was dressed like a Fantasy RPG tavern maid, Sanreal was clothed like an ancient feudal warlord from a distant past. Hidden beneath the loose clothing, it was hard to tell what his body shape was like but I did gauge he was broad shouldered, and I had the impression he took care of himself. Overall, I judged him to be aged in his fifties, with greying hair and the usual collection of frown lines. Studying him, I had the impression he was a handsome man in his younger years. That said, he had a distinguished, noble air about him. His eyes were dark and when he’d looked at me moments ago, they had projected a palpable, penetrating gaze that made them almost hard to meet.
But now he was ignoring me as he fed the fish in the stream.
At that point the sparks were lit, and my stubborn, rebellious fires blazed anew.
“Okay dokey. I’m off.” I waved at him as he tossed pellets into the stream, and spun with surprising grace on my one-inch heeled black shoes with their shining butterfly buckles. “Nice meeting you.”
And with that I walked away in the direction Kyoko had departed.
I wasn’t going to waste time waiting for this asshole to finish feeding his fish. What was next? Was he going to lie down and take a nap under the artificial sky?
“Princess.”
“Yikes!” I skidded to a halt as Ghost materialized before me. “What”—I quickly lowered my voice to a whisper—“what are you doing here?”
Ghost sighed, folded his arms, and shook his head at me in veiled disappointment. “Princess, for as long as we have been acquainted, you rarely heed my advice or that of anyone else.”
I absorbed his remark then promptly denied. “That’s not true.”
“When your sister told you to wait, did you wait?”
“…eh…okay…but that was just one occasion….”
“Patience, as they say, is a virtue.”
I jumped mental tracks to keep up with him. “Are you telling me to wait for this guy?”
“I am telling you to exercise patience,” he answered coldly, so much so that I flinched as the recipient of his icy tone. “In this situation, patience is a well warranted virtue.”
“After everything I’ve been through, I'm supposed to wait—”
Ghost stepped up to me, bringing the gap between us down to centimeters. “Let me make something abundantly clear to you, Princess.”
I shied back a half step. “Wh—what…?”
Ghost pointed behind me. “That man over there holds your life in the palm of his hand.”
I started to retort but Ghost silenced me with an unforgiving stare that again made me flinch.
“It would be wise, Princess. Very wise to heed my warning. To heed Kyoko’s warning. Be good. Be patient. Behave. And for your sake and only your sake, take the attitude and arrogance you so freely throw around and cast it aside.”
I’d been thrown of my proverbial footing by his calm, cold, tirade that doused some of my fire and literally broke my stride. But now I bristled. “Cast it aside—?”
Ghost leaned into me. “Yes. Or stuff it down your bra. I do not care. Is that clear enough for you?”
Leaning back, I hissed at him like a wildcat. “What is with your attitude?”
“Do you want to die or live?”
My mouth fell open and all I could do was stare at him in disbelief.
Ghost sighed heavily as he straightened. But then he took me by surprise.
Dropping to both knees, he closed his eyes and bowed his head before me.
“Princes, you are incorrigible. You are rude, reckless, unpredictable, without regard, and stubborn when you should be flexible. If I ask you politely to do something for your own sake you ignore me. If I vent upon you in frustration, you act like the victim. But I will not be responsible for the outcome. Not on this occasion. From this point on, your fate is in your hands. Literally. But your life is in his hands as well. In other words, how you behave, how you respond, and what you say over the next few minutes will determine the rest of your life. And I am prohibited from helping you. If you think you can summon your Sarcophagus, that is not going to happen. If I override their control over your Sarcophagus, if I betray them, there will be a price to pay, one that I cannot afford.” He raised his head and looked up at me with a hint of desperation. “So do not ask of me what I cannot give.”
I swallowed twice to clear my throat, but when I tried to speak, Ghost cut off me.
“Knowing you, Princess, I sincerely fear for your future. So please, please, do not act off the cuffs of your blouse. I beg of your, Princess, because I cannot help you. I beg of you to not fly off the handle. I beg of you to demonstrate maturity beyond your years. For your sake….”
And with that so-called warning, Ghost vanished from my eyes, leaving me alone, speechless, and without the opportunity to retort or retaliate or ask him a single question.
I kept looking down at the paved path where Ghost had knelt before me.
On the one hand, there was Ghost’s cold, unpleasant attitude toward me.
On the other, there was the severity of his warning.
And then there was the sight of him quite clearly pleading with me.
All of it left me unable to move for a long, long while as my thoughts slowly recovered and a myriad collection of emotions swirled chaotically within me. Eventually, my feelings began to settle, and much of my composure returned. But it was still another minute before I was able to slowly turn around, and look in the direction of Phelan Sanreal who continued feeding the fish in the stream.
“That man over there holds your life in the palm of his hand.”
I swallowed then glanced down at myself.
So why the Hell am I dressed like this?
But then another question settled in the forefront of my mind.
Do they know that he’s reestablished contact with me? If so, then that means they know he’s been supporting me all this time since leaving the boat—since returning to Ar Telica.
I felt cold inside, a frigid cold that put pressure on my heart and lungs.
So what do I do? Act mature? Don’t lose my cool?
Considering everything that had happened to me so far, and how much I blamed them for my suffering, how was I supposed to contain myself?
I looked down at my hands then held them out before me. To my disbelief, they were unbelievably steady, and after a short while I lowered them down to my sides.
Sanreal wasn’t looking my way, but I didn’t believe for a heartbeat that he hadn’t noticed my recent behavior, and that proved to me that he knew about Ghost and I.
So the question was what to do now? How do I approach him? How do I deal with this situation? This man wasn’t Erina, or Straus, or Arnval. He certainly wasn’t Kyoko. If I heeded to Ghost’s wishes, I would need to do so from this very moment.
Patience is a virtue.
Remembering Ghost’s words, I swallowed again – it sounded loud in my ears – and then walked back toward Sanreal, coming to a tidy stop a few feet away from him.
Sanreal glanced down at the squarish metal container in his left hand. “I thought you were leaving.”
I wet my lips as I mulled over how best to reply. Eventually, all I said was, “No, sir.”
Perhaps I imagined it, but I was certain I’d seen Sanreal stiffen ever so slightly.
“I see….” He closed the container’s lid and slipped his hands into his loose sleeves. “Walk with me.”
I walked a couple of feet off his left shoulder as I followed him at a slow pace down at the path. I could hear the sounds of the flowing water, the crunching of gravel underfoot, and in the distance the sound of birds. In fact, when I glanced up I noticed a small flock of them flying over the house. And here and there a few insects flitted between flowers adorning the garden.
And I could also hear the sound of my heart, the pounding of which I blamed on Ghost.
But it was also in part due to finally meeting the man who ruled House Novis, and as much as I wanted to deny it, this man did indeed hold my fate in his hands.
I need to play my cards right. That’s what Ghost was trying to tell me in too many words. But I get it. I’m not that stupid.
The path lead past a low arched bridge spanning over the three-foot wide stream running beside us. Arriving at the junction, Sanreal paused and broke his silence. “How is your sister?”
My sister? I felt the need to snort but refrained myself at the last moment. I held no allusions that he didn’t already know Erina’s condition. But Ghost’s warning echoed in my head, so I chose my words carefully.
“I haven’t visited her, sir. But Miss Kyoko told me she is recovering well.” I swallowed my distaste before adding, “With your permission, I’d like to see her.”
Sanreal hadn’t looked at me once since we started walking. But facing in the direction of the bridge, he glanced at me over a shoulder. “By all means.”
He walked up to the pinnacle of the bridge, and I followed him after a moment or two. However, I kept my distance as I stood quietly on the bridge.
Sanreal removed his hands from the sleeves of his kimono jacket. Opening the metal container, he deposited a small quantity of the pellets onto the palm of one hand, then calmly tossed them out into the stream below the bridge.
“Revenant has been telling me a great deal about you.”
My heart skipped a beat and my innards clenched at his admission. The proverbial cat was out of the bag.
Sanreal emptied the rest of the container’s contents by upending it over the flower water. “Did you think we didn’t know?”
My heart had resumed its stride but it felt shaky in my chest. “Yes, I did.”
“I presume he had some words of advice for you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sanreal snorted softly, and the empty container slipped into the folds of his kimono. “What did he tell you?”
“That my life is in your hands.”
He smiled and faintly nodded. “Your life is in my hands….” Sparing me a glance, he asked, “I’m surprised your containing yourself. You must be chomping at the bit to unleash all that pent up rage, anger, and resentment.”
I bit my lower lip, then replied candidly. “Ghost convinced me it was in my best interests to behave.”
“A wise Ghost he is. But…why call him Ghost? You already know his name is Revenant.”
My eyes widened as surprise and shock washed through me.
Sanreal was studying me carefully, not missing my reaction, and delivered the coup de grace. “You paid my daughter a visit.”
The cat wasn’t out of the bag. The whole tiger had jumped out.
I fumbled for how to respond, then realized it wasn’t a question, and yet I felt I had to say something. “Ghost took me to see her. In there, she told me about what happened to her when she was a child…and about her mother.”
A long moment went by, and then Sanreal calmly asked, “And?”
I found myself needing to take a very deep breath as I remembered the encounter, and the experience was still fresh in my mind. “I hated it.”
Sanreal expressed subtle surprise and turned a little more toward me. “You hated it?”
“I hate knowing what was done to her.” I sensed I’d clenched my hands, so I discreetly hid them behind my back. “I hate knowing that she’s living in that prison for a crime she didn’t commit. She’s suffering because of what others did to her. It’s not fair.”
It was true. What was done to Clarisol was something I couldn’t accept. In some respects, I found her situation and existence more difficult and pitiful than mine. I felt genuine sorrow for her because I understood that the Clarisol that had tormented me wasn’t the Clarisol living in a virtual prison.
“Would you trade places with her?”
It took me a few moments to understand what he was asking. I weighed my feelings and then resolutely answered, “No.”
“I see.”
Taking yet another deep breath, I surprised myself by taking a step toward him. “Why is she still in there?”
Sanreal’s eyebrows rose slightly then fell. “She is the noose around my neck.”
Unable to respond, all I managed for a while was to stare at him. “Why?”
“If we do not abide by the Empress’s will, she has the authority to wipe the last remnants of my daughter out of existence.”
I hesitated before asking, “What about the Simulacra of her?”
Sanreal snorted under his breath, and looked down at the stream flowing below the bridge. “They are…poor copies. Flawed copies. Hardly worth the mention or the resources spent on their manufacture.”
I was shocked by his words, but a part of my mind was puzzled by something. “Why? If she’s the noose around you, why didn’t you hand Project Mirai over to the Empress when she demanded it?”
He was quiet for short a while, his attention on the stream. “Because Kateopia did not use Clarisol as leverage. And because for all the anger she expressed, she never once gave me a reasonable answer as to why she wanted Project Mirai for herself. And so I stood my ground. My intentions to use Mirai as a host for my daughter were dashed, but I still held hope that you would fulfill the potential your sister fervently believes in. The potential she promised me.”
“The potential? My potential?”
“Mirai’s potential. Your sister believes Mirai carries within her the hope for a better humanity. And with it comes hope for my daughter.” He backed away from the bridge’s guardrail and then turned to face me. “But now I wonder if I was wrong about you.”
I felt suddenly uneasy.
His tone had grown distinctly cold and his dark eyes were like twin voids threatening to drain me of my soul.
I had to swallow twice to clear my throat that also felt strangled by his gaze. “…me…?”
“I have contemplated long and hard what to do with you. After observing your behavior since your awakening, I am convinced you are a failure. The mind of a teenage boy imprinted into the brain of a female Simulacra was a recipe for disaster. And I was right. But that was clearly Kateopia’s intention. To make an utter mess of Project Mirai. And to ruin the plans I had so carefully laid out for my daughter.”
“What about Erina’s plans for me?”
Sanreal huffed and glanced away. “Your sister’s plans haven’t changed. Only the mind inside Mirai changed. In fact, this situation suits her splendidly. A fact not lost on me.”
I realized with a sinking feeling to what he was alluding to – that he believed Erina had revealed the existence of Mirai to the Empress, something I had already considered with what little Ghost had revealed to me about the circumstances surrounding my existence. However, I kept that thought to myself.
Sanreal continued after seemingly giving me a moment to absorb his statement. “That leaves me with a problem. I cannot dispose of you, but you’re worth nothing to me.”
“You…can’t?”
“One of the conditions Kateopia imposed on us – on me – was that I make no attempt to dispose of you. I don’t know why, but she seems to have taken an inexplicable interest in you. To that end, she guaranteed that she would not harm Clarisol. She even promised me something in return.”
“What…?”
“That if you were to win the Gun Princess Royale and be crowned Empress, she would release Clarisol from her imprisonment.”
I felt myself sway and hastily reached out of the bridge’s stone handrail.
Sanreal was shaking his head at me slowly. “And so you’ve become my unexpected hope.”
Yes, but what did that mean for me.
“And so I’ve considered my options and decided on the safest course of action. One that guarantees you won’t be causing us anymore trouble.”
I felt my heart abruptly hammer inside my chest as I recalled Straus’s warning.
“You’re going to box me.”
Sanreal offered me a subtle nod. “Yes, Isabel. I’m going to box you.”
I held myself upright by using the bridge’s handrail, and the grip on my emotions began to weaken. It was anger that slipped through first. “Why? Why would you do this to me?”
“Because you are a walking calamity. In the span of two days you have created all sorts of problems for us. You’re belligerent, bellicose, aggressive. You fight at every opportunity. You jump off buildings, disappear into the night, break into buildings, and cause a public sensation. I shudder at the prospect of what you’ll do next. You are an unstable, unpredictable element in a highly volatile situation. If something isn’t done about you, you’ll destroy yourself sooner rather than later.”
“That isn’t true. I’ve had my reasons—”
“Reasons?” He arched his eyebrows. “Reasons for behaving like a delinquent? Reasons for negotiating with our enemies? Reasons for behaving like a speeding train wreck? Do I need to ask for those reasons?”
“You have no guilt for what you’ve done to me.”
“Blame the Empress.”
“Yeah, I blame her. But I blame you—I blame Erina—for what my life has become.”
“That’s understandable. And it’s quite clear that no amount of reasoning with you will make a difference. You’ve decided we should all burn in Hell. So be it. I would gladly toss you to the Hell Fires if that would rid me off you. But Kateopia has decreed otherwise. But having seen how you turned out, I am tempted to simply hand you over to her. Considering how much trouble you’ve been for us, sending you to the Empress is an option. Though, Kateopia isn’t one to tolerate fools such as yourself. She’s liable to do worse than box you. She may decide you’re too much trouble and scrap you.”
I fought down the shiver that threatened to make my body tremble. “What about Project Mirai?”
“What about it? It will continue, of course. Your sister will be sorely disappointed, but she isn’t one to give up so easily after a setback. She’ll be free to create another Mirai, and perhaps this time without Kateopia’s interference. As you can see, it’s certainly an attractive option.”
I pushed away from the guardrail, and took a long stride toward him. “Then why don’t you?”
“Because I’ve already decided to box you.”
“What about the Gun Princess Royale? Doesn’t Kateopia want me to fight?”
“And fight you shall,” he replied. “You’ll be released to meet your commitments in the championship. And if you survive, it’s back in the box.”
“Gods damn you—damn you to Hell!”
“You brought this on yourself. Had you comported yourself in a rational manner, instead of an out of control mag-lev, I would have considered other options to deal with you. Other far more pleasant and worthwhile options. But no. You decided to act without regard for the consequences of your actions.”
I clenched my hands and whispered, “Frek you.”
“No, thank you. And now, our time is at an end.”
My body trembled with equal parts anger and fear. “I won’t let you do this to me.”
“Are you going to call for help? Will you summon your Sarcophagus?” He shook his head while smiling thinly at me. “That won’t work.”
“I’m going to accept Cardinal’s offer.”
Sanreal’s smile faded. “Very well. Then there is nothing more to discuss. Do as you wish.”
I was befuddled by his response. “What does that mean?”
“If you wish to accept their offer, then do so. If you believe you can trust them. After all, they’ve shown you how trustworthy they are. I’m sure you have nothing to fear from them.”
Sanreal knew an awful lot about my encounter with Tabitha, which meant that Ghost had some very loose lips. But for that matter, Ghost had acted and sounded with a sense of urgency and desperation I hadn’t seen in him before. Something they – that is, Sanreal – had said to him had profoundly affected him.
Of course. Clarisol. If I competed and conquered all in the Gun Princess Royale, Clarisol would be freed.
To Ghost who held deeply rooted feelings of guilt and regret for failing to protect Clarisol and her mother, this was a godsend of good news. Thus it wasn’t just my fate he had been warning me over, but Clarisol’s as well. Had Sanreal approached Ghost with this in mind – to elicit Ghost’s help in dealing with me?
I realized I’d been staring blankly at Sanreal for a while, but he appeared to be waiting patiently for me to bring my thoughts and feelings into order.
“Can you trust her?” I asked him. “Can you trust the Empress’s word?”
Sanreal’s eyes narrowed faintly. “Why do you ask?”
“I have no reason to fight for you. I’ve no reason to co-operate with you. You’ve done nothing but threaten me and bully me around all while expecting me to play nice.”
“And dealing with you nicely would make a difference? You expect me to believe that? You who has no reason to co-operate as you’ve just said. Do you take me for a fool? Nothing we do or say or offer you will make a difference because you’ve never had an interest, any intention, of co-operating. It’s impossible to reach an agreement with you.”
“You want to control me.”
“Of course. You’re our product. We can’t very well have our product telling us what to do.” He closed the distance between us to a few inches and stared down at me with poorly disguised contempt. “Who do you think you are? Did you think you could bargain with me? What can you offer me? While it’s true that you’re important, it’s also true that you’re not irreplaceable. Though it will take time, eventually another Mirai can be produced, at which point you can be replaced. Kateopia doesn’t even need to know—may never know—if and when we make the switch. But a more compliant Mirai is preferable to a noncompliant one. And if you wish to run to House Cardinal, then so be it. Our research into the Angel Fibers is so far along we have nothing to fear from House Cardinal’s scientists taking you apart.”
I ground my molars together in growing anger. “This is why I don’t co-operate with you. Because you don’t see me as a person. If you did, then things would be different. But you said it yourself—I’m product. But I’m not a thing. I’m a person. And until you get that through your thick head, I will never help you—never fight for you!”
“Then we have no further need for you.” He turned around smoothly, and began calmly walking along the bridge toward the opposite bank of the stream. “I’ll make arrangements to have you returned to Ar Telica. From there you can make your own way to House Cardinal. Feel free to do as you wish.”
I was knocked aback by how quickly I’d been discarded. “That’s it? You’re not even going to try to convince me.”
Beneath his loose robes, he shrugged. “Why bother? It’s impossible to reach an agreement with you.”
I followed him off the bridge and yelled, “You haven’t even asked me what I want!”
Sanreal stopped quickly on the paved path, but didn’t turn around to face me. “Then what do you want?”
I halted as well, a few feet away from him, breathing heavily under the influence of my roiling emotions. “I want my life back!”
“That’s not possible. It was never your life to begin with.”
My heart began to hammer painfully, angrily, but I reached inwardly to wrap my will around my emotions and contain them. “Then can’t you give me another life?”
With his back to me, Sanreal replied, “You already have a new life.”
“No, I want to live as a boy. As a man.”
Sanreal turned slightly toward me, but his back still faced me. “Transferring your neural map into a male Simulacrum is possible, but there may be complications afterwards. Psychological and neurological consequences. Are you prepared for that?”
“You transferred a male neural map into Mirai’s female brain. What about the consequences of doing that?”
“We had no choice. The Empress was dictating terms. Perhaps it explains your irrational behavior.”
He had a valid point.
The stark difference between my behavior as Ronin Kassius and the way I acted now wasn’t lost on me. It was something that had crossed my mind recently and it sincerely worried me. So perhaps there was some truth to Sanreal’s supposition that perhaps my confrontational behavior, my willingness to jump into a fight, my difficulties dealing with a situation calmly, and my hair trigger temper wasn’t because of Mirai alone, but because my male mind was in conflict with the structure of Mirai’s female brain.
Sanreal turned his head a little more toward me, but he was far from facing me. “However, if that is what you truly desire, I can have it arranged.”
With my thoughts elsewhere, I was a little slow on the uptake and blinked at him blankly for a moment or two.
Sanreal pressed on. “However, consider this. A copy of your neural map as it is now would be transferred. A copy. Nothing more. That means that the person you are now will remain behind. The process does not involve removing the brain from Mirai and implanting it into a male Simulacrum body. It would be the copy that lives as a man, while you continue to live as Mirai.” Sanreal then half turned his body toward me, and regarded me askance. “The moment you awoke, you became Mirai. You will always be Mirai. There is no escaping that reality.”
He wasn’t telling me something new, but being reminded of this truth was hard to accept, and I couldn’t keep myself from trembling as my emotions once again tore loose and ran rampant within me. However, before I cried out and wailed in rage and despair, Sanreal sliced through my thoughts like a knife through warm butter.
“It’s truly a pity that you cannot appreciate how special you are.”
The emotions boiling within me suddenly cooled to a simmer. “What…?”
“You hold such potential, and your life as Mirai and Isabel holds so much more promise than your existence as Ronin Kassius ever did, or will. Why are so determined to throw it all away? You could live as you’ve never lived before. True, there will be hardships, and the Gun Princess Royale is brutal, but you are more than just Mirai. You are Isabel val Sanreal. You are a daughter of the Sanreal Family, and thereby a member of House Novis.”
He turned around and faced me, standing on the path while I stood on the bridge.
“And that makes you my daughter. That makes you family.”
I stared at him, my thoughts grinding back into gear. “You said I was nothing to you.”
Sanreal sighed long and loudly. “I would be lying if I said that having another daughter doesn’t appeal to me.”
“You have Clarisol.”
“Yes. And now I have you. Two sons. Two daughters.”
Why was my heart beating so hard? Why was I feeling my emotions being swayed? Was it because after everything I’d been through, after the near constant antagonism with almost everyone around me, was I tired of fighting? Had I been broken? Or was this what I’d wanted from the start?
Sanreal walked slowly back to the foot of the bridge and looked up at me. “You said you wanted to be treated as a person, not a product. I’m open to treating you like a daughter—albeit illegitimate—but nonetheless as my daughter. And whether you are illegitimate or not, by its very definition you were conceived out of love between your mother and I.”
“But I don’t have a mother. None of my past is real. There is no love.”
“Isn’t there? How do you know that it isn’t real? How do you know that Isabel Allegrando did not exist?”
I swallowed sharply. “What are you saying?”
“Real is subjective. And I had a hand in your creation. But regardless of your origins, I am willing and open to accept you as my daughter. Not a product. Not a thing. But as a child of mine.”
I swallowed a little more slowly, but my confused, conflicted feelings were making it difficult to maintain my outward composure which was already fragile and close to shattering. “You would accept me?”
Sanreal nodded and his expression that had been stern now softened. “Of course. Why else did you think I brought you here?”
I shook my head haltingly, showing my confusion and uncertainty. “But…but you said you wanted to box me.”
Sanreal smiled and I saw a trace of embarrassment in his eyes as he averted his gaze for a moment. “Well, that was something of a last resort.”
“Are you going to box me?”
“Do you want to be boxed?” he asked in reply.
I shook my head, weakly at first, then firmly. “No….”
“Then that settles it.”
I stared at him, unable to comprehend this abrupt turn of events, or the change in the man who’d so steadfastly refused me at every verbal turn. “Why? Why would you decide this now?”
Sanreal looked uncomfortable, yet there was something fatherly about his countenance. Though memories were vague and fuzzy, it was something I remembered seeing my own father express toward Erina – a kind of sheepish, awkwardness as he struggled to make a connection with her or reach a degree of understanding with his daughter.
And this is what I was seeing in Sanreal now.
I had wanted to be treated like a person, and here was someone who was reaching out to me as family – as a father. It wasn’t entirely what I wanted. I wasn’t being treated like a son. I was being treated like a daughter. I felt angry. Revolted. Frustrated. I wanted to scream at him. But I couldn’t. I hated it, and yet by the same token I couldn’t bring myself to reject it. And suddenly, I experienced a glimmer of what it was like for Erina to deal with our father, and how difficult it may have been for him.
And I realized that I envied her.
I had envied her all these years.
I had envied the love and affection my parents had bestowed upon her, and so I had boxed those memories away.
I had envied her intelligence and her achievements, and thus I was relieved when she distanced herself from me, but deep down, subconsciously, I had continued to envy her…and perhaps I still did.
“Isabel?”
I had fallen silent for a long while, and Sanreal had grown faintly anxious.
I looked down at him, and struggled to clear my throat. My heart continued to pound away in my chest, and my feelings were a convoluted mush, but the pressure from within had eased.
Kyoko had said I didn’t need to discard my past in order to step forward, because my past was the starting line. The moment I awoke as Mirai, I inherited the legacy of Ronin Kassius’s life. But it wasn’t just his memories that I carried. It was his mind, his personality, his grudges, his loneliness, and his pain. Ronin was incomplete, a fact he had squarely denied to himself, and for the most part succeeded in bottling away. But I couldn’t do the same. Maybe it was because I wasn’t a man anymore. Or rather, maybe it was because of Mirai’s female brain working differently and thereby having different needs. The consequence was that I couldn’t bottle away the emptiness he felt. I realized that I needed to find what I was missing, and now I began to understand what it was.
As Mirai, I wanted to be treated as a person and wanted to be recognized for who I was.
As Ronin, I wanted achievements of my own.
But together, we wanted to be part of something bigger – something he’d been missing since his parents left Erina and I behind.
With a fair amount of difficulty, I managed to push the feelings choking my throat aside, and recover a little of my voice. “Will you truly accept me?”
Sanreal’s gaze wavered for a heartbeat before returning to me. “If you’ll accept us. And if you’ll accept your place as Isabel within the Sanreal Family.”
“And if I fight as Mirai.”
Sanreal’s lips pursed into a troubled line. “Yes. As unfortunate as that is.”
“And you’ll treat me like family.”
He nodded faintly yet firmly. “If you’ll treat us as family.”
I took a shuddering breath, and released it unsteadily. “I’m not ready to start calling you father.”
“Disappointing, but understandable under the circumstances.”
“I might be more trouble than I’m worth.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Then I’ll just have to treat you like a problematic daughter.”
“But you’re not going to box me.”
“I’m not going to box you.”
I took yet another shuddering breath, held it in for a long, long while, then expelled it in a rush.
Quietly, I walked down the short bridge and stood before Phelan Sanreal Erz Novis.
“So what now?” I asked, unable to hide my uncertain yet hopeful feelings.
Sanreal’s gaze met mine and he gave me a steady smile. “Welcome to the family, Isabel.”
Erina’s eyes had a bruised look to them as she stared at me in silence after listening to me recount my encounter with Sanreal.
She sat on the med-bed that quietly monitored her condition, wearing a hospital gown, her hands neatly folded over her midriff.
She’d been allocated to a suite that was identical to mine but in the villa’s opposite wing. I figured the med-bed in her bedroom was a necessary new addition, however the large bedroom had no trouble accommodating it and the pre-existing queen-sized four-post bed.
With the bedroom’s large window behind me, I sat on a chair beside the med-bed. After I finished telling her about what happened between Sanreal and I, silence had shrouded the bedroom and it dragged on for many minutes until Erina decorously cleared her throat, and then calmly asked, “What will you do?”
I didn’t meet Erina’s eyes. I didn’t need to. I could see her well enough as I looked down at her legs pushing up the bed covers from underneath. “What do you mean?”
“When you return to Ar Telica will you continue to live with me? Or will you seek other living arrangements?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it….”
Within the edge of my peripheral vision, I watched Erina lean back against the pillows that helped prop her up.
Again the room was quiet for a long while, and again it was Erina who eventually broke that silence. “I will tell you one thing. Sanreal is a wily old fox. You haven’t earned their trust. They’re going to watch you carefully. And though Sanreal has said he won’t box you, I’d take that with a kilo of salt. To Sanreal, restoring House Novis to the rank of Alus is important to him. He’ll do what it takes to make that happen. He won’t have any qualms about manipulating and using you, especially when you’re at your most vulnerable.”
This time I spared her a glance. Most vulnerable? Where does she get off telling me that? Who do you think is the most responsible for me being at my most vulnerable!
I relaxed my jaw enough to reply, “I know that.”
After Kyoko had guided me back to my suite, she’d embraced me, and warmly congratulated me. She described my decision as an important milestone in my journey to discover my life. Her feelings had felt pure, so I earnestly thanked her but asked her to be alone.
After she left, I’d lain on my bed for a long while as I turned my situation carefully over in my head, looking for as many angles as I could identify. What I concluded with a dull chill was that I wasn’t out of the woods. Sanreal’s acceptance was more like a reprieve. In other words, when considered rationally I understood that I had somehow earned myself a suspended sentence. I also acknowledged that I was going to have to be a lot smarter from now on. I had realized that in one respect I had entered into a game of deception, not with Kyoko, but with Sanreal.
I raised my head slightly as I looked at Erina. “I’m not that naïve. But I don’t want to keep fighting. I’m tired of fighting.”
A game of deception, indeed, and Erina was one of the best, if not the best player.
Erina’s eyes narrowed but not with doubt. She was openly scrutinizing me. “So you’ve decided to zig-zag instead. Remarkable. There is a brain inside that head of yours.”
“You should know. You made me.”
“I only wish you’d used it before.”
“Frek you, Erina,” I snapped. “Ever the bitch.” I rose from the chair I’d been sitting on. “I really don’t know why I came here. Talking to you is a waste of time. But I’ll tell you one thing. I may not trust them, but I’m going to give them a chance. And Sanreal is doing the same. He’s taking a chance on me. I’ll admit I’ve been acting stupidly. I’ve been all over the place, literally. But I can’t keep going like that. I had a close call. A near miss. Now I’ve got to rein myself in before they do.”
“So you’re going to play nice?” Erina humphed softly, then added, “They are going to test you.”
“What?”
Erina met my questioning eyes. “They are going to test you. They’ll want to see which way you turn.”
“Test me. How?”
“You need to be careful,” she stated solemnly. “Don’t let your guard down.”
I stiffened and my innards grew cold.
I was well aware that if I opened myself up to Sanreal and lowered my guard around my feelings, I would face the prospect of being betrayed and hurt. Although I wanted to accept Sanreal’s words and sentiments at face value, I also knew that I was dealing with someone who had a bigger picture in mind. Ergo, the future prosperity of House Novis. Everything he’d said to me could turn out to be nothing more than a lie – a means to secure my co-operation – and having been worn down by my recent hardships, I had been all too receptive to a sudden show of kindness and understanding.
In that sense, I understood that Sanreal and Kyoko had taken advantage of me. However, I had looked at Kyoko’s aura and I had sensed no lie in her feelings. Yet there was a difference between someone telling the truth, and their underlying intentions. Kyoko sincerely desired that I find happiness by following the path that led to life as Isabel val Sanreal. That much was evident, and I had reluctantly taken a long step down that path.
On the other hand, I hadn’t looked at Sanreal’s aura at all. It was there, burning golden, but I’d not paid attention to it, something I know regretted. However, this was only the opening move. As I said earlier, a new game had started, one where my future was still on the line. I would have other opportunities to study Sanreal’s aura and to search for the lie. But what if there wasn’t any? What if Sanreal had expressed his true sentiments? What if I was welcomed as a daughter of the Sanreal Family? What then? I couldn’t deny the attraction that held for me because part of me yearned to be accepted. I felt a clear warmth in my heart at the prospect of being welcomed.
Family. A new family. Is it wrong for me to hope that things will be different this time? Is it wrong for me to hold out hope?
However, if there was mutual acceptance, I would again find myself living without recourse as Isabel val Sanreal, and I wasn’t ready for that. I felt as though the price was still too great for me.
Erina’s eyes were looking at me intently. “Trust your instincts. Your woman’s intuition.”
“Huh?” I blinked, and fell off my train of thought. “What?”
“Rely on Mirai. She will keep you safe.”
“What do you mean? I’m Mirai.”
Erina looked away and faced the wall beyond the foot of her bed. “Is that so? Then that’s good to hear.”
I didn’t understand her at all. What was she saying to me? “Erina—”
“When the time comes, don’t hesitate. Do what you need to do.” She looked at me again. “Do you understand?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’ve got no idea—”
“Your priority is to survive.”
And then I caught something whispered so softly human ears would have failed to catch it. But Mirai wasn’t human and her hearing was unparalleled by other living creatures.
“…if something were to happen to me….”
I felt suddenly uneasy, and yet a frown spread across my forehead as I walked back to Erina and stood beside her bed. “Stop mincing words. Get to the point.”
For her part, I saw a flicker of hesitation in Erina’s eyes, but her voice betrayed none of it. “I told you already. They’re going to test you. And you’ll need to make a choice. You’ll need to decide what is best for you. To believe in them. Or to believe in yourself. But keep in mind one truth. There is no true freedom. Even if Sanreal is being earnest with you, you are not free. You won’t be free to do as you please. If you push the boundaries of what’s tolerable to them, you will be boxed. Make no mistake, and hold no illusions to the contrary.”
My breathing felt oddly calm despite the uncertainty Erina was stirring within me.
“I know that,” I eventually stated. “I know that I’m on shaky ground. And I know that I can’t unreservedly trust anyone. I know that Sanreal could have been deceiving me—taking advantage of me—turning the tables on me. And I know that I was too trusting of Ghost. I relied on him. I thought he’d be there to help. I forgot where his loyalties lie, and that was my mistake.”
In the corner of my eye, I watched him standing silently in a corner of the room, arms crossed, head bowed.
While I was lying on my bed, trying to encapsulate my situation, Ghost had quietly explained that the Empress had discovered our visit to Clarisol’s virtual prison. It may have had something to do with Ghost bringing me alone to meet Clarisol, because he had made many visits and never been caught. But on that occasion, the breach had been noticed and the Empress had wasted little time putting pressure on Phelan Sanreal. She had demanded Ghost be terminated, but Sanreal had refused. At some point, it almost seemed as though the Empress would pull the plug on the virtual prison. However, she chose not to, perhaps because she enjoyed tormenting Sanreal. Regardless, Clarisol’s virtual existence would live another day, but all visitation rights had been indefinitely suspended, and that included visits from her father.
Ghost had apologized profusely to Sanreal, and assumed all responsibility for the fiasco, but the damage was done, and Ghost had been obliged to spill the beans on my antics. All of which painted me in a poor light in Sanreal’s eyes. This explained Ghost resorting to pleading with me to behave before the Lord and Master of House Novis.
Erina shook her head slowly. “Don’t blame him. At the end of the day, he has no choice but to obey.”
Her sentiment surprised me and the look on my face told her as much. Truthfully, I didn’t disagree with her. Deep down, I had suspected the truth would eventually see the light of day. Maybe it was better this way, but I still felt betrayed even though Ghost had been backed into a very unforgiving corner.
Erina sighed gently. “Ghost is a troubled soul. He’s trapped as you are. And his burden is great.”
“You mean because of his regrets. Because of Clarisol.” I noticed I was fidgeting with my uniform’s apron and hurriedly moved my hands behind my back. “I get that. I really do.” Then I thought of what Sanreal had revealed to me. “But maybe I can help him.”
“You mean about the Empress’s promise to release Clarisol’s mind from the virtual prison?”
It may sound odd, but knowing that Erina was aware of my interactions with Ghost, and that she knew I’d visited Clarisol in her virtual prison, felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. And I was the one who’d told her. Why? Like I said, it was something I felt I needed to do after listening to Ghost, and after I spent time mulling over my situation. I still hadn’t told her about Mirai’s ability to see a person’s lifeforce, and I doubted I would, but there were other things that I felt better about sharing. That said, I had to be careful around Erina. I was playing a game of Give and Take. So far I’d done a lot of giving. If I didn’t get something in return, I was going to walk away with a loss. But for the moment, I gave her a nod, and in my peripheral vision I saw Ghost raise his head and look at me with restrained interest.
Erina pushed herself up higher, and seated herself more upright on the bed. After making herself more comfortable, she crossed her arms gingerly below her breasts – that happened to look less pronounced without help from her push-up bra – and addressed me in a very serious tone.
“Isabel, freeing Clarisol’s mind would require you to win the Gun Princess Royale.” She paused, undoubtedly for effect because she then asked, “Can you comprehend the commitment that would require from you?”
“Commitment….”
Erina nodded shallowly. “The Gun Princess Royale is more than a game. Especially to you. You’re not a mechanical avatar. You’re a living, breathing individual. If you lose, you could die.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, I know that.” My gaze drifted slowly over to Ghost standing against the back wall of the room. “I’d have to really throw myself into it.” I recognized wary hope in his eyes. “No more messing around. No more wasting time.”
Erina continued in her serious tone, sounding like a school counsellor. “Isabel, it wouldn’t be like studying for finals or entrance exams.”
“I know that,” I replied testily. “Erina, I’m not stupid. I had a taste of what it’s like when I faced the Gun Queen, and frankly it scared me. It really frekking scared me. I’m not looking forward to my first match as a member of Team Novis. And yet I know I can’t avoid it because of that bitch, the Empress. Honestly, honestly, it feels like I’m going to be ground up into beef paddy by the Gun Princess Royale.”
My body began trembling visibly and so I wrapped my arms around my chest. Showing weakness before Erina stung me bitterly but I couldn’t contain it.
Erina rested her head back and studied my quietly for an uncomfortably long moment.
I found her gaze irritating and difficult to bear, so I turned away but in so doing my eyes met Ghost’s. He looked startled and broke eye contact, while I felt a pang in my heart and hurriedly looked away.
“Isabel, can I ask you something?”
When I faced Erina, I noticed the curious light in her eyes. “What?”
“Can you see him?”
I gave myself away by the shock that sprang onto my face.
Erina’s eyebrows rose markedly. “You can see him?”
Way to go, Isabel. You dumb shit! Did you forget who you were dealing with?
Pressing my lips together angrily, I glared at Ghost who’d assumed an innocent ‘do not blame me’ look, but of course I was going to blame him. Then I heard Erina laugh softly, and when glancing at her, I saw her pressing down upon her bruised ribs.
“That certainly is interesting,” she said while gasping against the pain. “I never expected you would develop the ability to see him.”
“Why not?”
“Because the wetware in your head is Remnant technology. We don’t know all of what it can do.”
I turned my glare upon her. “You stuck something you don’t understand into my head?”
“We needed something more advanced than anything we had at our disposal. We turned to the Remnant tech stored in one of the Fabricators. I won’t bore you with the details.”
“No, of course not. Why bother telling me at all? Need to know basis, right?”
“Stop being so angry. You’re alive because of that technology.” Erina eyed me sternly. “We had to give you the abilities of a mechanical avatar. How else would you be able to compete effectively in the Gun Princess Royale.”
“Don’t you mean survive?”
“Same difference.”
I exhaled angrily and stepped away from the bed, walking over to the window instead. It offered a view of the gardens lying between the villa and the lagoon sized pool.
“Isabel, are you serious about winning? Tell me the truth.”
I folded my arms under my breasts, and my shoulders heaved as I took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m serious.” I nodded faintly while watching the breeze sway the flowers in a particularly large flowerbed. “I need to show Sanreal that I’m serious.”
“And how do you intend to do that?”
Again my shoulders rose and fell heavily as I inhaled deeply. “I have an idea about that.” Turning away from the window, I looked at Ghost, aware that Erina was following my line of sight though she couldn’t see him. “And I’m going to need your help.”
Ghost pushed away from the wall he’d been lightly leaning against, wariness and anticipation in his eyes, but he remained silent.
That was fine with me because gathering my resolve required taking another generous breath. “I’m going give House Cardinal my answer.”
Shock spread in a heartbeat across Ghost’s face, and he wasn’t able to contain himself. “Princess, are you planning to accept—?”
“No,” I told him bluntly. “I’m rejecting Tabitha’s offer to represent her Noble House.”
Ghost visibly relaxed and resumed leaning lightly on the back wall.
I noticed Erina was looking at me with interest. “What is it?”
She shook her head briskly. “It’s nothing.” However, she looked over in the direction where she surmised Ghost was standing. “…I’d love to see him for myself….”
I gave Ghost a quick look. “Is there a way for her to see you?”
Ghost adopted a thoughtful expression. “She can use her phone’s camera function.”
I walked over to the bedside table where Erina’s phone rested. Handing it to her, I said, “Turn it on. Switch to camera mode.”
Erina did as told.
I pointed at Ghost. “Aim over there.”
Erina held the phone up and aimed the camera at the back wall.
Ghost bowed to her politely.
Wide-eyed, Erina gasped loudly. However, she didn’t drop the phone.
“Well?” I asked her.
Erina was staring intently at her phone’s screen. “Wow, he’s a hot.”
I cocked my head at her. “That’s the first thing you say?”
“Well he’s definitely my type. You’re a girl. Don’t tell me he doesn’t push your buttons—”
“Oh, he pushes my buttons all right! He makes me so angry I wish I could hit him.”
“Well, at least you’re getting along….”
Unexpectedly, her voice trailed away, and then she grew still and quiet. And then she visibly paled.
“Erina?” I was confused and unintentionally alarmed by the sudden change that came over her.
She remained that way for a few seconds longer before slowly shaking her head. “It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”
My worry had eased but I was still confused by her reaction to seeing Ghost for the first time.
However, she threw me a dirty look. “No wonder you spend so much time around him.”
“Heh?” I drew back from her, then waved a hand at her. “It’s not like I can get away from him. He follows me wherever I go.”
Erina stared at me as though I’d gone and lost my mind. “You have a man at your beck and call and you’re complaining?”
I pointed at Ghost while snarking at Erina. “You deal with him for more than a day.”
“I say you’re protesting way too much.” She resumed studying Ghost’s image in her phone’s screen. “He’s certainly a good-looking ghost.”
My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “That’s why you were speechless?”
Erina started fanning herself with her free hand. “Is it hot in here or it is just me?”
I rolled my eyes and threw my hands in the air. “Oh, knock it off. Don’t you have a fiancé? You harlot!”
When I reached down to deprive her of her phone, Erina fended me off, then abruptly cried out in agony.
“What?” I yelled, again unintentionally alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“My ribs!” She had dropped the phone and was clutching at her ribs. “Damn the gods that hurts.”
I felt a tad guilty and decided to step back. “Sorry….”
Erina breathed shallow and fast as she negotiated with the pain. A short while later, she sat up gingerly, and took longer breaths. Her expression grew thoughtful. “Isabel, about the offer House Cardinal made to you. It might not be as simple as sending them a rejection.”
I crossed my arms slowly under my bosom. “What makes you say that?”
“House Alus Cardinal has the Empress’s ear.” Erina took a few more breaths, obviously dealing with the lingering pain across her bruised ribs, then added, “They may challenge House Novis for you.”
“So what?”
“The Empress may support their challenge.”
I realized what she was alluding to. “Are you serious?”
Erina nodded weakly, her face pensive and concerned. “If that happens, you’ll have no choice but to face their challenge.”
“You think they’d challenge me directly.”
Again, she nodded weakly. “Remember, they have a Gun Empress in their pocket. Make that two Gun Empresses.”
Moving away from the wall, Ghost cut in as he approached the foot of the med-bed. “Princess, tell her to switch her phone to speaker mode, or to use the earpiece.”
I relayed his suggestion to Erina, and she chose to detach the earpiece from the phone and fit it to her left ear.
Ghost then asked, “Doctor Kassius, can you hear me?”
While aiming the phone’s camera at him, Erina looked at his image on the screen and nodded. “I can.”
“Doctor, regarding your suspicions that House Alus Cardinal will challenge House Novis for Mirai, I find myself in agreement.”
“You do?” I threw him a surprised stare. “Why?”
“They were involved in the battle between you and the Gun Queen of Ar Telica. They were involved in Ronin Kassius’s ill-fated Zombie Apocalypse session. They have clearly played a part in every major event over the last few days that has involved either Ronin Kassius or Mirai.”
Erina was nodded subtly to his words, then looked up at me. “Isabel, when was the deadline for your reply?”
“Friday. Tabitha said Friday evening. Didn’t Straus tell you?”
“Akane didn’t tell me much. She only mentioned it briefly.”
I realized I hadn’t seen Straus since entering the villa. “Where is he—I mean she?”
“She had to return to Ar Telica. She promised she’d return shortly.”
“How did she do that?”
“She used her Sarcophagus,” Erina explained.
Remembering Ghost’s explanation about how the Sarcophagi navigated, I had to ask, “Is she going to find her way back.”
“Yes. A Sarcophagus always remembers where it’s been.”
“Even if this Citadel is moving?” I inquired. “The ship is moving, right?”
Erina and Ghost both looked at me, but it was Ghost who answered, “A Sarcophagus marks every place it visits, and is always able to return to it.”
The way he explained it had me thinking of a dog peeing to mark its territory. It was a distracting picture, and that’s why I only muttered, “Oh….”
Oblivious to the image in my head, Erina added, “That’s just the way it works. Don’t try to think of why or how it does this.”
“Oh, okay.” Shaking my head quickly, I jumped back on track. “So you think I shouldn’t reply to them—to House Cardinal—until just before the deadline?”
“I don’t think it will matter,” Erina replied. “If they made that offer, then they’re serious about you. And Akane told me Taura Hexaria didn’t look happy at being interrupted. She looked positively furious when Akane stole you away from her.”
I wet my lips and then swallowed anxiously. “Do you think she would challenge me herself?”
Erina and Ghost shared a look, though my former sister did so through her phone’s screen, then they both gave me somber nods.
“Wonderful,” I whispered under a heavy breath, then remembered what Tabitha had told me about Erina claiming I would die if I was taken away from House Novis.
I said this to Erina, and she regarded me in silence for a while. “It’s not true.”
“Hmm?” I dumbly muttered.
“I called her bluff,” Erina admitted. “I told her that if you didn’t return to your Sarcophagus at least once a day, you would die. That I had engineered you that way. But it’s not true.”
“But she doesn’t know that.”
“And neither does anyone else…but one.” Erina used her phone to pointedly stare at Ghost. “When you spilled your guts, did you tell Sanreal?” she asked him.
Ghost shook his head, looking wounded and contrite. “There are somethings I can withhold from them.”
“Good.” Erina sounded frosty. Addressing me, she said, “Then we need to get you into your Sarcophagus sometime today in order to keep up appearances. Also”—she looked at Ghost through her phone—“what we say in this room, stays in this room.”
I snorted at the notion that Ghost was going to keep that a secret. His face grew stony but there was regret laced into it as he replied to Erina. “As you wish. And I can assure you, this room is secure from prying eyes and ears.”
“Hmm.” He clearly didn’t miss the doubtful stare Erina gave him.
Erina then closed the subject by saying, “For now, let’s not worry about the possibility of a challenge. Send your rejection to Taura just before the deadline, and we’ll wait and see what happens.”
In other words, we would be playing things by ear and hoping for the best.
If I sent my reply before the deadline, then there wouldn’t be enough time to be challenged because by then the participants in this year’s Gun Princess Royale would be finalized. From that point on, Princesses could drop out, but no new Princesses could drop in. That meant, that if I received no challenge between now and the Friday evening deadline, then I was safe.
Facing a Gun Queen was hard enough, and I had only prevailed because of Clarisol’s flight of madness that blew up the school’s replica, and almost cost Mat and Shirohime their lives. But if I had to face Tabitha, a former Gun Empress, under different conditions then I didn’t think I could win. That is, if I had to face Tabitha in a real Gun Princess Royale match, I was as good as dead. Of course, since she wanted me to fight for her Noble House, then I doubted she would kill me. But even so….
It certainly would be nice to catch a break, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
While I was dealing with my mixed emotions, Erina intruded into my thoughts. “By the way, Isabel. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
I was wary at the amusement hinted in her eyes. “Ask me what?”
“Why are you dressed like a tavern maid?”
I pressed my lips into a sullen pout. “I’d rather not say.”
Erina nodded weakly, then appraised me again. “It looks good on you.”
“Oh, shut up!”
It was early afternoon when I returned to my suite after leaving Erina’s room located in the opposite wing of the villa.
I had just kicked off my shoes and dropped myself onto a five-seater sofa in the living area when I heard a knock on the door.
Hoping it was Kyoko here to announce lunch was ready, I opened it only to find Geharis Arnval waiting outside.
“What do you want?” I grumbled unhappily at him.
“A little birdy told me something interesting.”
“Really? You get your horoscope by carrier pigeon?”
“Now there’s a thought.”
“I’m tired. I’ve had a shitty day. Go away.” I tried closing the door on him, but he held it open with a hand. “Move it or lose it,” I warned him.
Arnval grinned at me in a surprisingly suave manner. “Sorry, ma chéri, but I’m not here by choice.”
“Oh yeah? And why are you calling me ‘my cherry’? And why are you wearing that trench coat indoors?”
Arnval leaned into the open doorway, his suave grin growing bolder. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”
“No.”
He pouted in mock reproach. “Is that how a lady treats a gentleman coming to her aid?”
I scowled up at him. “I haven’t asked for your help!”
Arnval grinned again as he straightened. “Your papa is very worried about you.”
Holding onto my scowl, I exhaled loudly in exasperation. “Really? Then he should warn you away from me.”
“It was your papa who sent me over.”
I leaned back slightly in surprise. “Sanreal sent you? Why would he do that?”
“Because your training starts today, ma chéri.” He leaned a lot closer to me this time, and I had to lean back again or bump noses with him. “Time to start molding you into a Gun Princess.”
Realizing what he meant, an uneasy feeling rushed through me, then circled back and settled into my gut. “You’re going to train me?”
Arnval arched an eyebrow and smiled his charming best. “Oui, ma chéri.”
I hated to admit it but that smile of his would send my female classmates into a tizzy.
As for me, it distracted me from my anxious innards by making the veins in my temples throb angrily. “And why would you start training me now?”
Arnval dropped the smile and released his hold on the door. “Because, ma chéri, House Alus Cardinal issued you a challenge, and we just received word of it.”
For a long while I stared at him blankly until I felt lightheaded and had to lean on the doorjamb for support. “Don’t tell me. Please, don’t tell me. I’ve been challenged by Tabitha Hexen.”
“Taura Hexaria Erz Cardinal, to be precise.”
I scowled at him anew. “I told you not to tell me.”
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
I know that I'm posting on New Year's Day and New Year's Eve, but I wanted to get it out ASAP.
For those of you who are new to the series and would like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Currently working on Chapter 9.
Thank you for sticking with this series through its ups and down.
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
Why am I posting it here? Because I have spent the past 7 years learning to improve my storytelling, and taken 2 1/2 years reimagining/rebooting the Gun Princess Royale into a new story that I believe (and hope) is far superior to the 2017 release. I call this new incarnation "The Gun Princess Royale" 2023. (Note the addition of "The" to the series name).
The manuscript for the reimagined/rebooted series book 1 has been completed. It is pending editing, polishing, some new illustrations, and a final go ahead from my editor friend. I plan to release it on Amazon Kindle in August, 2023.
For now the original 2017 release is still available on Amazon. I will be removing Books 1 & 2 from Amazon once the new incarnation of the story is released because I want to treat this as a fresh start.
However, I will continue to post the unpublished (and now non-canon) Book 3 of the original 2017 version of the series.
I hope that readers can find it enjoyable. Also, to be frank, I haven't decided how much of this version of book 3 I can incorporate into the new reimagined "The Gun Princess Royale". Time will tell.
Anyone can look up the definition of a dream.
I don’t need to quote mountains of literature on what they are, what they mean, and why we dream.
Nor do I need to tell you that dreaming isn’t a privilege, curse, or unique ability ascribed only to humans.
Animals dream too. There’s scientific literature on that.
I’ve seen dogs dream. Tobias’s adopted family has a dog, and I’ve watched it experience fitful bouts of slumber. I’ve heard it bark in its sleep too.
But why am I talking about dreams?
It’s because of something odd that I’ve noticed.
Mirai doesn’t dream…unless she’s inside the Sarcophagus.
I don’t know why, and I can’t say whether it bothers me or not. It’s simply something that I’ve become aware of this past week.
I haven’t asked Erina or Pearson about it.
I haven’t mentioned it to Celeste either, but perhaps I should since she is a shrink and all.
So why haven’t I told them?
Well, do you expect me to trust them?
By the way, I haven’t introduced Pearson and Celeste yet, but I will.
All good things in due time.
That said, if it’s a question of trust, have I spoken to Ghost about it?
No, I haven’t mentioned it to him, though I wonder if he’ll discover it on his own. After all, he does reside within the Sarcophagus…and he gets to see me naked while I float in that artificial womb full amniotic fluid or something like it. The Sarcophagus has a way of undressing me by making my clothes dissolve, but then it dresses me up again before tossing me out to the kerb. That’s something I find discretely unnerving, more so than finding myself naked in a translucent sack underneath that mechanical terror that exists inside the giant coffin.
On a side note, I learnt from Ghost that they were originally called Cradles, but somewhere along the timeline they were renamed Sarcophagi.
Not sure which I prefer, though it hardly makes a difference.
However, as I was saying, Mirai doesn’t dream unless she’s inside her coffin.
I wonder if it was the same for Count Dracula.
Did he dream of Mina while sailing across the open waters from Europe to England? Speaking of Mina, see what happened to the unfortunate Count for falling for the wrong woman? Nothing good comes from falling for the wrong girl! And she was married to boot. Trying to steal another man’s woman? Shame on him.
Regardless, I should get back on point.
However, my point has nothing to do with Mirai’s inability to dream outside of the Sarcophagus. Rather, it has to do with the dreams themselves. To be specific, it concerns the first dream I experienced since waking up to my new life as Mirai.
It was a dream of seeing my parents again – of greeting them at the spaceport after being apart for so many years. They looked just like I remembered them when I was a child. I guess that’s to be expected since I have no idea how my parents look these days.
However, since it was a dream, I don’t believe it matters.
Rather, what does matter is that I wasn’t the one greeting my parents and welcoming them home after they abandoned my sister and I on Teloria.
No, sir.
It was Ronin Kassius who met my parents on the concourse after they exited customs.
I must have cut quite the forlorn picture as I watched an older, manlier Ronin hug my mother and shake hands with my father, all while I observed the touching reunion from afar.
My feelings of neglect and sadness were compounded by shock when I caught my reflection in a shop window and saw Isabel looking back at me.
Waking up in a cold sweat inside the womb, I remembered that line from Hamlet.
Dreams are but shadows.
I know that taken out of context it can mean many things, but within the context of the scene, Hamlet is alluding to how dreams are intangible and ephemeral.
As I floated within the womb, I fervently hoped that was all it was.
I certainly wanted to avoid speculating on what the dream meant.
In truth, I was afraid of the dream being a portent of where my future was headed.
And that brings me to the question of who am I?
Celeste, whom I shall introduce in a later installment of my timeless memoires, refers to me as an amalgam.
In other words, I am an amalgamation of Ronin Kassius and the entity known as Mirai, with a third identity – that of Isabel – thrown into the mix.
Yet Celeste is quite specific in drawing distinctions between all three…at least for now.
In her estimation, Ronin Kassius functions as the self-aware component, while Mirai is the conscious, subconscious, and the physical, with Isabel being the false identity that combines them.
That’s one way of looking at me.
The problem is whether Mirai is also self-aware.
One indication that she may be lies not in the nature of my transformation when my appearance changes from blonde to brunette, my eyes become crimson, and all my senses sharpen tremendously, but in the fact that it takes place at all.
It implies that Mirai is aware of the circumstances she is in, and thus makes an executive decision to assert herself by powering up.
It also implies that the self-aware aspect – the me that’s thinking and speculating right now – is simply riding on Mirai’s shoulders. In other words, I’m pointing the way, making decisions, telling her to turn left, right, or go straight, but I’m not actually in control – at least not yet.
I find this…terrifying.
Will I lose myself to Mirai?
Will I go to sleep one night and never wake up as I am absorbed into my Mirai’s self-awareness? Or will I absorb Mirai into me while maintaining the false identity of Isabel val Sanreal?
Ghost is fond of saying, ‘time will tell’, but I’d rather time kept its revelations to itself.
And yet deep down I know that I can’t continue living like this.
The distinction will get me killed out on the battlefield that is the Gun Princess Royale.
And I’m also afraid that the reason my self-awareness may be distinct from Mirai’s is because I am unable to accept who I am now.
I know that I’m a girl, but this isn’t who I want to be.
I don’t want to be Isabel val Sanreal, or Mirai the Gun Princess.
However, I have no other recourse but to continue calling the shots from the top of Mirai’s head until I find a way to get off, though I know there is no going back to my life as Ronin Kassius. Therefore, I will continue to think of myself as someone separate from Mirai, until she or I absorbs the other, or we end up merging into a new entity that is both Mirai and Ronin Kassius.
That is why the dream I experienced greatly unsettled me while also leaving me with an emptiness in my heart that can be transcribed as loneliness because deep down, I miss my parents. The likelihood that I may never return to them as their son, but reacquaint myself with them as Isabel, mires my heart with grey emotions.
This sense of loss compounds the fear that I’m already losing myself to Mirai.
If so, is that truly such a bad thing?
I wasn’t happy as Ronin Kassius.
Will I be happier as Isabel and Mirai?
Will I live long enough to find out?
I understand that my unwillingness to accept who and what I am may lead to my downfall.
The disjoint between Mirai and I, and for that matter Isabel and I, introduces a delay between the self-aware and the conscious, physical body.
Even if Mirai can assert herself at critical moments, that could prove deadly to me in the Gun Princess Royale because there is a marked difference between the other competitors and I.
If the other girls take a bullet to the head, it is the mechanical avatar that dies – the Gun Princess and not the Meister.
If I take a bullet to the head, I die – both the Gun Princess and the Meister.
And that’s not the only thing that sets us apart.
It takes more than one bullet to the brainbox to bring down a Gun Princess because they have very hard heads.
In contrast, I don’t have an adamantine skull or adamantium coating over my skeleton.
Thus, with one armor-piercing round to the cranium, it’s Game Over for me.
Farewell Mirai, and better luck to your next incarnation, but for me it would all be over.
It’s true that the Sanreal Family, that is House Elsis Novis, and my cold-hearted bitch of a sister could imprint the most recent archive of my neural map into another copy of Mirai…but that’s only if they can make one.
You may recall from the previous installment of my progressive memoires that Erina called me a miracle. A miracle she said, with a zealous light in her eyes. Therefore, producing another Ultra Grade Mirai doesn’t happen at the snap of her fingers, although it does start with the push of a button. However, should she be successful, and the archive of my neural map can be implanted into the new brain, the next Mirai wouldn’t be me. She wouldn’t be the me that I am now. That me would die, and perhaps fly off to Heaven or Hell, depending on whether I’ve been a good or bad girl because I do believe that Mirai has a soul. At least, I want to believe that she does. She has Angel wings, so why not a soul? Admittedly, her wings are black but let’s not dwell on that. The point is that who I am now would perish in this reality, and the copy would only be a copy.
The real Mirai – the first Mirai – would be no more.
I have asked Erina what would happen to me if I was shot in the head. Would the Angel Fibers repair the damage? If so, then perhaps installing the latest archive of my neural map would compensate for the loss of information in the regenerated portions of my brain. But there would certainly be a lot to repair because Mirai’s skull – as strong as it is – isn’t armor plated.
Erina admitted that she didn’t know.
She and her research team that developed Mirai are continuously collating the data they collect on me, so they have yet to determine the extent to which the Angel Fibers can heal my wounds. But if I died from head trauma and the Angel Fibers subsequently put me back together, would I be the same person I was before? Perhaps, it really does come down to whether Mirai has a soul or not. Yet even if Mirai could survive a bullet to the noggin, I have no intention of finding out, and I don’t want a copy to be made of me because I am the true, one-and-only Mirai.
I am fully aware that this contradicts my earlier assertions of being separate from Mirai. However, I have no desire to die.
I want to survive the Gun Princess Royale, and I want to live.
That’s what I decided for myself as I listened to the bullets whiz by, ripping through the air, not quite indiscriminately tearing up my surroundings.
Maybe I’m jumping way too far ahead by revealing too much, too early, in this the latest volume of my memoires.
Maybe I should let the story run its course, but having said that I’d resolved to live, I would like to explain a little of my circumstances at the time.
Just a sneak peak, a teaser, of what is to come some distance down the road.
– # –
I’d heard the term once before, spoken in conversation during a rather stressful period of my life.
It was something I’d forgotten about until it was blared out by the Game Master circling on high inside the Battle Commission’s observation airship – a giant oblate zeppelin the size of a cruise ship covered in lights that lit up the evening sky with the power of a million Christmas trees. It was a garish, extravagant exhibition of avarice demonstrated by the Battle Commission, yet it was also a testament of the Gun Princess Royale’s nature as bread and circus for the masses.
All pomp and spectacle as they say.
Regardless, I certainly knew what the term meant in my reality, but I should have realized that it could mean something else in the Empress’s universe.
Nonetheless, knowing what I knew, a fear caressed my spine as I watched the giant gunmetal grey egg fall from the airship, and crater the middle of the plaza when it landed with a deafening boom that smashed permaglass shopfronts, buckled the nearby maglev station supports, and caused the ground to undulate and ripple, tossing the Gun Princesses and I like plastic dolls into the air.
Some of them crashed through shop windows and deep into the stores.
Others rolled along the ground like helpless tenpins.
A few collided with walls, benches, tables, and signs.
And I slammed my back into an interactive information board, snapping its supports, and knocking it to the ground.
In a heartbeat, the center of the plaza was ruined, and the girls and I were scattered about.
Lying on the wrecked board, I looked up to see fireworks launch from the Game Master’s airship.
They exploded brilliantly in the evening sky, signaling a start to the festivities.
Then the gunmetal grey egg broke apart…and it emerged.
Of course, I couldn’t see it because the middle of the plaza was shrouded in a dense cloud of powdered rubble.
But I could hear it and I could feel it due to the deep thrumming that spread through the air and resonated with my bones.
I could smell it too – the scent of ozone that follows a lightning strike.
One by one the mechanical girls either picked themselves off the ground or hurried out from the shops they’d crashed into.
In quick succession, they checked their weapons and readied themselves for whatever would come bursting out of the cloud filling the center of the plaza.
I too prepared myself, first rising from the wrecked information board to check my customized heavy rifle – the Kaiser from Specter & Koh – before seeking cover behind the remains of a permacrete fountain partly demolished by the egg’s explosive landing.
Maybe those Meisters thought they’d be ready for what was to emerge.
Maybe I thought so as well.
After all, there were fifteen Gun Princesses in the plaza…and only one opponent.
However, I didn’t know how wrong we would be.
I didn’t know we’d be facing something that wasn’t from my reality, but from a harsher realm.
A realm where a war had been fought and it razed the face of an entire planet.
Then a century later, the survivors fought another war.
A war that began with Simulacra.
A war that ended with machine versus machine.
Not long ago, Ghost told me that a Gun Princess has no natural enemies because her enemies are all unnatural.
They are all machines, metal predators, and among their ranks is one that even a Gun Princess has reason to fear.
The Gun Slinger.
As a Gun Princess, I too learnt to fear the Gun Slinger.
But a Gun Slinger has never met a Gun Princess like Mirai, and I was determined to cut my name into the metal demon that emerged from the cloud of rubble to the tune of six Gatling guns and a swarm of missiles.
Before the night was out, I promised to make this Gun Slinger tremble at the mere whisper of the name, Mirai.
And then I would blow the metal mother frekker up and send it straight into the machine afterlife!
- # -
However, that’s not what happened.
Rather, let me say that things opened up a little differently.
And it was all my fault.
That’s because I succumbed to Mirai’s ingrained reaction to shoot at anything she sees as a threat.
Then again, I too have the bad habit of shooting first and asking questions later.
Had I not given into her impulsive nature and mine, maybe the situation would have turned out better.
Instead of waiting for the egg to crash into the plaza, I opened fire on its drogue chutes as it fell from the sky.
This sent the giant egg spinning off course, and it crashed with a boom and rumble a few city blocks away.
Thus, in one fell swoop I tore out the first page of the Battle Commission’s carefully prepared script and turned the night into a free fall battle to stay alive.
- # -
I’m sure you’re eager to read about how the events of that night unfolded.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait because that’s not what this volume is about.
Before I recount in detail the longest night of my life thus far, I need to tell you of the week leading up to it, and of the dire events that took place upon my return to Ar Telica.
By now you’re well acquainted with the circumstances that landed me in a Mirai’s body.
With the introduction done and dusted, it’s time to turn the first page on the first chapter of my newly minted existence as both Isabel val Sanreal, and the Gun Princess, Mirai.
For those of you who are interested in reading the original 2017 release of "Gun Princess Royale" the books are still available for purchase via the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
The new "The Gun Princess Royale" will hopefully be release on Amazon Kindle as an eBook in August, 2023.
It all depends on what issues my editor friend finds with the story.
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
Aboard the luxurious civilian VTOL, I had much to think about on the night flight from the marina to the apartment complex in Ar Telica.
My decision to live as Isabel, and to fight in the Gun Princess Royale as Mirai, weighed heavily upon my mind because it meant I was temporarily abandoning my quest to return to my old life.
But what else could I do?
My options were few if any, and I wasn’t in a position to fight back.
Moving forward in life as both Isabel and Mirai was the logical course of action, and in truth it wasn’t one that I’d taken lightly. It was strongly influenced by Clarisol’s declaration that my life as Ronin Kassius was a thing of the past – an assertion that was supported by Erina’s reaction when I questioned her back on the boat.
Granted, I wasn’t abandoning all hope, but I needed to face the prospect that I was indeed stuck as Mirai for the foreseeable future.
So what kind of life could I look forward to?
Feeling as though I was living minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, reluctant to think of what the sunrise would bring, should I even allow myself to ponder my future? Could I live as a girl? Was it something that would come to me both gradually and naturally now that I was inside Mirai’s female body and brain?
As the VTOL flew over the harbor waters, I looked out the window beside me.
The windows were treated with an anti-reflection coating that prevented them from reflecting the cabin’s softly lit interior. This allowed for a clear view of the harbor, its waters glistening with light from the city-state’s megascrapers adorning the shoreline and far beyond into the mainland.
By chance, my gaze floated over one of the three islands poking their heads above water. I didn’t think it was Telos Island that I saw, but the sight of that island was enough to send an anxious jolt through me as I considered the prospect of attending school as Isabel val Sanreal, and not as Ronin Kassius.
But was it something I should worry over?
Was it not the least of my problems?
That depressing line of thinking made me turn away from the window to regard the plush interior of the passenger cabin with its forward and reverse seating.
The VTOL was moth shaped, with six landing struts and wedge-shaped levitator wings fanning out from the dorsal superstructure. With a body that was thirty feet long, it had plenty of space for a lavishly appointed passenger cabin outfitted like a limousine with comfortable leather seating, wood paneling, climate control, and noise dampening for a whisper quiet ride.
While I appreciated being in the lap of luxury, I was bothered by the company I shared.
The Cat Princess, to whom Erina referred to as Akane, was sitting beside me to my right and facing forward. For now, her stun baton was clipped to her thigh, and the handgun she carried was holstered and hidden beneath the windbreaker jacket she wore. This was a different gun, not the heavy caliber hand-cannon she’d threatened me with back aboard the yacht, but a smaller sidearm she could easily conceal under her jacket.
That said, I wouldn’t call it a lady’s gun.
My sister, Erina, sat directly opposite me and faced the rear of the cabin with her eyes closed and her head resting back against the seat. She had changed her attire to an all-white affair – an ensemble of slim trousers, a blouse, blazer, and kitten sling backs. Once again, she looked resplendent. Should I say, worth a fortune? In fact, she looked so good my feelings soured into a gloomy mix that swirled around in my stomach and gave me a belly ache.
The last of my companions in the cabin was Doctor Umi Pearson, a slender young woman dressed in a business skirt-suit, and a long summer coat. She was attractive but not in an overly conspicuous way. Her blonde hair was tied into a tidy bun at the back of her head, and she wore thin spectacles that rested lightly on the bridge of her nose.
Pearson had been waiting for us at the marina’s wharf, standing by the boarding steps to the VTOL, and Erina had introduced her as a member of the team that gave birth to Mirai. When she offered me her hand in greeting, I found myself unable to accept it. Knowing she was amongst those responsible for the mess I was in made me glare at her with such intensity that she actually took a step back.
Now, she sat beside Erina, tapping away at a large magazine-sized tablet resting on her lap.
“This is her schedule,” she said, before handing the device to my sister.
By ‘her’ she obviously meant me, and my mood darkened.
Had she said ‘it’, I was fairly certain I would have lost my temper and punched her.
Erina blinked absently for a while then wordlessly received the tablet with both hands.
I watched my sister study the contents on display, then snidely asked, “Do you need a blood and urine sample?”
With her attention on the tablet, Erina barely shook her head as she replied, “No, we obtained those while you were unconscious.”
I frowned at her. “When I was unconscious?”
Erina glanced up at me. “You were unconscious when you arrived aboard the Sanreal Crest. Remember?”
Seated beside me, the Cat Princess yawned. “This was after I knocked you out.”
Indeed, I did remember that incident quite well – something I would rue for many days to come.
However, rather than pointlessly scowling at the mechanical girl who’d already turned away, I scowled at Erina instead. “You just can’t keep your hands off me, can you?”
“It was less trouble getting the samples that way.”
“How considerate of you,” I snarked back.
Just like Erina. Always so efficient. Minimum effort, maximum gain.
However, being treated like a lab rat rubbed me the wrong way, and I had to swallow my anger down twice before asking, “Won’t the samples be contaminated by the tranquilizer?”
“We factored that into the analysis,” Pearson nervously interjected, then seemed surprised at having spoken so she quickly clammed up.
I glowered at her. “You thought of everything, didn’t you? You must be very proud of yourself.” I applauded her. “So what’s next? Do you want me in a hamster wheel?”
Pearson shied back a little, but Erina exhaled unhappily as she resumed reading the reports displayed on the tablet. “Isabel, grow up.”
“Into someone like you? No, thank you. I’d rather jump out of this VTOL now.”
In the corner of my eye, I noticed the Cat Princess yawn again. “Eri, just say the word—”
“And you’ll what?” I cut her off. “You’ll shoot me?”
The Cat Princess tapped her stun baton. “No. I’ll shove this up your—”
“Just try it—!”
“That’s enough—both of you!” Erina cut in loud enough to surprise both the Cat Princess and I into silence. She placed the tablet on her lap as she regarded me with a stern light in her eyes. “You assured me you would behave.”
I quickly reviewed my conversations with her. “I don’t remember saying that.”
“Then will you behave? You do realize you can make this a lot easier on yourself.”
“You mean a lot easier on you.”
Erina exhaled wearily. “You’re going to give me gray hairs….”
“I’d say that’s the least of your worries.”
Perhaps someone up there was watching down on me. Maybe they were listening in too, because a moment later, the VTOL abruptly lurched with enough force to cause Erina to cry out in startled panic. Within a heartbeat, she was clutching at her armrest with white knuckles.
Puzzled by her reaction, I absently listened to the pilot’s languid voice intruding into the cabin.
“Apologies, ladies. We’re flying through mild turbulence over the city. ETA is nine minutes to the complex.”
The VTOL jumped again and soon we were all clutching at the armrests fitted to the cabin doors.
Mild turbulence, my ass!
Surprisingly, the Cat Princess and I agreed for once. “He calls this mild turbulence? I thought this Hawkmoth could fly through a hurricane?”
“It can,” Pearson replied while nervously staring up at the ceiling, “but the ride wouldn’t be pleasant.”
The Cat Princess narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Okay. Then how do we know he isn’t doing this on purpose just to stir us up?”
Erina and Pearson shared a thoughtful, worried look.
Realizing that she’d spiked their fears, the Cat Princess hastily backpedaled. “Hey, I was kidding. Just kidding.” However, after another unexpected bounce, she grumbled unhappily, “Maybe we should get some of the Empire’s tech into these things.”
The bumpy ride grew violent for a few moments before calming down.
I wondered if we’d flown through a storm and into the eye of a hurricane. However, the view outside the VTOL was clear with no sign of clouds or rain, and the night was brilliantly illuminated by Ar Telica’s towering megascrapers.
At one time they’d been referred to as mega skyscrapers because of their extraordinary size. But as these buildings became the norm across Teloria and other colonized worlds, they gradually came to be known as megascrapers for lack of a better name. Frankly, it was the kind of terminology that used without context was totally meaningless. Regardless, as I looked out the window, the city-state with its thousands of megascrapers appeared extraordinarily vivid to me.
The millions of lights dotting and dashing the surface of the buildings created a panoramic portrait painted in Morse code. It was a brilliant view that stole my breath, and for a long while I forgot all about my troubles as I stared in awe at the magnificent city sprawled out before me.
“…it’s beautiful…,” I whispered as though seeing Ar Telica for the first time in my life. Then my heart skipped a beat when it occurred to me that I owed this experience to Mirai’s exceptional night vision.
So this is what it’s like seeing through Mirai’s eyes.
The thought dampened my exhilaration for a second, and in that moment, I noticed my sister in the corner of my eye looking as pale as snow.
I turned to regard her properly as I abruptly remembered something of note.
“Are you…still afraid of flying?”
Erina glared at me and clenched her jaw as the craft jolted with enough force to make my hips ache.
“Hah,” I mocked her when the ride settled down once again. “You hated rollercoasters as well. I’d forgotten about that….”
Erina’s glare intensified but I met it with a smirk.
Sucks to be you, I mouthed at her, then noticed Pearson studying me keenly with her lips pursed. Irritated by her scrutiny, I considered glaring at her, but then decided she wasn’t worth the effort, so I turned away to stare out the window again.
The scenery far below prompted me to recount a piece of trivia I’d learnt long ago.
“Hey, Erina. Did you know that water landings are the safest?”
“Thank you for mentioning that,” she replied through clenched teeth.
“Well, you’re out of luck.” I pointed down at the city. “We’re over Ar Telica now.”
Indeed, beneath the VTOL, the roofs of the megascrapers seemed close enough to touch.
Seeing Erina’s sour expression, I mimed the VTOL falling to the ground like a wounded bird, and then exploding violently in a mushroom cloud…which is something a wounded bird wouldn’t do. However, that’s beside the point.
“You’re out of luck as well,” Erina remarked.
I shook my head. “No, I’m not. Have you forgotten? Mirai has wings, but you don’t—”
Oops!
As soon as I said it, I regretted it.
That was because Erina’s sour expression turned thoughtful, and to my chagrin, she appeared to forget all about her fears of dying in a fiery crash.
Bravo, Isabel. Bravo! That really worked out well!
Erina continued to contemplate me in silence for a while longer before giving Pearson a sidelong look. “What did the data reveal?”
Twisted minds must think alike because Pearson appeared to immediately understand what Erina was asking about.
“Nothing,” she answered and gently shook her head. “It’s as though it never happened.”
“Then what did we see?” Erina questioned her. “That wasn’t an illusion. Those were wings that enveloped her body.”
“She has no additional musculature in that region. Nothing to suggest that she could spontaneously grow a pair of wings out of her back. However, I can’t deny that something inexplicable took place.” Pearson hesitated as she took a breath. “But there is one thing we need to consider. Those wings were black. Not white.”
Erina nodded slowly. “Yes, they were….”
The silence that fell between them was like a curtain being drawn across the cabin, separating them from me.
However, that curtain of silence was brusquely thrown aside when the Cat Princess rather flippantly said, “Why don’t we push her out the door? Let’s see if she can really fly.”
Erina and Pearson appeared nonplussed by her suggestion, but after sharing another silent look, they turned to face me.
“Well?” Erina asked.
“Well, what?” I asked back.
“Care to give it a try?”
For a second, I doubted Mirai’s hearing. “Are you serious?”
“If your life is indeed in danger, then maybe we can trigger the same response as back then.”
I hated to admit it, but she had a point.
If the mysterious black Angel Wings believed I was in mortal danger, perhaps they would protect me like they had when I fought the Gun Queen of Ar Telica. If not for their intervention, that last explosion would have roasted me alive. However, I wasn’t chuffed about testing the notion solo, so I held out my right hand to Erina.
“Care to test that theory with me?”
“You’re a big girl. You can jump out on your own.”
I clamped my mouth shut as I wondered if she was being serious or not. This made me recognize the need to consider the situation carefully, and that meant I needed time to think it through.
Well, here goes, I thought to myself, then focused on overclocking my mind.
The problem was that I didn’t know how to trigger an overclocked state. On previous occasions it was something that simply happened in response to external stimuli, so how was I to trigger it now?
Looking down at the city scenery below, I forcefully imagined it slowing down but that had no effect on my mental clock speed.
Damn it—overclock. Overclock. Overclock!
Time continued striding forward at its normal pace.
I wondered if holding my breath would help.
Or perhaps I should find something else to focus on and throw all my concentration at it.
However, I soon admitted defeat.
Ah Hell! Fine! Better luck next time!
I wasn’t going to get those seconds back, and being eyeballed by Erina, Pearson, and the Cat Princess was making me feel claustrophobic.
Do they really need to stare at me so hard?
Ignoring them was impossible, but I tried nonetheless as I studied the buildings below the VTOL.
Ar Telica’s megascrapers had a large footprint at street level, but due to their pyramidal nature, their roofs weren’t as wide. That said, many of the buildings had very steep sides, so there wasn’t much difference in surface area between the ground and top floors. This improved my chances of landing on a building, rather than falling into the crevice between them.
I then considered the buildings ahead of us.
If the VTOL kept this course for another twenty odd seconds, we’d overfly a large megascraper with an Olympic sized pool on its roof. In the event Mirai didn’t sprout wings, perhaps I could live through a water landing. Improving my chances of survival was the fact that the VTOL had reduced its airspeed, probably adhering to some safety regulation when overflying a population center. However, not knowing the VTOL’s flight path presented a problem, especially if the craft banked away before it overflew that immense building with the pool. But if it held its course, then maybe – just maybe – I could splashdown safely.
Inhaling quickly, I made my decision.
“Fine.”
I unbuckled my belt then scooted to the edge of the seat to reach out for the door handle.
Glancing at Erina, I gave her a tight nod. “I’m game.”
Her eyes grew wide and she started to protest, but she was cut off by the Cat Princess.
“Get back in your seat, brat.” The mechanical girl unholstered her gun and aimed it at me. “And buckle up your belt.”
My attention was divided between her gun and the building with the Olympic pool. “This was your suggestion,” I reminded her.
“I was kidding. Now sit back.” She motioned me with the gun. “I ain’t got all night, brat.”
The VTOL would be over the building in a few seconds, so I squeezed the door handle to trigger the release mechanism, but when I tugged back on the door, it refused to slide open. I had expected as much, since there was a red light, not a green light, surrounding the door’s handle.
The Cat Princess sounded annoyed. “I’m not going to tell you again. Sit back and buckle up.”
I didn’t move.
Keeping my left hand on the handle, I continued to watch the Cat Princess and the building.
Seated to my right, she held the gun in her right hand and close to her chest. That made it harder for me to reach out and slap it away. But even if I could, there was the problem of having the gun accidentally fire. At best, the bullet would penetrate the fuselage and cause a minor decompression. At worst it would ricochet within the cabin and hit someone. I had no intention of being shot, and I wasn’t coldhearted enough to risk injury to Erina and Pearson – well, maybe Erina – so I had little choice but to comply.
And yet, I stubbornly refused to move as I met the Cat Princess’s glare.
“You shoot that thing in here, and there will be blood,” I told her.
Despite being a machine, the Cat Princess snorted in a very humanly fashion. “Relax. The bullets are electroshock rounds. They won’t kill you.”
That depended on whether she intended to turn me into a pincushion or not.
Electroshock rounds were shaped like short fat darts resembling the rocket ships from the silver screen of yesteryear. The kind that Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon would fly around in. Hence, they weren’t likely to penetrate the inner fuselage or bounce around. But an electroshock round discharging into the cabin was likely to cause a system failure or two within the VTOL.
Since we were flying thousands of feet above sea level, that wasn’t a good thing.
Unsurprisingly, I questioned the woman’s intelligence.
She’s a frekking idiot.
While arriving at that conclusion, I noticed the building with the pool disappear behind the VTOL. There was no longer any reason for me to jump out, so I calmly released the door handle and sat back in the seat.
Well, that’s that.
Erina cleared her throat audibly and then broke her silence. “Isabel, did you think I was being serious?”
“Honestly, I couldn’t tell.” After a bit of thought, I added, “But I’m inclined to think that you were.”
Hearing that seemed to wound her, and she grimaced ever so faintly.
“Have a little faith in me,” she said. “I have no intention of putting you in harm’s way.”
It was the perfect opportunity to remind her that I was an unwilling participant in the Gun Princess Royale. However, I chose not to because Erina would undoubtedly blame the Empress for my inclusion into the championship. Since I’d heard it before, I had no interest in listening to her sound like a broken record. Because of that, I turned my ire on the Cat Princess who continued holding me at gunpoint.
“I’ve got one question for you,” I said to her.
“And what would that be?”
“Are you a guy or a girl?”
The Cat Princess froze. “Huh?”
“Are you a guy or a girl at the remote controls?”
Her eyes quickly widened in understanding. “Why the Hell are you asking me that?”
I shrugged lightly. “I’ve heard it’s common for male gamers to play with female avatars.”
Her mouth fell open in a very humanly way.
I finished off by asking, “Well? What are you? A man or a woman?”
Quietly closing her mouth, her expression darkened as she resumed glaring at me. When she took a deep, noisy breath through her nose, I could certainly see her chest swell up, so it made me wonder about her design. Was she a kind of infiltration model designed to pass as human? Why make something like her?
After another loud breath, she replied in a testy tone, “I’m a girl. Okay. You got that?”
“Prove it.”
The Cat Princess gave me a dumbfounded look before growing visibly angry.
Again, her reaction made it hard to believe that she was a machine, and not a young woman of flesh and blood.
“My name is Akane Straus. I’m a girl. In fact, I’m twenty-six years old. So you should be showing your elder some respect.”
“Twenty-six?” I frowned deeply at her. “Aren’t you a bit old to be calling yourself a girl?”
“What?”
“Never mind,” I muttered and dismissed her with a flippant wave.
“Hey, show me some respect,” she demanded but my attention had settled on Erina who was giving me an exhausted look.
“Got something to say?” I asked her in a challenging manner.
Erina closed her eyes and began rubbing her temples in silence.
Sitting beside her, Pearson had a puzzled frown crinkling her brow. While watching me, she half turned to Erina and cautiously asked, “I’m starting to wonder if the transfer worked. Perhaps the data was corrupted along the way.”
Erina rubbed her temples faster. “No, it worked….”
Pearson glanced at her, unconvinced. “Are you sure? Maybe I should review the data again—”
“It worked, Umi. It worked.”
“But I thought your brother was more—”
“More what?” Erina stopped rubbing her temples. “More what, Umi?”
Pearson inhaled deeply before releasing it in a rush. “I thought he was more compliant.”
Slowly opening her eyes, Erina gave Pearson a troubled look. “Compliant?”
The young woman nodded. “Yes.”
For a while, they regarded each other in silence, one looking anxious, the other thoughtful.
Eventually, Erina turned to stare at me. “Could it be…?” she whispered.
Pearson gently sighed. “Yes, something’s wrong.”
I couldn’t contain myself as my self-restraint snapped. “Hey, Glasses, of course something’s wrong! I’m a guy in a girl’s body all because of you and this megalomaniac.” I pointed accusingly at my sister.
Erina gave me a disapproving frown. “I am not obsessed with power.”
“Oh, really? From rags to riches, huh, Sis?”
My sister’s expression grew hard and sharp. “That’s enough.”
I crossed my arms, fully aware that doing so pushed up Mirai’s big breasts. “So, when do I get to meet this rich fiancé of yours?”
“When you learn to behave,” Erina curtly replied.
“Better make sure you put me in a lion’s cage, or you never know what might happen when I see him.”
I made clawing gestures at her before folding my arms again.
The Cat Princess snorted rudely. “Eri, put me in a cage with her. I’ll pull out her claws.”
“Why wait for a cage?” I retorted. “I’ll take you on here and now.”
She aimed her gun at me, frustratingly out of my reach. “And now the safety comes off.”
“Enough!” Erina yelled. “The two of you are seriously—!”
A frightened gasp burst out of her lungs as the VTOL bounced on touchdown.
Once again pale as snow, Erina clutched her armrest as the pilot reported, “Doctor Kassius, we’ve arrived.”
Briefly ignoring my travelling companions, I looked out the window and saw that the VTOL was resting on a landing platform atop a megascraper.
However, I had no idea where we were.
Obviously, this was Ar Telica, but which Habitation Ring and which district?
While I was wondering that, Erina had grabbed her head in her hands and sat motionless as though trying to compose herself.
Pearson sighed loud enough to be heard, then gently patted Erina’s back. “It’s all over now. We’re safe and sound.”
Annoyed, Erina scowled at her. “Umi!”
While watching them out of the corner my eye, I also watched a large, burly man wearing a ground crew jacket with fluorescent stripes approach the VTOL.
He quickly climbed up the steps to the craft, then slid open the cabin door beside Erina and I.
“Good morning, ladies. I trust you had a—” He stopped and stared at the four of us inside the cabin, particularly at Erina who was glaring while clutching her head. “Are you alright, Miss?”
Erina seemed to realize what she was doing.
Wiping the scowl from her face, she lowered her hands to her lap, then calmly asked, “Could you give us a moment?”
The man blinked erratically before eventually nodding. “As you wish, Miss—ah, but please be aware that we have another flight inbound. So please don’t take too long.”
Erina’s smile seemed exaggerated as though she’d simply meant to smile but ended up applying to much force behind it. “Thank you. This will only take a moment.”
The burly fellow sounded uncertain. “Ah, as you wish….”
He visibly hesitated before sliding the cabin door shut.
Through the window, I watched him descend the boarding steps. He walked away from the VTOL and met with his coworkers out on the landing platform. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their body language told me they were unhappy with the delay. Then I saw them joined by three young women of average height dressed in dark clothing – heeled boots, tight pants, black bomber jackets. They walked with measured strides and an uncanny economy of motion. Not machine like, but fluid and efficient.
The woman leading them drew my eye.
She was slender and wore her long hair in a ponytail that was blown about by the strong wind gusting over the landing platform. Maybe it was because of the surrounding floodlights, but I had the impression her dark hair had a bluish tint to it.
The crewmen tensed when she approached them, and after trading words with her, the burly man pointed in the direction of the VTOL’s cabin.
As she turned toward the craft, her face came into the light.
She was pretty – a real head turner – but that wasn’t what made my heart jump.
It was because our eyes met.
I knew that the cabin’s windows were designed to prevent outsiders from looking in, and yet I was utterly convinced she knew exactly where I was seated. More troubling, it implied that she’d deliberately sought me out with her eyes.
Did she ask the ground crew about me?
Captured by her gaze, I struggled to break free. But when I succeeded, I ended up facing the interior of the cabin where Erina was once again cradling her head.
Pearson resumed patting my sister’s back. “Eri? Are you all right?”
“Do I look all right?” my sister mumbled as she stared at the cabin floor.
“I’ll admit the flight was rough—”
“The flight?” Erina swiftly raised her head and stared at Pearson in disbelief. “You think the flight did this to me?”
Pearson searched Erina’s face for a long while, then glanced at the Cat Princess and I before giving her a weak, uncertain smile. “What if you think of them this way?”
“What way?”
“Think of them as two teenage girls who need parental guidance.”
Erina’s eyes narrowed into thin slights. “Then do you want to take over?”
Pearson visibly flinched. “Um…you know that I have trouble with children. I can barely handle my nieces and they’re not even teenagers yet.”
“Yes, I’ve seen how they run circles around you.”
She flinched again but then brightened as she struck upon an idea. “Why don’t we hand them over to Celeste? She’s good with mind games. I’m sure she can tame them.”
I butted in to ask, “Who’s Celeste?”
Erina glanced at me and replied, “You’ll meet her soon enough.”
“Ah huh. And what if I don’t want to?”
The Cat Princess had been quiet for an inordinate length of time, but unfortunately that ended when she angrily exclaimed, “Why the Hell are you treating me like her? I’m not a kid, damn it!”
Erina’s attention swung onto her. “Not a kid? Not a kid? Are you serious? Can you even hear yourself now?”
“Hey—!”
“Akane, you sound like a petulant little child! For the love of the gods, act your damn age! You’re the leader of Team Novis. How the Hell do you expect to take charge if you can’t control yourself? You’re acting like you used to back in high school after you lost your—”
Erina abruptly stopped and grew pale.
At that moment, I wondered if I’d almost heard something I wasn’t supposed to.
With that in mind, I peeked out the corner of my eye at the Cat Princess.
She wore a wounded look, yet after schooling her expression, she meekly nodded. “…fine, I get it….”
The strained, awkward atmosphere between them wasn’t lost on me.
It was indeed worthy of exploring, but I would have to wait because Erina then turned her sights on me.
“I will box you. Is that clear?” she said in cold tone that instantly rubbed me the wrong way.
“Box me?” I asked her with freshly simmering anger.
“I don’t care what happens. I don’t care how hard it makes things for you or anyone else—including me. But if you don’t behave, I swear to the gods I will box you. And you know what that will mean for you….”
Her voice trailed away as though carried off by a cold wind, and my anger cooled a little as I suspected her threat was real.
I imagined Ghost shaking his head at me, reminding me not to be foolish. For that matter, I hadn’t heard a peep from him. However, leaving him aside, I decided to swallow down my anger.
“Fine,” I muttered. “I’ll behave. For now—”
“Not for now!” Erina shouted. “Forever! Do you hear me! You will learn to act your age and behave like a lady of proper standing. Is that clear!”
I frowned at my sister who was trembling with overflowing rage because I couldn’t remember ever seeing her this furious. However, I just couldn’t stop from pointing out, “Proper standing? Me? Are you frekking serious—?”
“Isabel!”
“Okay. Okay.” I threw up my hands in surrender. “I get it. I’ll be good. For now.”
“Isabel!”
“For now!” I yelled back at her with sudden, barely restrained fury.
Pearson gasped and her eyes suddenly widened to the size of platters. “Oh, my gods!”
Her startled reaction cut through my anger, and I stared at her in confusion, wondering why she was gaping at me until I noticed the dark locks of hair framing my face.
I changed again?
Pearson palmed her chest, but the shock she’d demonstrated quickly turned to curiosity. “Is that it?” She didn’t dare take her eyes off me as she nudged at Erina’s left shoulder with a hand. “Eri, I know you asked me to look into it, but you never told me it was like this.” Her gaze grew more intense. “It’s amazing. It’s a like chameleon’s defensive response.”
At first, I was annoyed she was comparing me to a lizard, but then I realized her analogy was wrong.
Whenever I transformed, my senses sharpened, and I could see with unparalleled clarity. I could also see the lifeforce radiating from living entities, such as the golden aura that surrounded Erina and Pearson. However, the way my senses levelled up didn’t feel like a defensive response. Rather, it felt like Mirai was readying herself for battle – jumping to Red Alert or Condition One.
That was my take on Mirai’s transformation, but I chose to keep it to myself.
Let her think what she wants, I decided inwardly.
Pursing my lips, I quietly weathered the silent scrutiny from Erina and Pearson.
As for the Cat Princess, she was watching me intently with gun in hand, though oddly, she wasn’t aiming it my way.
It did make me wonder what she was thinking.
Meanwhile, Pearson’s gaze had started roaming over me. “What do you think, Eri?”
Erina was staring at me with concern. “I don’t know. I don’t know what that is. For all we know, it could be a dark side of her personality manifesting itself.”
“A dark side?” Pearson whispered, then her eyes brightened with a sudden passion that made me glare at her. “We need to examine her immediately.” Catching my glare, she hesitated before weakly asking Erina, “Do you think she’ll co-operate?”
“Co-operate?” It took a few moments for Erina to realize what Pearson was asking her. Then with a heavy sigh, she shook her head. “We’re not examining her now. Later, but not now.”
They were discussing me like a science project, and it was stirring up a fresh batch of anger within me. Thus distracted, I failed to notice that someone had come up to the cabin door until it was shoved open with a loud bang.
Mirai had already levelled up, but now she instantly overclocked.
I couldn’t help feeling a tad resentful.
When I needed her to speed up her brain, she’d stubbornly refused me.
That said, overclocking gave me time to evaluate the situation.
First, I realized the door had been slammed aside by the girl with the long ponytail who was now standing on the top step outside the VTOL’s cabin.
Secondly, and more importantly, overclocking allowed me to restrain Mirai’s reflexive impulse to lash out after being taken by surprise. If I hadn’t held her back, a single powerful kick from Mirai would have sent the young woman flying through the air.
Seemingly oblivious to all this, the girl swept her gaze over the cabin’s occupants.
Under the cabin lights, I saw that her hair did indeed have a blue sheen to it. She was also a lot prettier up close, but her expression was so stern that it detracted from her beauty.
After giving Pearson and the Cat Princess a cursory look – though she did seem to notice the latter’s gun – she turned her attention upon me.
As our eyes met, a faint shiver ran through me.
It was most puzzling.
I wasn’t afraid of this young woman, and I didn’t feel drawn to her either, but then I was even more confused when realizing that shiver had come Mirai.
However, I didn’t get to dwell on it.
The brunette – or should I say blue-nette – regarded me for a second or two, before addressing Erina in a cold tone that put my sister’s best to shame.
“Doctor Kassius, is there a problem?”
Seriously, she sounded so cold she frosted the air inside the cabin.
I glimpsed Erina stiffen as she stared back at the young woman. “Excuse me?”
“I asked, is there a problem, Doctor?”
Listening to her, I truly believed she held Erina in respectful contempt.
I looked over at my sister who returned the contempt with faintly veiled disdain. “If there’s a problem, I’ll let you know.”
“Then if there’s no problem would you care to disembark? There’s another flight coming in and you’re hogging the landing pad.”
She didn’t wait for Erina to reply.
Turning with eye tricking speed that made her ponytail scythe through the air like a scimitar, the young woman jumped down from the boarding steps, and then calmly walked away with a sexy, feline grace.
I stared at her retreating back in genuine awe.
Wow. Who the Hell is she?
Despite the wind and the sounds of the city drifting into the cabin, I nonetheless heard Erina swear under her breath.
“…bitch….”
However, that wasn’t all. The Cat Princess sounded clearly unnerved when she muttered, “Shit, I didn’t know she’d be here….”
My gaze followed the woman with the ponytail as she walked across the landing platform toward a plush waiting lounge enclosed in a transparent permaglass shell.
The golden aura surrounding her body told me she was human, unlike the orange aura of the two girls who joined her inside the enclosure, and judging by her countenance, she seemed to be someone in authority with little respect for Erina.
All this piqued my interest in her even more.
However, I didn’t get the chance to ask because the burly ground crewman who’d first opened the door once again climbed up to the VTOL’s cabin. This time he leaned in, and his voice carried a hint of urgency.
“Miss, I’m sorry for rushing you but we really need to clear the pad.”
Erina’s shoulders rose and fell heavily as she sighed deeply, then nodded equally so. “Yes, we understand. My apologies.”
The crewman pushed the door aside the rest of the way, fully exposing the cabin’s flank. Erina was then the first to alight from the VTOL, and she graciously accepted the man’s helping hand as she descended the handful of steps to the landing platform.
I waved off his help when I followed Erina out of the cabin.
The Cat Princess climbed out close behind me, with Pearson bringing up the rear.
There were other ground crew on the platform. Both politely and urgently, they ushered us away from the parked VTOL to the enclosed waiting lounge that occupied a corner of the landing pad.
The two Simulacra women who’d joined the girl with the ponytail were waiting for us outside the entrance like sentries on guard duty.
However, there was no sign of the human girl.
Through the lounge’s transparent walls, I could see it was deserted, so perhaps she had entered the megascraper through the connecting permaglass tunnel. But not knowing where she was, coupled with Mirai’s puzzling reaction to her, now made me distinctly uneasy.
I decided to be on guard.
That is to say, I decided to be a little extra wary of my surroundings.
The Simulacra women silently followed our group into the lounge after which they kept their distance while watching me with unreadable expressions.
I stared back at them, studying their appearance.
Aside from dressing alike, both women wore their dark brown hair at shoulder length.
They appeared to be in their early twenties but were undoubtedly much younger since Erina had once told me that Simulacra had short lifespans.
I also noticed the sisterly resemblance between them.
Did that imply they were from the same production batch?
I knew nothing about how Simulacra were produced, so I decided to ask Ghost about that later.
For now, I chose to see just how approachable they were.
Cocking my head at them, I cleared my throat before asking, “Where’s the other one?” Waving a hand behind my head, I added, “The girl with the ponytail. Is she your boss? Where did she go?”
My questions were met with stony silence.
I smiled thinly as I wet my lips, then smoothly turned Mirai’s body toward them.
“You know…it’s rude not to answer a lady.”
Their stance shifted a second later. A distinct readiness to move in a heartbeat seemed to flow through them. However, something flowed through Mirai as well – an eagerness to do battle – and for a heartbeat, I found it distracting.
Strange…I don’t think I’ve felt this from her before…why now?
“Isabel.” Erina’s voice called out to me from nearby. “Stop antagonizing them.”
I angled my head slightly to peer at her out of the corner of my eye. “Rudeness begets rudeness—”
I was cut off by a low-pitched roar that rumbled through the air and rushed into the waiting lounge through the open doors. It was silenced when the doors closed, but by then I’d turned to watch the moth-shaped VTOL out on the landing pad.
The craft angled its levitator fins downward, revved up its engines further which caused the permaglass walls of the lounge to vibrate faintly, then smoothly bounded into the air. Once airborne, the VTOL spread its fins wide and gracefully banked southward while continuing to accelerate away from the building.
As my gaze followed it across the sky, I ended up looking out over the city, and for a short while I forgot about the insolent Simulacra women as I was once again swept up in the magnificent vista before me.
Not counting the recent scenic flight aboard the VTOL, and the few occasions I’d visited Ar Telica Tower’s observation deck, it was rare for me to see the city from this height.
Nor was the view from my dormitory as grand as what I now beheld.
From its vantage on a corner of the landing pad, the waiting lounge treated me to the resplendent panorama of Ar Telica at midnight.
Oh…wow….
While a majority of the city’s buildings were steep sided pyramids with flat tops, a great many were towering, knife-like megascrapers with permaglass exteriors. Others resembled giant spinnakers made of glass. The variety didn’t stop there and when combined with the clarity with which Mirai saw the world, the diverse architecture made for an eclectic skyline that was brilliant and mesmerizing.
I swallowed distractedly, consumed by the spectacle of buildings and lights before me.
However, after quietly basking in the city’s beauty for a short while, I came to my senses and asked myself a very important question.
Where the Hell am I?
The building appeared to be located close to the harbor’s shoreline. Therefore, we were somewhere in the city’s Ring Zero, with the harbor waters to the east, and a thousand more megascrapers to the north, south, and west.
Looking eastward over the harbor, I saw the city lights undulating with the waves, and my gaze travelled along the bridge connecting the shore to Telos Island. Shrunk by distance, the academy’s buildings resembled miniatures illuminated by tiny rooftop floodlights.
To be honest, I was tired of seeing the school by night.
It did nothing but stir up unpleasant memories that soured my feelings from corner to corner.
In short, the city lost its sparkle after I laid eyes on Telos Academy.
Feeling robbed, I turned around and found myself looking at the enormous building the VTOL had delivered us to.
From what I could see through the lounge’s transparent canopy, the megascraper was an octagonal, steep sided pyramid with an Aztec flair. Given the average height of the buildings around us, it was probably around two hundred stories high. If this was a residential complex, then I assumed the top floors would be home to palatial apartments, far, far larger than the rudimentary, yet cozy apartment I used to share with Erina when we were younger.
Remembering those simpler times, nostalgia pricked at my heart, and I unintentionally met my sister’s gaze.
Erina was watching me in studious silence.
I stared back without flinching, but I grew bitter and resentful the longer I looked at her.
I was on the verge of turning away when Erina calmly beckoned me to follow her. The casual gesture irritated me, and I momentarily considered making a run for it, but how far would I get? Thus with little recourse, I unwillingly fell into step behind her and Pearson as they walked through waiting lounge to a tunnel that connected it to the megascraper.
Sensing the Cat Princess slip in behind me, I felt a little crowded, so I threw her a warning over a shoulder. “Wanna give me a little room?”
She warned me in reply. “Why? Are you thinking of running away?”
I snickered at her. “What? You gonna miss me if I do?”
Glancing behind her, I saw the two Simulacra women trailing closely at the rear of the procession.
I really don’t like those two, I decided, then once more uneasily wondered where the young woman with the ponytail had ventured off to.
Addressing the Cat Princess, I bluntly asked her, “Who was that chick with the ponytail?”
“That chick?” She narrowed her eyes at me in reproach. “Have you forgotten that you’re a chick too? Show a little respect.”
“Yeah, whatever. So do you know her or not?”
“If you’re going to ask me something, say the magic word,” she snapped.
“The magic word? Oh, right.” I stopped walking, then turned around to face her. “Do you know her or not, Bitch?”
A pair of feline ears suddenly popped up on her head.
I was faintly surprised to realize she’d been hiding them within her long platinum hair. It certainly explained why the ground crewmen hadn’t noticed her cat ears when she stepped down from the VTOL. Then again, they could have assumed she was wearing a cosplay headband.
For a long while the Cat Princess stood completely still, except for her ears twitching madly as she glowered at me, but then she whipped out her gun in the blink of an eye.
I wasn’t conscious of overclocking of my own volition – especially since I didn’t know how to trigger it – so I assumed it was Mirai who shunted my awareness into an accelerated state. But now that I was overclocked, I watched in slow motion as the Cat Princess levelled the gun at my face.
A split second later, the two Simulacra women behind her stepped apart. Giving themselves room, they reached behind their backs and retrieved small handguns that they swiftly aimed my way, yet like the Cat Princess, their movements appeared sluggish to me.
In any case, whether slow or not, I soon had three guns pointed at me.
The ball was now in my court, so what was I to do?
Wisecrack, of course.
I grinned at the glowering Cat Princess. “You know, all this attention is making me blush.”
“Really? It’s hard to tell since I’m seeing red right now.”
“Oh, shucks. Did I get to you?”
She lowered the gun slightly to point the muzzle at my throat. “They say people turn blue when they can’t breathe. Let’s see what color you turn.”
“Isabel! Akane! That’s enough.” Erina’s voice cut sharply through the air. When neither of us moved, she heatedly shouted, “I said that’s enough!”
From the sound of her voice, I placed Erina at ten or twelve feet away to my seven o’clock. Being able to do so wasn’t something I was accustomed to, but I didn’t have the luxury to explore this talent further – at least not for the moment – because my attention was squarely centered on the Cat Princess while acutely aware of the two women behind her.
As I stared back at the mechanical girl, I pondered the likelihood of taking her down.
Not a chance.
I arrived at that dismal conclusion in a heartbeat.
Taking on the Cat Princess was one thing, but I suspected the two Simulacra women wouldn’t hesitate to open fire on both of us, and I had no idea what type of ammo was loaded into their guns. Maybe I could use the Cat Princess as a shield, but that was unlikely unless I could I overpower her.
Nope. Not a chance.
I will admit that without the Princess Regalia, I felt rather naked in this situation.
I also wondered if I’d pushed things a little too far.
I was willing to retreat, but unwilling to show weakness in front of the Cat Princess or the two Simulacra women seemingly backing her up.
With a faint chuckle, I slowly retreated a step while coolly raising my hands in surrender. “I’ll give you this round, Kitty Cat.”
“You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?” she remarked, the glare on her face undiminished.
“Isabel,” Erina called out to me. “Walk away now.”
Turning my back on someone pointing a gun at me – let alone three people – was not something I was willing to do, and the faint tingling sensation between my shoulder blades made me suspect that Mirai was of the same mind. Hence, after backing away another small step, I came to a stop. “That’s not happening until they put their guns away.”
The Cat Princess’s gaze flicked over my right shoulder, undoubtedly glancing at Erina standing a short distance behind me.
“Akane.” Erina sounded as though her patience had worn thin. “Don’t debase yourself. You’re better than her.”
Ouch, I winced inwardly. I’ll make you regret that since you made me this way, you conniving bitch.
After hesitating for a couple of seconds, the Cat Princess lowered her gun a few inches, pointing it at my chest this time. “Maybe I should shoot you anyway. Just to see how many shock rounds you can take before you pass out. I think that’ll be good to now. Don’t you agree, Erina?”
I started to retort with another wisecrack, but then swallowed it down when it became apparent that she wasn’t kidding.
She really was intent on shooting me.
In that moment, I dropped my confident façade.
Hardening my gaze, I stared straight into her lifelike eyes and met her threat with a threat of my own.
“You shoot me and I’ll make you regret it. I’ll find the real you, and I’ll repay you in kind.” I took a long step closer to her. It was a risk, but I took it nonetheless. “So if you’re going to point a gun at me, think it over.”
Beside and behind her, the two Simulacra women raised their weapons a little higher, and I tensed up in anticipation. Mirai’s abnormally wide field-of-vision allowed me to see them clearly without having to shift my gaze away from the Cat Princess. It also allowed me to give the impression that I was ignoring them, though that was quite far from the truth. However, I’d proverbially locked horns with the Cat Princess, and I wasn’t going to back down. So for a long, long while neither one of us gave away an inch as we glared at each other in silence.
“You’ll find the real me?” she asked before nodding faintly as though half to herself. “I’ll keep that mind.”
I kept my breathing steady as I waited for her to make her move.
Having a gun pointed at my chest from a foot away, all my senses were balanced on a razor’s edge, and Mirai’s body felt like a coil ready to spring at the drop of a pin. I’d already decided that I would slap the gun aside, but the problem was what to do about the two Simulacra women. Not knowing their specs – what they were physically capable of – made it hard to plan a contingency against them.
In short, they were an unknown that really put me on my back foot.
A sudden soft click reached my ears but not before I saw the Cat Princess flick her gun’s safety upwards.
Truthfully, I only noticed it because of Mirai’s preternaturally sharp vision.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t certain if the safety was On because different guns had different thinking behind their designs. For some, it was up, while for others it was down. Thus, I decided to play it cool and continued eyeballing the Cat Princess as though nothing had changed. However, because I was staring at her so hard, I saw something about her avatar that took me by surprise.
It wasn’t that she was breathing.
No, it was the fact that she was moving.
No matter how skilled or trained, no one can remain perfectly still. Muscles are constantly expanding and contracting, our hearts are beating, and the flow of blood within our bodies adds to a cyclical rhythm of movement. In other words, even if we try to stay completely motionless while holding our breaths, we are still moving minutely.
A machine should be different.
Turn off the engine. Switch off the power. Lock all the servos. No movement. But that wasn’t the case for the Cat Princess, and I found this fascinating, disturbing, and ultimately distracting because I was late to notice that she was grinning at me.
“You bring out the worst in me,” she muttered with forced cheer. “You bring out the worst in everyone.”
A couple of seconds later, she smoothly holstered the gun within the folds of her jacket.
I felt like punching her across the lounge for that remark.
Some people won’t recognize they’re part of the problem – or the problem – even if it was beaten into them. The Cat Princess, Erina, Pearson – that’s the sort of people they were. In their minds, I was the root of their troubles and no amount of convincing would make them understand otherwise. It frustrated and sickened me, and it took a fair amount of willpower not to clench my hands into a fist and sock her under her chin.
The only thing holding me back were the two guns that remained pointed at me.
Yet while they may have stopped me from striking the Cat Princess, they failed to keep my mouth shut.
“Then we’re two peas in a pod,” I quipped while icily grinning back at her, “since you bring out the worst in me too.”
Maybe she read the silent rage I was projecting behind my grin, because she snorted softly at me. Jerking her chin in the direction behind me, she bluntly commanded, “Get moving. We don’t have all morning.”
I shook my head slowly, and for the first time in a long while, I pointedly looked at the two women targeting me. “I’m not moving until they—”
At that moment, they both cocked their heads in unison.
It was a slight movement, one that Ronin’s eyes would have missed. However, Mirai’s keen vision caught it, and shortly afterwards I watched them holster their weapons behind their backs.
Are they communication with each other…or with someone else?
If it was the latter, then could it be the young woman with the ponytail? If so, then it implied I was being watched.
Slowly turning in a half circle, I looked around in the interior of the waiting lounge.
If she was using thermoptic gear, like the Cat Princess had employed back on the island and aboard the rescue ship, then she would be almost invisible to me until she chose to move. That was because thermoptic camouflage worked great when you were still, but not so great when you were in motion. That said, she wouldn’t be able to hide her radiant aura from Mirai, and after sweeping my gaze cautiously over my surroundings, I failed to see any hint of her lifeforce.
Realizing I should have done that first, I chided myself for being so shortsighted.
My failing left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Swallowing it down, I hid my feelings from the Cat Princess behind a thin, taunting smile, then quickly switched to an innocent expression as I turned around to face Erina.
“Well?” I asked her. “Lead the way.”
The look on her face said it all.
Had I been standing within arm’s reach, I was certain that Erina would have slapped me.
For those of you who are interested in reading the original 2017 release of "Gun Princess Royale" the books are still available for purchase via the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
The new "The Gun Princess Royale" will hopefully be release on Amazon Kindle as an eBook in August, 2023.
It all depends on what issues my editor friend finds with the story.
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
The landing platform was located on a corner of the octagonal megascraper, but not at the top.
Looking up through the lounge’s transparent ceiling, I could see another thirty odd floors of the massive building looming over me.
I figured those floors were home to the palatial apartments that commonly occupied the highest tiers of Ar Telica’s residential buildings.
With the Cat Princess glowering at me from behind, I followed my sister and Pearson out of the waiting lounge, through a connecting tunnel, and then into the innards of the apartment complex. After a short walk down an opulent hallway, we arrived at a bank of elevators. However, Erina continued leading us deeper into the building until we stopped at a second elevator bank. Unsurprisingly, rather than heading down into the depths of the megascraper, we crowded into a life car and rode it up.
After my not so private tête-â-tête with the Cat Princess the mood between us was tangibly fouler so when she bumped into me, I reflexively shoved her away.
“Hey!” she yelled as she caught her footing.
“Learn to drive that metal bitch,” I yelled back.
“I’m gonna drive this metal bitch right up your ass!”
She started reaching for her stun baton, and I readied myself to grapple with her.
Unsurprisingly, the two Simulacra sisters made a move for their guns.
But all this came to a halt when Erina loudly slapped the wall beside her. “Will the two of you shut up?” She pointed at the silent sisters who had stopped reaching for their guns. “Why can’t you be more like them?”
The Cat Princess and I studied the Simulacra women for a second, then replied in unison, “Hell no!”
Pearson bit her lower lip then nervously smiled at Erina. “Children these days.”
Erina’s face contorted as though she took umbrage at the remark.
“What are you talking about?” She pointed at me. “That one’s a child.” She pointed at the Cat Princess. “But that one’s a grown woman!”
Eyeing us askance, Pearson appeared unconvinced. “How can you tell?”
Exasperated, Erina threw her hands up into the air. “Oh, come on, Umi! Not you as well.”
“I’m just saying that they’re more like rival classmates. Don’t you agree?”
I was ready to deny the observation when a sudden slap made me flinch on the spot.
The Cat Princess had jerked upright and slapped her forehead.
Oddly, it didn’t sound like metal on metal, but flesh on flesh.
However, I didn’t have time to mull that over because the mechanical avatar started trembling with laughter. Then she covered her eyes as her laughter grew louder.
I had no idea what had brought this about, and by the looks of it neither did Erina or Pearson. For that matter, even the Simulacra Sisters were regarding the Cat Princess with the slightest of curiosity and concern.
As for me, I was growing irritated with every ‘Ha Ha Ha’ that came out of her mouth. The desire to bang her head against the elevator wall was mounting by the millisecond, when she suddenly palmed her forehead instead of her eyes, stopped laughing, and peered at Erina with a somewhat delirious look on her face, yet she spoke in a deathly whisper.
“She’s right, Eri…she’s absolutely right.”
I watched Erina frown in abject confusion, but she was obviously affected by the Cat Princess’s behavior because it took her a while to respond. When she did, she sounded acutely annoyed.
“She’s right about what?”
The Cat Princess chuckled but she sounded pained. “Now I know why she pisses me off so much….”
I cocked my head at her. “Well, let’s hear the grand epiphany you just had.”
She ignored me, prompting me to quietly decide, I am so going to pummel her.
“Eri, you remember her, right?” the mechanical girl asked.
My sister still sounded annoyed, but some of the confusion on her face had seeped into her voice. “Remember who?”
The Cat Princess clenched her hands. “That slut who constantly picked fights with me.”
Curiosity began to get the better of me, and I decided that hitting her could wait for later as the situation was becoming interesting.
Erina sighed wearily. “Akane, a lot of people picked fights with you…and you picked a lot of fights with them too.”
“That’s not fair,” the Cat Princess complained.
“Well, it’s true,” Erina insisted. “Have you forgotten how many times you were summoned to the Vice-Principal’s office?”
The Cat Princess abruptly shuddered from head to toes, then quickly shook her head. “Can we not talk about that?”
I too almost shuddered when I remembered my own unsettling experience with the creepy VP.
I wonder what happened to her—no, I better not ask!
An edge crept into Erina’s voice. “Very well. What do you want to talk about?”
“Not what—who,” the Cat Princess corrected her.
“Who do you want to talk about?”
The machine girl raised a clenched fist. “I told you. That bitch who constantly challenged me. The one who claimed she could beat me at long distance running. Remember? She had the whole team on the fence when she challenged me for the captaincy right before the inter-state competition—and I smoked her ass in the qualifiers!”
I hesitated before asking, “You did what to her ass?”
Again, she ignored me as she stared hard at Erina. “Come on, Eri. Surely you remember her.”
Glancing at my sister, I saw that Erina was having some difficulty recalling the person in question. “You mean…that flat chested girl who stole your boyfriend?”
I distinctly heard something go ‘snap’ right before the Cat Princess went feral.
“Oh—you just had to bring that up!”
“I’m just asking if she’s the one,” Erina hurled back at her.
“Yeah. Her. Cappella Leone.” The Cat Princess punched a fist into an open palm. “That slut.”
I raised a hand and politely cleared my throat with a cough. “For the record, I haven’t stolen your boyfriend, so that’s no reason to hate me.”
She hissed at me like a cat rubbed the wrong way. “You get under my skin just like she does. Your constant needling, heckling, jibing, smart ass remarks. Even the way you stare at me.” She shook all over. “Frek! I knew there was a reason why you pissed me off so much.”
This insight into the Cat Princess further tickled my curiosity. “Can you tell me more about her?”
She froze for a split second before grumbling, “Why the Hell would I?”
“So that I can find out what really ticks you off.”
In a heartbeat, she looked ready claw out my eyes. “There will be blood tonight.”
I frowned at her. “You mean eighteen hours from now?”
Erina suddenly kicked the elevator door with her shoe. “That does it! One more word out of either of you and I’ll have them shoot you both!”
The Cat Princess and I glanced at the silent Simulacra women who stood eerily dispassionate as they watched our raucous antics. That faint curiosity they’d betrayed earlier was like a distant memory. However, I saw that they’d both slipped a hand behind their backs. A memory recalled from Mirai’s vast knowledge base made me suspect that they were wearing hipster holsters, and if their guns were small enough then such holsters could carry two firearms along with spare magazines.
While thinking this, I noticed the Cat Princess regard the Simulacra sisters with an unreadable expression, before silently retreating to the elevator car’s back wall.
That sure as Hell surprised me.
It also made me wonder if there was more to those two women than I’d initially assumed.
Deciding to follow the Cat Princess’s lead, I crossed my arms under Mirai’s breasts, then leaned my back against the rear wall.
Facing the doors, and almost shoulder-to-shoulder with the Cat Princess, we stood in stony silence while the elevator travelled upward. I was relieved when it stopped a couple of seconds later, then opened its doors with a gentle swish to reveal an opulent hallway beyond them.
Erina huffed in frustration and stormed out of the elevator.
Pearson quickly scampered on her heels with a rather jumpy look in her eyes.
I found myself wondering if she was afraid of me or the Cat Princess, so I looked askance at the mechanical girl.
“See what you’ve done?”
“Damn you!”
I hastily ducked when she swung at me and bolted out of the elevator.
She ended up striking the wall behind my head.
Out in the hallway, I wagged a finger at her, then hurried after Erina and Pearson.
It wasn’t long before the Cat Princess chased after me, and the two silent sisters followed in her turbulent wake.
After catching up to Erina and Pearson, we soon arrived at double-doors situated at the end of a hallway. I expected Erina to unlock them with a key or keycard, but instead she touched a security plate affixed to the wall on their right. Mirai’s acute hearing caught the sound of a chime ringing faintly somewhere on the other side of the doors. It wasn’t long before one of them unlocked, then gently eased open.
A young woman in a traditional maid outfit poked her body out into the corridor.
No, no, no—allow me to rephrase that!
A young woman in a traditional French maid’s outfit, with a bodice that clung tightly to her well-endowed chest, poked her body out into the hallway.
Mama Mia, I thought to myself as my eyebrows rose to my hairline.
Heck, even the Cat Princess looked startled at the girl’s appearance when I glanced at her.
At sight of Erina, the young woman opened the door fully, revealing the rest of herself, and I ran my gaze quickly over her short skirt, and shapely legs as she stood perched atop a pair of black high heels. Her long, auburn hair was arranged into a thick braid, and I suspected she was a little older than me, though still in her teenage years. My eyebrows dropped when I found myself wondering if she was a Menial, and perhaps this was all the employment she could find for herself after graduating from second tier education, otherwise known as high school. When I realized what I was thinking, I flinched in shame and quickly averted my gaze.
Who was I to judge her?
I wasn’t even human.
I was a fraud.
But more so, what right did I have to be critical of her?
Yet while I felt contrite over my supercilious thoughts, Erina had no qualms or regrets in regarding the girl as an inconsequence.
“Lady Kassius—” the maid started to say but stopped when my sister angrily stalked past her into the wide hallway beyond the doors.
She would have knocked the girl aside had the maid not jumped out of the way.
Pearson stared pensively at Erina’s back for a few seconds, before throwing me an accusing look, as though blaming me for Erina’s rudeness.
Granted, I was responsible to some degree, but it wasn’t all my fault.
After that silent rebuke, Pearson nodded politely to the maid, then stepped through the open doorway.
I exhaled slowly, aware of the Cat Princess standing close by, and when I glanced at her, I saw the veiled reproach on her face. However, she wasn’t looking at me or the maid. Instead, she was looking in the direction Erina and Pearson had walked off.
I guess she’s not happy with Erina’s attitude either.
However, like Pearson, she quickly turned that expression upon me as she crossed her arms before her chest.
I sighed inwardly.
Okay. Okay. I get it. I did play a hand in stirring up Erina’s foul mood.
Noticing that the maid was anxiously looking at me, I took a quick breath, then entered the hallway. As I stepped past the girl, I bowed my head to her, and offered her a softly spoken apology.
“Sorry. She’s mad at me. Nothing to do with you. Okay?”
The girl blinked quickly, then faintly smiled in relief as she bowed politely in reply.
I felt a little better at that, and I almost smiled back at her, but I had the Cat Princess and the Simulacra sisters waiting behind me. They were like dark clouds waiting to unleash thunder and lightning upon me, thus feeling pressured and resenting them for it, I walked the rest of the way into the hallway.
I quickly realized it wasn’t a hallway, but a spacious anteroom adorned with antique furniture, and artwork that was meaningless to an uncultured proletarian like me. However, there was no sign of Erina and Pearson, so I assumed they’d departed by way of the double-doors located directly opposite to the entrance.
I wonder what those two are discussing in private?
The Cat Princess and the silently threatening sisters followed me into the anteroom. The young maid closed the doors behind them, then hurried over to open the other set of double-doors.
“This way, please,” she indicated as she ushered us down a wide hallway that ended at a luxurious living area.
It was hard not to gape in awe of the apartment.
The living room had a sunken floor at one end that was furnished with sofas, a low table made of thick tinted glass, and a holovid projection system that befit a private cinema. A permaglass window spanned the length of one wall, with doors that slid open before an enormous balcony that was several times larger than my dormitory apartment. An open kitchen area was situated adjacent to the living room, and two hallways led deeper into the apartment, undoubtedly to the bedrooms, guestrooms, bathrooms and so forth. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all painted a light creamy color that matched the soft pile carpet underfoot.
Everything about the place projected luxury, comfort, and convenience. In terms of opulence, the apartment was on par with Mat’s family home in Ring One, District Ten where society’s affluent lived. It was a richness that made me uncomfortable as I slowly walked around the living area, aware that my sister and Pearson were watching me while the Cat Princess openly gawked at the interior of the apartment. As for the maid, she was keeping to herself by standing silently at the entrance to the living room.
However, the Simulacra sisters were nowhere to be seen.
I’d lost track of them when I was caught up in admiring the apartment.
Where the Hell did those two go?
Since I couldn’t see their pale orange auras, I assumed they weren’t hiding in plain sight behind a thermoptic camouflage field. Thus, it was likely they had remained behind in the anteroom.
Not good, I told myself because it meant the way out of the apartment was guarded.
However, while a concern, I had other pressing matters to contend with.
I turned to face my sister who was standing a few meters away. “Is this your place?”
“No, it’s yours,” she replied matter-of-factly.
My mind went blank for a moment. “Come again?”
“This apartment belongs to Isabel val Sanreal.”
“You’re kidding,” I muttered.
Erina folded her arms across her chest. “No, I am not.”
Her calm bluntness made it difficult for me to doubt her.
I spun slowly in a full circle and gave the place another long look that ended with me staring at Erina again. “So why are you here?”
She started to reply, but then looked behind me.
I swiftly turned to see the sexy maid was still standing where the hallway met the living area.
Like a deer in headlights, the girl grew rigid with wide eyes as she was subjected to Erina’s withering stare – something I wasn’t aware of until I glanced back at my sister.
“You can leave now,” Erina commanded in a painfully highhanded manner.
The maid almost jumped in fright, then hastily bowed, making her voluptuous chest bounce. “Y—yes, Lady Kassius.”
Skirting along the back of the living room, she fled out of sight down a hallway to my left. Moments later, Mirai’s sharp hearing caught the sounds of a door opening, then closing.
Well that was fast, I mused inwardly, then turned back to Erina. “Is she your maid or mine?”
“Yours.”
“Huh?” My eyes widened at the thought of living under the same roof with a hot sexy girl like her. “Okay….”
Erina stared hard at me. “Keep your hands off her.”
I jerked back as though I’d taken a roundhouse to the head. “What? I wasn’t thinking of doing anything to her.”
“Really….”
I clenched my jaw and straightened my back. “If she’s my maid, you could treat her a little nicer.”
“She’s a Menial. Why should I?”
My innards tightened at her words, and I softly stated, “You really are a bitch.”
“I didn’t hire her,” Erina coldly remarked.
“That doesn’t change anything,” I replied curtly.
But if she didn’t hire her…then who did?
Erina inhaled deeply and stared contemptuously at me. “That’s hypocritical when considering how you’ve been lashing out at everyone around you. Why don’t you practice what you preach?”
For a long while, I met Erina’s hard stare with silence. “I have a reason to lash out—a reason you gave me. What’s your excuse?”
“You.”
My innards clenched a little tighter.
She wasn’t wrong. I had been pushing her buttons at almost every opportunity that arose. It was bound to set her off, but it was causing collateral damage to the innocent people around me like the sexy maid.
“I can’t help it,” I explained. “Just looking at you twists my guts.”
“Well, then we’re going to have a problem.”
“We already have a problem,” I corrected her.
Erina shook her head slightly. “I meant a new problem.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I’ll be living here with you.”
I felt a cold wind blow through my mind. “Say what?”
“I need to be here,” she stated sternly, “so I’ll be living with you.”
A second cold wind blew through my head before my chest began to heat up in anger. “No, not happening.”
“This isn’t up for a discussion, Isabel.”
Walking up to her, I clenched my hands into fists but kept them at my sides. “After everything you’ve done to me, you expect me to live under the same roof with you?”
“I expect you to behave appropriately and co-operate.”
I shook my head at her, “I’ll co-operate but I draw the line at living with you.”
“You need to be supervised, Isabel. There’s no choice in the matter.”
“You can do that without being here. I have no doubt that you have a surveillance system installed in this apartment, so you can watch me from somewhere else just like the voyeur that you are. And I’ve already said that I’ll be keeping my hands off the maid. But I won’t tolerate living with you. And that’s final.”
I turned around and strode toward the hallway leading to the apartment’s entrance.
As I’d expected, the Cat Princess stood in my way.
Coming to a stop, I punched a fist into a palm. “I don’t need a gun to deal with you.”
She gave me a tired, disappointed look, like a parent may to an unruly child.
It wasn’t what I was expecting. In fact, it surprised me so much that my thoughts floundered, and I almost missed what she was saying.
“Just hear her out,” the Cat Princess said, sounding dispirited. “It’s important to you and to her. But more so to your safety.”
My thoughts were still wallowing when Erina addressed me from behind me. “Isabel, she’s telling you the truth. I need to be here.”
“Why?” I didn’t turn around. Instead, I kept my attention on the Cat Princess who stood before me with her arms folded. I didn’t know why she was holding back her usually aggressive manner, but at least she wasn’t making a move for her gun. “I’m not your lab rat, Erina, so you don’t need to be here.”
Because of Mirai’s wide field-of-vision, I was able to watch the Cat Princess and the hallway behind her.
Where are those Twisted Sisters? Are they in the waiting room?
I regretted not paying more attention to those two women.
Undoubtedly, the Cat Princess was physically their superior, but oddly I found her less threatening, perhaps because despite being a machine, she acted like a human being and was thus easier to read. In contrast, the two Simulacra women acted like automatons, so I couldn’t tell what they were thinking.
“I’m still your sister, Isabel,” Erina stated firmly.
Her words grabbed my undivided attention, and I abruptly realized there was something I’d been subconsciously denying for too long.
“My sister?” I risked looking away from the Cat Princess to glare at Erina over a shoulder. “You’re not my sister. Not anymore. Not since you shoved my mind into this body.”
I’d finally made the long overdue admission that I no longer considered that woman as my sister, and I felt lighter for it.
However, Erina’s response was to sigh at me as though I were a stupid child. “According to legal documents submitted to the Civil Registry, the Sanreal Family has made me your Guardian.”
My mind did the equivalent of a double-take. “What was that?”
“I said, I’m your legal Guardian.”
“Why the Hell are you my Guardian?”
“Because I requested it,” Erina deadpanned.
My mouth fell open. I had to remember to close it before swallowing. “Oh…that figures.”
There was no escaping her…or was there?
I clicked my teeth together at a sudden thought. “If I’m a member of the Sanreal Family, shouldn’t I be living with them?” Retreating a step from the Cat Princess, I turned sidelong toward Erina. “Just what’s the deal here? Where exactly do I fit in?”
“Officially you’re only a half-sister to the Sanreal siblings.”
“You mean, Mat?”
“I’m speaking in terms of what’s recorded in the Civil Registry. Matrim is a Praetor. You are a Sanreal.”
“Then who are my other official siblings? Clarisol?”
“She is one of them.”
“Does that mean another Simulacrum of Clarisol will be unleashed upon the unsuspecting world?”
Erina started to sigh but stopped hastily. “Her absence would be problematic.”
I mulled that over, wondering if this embodiment of Clarisol would be less extreme than her previous incarnation, then puzzled over why it would be a problem if she disappeared from society’s pages. “Who else is a half-sibling of mine?”
“Simon Sanreal and Conrad Sanreal. Consider them your older brothers.”
“…what…?”
For various reason, the mention of having older brothers left me floundering yet again, but one reason confused my feelings the most.
It was the notion of being part of a family.
The Sanreal were people I had never met, and they were intimately responsible for my present predicament. Yet despite this, learning that I was a part of their family – even if only on paper – meant that on some level I wasn’t alone. I was now part of something bigger, though it also meant that I would need to embrace my new identity.
I wasn’t Ronin Kassius anymore.
I was Isabel val Sanreal.
But what did that really mean? Or rather, who was she supposed to be?
In a sense, Isabel was like a character that I was playing in an elaborate drama, and in that respect, I was the actress struggling to come to terms with her role. However, while that gave me a new perspective on my predicament, it also made me regard myself as the understudy since Mirai had been originally intended as Clarisol’s means of escape from the virtual prison.
Unfortunately, it was yet something else for me to ponder later.
Erina was watching me intently, and I could ill afford to be distracted. Besides, I felt like I was playing chess against a Grand Master, with the terms and conditions of my existence at stake.
To hide my discomfit, I raised my chin and firmly met her gaze. “You suck at housework. Is that why I have a maid?”
She paused before retorting in a flat tone, “I’m a little busy to be doing housework.”
I slapped my forehead. “Yes, of course. Being a mad scientist is a fulltime job.”
“No, dealing with you is a fulltime occupation.”
“Then you shouldn’t have taken the job.”
Erina sighed in exasperation. “Really, Isabel? Is this how things are going to be between us?”
I scowled inwardly.
She was right. This was getting us nowhere.
Taking a breather, I folded my arms under Mirai’s bosom. “Then tell me. How much does that girl know about what’s going on?”
Erina sighed again, before she too folded her arms across her chest. “She knows that you’re Isabel val Sanreal, the youngest member of the Sanreal Family, and that you’re an illegitimate child.”
“You mean a love child.” I shook my head unhappily. “Fantastic cover story….”
Erina gave me a flat look but didn’t comment.
“What else does she know?” I pressed her.
“That you’re lacking in manners, good graces, and you’re a tomboy. Frankly, there is nothing ladylike about you.”
I heard the Cat Princess snicker but decided not to confront her, and instead directed a scowl at Erina. “Anything else I should know?”
“You’re also convinced that you’re a teenage boy.”
“What?” I cried out.
“You have delusions of being a boy in a past life. In other words, you believe you’re a boy reincarnated as a girl.”
I swear I could hear the tendons pop in my fingers when I clenched them. “No thanks to you,” I retorted angrily.
Unsurprisingly, Erina smiled as if to say ‘checkmate’, yet what she said was, “We have all the bases covered.”
“Yeah, I can see that. You have the maid believing that I’m crazy. That way if I act weird she’ll believe it’s because I’m a nut job.”
“Oh, I forgot to mention. She knows you like girls too.”
This time I blushed. “Well of course I do—” I cut myself off as I realized I was about to say something that would further incriminate me as being delusional.
I’m a straight guy in a girl’s body. Of course, I like girls. But now this makes me a lesbian!
My heart abruptly jumped in my chest at a suspicious thought.
Hold on a minute! Is that why she dressed up like a hot French Maid?
My gaze dropped to the carpet underfoot.
Okay, this definitely opens up possibilities—!
Realizing what I was thinking, my cheeks grew hot, but I froze when I noticed the knowing smile on Erina’s lips.
“What are you smiling at?” I snapped at her.
“You, of course.”
But of course, you would, I thought bitterly.
Erina could see that I was bothered by the French maid. However, I had adamantly stated I would be keeping my hands off the girl, and I was a man of my word.
Having said that, I chose to divert the conversation back to Erina.
“You sure laid it out nicely, didn’t you,” I verbally applauded her in a mocking tone.
“What choice did we have? You’re not aware of it, but you don’t move like a girl. Your mannerisms are barely feminine in passing. Other than your looks, there’s little else that’s feminine about you.”
Was that true?
Erina didn’t appear to be lying, but then again this was Erina that I was dealing with.
In other words, I was squaring off against an Alpha bitch.
Because of this, I held back a frown.
Showing weakness or doubt in front of Erina was a no-no, and I was doing a piss-poor job of hiding it, but I wasn’t going to stop from trying.
“I get that you’re insulting me,” I said to her, “but is that really what you wanted to tell me?”
Erina blinked slowly at me for a long while. “Yes, you’re quite right.”
“So spill it.”
“Come Monday morning, you will be attending Telos Academy.”
“Yeah, I know that. So what?”
I’ll admit that I sounded way more blasé than I should have, because attending school as a girl was no casual matter. It was going to be a waking nightmare for me, but I’d decided to show a strong front in front of Erina. However, she promptly torpedoed my resolve with a point-blank observation.
“Everyone who encounters you in school will wonder what kind of upbringing you’ve had.”
It took a moment for me understand what she meant. “Because I don’t act like a girl, right?”
“Correct. And soon it’ll be all over the social media waves that the youngest daughter of the well-known Sanreal Family is a tomboy…and that’s putting it politely.”
I planted my hands on my hips. “And why is that a problem?”
“Why? Well, you’ll understand why eventually. By then, you’ll have dug yourself into a social pit of your own making.”
“Speaking from experience, are we?”
A subtle twitching of her eyebrows told me I’d either hit the mark or was very close to target.
After a pause, Erina continued. “Frankly, it’s not my concern. As I’ve said before, you have a purpose and so long as you meet that purpose, it’s not my problem if you ruin your school and social life.”
My eyes widened as I faked disbelief. “Wow, and here I thought you cared about your lab rat.”
Erina stepped up to me.
Since Mirai was a tall girl, our heights were comparable, and so I stared back at her at eyelevel.
“I’ll say this clearly, so pay attention,” she advised me in a low voice. “I only care about the lab rat, Isabel. You make it impossible to care about the rest of you.”
I wet my lips slowly. “Then get out. Or better still, have the school assign me to a dormitory, and I’ll continue living on my own—as I’ve been doing for the past three years after you abandoned me just like our parents did.”
Erina’s face grew taut for a heartbeat before relaxing. “That’s out of the question.”
I smiled mercilessly at her. “Then I’m going to make your life here a living Hell.”
Her jaw muscles clenched in response. “Do you want to be boxed?”
I thought of Clarisol in her cage – the virtual prison for her mind – then I weighed what I knew of my importance to Erina and the Sanreals.
“Go ahead and do it,” I answered her with unwavering eyes.
Once again, a tense, heavy silence shrouded both of us.
I could also imagine a thundercloud or two over our heads.
Then a loud, heavy sigh rushed through the air behind me, and the Cat Princess intruded into our standoff.
“Eri, you’re going to give yourself ulcers again. Remember what your doctor told you? This time it could be a lot worse than last time. If you end up hospitalized again—oops!”
Hospitalized? Did she say hospitalized?
While I had trouble hiding my shock, Erina shifted her attention onto the Cat Princess standing behind me to my five o’clock. “Unlike other people, I learn from my mistakes.”
The Cat Princess sighed again, but she sounded exhausted. “And now you’re going to make a new set of mistakes.”
I narrowed my eyes at Erina. “You were hospitalized? For real?”
Annoyed, she snorted loudly at me. “It’s none of your concern.”
I slowly nodded. “You’re right. And I don’t intend to go easy on you. When I’m done, you’ll have sworn off having kids for life.”
Without warning, Erina violently flourished her arms into the air. “Fine—have it your way! Do whatever the Hell you want!”
I have to admit she took me by surprise and I almost retreated a step. However, while I didn’t back away, I failed to stop myself from recoiling from her. Maybe that was a mistake because Erina pressed home her advantage by poking me hard in the collarbone.
I really didn’t think she’d risk touching me, but I guess she finally went ballistic and tossed caution to the wind.
“You want to live alone?” she railed at me, turning beet red with anger. “Fine. Live alone. I’ll have you assigned to a dormitory in time for school next week. But until then, you’re going to live here for the next five days and learn how to be a lady! At the very least, learn how to walk like one!” She took several deep breaths, paused, then took a handful more before asking, “Is that clear?”
I replied with a curt nod, while holding back a grin.
Erina inhaled deeply, and then squeezed her eyes shut while pinching the bridge of her nose. For a long while she huffed and puffed like a steam engine, before finally opening her eyes and glaring at me. But that didn’t last long because she turned away without warning, then trudged off without a word.
I watched her walk out of the living room and disappear into an adjoining hallway to my left. However, she re-emerged moments later, crossed the breadth of the living room, and vanished into a hallway to my right.
Did she get lost? I wondered, then inwardly patted myself on the back. Wow, I really got to her. Hooray! That was a home run!
Crossing my arms over Mirai’s chest, I stared at the view of Ar Telica beyond the balcony.
Her meltdown might seem like a small victory, but I felt it was the start of a grand campaign to eventually push Erina over the edge. Indeed, I was looking forward to the day I paid her back in full for the trauma she had thus far inflicted on me.
So then…why did I feel like shit?
While I was thinking that over, I noticed Pearson who was silently standing in the middle of the living area, peering in the direction Erina had stormed off.
Stowing my sour feelings, I gave her a haughty look. “What? You’re still here? Don’t tell me you’re moving in as well?”
The young woman regarded me quizzically for an uncomfortably long while until she smiled fearlessly at me. “You really are a child, aren’t you?”
“Hmm?” I turned toward her and met her smile with a menacing grin. “Oh, right. I just remembered that I don’t like you.” I dipped my head at her. “And Erina’s not around to protect you…is she?”
It was pleasing to see her smile waver and fade away. But she quickly shrugged off my threat, then walked down the hallway Erina had vanished into.
It must have taken her a great deal of effort not to glance back at me over a shoulder.
When she was out of sight, I exhaled loudly and slumped my shoulders. “Yeah, I really don’t like her….”
Behind me, the Cat Princess sounded quietly disappointed. “I bet you feel really proud.”
I slowly turned to face her. “Yeah. I’m clapping madly inside. Woo hoo. Hooray for me.”
“Then why do it?”
“That…is a stupid question.”
She stared at me with suspicion in her eyes. “Then when are you planning to stop lashing out at everyone around you? What good will that do you? You’re not going back to being Ronin Kassius.”
Ignoring her questions, I focused instead on that last remark. “You knew about that?”
“About what?”
“That I can’t go back to my old body.”
She hesitated for a long moment. “Yes, I knew….”
I slowly wet my lips, feeling my anger faintly rekindled. “I bet you enjoyed watching me hope in vain that I could be a man again.”
The Cat Princess weakly shook her head, and seemed sincere when she replied, “It wasn’t fun at all. Not in the least.”
I refrained from frowning.
Why is she acting so considerate?
Her new approach had me both curious and cautions, which was why I decided to act like I hadn’t noticed. “Well, you sure looked like you were having fun at my expense.”
Again, she hesitated for a long while, and eventually averted her golden eyed gaze. “That was the intention. It doesn’t mean I enjoyed it….”
I held back another frown.
What is she playing at? Why the conciliatory approach?
Nonetheless, what she said was too important to ignore, so I turned around and faced her properly. “What do you mean by that?”
And now she hesitated a third time, before appearing to wilt a little. “The point was to give you a traumatic experience so that you would want to wake up.”
It was growing harder not to frown at her.
Had she been referring to my time as Ronin Kassius the Simulacrum? If that was the case—
“You shot me,” I reminded her.
“And you woke up,” she stated as though it was a natural result.
“No, I died.”
The memory of finding the dead girl’s body – of laying eyes on that female version of Ronin Kassius – made my throat tighten and it painfully squeezed my heart.
In the end, I became what I had most feared…a girl Ronin Kassius.
And then I died…and woke up inside Mirai’s head.
Yet the Cat Princess was shaking her head slowly as though disagreeing with me. “You were already as good as dead. That Simulacrum wouldn’t have lasted more than a week at best. Your consciousness was already mapped into Mirai’s brain. You were connected to the Simulacrum’s mind so that you could experience everything it experienced. But you were already inside Mirai.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “It still sounds weird no matter how much Erina explained it to me, but it’s the truth.”
I felt something wasn’t adding up. “Clarisol told me that my sister—I mean, Erina—knew that the Empress wanted my mind inside Mirai two months ago. So why put me in a Simulacrum that wasn’t going to last?”
“We knew about her intention to stick you in Mirai. What we didn’t know was that she was going to throw Ronin Kassius into Limbo where he almost died. Everything happened so fast. And then we found out we couldn’t awaken Mirai. She was experiencing some weird dream state after Ronin’s mind was imprinted into her in a rush. Because of that, Ronin’s Simulacrum was produced on short notice.”
Was this really the truth? It sounded probable, but why the rush to wake up Mirai? Was it because they were trying to keep up with the Empress changing the rules on them? Despite what my sister had said about standing up to the Empress, they were still dancing to her tune.
I gave the Cat Princess a sour smile. “When you put it that way, I’m surprised I’m still sane.”
“I’m not following you….” She looked genuinely confused.
“I mean that I’m surprised Erina did anything right. I could have ended up with multiple personalities or a complete nut job in a padded cell.”
She appeared to ponder that for a while before casually declaring, “The night is still young.”
“Oh wonderful.” I rolled my eyes and started turning away.
“If you want to blame someone then blame the Empress. Blame her and not Erina. She doesn’t deserve your scorn.”
“Oh, she deserves it,” I countered. “Every bit and more. She has treated me like nothing more than a science project. And she made it clear just now that that’s all I am to her. So she can get frekked for all I care.”
Once again, the Cat Princess was studiously quiet for a long while before saying, “She may have said that, but to me you’re a lot more.”
“Huh?”
“You said you wanted to see the real me. Fine. I’ll show you the real me. Maybe then you’ll understand how important you are to Erina and I but in different ways.”
I watched the Cat Princess walk past me toward the balcony on the opposite side of the living room.
At the permaglass window wall, she slid aside one of the transparent partitions that served as a door, allowing the cold night air to drift into the apartment’s temperate interior.
“Follow me,” she instructed, then walked out to the middle of the balcony, whereupon she sat down cross legged, and then closed her eyes.
Stepping up to the open entrance, I wondered what she was up to when I abruptly sensed a disconcerting weightlessness accompanied by disorientation.
For a moment, I feared a translocation was imminent and I clenched my gut to keep myself from feeling overly sick as I hastily swept my gaze over the balcony. Moments later, I noticed a warping of my view of the surrounding city buildings, something akin to a fisheye lens effect, and a deep thrumming filled the air. It worked its way into my bones, and I quickly recalled a similar experience when I stood near a Sarcophagus, but never at this scale.
The phrase, ‘speak of the Devil and he shall come’ rushed through my head as I watched the lens effect warp my view of the city even more before a giant, gunmetal grey Sarcophagus emerged from the distorted area. Floating inches above the balcony floor, the giant device towered over me and the Cat Princess sitting motionless on the ground. It belched a cold, white fog much like an ancient locomotive venting steam, obscuring much of the balcony within seconds. Despite this, I was still able to see the silhouette of the Sarcophagus open its doors, and quickly unleash multiple dark tentacles from its innards. They deposited something on the ground, before reaching out to pick up the motionless Cat Princess, and then carry her into the giant coffin. Afterwards, the immense device closed its doors and disappeared back into the warped, rippling curtain of air above the balcony.
As soon as it vanished, the disorienting weightless sensation went away, and I felt my surroundings return to normal, along with the fog slowly dissipating into the chilly night air.
Whatever the Sarcophagus had delivered was slowly moving on the ground.
I waited until more of the fog had evaporated before cautiously venturing out onto the balcony to see what it was. However, after walking a few meters toward it, I stopped and stared at it with uncertainty.
A young woman with long, blonde hair, wearing a white leotard, was half-lying on the balcony like a beached mermaid. She had propped herself up on her arms and was shaking her head slowly while blinking as though heavily concussed.
Swallowing quietly, I cautiously stepped closer to her.
Sensing me draw near, she looked up at me with a strained expression, and my gut clenched tightly when I recognized her.
“It’s you….”
She swallowed a few more times before speaking in a raspy voice, “You remembered me.”
I nodded absently as I stared at her intently. “You were there at the game center the day my nightmare began. You were playing the Gun Princess Royale, and Class Rep—I mean, Shirohime—she called you stupid.”
The young woman snorted softly. “Yes, she did. And you were hiding in the crowd.”
Remembering that she’d used a wheelchair at that time – one with the Telos Corporation logo on it – I regarded her legs. There were odd grey rivulets running all over them, scarring their skin. Sweeping my gaze over the rest of her body, I noticed it was waifish, and her arms had the same rivulets coursing through her skin. This was my first time seeing them because back at the game center she’d been wearing long sleeves and her legs were sheathed in stockings.
At the time, I’d thought she was a burn victim, but now I saw what she’d been hiding.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked her.
With a groan, she shifted her body, indeed much like a beached mermaid.
“Humanity hasn’t solved all medical conditions,” she replied. “There’s a few they haven’t fixed yet.” She looked up at me again. “My body looks horrible to you, doesn’t it?”
I decided to be honest with her. “…yeah….”
Her laugh was gentle yet bitter. “This is the result of your sister saving my life.” When I frowned, she smiled as though in self-pity. “I suffered from muscle dystrophy, and your sister tried to save me by using the Angel Fibers she had cultivated. It was illegal, and contravened scientific practices, but I had nothing to lose, and she was running out of time. So I became her first and last human test subject.”
“It didn’t work…?”
“Yes and no. The Angel Fibers stopped my muscular dystrophy, but they paralyzed my legs and scarred my body when they ripped out of me.”
I winced at the image her words painted in my mind.
Akane Straus nodded slowly. “That’s right. I wasn’t a pretty sight. But I survived, and whatever changes they made to my body stopped the muscular dystrophy in its tracks. But they also disrupted my motor controls, crippling my legs. I can feel them so in that respect I’m not a paraplegic, but I can’t use them. I can’t even crawl on them.”
My gaze was drawn to her legs. “Does it hurt?”
Straus shook her head. “No. It looks bad, but I’ll admit there’s no pain.”
I noticed I was nodding, probably in sympathy, and quickly stopped. After a deep breath, I asked, “What happened afterwards?”
Straus was puzzled by the question. “Afterwards?”
“You said my sister operated on you illegally. So what happened after that?”
“Oh.” She chuckled softly. “Her superiors suspended her, but the Sanreal Family who own the Telos Corporation stepped in and re-instated her. However, rather than using human subjects, they provided her with Simulacra instead. That’s when she learnt about the other universe and the truth about the Sanreal Family.”
My eyes widened. “That’s how it happened?”
Straus nodded weakly. “Yes….”
When I pictured the plight she’d endured, it made my chest grow tight. I found myself sympathizing with her anew, and seeing her lying poorly on the balcony floor, I couldn’t think of her as the Cat Princess anymore, even though I knew they were one and the same. Because of this, some of the animosity I’d harbored toward her crumbled away, but I was left nursing some complicated and confused feelings
A woman’s sudden shout from behind me made me flinch in surprise.
“Akane!”
I turned quickly toward the apartment and saw Erina standing by the permaglass entrance to the balcony. Umi Pearson was there too, with the large magazine sized tablet in her hands and a frightened look on her face, but it was Erina who rushed out and dropped to her knees beside Straus who was now sitting upright on the ground.
“What are you doing? What were you thinking?” she cried out, sounding the most frantic I’d ever heard her.
“It was something I needed to do,” Straus answered, placating her with a hand on her shoulder.
Erina looked aghast. “What? Why?”
“Because I had to show her,” Straus replied.
Erina shook her head, protesting loudly, “No. It wasn’t. You didn’t need to do this at all.”
“Yes, I did. She needed to see me, Eri. The real me—”
“Absolutely not!”
“Eri—”
“We can argue about this elsewhere. It’s cold out here. We need to get you inside.”
Erina attempted to pick up Straus, but she was unable to cope with the young woman’s weight.
She looked pathetic to me, and I held back a sigh because it would have sounded too much like a derisive snort. Instead, I sighed inwardly as I stepped closer to the two women. “Here, I’ll do it—”
“Get away from her,” Erina shouted at me.
Startled, I stepped back and stared at her with wide eyes. “Hey, what is your problem—?”
“Don’t touch her,” Erina snapped, and resumed her feeble attempts to pick up Straus.
However, the latter reached out with her hands and stopped the woman that I no longer considered family. Facing me, Straus spoke in a manner that did not reflect her personality as the Cat Princess. She sounded quite calm and composed while supported by Erina as she sat helplessly on the ground.
“Do you still want to hit me? Or am I too pathetic?”
I couldn’t tell if she was taunting me or sincerely asking for my opinion.
I chose to be honest with her. “With Mirai’s strength, I’d kill you if I hit you…and I don’t want your blood on my hands.”
Straus smiled wistfully up at me. “I don’t know whether to be grateful or not.”
I started to shrug indifferently. “I’ll find another way to make you suffer.”
Erina stood up swiftly and spoke in a heated, menacing tone. “You will do no such thing—”
“Eri!”
She looked down sharply at Straus who admonished her with a hard stare.
“This is between her and I,” Straus calmly stated then with some difficulty, she rearranged her legs on the balcony so that they stretched out before her.
When she looked up at me, I could see the strain on her face.
“I told you this before,” she said. “To me, you’re my hope.”
I understood what she meant, and I didn’t like it at all.
I felt she was being unfair to me, and I could have said as much, but instead I shook my head slowly and replied in a perfunctory manner, “At least you have something to hope for. I don’t.”
Ignoring Erina who had resumed kneeling on the balcony beside Straus, I turned away and began walking back toward the apartment.
I can’t tell you why, but I started shivering as soon as I crossed the threshold into the living room.
Was it because I’d been somewhat wrong about Straus? Was it because I felt burdened by her? Or was it something else?
I stopped in the middle of the room to search my feelings as the shivers continued to afflict my body.
And then I realized why.
It was the angry yet terrified shout Erina had thrown at me, the look on her face, the panic in her eyes, and the frantic desire to keep me away from Straus.
It had cut me deep, so deep that I was experiencing a belated reaction.
Cold rushed through me, encircling my heart, chilling the air in my lungs.
I found it hard to breathe, and I found it hard to see as tears welled up in my eyes, and then spilled unhindered down my cheeks.
In the middle of the living room, I sobbed.
And then something else welled up inside me.
All the hurt, the despair, the desolation that roiled within my chest burst out of me in a primal scream that ripped the air out of my lungs. When silence finally returned to the apartment, my body no longer shivered, but instead trembled as my tortured emotions continued to combust painfully within me.
Clenching my hands, I bowed my head for a long while, before slowly straightening up.
I dried my face with the back of a sleeve, clearing away the clouds in my eyes. As I did so I noticed a girlish silhouette in my peripheral vision.
The young maid stood at the entrance to a hallway connected to the living room. She was keeping close to the wall, ready to dart either back into the hallway or across the living area at the drop of a hat.
The scream I’d bellowed had undoubtedly drawn her here, and the fear on her face was my doing.
I felt guilty for having scared her, but I couldn’t bring myself to apologize.
My throat felt raw as I harshly snapped, “Go away.”
The girl grew even more frightened and began turning to flee back the way she’d come, but she suddenly stopped. With eyes growing wide, her attention was riveted in the direction of the hallway leading to the apartment’s entrance.
It was easy to understand why she was so alarmed.
Wearing dark glasses, the two Simulacra sisters had rushed into the living room with guns drawn. Upon sight of me, they aimed their firearms in my direction, then silently advanced toward me with practiced ease. Moving without hesitation, their body language practically shouted their intention to subdue me by force – a clear case of shoot first, ask questions later.
As I watched them, a cold chill swept through my body that washed away my tortured emotions.
Maybe that was Mirai’s doing, or maybe it was mine.
Either way, I now observed the Simulacra sisters with preternatural clarity and calm.
My scream had attracted the maid, so perhaps it had summoned the two women as well. But wasn’t it overkill for them to approach me with guns drawn?
Something didn’t feel right, and I had no choice but to face the next question.
Would I run, fight, or allow myself to be shot?
My gut instinct warned me that talking my way out of this was unlikely to work.
The two women were like preprogrammed automatons, and I doubted peaceful negotiation was part of their skillset.
Yet knowing this, I struggled to decide on a course of action.
On the other hand, Mirai had already made her choice.
Someone once said that the worst mistake anyone could make in a street fight was to demonstrate a willingness to do battle. Their philosophy was to remain impassionate until the very last moment, then explode into action when all other avenues were exhausted, and fighting was unavoidable.
Mirai was of a different mind.
Reacting to the threat instinctually, she kicked my awareness into overdrive.
With my senses now painfully acute, she dropped her body into a low, aggressive stance.
Thus readied, she made her position abundantly clear.
Unfortunately by doing so, Mirai’s instincts all but shoved me into a corner.
For those of you who are interested in reading the original 2017 release of "Gun Princess Royale" the books are still available for purchase via the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
The new "The Gun Princess Royale" will hopefully be release on Amazon Kindle as an eBook in August, 2023.
It all depends on what issues my editor friend finds with the story.
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
The moment Mirai readied herself to kick butt, the two women separated and approached me from different angles.
Watching them glide smoothly over the carpet, I truly regretted blasting out that scream.
And yet was it enough to bring them running with guns in hand?
Mirai’s gut was telling something else was afoot, but I’d have to ponder it another time due a more pressing concern.
What the Hell do I do now?
In an overclocked state, my gaze darted about the apartment.
Despite being lavishly furnished, the living area was so spacious that there wasn’t much in the way of cover. But there was one thing I could try – the proverbial long shot in the dark – and its success depended on the type of ammo loaded into those guns.
“Princess, you have truly done it now.”
Ghost?
My eyes started to widen as I perceived time slowing down even more than usual.
Instead of one second stretching out to four or five, it was one second dilating out to twenty.
I didn’t know how Ghost made it happen, but it certainly came in handy at times like these. In a way, I was little envious of his ability to influence my mental clock speed to this extent. But I was grateful for the extra time it gave me to think of a way out of this mess.
“Princess, please listen carefully. Their weapons are operating in autistic mode. That means I cannot interfere with them. The same applies to the tactical lenses they are wearing.”
Wonderful, I scowled inwardly.
In short, Ghost was telling me he was cut off from the intelligent system controlling their guns, thus he had no way of jamming them for me. And if he couldn’t affect the glasses they were wearing, then he had no way of temporarily blinding them either. It was unfortunate because with his help I was confident Mirai’s brute strength was enough to overcome both women.
Ghost then delivered more bad news.
“Secondly, while I can access their comms, I cannot issue a stand-down order because I do not know their battle language. It will take me some time to determine the proper protocols they are using.”
That confused me, but I assumed it had something to do with coded military speak that prevented an enemy from issuing false commands.
“Thirdly, Princess, the reason they are here is because Doctor Pearson made a frantic call for help. She described you as crazed and dangerous.”
Even in accelerated time, I could feel my eyes sharply widen.
Pearson had been standing near Erina when the latter yelled out Straus’s name. But when I walked back into the apartment, she was nowhere in sight.
Damn that mousy bitch!
The urge to throttle her briefly trampled all other feelings underfoot.
Surprisingly, Ghost read me like an open book. “Princess, do not trouble yourself with Pearson. Going after her now is foolhardy at best. And remember, revenge is a dish best served cold.”
I inwardly frowned upon hearing that.
What is he suggesting—that I toss her into a freezer?
I did concede the macabre nature of that idea appealed to the demons lurking in my subconscious…or was that Mirai’s subconscious?
I frowned a little deeper, briefly wondering if the line between us was beginning to blur.
However, Ghost yanked my attention back to the immediate problem with another helping of bad news.
He was like a twisted version of the gift that kept on giving.
“Last but far from least, this situation may take some time to resolve. In the meantime, Princess, you have three options. One, overpower your opponents thereby proving you are indeed a lethal weapon. Two, run for your life. Or three, allow yourself to be subdued.”
You mean shot!
“The choice is yours to make. However, option one will be difficult to achieve, and option two may have dire consequences. That said, I will negotiate with the Powers-That-Be on your behalf, though it will be necessary to reveal that I am in contact with you.” He then murmured, “I may need to pull some strings….”
Yeah, whatever! Just do it!
Abruptly, I realized something odd.
Why isn’t he suggesting I take Option Three?
My attention drifted to the guns pointed at me.
Could it be the weapons are loaded with live ammo?
That possibility made my stomach sink in slow motion.
Considering my value to Erina, I doubted she would allow me to be shot with live bullets. However, she was aggrieved when she saw the young woman with the bluish ponytail, so I suspected that Erina wasn’t completely in charge of my circumstances. Maybe someone higher up the proverbial chain of command had sent those three women to watch over me…and now two of them were pointing their guns at me.
Ghost then concluded with a dire prognosis.
“Either way, Princess, it will take some time to settle things, and I sincerely doubt I can do this on my own. The outcome of this situation may very well rely on your sister’s involvement. Unfortunately, you have succeeded in royally angering her so do not count on her support for the time being.”
In short, I was backed into a corner, but the notion of having to depend on Erina to save my skin rankled me.
If Ghost said he needed time, then so be it. I’d find a way to give him that time. Defeating the two women wasn’t on the cards, and I didn’t know where the girl with the ponytail had run off to, leaving me with a very big unknown factor to contend with. Nonetheless, I wasn’t going to allow myself to be shot, thus, I was left with only one choice to make:
Run.
“I bet they’re curious to see what I can do.” The words I spoke sounded strung out as my mind outpaced my lips. “Then let’s show them.”
Ghost sighed wearily in my ears. “I knew you were going to say that. Very well. I can disrupt their comm systems for a few seconds. That should give you ample time to—Princess, wait! I am not ready yet!”
The living room had a sunken floor that was home to a U-shaped sofa and a tinted glass coffee table. As soon as I leapt from the upper floor down to the sunken level, the two Simulacra sisters opened fire.
Their reaction time alarmed me.
Mirai was lightning quick, but those girls were only a whisker slower.
Then again, perhaps they’d anticipated my decision to jump.
Either way, as I moved, I glimpsed tiny darts about an inch long cut the air behind me.
“I see. Electro-shock flechettes,” Ghost observed with a blend of relief and wonder. “That is good news.”
Is he serious?
Having landed on the sunken floor, I hurriedly flipped up the coffee table, then picked it up by its legs.
“A wise decision, Princess. The permaglass table has excellent insulating properties. It will make a very good shield.”
Tell me something I don’t know!
Honestly, I was inwardly relieved they weren’t firing AP rounds at me or the table would have been worthless to me.
With an iron grip on its legs, I used Mirai’s enormous strength to haul it into the air, then used it to block the next volley of flechettes that streaked toward me. Their sharp tips pitted and fractured the laminated permaglass, and the electrical discharges scorched the already tinted surface, turning the material an outright black. Yet despite suffering more than a dozen hits, the table remained intact.
If I ever made it big in the Gun Princess Royale, I planned to endorse the table’s manufacturer – for free!
However, while that was well and good, each flash was blinding so I had trouble keeping an eye on my opponents while I made my escape. Also, hiding behind the table made for awkward running as I fled up and out of the sunken floor, but it didn’t stop me from making tracks to the balcony. In response, the Simulacra sisters moved quickly to outflank me, forcing me to repeatedly swing the coffee table about to block the flechettes coming at me from two different directions.
Seriously? Can’t a girl catch a break!
With the table now mostly blackened, I stumbled out of the living room, then through the open entrance and onto the balcony.
“Princess make a sharp right,” Ghost advised. “Stay behind the permaglass windows.”
The window wall separating the balcony from the apartment was at least twenty meters wide. Like the table I carried, it offered protection against the hail of electro-shock flechettes chasing me.
As I rounded the entrance, I decided to ditch the table – it now resembled an obsidian slab – by throwing it at the nearest Simulacra sister charging toward me.
I have to admit, I wasn’t accustomed to Mirai’s strength. Heck, I’d only been inside her body for a little over a day, so what happened next shocked me down to my bones.
First, the blackened, pitted table flew with such speed and force that it slammed into the young woman before she could dive out of the way. Her reflexes were good, well beyond human, but it wasn’t enough to save her.
Secondly, I’d flung the table with all Mirai’s might and lost my balance. Landing on my hands and knees, I looked up in time to see the girl roll across the living room floor, crash against a wall…and then lie deathly still.
Oh gods! Did I—?
“Princess—move!”
A fresh volley of flechettes hit the balcony window while I sensed others narrowly miss my head.
I scrambled onto my feet, but my sneakers slipped on the ground as I applied ‘too much pedal to the metal’.
While in danger of pinwheeling, I heard a cry of rage from inside the living room.
Surprisingly, it was the first time I’d heard anything from either of the two young women, so that scream was definitely not a good sign.
“Congratulations, Princess. Now you have made her angry.”
Oh, you think so?
“You certainly have a way with people,” Ghost added dryly.
Oh, shut up!
“Clarisol, Straus, Erina—the list goes on,” he mused.
You are so not helping!
As I struggled for traction, the mention of Straus and Erina made me glance toward the middle of the balcony.
Erina was kneeling on the ground with a face that shouted ‘What the Hell?’, and Straus was looking shell shocked.
No help from that quarter!
My sneakers finally got some grip, and I ran for a corner of the balcony that was fenced by a twelve-foot high permaglass wall. Upon arrival, I executed a frantic running leap onto it.
Ghost abruptly sang, “She will be coming around the mountain—here she comes!”
Oh crap!
Boosted by desperation, Mirai jumped so high she almost cleared the top of the wall, but sensing she had come up short, I tucked my legs beneath me as the flechettes scorched the permaglass below my feet.
And then I was over the wall and falling down the other side.
Mirai’s momentum carried her quite far from it – several feet in fact – and I landed in crouch a little harder than expected, but hard enough to make Mirai’s bouncing bosom smack my chin.
Damn it!
Rising quickly, I looked around to see that I was standing on a corner of the building.
As I’ve mentioned before, the megascraper was octagonal. What I haven’t mentioned were the giant terraced steps located at each corner that descended all the way down to street level. Think of them like the immense slabs that make up the Egyptian pyramids on Earth because that’s how big they were.
Standing on a step facing southeast, I now had a choice to make – either continue circling around the building by jumping from balcony to balcony or descend to the street far below.
In the end, the choice was made for me.
“Princess, she is coming. Jump across to the next balcony. Hurry!”
I knew that Ghost perceived my surroundings by accessing Mirai’s senses, but I suspected he was keeping an eye on the Simulacrum sister by tapping into the surveillance systems in my vicinity.
Why did I think this?
Because Mirai did not have eyes on the back of her head.
Trusting in him, I didn’t waste time looking behind me. Instead, I ran full pelt across the short distance to the balcony ahead of me, and then took a running leap to the top of the permaglass wall encircling it. Again, my jump was slightly short, and I had to tuck my legs to clear it. I then dropped onto a balcony belonging to an apartment suite that was undoubtedly as large and luxurious as the one Isabel val Sanreal purportedly owned.
As my sneakered feet hit the balcony tiling, a flash of light in my peripheral vision accompanied the sharp crackle of an electro-shock discharge, and I knew that a flechette had struck the permaglass wall behind me.
Catching my balance, I sprinted past a pool with gentle waters tinted blue by underwater lights. Maybe it was the sheer avarice of the pool that made me glance at it. But a glance was all I spared because Mirai ran across the forty-meter wide balcony in seconds.
Even without her Princess Regalia, I was proud to say she was fast on her feet.
I jumped across to the next balcony, again tucking my legs under me as I sailed over the top of the wall, then stretched them downward to cushion my landing like a pair of springs.
On touchdown, I wondered how many balconies I could jump before Mirai started to grow weary.
On the heels of that thought, I peeked over a shoulder.
Behind me, the sole remaining Simulacrum sister was having trouble negotiating the high permaglass walls separating the balconies, even though she was using a parkour trick of kicking off against the adjacent apartment wall.
I decided to leave her in my dust, so for the next minute I continued fleeing clockwise around the building, crossing from balcony to balcony until I arrived at the southern face of the immense megascraper.
Standing on another colossal step best suited for Mighty Joe Young, I gave the girl chasing me a quick look, gauged I was out of her firing line, and then began descending the giant stairs to the street far below. The repetitive nature of jumping down each step required little thought, and soon induced a somewhat Zen-like state of mind. Thus, despite being chased by an angry gun totting girl, I felt oddly calm. Whether that was good or bad is up for debate, but the tranquility I experienced didn’t last for long because Mirai’s body began to complain in a most unexpected and frustrating manner.
What started as a dull ache in Mirai’s breasts gradually flourished into a sharp pang every time I landed on a massive, terraced step. By the time I’d descended fifteen or sixteen floors, I was in some serious discomfort. No doubt the Angel Fibers were working hard to contain the pain, but it was distracting me at a time when I couldn’t afford to be distracted.
This is what I get for not wearing a sports bra!
The regular lacy bra fell woefully short of supporting Mirai’s charms when she was in action.
I had to grit my teeth against the burning, stabbing sensation afflicting my chest, but only travelled down a few more floors before calling it quits. To be safe, I climbed over an adjacent permaglass wall into an apartment balcony to the west of me, and then hurried across the spacious area while using an arm to cradle Mirai’s breasts.
“Bloody Hell,” I hissed through clenched teeth as I jogged past another large pool with underwater lighting. This time the water was tinted pink.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the Angel Fibers soothed Mirai’s bosom from the inside, and the pain was mostly gone by the time I arrived at the opposite end of the balcony.
Pausing before the transparent wall separating this balcony from its neighbor, I cast a furtive look behind me to the east.
However, the Simulacrum sister was nowhere to be found.
Whenever I’d peeked behind me, I’d used the pale orange glow surrounding the young woman to guide my eyes toward her. But the orange glow of her lifeforce had vanished against the side of the building, nor was there a hint of it against the night sky.
In other words, I’d lost sight of her.
For precious seconds, I floundered in shock before crying out, “Ghost—I can’t see her! Where is she?”
“Princess, I have no visual on her. She is not in the immediate vicinity.”
A whisper from Mirai’s subconscious was urging me to continue running, but I hesitated and instead continued sweeping my gaze over the side of the building, searching for the missing sister while my mind raced.
Where the Hell did she go?
Firing electro-shock flechettes out in the open was prone to attract the attention of the authorities. In fact, I was surprised there weren’t a dozen Enforcer drones hovering over me right now. This presented two possibilities. Either the chase had been called off, or the girl was still hunting me but going about it another way.
“Ghost, did she go back inside?”
“I do not know, Princess.”
Hearing that made me lose my cool. “What the Hell do you mean you don’t know? How did you lose track of her?”
“Apologies, Princess—”
“You’re supposed to be the eyes on the back of my head!”
“I wholeheartedly apologize, Princess—”
“Ghost, apologies don’t help me—not one bit!”
Despair and frustration were getting the better of me. I knew that getting angry was a big no-no – especially now – but staying calm and in control was growing harder by the heartbeat.
“Ghost, you better make up for it!”
“Princess, I suggest you continue moving. Head to the western face of the building. There is a maglev station about seventy floors below you. You can blend into the station crowd and catch the next passing train.”
The maglev service ran twenty-four seven though less frequently during the early hours of the morning. But if I could catch a train away from the building, it would help me gain some distance on the enraged girl.
Stifling a frustrated growl, I instead snorted loudly through my nose.
“Fine—let’s try it.”
I performed a standing leap onto the transparent balcony wall ahead of me. I had to boost myself up by grabbing a hold of it. Crouched atop its narrow edge, I gave the surrounding skyline a fleeting look – again surprised there were no Enforcer drones headed my way – then jumped down the other side of the wall. My sneakered feet landed with a dull thud, and I winced a little at a sharp twinge from Mirai’s breasts, but after pushing off into a fast jog, I crossed the open area quickly, then leapt over another permaglass wall and onto the next balcony.
As I continued travelling clockwise around the megascraper, I grew increasingly anxious. I felt like I was being watched, and it made my shoulders and nape tingle unpleasantly. Ignoring the discomfort in Mirai’s chest, I ran faster as I crossed from balcony to balcony with mounting unease.
Arriving at the southwest face of the building, I dropped down into a balcony with yet another large sunken pool with underwater lighting. I paid it scant attention as I was intent on finding a way down to the maglev station.
However, I couldn’t resist glancing behind me.
Surprisingly, I hadn’t done that in a while. I’d been running with my attention focused mostly dead ahead, but the relentless tingling along my neck and shoulders turned into an insisting prickling.
Overwhelmed by the urge to check my six o’clock, I peeked over a shoulder.
At that moment, something small and white leapt at me from the direction of the apartment off to my right. Startled, I turned to see two rows of small white teeth headed straight for my throat. Ducking on impulse caused my feet to slip, and I tumbled hard before coming up on my hands and knees. But the fall saved me, and the owner of those flat, white teeth sailed over my back just as a bright, blue flash lit up the balcony. Then a loud crackling filled the air followed by the sound of a heavy splash from the nearby pool.
Still on all fours, I gave the pool a curious yet frantic look to see something small and white – about the size of a small dog – floating in the water. Realizing that it was a dog, I leapt to my feet and ran to save it. In fact, I was a heartbeat away from diving into the pool when I noticed there was no lifeforce aura surrounding the tiny defender of its realm.
Is it dead?
Then I saw something unexpected.
Machine parts?
It took me a split second to realize the small white creature was a mechanical dog.
It took me another split second to realize I’d been sniped.
It was pure luck, or maybe someone ‘up there’ was watching out for me, but the little machine dog had saved me from being shot in the back.
“Princess, run!”
Yeah, I figured that much!
Turning on the balls of my feet, I sprinted hard for the next balcony and the transparent wall standing between us. Jumping up and then over it, I landed on the tiled ground, then hastily backed up against the permaglass fencing. Using it for cover, I threw my gaze about in a hurry, searching the floors above me for anything with or without a lifeforce aura.
“Ghost, where are they?”
“Princess, above you to the east.”
Using Mirai’s magnetic sense to guide me, I searched the sky in the suggested direction.
Despite moving quickly, Mirai’s body felt frustratingly slow while my consciousness operated at an accelerated state.
However, I soon caught sight of what Ghost had spotted.
High above me, a radiant golden aura was gliding down the side of the building. Distance made it look small, but it was clearly the lifeforce radiated by a human body.
Surprisingly, it was drifting downwards as though paragliding alongside the building.
“Princess, they are employing a glider pack. I suspect they are also using a thermoptic skinsuit.”
A skinsuit was the ultra lightweight equivalent of the modern military armor-skin – a biomechanical exoframe that amplified, strengthened, and protected a human body. It wouldn’t offer the same degree of power as a military grade suit, but it could easily double the strength and stamina of the wearer.
However, I doubted it would make them a match for Mirai.
Though she still surprised me with her strength, I knew it well enough to gauge she was several times stronger than a human girl her size, and thereby stronger than a few of men. Knowing this gave me a degree of confidence against the wearer of that skinsuit. But if they’d sniped me, then I was at a sharp disadvantage.
I watched the lifeforce aura gently descending toward me. It was some fifteen or sixteen floors above me, but for a sniper that was spitting distance.
“Ghost, can you summon the Sarcophagus?”
“Princess, if I do that—”
“Can you summon it or not?”
Ghost was silent for what felt like a very long second. “Aye, Princess. I can.”
I understood his reluctance.
If he summoned the Sarcophagus, and if I outfitted myself with Mirai’s Princess Regalia, it would escalate the situation, so I had to deal with this new development while unarmed and unprotected.
For now, it didn’t matter who was chasing me.
That was something to be addressed at another time.
What did matter was that the chase was back on.
Yet, I was a little surprised it wasn’t the Cat Princess in pursuit but someone else.
Did Erina have something to do with that or had someone pulled rank on her?
In other words, had someone else made the decision to bench the Cat Princess?
Was it the girl with the bluish ponytail?
I wondered if the girl with the bluish ponytail was involved. She was an enigma, but I was certain she was someone in a position of authority.
“Princess…?”
Ghost was calling for my attention, so I decided Miss Ponytail was someone I would worry about later.
Nodding quickly, I came to a decision. “Don’t summon the Sarcophagus.”
The words left my lips sounding distended, and when I swallowed hastily, it felt slow in my mouth and throat. Experiencing both the world and my body while overclocked was an exercise in patience, but I needed the advantage it gave me, especially now that I was being hunted by an airborne sniper.
“Ghost, I need a fast route to the station.”
“Princess, there is no fast route.”
“Ghost!”
“Very well. Jump this balcony to the terrace steps beyond it. Then descend seventy floors to the maglev station. It will be to the north of you.”
Great—more of those giant steps!
The thought of giving Mirai’s breasts another workout made me cringe but jumping down the steps was probably the fastest way to descend the building’s exterior.
I pushed away from the balcony wall, however, instead of heading northwest, I ran toward the apartment’s window-wall to my right because the overhang from the floor above me offered some cover from the sniper in the air.
“Princess, what are you—?”
“Give me a sec!”
Pulling up the bottom of my blouse, I then rolled it up and tied it securely under Mirai’s breasts. I hoped the extra support would prevent them from bouncing painfully, but the downside was exposing Mirai’s toned midriff to the chilly, morning air. Fortunately, I was wearing my denim jacket and it kept some of the cold off my body. Then again, the cool air was the least of my worries because as I finished tying up the blouse, something long and narrow buried itself into the balcony floor a few feet away from me.
It discharged with an incandescent flash that scorched the air.
“Princess!”
Half blinded, I turned on instinct to my right, then ran unsteadily westward while keeping close to the apartment’s window-wall. For now, the overhang protected me from above but if the shooter chose to glide away from the building, they would have the angle to snipe at me again.
As I blinked quickly to clear my vision, I considered breaking into the apartment but doubted I could smash through the permaglass window-wall with just my hands and feet.
Damn, what I wouldn’t give for one Viper Vanquish right now!
Nonetheless, I resisted the burning temptation to summon the Sarcophagus.
Gotta do this on my own!
I sprinted out from under the overhang, and then made a jump for the permaglass wall encircling the apartment’s open-air balcony.
Through the transparent material, I could see the terraced steps on the other side.
Almost there!
However, as I leapt onto the wall, an electro-shock flechette seared the air below my feet.
Distracted by the burning discharge, I failed to tuck in my legs, and my feet clipped the top of the wall, flipping me over it.
I screamed in fear as I fell headfirst toward the ground four meters below me.
Fortunately, Mirai’s instincts came to the rescue. Reacting reflexively, she executed a somersault that had me landing unsteadily on my feet rather than on my face. But it was unexpected, and I was unable to catch my balance.
Pitching forward, I fell over the edge of the giant step.
This time there was nothing Mirai could do to save herself.
There were no fancy acrobatics to arrest my fall as I dropped past the five-foot riser and crashed hard on my back. I did remember to tuck my chin, and thus avoided hitting the back of my head on the permacrete. But the impact winded me, and I lay gasping for breath for precious seconds that I could ill afford to waste.
“Princess!”
I heard something strike the step I was lying on, followed by a blinding flash of lightning.
Searing heat scorched the left side of my body.
I screamed in pain – not in fear – as I rolled away from the electro-shock discharge.
My agony lasted only a few seconds and my vision returned quickly, but by then I had tumbled down another riser onto the next step. Again on my back, I spent precious seconds trying to recover my senses, before I succeeded in rolling over onto my hands and knees with a low, guttural groan.
“Princess—Princess!”
The impact had been painful, but it was the electro-shock that hurt the most. My left arm and flank felt burnt, however Mirai’s somewhat frightening ability to recover from falls that would otherwise break a human girl had me moving again seconds later.
Sucking in air through clenched teeth, I staggered up to my feet.
I didn’t know if the shot had missed me on purpose, but due warning had been served because if I was hit by an electro-shock flechette it was going to be sheer agony.
“Where is she?” I mumbled as I righted myself, then unsteadily jumped down to the tread of the step below me.
“She?”
Ghost sounded puzzled.
Realizing my slipup, I didn’t reply to him and continued descending in silence.
However, Ghost persisted. “Princess, did you say ‘she’?”
Something that I saw in my pursuer’s lifeforce aura gave me the strong impression that I was being chased by a woman, but I wasn’t going to reveal that to him. Besides, it was an impression that I didn’t understand myself.
“Princess, why makes you think—?”
“Ghost, just tell me where she is!”
There was a momentary pause before he replied, “She is approximately twelve floors above you.”
I leapt down a couple more steps. “You can see her?”
“No. I can see the glider pack she is wearing.”
I paused to ask, “How?” then jumped down another two steps in a single bound.
The landing was forceful, but I was learning to cushion it by relaxing my body and flexing my legs.
Ghost sounded sheepish. “I have gained access to a nearby police drone.”
“What?”
Shock almost made me mess up the next landing, and I had to drop to a crouch to catch my balance. “You’re accessing it or controlling it?”
“I am in control of it. I used your wetware as an ad hoc wireless point to gain access to the drone as it passed by.”
I sneered faintly.
That figures.
After descending another handful of steps, I paused to glance up the side of the building behind me.
Something whistled past my head just as I turned around.
Rather, it was more of a buzz than a whistle, as though a turbo-charged bee had shot past me.
Regardless, I ducked on instinct as a white-hot flash and sharp crackle filled the air close by for a couple of seconds. The heat from the electro-shock blast warmed my skin through the fabric of my denim jacket, and the fact that the flechette had discharged in the air was telling.
Shit—they’re proximity armed!
As soon as the blast of electricity faded, I was back on the move, leaping down two steps at a time.
“Ghost—I’ve got no cover! Do something!”
The steps were about three meters wide and two meters long. Flanked by the tall permaglass walls that fenced the apartment balconies, it was like travelling down a steep trench with me exposed to incoming fire from above. It wasn’t quite like shooting fish in a barrel. More like spearing fish in a narrow canal, and I was the fish.
I decided to alternate my jumps.
As randomly as possible, I dropped either one or two steps down the side of the enormous megascraper. Dropping three steps at a time was simply out of the question without the Princess Regalia. Lacking the support it offered me, my erratic pace soon had me cradling Mirai’s oversized bosom with an arm and that made for awkward landings. Yet desperate times called for desperate measures, and there was also a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
Some forty floors below me, I could see the maglev station and the elevated rail lines running past the megascraper, and that view sparked a glimmer of hope inside me.
“Princess, continue your descent. I will distract her.”
Focused on the station and on jumping, I was slow to ask, “How?”
My question was met by a loud boom from high overhead.
Startled, I landed in a crouch precariously close to the edge of a step. To prevent myself from tipping over the riser, I supported my body on outstretched hands, then hastily looked up to see glowing debris fluttering down the side of the building like burning leaves.
Was that the drone?
Searching the face of the towering megascraper, I spotted a lifeforce aura spiraling away to the south.
“Ghost, did you get her—?”
“Princess, do not stop!”
The burning debris was falling toward me.
Crap!
I hurriedly fled down the giant steps.
“Was that the drone? Did she shoot it?” I asked.
“Indeed.”
A hard landing made me wince at a sharp pang from Mirai’s breasts. I gasped before asking, “Isn’t that explosion going to attract attention?”
“That is precisely why I was reluctant to use it.”
I could argue that it made no difference since my pursuer had no qualms about firing flechettes that exploded with a bright flash and a loud bang. “Can you grab control of another drone?”
“Princess, concentrate on making the most of this opportunity.”
After executing another long jump that carried me down three steps, I angrily protested, “What the Hell do you think I’m doing?”
No matter how I supported Mirai’s breasts, or how much I crouched to absorb the impact, they were beginning to hurt more and more with each successive hard landing. You could say that Mirai’s self healing couldn’t keep up with my frantic pace. However, there was no stopping, and after catching my breath for a second, I resumed fleeing down the giant stairway.
Every so often I would pause to check above and behind me, but there was no sign of the unknown woman using the glider pack.
My gut instinct told me that she was circling counterclockwise around the building. She was probably gliding on the thermal air currents coursing between the megascrapers. That reminded me of the seagulls I used to watch from my classroom window, coasting in the air off the shores of Telos Island. The memory felt like a lifetime ago, yet it was only last Friday that I’d sat in class watching them.
Thinking of my how much I’d lost made me bitter.
I swallowed it down, then searched for the maglev station platform, quickly spotting it some ten or twelve floors below me.
The station’s transparent, permaglass roof resembled a slippery slide, like those found at amusement parks. However, because the station was constructed against the side of the megascraper, the roof also had the appearance of a chute coming out of the building. This was because the station had multiple entrances spanning several floors. The permaglass roof was quite wide at around a hundred feet, but the station platform was easily three times wider, and it was covered by a transparent canopy – a giant awning – that also stretched over the elevated track lines.
While it protected commuters from the gusting wind and weather elements, the broad canopy would make it difficult for me to enter the station from outside the building. I’d have to drop onto an elevated track and then sneak onto the platform. Even if Ghost blinded the security cameras, I was likely to be noticed by the people on the platforms waiting for the next maglev to arrive.
I stopped jumping down the steps upon arriving at a point adjacent to the top of the station’s slippery-slide roof. Peering through the transparent canopy, I saw numerous escalators leading down to the station’s concourse.
“Ghost, do you have a way in—?”
A flash of hot light to my one o’clock blinded me.
The smell of ozone and the crackle of electricity were hallmarks of an electro-shock discharge. When my vision somewhat cleared, I saw a blackened section of the permaglass wall in front of me. The transparent wall ran down the side of the building, separating the giant permacrete stairs from the station’s sloped roof. Because it was tall, it had stopped the flechette from detonating dangerously near my head. Adding to my good fortune, Mirai’s eyes quickly recovered, and I blinked away the last vestiges of my mottled vision.
With my mind overclocked, I had a few internal seconds to analyze the situation.
As I’d guessed, my pursuer had indeed circled counterclockwise around the building, and she was now effectively to the north-northeast of me.
So what was my next move?
I chose to err on the side of danger by jumping the wall keeping me from the station’s roof.
Why? Because I figured it was the fastest way down to the station’s platforms.
“Princess!”
“Trust me,” I yelled as I landed on the station’s giant slippery slide.
As I’d thought, the transparent surface was as slick as it looked, and I quickly ended up on my backside. Feeling like a kid again, I slid down the roof toward the maglev platform about fifty meters below me.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing…or should I say smooth sliding.
Chased by electro-shock flechettes, I yelped loudly as I jerked away from a near miss. The blast superheated the air for a mere second, but long enough to singe my denim jacket.
Worse still, I lost control of my descent.
As I tumbled and slid down the roof, I started to think I’d made the wrong call. However, my erratic course made me a hard target, helping me avoid the flechettes that followed.
I really couldn’t imagine how anybody inside the station would fail to notice the light show happening above them. Regardless, after coming to a messy stop where the roof flattened out above the station’s concourse, I hastily picked myself up then ran over onto the immense awning that covered the two platforms beside the track lines.
Shooting glances over a shoulder, I kept track of my pursuer by her lifeforce aura.
She was gliding toward me from the northeast, probably three hundred feet away and some fifty feet above me. Mindful of her approach, I looked down through the transparent awning at the platforms and saw dozens of people standing on them. The fact that nobody was looking up surprised me, but would they notice me if I jumped down from the roof onto a track line?
What I needed was a distraction or a passing train to glide into the station.
By a stroke of good luck, that’s exactly what happened next.
Below me, a sleek, gunmetal grey maglev glided to a stop between the two platforms, then opened its carriage doors.
I took this for another sign that the Goddess of Good Fortune was watching out for me. I had no idea what I’d done to deserve her blessing, but if I survived this night, I planned to build her a little shrine and thank her with daily offerings.
So why was this a turn for the better? Because with the maglev parked at the station, the commuters were too preoccupied to look up. It was the opportunity I needed to sneak aboard, and I wasn’t going to waste it.
Accelerating to a dead sprint, I did my best to ignore Mirai’s bouncing bosom as I headed for the southern end of the giant awning that overhung the platforms, until a flechette buried itself into the transparent roofing, and then vented its electrical fury just as I ran past it.
Tendrils of lightning caressed my legs causing their muscles to convulse.
I stumbled, then belly flopped onto the roof, landing hard on Mirai’s chest.
Momentum carried me forward and I slid on the smooth surface for a few feet. Coming to a stop, I gasped and groaned in pain as my legs spasmed uncontrollably for a handful of seconds before Mirai’s unnatural ability to recover from injury once again rescued me. Within seconds, I was crawling on my hands and knees, frantic to escape aboard the maglev before it departed. Desperation drove me back onto my feet, just as another flechette plunged into the roof and discharged.
My unsteady legs failed me, and I was unable to jump clear of the blast, but that didn’t stop me from trying. Electricity painfully raked me as I leapt away, burning my clothes and exposed skin. Once again, I landed on Mirai’s belly, then gasped in agony for a short while before pushing myself up onto my elbows.
I twisted my neck around to look behind me.
The lifeforce aura silhouetting my translucent pursuer was floating down to the station’s awning over the platforms. Above the golden light, I could see a shadowy shape resembling a hang-glider but much smaller. Since her thermoptic camouflage rendered her nearly invisible, I wondered why I could faintly see the glider.
As I watched her descend, a tiny flash of light appeared ahead of her body.
What the—?
Mirai’s body reacted instinctively, throwing herself aside with enough force to send me rolling away from a detonation that lit up the air and burned the permaglass roofing I’d been lying on.
She fired right at me!
Until now, I’d harbored a faint belief that she’d been purposely avoiding a direct hit, but now I knew better.
Goddamned, crazy bitch!
If not for Mirai’s preternatural reflexes, I would have been enveloped in an electrical storm. Yet though I’d been spared from the brunt of it, I was grazed again, and I cried out as the electrified air blistered my exposed belly. I breathed heavily for a few seconds as the burning sensation quickly faded away, and then I was back on the move. With a herculean effort, and a groan to match, I launched myself onto my feet. But lacking the traction of the Regalia’s boots, my sneakers slipped repeatedly on the permaglass underfoot.
Move, move—MOVE!
I persevered and was soon charging again toward the southern end of the roof where it hung over the parked maglev.
Whenever I overclocked, time moved quickly within my mind giving me the impression that I was running in slow motion.
However, this time something unexpected happened.
For one second, Mirai’s body caught up with my overclocked awareness and suddenly I rocketed forward over the edge of the awning. A split second later, I was flailing wildly as I fell a few meters onto the stationary maglev.
Landing with a hard whump onto the lead carriage, my vision swam.
I was winded, so only a strangled cry escaped my lips as pain shot through Mirai’s breasts. Feeling as though they’d been lanced by knitting needles, I tried to quickly get off my chest but only succeeded in sluggishly rolling over onto my back. Now looking skyward, I caught sight of my pursuer’s golden aura as it descended toward me. As I did so, I had the impression that I’d made eye contact with her. She was almost transparent so I couldn’t see her face, yet I was convinced our eyes had met. It made my heart stumble for a beat. However, my heart then jumped in fright when I sensed the maglev start to move.
Wait, wait, wait! I’m not aboard yet!
Yelling at it inside my head wasn’t going to make it stop, so I decided to be vocal about it. But no sooner had I opened my mouth when I was silenced by a single thought.
Why had the maglev started moving?
Its safety systems should have kept it stationary if someone was riding on top of it, so why the Hell was it now in motion?
I propped myself up using my elbows.
“Princess, stay down!”
Startled by Ghost’s shout, I fell back and lay flat. “What? Why—?”
“The aero-field that reduces drag around the maglev extends fourteen inches beyond the carriage. Breach the field and you will be swept away. You need to stay under it.”
I quickly understood what he meant.
There was an effect-field that acted like a frictionless glove around the maglev’s carriages. This reduced drag thereby allowing the train to move quickly without being impeded by the air around it. Effectively, it turned the maglev into a sharp knife rather than a blunt object, but it also meant that I had to remain within the field or I risked being blown off as the train moved swiftly through the city.
Lying supine on the maglev’s roof, I spread my arms wide to maintain some semblance of balance as the train swiftly accelerated. However, I was soon sliding down the length of the carriage.
No, no, no!
In desperation, I planted my sneakered feet flat on the roof, but this bent my legs and raised my knees above the aero-form field. Caught in the turbulent air flowing over the carriage, I was dragged faster down the roof. I had no choice but to lie flat again and pray that I would stop sliding when the maglev stopped accelerating.
As my body steadily inched toward the rear of the train, I peered above Mirai’s breasts at the woman chasing me. Up in the air, her lifeforce aura was slowly shrinking as the maglev raced away from her. Since departing the station, the gap between us had widened to a few hundred feet. Unfortunately, that was little consolation when I saw a pinprick of blue light flash in front of her.
In that instant, time slowed down even more for me.
At first, I thought it was Ghost’s handiwork, but I wasn’t hearing his voice in my ears, so I then wondered if it was Mirai’s doing. Regardless, it didn’t matter who or what was responsible. What mattered was that I had a little extra time to consider my options before the flechette hit me.
So what were my options?
I could choose to do nothing and get electro-shocked, or I could chance a risky maneuver and pray that the Goddess of Good Fortune had not abandoned me yet.
I went for the latter option – the risky move.
Bending my knees sharply, I threw my arms into the air.
Almost instantly the raging current of air around the train yanked me toward the foot of the carriage with frightening speed. Luckily, the maglev happened to be travelling in a straight line. Had it been turning a corner, I would have flown off the carriage. Nonetheless, my body began to spin as it slid along the roof.
This and the aero-field saved me.
The flechette released its lightning charge but it had been knocked off target by the aero-field that gloved the maglev. It missed the top of my head by a couple of feet, and the ensuing burst of electrical energy singed my hair and scalp. For a moment, I even feared my eyeballs would explode but they didn’t.
Thankfully, I’d avoided the worst of the blast. However, I was addled and blinded, my head hurt, and there was a faint ringing in my ears.
For a short while afterwards, I could barely see the city buildings zipping past me. If the woman fired at me now, I wouldn’t notice her taking the shot, but wasn’t all bad news.
I was alive and still on the maglev.
When my vision cleared up many seconds later, I peered around me and discovered that I’d been dragged to the tail end of the carriage where my sneakered feet had caught onto the ribbed tubing connecting the carriages.
With a sigh of relief, I then looked up and searched for my pursuer.
At sight of her aura dwindling into the distance, I weakly chuckled at my narrow escape, and some of the tension left my body. However, I refused to relax because I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
If the woman fired at me from a distance, the speeding maglev and its aero-form field would make it hard for her to hit me. Thus, I was safe while the train was moving, but since there weren’t stations at every building I didn’t know when it would stop again, and if the maglev stopped for too long, she could catch up to me.
On the other hand, I didn’t expect her to take another shot at me. All the shooting she had done was bound to draw attention to me, though once again, I was surprised there wasn’t a fleet of Enforcer drones in hot pursuit.
Had they been diverted?
Had someone hacked them to keep the night sky clear of prying eyes?
Was it the Sanreals doing?
Yet more questions to ponder later, but having said all that, the Sanreals were an unknown quantity to me. Not knowing how far they would go to protect me or bring me back – or how much they would risk in the process – I chose to be cautious. Thus, I kept a watchful eye on the woman’s aura as it shrank into the distance, but a short while later, I noticed it wasn’t shrinking anymore – it was growing larger and shining stronger as though she was gaining on the swift maglev.
What the FREK?
I cleared my throat, swallowing down some of the panic welling up in my chest.
“Hey, Ghost?”
“Princess, are you all right?”
I stopped short of nodding. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, but she’s catching up.”
There was a distressing amount of silence from Ghost.
“Hey, are you there?” I asked. “I said she’s catching up.”
“Princess, I believe I have erred.”
My heart felt like it had been squeezed by cold hands. “You what?”
“She is not using a glider pack.”
“Then what the frek is she—?”
“It is a flight pack.”
The proverbial penny dropped inside my head with the weight of an anvil. “Oh….”
That certainly explained how she was able to gain ground on a maglev moving at 200 klicks an hour.
“So now what?” I muttered while fighting down a sudden, cold despair. “It doesn’t look like she’s giving up.”
Ghost was again silent for a long moment before reporting, “I am afraid there are no drones in the vicinity that I can commandeer.”
I turned my head to look at the megascrapers zipping past me, towering like canyon walls around the track.
When my consciousness was overclocked, my surroundings usually moved slowly around me. But the maglev was racing between the city-state buildings so the scenery was flashing by at a dangerous speed. Perhaps I could jump off the maglev and onto a megascraper, but only if the train decelerated considerably. Even so, I’d still be risking life and limb, and I didn’t know if the Angel Fibers could save Mirai back from the brink of death if she went splat against a permacrete wall.
Maybe, I was taking Mirai and her Angel Fibers for granted.
The notion troubled me, and I resumed watching the woman’s growing lifeforce aura as she steadily chased down the maglev.
I need to find my own solution to this problem.
Yet, having thought that, I knew full well that I’d be relying on Mirai’s unnatural strength to pull off another daring escape.
I need to find a way off this maglev.
“Ghost, can you hack into this train and slow it down? Don’t bring it to a stop, just slow it down enough for me to jump off.”
“Princess, what are you planning?”
“Can you slow it down or not?”
I had a suspicion Ghost had earlier hacked into the maglev’s controls because it had pulled away from the station shortly after I fell onto its roof. It seemed like too much of a coincidence sprinkled with good fortune. However, I grew concerned when he didn’t reply to me right away.
“Ghost? Can you do it?” I waited for a couple of long seconds. “Hello? You there?”
After a short while, Ghost replied, “Very well. I can have the Assisting Intelligence execute an emergency—Princess, brace yourself!”
Hearing his warning, I began rolling over onto my belly, but the maglev abruptly decelerated and I started sliding helplessly toward the front of the carriage.
“Ghost, wait—wait! I wasn’t ready!”
Because I was lying atop the lead carriage, I was now in danger of falling off the front of the train onto the meter-wide track. And if I fell off, I was likely to be run over by the maglev despite the fact it was rapidly slowing down.
“Ghost—damn it! I said wait! WAIT!”
“Princess, this is not my doing!”
“What?”
As I doubted my ears, the maglev continued braking hard, and I frantically rolled over onto my belly just as I slipped helplessly down the front of the aerodynamic snout of the lead carriage. There was no stopping my fall, and I tumbled painfully hard onto the track. Mirai’s body then rolled precariously on the narrow rail as the train loomed over me.
There was no room to slip under the floating maglev, and no way to avoid the duckbilled snout that slammed into my right shoulder.
I felt it break and would have screamed in agony, but Mirai was trying to save herself even as she fell over the side of the track. Her hands and fingers scrabbled to hold onto the edge, but it was smoothly rounded, and a terrified heartbeat later, I lost my grip and fell from the elevated rail line.
To my surprise, I didn’t scream as I plummeted.
Instead, I looked down fully expecting to see a distant, city street rushing up to meet me. But to my disbelief, what I saw was a cluster of trees shooting up toward my feet.
What the Hell?
I crashed into a thick canopy of leaves and branches.
Like the ball in a pinball machine, I bounced off tree limbs and broke others before landing on packed soil riddled with hard roots. Rolling to a stop against a tree trunk, I lay supine in blinding agony that stole my breath.
It was a while before I could even gasp for air.
Mirai’s body hurt all over, and my right shoulder – broken by the maglev’s snout – burned so intensely that I saw white spots dancing in my eyes.
Yet I was alive and in one piece, and for that I was eternally grateful.
Taking shallow breaths, I prayed softly to the Angel Fibers while waiting for the pain in my shoulder to ease up. I don’t know how long I lay there – it could have been ten or twenty seconds – but it felt like a minute later before I was able to prop myself on my elbows. I gasped and groaned loudly as my shoulder complained with sharp, blinding pangs, but I persevered and eventually braced myself against the tree trunk behind me.
Sitting slouched, I bent my neck to look down at myself.
I was indeed in one piece but quite battered and bruised. There were cut and scrapes over my exposed midriff, my clothes were a mess with numerous rips and tears, and though my right shoulder was still aflame, I was able to move the arm again.
However, I had no idea where I was.
There was greenery in Ar Telica, but it was spotty at best. Most of the parks were located near the shoreline, so perhaps I was close to the harbor. Then again, there were some elevated plazas high over the streets that were big enough for a park, so perhaps I’d landed on one of them.
“Princess? Princess, you need to hurry.”
Ghost sounded loud in my head.
I winced, then swallowed to clear my throat. “What…? What is it?”
“You need to move, Princess.”
“Why—?”
Abruptly, I heard several different voices coming from nearby. They were faint but growing louder as they drew closer. Soon, Mirai’s sharp hearing caught fragments of conversations.
“…are you sure someone fell…?”
“…I saw someone too….”
“…a girl….”
“…yeah, I thought so too….”
“…she was hit by the train and fell in here….”
“…oh gods, do you think she’s still alive…?”
I saw indistinct silhouettes moving between the trees, and my heart jumped in panic.
Not knowing where I was didn’t seem important anymore. Instead, getting out of here became my immediate priority.
Struggling up to my feet, I relied on the tree behind me for support, but my right shoulder screamed at me in protest when I leaned on it. Too late, I bit down on a sharp gasp that escaped my lips.
“…hey, someone’s there….”
“…what…?”
“…I heard someone cry out….”
“…where…?”
“…over there….”
“…See? I told you someone fell….”
“…then she’s still alive….”
Shit! They heard me!
Pushing through the fading pain, I clambered unsteadily over the roots, and fled away from my would-be rescuers.
“Princess, turn to your right. Head south. Hurry.”
I could hear the men’s voices somewhere faint behind me, so I hurried along on rubbery legs while guided by Mirai’s magnetic sense.
“Keep going, Princess. You are almost there.”
“Almost where—?”
Quite suddenly, I emerged out from between the trees into a wide plaza that spanned the gap between two immense megascrapers. Think of it like a hammock strung flat between two giant trees. Despite the early morning hour, the place was teeming with people, and most of them were staring with shock and amusement at something overhead.
“What the Hell…?” I muttered, then looked up to see what they were staring at. “Oh, crap….”
The sleek maglev was parked on an elevated rail line high above me. The train was directly over a mini forest of trees located smack dab in the middle of the enormous plaza.
Shaking my head gently in disbelief, I softly murmured, “So that’s what happened.”
To think there was something like this in the middle of the city.
Ghost spoke with urgency. “Princess, you must keep moving. Head into the building to the east. You need to get off the plaza. Hurry.”
Aware of the men in the forest searching for me, I turned to my right, looking eastward to see the entrance to a towering megascraper some fifty meters away.
“Right…,” I muttered and started walking toward it.
However, a few steps later, the sounds of a commotion erupted behind me, and I looked back to see the crowd on the plaza staring at me.
While some of them pointed at me, others quickly aimed their phone cameras in my direction.
Oh, shit!
“Princess, hurry!”
In a blur of motion, I spun away from the crowd and then broke into a run. Thankfully, my legs no longer felt rubbery as I bolted for the entrance. There was no time to fix up my clothes as I rushed through the wide opening and into the megascraper. However, just before entering the building, I happened to glance upwards. It was only for a split second, but that was all it took for my blood to run cold. Then I was inside the megascraper, running fast down a wide corridor that was bordered by shops. It was around a hundred meters long and ended at an enormous atrium – an architectural design trait common to many of the giant buildings in Ar Telica.
Circling the atrium, I hurried through the building, weaving past a slow, moving stream of people that were either window shopping, or coming and going from the dozens of retail outlets on this floor.
“Princess, you can stop now. You are drawing attention to yourself.”
But I didn’t stop.
I kept running out of the building, onto a wide bridgeway, and then across toward another megascraper.
“Princess—!”
“She’s still out there,” I snapped at him as I barreled into the building.
Like before, I ran down a wide corridor that ended at a balcony surrounding the ubiquitous atrium found in so many of Ar Telica’s megascrapers.
“Princess, how do you know?”
Ghost didn’t sound like he was doubting me. Rather, he seemed to be genuinely asking for an explanation.
I swallowed as I ran. “Because I saw her.”
This time, there was doubt in his voice. “You saw her?”
“Yes, I saw her!”
I could have added a growl but that would have wasted energy. Instead, I circled the atrium, using it like a round-about in the middle of a street, and then sprinted down a corridor that led south out of the building. The exit/entrance opened onto another interconnecting bridgeway high above the city streets.
“Princess, stop. This is fruitless.”
Ignoring him, I covered the hundred meter distance to the next building in a handful of seconds, and well under Olympic record time.
“Princess, she can track you!”
I was deep into the megascraper when Ghost’s words hit home. Their impact was like crashing through a wall, and I staggered and stumbled, before slowing down to a jog.
“…what did you…what did you say…?”
Like the other buildings I’d fled through, this one also had a giant atrium running through the middle, ringed by a balcony at each floor, and home to a dozen elevators that ran up and down the height of the building from within transparent tubes made of tinted permaglass.
Changing direction toward that atrium, my jog slowed to a harried walk. Seconds later, I arrived at the balcony guardrail and I grabbed onto the cold metal, using it to support myself lest I collapse onto my knees. While leaning on the railing, I swallowed with some difficulty, feeling as though icy hands had clamped around my throat, strangling me.
“…Ghost, what did you say? Tell me….”
Mirai had been sprinting for a minute now, and yet her heart beat to a calm, steady rhythm, in stark contrast to the severe anxiety I was experiencing that was causing her body to tremble and shake while I anxiously waited for an answer from Ghost.
“…tell me what you said…tell me, please….”
He must have understood what I was feeling because he sounded cautious. “Princess, I believe she can track you.”
“How…?” I whispered.
“I suspect there are tracking filaments embedded in your clothes.”
Understanding what he said, I inhaled a sharp, ragged breath, then squeezed my eyes shut.
I clung to the guardrail for such a long while, that eventually the cold metal warmed to my touch. It creaked when I clenched my fingers around it, while my body shivered as I rode out the storm inside me. With time and effort, I slowly brought my emotions under control, and then I slowly opened my eyes to look down at my clothes in contempt.
“Tracking filaments?” I murmured.
“I believe so, Princess.”
Resisting the urge to tear off my clothes off, I chose to straighten them instead.
I brushed away the soil and leaves that clung to them.
I untied my blouse so that it fell back down over my torso.
Then, I raked my fingers through Mirai’s long black hair, and briefly mulled tying it up into a ponytail, but for some reason that made me feel annoyed, so I left it flowing loosely down my back.
When I felt calmer, I took a couple of deep breaths, and then looked out into building’s open interior. The grandeur of the atrium that rose from the ground floor to the distant ceiling was lost on me as I continued to struggle against dark, lingering emotions that I recognized as frustration and despair.
“Princess….?”
Exhaling slowly, I had to swallow twice before I could trust my voice wouldn’t break when I used it again.
“Ghost, I’m only going to say this once so pay attention.”
“Aye, Princess.”
I nodded at his reply then endured a sudden, cold shiver that washed through my body, leaving me in a state of icy calm.
“Ghost, start talking and don’t you dare leave anything out.”
For those of you who are interested in reading the original 2017 release of "Gun Princess Royale" the books are still available for purchase via the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
The new "The Gun Princess Royale" will hopefully be release on Amazon Kindle as an eBook in August, 2023.
It all depends on what issues my editor friend finds with the story.
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.
Amidst the political maneuvering, while slowly reconciling his past as Ronin Kassius, Isabel faces a new threat from Tabitha Hexen who reveals her own agenda in wanting to fight Mirai in a Gun Princess Royale battle.
“Princess, before I proceed there is something I must ask.”
“I thought I was doing the asking.”
“Princess, please oblige me.”
“Fine. What’s the question?”
“Where did you see her?”
My gut twinged. “Where did I see her?”
“I was unable to establish a visual lock on her. In other words, I lost sight of her. Therefore, Princess, where was she?”
I exhaled loudly but slowly, giving myself time to choose my words carefully. “I saw her on the side of the building. She was standing on a ledge of some sort. I caught sight of her when I happened to look up.”
Though she was hiding behind a thermoptic camouflage field, her lifeforce aura gave her away. That was what caught my eye against the building’s bleak exterior façade moments before I ran into the megascraper.
Ghost was quiet for a long while before asking in a slow, troubled voice, “Princess, you…saw…her?”
At first, I scowled at the question but then stiffened sharply as I realized something so obvious that it stunned me.
Ghost couldn’t see everything that I could.
He was partly aware of my surroundings because he was tapped into Mirai’s senses, but he wasn’t able to see the life force aura surrounding people. It explained why he was surprised that I could see the woman standing on the side of the building, and why he was puzzled when I referred to my pursuer in the female pronoun.
“Princess?”
My thoughts circled fast like the ball bouncing on a roulette wheel, and when it stopped spinning, they landed on one question.
Should I tell him the truth?
“Princess, how did you—?”
No, bad idea.
“I saw her glider pack,” I blurted in a hurry. “I saw her camouflaged glider pack.”
Ghost was quiet…unnervingly quiet…so I decided to fill in the silence.
“There was light behind her on the ledge. Because of that I was able to see her ghostly glider pack. That’s how I knew it was her.” What I told him wasn’t entirely a lie which was why I took a chance to suggest, “Why don’t you replay my memories?”
“Princess?”
I smiled resentfully. “You can see what I see, hear what I hear, so why not replay my memories? Aren’t you recording everything I see and hear for posterity?”
Once again, Ghost was disconcertingly silent for a long while.
Come on. Don’t disappoint me, Ghost. I know you’re riding my senses. Take a look, see for yourself if I’m lying.
That was what this little exchange was about. It was about trust, and whether we were being honest with each other, so who would come out on top?
“Very well, Princess.”
His solemn response made my heartrate quicken as I waited with bated breath.
Would he confirm what I’d seen, or would he lie about it because truthfully, I didn’t know for certain if he could see through Mirai’s eyes. However, when he spoke again, Ghost sounded humbled.
“Aye, Princess. She was there all along. Your eyesight is truly remarkable.”
I slowly frowned, puzzled about how his words made me feel.
On one hand, I was relieved that he’d confirmed what I’d told him, but on the other hand, I felt somewhat violated knowing that he was in fact looking through my eyes, though he wasn’t able to see everything that Mirai could. Caught between the two emotions, I bowed my head and exhaled heavily as I leaned on the guardrail.
In the end, I guess it made me feel dirty, and it was hardly pleasant.
Raising my head, I stared across the open expanse of the atrium. “Okay, Ghost, your turn. Start talking.”
This time he was quiet for a short while before asking, “Princess, before I begin, please tell me what you intend to do?”
“Ghost, answering a question with a question is rude.”
“I acknowledge that. Nonetheless, please tell me what you intend to do.”
“About what?”
“Do you intend to continue running?”
I had the impression that wasn’t what he really meant to ask me, thus I found his beating-around-the-bush most annoying. However, at face value it was a fair question that he’d posed, so I took a page from his book and replied with one of my own.
“What’s the point of running if she can track me?”
“Indeed.”
“Indeed?” I sharply narrowed my eyes. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Spit it out before I get angry.”
“You may not want to hear what I have to say.”
I snorted loudly. “That’s for me to decide.”
“As you wish, Princess. Then allow me to come clean, so to speak.”
“About what?”
“I did not stop the maglev.”
I was confused at first, but when I caught his drift, my eyes grew wide open. “You didn’t?”
“No. I did not trigger the maglev’s emergency stop, nor did I accelerate its departure from the station in your time of need.”
I quickly reviewed both events in my mind.
Back when the maglev had rushed out of the station, I’d thanked the Goddess of Good Fortune for saving me. At least now I knew it wasn’t Ghost who’d been acting in her stead.
“Does this mean I’m blessed?” I wondered aloud. “Is the Goddess of Good Fortune really looking out for me?”
“Princess, I am not sure how to answer that.”
I shook my head and waved a hand. “Well, if it wasn’t the Goddess who saved me, then who did?”
“While I sincerely doubt a higher power was involved, it is nonetheless a very good question.”
But was I ready for the answer?
I considered Ghost’s earlier question regarding what I intended to do next, and ended up looking in the direction of the wide corridor leading northward out of the megascraper – the same corridor through which I’d entered the building a few minutes ago.
Staring hard at it, I asked myself a simple question with no simple answer.
Would she come after me? In other words, with her thermoptic camouflage, would my pursuer make her way into the building?
The only way I could see her would be if I spotted a lifeforce aura surrounding nothing but empty air. However, with numerous people coming and going into the building, and hundreds more ambling about on the various balconies encircling the atrium, it would be difficult for me to pick her out from the crowd because there were too many auras radiating from too many bodies. That worked in her favor, and she could hide herself from view while tracking me from a distance.
In short, I was at a disadvantage…or was I?
Would she make a move on me with so many people around? Would she risk sneaking up on me?
No, something in my gut told me that we’d moved onto the next stage, and the chase was now a game of wait-and-see, but was the next move mine to make or was it hers?
And then there was Ghost’s admission to consider.
“So, you have no idea who helped me out?”
“I have one or two suspects…none of whom are deities.”
I sneered at his jibe, then cocked my head slightly. “How about the Sanreals?”
“Possibly…though unlikely.”
“Then who? Who else do you suspect?” When he answered me with silence, I whispered harshly at him, “Ghost, tell me…now.”
“I would rather not say until I have collected more information.”
That wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear, and I exhaled in exasperation through clenched teeth.
If the Sanreals hadn’t lent me a helping hand, and it wasn’t Ghost or the Goddess, then who had? Were they friend or foe, in which case, had my running away from Erina exposed me to danger from them? Thus, was I at risk of falling into somebody else’s clutches?
“Damn it.” I growled under my breath. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
Looking down, I noticed I was clenching my hands.
I forced them open, and then shook them to relax my fingers.
However, the oppressive combination of despair and frustration in my chest was something I couldn’t dispel. It pressed upon my lungs, making it uncomfortable for me to breathe. Adding in all the uncertainty surrounding me, I felt as though the ground would swallow me up without warning.
In a panic, I looked away from the corridor, while simultaneously turning my back on the atrium that I now regarded as the proverbial abyss.
Struggling to calm down, I found myself facing the shops on this floor.
Many of Ar Telica’s megascrapers had retail outlets occupying their lower levels – say the first 10 to 15 floors out of a few hundred. This building was no different from them, and there were dozens of shops encircling the atrium on the level I was standing on, and almost all of them were still open for business, catering to the slow moving crowd of shoppers ambling by.
Standing directly opposite me and across the crowd was a ghostly girl.
At sight of her, my heart jumped in fright and a cold shiver raced through me.
It took me a few seconds to realize it was Mirai’s reflection in a shop window about a dozen meters away. It took a while longer for me to calm down, and when I’d sufficiently recovered, I walked away from the balcony railing, through the crowd, and over to the front of the store.
“Princess, where are you going?”
I ignored Ghost as I stopped before the windowpane, then quietly studied Mirai’s reflection. Unlike the VTOL’s cabin windows, the shopfront window clearly reflected her tousled state, and my chest filled with deepening regret the longer I stared at her battered appearance.
“What have I done…?” I whispered softly as I met Mirai’s eyes.
Not only had I taken her for granted, but I had also made her suffer because of my impulsive nature. It was true that she had presented a defensive posture to the Simulacra Sisters, and that had sent them the wrong message, but it was my loss of control that gave Pearson a reason to hit the panic button, and Mirai had suffered for it. Now with the distinct possibility that someone else was toying with me, I deeply regretted how I’d treated her.
There was a saying, “My body is my temple.”
I certainly hadn’t treated my temple very well.
To take the analogy further, Mirai wasn’t a car that I could drive around madly and then hand back. Granted, she was more of a tank, but that wasn’t an excuse to drive her through walls and expect her to come through without a scratch. That said, my shoulder felt healed and I doubted there was even a blemish on her belly after all the scorching it had received. Either way, in holding true to the analogy, Mirai wasn’t something – or someone – I could trade-in when I was done with her.
It forced me to admit a very bitter truth.
“Maybe, I could have done things differently….”
Overwhelmed with guilt and regret, I was unable to look her reflection in the eye, and so I turned away from Mirai and stood with my back to the windowpane.
I knew that by doing so I was shutting her out, but I simply couldn’t face her.
“Princess, are you all right…?”
I shook my head slowly. “No, no I’m not….”
Deep regret wrapped itself around my heart – regret at the toll my actions had inflicted on Mirai.
I sighed heavily and my breathing was shaky. “Ghost, did I make a mistake by running?”
“Perhaps, Princess, perhaps.”
I took another deep breath that I then slowly released as I regarded my surroundings.
If Ghost was to be believed, then I had many problems to contend with, however, the woman hunting me down was the most immediate of them.
“What do I do?” I whispered to myself. “What do I do if she comes after me?”
However, it was Ghost who replied, “The question, Princess, is whether you intend to continue running.”
I mulled it over, then decided, “I’ll stop running when they stop chasing me.”
“That will take some time to arrange. Indeed, I believe it best to allow your sister to handle that matter. I can lend her my support, but your actions are difficult to justify.”
I clicked my tongue at him. “You’re blaming me for this?”
“No, I blame Doctor Pearson. However, while she lit the fire, you gave her the fuel that turned a candle flame into a bonfire.”
“Thanks for your support,” I groused.
“I am simply saying it like it is,” he retorted.
I huffed loudly, then turned around to glance at Mirai’s reflection.
Again, the deep regret I felt pushed my other feelings aside.
I despised what Erina had done to me, but had I subconsciously vented out my feelings on Mirai because she was Erina’s creation?
Since waking up inside and in control of her, had I ever treated Mirai with care and respect?
What have I been doing all this time?
The answer was simple.
I had run her ragged from the get-go.
I had put her life on the line numerous times.
I had used her like she was someone else’s property…and someone else’s problem.
However, Mirai was an innocent just like I was, and while I had yet to accept her as me – or myself as her – I couldn’t continue treating her this way. I had to stop subjecting Mirai to the anger, resentment, and hatred that I felt toward Erina because Mirai wasn’t my punching bag.
My body is my temple, and Mirai is my temple.
Ghost intruded into my thoughts as I arrived at a painful, yet necessary understanding.
“Princess, I ask you again. Do you wish to continue running?”
The question made me shudder involuntarily, and I forced myself to meet Mirai’s eyes reflected in the permaglass window.
She had taken a beating, yet her gaze remained strong and unyielding.
I also believed that she understood how I felt, and that she was forgiving me, or at the very least, she was willing to give me another chance.
Honestly, I wasn’t ready to forgive myself for treating her – and thereby me – without regard, but I needed to make a change, and now was as good a time as any.
Taking a deep, quiet breath, I then released it loudly in a rush. “Ghost, I don’t plan on getting shot.”
“Then you intend to continue running?”
I wet my lips slowly. “Maybe….”
“Very well, Princess, then I suggest you change your clothes. I am now certain there are tracking filaments embedded into them. If you wish to improve your chances of eluding pursuit, then a change of clothes is in order.”
A slow frown spread across my forehead as I looked behind Mirai’s reflection at the mannequins inside the store modelling this summer’s fashion, and at the previews of the upcoming spring lineup displayed on rotating holovid billboards.
“Maybe,” I murmured again, feeling uneasy all of a sudden, and the longer I looked at the clothes on display, the more unsettled I became because changing clothes and running was beginning to feel like the wrong choice to make, but I wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.
Keeping my voice at a mere whisper, I gave the mannequins and holo-billboards a steady look. “Ghost, there’s a shop right in front of me, but I don’t have any money on me. I don’t even have my phone. So how can I get a change of clothes?”
“Princess, I have access to your accounts. I can quote to you the sixteen digit security code that will grant you access to a stipend from your trust fund.”
My frown deepened and so too did Mirai’s. “My trust fund?”
“Yes, the trust fund containing your three hundred and sixty million dorans.”
My thoughts shattered like a stained-glass window with a brick thrown through it, and my mind blanked out for a moment.
When I could think again, I was still at a loss.
Three hundred and sixty million dorans? THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY MILLION!
The things I could do with that money.
I could buy myself an island, or a starship, or an asteroid retreat somewhere in the Kempfer Belt at the edge of the solar system.
Wait—why would I want to buy myself a rock in the middle of nowhere?
Thinking the idea ludicrous, I didn’t notice Ghost was calling out to me. He sounded very far away, though gradually drawing nearer.
“…Princess…Princess…Teloria to the Princess. Anybody home?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “Ghost, I can hear you. I just need a moment.”
“Princess, a moment is something you do not have.”
Opening my eyes, I drawled out, “Fine. I get it. But if I use that money, won’t they know that I’ve accessed the account?”
“Indeed, they will. Therefore, I have another suggestion.”
I grimaced in anticipation before muttering, “I’m all ears.”
“The charity donation bins.”
I might have been wrong, but Ghost sounded a tad cheerful when he said that. However, I paid it little mind. Instead, what forcefully grabbed my attention was suddenly realizing what I’d failed to pin down earlier – that changing clothes was a bad idea.
I shook my head slowly. “I can’t do that.”
“You will not raid the charity donation bins?”
“No, Ghost. I mean changing clothes. I won’t do it.”
Ghost paused before guardedly asking, “Why not, Princess?”
“Because it’s a bad idea.” I crossed my arms slowly. “If I change clothes, the Sanreals won’t send just one person after me. They’ll send an army. And I can’t run from an army.”
It would also escalate my already dire situation into a really, really bad one.
However, there was another option to choose from – one I’d been subconsciously considering ever since I lamented putting Mirai through the wringer.
It was the unpleasant notion of reaching a compromise.
I exhaled slowly, suddenly fatigued as I made a most difficult decision.
“Ghost, I want to talk Erina.”
I chose not to change clothes – at least for now – since doing so would impact on my negotiations with Erina.
Instead, I decided to purchase a phone.
Courtesy of Mirai’s wetware, I knew the local time was 1:30 in the morning. However, since Ar Telica and its sister cities never slept, almost every retail outlet in the building was open for business until 3:00 am. Considering the sheer number of stores, there had to be one that sold photronic equipment such as phones.
But first, I needed money.
Following Ghost’s directions, I took an elevator down to the ground floor of the megascraper’s atrium shopping mall. From there, I headed to a bank outlet. The bank was closed for business, but the teller machine wasn’t.
Ghost’s instructions allowed me to access my trust fund account. That required entering my sixteen digit PIN, answering a few security questions, granting the machine permission to scan my features, and then signing my name on the console as a last ditch measure to prove my identity as Isabel val Sanreal.
Once completed, I had access to Isabel’s monthly allowance: ten thousand dorans.
That was more money than most people earned in a month.
I can’t say I didn’t salivate a little at the thought of what I could spend it on.
However, I mentioned that the Sanreals were being stingy with Isabel’s money. Ghost countered by declaring that I needed to demonstrate I could be responsible with her money. For that matter, he questioned why I would want a larger monthly allowance, but I told him I’d give him an answer when the need arose for more than 10,000 dorans a month.
In the end, I transferred half that amount onto a cash card. Once I had a phone, I would install the app into it that would allow me to make purchases with it, but for now, the cash card would do. Also, it couldn’t be blocked by the Sanreals. It was just like paying with soft plastic money in the old days. Thus, even if they noticed the transfer of Isabel’s money, the Sanreals couldn’t stop me from using what I had on the cash card.
Then I was off to buy a much needed phone.
It may sound strange that despite all the advancements in tech made since the first cell phone hit the market in the late 20th century, it was still as popular as ever. There have been cyber implants since the mid 21st century, but they were troublesome and costly if they had to be replaced or upgraded on a regular basis. And some people weren’t cut-out for them, suffering from immune system rejection issues. Naturally, those issues have attracted lawsuits, court cases, and a lot of finger pointing as to who is responsible for them.
Wetware aside, even though other comm devices got smaller and more powerful, and augmented reality enhanced how people stayed connected with each other, the humble handheld cell phone had nonetheless endured for almost three centuries. I guess there was something about having the device in hand, holding it up to your ear, and not looking like you were having a conversation with an invisible friend that only existed in your head.
I followed Ghost’s directions and travelled to a store on the twelfth floor that sold a vast variety of photronic equipment. That meant everything from home appliances to personal items like cell phones. I was attended to by a middle-aged lady with a somewhat languid disposition that suited me fine because she didn’t ask any questions regarding my shabby appearance.
The problem was Ghost.
He prattled on and on about which phone I should buy.
Eventually I grew furious, hissed at him to shut up, and then picked out a snazzy flip-top simply because he’d been telling me to avoid their kind. That said, I happened to like the design, so I felt comfortable with my selection.
The next issue was the service plan. Since I lacked ID, the best I could do was purchase a disposable SIM card that would allow me to make a few hundred calls before it ran out.
Naturally, I paid for both using the cash card.
With my priority purchases completed, I rode the escalators up another handful of levels to a floor with cafés and restaurants. Choosing a trendy establishment with balcony seating, I went inside to order a ham and cheese croissant sandwich and a light, lemon soda. My selection did furrow the brow of the sales lady serving behind the tall display counter that was brimming with a delicious range of cakes and pastries that made my stomach rumble. In the end, I added a crème brulee to the order, and oddly that seemed to appease her.
Taking a seat at an empty table out on the balcony facing the atrium, I proceeded to activate my phone while I waited for my order to be delivered. I had the phone up and running a few minutes later, by which time a young waitress brought my food to the table.
The first contact I added to the phone was Erina’s number.
Ghost quoted her phone number to me, and I saved it away under the name, BITCH.
Needless to say, he wasn’t impressed though he did understand why I chose that label for her. However, what puzzled him was that I then chose to dig into my sandwich rather than make the call to Erina.
I washed down a mouthful of the croissant with a healthy swig from the soda bottle. “I refuse to speak to that bitch on an empty stomach.”
Ghost sighed despondently. “Princess, are you implying you would lose your appetite?”
I paused with the croissant halfway to my mouth. “That’s a good question.” I then shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”
Wolfing down the remainder of the sandwich, I then gulped down the lemon soda, wiped my lips with the back of my hand, then sat back and patted my belly.
“Princess, please use a napkin.”
“Argh—you are so annoying,” I grumbled as I plucked a napkin from the dispenser on the table. Wiping my mouth dry, I sat back again and stared across the atrium at the various floors I could see.
“Princess?”
I swallowed heavily, forcing down the burp I could feel working its way up my chest.
“Princess?”
“What?” I grumbled at him.
“Are you going to make that call?”
“What’s the rush?” I retorted. “If they know I’m here, then so be it.” I drank down some more soda. “Let them stew for a while.”
Ghost fell into what I presumed was a contemplative silence, but it didn’t last for long. “Princess, are you planning on talking to your sister—”
“Former sister,” I corrected him.
“—or are you planning to draw her in.”
I hesitated for a handful of heartbeats before asking, “Draw who in?”
“The woman hunting you.”
The corners of my lips curled into a sly smile. “The thought had crossed my mind.”
I had toyed with the notion of waiting her out.
Was she waiting outside the building? If so, how long before she got tired of standing on a ledge and came inside to look for me? Or was she the kind to follow orders down to the letter? For example, if her superiors told her to stay outside all morning, would she do it?
It made me wonder what kind of person she was.
“Ghost, do you know who she is?”
“Princess?”
“The woman following me—the one who chased me across the rooftop. Do you know who she is?”
Ghost sounded surprisingly hesitant when he replied, “Since you insist that she is a woman, I have narrowed the list of suspects down to a handful of candidates.”
“Really? Wow, you work fast.”
“But of course I do, Princess.”
“So, is she someone I know?”
Again, there was a telling pause from Ghost before he replied, “Well, perhaps….”
I arched an eyebrow. “Who is she?”
“I will tell after you make the call to Doctor Kassius.”
I slammed the soda bottle onto the table. “Ghost, who is she?”
“No dice, Princess. My lips are sealed until then.”
“Ghost,” I growled.
However, there was no reply.
Bastard, I cursed him inwardly as my gaze fell on the flip-top phone lying on the table.
“Better keep your word,” I warned him as I picked it up, “or there’s going to be Hell to pay.”
Flipping the phone open, I hesitated for a handful of seconds before calling Erina’s number.
She answered it promptly with a brusque demand.
“Who is this? How did you get this number?”
It was so like Erina to answer an unknown caller that way, but hearing her voice made me suffer a reflux of contempt that burned my throat.
I had to swallow twice before I could muster a suitable reply.
“Guess who, bitch.”
There was a lengthy pause before Erina anxiously asked, “Isabel?”
“That’s a hole-in-one. Give the—”
“Princess,” Ghost warned me sharply. “Negotiate. N. E. G. O. T. I. A. T. E.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and reconsidered my choice words. “Give the woman a cigar.”
Another heavy pause followed before Erina asked, “Where are you?”
“You already know where I am. My clothes are bugged. I bet you’re watching me on a holovid map of the city right now.”
For a third time, Erina was silent for a long while before bluntly demanding, “Isabel, we need to talk.”
I nodded at an imaginary image of the accursed woman, then quickly tossed it out of my head. The phone did have a holovid call feature. But truthfully, looking at Erina’s face right now – even an imaginary version of her – was likely to set me off like a freak accident in a fireworks factory. I needed all my faculties operating at Grandmaster level when facing an Alpha of her caliber. Yet, the desire to throw knives at her was strong – very, very strong – so much so that I needed several seconds to gain a firm grip on my emotions.
When satisfied that I wasn’t going to lose it, I replied in agreement with Erina.
“Yep, we need to talk. That’s why I spent a thousand dorans of Isabel’s money on this fancy new phone. Oh, I chose a flip-top. Remember when I wanted a phone and I picked out a flip-top. But you told me only girls use those. Well, guess what? I’m a girl now!”
I felt like flipping her the bird, but instead pumped a fist in the air.
Erina exhaled loud enough for me to understand she was annoyed. Then again, when was she ever happy with me?
“Congratulations. I won’t ask how you gained access to your money. Was it Revenant?”
“You just said you weren’t going to ask.”
“Isabel, come home.”
I sneered weakly. “I’m surprised you didn’t demand that right off the bat.”
“Come home. It’s for your own good.”
I shook my head. “No, not yet.”
“Does that mean you will come home?”
“In due time.”
“Isabel—”
“Erina, I need some time alone.”
My declaration was met with stony silence that lasted at least half a minute before I heard from her again.
“I can’t authorize that.”
My eyes widened, then narrowed quickly into thin slits as I realized my suspicions were on the money. Somebody was either undermining her authority or pulling rank on her. This presented a distinct problem that I needed to approach cautiously.
“Then who can?” I asked her in a clipped tone. “Who can give me permission?”
The sound of her breathing was all I could hear on the line for a handful of seconds. “Isabel, the situation is complicated—”
“You mean because somebody helped me out and you don’t know who it is? Is that what you mean by complicated?”
I could picture Erina narrowing her eyes at me.
“Isabel, tell me one thing. Are you in contact with Revenant?”
I pursed my lips for a second, puzzled as to why she was asking. “Yeah, Ghost is with me. He’s been a big help keeping me safe.”
“I see….”
I sat forward in the chair and rested an elbow on the table. “Don’t you know that already?”
“Revenant has been less than cooperative with us. Getting in touch with him has proven fruitless.”
My eyes widened in surprise.
Ghost wasn’t playing ball with them? Why not?
The question made me frown.
For that matter, why haven’t they pulled they plug on him or yanked him back in line? Just what kind of authority does Ghost have?
A cold, shiver trickled slowly down my back.
Could it be…they’re afraid of him?
I wet my lips slowly. “Erina, as I said already Ghost has been keeping me safe. I’m not lying to you. He’s been…invaluable.” I paused before stressing, “Don’t you dare take him away from me.”
“I have no intention of doing so.”
She sounded distinctly annoyed, so I decided not to press her further on that matter. Instead, I changed tracks on her.
“Erina, do you know who interfered with the chase? Who stopped the maglev?”
“We’re still looking into that, which is why I would prefer that you return to the apartment.”
I swallowed quietly while in thought. “Can I be spirited away like last time?”
“Spirited away?”
“Translocated. Can that be done to me like it was”—my voice caught for a moment—“like it was done to Ronin?”
“No, not without a beacon to establish a point-to-point translocation.”
“Like the one you have in my clothes?” I sniped unhappily.
“Absolutely not. It’s simply not powerful enough to act as a beacon for the translocator. The output required is a hundred fold what the tracer can provide.”
That genuinely puzzled me. “Then how was Ronin zapped from place to place. I don’t remember ever having had a beacon on me.”
“The beacon was installed into the light-guns you were using.”
That was surprising to hear. “Really? The guns gave me away?”
“I don’t have time to make things up, Isabel.”
I huffed loudly. “Fine. I get it. So unless I’ve got a sizeable beacon on me, I can’t be spirited away.”
“Why do you insist on calling it that?”
“What—you have a problem with my terminology?”
Ghost whispered into my ear. “Princess, calm down.”
“Shut up,” I snapped at him.
“Did you tell me to shut up?” Erina demanded tersely.
“No, not you,” I replied to her. “Just tell me. How close do I have to be within the range of the beacon to be zapped from place to place?”
“At least within six feet.”
“Is there any way for me to know if a beacon is active around me?”
Instead of Erina, Ghost answered my question. “Princess, the wetware inside your head should be sensitive to the translocation field. You should be able to sense its presence as it manifests.”
I quickly muted the call so Erina couldn’t hear me ask, “Are you talking about that nauseous feeling I get in my gut?”
I had the impression Ghost was shaking his head at me. “No. The wetware should be able to detect the beacon’s signal.”
I thought back to the occasion when I was transported from the island known as the Training Grounds to the desert location where I encountered the Gun Queen of Ar Telica. “Ghost, I don’t remember feeling anything back when I was first yanked from the island to the desert.”
“That’s because that feature was turned off.”
I closed my eyes slowly. “Ghost.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“After this, you and I need to have a long talk.”
“Regarding?”
“Regarding all my hidden features.” I opened my eyes. “Am I making myself clear?”
“Perfectly, Princess.”
“Good.” I unmuted the call. “Erina, are you still there?”
“Where the Hell did you go?”
“Relax. I was having a private conversation with Ghost.”
I listened to her exhale loudly. “Isabel, listen to me. For your own good, please return to the apartment.”
“Or what? You’ll have that bitch chase me down?”
“Isabel—”
“Erina, I told you before. I need some time alone. Okay? I just need to get away from you. Right now, I can’t stand the thought of being anywhere near you. You get me?”
The phone’s audio quality had amazing clarity, because again I could hear her frustrated breathing on the open line.
“Isabel, I am trying to protect you.”
“What?” I glared at the phone for a moment before bringing it back up to my ear. “Did you say protect me?”
“Yes, Isabel.”
Someone how I managed to keep my anger in check, but it sure as Hell wasn’t easy. “Erina, you’ve got a frekked up way of going about it.”
“Isabel, until we know who interfered—”
“You mean saved my ass!”
“—you need to return to the apartment. I’m telling you this for your own safety.”
I started shaking my head but quickly stopped. “Erina, you’ve got that crazy woman shooting electro-flechettes at me and chasing me across the skyline. In my book, that’s not safe.”
I heard something that sounded very much like an exasperated huff. “I understand. That situation was out of my hands.”
I cocked my head. “Are you telling me you’re back in control?”
“That will depend on you.”
“Why?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“Yes, please do!”
“Then I’ll make this simple. If you continue to misbehave, someone else will deal with you. When that happens, your fate will be out of my hands. Is that clear enough for you?”
Yes, it was.
However, I was angry and needed a few moments to keep a lid on it before I risked giving her an answer.
Sitting back in the chair, I stared across the expanse of the atrium, then counted shops at random for a short while, hoping it would help me calm down.
“Isabel?”
I sucked in a lungful of air, then released it slowly.
It was time to do some proper negotiating.
“Erina, I just need some time, okay? I need some time alone. I’m not going to run away. I can’t run away. I mean, where the Hell would I go?”
I was growing accustomed to the lengthy quiet that preceded her replies, but I can’t say I didn’t find it annoying.
“All right, but you’ll need to make some concessions.”
Frankly, I was a mildly astounded that she had agreed, and I needed a moment to regain my mental footing. “I’m listening.”
“First. Tell Revenant that he is to reestablish communications with us. No more ignoring our calls. Is that clear?”
I moved the phone away from my head, then whispered to Ghost, “Did you hear that?”
“Aye, Princess.”
I spoke back to Erina. “He got the message.”
“Second. Make no attempt to change your clothes.”
I grimaced as I glanced down at myself. “But they’re not looking too good. I could get arrested for public indecency.”
“Isabel, it’s not up for debate.”
I snorted unhappily. “Fine. I won’t change my clothes. But if I get arrested for public indecency it’s your fault.”
“Thirdly. If there is any trouble, you will contact us immediately. That applies to Revenant as well.”
“Couldn’t he just summon my Sarcophagus?”
“Isabel, I don’t want you running around the city in your Princess Regalia.”
I rolled my eyes. “…fine…I get it, I get it….”
“Fourth. I can give you until morning.”
“It’s already morning,” I pointed out.
“Mid-morning. I can give you until mid-morning. You have until then.”
“What about that trigger-happy chick following me?”
“She’ll still be following you. Or do you have a problem with that?”
I leaned back, surprised by Erina’s admission. Whether voluntary or not, she’d just confirmed that it was a woman who’d chased me across the skyline and onto the train. I then wondered why the most troublesome people in my life were women?
Am I cursed by the opposite sex?
Realizing what I’d just asked myself, I palmed my face.
What am I talking about? Now, I’m the opposite sex!
In any case, Ghost had undoubtedly heard Erina as well, and I was certain he’d wonder how I knew that my hunter had been a woman. However, I was a little worried because the issue seemed more like a can of worms that I’d failed to shut when it first came up.
What do I tell him if he asks me again?
I sighed slowly, then took a deep breath to steady myself.
Worry about that later.
After another slow sigh, and another deep breath, I turned my attention back to Erina. “If you piss me off, I’m hanging up. How does that sound?”
“Then do you want to be dragged back in?”
“Just try it,” I scoffed at her, then slyly added, “or maybe I’ll get in touch with whoever saved my butt. Maybe they’re open to negotiations. At least they’re not shooting electro-flechettes at me!”
Noticing my loud voice had garnered some passing looks from the people walking by, I played it cool and sipped from the soda bottle. Then I spotted the untouched crème brulee on the table and started reaching for it.
“Isabel, do you know how dangerous that could be? Are you forgetting who and what you are?”
I stopped reaching for the cup of crème brulee and gave Erina’s remark some thought. “Okay, you have a point. But aren’t you curious to know who stepped in and offered me a helping hand?”
“I’d rather you were not so curious. If you go looking for trouble, you will find it.”
I sat back in the chair. “Yah, yah. So says the woman who made me the way I am.”
“Isabel, I am being serious here.”
Irritation flashed through me. “How about I prove to you that I can take care of myself?”
That came out a little harsher than expected, but I couldn’t help it.
I waited for Erina’s retort…while eyeing my crème brulee.
“Very well…you have until mid-morning. But don’t make any attempts to contact whoever they are. Is that clear? If you do, I won’t be able to protect you.”
I broke into a slow frown.
Who is she protecting me from?
I had the oddest impression it wasn’t from whoever had helped me out but from someone else.
Could it be the Sanreals?
Ghost interjected cautiously, “Princess, may I suggest that you ‘give a little ground’ as they say?”
I felt like sneering at him, but he’d reminded me of the reason I’d made the call in the first place which was to negotiate for some breathing room.
After a deep breath, I spoke to Erina. “Fine. I agree to your terms. Anything else?”
“Yes, tell Revenant to stop acting in his own interests.”
Ghost sounded faintly indignant. “I do resent her insinuation….”
Rolling my eyes, I grimaced sourly at Erina’s image in my head. “Yeah, whatever. You can tell him yourself. I’m not playing messenger anymore.” I felt an overwhelming urge to hang up on her. “If there’s nothing else, then we’re done here.”
“Don’t forget your promise—”
“I haven’t promised you anything,” I snapped back at her, then ended the call by abruptly flipping the phone shut.
I almost tossed it onto the table but held myself back by the skin of my teeth. It was a new phone after all, and I’d bought it with Isabel’s money, so mistreating it was a No-No. Thus, I placed it carefully into a pant pocket for safekeeping.
“Now what…?” I mumbled to myself.
“Princess, perhaps you should have been a little more agreeable with her.”
I scowled unhappily at Ghost’s criticism and then reached out for the crème brulee on the table. Picking up the spoon that came with it, I began scooping generous portions into my mouth. When I’d consumed around half of the cup’s contents, I paused and gave the atrium a glum look.
Most, if not all the shops, would close down at 3:00 am, so I had more than an hour to kill if I wanted to stay here. However, I wasn’t in the mood for remaining put, and yet I was also reluctant to head out. After my unpleasant conversation with Erina, I strongly suspected – no, I truly believed – that the woman who’d been hunting me was in the area. Even if the hunt had been suspended, I was certain she was loitering to keep an eye on me, and the notion of having her watching me from on high like a vulture grated on my nerves.
But what was I to do?
I could try giving her the slip by changing clothes, then dropping them off in an auto-cab. I could send the cab in one direction while I fled the other way. It was a classic action holo-vid maneuver that was likely to land me in hot water.
Why you may ask?
Because I was akin to a dog tied to a very long leash. If I pulled on it too hard, someone on the other end was likely to give it a very hard yank, and that was something I wanted to avoid. Yet the unfairness of my situation made me seethe inwardly until it suddenly wore me out. Exhausted, I pushed aside the half empty cup of crème brulee, planted both elbows on the table, and then dropped my head onto my hands.
“…this sucks….”
I felt like a convict who’d been given time off for good behavior but was expected back in jail by mid-morning.
“…urgh….”
Grumbling in my throat, I slumped forward onto the table, but Mirai’s breasts acted like big cushions beneath me.
“…damn it….”
Feeling uncomfortable, I lifted my head off the table.
Mirai’s long black hair veiled my face, and I had to look through it at my surroundings.
A clothing shop situated across the atrium snagged my attention. Located a level below me, it was open for business, and it had a thin stream of customers walking through its entrance.
Tossing back Mirai’s hair away from my face, I took a better look at the shop.
Judging by the holo-mannequins on display, it appeared to retail sporting outfits for women.
“Well, well, well,” I muttered thoughtfully to myself.
“Princess, is there something on your mid?” Ghost inquired a tad cautiously.
I snorted at the question. “Don’t you mean something on my chest?”
“…Princess?”
I slowly sat upright.
Let’s see how long my leash is.
After downing the remaining soda in the bottle, I capped it, then plonked the empty container onto the table with renewed spirits.
“Ghost, I’m going for a walk.”
“Where to, Princess?”
I grinned faintly at the hint of worry in his voice. “I wanna see the city.”
And I want to see if she’ll take the bait.
Ghost sounded a smitch perplexed. “You wish to see Ar Telica?”
The grin on my face widened as I gently nodded. “Yeah, I wanna see the city through Mirai’s eyes.” Pushing the chair back, I stood up, then stretched my body. “And I know just where to go….”
“Princess, you have somewhere in mind?”
“Indeed, I do, Ghost. Indeed, I do.”
“Might I inquire where that would be?”
“Ar Telica Tower.” I worked my shoulders, then arched my back a little. “Tallest spot in the city.”
“Is that so…?”
When I finished stretching, I stood arms akimbo and stared grimly at the clothing shop that had caught my eye. “But first…I’m buying a sports bra.”
“Ahem.” Ghost coughed politely. “Princess, are you not forgetting something of grave importance?”
“Nope. Buying a sports bra is a grave importance.”
“Princess, I am being serious here.”
I was growing weary of him pestering me. “Ghost, so am I.”
“Princess, I am talking about the curfew!”
I jerked sharply then grew very still. “…the curfew…?”
As though all my strings had been cut, I slumped down in the chair and stared vacantly at the floor.
“Frek…I forgot about that.”
Ar Telica had a 10:30 pm curfew for teenagers.
To clarify, the system applied to underaged citizens, namely those that had yet to turn eighteen. I vaguely recalled that Isabel val Sanreal was sixteen years old, so if I was stopped by the authorities then I was proverbially screwed. There was one proviso, and it involved being in the company of an individual recognized by the city-state as an adult.
In other words, I needed a chaperone.
“This really does suck,” I morosely complained.
When I thought it about it calmly, it was surprising that I’d made it this far without being detained by the authorities. I’d run through two megascrapers and into a third within which I’d spent the better part of an hour. I’d walked past dozens of cameras, made purchases, and sat at a café to eat a light meal in full view of the people strolling by. Yet no one had reported me, and not one city-state Enforcer had lumbered up to arrest me.
How could this be?
I could understand the people not giving a crap about an underage girl like me, but surely the surveillance cameras would have no qualms about dobbing me in.
As a matter of fact, I was sitting right under a camera disguised as a domed light fixture just above the entrance to the café.
I was giving it a glum look when I heard Ghost sigh loudly in disappointment, undoubtedly directed at me.
“Princess, Princess. What are we going to do with you?”
I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s a good question….”
This was met by another sigh from him, but true to form, he recovered his poise rather quickly.
“Princess, if you are intent on embarking across the city, then you will need—”
“A chaperone,” I finished for him. “I know, I know….”
“And here she is,” Ghost finished smoothly.
“Huh?” I heard the words, but they didn’t sink in until seconds later. “What? Where—ah!”
Ghost materialized abruptly beside the table, startling me.
His appearance was the same as it had been when he dragged me into that virtual representation of the arcade plaza.
“Look over there,” he suggested and pointed with a finger off into the distance.
I glared at him for surprising me, but then turned to look at where he was pointing.
On a balcony across the atrium stood a young woman with bluish-black hair tied back into a long ponytail. At sight of her, Mirai’s chest tightened anxiously and a faint shiver raced through her body. Then the unsettling sense of déjà vu returned, making the hairs on my nape tingle.
“What is she doing here?” I asked in a low voice.
“Princess, she is your escort.”
As though that was her cue, the young woman began circling the atrium toward me.
I swallowed hard. “Ghost, if this is your idea of a joke—”
“I assure you, Princess, this is not an attempt at humor.”
“Then tell me you didn’t pick her as my escort.”
“I did not pick her as your escort.”
As I watched her walk closer, various doubts, fears, and suspicions pulled my thoughts and feelings in different directions.
I was faced with the question of fight or flight, or simply hold my ground.
In the end, I chose the latter.
Sitting with my legs crossed, I radiated the aura of a Queen Bee while waiting for the woman who’d treated Erina with veiled disdain, and who had such an unsettling effect on Mirai, to arrive. She stopped a few feet away, then quickly studied me from head to toes. I noticed her gaze lingered on Mirai’s dark hair and it made me wonder how much she knew about me. I also wanted to ask Ghost if he knew who she was, but that would have to wait for later.
For now, I studied her as closely as she’d studied me.
Her outfit was the same as when I first saw her, and that meant dark grey pants and shirt, and a black bomber jacket. She seemed a little taller than Mirai, but I couldn’t be certain unless we stood barefoot and nose to nose.
The prolonged silence between us grew heavy until she broke it. Her tone was civil and perfunctory, with none of the contempt she’d expressed toward Erina.
“You must be Isabel. I failed to introduce myself earlier. My name is Renew. Raine Renew.”
I slipped into my Queen Bee role. “Why are you here?”
“To escort you,” she replied without a hint of hesitation.
I arched an eyebrow at her. “Escort me?”
“I was informed that you intend to see Ar Telica. This is your first time here, is it not.”
She made it sound like a statement of fact, but I chose to treat it like a question.
“That’s right,” I replied, then casually shrugged. “First time in a big city.”
Renew acknowledged that with a short pause. “Since you’re new here, you may not know that Ar Telica has strict curfew laws for minors.”
“I may have read about that in a brochure,” I wisecracked.
Again, Renew paused. “As a minor, you are in breach of those curfew regulations unless you are in the company of a registered adult. Hence, I was assigned to accompany you while you tour the city.”
I snorted ever so softly. “And you just happened to be in the area.”
“Correct.”
I smiled bitterly. “I’ll bet you were.”
Renew ignored my jibe and half turned to gesture off into the distance. “Shall we?”
I folded my arms with deliberate care. “What if I choose not to?”
“You are still a minor that requires supervision,” she explained.
“But it was agreed that I was to be left alone until mid-morning.”
Renew turned toward me. “Your family instructed me to ensure that you are not arrested.”
“My family?” Puzzled, I cocked my head slightly. “You mean Erina?”
I could have been wrong, but I thought I saw a smirk grace Renew’s lips for heartbeat.
“My orders come from the Sanreal Family,” she answered. “To be specific, they come from your older brother, Simon Sanreal.”
I recalled the name. He was Clarisol’s older brother who oversaw the Sanreal Family’s interests in my universe. Obviously, I was one of those interests, and it seemed he had a hand in this encounter.
Ghost chose that moment to smoothly butt in. “Princess, you did say you wanted to see the city from the Tower.”
That was true but the city-state curfew and the arrival of this woman complicated the situation.
Ah, damn it! Damn it! I’ve lived in this city my whole life. How could I forget the damn curfew? And damn Erina for not reminding me about it!
Ghost sidled up to me. “Princess, there is no harm done in accepting her assistance.”
I glanced away and shook my head ever so faintly because I couldn’t bring myself to agree with him.
I felt the price was too high.
If I accepted Renew’s help, I would be indebted to the Sanreals, and that was something I wanted to avoid for as long as possible. Yet by being difficult, I wasn’t making the situation easier on myself either. In fact, I’d left myself with little choice in the matter, yet I stubbornly refused to give in.
When I looked up, I found myself staring at Renew’s lifeforce aura.
It was calm and collected, much like her appearance, but I noticed something that made my gut clench.
What the—?
“Have you made your decision?” Renew asked while standing so still she put the Cat Princess to shame.
I didn’t reply
Instead, I continued carefully studying the undulating waves of her aura with mounting unease.
Is it her? I asked myself.
Yet subconsciously I knew the answer to that question, and so too did Mirai because she was suddenly on her feet. She moved so quickly it must have surprised Renew because she shifted her stance into a wary posture.
I was reminded of what happened back at Erina’s apartment when Mirai presented a strong front to the Simulacra Sisters.
Fearing a repeat, I felt as though I was poised on a knife edge.
One wrong move and things could go south for me in a heartbeat.
Damn it! This is not what I wanted!
I needed to restrain Mirai’s tendency to face fire with fire, and I needed to throw Renew off. Thankfully, she was waiting for me to make the first move.
Tightening my grip on Mirai’s emotions and mine, I swallowed to clear my throat, and then sullenly remarked, “It’s no fun being chaperoned.”
Renew’s eyes narrowed for the first time since arriving before me. “I assure you, Lady Isabel, you won’t even know I’m there.”
Hearing her say that almost made me laugh.
Oh, I’ll know you’re there. Trust me on that.
Beside me, Ghost was giving me a look that practically yelled ‘What are you doing?’
I spared him a glance as if to say, ‘I know, I know. Give me a moment.’
Then, with a low, deep breath, I was able to visibly relax my stance.
As I’d thought, Renew was sticking to a wait-and-see approach, and she soon followed suit though she continued watching me alertly.
Feeling as though I’d survived a near-miss, I breathed a tad easier.
As for Ghost, the relief he expressed was quickly marred by confusion.
I wondered if I should tell him of what I suspected, then decided it was something for later when Renew wasn’t around.
For now, I met her eyes with a dash of fire in mine. “For the record, I don’t trust you.”
Renew nodded subtly. “Understood. What is your decision?”
Her rather mechanical response stirred up the dark, mixed feelings swimming in my chest.
After everything that had happened, I found it irritating that she could maintain such a calm, business-like disposition. It also made her difficult for me to handle because she wasn’t like Erina. In other words, I couldn’t push her buttons because she didn’t seem to have any, and that made me wonder if she treated me this way because I didn’t matter to her? Could it be that unlike Erina, Straus, and Clarisol, this woman had no self-serving interest in me?
In other words, she was given an assignment and I was merely a part of it.
Surprisingly, being treated this way was both refreshing and disappointing. It also clarified that treating Renew like I treated Erina wasn’t going to yield the same results, and there was something else to consider. Renew was like an unsheathed knife – a naked blade who wouldn’t hesitate to cut me if ordered to do so – and she wasn’t taking orders from Erina, but from Simon Sanreal and that made her dangerous. After all, she’d demonstrate a distinct lack of restraint when shooting flechettes at me.
Inhaling deeply, I remembered Straus asking me when I would stop lashing out at the world. To that end, I’d made a start by negotiating with Erina, albeit not face to face since I couldn’t tolerate even a glimpse of her arrogant mug.
However, this wasn’t a negotiation.
It was a Take-It or Leave-It offer that Renew had handed me…undoubtedly from her superiors.
I could either see the city with her assistance or run the risk of being arrested. If I declined her offer, how far could I rely on Ghost to interfere with the city’s surveillance grid? And wasn’t I depending on him too much? Sooner or later, I would attract the attention of the authorities and when that happened would I run from them as well?
The end justifies the means, doesn’t it?
That more-or-less summed up Erina’s mantra on how she approached everything that had to do with Mirai, and it was why I had such a bitter taste in my mouth when I gave Renew my answer.
“Fine. We’ll do this your way.”
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
For those of you who are interested in reading the original 2017 release of "Gun Princess Royale" the books are still available for purchase via the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
The new "The Gun Princess Royale" will hopefully be release on Amazon Kindle as an eBook in 2023.
It all depends on what issues my editor friend finds with the story.
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.
Amidst the political maneuvering, while slowly reconciling his past as Ronin Kassius, Isabel faces a new threat from Tabitha Hexen who reveals her own agenda in wanting to fight Mirai in a Gun Princess Royale battle.
Ar Telica and its sister city-states never slept, but that didn’t mean they didn’t wind down a little during the dark side of the morning.
From 3:00 am onwards, the majority of the shops and outlets closed their doors for a few hours. Thus, there was always a mad rush to squeeze in as much activity as possible – whether senseless or not – before the city slipped into a light, fitful slumber as the new day headed inexorably toward the dawn. Because of this, a cluttered, strung out, multicolored, multicultural collection of bodies either surged or trickled over the sidewalks, plazas, and boulevards, moving from megascraper to megascraper, or dove into venues deep below the towering cityscape looking to eke out one more bit of fun before briefly retiring.
Ar Telica’s architecture possessed more than just tall buildings.
Elevated plazas, bridgeways, and promenades crisscrossed at various elevations high above the city streets, forming a misshapen lattice canopy between a forest of towering buildings, while the streets far below teemed with vehicular traffic, hemmed in by sidewalks burdened with throngs of people both braving and relishing the night life.
Mirai had chosen to remain in a powered-up state, so all my senses were hyperaware to a frightening degree. Because of this, as I walked along a bridgeway a hundred feet above an eight-lane street, I surveyed Ar Telica with the embarrassing disposition of a newborn, and in a sense that is what Mirai was. She had taken her first steps into the world and straight into battle. But now she was immersed in a different kind of world – an environment of bright lights, myriad sounds, and sky-scraping architecture that was swarming with people, not Zombie Simulacra.
However, before she and I embarked upon this journey to Ar Telica Tower, I made three important purchases.
After all, as Miguel de Cervantes said, ‘to be prepared is half the victory’.
I wonder, what’s the other half?
Regardless, I had made the decision that I wasn’t going to head out unless I was indeed prepared.
The first and most embarrassing purchase was a sports bra for Mirai’s fulsome bosom. I swallowed my pride, walked into a shop selling lingerie, and then asked the store assistant for help. The young lady who attended to me proved to be most helpful, and quite understanding of my needs since she herself sported a rather full bust. Her choice proved to be impeccable, and I walked out of the shop feeling like a girl reborn…although that in itself is rather dispiriting since I’m not entirely a girl.
The body? Yes.
The mind? No.
The second purchase was a hairband. I had chosen to leave Mirai’s long, raven hair flowing loosely down my back, but the hairband was to keep her bangs away from my face. In case I found myself running for dear life, I tested the hairband – and the sports bra – by jumping a few times, then shaking my head like a headbanger at a heavy metal concert.
The hairband stayed on my head like it was glued in place.
And the sports bra handled Mirai’s prominent attributes with aplomb.
The third purchase was a pair of stylish midnight sunglasses. I used them to hide Mirai’s crimson eyes without impeding her vision. However, while I take pride in saying that she looked good behind those sunglasses, they proved to be a pointless acquisition.
Why?
Because as I walked through the city’s elevated architecture, I quickly lost count of the number of young people I saw with crimson eyes. Of course, they weren’t real. They were contact lenses that seemed to be the rage with the young demographic that swarmed through the city at night. Red, blue, violet, golden, iridescent, even luminescent, the lenses offered a variety of colors and textures to appease the personal tastes of a collective aspiring for individuality, or for those people that wanted to fit in with a social clique or their trendsetting circle of friends.
For example, somewhere along the way to Ar Telica Tower, I slowed down to watch a girl with honey blonde hair walk by me. Her eyes met mine and I saw that they had slit irises like those of a cat. For a moment, I thought of Straus’s Cat Princess, and my body tensed reflexively until the girl eased my mind with a fleeting smile as she continued along in the company of a group of girls sporting a variety of animal ears and tails. I figured they were in costume, either coming from a party or going to one somewhere in the vast city. However, they weren’t the only example of wild, bizarre paraphernalia that I encountered since stepping out at this rare hour.
I wasn’t going to say that the crazies of Ar Telica only came out at night, but I can say that far-fetched, bolder, and out-of-left-field fashion was prominent during the Witching Hour. In any case, it explained why the lady who sold me the cell phone didn’t bat an eyelid when I looked at her with Mirai’s crimson eyes, nor the woman at the café that I visited afterwards.
While the extravagant fashion sense of Ar Telica’s midnight denizens wasn’t to my liking, they nonetheless added flair to the city thereby influencing the overall holistic experience.
I was nearly inundated by the rich variety of smells Mirai’s nose was capturing. The fragrances of people on the elevated boulevards and walkways, the aromas coming from the shops, the smell of vehicles on the road far below, even the subtle odor of metal and ozone from the maglevs racing overhead on rail lines – I could perceive all of it, including the veiled scent of the ocean carried on the back of the breeze drafting in from the harbor about a kilometer to the east.
On Mirai’s bare skin, I could feel the cold air and the warmth of the people around me. When their bodies brushed by me – because they were unwilling or unable to avoid me – I could feel the texture of their clothes and their skin to a disturbing degree.
Conversations, shouts, laughter, footsteps, music, the hiss of electro-fusion drives from cars and maglevs, the whirring of drones high above, the high frequency hum of powerful photronic lights, the rustling of clothes, all blended into a menagerie of sounds absorbed by Mirai’s ears.
Ar Telica was also a great feast for the eyes.
When not looking at the people around me, I gazed upwards at the ubiquitous pyramidal megascrapers of the city-state, standing hundreds of meters tall, and illuminated by countless lights. Because of their slanted shapes, the buildings avoided the canyon effect, leaning back to offer as much of the sky as they could. Thus, while they loomed over me, I didn’t feel oppressed by them. I doubted there were any engineering benefits, but perhaps this was one reason why the general architecture of the city-states was reminiscent of the Aztec pyramids.
All of this combined to immerse me into the mélange of sights, sounds, smells that was Ar Telica and its people.
Yet this was only the proverbial cake.
The icing was the emotional impact it had upon me.
For me, this was an experience that went beyond the physical.
I had never walked these streets during this side of the morning.
I had never seen the city and its people in this light.
My life as Ronin Kassius was a sheltered routine existence that was safe and secure – one that adhered to the rules and regulations imposed on young people by the city-state authority.
That said, I could never have indulged in my surroundings to this extent.
All of this was possible because Mirai was an entity that perceived the world at a preternatural level.
I remembered reading how autistic people experienced the world to such a degree of clarity that they suffered from a sensory overload. Yet while it was true that I now lived in a world where the proverbial curtains had been drawn aside, the windows opened, and the scales removed from my eyes, Mirai’s mind was coping to the fullest extent.
I wasn’t hampered by the rich, vibrancy surrounding me.
Instead, I was basking in it like no other human could.
But when I realized this, my euphoria quickly evaporated, and afterward I felt crushed by the cruel reality of Mirai’s existence because she was an entity like no other.
Mirai was unique and thereby alone.
I couldn’t share what I was feeling with anyone else because they couldn’t understand it.
Describing it with words wasn’t enough.
To appreciate my view of the world, people would have to be like me, but that meant no longer being human, and knowing that I wasn’t human added to the loneliness that now fettered my state of heart and mind.
The sights and sounds of the city grew muted, vague, and indistinct.
What was once so clear was veiled behind a curtain of depression, and thus I turned away from the surrounding city and its people, unable to bear the weight of the once glorious vista.
With my eyes downcast, I avoided the crowds while walking on autopilot to the far end of an elevated promenade bridging the expanse between two megascrapers. To some extent, I was carried along by the stream of people, and I began to feel incorporeal, or rather like an entity that lived in a separate reality from the rest of humanity.
It underscored my uniqueness with a deeply penetrating sense of isolation.
I suddenly thought of another unique existence much like mine – a fictional character in a novel written hundreds of years ago.
Frankenstein’s monster – a lonely creature that had beseeched its creator for a mate to dispel its solitude; for a companion that could understand it.
Would I become like that monster?
I knew that I wasn’t a loner, but the deeper question was would I crave companionship like the monster had?
That made me wonder what kind of companionship I was after – male or female – and my feelings sunk even further as a result. I liked girls but there were a couple of occasions after awakening as Mirai when I’d caught myself looking at Mat, embarrassingly seeing him not as my friend but as a handsome young man. So while I was drawn in one direction, I was also being tugged in the other.
Then I had a frightful thought.
What if one day I woke up and no longer thought of myself as Ronin Kassius but as Mirai or Isabel?
What sort of person would I be when that happened?
What would my life be like afterwards?
Would I have learned to walk like a girl by then?
That last thought irritated me such that I came to a sudden stop.
“Blasted Erina. Who does she think she is criticizing how I walk—uh?”
At a standstill, I looked around me at unfamiliar surroundings.
Where the Hell am I?
I was standing in the middle of a bridgeway, one of many that came together to form an immense concourse that was canopied by a transparent dome. Projecbeam and holovid signs floated overhead, providing directions, and I started reading them in order to get my bearings.
Okay…which way to the Tower?
“Princess, are you all right?”
I did a double-take when I saw Ghost standing beside me.
In fact, I jerked back with a startled cry that luckily caught in my throat before it could draw people’s attention.
“Princess?”
I stalled him with a raised hand and whispered, “Would you stop doing that?”
“Doing what?”
I started to reply but realized that talking to myself would appear strange to the people around me since they couldn’t see Ghost standing nearby.
There was also Raine Renew to consider.
True to her word, she was giving me a lot of room.
In fact, she was giving me so much room that I had no idea where she was.
I looked around me and muttered, “What is she—a damn ninja?”
“Don’t you mean a Shinobi?” Ghost asked.
“What?” I gave him a puzzled look.
“You are referring to Miss Renew, are you not?”
I started to answer him with a nod then chose not to.
Sweeping my gaze over the people walking through the concourse, I noticed that I failed to draw more than a glance or two, but it was enough for me to reconsider how I should communicate with Ghost out in the open.
Pulling out my phone from a pant pocket, I said, “Call me.
Then I walked over to one side of the bridgeway within the concourse, thus keeping out of people’s way.
The phone vibrated in my hand while I was peering over the side of the guardrail at a twelve-lane street far below brimming with swiftly moving cars and buses. Dragging my attention away from the vista, I checked the caller ID on the phone before answering it, but as expected, GHOST was written in big bold letters on the phone’s screen, then flipping it open, I held it up to my right ear.
I could have used the detachable earpiece transmitter, but I preferred to be seen talking on the phone. No doubt, Renew would see me on the phone as well, and I suspected she would eavesdrop on me somehow, but how was I to stop her?
Damn it. Where the Hell did she go?
Hoping it would make it harder for Renew to read my lips, I chose to look down at the city street well below the bridgeway.
“Princess?”
“Ghost, can I ask you something?”
“You may, Princess.”
I stifled a frown.
Was he hinting at my poor grammar?
Shaking my head inwardly, I ignored the intimation. “Ghost, do I walk like a boy or a girl?”
Ghost had vanished from sight a moment after I told him to call me, so I could only picture his reaction.
He’s probably frowning at me, I thought to myself as I waited for his answer.
“Princess, if I may be so bold as to offer my opinion.”
“You may,” I replied tartly.
“From my many observations of Ronin Kassius—”
“Your many observations?”
“—I can safely conclude he was never the manliest of men.”
I huffed loudly then retorted with a scowl. “I think you’ve mentioned that already.”
“Princess, my point is that he lacked the—dare I say—swagger that most teenage boys exhibit.”
“So…I walked like a girl?”
“No, you simply walked. That is to say, you lacked the physique of a girl, but you also lacked the physique of a boy.”
“So…I was somewhere in the middle.”
“Correct. As a consequence, I can say that your manner of walking was rather neutral.”
I felt my forehead begin to furrow. “Is that what Erina meant?”
“No, she most clearly exaggerated to rile you up.”
I exhaled slowly, feeling oddly relieved, perhaps because Ghost had judged that I wasn’t at either extreme. In other words, my body language wasn’t something that would naturally stand out. It may draw attention to me, but not in an untoward way.
So that begged the question, did I want to walk like a girl?
Abruptly, I realized the flaw in my thinking. “Ghost, you said Ronin Kassius was never the manliest of men. You were talking past tense, right?”
“Indeed, I was.”
“Then you were talking about Ronin Kassius, not Mirai.”
“Correct, Princess.”
I swallowed anxiously before reluctantly asking, “So how do I walk now?”
“Princess, I assure you that you walk like a girl. Truthfully, you have a rather fluid and natural gait.”
Understanding what he meant, I felt a cold emptiness begin to hollow out my chest, and it swallowed my voice.
However, I wasn’t able to stay quiet for long.
Swallowing twice to help regain my voice, I then looked down at the pedestrians on the sidewalks far below the concourse of bridgeways.
“That shouldn’t be possible, should it?” I asked. “If Mirai is a newborn, how can she run and fight the way she does?”
“Normally, that would not be possible.”
“Normally?” I raised my head again. “What does that mean?”
“Princess, might I suggest that you resume walking. We can talk along the way.”
Was he avoiding the question?
I exhaled loudly, then straightened as I pushed away from the railing. Turning around, I gave the projecbeam and holovid signs providing directions a studious look.
Damn, I really am lost.
“Ghost, how do I get from here to Ar Telica Tower?”
“Do you wish to walk or ride the maglev?”
I grimaced at the memory of riding on the roof of a speeding train. “That depends on where I am right now.”
“In that case, I suggest the maglev. Ar Telica Tower is seven point three kilometers on a bearing of 177 degrees from true north.”
My shoulders slumped as though in surrender as those numbers made the choice for me. “Fine. I’ll take the train.”
“Very well, Princess. Make your way to the southeast exit. You will come across a maglev station within two hundred meters.” Ghost paused before asking. “Princess, does your phone not have a map function?”
I pouted sullenly as I walked toward the concourse’s southeast exit but stopped suddenly when I remembered my chaperone. “What about my shinobi?”
Ghost snorted. “Trust me, Princess. She will be just fine.”
“So she’s still with me?”
“I presume so.”
That was not the answer I was expecting. “Does that mean you don’t know where she is?”
“She engaged a thermoptic field. It makes it difficult to locate her using the surveillance cameras in the area. However, I have glimpsed a faint distortion pattern here and there, thus it is safe to say that she is still shadowing you.”
A distortion pattern had to mean the strange shimmer in the air that betrayed the presence of a thermoptic camouflage field, but I was puzzled. Did this mean that Mirai’s eyes could see as well as Ghost through the surveillance network?
No, she can see better.
Through her eyes, I could see what Ghost couldn’t – the lifeforce that radiated from a living creature. But in a city full of living people with auras of their own, it would be hard to pick her out from the crowd.
I resumed walking. “Forget about her. If you spot her, fine. If not, it doesn’t matter.”
“Princess?”
“If she can’t keep up, that’s not my problem.”
I exited the concourse into a building with a high ceiling. With its many open levels and retail outlets, the place reminded me of the landside part of a spaceport terminal. Taking a few seconds to orient myself by reading the signs, I quickly headed for the maglev station.
“Ghost, tell me why Mirai can move so well.”
The answer to my question had to wait until I boarded the maglev simply because Ghost insisted he wouldn’t tell me until I was safely aboard a carriage…rather than riding on its roof.
I had the niggling suspicion he had done this to me before – insisting that I first perform a specific task or he wouldn’t reveal something he’d discovered.
Using the cash card to pay the boarding fee, I waited at a mildly crowded platform for a couple of minutes, then caught the first maglev headed southbound through the city.
Occupying a seat at one end of the fourth carriage, I was well clear of the nearest passenger by about a dozen feet. Thus afforded a small measure of privacy, I listened to Ghost’s explanation on the phone.
“Princess, you are aware that Mirai possesses intimate knowledge of firearms and is well practiced when it comes to shooting.”
I nodded faintly, feeling slightly unsettled when reminded of all the shooting I’d done. “Yeah, I know that. I’ve got all this knowledge in my head about weapons I’ve never seen before. And I know how to use them, too.”
“Your mind—rather, Mirai’s brain—was imprinted with that information. The same applies to her body. When a Simulacrum is birthed, it has little knowledge of how to move. For that reason, the muscle memory belonging to other Simulacra of similar body type, proportions, and dimensions is used to imprint the newborn’s body. This shortcuts the natural learning process by essentially compressing it into a matter of days or even hours, and allows for a newborn Simulacrum to be both functional and productive sooner rather than later.”
I frowned to myself, a little unsettled by the obvious question begging to be asked. “Does this mean there’s another Simulacrum like Mirai?”
Ghost took his time before replying, “No. Mirai is unique.”
Now I felt even more anxious. “Then how was Mirai imprinted? Where does her muscle memory come from?”
“I do not know.”
That was unexpected and left me grasping at straws as I appealed to Ghost, “Please don’t lie to me. If you know, then please tell me.”
“Princess, I am not lying to you. I know a great deal about you, but this I do not know. There is a cluster of classified data on Mirai that I have not been able to access. The ICE surrounding it is the thickest I have ever encountered. My attempts to penetrate it have been unsuccessful. Every ICE breaker I have employed has been crushed by the very ICE it was trying to break through.”
Wondering what he meant, I cocked my head in a questioning fashion. “ICE…?”
“Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics.”
“But I thought isolated electronics were a thing of the past. I thought all our systems were now photronic based.”
“Indeed. However, calling it ICP does not sound nearly as cool as calling it ICE. As a result, the acronym has persisted throughout the modern era of cyber warfare.”
His explanation made me feel like palming my face in dismay, but instead I sat back in the seat and stared up at the carriage’s ceiling. “Okay, I get it. But this means the Sanreals can keep secrets from you too.”
Ghost sounded faintly peeved. “I assure you, Princess, it will not be for long.”
A shiver ran through me.
Revenant and his kind had broken into a Citadel and caused it to explode, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and Simulacra. If he put his talents and skills to it, no block of ICE was going to keep that data safe. The thought made me shiver because Ghost was also inside my head courtesy of the wetware embedded in Mirai’s brain. Could he exert an influence over me from within my mind? He was able to project himself into my vision, and I could hear him in my ears, so how else could he affect my senses?
This uncertainty made me feel naked and exposed, and I wondered if Ghost was aware of this. I didn’t think he could read my thoughts, but I suspected he was monitoring Mirai’s body, reading the chemical changes that took place within her, and using them to interpret my state of mind. In short, Ghost could tell when I was troubled, and perhaps he could even discern what was bothering me.
To get a grip on my emotions, I chose to focus on something else.
The city buildings racing by offered me a convenient distraction, but my feelings soured when I remembered being chased down the side of a megascraper.
The hunt may have been suspended – possibly called off – but it felt like unfinished business. Thus bothered by it, I looked away from the city outside the maglev and turned my attention to the carriage’s interior. There were still plenty of vacant seats, and I had a sizeable gap to the closest passenger. Nonetheless, I kept the phone close to my right ear as I cautiously asked, “What else do you think is hidden inside that block of ICE?”
“Difficult to tell. However, I presume a copy of the data on Mirai’s inner workings.”
I frowned faintly in confusion. “Ghost, you control the Sarcophagus. Doesn’t that mean you know Mirai’s secrets?”
“It does not work that way, Princess. What I control of the Sarcophagus allows me to support and maintain you. It does not provide me with the means to create another Mirai.”
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Does that mean you don’t know where the Angel Fibers come from?”
“It would be safe to say the answer lies behind that wall of ICE.”
“Oh….”
“Princess, your stop is coming up.”
I glanced at a holovid banner scrolling below the ceiling near the middle of the carriage.
RING ZERO. DISTRICT SIX. BLOCK SIX.
I closed the phone shut as the maglev smoothly pulled into the station.
After disembarking from the carriage along with a handful of other passengers, I soon left the station behind as I followed the most direct route to Ar Telica Tower.
Earlier, when I’d checked the map on my phone, I noticed that the station closest to the Tower was a district block away. Therefore, I would have to walk the last leg of the journey, though I could make use of the elevated bridgeways, plazas, and promenades to stay well above the streets. I could have used the map on my phone to guide me, but Ghost chose to conveniently lead the way by reappearing in my vision.
As I followed him, the bustling bridgeways and promenades grew busier the closer we walked to Ring Zero’s entertainment districts located due west of the horseshoe shaped harbor. Unlike the outlets in other districts, those found here would be open until the crack of dawn. However, many of them would then close their doors until early afternoon. Such was the nature of the entertainment they offered.
I will point out that I wasn’t anywhere near Ar Telica’s red light district. Rather, this area could be considered a focal point for tourists that were either off-worlders or visitors from Teloria’s other city-states.
I must to admit, I’d mostly forgotten about the curfew, but that changed when I stepped out of a megascraper and onto a bridgeway connecting it to the squat, circular building that served as the foundation for Ar Telica Tower. The building also doubled as a civic center. At twenty stories high, it was a popular tourist spot and was thus unusually open at all hours. Entry into the building was free, though I would have to pay an admission fee to ride the ultra-fast maglev elevators up to the Tower’s various observation decks and restaurant floors.
However, now that I was here, I couldn’t get in. That was because two city-state Enforcers clad in armor-skins stood at the far end of the connecting bridgeway, guarding the entrance to the Civic Center. If I was spotted by those guards on duty, they were likely to run a facial recognition scan on me and learn that I was underaged.
It was time for my Shinobi chaperone to make herself useful.
Until then, I had no choice but to retreat into the megascraper.
The building was an office complex so its many businesses were closed until mid-morning. That should have left the place deserted, but because it offered access to the Civic Center via the bridgeway there were numerous groups of people walking through it.
I kept out of their way while waiting for Renew but I also kept an eye out for her.
I was curious to see how she would make her entrance.
Would she drop her thermoptic field early, allowing me to see her at a distance?
Or would she materialize beside me and try taking me by surprise?
Her thermoptic field?
At a sudden thought, I hurriedly opened the notepad app on my phone.
GHOST, TELL ME ABOUT RENEW.
I stared at the message, hoping he would notice it through my eyes.
“Princess, she’s here.”
I looked up and saw Renew step out from behind a cluster of people walking toward the building’s exit nearby.
I closed the phone and pocketed it.
Renew noticed me doing so but didn’t appear to mind. Instead, she glanced silently in the direction of the bridgeway connecting the megascraper to the Tower’s Civic Center, and moments later, she stopped in front of me.
“Are you ready?” she questioned me in a clipped tone.
I casually shrugged a shoulder at her. “Lead the way.”
– II –
Was it so important for me to observe the city from Ar Telica Tower?
I frowned inwardly as I pondered the thought while riding the high-speed maglev elevator up to one of the observation decks.
Getting past the guards had been a cinch.
Renew produced photronic identification for the both of us that the guards scanned, verified, and accepted. I didn’t get to see what she showed them, but the guards didn’t bat an eyelid at my appearance, nor did they ask me to remove my sunglasses.
Once cleared for entry, I followed Renew into the building and over to an elevator bank on the tenth level that had many people queued before it.
The elevators ran within a white column more than twenty meters in diameter that rose through the middle of the building. Starting at the ground floor, it connected to the ceiling high above. I assumed that it continued all the way to the Tower’s observation and restaurant levels some four thousand feet above sea level. To get to the elevator bank, I had to pass through a security scanning gate lorded over by sentry bots – the bowling pin kind – and then join the tail end of the queue.
At sight of the gates, I hesitated as I was unsure of how they’d react to Mirai’s body.
Glancing covertly at Renew walking ahead of me, I pulled out my phone, flipped it open, and hurriedly typed: SECURITY GATES?
Again, Ghost replied through the earpiece. “Princess, you may walk through. I have taken care of them.”
I experienced yet another of those sudden shivers whenever Ghost calmly demonstrated the extent of his abilities.
If he ever turned against us—against me—would we stand a chance?
Once I’d nervously passed through one of them, I was confronted by a sentry-bot fitted with a scanning plate.
It was time to pay the admission fee.
I’d watched people wave their smart bracelets, watches, or phones over the plate to pay their way into the Tower. However, I hadn’t installed the payment app onto my phone, so instead I would have to rely on my cash card.
“Princess, relax.”
I understood Ghost was trying to reassure me, but oddly it made me feel more nervous.
Nonetheless, I tried to take his advice.
After a deep breath, I relaxed my stance as I anxiously waited for the admission fee to be deducted from the card’s balance. The transaction took only a second, but it felt like an eternity even though my mind wasn’t in an overclocked state. The sentry-bot then waved me through with a thin metal arm.
“Please, move along. Move along.”
Swallowing discreetly, I then walked the distance to the stepped dais that surrounded the white column rising through the middle of the building.
A short while later, I boarded an elevator and made the journey up the Tower.
Of course, Renew boarded it with me, though she kept her distance.
That said, the interior of the large elevator car was crowded – but not cramped – and everyone inside was doing their best to be polite and not bump into each other.
I did my part too.
Standing with my back against a wall, and my arms crossed under Mirai’s big bust, I stared up at the ceiling to avoid eye contact with the people around me who were chatting in hushed tones as the elevator soared skyward.
I may have come across as haughty, but I wasn’t in the mood to care.
Instead, I was struggling to contain my troubled feelings.
Renew had gotten me into the Tower, but now I asked myself if it really was so important to see the city from on high?
I simply didn’t know anymore, but the question was tied to another.
Was the trip worth the effort?
The answer would have to wait until I arrived at an observation deck.
For now, while staring up at the ceiling, I watched Renew in the corner of my eye.
Why does it feel like she’s the one leading me around?
Thus far, Renew had been disturbingly true to her word. She had shadowed me while giving me an abundance of room. Yet knowing she was around was as bothersome as not knowing where she was, and undoubtedly, she would vanish once again when I stepped off the elevator at one of the Tower’s many floors.
I resolved to use Mirai’s talent to keep track of Renew.
I wasn’t going to lose sight of her this time.
But if I was keeping an eye on her, how was I to enjoy the view?
The question made me sigh, and it caught Renew’s attention, but I steadfastly continued gazing upwards.
The elevator slowed swiftly to a smooth stop.
The highest level was home to the restaurants that offered diners a stunning view of the city, but I had no intention of going there, so I got off at the observation floor immediately below the restaurants, and naturally, Renew accompanied me.
I gave the spacious, circular floor a good look.
There was comfortable seating for visitors, low lying tables, information kiosks manned by holovid projections, and so forth.
In short, it was outfitted like a tourist attraction, which is indeed what it was.
Yet, despite the abundance of furniture and people, the wide open layout made me feel oddly exposed, so I began looking for good places to hide and for ways to get off this floor without relying on the elevators, such as the spiral staircases that descended to the observation floor below this one. This made me feel a little better, but it also bothered me that I was treating my surroundings this way. It was wasn’t the product of countless hours of holovid gaming. Rather, it seemed be survival training that had been imprinted into Mirai.
I completed turning full circle, then looked over at Renew who was standing a few feet away.
She too was surveying her surroundings.
She’s just like me, or maybe I’m just like her.
Then I noticed her eyes were darting about and I realized she was going further than I had.
Renew was looking at the people.
She was looking for threats.
Sensing that I was watching her, Renew faced me. “I will be around if you need me.”
Turning gracefully on her heels, she began walking away.
However, I called out to her because there was something I just had to ask.
“Have we met before?”
Renew came to a neat stop, then half turned to look at me sideways. “This is our first meeting in person.”
I shook my head. “That’s not true.”
“It isn’t?”
“We came face to face on the landing platform.”
Her eyes briefly narrowed. “You’re right.”
“But I get the feeling we’ve met before.”
She smirked faintly at me. “In a past life?”
I understood she was poking fun at me, but I wasn’t going to dismiss the unexpected shiver that ran through Mirai back on the landing platform, and then later at the megascraper.
However, what she said next left me speechless.
“Aren’t you supposed to be blonde?” she asked.
My heart thumped loudly as panic blossomed in my chest, and I needed several seconds to recover my poise well enough with a question of my own.
“What do you know about me?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
Her reply was a confirmation of sorts. “So you know what I am….”
Renew turned toward me a little more. “I am aware of who you are.”
I wasn’t in the mood for word games or semantics with her, but I felt I had my answer. “Fine. I get it.”
She probably took that as her cue to leave because she started turning away again. But as she did so, she offhandedly said, “Dark hair suits you better.”
After that, I watched her walk over to a small coffee lounge about a dozen meters away.
I can’t say I was pleased with how that little repartee had ended.
I really felt like she’d won that one, but then I wondered why I was bothering to keep score when what was really important was learning that Renew was aware of Mirai and her alter-ego, Isabel val Sanreal.
I retrieved my phone from a back pocket, opened it, and then ended the call that connected me to Ghost. Pocketing the phone once more, I turned my back on Renew and walked over to an observation window.
A guardrail ran along the inside of the window to keep people away from it.
Like the permaglass of the VTOL’s cabin, the Tower’s windows were treated with something that made them non-reflective, thereby providing a clear view of the sprawling skyline at night.
Standing behind the guardrail, I looked out at the city-state before me.
After all that trouble, I was finally here and yet my mind wandered such that I couldn’t focus on the panoramic vista.
With a bitter sigh, I cleared my throat, and then quietly whispered, “Ghost, who is she?”
He replied into my ears, rather than through the earpiece I was still wearing. “I cannot say, Princess.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“Princess, I can provide you with her city-state identification, but I presume that is not what you are asking for.”
I slowly exhaled my mild frustration with him. “Just tell me what you know about her.”
“Her name is Raine Renew. She is twenty-eight years old and 177 cm tall.”
I bit my lower lip, thinking that Renew looked extremely young for her age while wondering how tall Mirai was.
Ghost then added, “From the top, her dimensions are 88—”
“Stop!” I whispered sharply. “I don’t need to know those.”
“Very well, Princess.”
I sighed softly as I leaned on the guardrail in front of me. “Can you keep it relevant? Please?”
“Relevant, you ask?” Ghost hummed thoughtfully to himself. “As you wish.” He paused as though gathering his thoughts for a moment. “Raine Renew is a member of the Sanreal Family’s private security. Her current assignment is to provide protection for Isabel val Sanreal.”
I narrowed my eyes a little. “Just me? I mean, just Isabel?”
“No. She is also responsible for Erina Kassius’s safety. However, you take priority over your sister.”
I didn’t bother reminding him that I no longer considered Erina as my sister. “What else?”
“Before she joined the Sanreal Family’s private security firm, Renew worked for Ar Telica’s Enforcer Corp from 2265 to 2271.”
I did the math. “She was an Enforcer for six years?”
“Yes. And during the last two years of her service, Renew was part of the Grey Ghosts.”
“What are they?”
“An Enforcer division responsible for protecting visiting dignitaries and other very important people. In short, they are an elite division of public security. But there is something else I should mention. Earlier, I told you I had compiled a short list of candidates who could be dispatched to pursue you on short notice. Raine Renew was at the top of my list.”
“Then you think it’s Renew who chased after me?”
“Aye, Princess. She is particularly adept at using thermoptic fields and glider packs. Another specialty of hers is long range sniping from the air. Death from above, as the saying goes.”
So it was her.
The grim concern in his voice made me regret keeping it a secret, but Renew’s aura matched what I remembered of the lifeforce that radiated from the woman who’d first hunted me down the side of the megascraper before the chase moved onto the speeding maglev. As such, Ghost’s revelation wasn’t that surprising to me. Rather, it was an affirmation of what I’d already surmised on my own.
I leaned a little more on the guardrail, and then stared off into the darkness that lay beyond Ar Telica.
She chased me down that building, onto a maglev, and then acted like it never happened. What a bitch.
“Princess, may I ask you a question?”
I dragged my thoughts back to the present. “Sure….”
“Why did you ask her if you had met her before?”
On impulse, I started gnawing on my lower lip.
Should I tell him?
“Princess?”
I decided to be open with him. “I have this weird feeling sometimes when I’m close to her.”
Ghost was quiet for a short while before cautiously asking, “A weird feeling? Could you elaborate upon it?”
I shook my head gently. “I don’t think I can. All I can say is that something about Renew made Mirai shiver when we first met her back on the VTOL.”
“Mirai, you say?”
I silently nodded.
Ghost hummed for a second. “Perhaps that would explain something curious about Miss Renew.”
“Like what?”
“The fact that elements of her data are encased in a block of ICE. And the nature of that ICE matches the ICE surrounding Mirai’s data. Other personnel associate with the Sanreal Family have security around their data files, but I have noticed that only individuals associated with Project Mirai have their profiles protected by an ICE barrier. In addition, we can also infer from your recent conversation with Miss Renew that she is aware of your nature. However, this does not explain why Mirai remembers her. It simply establishes a connection between Project Mirai and Miss Renew.”
On the one hand, this eased my mind a little, but like Ghost had said, it didn’t answer why I experienced a vaguely metaphysical connection to Renew.
Should I ask Erina about her?
Shaking my head slowly, I sighed so heavily it made my body shudder.
No, I doubt I’d get a straight answer from her.
I was about to sigh again when I felt my phone vibrating in a back pocket. Thinking it was Ghost, I answered the call without looking at the screen. “Ghost? Why are you calling me—?”
A girl’s laughter cut me off. “Ghost? Who’s Ghost?”
Flinching sharply, I hurriedly looked at the caller ID on the screen but there was none.
What the Hell?
Unbidden, Ghost quickly said, “Princess, I assure you. I have not given anyone your number.”
Lifting the phone back up to my right ear, I turned around, then swiftly gazed over the observation deck.
The unknown girl chuckled. “Oh, that’s a good one. You didn’t bother asking who I was. You went straight to searching for me. I wasn’t expecting that. You’re certainly fast thinker.”
Conveniently and perhaps on cue, Mirai overclocked her consciousness.
Then again, it could have been my doing, yet that seemed unlikely to me.
Rather, she was probably responding to the sudden, sharp spike in tension I was experiencing. In other words, being called out of the blue by an unknown girl who mysteriously had my unlisted number had made me very, very worried.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
Why was she asking? She could obviously see me, that is, she had eyes on me, so why bother asking?
“Hello? Are you there?”
I felt no urgent obligation to reply to her.
Instead, I considered from where she could be spying on me?
Facing the interior of the observation level, I leaned my back against the guardrail, and continued sweeping my gaze back and forth over the people on this floor. A few of them were talking on their phones, but none of them was a young woman. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t a teenage girl on the phone. Perhaps it was someone using a voice changer, yet it sounded quite natural despite coming from the phone’s speaker.
My searching gaze found Raine Renew sitting on a butterfly chair. She was watching me while sipping something from a disposable cup.
I narrowly avoided meeting her eyes, just as the unknown girl on the phone spoke again.
“You don’t want to talk to me? In that case, relax and listen up.”
The girl coughed as though dramatically clearing her throat.
“Now then. Helping you out with the maglev was a freebie. A favor to a friend. I won’t call us comrades-in-arms, but you did try to save me once. It was a futile effort, but it touched me deeply. So, I decided to help you out with the train.”
What was she saying?
I had tried to save her, and it proved futile?
Perplexed, I strove to remember when I’d attempted to save someone only to fail.
There was Mat and Shirohime, but Erina had said they were both alive and recovering in medical stasis chambers, hence I crossed them off the list.
But who did that leave on the list?
Clarisol? Nope.
Erina? Definitely not.
Who could I have possibly failed to save that was somehow still alive?
That made no sense to me.
The girl carried on while my thoughts were twisted in a knot.
“But now, I’m going to offer you something, and if you accept, you’ll owe me a favor.”
Ghost had materialized off to my right. I glanced at him and he quickly shook his head at me, but I didn’t know if he was warning me to be cautious or to reject the girl’s offer.
“Are you interested?” the girl asked. “If so, give me a nod for yes, and a shake for no.” Abruptly, she chortled. “I mean shake your head, not your booty.”
With that statement, she more or less confirmed that she was watching me.
But from where?
Was she inside the tower? Was she on this floor? Or was she watching me through the Tower’s surveillance cameras just like Ghost was able to?
Or perhaps she wasn’t inside the Tower at all.
I turned around slowly and looked out the window at the megascrapers surrounding the Tower. Though they were quite tall in their own right, but they were not the tallest structure in Ar Telica, so I was able to look down at them. However, was it possible that the unknown girl was watching me from one of those buildings?
“Is that a Yes or a No?”
I swallowed anxiously as I peered at the massive megascrapers that I could see through the window.
“Come on, girl. Don’t leave me hanging. I’m dying out here. Give me a sign.”
She wanted a sign and I wanted to know from where she was watching me.
Ghost smoothly cut in with a suggestion. “Princess, walk counter-clockwise along the perimeter.”
Puzzled, I hesitated for a couple of seconds before doing as he suggested.
The girl on the phone chuckled.
“Oh, I get it now. You think I’m outside the Tower watching you. You’re pretty smart. And that’s a Yes. I’m somewhere out there in the darkness between the bright city lights.”
The sound of clapping came from the phone’s speaker, but I didn’t stop walking. When I encountered people looking out at the city, I walked around them and continued silently along my way.
“But even if you walk to the opposite side of the Tower, I can still see you.”
Undeterred, I carried on until I arrived at a point roughly two radians from where I’d started.
“Let me put it to you this way, you can run but you can’t hide.”
Spotting one of the spiral staircases leading down to the observation level below this one, I started heading toward it until Ghost unexpectedly appeared before me.
“Princess, I believe there is no need to go downstairs.”
At a standstill, I threw him a questioning look.
He then explained, “I believe she is using a stealth drone to spy on you from outside the Tower.”
So that’s how she’s keeping up with me.
Exhaling with a mixture of relief and frustration, I floundered on what to do next until I spied a vacant sofa-like seat a few meters away. Since there was no point walking around, I decided to sit down instead. So, as nonchalantly as possible, I walked over to the seat and dropped myself into it. When I crossed my legs, I unexpectedly did so like a girl. It briefly surprised me and added to the growing list of questions I was compiling about Mirai. But they were questions best left for another time, because for now, I had an entirely different sort of question to ask.
“Who are you?”
“Ah! She speaks!”
I bit my lower lip, took a short breath, then warily repeated, “Who are you?”
“A friend. No—that’s going to far.” She paused for a second before hurriedly saying, “I’m someone with a special interest in you because you’re a special girl. And I’ll point out that you’re a lot tougher than you look.”
I couldn’t fathom why she would say something like that, and yet, what I asked was, “What do you want?”
“To give you a taste of freedom for at least a few hours.”
Surprised, my breath caught in my lungs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’re tagged. Wherever you go, they go. It’s worse than having your parents chaperone you on prom night.”
I nervously wondered, How the Hell did she know that?
Had this girl been listening in on my conversation with Erina back at the café?
Wait—what does she mean by prom night?
“Are you interested?” Somehow, she sounded more like she was teasing me rather than asking. “Well? Cat got your tongue?”
I inhaled deeply while worrying about what I was getting myself into if I continued to listen to her.
“Get to the point,” I demanded.
“Don’t you want a few hours to yourself? Alone?”
I was making a bad habit out of biting my lower lip, but it failed to distract me from the anxious sensation swirling inside my chest. “I can’t do that. I have an agreement with—”
“I can make you disappear from their eyes, Mirai.”
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, yet hearing this unknown girl call me Mirai made my heart twinge on top of the uncertainty and anxiety I was already experiencing. Was it because I’d been consciously or maybe subconsciously thinking of myself as Isabel? I didn’t know, or maybe, I didn’t want to know. Either way, I was presented with a problem: I had no idea who this girl was, but she clearly knew about Mirai, and she claimed that I’d helped her before.
Unfortunately, that didn’t ring any bells.
“I’ll ask you again. Are you interested?”
Honestly, her offer made me anxious rather interested because of the problem it presented.
If Erina and the Sanreals lost track of me, there might be Hell to pay, and there was also the matter of having given Erina my word. As rebellious as I was, breaking my word didn’t sit right with me on many levels.
Regardless, if I dropped out of sight, there would be consequences.
Then again, Ghost was chaperoning me and he could keep Erina informed of my situation.
With that in mind, a sliver of curiosity made me ask, “How do you plan on doing that? Are you going to translocate me away from Ar Telica?”
“That is a lot easier said than done. Therefore, in answer to your question: No. Not happening. Also, doing so is likely to start a war.”
That sent a chill running through me. “A war?”
“Yep, and that’s something I want to avoid. There are rules that even I’m loath to break. Thus, the most I can offer you is a few hours of privacy.”
“Why?”
“Think of it this way. If I do you a favor now, you do me a favor later.”
I mulled it over for a few seconds, trying to figure out the angles, but then decided to be blunt with this girl.
“I don’t know who you are, so I can’t accept your offer.”
“Okay. Then how about us getting together to chat.”
Not entirely unexpected, yet I was suspicious of how easily she made the proposal, sounding as though it was something she’d already planned for, so perhaps that was her intention all along.
Narrowing my eyes, I allowed myself to sound uncertain when asking, “To chat? Are you serious?”
“Most of the time.”
I swallowed quickly. “What do you want to chat about?”
“About your sister. About Clarisol val Sanreal. And about you.”
“What about me…?”
I suspect she was smiling when she asked, “Oh? Did that get your attention?”
Honestly?
Yes and no.
Her offer intrigued me, but it also rang like a warning klaxon inside my head. Because of this, I spent a long while vacillating between yay or nay.
Sensing this, it was no surprise to hear Ghost break into my thoughts. However, what he said was entirely unforeseen.
“Princess, this may prove to be an interesting opportunity.”
Shocked, I almost dropped the phone.
When I recovered my hold on the device, I quickly said, “Excuse me for a minute.”
Muting myself on the open line, I then lowered the phone to my lap. However, I felt that wasn’t going far enough so I bowed my head, and then covered my mouth with a free hand.
“Why?” I whispered to Ghost.
“Because, Princess, I would like to hear what secrets she knows…or believes that she knows.”
I tightly pressed my lips together.
Ghost’s personal desire overlapped with mine.
In all honesty, I was both curious and afraid of what the unknown girl knew about Erina, Clarisol, Mirai, and possibly the identity of Isabel val Sanreal. However, breaking my word to my former sister continued to gnaw at me.
“What about Erina?” I whispered. “If she loses track of me, she’s going to be pissed.”
“Princess, I will keep Doctor Kassius informed of the situation.”
“But what about the Sanreals? Won’t they launch a city-wide search for me?”
“Not if they know where you are, courtesy of your friendly Ghost.”
“…I doubt it’s that easy…,” I muttered under my breath. “But even so….”
“Princess, have a little faith in me. At the very least, allow me to demonstrate my diplomatic skills.”
Diplomatic skills?
For a brief moment, I had the impression that Ghost was going to mediate between various parties. I then wondered if there was more than one faction within the Sanreals with differing views on Project Mirai.
“What about Renew?” I softly asked.
“What about her?”
“Doesn’t she answer to Simon Sanreal?”
With my head bowed, I was looking down at my lap, thus unable to see what expression he was making. Hence, I was surprised to see Ghost kneel before me on bended knee.
Looking up at my downturned face, he gently asked, “And what if she does?”
My eyes widened slowly as I understood what he meant.
“Hello? Telos to Mirai? Is anybody home?”
Ghost offered me a faint, yet reassuring smile. “Princess, what is your answer?”
Good question. What was my answer?
Despite knowing that Ghost was supporting me, I felt pressured by both him and the girl on the phone, and that choked me a little. I had to hastily swallow a couple of times to clear my throat, before I unmuted my end of the call, and then lifted the phone back up to my right ear.
“I have a shadow.”
“Well of course you do. You’re not a ghost.”
I exhaled loudly before retorting through clenched teeth, “That’s not what I meant.”
To my surprise, when she spoke again her tone had grown distinctly cold. “I know what you meant. But trust me, I have a way of taking care of your shadow.”
The chill in her voice was something I simply couldn’t ignore. “How…?”
“For starters, I need you to start moving so that she’ll follow you.”
“And then what?”
“Draw her outside the building. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Hearing that, my stomach clenched unpleasantly with worry. “Your going to harm her?”
“I don’t need to harm her to get her out of the way.”
“Then what will you do?”
“That’s something you don’t need to worry about. Trust me. She will come to no harm.”
I didn’t know why I was suddenly concerned about Renew, but it was a feeling that I couldn’t shake, and so I lowered the phone, bowed my head, and then whispered to Ghost, “…what do you think...?”
“Princess, I can pass along a warning. However, that may tip our hand.”
I painfully bit my lower lip.
Again, Ghost had a point. It could make the situation worse if Renew was expecting an attack. That being said, she had to be aware there were risks that came with escorting me about the city. Yet, this still felt wrong. It was as though she was being sacrificed all for the sake of maintaining a lie to trick the girl on the phone.
There has to be another way.
I heard something creak and realized it was the flip-top phone in my right hand. My fingers were slowly crushing the plasteel casing, so I hurriedly relaxed them.
Looking up, I stared out at the city.
Is this how things are going to be? Intrigue, cloak and dagger, people coming to harm or being put in harm’s way all because of me or what people want from me?
My throat felt tight as I swallowed anxiously, before coming to a decision.
No, there is another way.
After a couple of deep breaths, I lifted the phone to my ear again. “You said you wanted to chat, then let’s chat. But we do it my way and no one gets hurt.”
“…I’m listening….”
“You’re tracking me just like the Sanreals are.”
“I’m not going to say.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me how you’re doing it. Just tell me if you can track me across the city.”
“I can—”
“Then I’ll make it easier for you. I’ll tell you where I’m going next.”
“No need. I can hazard a guess. It’s a place where you can reconnect with your past…albeit briefly.”
My breath caught in my chest making it difficult to speak. “You know where I’m going?”
“It’s where you should have gone first,” she replied, and her tone gave me the impression she was smirking at me.
In other words, I could all but hear the ‘Gotcha!’ in her voice.
Damn it—who the Hell is this girl?
Despite being caught off guard by her, I grabbed a tight rein on my composure because I couldn’t afford to stumble again. She was watching me from whereabouts unknown, so I had to maintain a strong façade and a firm tone to match it
“Good. Then you can meet me there in a few hours.”
“A few hours?”
“That’s right. Because I want some alone time, and you promised me that.”
“Ah, yes, but—”
“You and I will chat, but it’ll be on my terms. Take it or leave it.”
I ended the call, then snapped the phone shut. As I did so, I noticed my hand was trembling, and my heart was racing inside my chest.
Was this the result of adrenaline coursing through my body?
I snorted softly, thinking this reaction was surprisingly human of Mirai before reminding myself that she wasn’t a machine – she was flesh and blood. But I didn’t believe it was Mirai who was suffering from an adrenaline rush.
It was me.
As Ronin Kassius, I’d never been an assertive person. I’d avoided arguments and mostly gone with the flow because it was safest. But now as Isabel, I’d made a choice without consulting anyone other than Ghost, so it was natural to be a little scared. However, I had made my choice, and now it was time to see it through.
After quietly pocketing the phone, I remained seated as I looked through the observation windows at the sprawling city surrounding the Tower. After a short while, I quietly cleared my throat, then softly asked, “Ghost, is Renew still watching us?”
He had risen to his feet and was now standing beside my seat. “Indeed. She has been observing us intently.”
Glancing up at him, I saw him looking off to my right, however, I didn’t feel it was wise for me to follow his gaze.
Instead, I softly whispered, “Is that so…,” and kept it at that.
Renew was aware that I’d been on the phone, but she probably didn’t know to whom I was talking to. And while I was conversing with the unknown girl, I had been sitting down facing away from Renew, so she would have been unable to read my lips.
Would she consider that as suspicious behavior on my part?
Would she think I was talking to Erina?
Suspecting that something was afoot, would she call in for instructions?
If so, and depending on what orders she received, my plan could still go wrong—very, very wrong—and if it went south, then Renew was likely to be hurt.
It may sound ironic that I was concerned for her, especially since I was certain Renew had chased me down the side of a giant building while shooting electro-shock darts at me, but having her blindsided by the unknown girl continued to feel wrong to me. I may have felt differently if Renew was a Simulacrum or operating a mechanical avatar like Straus and her Cat Princess, but she wasn’t – she was a human being and thereby vulnerable.
Yet what really troubled me was the possibility that I was leading Renew into a trap.
It made me complicit in the unknown girl’s plan to take Renew out of the picture, and that was something that I couldn’t accept which was why I was hoping my plan would pan out.
If it all went well, then nobody would be hurt.
Hope for the best, I told myself before asking Ghost, “Do you know where I’m going next?”
“Yes, Princess, I believe I do….”
I snorted inwardly and sarcastically thought, Great minds think alike.
“Good. Then tell Erina. That way if Renew questions me about who I was talking to, I can tell her I was talking to Erina.”
“Princess, you want me to tell your sister to play along?”
Looking up, I glared at him through narrowed eyes. “Ghost, she’s not my sister. I’ve told you that already.”
He hesitated before nodding contritely. “Yes, you have. I apologize, Princess.”
I softened my glare, then averted my gaze. “Just tell Erina…tell her where I’m going.”
In the corner of my eye, I caught his gloomy smile. “That may not hold up to scrutiny.”
“I’ll take the chance.” I hesitated before adding, “But if you need to tell her the truth, I’ll let you make that call.”
“I understand.” A moment later, Ghost frowned down at me. “Princess, about what I said earlier—”
“Forget it,” I cut him off softly. “I just don’t think it’s right for Renew to be hurt like this. And something tells me that given half the chance, that girl will definitely hurt her.” I glanced up at him. “She’s looking forward to hurting Renew. I know it. I can feel it in my gut. And that’s why I want to keep this between us. I don’t want Renew catching on. I don’t want her trying to second guess me and making a mess of things.”
Ghost seemed conflicted yet he accepted to my decision with a shallow nod. “I understand, Princess.”
Staring out the windows again, I sighed heavily at the city buildings, and wondered with a touch of dread what it was that awaited me out there.
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
For those of you who are interested in reading the original 2017 release of "Gun Princess Royale" the books are still available for purchase via the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
The new "The Gun Princess Royale" will hopefully be release on Amazon Kindle as an eBook in 2023.
It all depends on what issues my editor friend finds with the story.
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.
Amidst the political maneuvering, while slowly reconciling his past as Ronin Kassius, Isabel faces a new threat from Tabitha Hexen who reveals her own agenda in wanting to fight Mirai in a Gun Princess Royale battle.
– I –
I held deep misgivings as I looked up at the immense apartment complex that served as a dormitory building for many of the students of Telos Academy.
But it was too late to think of a better plan.
Rather than walk or catch the maglev, Renew had a car waiting for us outside the Civic Center. No doubt she had received word from her superiors about my decision to come here after Ghost relayed my intention to Erina.
However, I didn’t know – or care – if the car was her idea.
Instead, what I cared about was arriving at the building without incident.
That said, my heart did jump into my throat when I first climbed into the car and recognized the driver as the Simulacrum sister who had chased me out of the apartment. Fearing an ambush, I almost bolted out of the car, especially when Renew sat beside me in the backseat. But with the doors locked, making a break for it would have required some serious effort. Mirai was strong but she was unarmed, whereas Renew and the Simulacrum sister were undoubtedly carrying concealed weapons.
Had Ghost not been reining me back – insisting that I was safe – I would have taken my chances and fought for freedom. Thus, you can imagine my relief when I was finally out of the car and standing on a sidewalk outside the sixty storey dorm building.
The residential complex was large enough to house Telos Academy’s six thousand students – give or take a few dozen – but it had the room for many more. Because of this, scores of students that should have been sharing an apartment with others found themselves living alone in family sized dwellings. Others, like myself, were assigned to hotel sized rooms that were spacious but hardly awe inspiring. In addition, it wasn’t just the students that lived there, but teachers, administrative staff, and maintenance personnel, though they resided on separate floors from the rest of the students.
So why such a large building for just one school?
The truth was that Telos Academy was only operating at two-thirds capacity, with numerous classrooms waiting to be opened to accommodate a growing student body. As Ar Telica continued to add habitation Rings and expand its footprint across the east coast, there would be an increased demand for the school, and so the apartment complex was purchased by the Telos Corporation and converted into a dormitory for both students and the faculty.
I counted up to the thirty-fifth floor where my old dorm apartment was located on the south-east face of the hexagonal building. The light to my room – that is, the light to Ronin Kassius’s room – was turned off and the balcony windows were dark. That didn’t guarantee the apartment was unoccupied, though it would be disconcerting if it had already been reassigned to someone else a mere day after my disappearance. On the other hand, if the room still belonged to Ronin Kassius, I would be entering it as a stranger despite being intimately acquainted with it.
Misgivings and reservations aside, I had little choice but to come here.
Both the curfew and needing to being chaperoned by Renew had taken the fun out of walking through the city, so spending the rest of the morning hiding out in the building was fine if it meant avoiding unnecessary conflict, and I’d be lying if I wasn’t curious about the identity of the girl on the phone.
The dorm building’s ground floor had broad steps leading up to a permaglass wall with a panoramic view of the street.
It also had two very wide sliding doors that were presently shut.
I gave those doors a very pointed look that Ghost quickly understood.
“Princess, there is a Category Nine Ancile firewall surrounding the building’s photronic infrastructure. Your military uses something similar to prevent its autonomous vehicles from outside interference. I can break through it, but it will take time. Thus, I suggest finding another way in.”
I turned to Renew who was standing off to my left. “How do I get in?”
“I have access into the building,” she replied in a flat tone, then jerked her chin at the entrance. “Shall we?”
With a grim heart, I glanced up at the dorm building and once again asked myself if it was wise to come here. But I had no alternative course of action.
Let’s be honest, I didn’t like Raine Renew.
She’d chased me down a building while firing electroshock rounds at me that scorched my clothes and skin. Regardless of whether she was following orders, I wasn’t going to forgive her anytime in this millennium. I had a score to settle with her, but it was mine and mine alone to deal with. I wasn’t going to let the unknown girl get to her first. So if coming here was going to keep her out of harm’s way for now, then I had no choice but to see this through.
Facing her again, I gave Renew a curt nod. “Lead the way.”
And she did just that.
I followed her up to the transparent doors of the building’s ground floor entrance. We had to wait a couple of seconds before they opened to admit us into the dark foyer. The building was operating in night-time mode, but soft lighting turned on to illuminate our surroundings as Renew and I walked over to the front desk. Alerted to our presence, a sentry bot emerged from an alcove in the wall behind the desk. The machine floated a couple of inches off the ground as it flew toward us, then swiftly stopped to hover in front of Renew and I.
The bot reminded me of an upside-down electric shaver. Floating upright, it stood three feet tall, and possessed a smooth plasteel body painted in a light grey color with black trimmings. At its base, three effect-field impellers hummed softly as they levitated the bot off the ground. Six beady camera eyes were arranged in two columns down the face of its tapered head, and the name PERCEVAL was printed boldly down its flanks. When it spoke, it questioned us in a stuffy male voice.
“Are you aware that it is past curfew?”
Like most of the students living in the dorm building, I was accustomed to its uppity tone, so I didn’t bat an eyelid at Perceval’s presumptuous manner of speaking. However, Renew wasn’t a resident and she regarded the bot with veiled distaste.
“I am aware of that,” she replied in an icy tone.
Perceval leaned back slightly as though taken aback by her cold reply, then boldly thrust its tapered head toward her. “In that case, state your intentions—hah!”
Its startled gasp gave me a start, but Renew merely narrowed her eyes at it.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded.
Straightening its posture, the bot rose higher into the air until it hovered at eye level with her. “Firearms are not permitted in this building.”
I failed to hide my surprise.
I wasn’t shocked to learn that Renew was packing heat because that was a given in her line of work. Rather, I was stunned to learn that Perceval had noticed she was carrying a gun.
What kind of sensors is this thing equipped with?
Renew extended her left wrist toward the bot, as though offering it the silver bracelet that she wore. “I’m with Telos Corporation security. Here’s my ID.”
Perceval’s camera eyes peered down at the bracelet. “Raine Renew. Soteria Division. Identification code: Artemis Thirteen.” It paused before grudgingly declaring, “Very well, you may keep your firearm.”
A slow frown broke out across Renew’s forehead as she watched the machine float down to the floor, and her lifeforce aura flared hotly for a moment.
Undoubtedly, Perceval failed to notice the flash of anger that I’d just witnessed. But even if it had, I doubted the machine would have toned down its haughty manner of speaking.
“I will ask you once more,” Perceval said. “State your intentions for coming here…with a gun.”
His request – or demand – was met with stony silence from Renew, who slowly folded her arms under her breasts and stared down at the bot with growing contempt.
This served to dial up the heat under Perceval butt, and the machine bobbed indignantly on its effect fields. “Do I have to ask you a third time?”
If Renew had chosen to shoot the bot in the head, I wouldn’t have stopped her.
Perceval was annoying at the best of times, and despite many students lodging complaints with management, nothing had been done about the machine’s self-important attitude. Attempts to hack its core programming had failed. So too had the attempt to seal it within its alcove behind the front desk. Perceval had literally ripped itself free of the wall in a burst of machine fury. Then it chased after students while demanding to know who was responsible for trapping it inside its alcove. Eventually, technicians from the maintenance company were called in to take the irate bot away. When it returned to duty a few days later, it had no recollection of the event, but its behavior was as conceited as ever…if not worse.
However, one thing surprised me.
Renew had acted indifferently toward me, yet Perceval had succeeded in getting under her skin almost from the get-go.
Could it be that she had a grudge against semi-sentient machines?
That said, Perceval had a habit of getting under everybody’s skin, and Renew wasn’t bothering to hide the contempt she felt for it.
Exhaling loudly, she stared down her nose at the bot. “We require access to one of the dorm rooms.”
Perceval leaned back ever so slightly as it looked up at her.
I imagined its camera eyes narrowing in suspicion when it then asked, “At this hour? Please explain why.”
“No. That’s classified,” Renew swiftly countered. “Just unlock room 35 dash 16 for us.”
My heart jumped in my chest when I heard her quote my dorm room number.
I was already aware that Renew had some deep connection to Project Mirai, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, and yet it did.
But it also suggested that she knew who I used to be.
Or perhaps Erina had told her I’d be coming here but didn’t tell her why.
Either way, it still surprised me, something that I hoped Renew hadn’t noticed.
As for Perceval, the bot jerked on its effect-fields before sharply retorting, “Excuse me?”
Renew took a menacing step closer to the machine. “Are you hard of hearing?”
“I most certainly am not,” Perceval retorted.
“Then unlock room 35 dash 16.”
For a second, the bot appeared to tremble as though it was bottling up its rage before blurting out, “I will do no such thing. That room has been allocated to a student. I demand to know why you require access to it.”
I noticed I was holding my breath and subsequently released it slowly. “Excuse me.”
As though reluctant to break eye contact with Renew, Perceval swung half its camera eyes my way. “Yes? What is it? Who are you?”
“My name is Isabel.”
“Yes? And?”
Up until then, I’d been a bit anxious to speak up. But having Perceval question me while sounding hoity-toity had quashed most of my hesitation. As a result, I wasn’t nearly as bothered when I asked, “Who is the student in room 35 dash 16?”
“And who is asking?” the bot questioned me.
I frowned at it. “I just told you. My name is Isabel.”
“And what is your relationship to the student in room 35 dash 16?”
My frown turned into a scowl. “Hey, it’s rude to answer a question with a question.”
“You have a point,” Perceval agreed. “However, I cannot disclose that information without the proper authorization on your part.”
I dropped my scowl and palmed my forehead. “I can’t believe this….”
“What can you not believe?” the bot inquired.
I gave the machine a sour look. “I can’t believe you’re such a dick.”
Perceval floated in stunned silence. “What did you say?”
I groaned and palmed my forehead again. “I seriously can’t believe this….”
Ghost sounded curious in my ears. “Princess, does it always behave like this?”
I nodded very, very faintly. “Yeah, pretty much,” I whispered.
“Surprising,” Ghost murmured, “or should I say most peculiar. Then again, the Asterios models do serve as home butlers and concierges. Nevertheless, I must wonder if this unit has been branded with a unique personality.”
Was Ghost implying someone had tweaked its behavior matrix?
Was it someone with a twisted sense of humor—perhaps a Joker of an engineer back at the factory?
Swallowing quietly, I asked him in a hushed whisper, “Can you do something about it?”
Unfortunately, Perceval heard me. “Why are you muttering to yourself?”
I groaned inwardly.
Damn the bot’s sharp hearing.
I then gave the oversized, upside-down electric shaver a tired look. “I’m talking to my invisible friend.”
The bot leaned back, then regarded me suspiciously. “Talking to oneself is a sign of—”
A loud clink, that of metal on metal, silenced it.
Renew had drawn her gun, and was pressing its muzzle against the bot’s smooth, tapered head.
Honestly, I wasn’t surprised to see that she’d finally snapped and pulled a gun on the bot.
Instead, what surprised me was that she’d drawn the gun so casually that her movements had completely slipped my notice.
Holy crap, I whispered inwardly. She’s good. The Cat Princess could learn a thing or two from her.
I then quickly reconsidered that last thought.
Nope, that would be a bad idea. A bad idea!
Renew’s icy tone frosted her words. “We don’t have time for this, so start co-operating or—”
A spinning red siren popped out of Perceval’s head.
Thankfully, it was silent and only flashing its red light, but the bot sounded royally peeved when it reported, “I have notified the local authorities of your transgression toward me.”
Ghost started to laugh.
It was so unexpected, that I chortled as well.
The bot’s beady eyes seemed to glare at me. “I do not find this situation amusing.”
Palming my mouth contritely, I muttered a hasty apology before glancing at Renew. “You said you had access to get in there, right?”
“I have access into the building,” she explained. “But no one told me this thing was going to get in our way.”
That was a surprise to hear because I’d assumed that she’d been briefed on the building’s starchy concierge. Nonetheless, she was quite right. Perceval was a hindrance and not a help.
I knew the way to my dorm room, and I had the entry code to open its door.
The problem was getting past Perceval, and unfortunately Renew had just made things worse.
I shook my head at her. “Shooting it isn’t going to help. And what are you going to do when the Enforcers get here? Or are you planning on disposing of the body?”
Pressing her lips tightly together, Renew stared down at Perceval for a short while before lowering her gun.
“Fine, then we’re leaving,” she declared in her customary deadpan manner. “Let’s go.”
Unfortunately, that presented an even bigger problem, since a major reason for coming here was to avoid the unknown girl harming her.
Hence, I panicked as I watched Renew turn on her heels.
“Wait—we can’t leave.”
She stopped, then looked at me over a shoulder. “Why not?”
“Yes, why not?” Perceval asked.
I floundered as I exchanged looks between them. “Because…because…because we just can’t.”
Renew’s expression was unreadable, however, Perceval tipped slightly to one side and complained, “That is an unsatisfactory explanation.”
I crossed my arms stubbornly under Mirai’s breasts, then jerked my chin at Renew. “You can leave if you want, but I’m staying.”
Renew remained impassive but the bot was another matter.
“Unacceptable,” it declared while bobbing on its effect-field. “Utterly unacceptable.”
I scowled at it. “Why are you being so difficult?”
“Difficult, you ask?” The bot froze but its siren light spun faster. “You cannot waltz into this residence and simply demand to be taken to someone’s room without permission.”
Renew turned away again. “As I said, we’re leaving.”
And I started grinding my teeth together.
No, this is NOT happening! NOT HAPPENING!
By now, Ghost had brought his laughter under control. “Princess, I have a means of resolving this situation.”
I gaped, then gasped before asking, “You do?”
“You do, what?” Perceval questioned me.
“Will you shut up.”
“No, I will not shut up.”
I raised a fist at it. “I’m going to hit you!”
Perceval extended two thin plasteel arms and held them at the ready. “You are most welcome to try.”
All the while, the siren light continued to spin madly on its head.
Ghost snickered. “Princess, I suggest you offer it a handshake.”
I released an exasperated groan. “Ghost, seriously? Just look at it. It’s ready to go nine rounds with me.”
Unexpectedly, Perceval lowered its ‘dukes’ and floated closer to me. “I say, are you unwell? Your proclivity for whispering to yourself is clearly a sign of mental instability.”
Releasing another groan, I glared down at the infuriating machine.
Oh, what the Hell. What harm could it do? We’re already up the creek. How much worse can it get?
Forcing myself to smile, I stiffly offered the bot my righthand in greeting. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Isabel. What’s yours?”
The bot stopped and appeared confused for a moment before replying, “Yes, of course.” Retracting its left arm into its body, it then extended its right hand toward me. “A pleasure to meet you, Isabel. My name is—”
Seconds after shaking hands with me, the bot trembled and fell silent. However, it remained hovering on its effect-field impellers and its siren light continued spinning silently.
“What—what happened to it?” I muttered.
Renew had come to a stop and was staring at the floating machine with a faintly perplexed look. “What did you do to it?”
“Nothing,” I admitted. “I just shook its hand—huh?”
Suddenly, the siren light retracted into Perceval’s head. Quickly releasing my hand, the bot floated back a step.
What’s going on? I wondered with a pinch of worry.
In the corner of my eye, I noticed the gun was back in Renew’s hand as she watched the machine in guarded silence.
“Hey,” I said to her, “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
But just then, Perceval stirred into action.
Oh, what now?
Abruptly, Perceval extended its left arm again, then used both hands and arms to offer me a rigid bow. “Your Highness, forgive my lack of decorum.”
“What the…?” I whispered in confusion.
Even Renew was taken aback though she regained her stoic demeanor in the blink of an eye.
Perceval continued to bow before me with downcast camera eyes. “Your Highness, how may I serve you?”
Renew warily stepped closer to me. “I’ll ask you again. What did you do to it?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Like I said before, nothing.”
Renew wasn’t buying it, but I wasn’t going to admit that Ghost had undoubtedly hacked the machine when I made contact with it. I didn’t know why he needed me to touch it. Maybe it was to keep up a pretense of some sort. Whatever the reason, I glanced at my right hand but saw nothing unusual about it.
Ghost chuckled gently. “Princess, there is no need to be concerned. I merely switched the Asterios unit over to a different personality program, one of many that it is loaded with, and one that is subservient to royalty.”
Royalty?
“What do you mean?” I whispered uneasily.
“I made it believe that you are a princess visiting Teloria from a kingdom far beyond the star system.”
My mouth fell open.
Ghost then added, “Therefore, Princess, I suggest you play along with it.”
I closed my mouth slowly, then sighed wearily as my shoulders slumped. “I don’t believe this….”
Staring down at the patiently waiting Perceval, I wondered how I should act, then decided to draw inspiration from Erina. With her personality firmly in mind, I cleared my throat, and then looked down my nose at the floating sentry bot. Yet despite this, I almost choked when I said, “I am Princess Isabel val Sanreal. Do you have a name?”
I already knew its name, but it seemed wrong not to ask.
The bot nodded which was quite a feat since it had no neck. “I am Perceval, your Highness, and I am at your service.”
I heard Ghost chuckle again in my ears.
Ignoring him as best I could, I swallowed and cleared my throat again. “Perceval, I would like to be taken to room 35 dash 16. An acquaintance of mine is staying there.”
The bot straightened. “As you wish, your Highness. Are they expecting you?”
“Ah, no. No, I…I don’t think so.”
“Then shall I inform them of your arrival?”
I couldn’t believe how helpful the machine was behaving after acting like such a stick in the mud. “Ah…no, that’s fine. I’d rather surprise them instead.”
Again, the bot nodded stiffly. “As you wish, Princess Isabel.” It gestured with a small mechanical hand toward the elevators at one end of the foyer. “This way, please.”
As Perceval floated off toward the elevator bank, Renew approached me. “I wasn’t aware that you were royalty.”
Again, I glanced down at my right hand. “Me neither….” Then I gasped as I abruptly remembered something important. “Hey, wait!” I called out to Perceval.
The bot came to a floating stop, then spun around to face me. “Your Highness?”
I hastily walked up to it. “You said you called the Enforcers. Can you cancel that call? Can you tell them it was a false alarm?”
“A call, your Highness?” Perceval questioned politely. “I have no memory of making any such a call.”
Ghost stepped into the conversation. “At ease, Princess. I used Sir Perceval to rescind that call to the authorities, then removed it from the unit’s memory cells.”
I exhaled slowly in relief. “Cool, great.”
Perceval was staring at me expectantly. At least, that’s the impression it gave me, so I waved a hand in apology. “Sorry. My bad. Ignore what I just said.”
“As you wish, your Highness.”
I started to grimace.
I’d grown accustomed to hearing Ghost address me as ‘Princess’, but being called ‘your Highness’ was making me feel a little nauseous.
“Ah, Perceval. Could I ask that you call me Isabel?” I gave it a queasy smile. “You don’t have to be so formal with me.”
The bot was silent for a couple of seconds before bowing to me once again. “Your Highness. I could hardly dispense with such a formality.”
I stifled a groan. “Great….”
Standing a few feet away, Renew asked, “What about the Enforcers?”
I shook my head quickly. “Don’t worry about it. They’ve been taken care of.”
“How?”
“Just—just trust me on this. It’s not a problem anymore.”
“I disagree.” She pointed at the building’s entrance. “Take a look.”
Beyond the transparent permaglass doors, I saw the silhouettes of a couple of hulking Enforcers climbing up the steps to the entrance.
And I say ‘hulking’ because they were clad in armor-skins.
“Damn it,” I hissed, then whispered, “Ghost, help!”
Before he could reply, Perceval took action. The bot quickly sped toward the permaglass entrance and the Enforcers walking up to it. “Your Highness, leave this to me. Regina, please attend to her Highness.”
As Perceval raced off, the lights in the foyer quickly turned off and the place was cast in darkness.
Renew smoothly slipped on a pair of sunglasses – probably equipped with some night-vision capability – but Mirai’s eyes adjusted in a heartbeat, thus I could see quite clearly because there was sufficient light spilling into the foyer from outside streetlights.
While this was happening, a section of the wall behind the concierge’s desk parted open and a second security bot resembling an upside-down, electric shaver floated out from a concealed alcove.
At sight of it, Renew unhappily clicked her tongue. “There are more of them?”
I studied the bot approaching us. “So this is Regina….”
Like most of the students at the dorm, I’d heard about her—I mean it—but I’d never seen it before. In fact, few students had spoken to Regina in person, and only on rare occasions when it ventured out into the foyer. But I had heard rumors that it wandered the hallways at night like a ghost, scaring the bejesus out of students breaking curfew inside the building. The bot looked identical to Perceval. However, Regina floated upright like someone walking with their back straight, whereas Perceval leaned forward when it moved as though battling a headwind.
There were two other notable differences.
The first was that Perceval had black trimmings, while Regina’s trimmings were red.
The second difference was that Regina spoke with a demure feminine voice.
Stopping a respectful distance away, Regina gave me a shallow bow, then asked, “How may I assist you?”
I was a little flummoxed by it and spent a few moments wondering how I should respond.
However, Renew was quicker on the uptake. “We need to go to room 35 dash 16. And we’re in a hurry.”
She was right.
The Enforcers were almost at the entrance to the building.
Having the lights off inside the foyer wasn’t going to hide us from the Enforcers if they used night-vision to peer into the darkness.
“As you wish,” Regina replied, then swiftly darted toward the elevator.
Renew exhaled in a rush as though relieved, then chased after the speeding Regina. “What are you waiting for, your Highness?”
I bit back a snide remark as I followed her at a run.
At the elevator bank, there was a lift car waiting for us.
I suspected that Perceval had summoned it earlier before he hurried off to intercept the Enforcers at the entrance.
Regina politely ushered us into the lift before following us inside.
Within moments the doors had closed, and the elevator flew at high speed on maglev rails to the thirty-fifth floor. The lift car was designed to carry up to twenty occupants so there was an abundance of room with just the three of us aboard. Nonetheless, Renew and I kept our distance from each other, but Regina had positioned itself in front of the elevator’s touchscreen control panel.
I was puzzled by its decision to do so.
Regina could operate the elevator wirelessly, so why choose to stand in front of the control panel?
Was it a quirk of its programming?
Whatever the reason, I was grateful that it wasn’t chatty. But in the silence filling the elevator car, my thoughts circled back to Perceval’s personality switch, and once again I studied my right hand. Renew noticed me doing so, and the slight twitch of her eyebrows was like a warning telling me not to touch Regina. I deliberately shoved my hand into a pant pocket and that seemed to satisfy her, but Renew then gave the silent, floating Regina a wary look.
As for me, I wondered how Perceval was coping with the Enforcers who were responding to a call that the bot had no memory of having made.
I decided to classify that under, NOT MY PROBLEM.
– II –
When the lift stopped at the thirty-fifth floor, its doors opened, and Regina dutifully led us out into a wide hallway.
The place was outlaid with low pile carpeting underfoot and the walls were painted in Navajo white. It was dimly lit, but the ceiling lights brightened to follow us as we walked down the hallway, then darkened behind us. That made me slightly nervous because I felt like we were walking under a spotlight, and when I glanced back at Renew, I saw that she was still wearing her dark sunglasses as she attentively watched our surroundings.
The residential complex had an enormous footprint, so we walked in silence for a fair distance before arriving at my old dormitory room.
35 dash 16.
It may be a cliché to say this, but it felt like a lifetime since I’d looked upon those numbers.
However, what truly raked my heart was knowing that it was a life stolen from me.
Seeing the door and knowing that my old apartment was on the other side, my emotions began to bubble and froth inside my chest.
I couldn’t stop myself from shivering and forcefully shoved my left hand into my pant pocket.
All the while, I could see Renew in the corner of my eye, watching me with an immutable expression, and I was now certain that she knew exactly who and what I was. After all, she had chased me down the side of a four hundred storey building, and then onto a speeding maglev. Yet while she continued to act like a personal bodyguard, I maintained the pretense of being a rebellious teenage princess.
Actually, it was half a pretense – I was a rebellious teenager, but not a princess.
Regina floated beside the door and she stared at me with her six camera eyes. “This is room 35 dash 16. Do you wish to enter?”
My throat had grown dry and tight, and the bubbling cauldron of emotions in my chest was putting pressure on my lungs. Feeling like my heart was being squeezed, I also feared my voice would fail me, so I raised a hand to ask Regina to give me a moment, then hastily swallowed twice to loosen up my throat.
The bot waited patiently for me, but not Renew.
No doubt she was aware of the struggle playing out within me – a conflict I simply couldn’t hide from her studious gaze – so she took the opportunity to ask Regina, “Is the room unoccupied?”
My breath caught and my awareness seemed to hang in the air as I waited for the bot’s answer.
Regina aimed her camera eyes at Renew. “Yes. The occupant of this room has not returned to it since departing at 8:20 am on Monday, February 10th, 2273 AD.”
So the room was empty.
I felt an odd sense of relief and a some of the pressure inside me bled away, thereby making it easier for me to breath. But my emotions continued to froth and slosh about, and they threatened to spill when Renew jerked her chin at the door and instructed Regina to open it.
The bot appeared to hesitate for a fraction of second before moving to obey.
“Wait,” I snapped at it, stopping it with a hastily raised hand. “Please, wait.” I faced Renew. “You can go now.”
I could feel her impassive gaze scrutinizing me from behind her sunglasses, and after a second or two, Renew calmly asked, “Are you planning to stay here for a while?”
After swallowing heavily, I nodded back at her. “Yes, I am.”
“Then I need to check that it’s secure.”
I slowly shook my head at her. “No, you don’t.”
“My orders specifically state—”
I stepped up to Renew. Sunglasses not withstanding, I could still see her eyes and I stared hard into them.
“No…you don’t.” All of a sudden, I wasn’t feeling uncertain or nervous anymore. I was feeling trespassed and infringed upon. And fairly pissed off. “You’ve done enough already, and this is where I draw the line. You can go.”
That was met with silence from Renew, until she nodded curtly a moment later. “Very well.”
I wasn’t surprised that she’d back down so easily.
Renew had been expressing a detached indifference toward me since our first proper face-to-face encounter. Yet, I suspected she didn’t argue with me because she had other means of surveilling the apartment. She probably knew all along that the place was unoccupied. The only real surprise had come from her antagonism toward Perceval, but as I’d said before, Perceval rubbed everybody the wrong way.
Renew looked down at the floating Regina. “You don’t mind if I leave out the back door?”
The bot looked up at her. “The westside exit is presently locked.”
Renew nodded as if taking the news in stride. “Can you open it for me?”
“I can.”
“Then lead the way.”
However, rather than heading off, Regina rotated toward me and then asked, “Do you wish to enter the room?”
“Yes, I do. But”—I pointedly glanced down the hallway—“you don’t have to wait for me.”
Unexpectedly, Regina demonstrated a very humanlike reluctance to leave, and appeared to glance up at Renew before once again speaking to me. “The passkey—”
“I know what the passkey is,” I told it, then gently added, “I’ll be fine here. Thank you for your help, Regina.”
Again, the bot displayed an unwillingness to leave, but moments later it gracefully offered me a rigid bow. “As you wish.” Regina then turned to Renew. “This way please.”
The bot began floating down the hallway in the direction we’d come from.
As Renew started to follow it, I called out to her.
There was something I just had to ask her before she left.
“How did you know I was coming to this room?”
Renew stopped, then half turned to regard me with inscrutable eyes that I could faintly see behind those damned sunglasses of her. “Doctor Kassius explained that you might be coming here.”
“Did she say why?”
Renew casually shook her head. “No, she did not. And I didn’t ask.”
I bit the inside of my mouth to stop my cheek from twitching angrily.
Yeah, because you didn’t need to. You’ve known about me all along. This is like a charade to you.
Renew waited for a second before inquiring, “Is that all?”
She didn’t sound impatient to leave. In fact, I didn’t know what she was feeling. The waves of her lifeforce aura were calm and regular, its radiance reminding me of a warm sunrise or sunset. The only time her aura had changed markedly was when she’d been sparring with Perceval. But toward me, Renew felt nothing.
She really doesn’t care what I am, does she…?
I can’t say it didn’t bother me, because it did. And yet, I couldn’t explain why. All I knew was that for some reason my contempt for this young woman had jumped a notch.
“Is that all?” Renew asked.
I felt like snorting at her in reply, but instead I exhaled quietly before giving her a blunt nod. “Yeah, that’s all….”
Unwillingly, my words hung in the air. Maybe they gave Renew the impression that I was leaving things unsaid, and perhaps that’s why she hung back for a moment, as though giving me an opportunity to say more. Perchance, she was baiting me to say what was really on my mind – to express my dislike for her.
However, I held my tongue, and dismissed her with a silent stare.
After nodding curtly, Renew pivoted on her heels, and then followed after Regina who had stopped to wait for her.
I watched the two of them travel down the hallway.
It wasn’t until they’d rounded a corner and disappeared from sight that I relaxed a little, feeling as though a weight had come off my shoulders.
But that didn’t last long.
Standing in front of my old dorm room, the full burden of coming here crashed down on me – staggering me – and in the quiet stillness of the hallway, my heart and breathing sounded unnaturally loud in my ears.
“Princess, are you not going inside?”
My gaze fell on the touchscreen panel beside the door jamb. “Just give me a sec….”
However, it took me longer than a second to gather my resolve and enter the passkey into the panel.
There was a soft click as the door unlocked.
After taking a couple of trembling breaths, I reached out with an unsteady hand and then pushed the door open.
Stepping into the room’s familiar hallway, I quietly closed the door behind me.
The lights didn’t come on and I stood in quiet darkness with my back to the door. Yet there was enough city light filtering in through the curtains drawn across the apartment’s window wall that I could see the contours of the hallway and the living area.
Greeted by silence, I spent a long while taking slow, patchy breaths as my body shivered every now and then.
I was finally here and yet I wasn’t able to step away from the doorway.
And then Ghost made it even harder for me to venture forward by saying, “Welcome back, Princess.”
My heart thumped painfully in response.
Seconds went by before I replied in a faint whisper, “…yeah…I’m back….”
Then my throat grew tight and no amount of saliva or swallowing could loosen it.
A ragged breath escaped me, and my legs turned rubbery.
I almost sank to the floor but remained on my feet by bracing my back against the door behind me.
Closing my eyes for a long, long while, I slowly calmed my breathing and listened to my heartbeat gently ease down. When my body no longer trembled, and my legs felt stronger, I straightened my posture, opened my eyes, and then gently pushed away from the door.
“Yeah, I’m back,” I repeated softly as I took my first steps down the five-meter hallway.
The lights failed to respond to my presence when I stopped at the entrance to the rectangular living area. I gazed over the dark shapes occupying the interior, knowing what they were by heart.
“Monitor, lights on,” I requested, but there was no response and the apartment remained dark, prompting me to ask, “Ghost, is the Monitor disabled?”
There was a lengthy delay before he replied, “Apparently so.”
“Why?”
“Uncertain. There is no record explaining why but the system has definitely been deactivated. Do you wish for me to look into the reason?”
I mulled the offer for a second. “No, but can you turn it back on?”
“Certainly, Princess. Shall I do so?”
I hesitated while thinking it over, then gently shook my head. “No…leave it off.”
“As you wish, Princess.”
Walking over to the silhouette of the bedside table, I activated the lamp sitting on it with a gentle tap. It radiated a soft amber light that spread throughout the living area, and I slowly, carefully surveyed the room.
The bedsheets had been changed, and the bed remade by the automated cleaning service that employed the bots shaped like bowling pins. No doubt the carpet had been vacuumed as well. The air smelt clean, with a scent of lilac coming from an aerosol dispenser sitting on a shelf beside the flat holovid projection screen that dominated one wall of the apartment.
The contents of my shelves and bookcases were unmoved from where I remembered them.
I walked up to a shelf, and then ran my fingers over my collection of Mercy Haddaway photo albums. Although I had her assorted holovid and digital releases, I’d purchased her printed material as well.
Pulling out an album, I leafed through it as I returned to my bed. Sitting down on the edge, I continued paging through the big book. Every photo that I looked at reminded me of how closely Mirai resembled Mercy. When I reached the end of the album, I gently closed the book, and placed it reverently beside me on the bed, then once again gazed about the interior of the apartment.
Now that I was here, I wondered if I would have come back here if not out of necessity. It had been difficult for me to step away from the door because the place was of monumental significance to me, but had circumstance been different would I have made the trip here of my own will?
With a soft, lengthy sigh, I fell back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
I felt a growing lethargy mire my thoughts and weigh down my limbs.
The past couple of days had been nightmare for me – a storm of events that had tossed me like flotsam on a raging sea. The peace I was experiencing now was like having drifted into the eye of that storm, but I was mentally weary and emotionally exhausted.
I was also a little hungry, yet, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it because on top of being drained, I also felt aimless and distracted by the questions tumbling about inside my head – questions for which I had no answers, or maybe I had the answers and was refusing to acknowledge them.
If not now, would I have ever come back to the apartment?
I swallowed hard as I continued gazing at the ceiling.
Yes…I would have. Eventually, I would have come back here.
The question was…why?
Would it have been to establish a sense of closure on my old life as Ronin Kassius?
Would it have been to cement the decision I made back aboard the Sanreal Crest when I told Ghost that I would live as Isabel and fight as Mirai?
My gaze followed the contours of the embossed patterns decorating the ceiling, losing itself in the flowing lines while my thoughts gradually converged upon one question – was I ready to open up to a new life as Isabel and Mirai?
I’d been told there was no going back to my life as Ronin Kassius, so would I be able to go forward?
“…can I live as a girl….?”
I searched my feelings and found myself uneasy and uncertain, perhaps reflecting what was also an uncertain existence.
“…easier said than done….”
I realized that by whispering aloud I’d invited a comment or two from Ghost.
Astonishingly there was none.
His silence surprised me, and I wondered if he was being unusually considerate toward me, but then I realized I was being unfairly harsh on him.
However, I soon noticed something else.
The tortured feelings that had wracked my body and held me back at the door had all but bled away.
All I felt now was exhaustion.
I was weary all the way down to my bones.
But why was I feeling nothing else?
Now that I was here, shouldn’t I be feeling a profound sense of loss?
I’d read how some people would describe a distinct lack of grief after losing a loved one, so was this what I was experiencing?
Was I unable to grieve for the loss of my old life?
Or maybe I wasn’t ready to do so.
Perhaps my feelings were all bottled up, waiting for the right time – the right moment – to be unleashed.
When that happened, what would it be like – an explosion of pent up fury or a quiet fizzle?
Throwing an arm over my face, I closed my eyes with a heavy sigh.
“Lights off,” I called out to the apartment’s Monitor.
There was no confirmation, and I remembered Ghost telling me the Assisting Intelligence had been disabled. Suppressing a flash of irritation, I crawled over the bed to the lamp on the bedside table, turning it off with a tap, and then rolled over onto my back. Dropping my head onto the pillows, I made myself comfortable as I clasped my hands over my midriff.
In the dark room, I breathed slow and deep while gazing up at the ceiling.
There was enough light for me to trace the swirling, flowing patterns, but I found no solace in them – nothing to ease my mind.
“Ghost…?”
“Yes, Princess.”
After a lengthy pause, I admitted, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Ghost too was silent for a long while before asking, “What do you mean?”
I gave myself a few moments to organize my troubled thoughts before airing them.
“I thought coming here was the right thing to do. I mean, it’s the best solution I could think of. But…but I also thought I’d feel something. And I did. Don’t get me wrong, I really did feel something when I walked inside.” I paused for a quick breath. “But…it wasn’t what I expected.”
“Was it grief? Was it resentment?” After a delay, Ghost somberly questioned, “Did you feel robbed?”
“Robbed?” I shook my head weakly. “No…I was…I was afraid….”
“Afraid?”
I nodded gently. “Yes, I felt afraid…afraid that I’d been replaced.”
“Replaced?”
“Yeah…by a Simulacrum.”
Ghost answered me with silence that lingered in the air for a long while, until I garnered the courage to continue expressing what I was feeling.
“I was scared that I’d step inside and find myself—that I’d find Ronin Kassius sleeping in my bed. Even after Regina said the room was empty, I couldn’t shake that fear, and I carried it with me into the apartment. I guess that’s also why I had so much trouble making myself open the door.”
Ghost remained silent and I started feeling uneasy.
“Ghost? You there?”
“I am here, Princess.”
I sighed loudly. “Well? Nothing to say?”
“No…not for now, Princess.”
What?
A slow frown spread across my forehead, but Ghost questioned me before I could ask him what he meant. “Princess, how do you feel now?”
My frown deepened as I stared pensively up at the ceiling. “How do I feel?”
“Indeed.”
I breathed in deeply, then expelled it slowly as I examined my feelings. “Right now…right now I feel tired. Dead tired.”
“Physically?”
I shook my head on the pillow. “No. All of me.” Then I scoured deeper into my feelings and realized something that made me chuckle in disbelief and disappointment. “I’m so messed up.”
“Princess, you have been through a great deal in a short amount of time—”
“No, that’s not it,” I countered. “That’s not it at all.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t feel anything, Ghost.”
However, that remark was too vague to rest upon, so I after a breath, I sought to clarify what I meant. “For sure, I’m tired. For sure, I was afraid when I first walked in. But past all that…it’s like I’m dead inside.”
My eyes absently followed the patterns embossed in the ceiling.
“I should be grieving or mourning over what I’ve lost, but I’m not, and that’s just too weird. Too wrong.” After yet another heavy breath, I muttered, “Maybe I’m broken. After everything that’s happened to me, maybe I’m burnt out. Or it could be that I’m done grieving about my past life without knowing it.” I hesitated before whispering, “Maybe, I’ve already started moving on….”
If that was true, and I’d already come terms with losing my life as Ronin Kassius, then perhaps coming here served to make that clear to me. However, it didn’t change the fact that everything about my return was anticlimactic, leading to a belated sense of frustration that gradually grew stronger and eventually induced a restlessness that spread quickly throughout my body.
Trying to shake it off, I rolled onto my side but was quickly irked by the hefty weight of Mirai’s breasts as they shifted beneath the tight sports bra.
Groaning in annoyance, I went back to lying on my back, and then closed my eyes.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I was irritated by an unpleasant pressure in my nether regions. I clamped down on it with unfamiliar muscles, but that only served to delay the inevitable, so with a loud huff, I swung my legs and feet off the bed and then sat up.
“Lights,” I grumbled then once again remembered the Monitor was off. “Damn it.”
I reached for the bedside lamp but then stopped short of turning it on.
Mirai’s eyes could see well enough in the dark, and I knew the apartment inside out, so I was unlikely to stub a toe in the furniture.
Plus, I was wearing my sneakers.
Exhaling heavily, I rose from the bed, momentarily swaying on my feet before gaining my balance.
“Damn it…,” I complained as I pressed a hand to my lower midriff.
“Princess?”
“I need to pee.”
“Oh. I see. By all means.”
Although I couldn’t see him, it didn’t stop me from scowling at Ghost, as I walked to the bathroom that I was so intimately familiar with. Turning on one of the lights, I blinked once as Mirai’s eyes adjusted, and then stepped up to the throne.
Reaching down to flip up the lowered seat, I grumbled under my breath.
“Ghost, if you—”
I froze with my fingertips hooked under the edge of the plastic seat.
“—peek on me….”
My voice faded away as I stared down at my long slender arm and feminine hand touching the toilet seat.
“…oh God….”
At that moment, I felt as though I’d stepped under a waterfall as I was drenched by the undeniable, inescapable truth of what I was seeing.
All those emotions that I’d believed were bottled or burnt away now flooded through me, and from deep within my chest, a weird, strangled laugh bubbled up, making my body shudder.
But the call of nature was too strong to ignore by now, and so I had no choice but to answer it by hastily dropping the necessary garments and then taking a seat on what was now a Queen’s throne. Yet the laughter that gurgled in my chest and throat wouldn’t stop, even as Mirai went through the natural, human process of emptying her bladder.
It carried on after my tears started to fall, and it ended when sobs began to wrack my body.
I hunched over, with my large breasts pressing into my thighs, and my arms wrapped around my belly. With my long dark hair curtaining my face, I cried softly, desperate to keep the volume down though I knew the soundproof walls would prevent my neighbors from hearing my distress.
I don’t know for how long I cried, but it felt like an hour later when I finally regained a semblance of calm.
However, it was a while longer before I ventured to clean myself up – nervously and hesitantly feeling around a delicate, unfamiliar place. I had my eyes squeezed shut the whole time my trembling fingers felt their way around Mirai’s womanhood, opening them only when I needed to dispose of the biodegradable paper wad.
An equally long while later, I found the strength to stand, pulling up my clothes with unsteady hands and shaking arms.
My sobs threatened to perform an encore, but I clamped down on them, and then shuffled over to the wide washbasin.
Filling it with warm water, I washed my face carefully.
Because my skin felt raw, I patted it rather than scrubbed it dry with a hand towel I pulled from a bathroom rail.
When I found the courage to look at my reflection in the mirror, I saw a girl watching me, her exquisite beauty marred by the hollow expression she wore.
Anyone who saw her would have been convinced she had just lost everything, and they wouldn’t have been far from wrong.
I’d come to my old dorm apartment with the intention of avoiding a conflict.
And I’d come here seeking answers from an unknown party.
But subconsciously, I’d also come here seeking solace and solitude.
In a way, I was looking for a place of refuge, a place that I felt was home, somewhere that made me believe that nothing had changed.
Yet the sole gesture of answering a call of nature had brought me face to face with reality.
And no matter how much I argued with Erina or anyone else – no matter how much I denied it – there was no running away from the truth that Mirai’s body had forced me to acknowledge more profoundly than anything I’d experienced since waking up in this body.
I was a girl now.
Pure and simple.
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
For those of you who are interested in reading the original 2017 release of "Gun Princess Royale" the books are still available for purchase via the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
The new "The Gun Princess Royale" will hopefully be release on Amazon Kindle as an eBook in 2023.
It all depends on what issues my editor friend finds with the story.
Sincere apologies. I don't know why Chapter 7 ended up under a Chapter 6 listing. And I don't know how I ended up with two Chapter 6's. I'll ask to have this entry removed. Very sorry for the confusion.
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.
Amidst the political maneuvering, while slowly reconciling his past as Ronin Kassius, Isabel faces a new threat from Tabitha Hexen who reveals her own agenda in wanting to fight Mirai in a Gun Princess Royale battle.
Note: The original 2017 release of the Gun Princess Royale will be removed from Amazon Kindle on 15th of December, 2023 to make way for the new The Gun Princess Royale 2023 release - a new, reimagined/reboot of the series that aims to deliver a far better reading experience and hopefully break new ground.
I returned to my bed – no, I returned to Ronin Kassius’s bed – kicked off my sneakers, and then slipped under the covers.
I lay in darkness, and vacantly stared up at the indistinct ceiling.
Was I feeling shell shocked?
I didn’t know if that was the right word for it.
I wondered if I would offend anyone by even thinking of myself in those terms. After all, these days the vast majority of the populace was offended and slighted by every little thing they saw or heard. I found it ludicrous how they were all looking for a reason to pick a fight, or prove they were right and someone else was wrong as though trying to justify their existence.
Thus, I decided that I didn’t care if I offended anyone by describing myself as shell shocked.
I’d survived more hardship in two days than most of those easily offended people experienced in a lifetime.
To Hell with social graces and political correctness.
I had a right to feel this way.
Yes, I was shell shocked and there was no way in Hell I was going to fall asleep.
However, sleep wasn’t my goal.
For the moment, it was simply coping with the start reality of my existence, and by that I meant avoiding a nervous breakdown. Whether or not in future I could come terms with it wasn’t something I’d resolve overnight or just by sleeping on it. Thus, for now I was doing my best to avoid plunging into despair, because I felt that the progress that I’d made toward accepting my new life as Isabel and Mirai had suffered a major setback.
At its worst, I was more or less back to square one, and not knowing if I could move forward again sincerely frightened me.
But was there a way forward?
In other words, even if I wanted to make new progress – and I was certain that I did – was there a path or two for me to choose from?
That gave me food for thought because it next made me consider what my end goal was.
If I wanted to return to life as Ronin Kassius, that put me at odds with what Erina had told me back on the boat. In short, that it wasn’t possible for me to go back, so if I wanted to make peace with my new life as Isabel and Mirai, how would I go about that?
Perhaps, the first new step was to stop worrying about being a girl.
Perhaps, I just needed to gradually grow accustomed to it, and little by little, as time went by, I would settle into Isabel and Mirai’s skin.
With a heavy, shuddering sigh, I kicked back the bedsheets and lay still for a long while, before eventually swinging my legs off the bed. Sitting on the edge, I stared down at my feet for a good minute before I reached over to double-tap the base of the bedside lamp. Warm amber light spread across the room, pushing back much of darkness inside the apartment, and I slowly gazed around the living area while gently biting my lower lip.
If I was going to step away from the brink of despair, I believed I needed something to distract me.
Surprisingly, it was the kitchen that caught my eye.
Standing up, I walked over to its small refrigerator and peered inside.
The service bots had stocked it up again with fresh fruits and drinks. There was even a collection of square meals for me to choose from if I was hungry. But I was thirstier than famished, so I picked out a lemon soda in an emerald green plastic bottle, closed the fridge, then ambled back to the middle of the living area.
Uncapping the bottle, I drank it down slowly as I gave the place another sweeping look.
Everything really was where I remembered leaving it that Monday morning.
It was both reassuring and troubling because it made me feel as though I’d never left.
It threatened to instill me with a false sense of belonging, anchoring me in the past when I’d asserted that I wanted – needed – to look toward the future. But even so, that wasn’t quite right, because I wasn’t looking to a future as a girl out of necessity, but because I presently had no other options.
However, for the time being, I had to do something to take my mind off my situation.
I understood that in a way I was running away from the problem, but I’d already decided it wasn’t something that I could face right now.
What to do? What to do? What. To. Do?
My attention fell on the shelves filled to the brim with Mercy Haddaway material.
In this day and age, there was no need for large storage boxes to hold photronic media, but that didn’t stop companies from selling them in the time honored tradition since the days of Blu-Ray and Q-Ray discs.
Strolling over to one set of shelves, I peered at the spines of the slim cases sitting on the middle shelf, then pulled one out on impulse.
The cover was familiar to me but not the content.
It was a holovid that I’d never managed to watch beyond the first few minutes, but I knew that it featured Mercy returning to her high school in the city-state of Pan Pacifica.
Carefully, reverently, I opened the slim case and retrieved the photronic data-card inside. It was roughly the size of a cash card. Possessing half a petabyte of memory, that was enough for a few hours of holovid and projecbeam material to playback.
Closing the case, I slipped the data-card into the holovid player. While it loaded, I moved the low lying coffee table aside to make room in the middle of the living room, then retrieved the remote from beside the player. Last but not least, I turned off the bedside lamp with a tap, then sat cross-legged on the floor and waited for the holo-album’s menu to appear. When it came up, I selected the projecbeam playback option.
Originally, the dorm room came with a standard, mid-market holovid player. But at the end of last year, I’d spent a sizeable portion of my early allowance to purchase a high-end player with projecbeam capability. Unlike a holovid that required a projection surface behind it, making the images appear as though they were floating in front of the screen rather than on it, a projecbeam was projected into the air. The player I’d purchased could generate a spherical projecbeam. It came with emitter strips that I carefully attached to the walls of the dormitory’s living area. The connecting kitchen had complicated things a little, but I’d followed online advice on how to get the best results out of the room’s layout.
Sitting on the carpeted floor in the middle of the living room, I was quickly enveloped in an ultra high-resolution image bubble that recreated an urban environment.
Even though I was sitting down, my P.O.V. was from a standing position.
I was on a sidewalk outside of a towering school building encircled by a wall some twenty-feet high.
As I looked around me, my surroundings rotated when I turned my head and body as the player read my movements and line-of-sight to adjust the contents projected within the bubble.
The recreation was so detailed and life-like that I could easily suspend my disbelief as I stared at the city street, the moving vehicular traffic, the pedestrians, and Pan Pacifica’s soaring skyline. However, I wasn’t just seeing my surroundings but hearing them as well. The only shortcoming was the lack of smell, and there wasn’t any breeze to feel.
As I grew accustomed to the projected environment, I noticed a luxurious, executive styled passenger van pull up to the sidewalk, then stop within spitting distance of the school’s wide entrance. The passenger door opened by sliding back, and a dark suited gentleman climbed out. He turned to assist a pretty, blonde girl alight from the van.
Wearing a figure hugging, thigh length, lilac summer dress with a ruffled skirt, she had a svelte figure that most women would envy, and she stood on the sidewalk perched on heeled, strappy sandals. Gazing upon her surroundings with a breezy smile, she then appeared to notice me, and her smile grew as her green eyes appeared to meet mine.
Blinded by her beauty, my heart jumped then landed at a run.
My goddess, Mercy Haddaway, was smiling at me.
I’d played a few of the other albums as projecbeams, but my heart could never handle this one for more than a minute, so I always turned off the playback before I suffered a cardiac arrest. However, Mirai was made of sterner stuff, and she was able to weather the brunt of Mercy’s radiance, though I was trembling all over.
I needed a distraction. I guess this is it.
Mercy greeted me with her mellifluous voice, and then bade me to follow her as she ventured into the school through the open gates. They should have been closed since it appeared that classes were in session, but maybe they were opened just for Mercy since she was recording at the school today.
I didn’t need to walk to follow her.
That was convenient because my rubbery legs weren’t going to support me any time soon. Therefore, it was a good thing I was already sitting on the floor.
The projecbeam bubble and the recording made it seem as though I was really accompanying Mercy as she walked into the school grounds on a clear morning. My P.O.V. was like that of a drone floating off her left shoulder, and when I looked over my right shoulder – so to speak – I saw two dark suited gentlemen following a few steps behind us.
After a while my heart began to ease down, and I stopped trembling, allowing me to enjoy the immersive experience.
Mercy was warmly greeted by the school’s principal, a stunning brunette in a business-skirt suit. In a way, the woman made me think of Erina, and that was a bit of downer. However, after hastily pushing the comparison aside, I focused on Mercy and soon forgot about my bitch of a sister – I mean former sister – as Mercy toured the school.
San Marianna Academy was remarkably different to Telos Academy.
Everything from the layout, to the uniforms, to the general ambience. But that was understandable since this was an all girl’s school, and not co-educational.
The building was also much taller than Telos Academy. Because it wasn’t located on an island, the school was stuck somewhere in the city-state, and this had restricted its footprint, so the builders had gone up about a hundred floors. That said, space was always at a premium, so it seemed that only the bottom dozen floors were school facilities, while everything above it was accommodation for the students and staff. In short, much of the building was a giant dormitory.
However, that wasn’t all there was to it.
A level above the school floors had a parkland with a bicycle and jogging track, and a swimming pool that resembled a mini lagoon.
I could only imagine just how heavy that floor was with all the water it had to support.
To be honest, I didn’t see a point to it, other than to promote it as a den – I mean a paradise – for the female students. Of course, Mercy explored the place, and much to my delight she had a swimsuit underneath her summer dress, perfect for a quick dip and photoshoot session in the lagoon pool.
Unfortunately, she was quickly surrounded by girls during their lunch break.
I wanted to kick those ruffians out of the way.
How dare they cloister around my goddess!
Damn them! They were blocking my view of Mercy.
Thankfully, the tour moved on to other parts of the school building, and I calmed down when the female students returned to class. I had jumped to my feet, but was sitting on the floor again as I followed my raison d’etre like an infatuated butterfly or a moth drawn to a flame.
Then disaster struck.
As the tour rolled on, I started to nod off, and sometime later, I fell asleep.
When I woke up, the playback had ended, and the player had entered sleep mode. However, it was the slivers of morning light intruding into the room from around the edges of the drawn curtain that came as a surprise, because that alone told me that I’d been out like a light for a few hours.
I was crestfallen that I’d slept through the remainder of the holo-album.
I’d finally succeeded in watching much more than the first few minutes, yet I’d succumbed to exhaustion. In addition, I was feeling stiff as a goal post because I’d slept while sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Should I tell you that’s not the best way for a girl to sleep?
Straightening my legs, I groaned as Mirai’s muscles complained loudly, then I ungracefully fell flat on my back.
Lying spread-eagled on the living room floor, I stared up at the ceiling.
I didn’t need to look at the clock on the bedside table to know that it was 7:15 AM on Wednesday morning, February 12th, 2273 AD.
I had Mirai’s wetware to thank for that update.
I wonder if I can use it like a daily planner?
Gazing at the flowery patterns on the ceiling above me, I realized that I’d never given Mirai’s wetware much thought. I knew that it could interface with ‘smart’ weapons, and it allowed Ghost to project himself into my senses, namely my hearing and vision, but what else could I do with it? What other capabilities did the wetware possess? For that matter, what hidden talents did Mirai possess?
Lifting an arm above me, I turned it over slowly as I studied it, while thinking of the Angel Fibers running through Mirai’s body.
Can I do more than sprout wings?
I let my arm flop down over my belly, then pondered what the day held in store for me.
How long before I was paid a visit by the girl on the phone?
And what would come after that?
Once again, I was back to considering the crux of my problem – coming to terms with living as Mirai, as Isabel, and as a girl. For the most part, I’d acknowledged there was no going back to my life as Ronin Kassius, and if Erina produced a male body for me, only a copy of my mind would occupy it. I would still be stuck inside Mirai, while my copy faced the difficult prospect of adjusting to life as a man.
Why?
Because Erina had said there would be consequences to imprinting my neural map onto a male brain after spending so much time stuck inside Mirai’s head, so there was the likelihood that my copy would suffer from gender dysphoria or perhaps other behavioral disorders.
And yet…
I frowned to myself.
…why haven’t I suffered from gender dysphoria already?
Certainly, my experience in the bathroom had felt far worse than a punch in the gut. In different terms, it was an emotional kick to the groin. But after the shock had subsided, why wasn’t I feeling like I was wearing the wrong skin? Why didn’t I feel alien within Mirai’s body?
Was it possible that Erina and her motley crew of mad scientists had somehow tweak my mind?
Had she modified me so that I would be more open to accepting life as a girl?
After all, she must have known I was terrified of turning into a girl. So maybe she, or someone in her team, had discovered a way to help me transition into Mirai’s body.
It was a disturbing possibility that I couldn’t dismiss, and it sent a cold chill running through my bones.
Maybe Erina has prepared me already for life as a girl—
The faint sounds of movement out in the hallway outside the apartment distracted me but failed to surprise me. This was the dormitory complex and there were always students who left early to head to the academy, whether for club practice or other reasons. However, what did take me aback was the fact that I could hear them, something I had never experienced before from inside the apartment due to its supposedly soundproof walls.
Just how far above normal was Mirai’s hearing?
Contemplating the question, I pillowed my head on my arms, and then quietly lay back to listen to my surroundings.
I could hear faint humming on various frequencies, and the sounds of a handful or more students traveling down the hallway, including the drone of their conversations. Beneath that, Mirai’s ears could perceive indistinct activity in the adjoining apartments. However, as I was focused on the sounds around me, I noticed someone had walked up to my apartment’s door, and they stood there for a short while before ringing the bell.
A soft sing-song chime consisting of seven notes played in the air.
My immediate reaction was to lay still on the floor and hold my breath, and I was still playing possum when I heard the melody play for a second time.
Slowly, I turned my head to look at the apartment’s door at the end of the hallway.
There was a short period of silence before the melody sounded in the air again.
And that makes three.
“Princess?”
It was the first time Ghost had spoken to me for a few hours, since I sincerely doubted that he’d been whispering sweet nothings to me in my sleep, and hearing his voice shook me into action.
“Yeah, I know,” I muttered. “She’s here.”
But what if it wasn’t the girl I’d spoken to on the phone?
What if it was someone else?
I gave the possibility some hasty but serious thought.
I crossed Mat off the list since he was currently under observation – according to Erina.
Then there was Shirohime. I crossed her off even quicker.
Angela and Felicia were two suspects I considered but dismissed when I factored their recent deaths. I doubted they’d been given new Simulacra bodies to move around on such short notice. On the other hand, it could be them in their human bodies at the door. But what reason could they have for coming to see me?
The Cat Princess was the next probable contender for an early morning visit. She would have to gain entry into the complex via the ground floor entrance. That meant facing Perceval who was guarding the building. And yet, since the building was owned by the Telos Corporation, it was likely she would receive permission to do so after pulling a few strings. If that was true, it annoyed me because they could have done the same for me, thereby saving Renew and I a lot of trouble with the staunchly stubborn Perceval.
Last, but not least, was Erina.
Her venturing into the apartment complex at this hour could be explained as a relative visiting a younger family member, though the time of day was odd for such a visit. However, that was only from an outsider’s point-of-view who knew nothing of my unconventional escape from Isabel’s luxury apartment.
Last on my list was Renew, and if it was her outside the door, she had to have a pretty good reason for coming to fetch me now, what with students making their way down the corridors.
Did she dress up like a teacher?
I really couldn’t picture her dressing up as a student.
Regardless, I’d run out of possible suspects.
Wetting my lips, I then swallowed quietly. “Ghost, who’s at the door?”
I asked because I was certain he was accessing the hallway security system to peek outside the apartment.
“Princess, if you are wondering who is at the door, I suggest you answer it.”
His reply was not amusing. On the contrary, it had me frowning apprehensively. “Why aren’t you going to tell me?”
“Because, it would be far easier and more efficient for you to see for yourself.”
I was ready to angrily snap at him when I abruptly realized what he meant. “Ghost, are you saying—?”
“Correct, Princess. It is someone you are indeed acquainted with.”
However, that posed a conundrum because I had exhausted the short list of contenders that came to mind.
So who did I leave out? Who was I forgetting?
Whoever it was, they were getting impatient and the chime was now ringing almost continuously.
With a groan and a growl, I climbed up to my feet, then padded barefoot toward the apartment’s entrance. However, I stopped when I passed by the open bathroom doorway and glimpsed Mirai’s reflection in the shower stall’s glass enclosure.
What the—?
Quickly plunging into the bathroom, I stared aghast at my appearance in the cabinet mirror mounted above the washbasin.
Mirai’s hair was raven dark and her eyes were wine red.
In a way, I was relieved to know that she was powered up, and on her guard, but it also made me anxious about the present situation. However, the door chime kept on ringing, and despite my apartment being touted as soundproof, I couldn’t risk drawing complaints from my neighbors.
After took a long, deep breath that I exhaled uneasily, I hurried out of the bathroom.
Arriving at the door, I tapped the console plate beside it.
A holovid window the size of an A4 sheet of paper materialized a few centimeters away from the surface of the door. It floated at eye-level, and like a real window, it offered a view of the corridor immediately outside my apartment.
For a short while I stared in silence at the face of the person standing out in the corridor.
It was a face that roused mixed feelings with a dash of danger and despair.
Why? Because in many respects, that individual was the Harbinger of Bad News, and they dragged trouble along behind them. That’s why I was reluctant to open the door, despite the ongoing cacophony of the chime ringing for the umpteenth time.
Ghost gently nudged me with a word. “Princess?”
Knowing there was no avoiding this encounter, I took a deep, shuddering breath while glaring reproachfully at the face in the holovid window. But it took another lungful of air for me to gather sufficient resolve to open the door.
However, it wouldn’t open. The handle simply wouldn’t turn.
Looking down at the console plate, I saw the red light indicating the door was locked.
Damn it. It must have locked behind me when I came in.
Unlocking it by entering the passkey into the console, I hesitated as a wave of doubts and misgivings washed over me, then I turned the handle and opened the door.
Standing in the corridor, a girl with long dark hair greeted me with a languid smile. “It’s about time. I was beginning to think you were ignoring me.”
I was immediately aware of two things.
One. She hadn’t changed since the last time I saw her.
Two. She wasn’t human – there was no lifeforce aura radiating from her body.
In short, she was a machine avatar.
That realization alone made my stomach clench into a tight, nervous little ball.
If push comes to shove, can I beat her?
Once again, I sorely missed not being dressed in Mirai’s Princess Regalia.
The girl at the door cocked her head at me, and mockingly asked, “You’re not going to invite me in?”
I brushed her question aside with one of mine. “What are you doing here?”
The machine with the appearance of a pretty teenage girl of average height and bust size held up a canvas gym bag for me to see.
“I come bearing gifts,” she said.
Or rather it said.
I glanced anxiously at the bag before staring into her lifelike eyes. “I’m going to ask one more time. Why are you here?”
The girl lowered the bag. “You invited me here. Remember?”
Her reply confirmed what I’d been afraid of.
Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit! Why her of all people? Why her?
For that matter, how the Hell could I have forgotten about her?
The girl looked both ways down the corridor, then turned to her right, but not before I heard someone walking toward us. She then eyed me sidelong and smiled coyly. “A girl in a boy’s room is a no-no.”
“I couldn’t agree more, so leave.”
I started closing the door on her, but she stuck her foot in the doorway. She then used a free hand to force the door open wider until I pushed it against her, bringing her efforts to a stop.
It was possible we were evenly matched, or perhaps she was going easy on me. Either way, I was able to stop her from stepping into the apartment.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“You’re being boring and predictable,” she replied with disinterest that I found increasingly annoying.
“Then leave,” I retorted while keeping her at bay.
“It’s rude to turn a guest away at the door.”
The sound of footsteps walking closer grew louder.
The girl glanced off to her right, then unexpectedly leaned forward on tip-toes as though delivering me a kiss.
“Oh darling, won’t you let me in?” she asked through puckered lips.
I jerked back in shock but kept a firm grip on the door.
But from down the corridor, a young male voice muttered, “Oh great. Another chick on this floor. It’s like you’re coming out of the goddam walls.”
The mechanical girl winked at him and flashed him a victory gesture. “Oh, poor lonely boy,” she quipped. “Get a girlfriend.”
True to her nature, she was turning a bad situation worse.
Ah—damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!
Yanking the door open, I reached out and pulled the girl into the apartment before quickly closing the door behind her. Then I shoved her against a hallway wall and used both my weight and strength to pin her there.
She giggled but it didn’t suit the dull look on her face. “Isn’t this a little rough for foreplay.”
Ignoring the remark, I searched her face with a glare, eventually growling at her in frustration.
“Which one are you?” I demanded to know.
“The wicked witch of the west,” she replied with a weary smile.
I gave her a hard push that splintered the plaster behind her. “Tabitha.”
“In the flesh,” she added.
I backed away a couple of feet. “Or is it, Taura Hexaria?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Tabitha Hexen will do fine.”
Snorting scornfully at her, I shook my head at her unwelcome presence. “So it was you.”
Tabitha blinked innocently at me, then pushed herself away from the wall.
“Hey,” I warned her as she drunkenly slipped past me toward the living area, “where do you think you’re going?”
Swaying to a stop at the end of the hallway, Tabitha sleepily peered into the room.
She seemed to be taking in my vast collection of Mercy Haddaway merchandise occupying most of the shelving.
“Oh, I like what you’ve done with the place,” she opinioned with a drowsy look on her face.
However, she suddenly dropped the gym bag to the floor, then tip-toed nimbly into the middle of the living room as though threading her way through a minefield. Then slowly spinning with her arms wide, Tabitha threw back her head in rapture.
“It’s the Temple of Mercy.”
I glared at her as she spun around again and again.
She was dishing on my place of worship.
I sorely felt like knocking her out with a right hook to her metal chin, but since she was a mechanical, I doubted that would make a difference to her.
Damn, I miss my Regalia!
Tapping into the resentment I felt for Tabitha, I picked up the gym bag, then tossed it at her.
It smacked her chest, but she caught it before it fell to the floor, and then gave me a wounded look. “Someone didn’t sleep well.”
I stepped into the living room with arms folded rigidly under Mirai’s bosom. “Was it you? Did you call me?”
She walked over to the bed and then dropped the bag onto it. For a long moment she stood motionless, before turning to face me. “I’m a member of the Battle Commission’s Libra Division.”
I exhaled raggedly. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Tabitha shrugged as she began wandering lazily around the room. “Libra watches through the eyes of the watchers.”
I was having trouble making sense of her. “Are you going to give me a straight answer?”
“My job is to observe you.”
“What?” I frowned openly at her.
“The moment the Sanreal Crest docked at the marina, Libra’s Conquistador Class Awareness started watching you. It tracked your flight from the marina to the city, and it watched your mad dash down the residential complex.”
“Why?”
“That’s a silly question that has two answers.”
I gave her a shallow nod. “I’m listening.”
Tabitha held up a finger.
“The first answer is that Libra watches the people of interest to the Gun Princess Royale. And you are high on that list.”
Tabitha held up a second finger.
“The second answer is that the Empress has taken an interest in you. Though the Battle Commission is mostly independent of the Imperial Family’s influence, the second Primary of the Feylan Family has graciously granted Libra additional authority and resources to act in her name.”
I was confused. “The second Primary? Who is that?”
“The Empress’s younger sister, her Imperial Highness, Korinthia Feylan Aventisse.”
I blinked slowly while digesting this. “The Empress has a sister?”
“Well, duh,” Tabitha replied.
I scowled at her. Is she implying that I’m stupid? “Why are they just watching me? Why don’t they just kidnap me? Wouldn’t that be easier for the Empress?”
Tabitha wagged a finger at me. “Because your sister told the Empress that any attempt to do so would result in your death.”
I frigid wind blew through me. “What…?”
“I meant to say your destruction.”
Another frigid gust rushed through me, constricting my lungs, and robbing me of my voice.
Ghost chose the next moment to materialize in my vision.
Standing off to my left, he watched Tabitha with a penetrating gaze, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, only that he was blatantly suspicious of the girl.
Is he doing that for my benefit? Why?
Suppressing a shiver, I swallowed hard before whispering, “Ghost?”
“This is news to me,” he replied in a low, tense voice, his eyes on Tabitha the whole time.
“Don’t lie to me,” I hissed under my breath and out the side of my mouth.
“Princess, I am upholding my promise to you,” he answered without relaxing his expression or tone.
Unaware of Ghost’s attention on her, Tabitha studied me for a short while before holding her palms up and shrugging apathetically. “Hey, that’s what she said.” Lowering her hands, Tabitha then added, “The Empress decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Without the data on your body, there was no way to tell if Erina Kassius was lying, although you were scanned during the translocation process between islands.”
Crossing my arms, I hid my cold unease by glaring icily at Tabitha. “And? What did you find?”
Tabitha snorted as she tossed her hands into the air. “Nothing. No bomb. No capsules. Just the wetware in your head that we couldn’t scan at all.” She then noticed a life-sized poster of Mercy I had up on a wall. “But it was downright shocking to discover Remnant tech embedded inside your head.”
I watched her step up to the poster for a better look. “Why is that such a big deal?”
“Because sticking Remnant wetware inside a human or Simulacrum body has always failed before.” Tabitha threw me a glance. “Always.”
I arched my eyebrows at her. “So that makes me special?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Tabitha listlessly pouted at the image of Mercy on the wall. “Such big boobs….” Abruptly she directed that pout at me. “Speaking of boobs. I noticed you have quite the fulsome rack.”
My eyes widened before I retorted while glaring, “Does that really matter now?”
“Hmm. I wonder which of you is bigger?” Tabitha mused softly, alternating her attention between Mercy’s poster and I. Yet I suspected she already had her answer. After all, she’d revealed that Mirai’s body had been scanned during the translocation between the Proving Grounds and the second continent.
No doubt, she had my three sizes down to the nanometer, but what else did she know about me?
By scanning me, did they know how to make another Mirai?
No, that seemed unlikely.
Clenching my hands, I growled at her. “Like I said, does it matter?”
“Of course, it does,” Tabitha replied with surprising honesty that was unfairly undermined by her sleepy voice. “Do you think you’re going to participate in the Gun Princess Royale solely as a competitor?” She shook her head and smiled weakly as though pitying me. “You have no idea what your sponsor has planned for you.”
I froze as a variety of dreadful possibilities paraded before my eyes.
A bikini photoshoot was one of them.
That was made all the more embarrassing since Mirai closely resembled my goddess, Mercy.
In fact, I suspected I was going to be mistaken for her quite often in the days to come, and the thought made me blush hotly.
Feeling the blood rush to my face, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Get a grip! She’s trying to unhinge you!
Opening my eyes, I furiously rubbed a palm over my face as I labored to regain control over my emotions. “Can you just tell me what’s going on?”
Tabitha pointed at the poster. “Can I have this one?”
“No,” I snapped, irritated by how she kept making the conversation jump about.
“By the way, have you thought about dressing up like her?”
“Huh?”
At first I was perplexed at the prospect, then promptly horrified.
Me? Dress up as my Goddess?
How could she even suggest such a thing? It bordered on sacrilege. But what popped into my head next was the fear of a bikini photoshoot, and once again I was blushing hotly all over.
“No, no, no.” I held up a hand in protest. “No, I haven’t. I have not!”
Tabitha grinned like the Cheshire Cat. A very sleepy looking Cheshire Cat. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“Aggh.” I palmed my face furiously for a second time.
Keep it together. Keep it TOGETHER!
Lowering my hand away from my face, I took a couple of noisy breaths, then stepped closer to Tabitha. “Can we stay focused? Please!”
“Poster.” She pointed at it. “Gimme.”
“Get your own!” I yelled at her.
“Really? Where?”
Taking some time to calm down, I considered the question and remembered how I’d acquired that poster. “Ah…actually…that one was limited to the first hundred attendees at Mercy’s handshaking event last year. So you’d have to try the online auctions.”
That event was what started my nightmare as Princess Silver Blue. Succumbing to temptation, I had accepted the Cosplay Club’s terms in exchange for a ticket to meet Mercy at a handshaking event.
Ah, but that’s a story already told.
Tabitha mimicked a dirty old man. “How much for the poster? I want to buy the poster.”
I recoiled from her. “Cut that out. You’re sounding like a real creeper.”
She held up a finger. “The price of knowledge is one precious article from your collection.” Then she pointed again at the poster.
“Forget it,” I dismissed the offer immediately.
There was no way in Hell would I agree to those terms.
Tabitha folded her hands behind her back and regarded me with disappointment. “So you really don’t want to know?”
“The price is too high.”
Hell, it was astronomical in my book.
Besides, I could always ask Ghost to investigate for me.
However, my certainty was chipped away by doubts when I noticed him looking distinctly troubled.
Ghost, you’re not inspiring me with confidence!
As though feeling the weight of that glance, he cautiously suggested, “Princess, perhaps you should make the trade.”
I barely succeeded hiding my shock and confusion.
Does that mean there’s something he doesn’t know?
I remembered him mentioning the ICE surrounding information related to Mirai.
Was Tabitha privy to something in there?
I mentally scratched my head.
Wait a minute—what the Hell was the question again?
I turned my attention on the mechanical girl. “Why do you want something from my collection?”
“To sell it and make money,” she replied easily.
I was flabbergasted. “What?”
“Limited edition posters of Mercy go for a steep price.”
I felt my blood threaten to boil. “I’m not selling my Mercy poster.” Stabbing a finger at her, I came close to yelling. “I even had it framed. That cost me money. So forget it. No way. No gods damn way.”
Tabitha frowned at me. “Why are you so obsessed with this girl?”
“Because she’s a goddess!”
“I think you have your definition of a goddess messed up.”
I crossed my arms unhappily. “Look. I’m not giving you my poster. That’s final.”
“I’ll tell you about your sister, Erina Kassius.”
It was a bad move to bring up my sister at this point and time. “She’s not my sister.”
Tabitha hummed for a moment. “Technically, she may be your future sister-in-law.”
Hearing that made my chest tighten such that I struggled to breathe, but it didn’t stop me from rejecting her bluntly. “Not interested.”
“Do you want to know a secret?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Not if there’s a price involved.”
“Your sister told the Empress about you.”
In a flash, every thought inside my head made for the hills, leaving only Tabitha’s words in their wake, and for a long, long while, I stared blankly at her, too dumbfounded to move or think.
As for Ghost, I could see him in the corner of my eye standing stock still with a bamboozled look on his face.
Of course, Tabitha couldn’t see Ghost, but she could see me and there was a subtle smile playing on her lips as she studied my reaction. But true to her nature, she soon gave me an insouciant shrug and studied Mercy’s poster as though she could divine the secrets of the universe from it.
The need to swallow and avoid choking started the wheels turning again inside my head. After a handful of ragged breaths, and a glance at Ghost who’d grown pensive, I decided to break my silence. However, I had to clear my throat a handful times before I was confident my voice would hold up
“Is this what you wanted to talk about?”
Tabitha didn’t answer me right away, but instead continued eyeing the poster with an unsettling intensity, before eventually asking, “Does that mean you’re interested?”
My emotions began to stir anew into a troubled, somewhat anguished brew.
When I took a very deep breath that ended up straining my lungs, and then released it slowly, Mirai’s body shuddered as though wracked by a frigid cold, forcing me to tighten my crossed arms under her bosom, while staring hard at Tabitha. “Why would Erina tell the Empress about me? Why betray the trust House Novis has in her?”
“Because your sister learnt the truth.”
“About what?”
Tabitha began to trudge slowly around the living room. “You paid Clarisol a visit in that prison for her mind, right?”
Surprise stole my breath while Ghost jerked sharply.
Tabitha continued meandering wearily, and slowly circled the low coffee table I’d moved aside hours ago.
I shook myself out of my torpor while facing her, but then I felt a familiar heat welling up inside me. “How do you know that? Who are you?”
Tabitha spread her arms wide, mimicking a bird circling around the table. “I am the ghost of Christmas past.”
I unfolded my arms. “That’s not funny.”
“I am the ghost of Christmas future.”
“Answer the damn question!”
Tabitha continued flying around the table. “Do you know that Clarisol lied?”
“About what?”
“About me.” She threw me a glance but didn’t stop. “The reason they didn’t know who I was had nothing to do with searching through the wrong years.”
I was confused and didn’t bother hiding it. “What are you talking about?”
“I crashed their simulation—the Zombie Apocalypse that Ronin Kassius fought through. Remember?”
I leaned back a few inches. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Clarisol said they tried to find out who I was but failed.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, she did say that…back in the school’s library.”
“She lied.”
I was starting to see what she was alluding to. “You mean, she lied about not searching the databases far back enough.”
Tabitha winked at me. “Yup.”
“Then…she knew who you were?”
“Nope. She didn’t have a clue, and neither did the Sanreals.”
I frowned slightly. “Then…Taura Hexaria—the Gun Empress—doesn’t exist?”
“Oh, she exists. She’s real. She’s me. She just doesn’t look anything like me.”
My gaze repeatedly searched Tabitha’s face. “Why is that?”
“Because this way, I can move about freely as whomever I want be.”
I gasped softly as I realized that Tabitha used mechanical bodies that could look like anyone…or no one at all.
She cocked her head at me. “Clarisol and the Sanreals searched the databases but could find no record of anyone matching my appearance. Therefore, they assumed that Tabitha Hexen was either a Simulacrum or a mechanical avatar, in which case, Clarisol probably had a hunch it was me. But that’s all she had. A hunch. A gut feeling. Her woman’s intuition.”
“You’re saying Clarisol wasn’t telling the whole truth.”
“That’s right.”
I flicked a glance at Ghost who also nodded ever so faintly. Yet I saw the suspicion in his eyes.
Does Ghost know who Tabitha or Taura Hexaria really is?
I kept that in mind when I asked Tabitha, “So who are you? Who are you really?”
“I am an observer attached to the Battle Commissions’ Libra Division. It’s my job to watch over the matches involving Mirai. This is on the Empress’s express orders. Well, actually, the directive comes from her Imperial Highness, the First Princess, Korinthia Feylan Aventisse.”
I hesitated before cautiously asking, “Did you say…the First Princess?”
“I did.”
Biting my lower lip, I recalled my first verbal exchange with the Gun Queen of Ar Telica. “I have a question.”
“By all means.”
“Out in the desert, Kristeva said she was the first Imperial Princess. And she called herself—ah, what was it”—I struggled to recall the name—“she called herself Kristeva Annelise Aventisse, first in line to the throne. Was that true?”
“She lied.”
Tabitha’s brusque reply surprised me.
The mechanical girl continued after a brief pause. “Kristeva is indeed an Imperial Princess. However, in the Erzvallen Empire, she is not considered the First Princess. That title belongs to her mother, despite being the Empress. And her aunt, Korinthia, is referred to as the Second Imperial Princess.”
“So she’s not the First Princess?” I openly frowned. “Then why did she—?”
“Because she is a consummate liar,” Tabitha explained in a cutting tone. “It’s the way she is. Or rather, one could say that she has a difference of opinion regarding the rules of succession. In your universe, it is the first born who succeeds the throne. In mine, it is the Emperor or Empress’s siblings who succeed their reign. This means that leadership of the Empire does not progress down the family tree as quickly as it does in your history. It also means that Korinthia is next in line to take over the Empire, not the Empress’s eldest daughter.”
I was puzzled, but in my peripheral vision, which was remarkably acute, I saw Ghost throw me a slow nod.
If Ghost agrees then Tabitha must be telling the truth.
Nonetheless, I was still confused by what I was hearing from her.
“And there is one more thing,” Tabitha said. “Her name is Kristeva Feylan Aventisse. It is not Annelise.”
I wondered why that was important. “So what?”
“It is the name of Clarisol’s mother.”
My eyes quickly widened, expressing my disbelief, then slowly narrowed as I remembered what I’d heard back in the cave.
She’s right. Ghost did say that Clarisol’s mother was called Annelise.
I’d failed to connect the dots that Tabitha was now joining for me, leading me to ask, “She lied about her name? Why?”
Tabitha looked distinctly aggrieved. “As I said before, Kristeva is a consummate liar—short and simple. Anything that comes out of her mouth, should be taken with a kilo of salt.”
I swallowed nervously before asking, “Then why didn’t you say something back at the library?”
“Because I left it to Clarisol. She should have corrected Kristeva when she first called herself Annelise, and yet Clarisol didn’t.” Tabitha raised her head high, and for the first time, I sensed real anger in the girl. “It doesn’t matter if she’s a Princess, Kristeva had no right to use that name. She crossed the line back then.”
I didn’t know why the usually languid and Jester-like Tabitha was visibly ticked off. To be honest, it was the most irate I’d ever seen her, but it got me thinking along a tangential train of thought.
Knowing what I did now, what if Kristeva had assumed the name Annelise to light a fire under Clarisol? At the time, I knew little of Clarisol’s family history, the death of her mother, or why House Novis had been demoted in the Imperial Court. Perhaps, Clarisol had been forced to stay silent lest she betray too much information about what was happening. Maybe she was trying to keep things simple for me so that I could focus on the task of surviving.
Could it be, that Clarisol wasn’t nearly as crazy as I’d thought.
If that was true, then perhaps there had been method to her madness. When she almost blew us all up with that bomb she left behind in the school’s administration building, it wasn’t out of desperation or lunacy. Instead, she may have been helping me while taking her revenge on Kristeva for falsely appropriating her mother’s name. The one contradictory note to my reasoning was that she almost ended up killing her brother, Mat, and that was why I still believed she was at least a little crazy.
Thinking about it made my brain ache, and with a groan, I clutched at my forehead. “Why is everybody playing these games with me?”
I felt like sitting down, but decided to remain standing.
My gut impression was that if I sat down, I’d somehow project weakness to Tabitha, and the latter would try to capitalize on it. I also acknowledged that in some ways, dealing with Tabitha was harder than dealing with Erina. So I took a deep breath to steady myself, lowered my hand, then stared fixedly at the mechanical girl.
“No more lies. No more crap. Okay? Tell me who you are.”
“I will tell you in due time.”
“No—tell me now!”
She held up a hand. “I will tell you in due time. I promise. But first, there is something else I came to tell you. Something important.”
Of a sudden, my mind seemed to skip ahead or maybe my thoughts simply circled back to the beginning. “Something about Erina?”
“Yes.”
A cold chill began to settle in my chest, and yet, I also felt somewhat annoyed.
Maybe it was because I didn’t want to hear about Erina or the bad news that surrounded her, and that was probably why I glared unhappily at Tabitha, herself the Harbinger of Bad News.
The girl lowered the hand she’d been holding up between us. “As I said before, your sister betrayed House Novis. But she had a reason to.”
Ah…we’re back to this.
Inhaling deeply as though steeling myself, I slowly crossed my arms under Mirai’s breasts. “What reason did she have?”
“Actually, she had two reasons. You and Clarisol. She was protecting both of you.”
I narrowed my eyes at Tabitha. “Don’t you mean she was protecting Ronin?”
The mechanical girl shook her head. “No. She was protecting Mirai and Clarisol.”
“From what?”
“From the plan the Sanreal Family had concocted to give Clarisol a chance at freedom.”
I spared Ghost a fleeting look, and he happened to glance back at me.
Our eyes met, and the look he gave me seemed to say, I don’t know what she means.
I took a step closer to Tabitha. “Why?”
“The transfer would never have worked,” she stated. “Copying Clarisol’s mind into Mirai’s brain would have ended in disaster.”
Ghost abruptly demanded, “Ask her why!”
I flinched a little, unaccustomed to his harsh tone, but nonetheless relayed the question to Tabitha. “Why wouldn’t it have worked?”
Tabitha took a deep breath – or made a show of doing so since she was operating a mechanical body that didn’t need air. “Because anything copied out of that virtual prison is corrupted. It’s the reason why Clarisol’s copies only last a year before going insane.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and then stumbled back a step.
As for Ghost, he spun on his heels and punched a nearby shelf, but of course, his fist went right through it.
Tabitha smiled but there was no humor or malice behind it.
All I sensed was a deep regret – a genuine, heartfelt sadness.
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
For those of you who are interested in reading the original 2017 release of "Gun Princess Royale" the books are still available for purchase via the links are provided below until December 15, 2023. The books will be taken off the shelf to make way for the new series that will be released on the weekend of the 16/17th December.
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.
Amidst the political maneuvering, while slowly reconciling his past as Ronin Kassius, Isabel faces a new threat from Tabitha Hexen who reveals her own agenda in wanting to fight Mirai in a Gun Princess Royale battle.
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. I am already working on Book 2.
– I –
Disregarding what I’d said earlier about sitting down and showing weakness before Tabitha, I trudged over to the foot of the bed and sat on it.
Then I looked up to see her circling the table again.
She’d stopped at playing at being a bird. Now, she was mimicking an airplane in a holding pattern around an airport, complete with arms wide and engine sounds coming out of her mouth.
I chose to look past her childish antics, seeing them for the distraction they were, and focused on what she’d just revealed. And if I took her at her word, then it explained a great deal about Clarisol’s aberrant behavior, and it reinforced the difference in personality between the Simulacrum Clarisol and the girl that I’d met in the virtual prison.
But I wanted to know more.
I needed specifics.
However, when I went to ask, I once again had trouble finding my voice.
Clogged by my emotions, I had to breathe slowly a few times to calm down, then swallowed twice to loosen up my throat. My efforts were rewarded, and my voice came out strong and steady, something for which I was grateful, especially since I was dealing with Tabitha the Jet Airliner.
“You said, anything copied out of the virtual prison was corrupted. Does that mean me as well?”
Tabitha continued in her holding pattern as she appeared to give the question some thought. “No, I doubt it. You weren’t copied into the virtual prison. It was more like an avatar of you slipped in through the cracks”—she hesitated before admitting—“cracks that no one knew were there.”
“What?” Confused, I tilted my head at her.
Tabitha made a dive for the coffee table then pulled up. “Until you went in and came back out, nobody knew there were cracks in the prison walls. That’s what I meant.”
I glanced at Ghost who replied with a solemn shrug.
Tabitha slowed down and looked at me over a shoulder. “The cracks have been sealed up. No more unauthorized visits.”
Her words squeezed at my heart. By arranging for me to meet the real Clarisol, Ghost had compromised his secret door into the virtual prison.
I felt it was a heavy price to pay – too heavy.
He wanted me to know the truth, and so he risked it for me, but now he’s cut off from Clarisol.
Guilt and regret welled up inside my chest, putting pressure on my heart and lungs.
I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything….
That seemed to be the crux of the problem.
I didn’t know much about what was going on, and so I was making ill-informed decisions and acting rashly. I needed to stop and think, and I needed to know more – much more – about my circumstances and the people with an interest in me – starting with Tabitha.
I gazed intently at the girl circling the table.
Why would a retired Gun Empress know so much about what was happening around me? Tabitha had said she was a member of a special division within the Battle Commission, but I suspected she was part of something greater…something more insidious.
Wetting my lips, I then swallowed past the worries that threatened to clog up my throat.
I needed to remain focused.
Tabitha was here to talk, and I needed to learn as much as I could from her. It may not all be true, but I could weed out the lies later.
Inhaling slowly, I then exhaled gently.
Let’s do this.
“Why can’t Clarisol be freed through the same cracks?”
“She could, but the Empress would notice the empty prison. That would be a dangerous mistake. For now, making copies is the only thing the Empress will allow.”
“Then why not slip a copy of her out through one of the cracks? Would that work? Would it avoid the corruption?”
I kept my eyes on Tabitha, but I could see Ghost waiting impatiently for an answer from the girl.
Tabitha stopped circling the table, then sat down on its edge. Facing me, she primly folded her hands over her lap.
Normally, I’d take that as a sign that she was playing around again, but the grave expression on her face made me think otherwise. This was the seldom seen Tabitha – the serious Tabitha – so paying attention to her was a must because it was like witnessing a rare event, like a planetary alignment that only occurred once in a millennium.
After a deep breath, she grimly asked me, “Do you want to know what I think?”
I replied with a nod.
Tabitha leaned toward me a little. “Have you read a book called Lost Horizon?”
Puzzled, I gently shook my head. “No, never.”
“It’s quite interesting. You should read it when you can. There was as surprisingly good film based on the book made during the early Twentieth Century. Watch it when you have a free moment.”
I wondered what a book or a movie had to do with Clarisol.
Tabitha appeared to be expecting that. “In the book, there is a place called Shangri-La,” she explained. “The people there live for a very long time. But if they leave, their bodies return to their true age and they die.”
Tabitha leaned closer to me.
“I think it’s not the copy process that is flawed. I believe it’s the source itself that is corrupted.” She paused as though waiting for her words to sink in. “I suspect that staying within the virtual space is what keeps the corruption in check. In other words, it doesn’t manifest until Clarisol’s mind is copied into a physical body. Whatever checks and balances exist within the virtual space, they can’t be replicated within the brain of a Simulacrum.”
“You’re saying…Clarisol can’t leave because she’ll grow mad.”
The gentle nod Tabitha gave me made my heart sink. “Yes. She’s trapped.”
Ghost turned away either in anger or despair, or possibly both.
Feeling some of that, I bowed me head and looked down at my bare feet.
Tabitha continued after a few moments of silence. “I suspect that Erina Kassius realized the true reason why the Clarisol Simulacra were going crazy after a year or so. I don’t know if she told the Sanreals. Maybe she did. Most likely they didn’t listen to her. After all, in hindsight, we know they spent considerable time and resources setting up the fake identity of Isabel Allegrando. They were committed to getting a copy of Clarisol out to safety. The other Clarisols had gone mad. They probably blamed it on the Simulacra she was copied into. They pinned all their hopes on Mirai. But Erina Kassius decided otherwise, and she took matters into her own hands. Imprinting a copy of Clarisol into Mirai was something she couldn’t accept. Mirai is simply too precious for her to risk with a corrupted version of Clarisol’s mind.”
I looked up at the mechanical girl.
Tabitha’s explanation was plausible.
Erina had said that Mirai was a host for the Angel Fibers. However, during our final conversation on the boat, when I affirmed my decision to compete in the Gun Princess Royale as Mirai, Erina had led me to believe that Mirai was intended to be much more. It was only a nagging suspicion of mine, yet it supported what Tabitha was saying, and if true, it begged the question of what is Mirai’s true purpose?
Tabitha watched me carefully, perhaps seeing the wheels spinning behind my eyes. “I will admit that I have no hard evidence. But the evidence I have collected has led me to this conclusion. And if I’ve arrived here by following the breadcrumbs, then others will too.”
I tried holding back a frown but failed. “What are you saying?”
“That your sister may find herself in trouble.”
I frowned in question. “From the Empress?”
“No. From the Sanreal Family and House Novis.”
Tabitha’s delivery was so casual that I accepted her statement without a second thought. Then again, she’d been painting a convincing case leading up to her assertion that Erina was in deep shit. But if she was expecting to evoke sympathy or concern from me, she was sorely mistaken.
“So what?” I replied. “If the Sanreals, or House Novis, or the Empress want their pound of flesh, then who am I to stand in their way?”
My relationship with Erina was a fiery one, and I wasn’t feeling much love for her.
Honestly, I wasn’t feeling any love for her, and this was far from a case of water under the bridge, so my indifferent response shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Tabitha…but it did.
The machine girl blinked rhythmically for a long while before she started to chuckle. Moments later, that chuckle turned into a hearty laugh.
At that point, I realized something important about Tabitha.
She’s not watching me as closely as I thought she was. She doesn’t know that Erina and I are at each other’s throats.
Leaning forward, I planted my right elbow on my lap, then dropped my chin onto an upturned palm. As I waited for her to calm down – at least, I presumed she would eventually calm down – I took the opportunity to study her.
Straus’s Cat Princess had intrigued me, and so too Tabitha’s machine avatar. Why? Because she was so very real – right down to the raspy noise she made as she caught her breath, and when Tabitha wiped tears of laughter from her eyes, I noticed they looked a little moist. This attention to detail added to the lifelike qualities of the girl, and I found them both fascinating…and disturbing. It also made me wonder how many of these machine avatars were out there walking the streets of the city. Perhaps, it was yet another good reason to keep secret Mirai’s ability to see the lifeforce that radiated from people, since it was something of an ace in the hole for me.
Tabitha patted her chest as she brought the remains of her laughter under control.
“I guess your sister had that coming.” She chuckled once more, relaxed, then resumed sitting primly on the coffee table. “I should have known this would happen.”
I agreed with her.
Yeah, you should have known. But you haven’t been watching me all that well enough, have you?
“So?” I asked her.
Tabitha met my blunt stare with an uncertain smile. “Does that mean you’re not going to help her?”
“After everything she’s put me through, I’m surprised you’re asking me that.”
Tabitha hesitated before tipping her head at me. “Is that how you honestly feel?”
I was prepared to say ‘yes’ but chose to ruminate upon the touchy subject of Erina Kassius for a short while.
Maybe it’s better if I act concerned? No, it’s a little late for that now. I should have been smarter. So now what?
I caught upon an idea. “What’s in it for me?”
Tabitha’s eyes widened slightly before she coyly asked, “Are you open to a proposition?”
“I think you mentioned something like that before.”
Ghost anxiously stepped closer to me. “Princess—?”
I silenced him with the subtle wave of a finger, and he looked on with worry.
Not quite ignoring him, I kept my attention on Tabitha. “Your proposition…let’s hear it.”
“Erina Kassius is important to us.”
I felt like sighing but instead I snorted. Why is that not a surprise? However—
“Who is us?” I asked her.
“House Alus Cardinal.”
“A rival Noble House?”
Tabitha nodded politely.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “And what is House Alus Cardinal to you?”
She straightened her posture, then placed a hand on her chest as though she were about to recite an oath.
“My name is Taura Hexaria Erz Cardinal.”
Ghost sighed as he crossed his arms. “Finally….”
I glanced at him.
Bastard. You knew who she was. You could have told me this before.
He was staring warily at Tabitha thus our eyes didn’t meet, but I was certain he’d felt my glance. Then I realized that Clarisol would have known about Taura’s true identity. She should have told me about this girl back in the school library, and yet she’d kept it to herself. Frankly, I found Ghost and Clarisol’s penchant for keeping secrets was fraying my nerves. But then I wondered if Mat also knew, especially since he’d demonstrated he could keep secrets too.
It bothered me to some degree how little I could trust the people around me.
I chose not to dwell on it lest I begin to despair, because doing so in front of Tabitha would be a big mistake.
Exhaling softly, I focused on Tabitha. “Does that make you someone important?”
She smirked faintly. “I’m the second daughter-heir to the Hexaria Family. My twin sister is the first having been born a couple of minutes before me.”
Lifting my chin off my palm, I sat up straighter. “So that’s why you know so much about what’s going on. I figured you were more than just a former Gun Empress. But to think you were this high up the chain of command.”
“The chain of command?” Tabitha shrugged. “Well, I needed a life after retiring. Every sports athlete has to think ahead. All of us have a shelf—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Having been cutoff, Tabitha pouted for a second before asking, “Then pray tell. What did you mean?”
I shook my head sharply. “Nope. You figure it out.”
“How rude.”
“I don’t care. And we’ve gone off track.”
“That is true.”
I crossed my arms. “You said Erina is important to you. What did you mean by that?”
“Her knowledge is of great value to my family and thereby, House Cardinal’s future ambitions.”
I squinted at her. “Your family wants Erina to make them another Mirai?”
Tabitha winced before sheepishly looking away. “That’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
She scratched a cheek. “There’s a small…complication.”
Erina had called me a miracle, but I didn’t believe that’s what Tabitha was referring to. “What complication?”
The girl chuckled but it sounded nervous which was out of character for her.
“Tabitha?” I prompted her.
She sighed and met my gaze. “It’s the Empress. She won’t allow anyone else to conduct research to develop another Mirai. So even with Doctor Kassius in our employ, developing another version of Mirai…of you…is forbidden.”
Why would she go that far?
Something about that decision didn’t make sense to me. It almost sounded as though the Empress was intent on safeguarding Mirai’s uniqueness. But why would she do that? Was she afraid of Mirai and thereby feared what more than one Ultra Grade Simulacrum could do? Or was she like Erina? In other words, was it possible the Empress had a plan for me?
I swallowed a tad anxiously.
Erina sees me as humanity’s future. So how does the Empress see me?
The question gave me a chill that I tried to hide from Tabitha who was watching me keenly. In all honesty, her quiet and serious demeanor was unsettling because I wasn’t used to it.
I hated to admit it, but she had me on the proverbial backfoot.
Giving myself a moment to compose my thoughts, I breathed in slow and deeply, then firmly asked, “What good is Erina to you?”
“Good question.” Tabitha paused for moment. “We cannot conduct research to create another Mirai, but we can continue to develop our own Simulacra. Since the war, there has been a shortage of manpower throughout the Empire. House Cardinal is prepared to offer Erina Kassius sanctuary from the Sanreal Family and House Novis if she will aid our efforts to improve and develop superior Simulacra. And, House Cardinal enjoys considerable support in the Inner Court, thus Kateopia would think thrice about moving against us.”
That gave me another chill. “Move against you?”
“Even after ten years, Kateopia’s military forces have not entirely recovered to their pre-war levels. She’s vulnerable. She needs the support of the Noble Houses of the Inner Court—Noble Houses with the rank of Alus.” She winked at me. “Noble Houses like House Cardinal.”
In my wide field-of-vision, I saw Ghost nodding gently in agreement with Tabitha.
Having him around helped me separate the lies from the truth, but I needed time to digest these revelations. However, time was something that I didn’t have, and I was being forced to think fast on my feet.
“Why would she even think of moving against you?”
“You probably don’t know this, but the Empire isn’t keen on too much automation.”
Given what I’d seen thus far of the Empire’s technology, I was perplexed by her answer. “It’s not?”
“Artificial Awarenesses and Assisting Intelligences are well and good, but too much machine labor is frowned upon. In other words, Simulacra serve in place of robot automation.”
“You mean…they’re slave labor.”
“Correct. Simulacra are slave labor. Of course, there’s a great deal of machinery supporting said labor, but at the end of the day, it’s biomechanical flesh and bone that makes things happen. And the problem is that Simulacra don’t last. Two years. Three years. Possibly four. It depends on their grade and type. To keep their knowledge from being lost, elite models have their minds copied and imprinted into their replacement bodies. However, the high turnover is a problem. And due to the war taxing our resources, we’ve had to rely increasingly on machines to do their work.”
“What’s wrong with that? Why not use robots or androids as labor?”
“As I said, the Empire does not like to rely on machines.”
“Yes, but why?”
Tabitha breathed in and out deeply. “Because there was a time when automation became too smart and too aggressive for its own good…and ours.”
“An A.I. war?”
“It was stopped before it became a war. However, in order to do so the Empire was forced to rely on smarter humans and the development of Artificial Awarenesses through the use of Remnant Technology—which I may add is poorly understood. Nonetheless, it was the Remnant tech that saved us. But the cost to the Empire was vast. You could say, we were never the same again.”
“So the Three Laws didn’t work for you?”
“Nope. They didn’t.”
“Why?”
“That is a long story. But the short of it is, can you apply the Three Laws to people?”
Slowly, I shook my head. “No….”
“Then how can you apply it to an intelligence that no longer considers itself subservient?”
Swallowing quietly, I shook my head again. “I guess you can’t….”
“Thus, to avoid a repeat of the past, the Empire relies on Simulacra. And with biomechanical flesh, we can take better precautions to prevent our creations from deposing its creators.” Tabitha dipped her head at me. “But what your thinking is correct. Simulacra have become a secondary race. However, while they serve as slave labor, we do afford them nearly all human rights. Discrimination is strictly forbidden. And I do mean forbidden.”
“So the Empire needs Simulacra and you want Erina’s help to make better ones.”
Tabitha raised her chin and faced me squarely. “Give the lady a cigar.”
“So why did you say that the Empress would think twice about going against you?”
“Who has the best Simulacra wins.”
“What…?”
I may have uttered the question, but I’d already arrived at the answer.
Simulacra weren’t just slave labor. They were soldiers. They were the backbone of the Empire’s army. I grasped that in a flash of insight, and thus I understood what Tabitha was saying.
“If Doctor Kassius creates better Simulacra for us, it’s possible that Kateopia will grudgingly accept our advances if we share our spoils gained from the mind of the good doctor. But if she tries to take our Simulacra from us, she’s likely to face opposition. That risks another war—a war she would be best inclined to avoid. That could bring her to the negotiating table.”
“But House Cardinal has the rank of Alus. What more could they want?”
Tabitha looked bemused and then amused. “What more? Well, isn’t it obvious?”
Yes, it was.
“The crown….”
Her amusement grew macabre. “The Imperial Crown.”
“How? How could you negotiate for it?”
“We would negotiate a re-instatement to the rules of succession. In short, we would negotiate for the right to challenge the Imperial Family in one-on-one combat.”
I had a sickening realization of what she meant. “The Gun Princess Royale.”
“Correct. In times past, before the Gun Princess Royale, disagreements relating to succession were occasionally resolved by having two representative champions face each other in mortal combat. After all, the prize was the leadership of the Empire, so anything less than mortal combat simply wouldn’t do. With the advent of the GPR, the medium for the challenge changed, but it was still a battle to the death for its operators.”
“You said that was in the past.”
“I did. That is because Kateopia’s father refused a challenge from a rival Noble House, and summarily scrapped the right to contest for leadership of the Empire by mortal combat. This was one of many reasons why a significant number of the Alus ranked Noble Houses went to war against House Aventisse. They feared that House Aventisse would eventually do away with the articles that ensured the Empire was ruled in a—dare I say—fair manner?”
Tabitha’s cold reasoning was beginning to lead my thoughts to a grim conclusion.
“And what do you want from me?”
Tabitha clasped her hands together on her lap. “We want you to compete for House Cardinal.”
Forget about hiding my emotions.
I openly gaped at her. “…what…why…?”
“Because you’re special. You have potential.” Tabitha pointed at her eyes with a finger. “And I know a winner when I see one. I believe you can go all the way.”
“All the way…?”
“All the way to the Majors. All the way to the Gun Queen Royale.” Tabitha looked at me with confidence. “I believe you could one day be crowned Gun Empress.”
Ghost was eyeing me studiously, and with a pang I realized it was because I was hanging onto Tabitha’s every word.
Gun Queen? Gun Empress? Who? Me?
I’d only had one fight so far, and it had been rigged against me, but what if Tabitha was right about me? Then again, she could be appealing to my ego.
I had to think carefully.
I needed to know more.
And I tried not to wet lips before asking, “What’s in it for me?”
“House Cardinal will afford you all the luxuries you can desire.”
“You’ll get me back into a male body?”
I said it bluntly, but Tabitha was prepared for it and answered without hesitation. “Of course.”
“Bullshit. You think I’m stupid enough to fall for that?”
Tabitha was silent so I pressed on.
“You really think I would trust you and your family? How do I know they won’t box my sister—I mean Erina—as soon as they have their claws on her?” I narrowed my eyes at the machine girl. “How do I know they won’t box me?”
“Box?”
“Yeah—lock me away and shove my mind into a virtual prison.” I shook my head slowly. “I have absolutely no reason to trust you.”
“We could challenge for you.”
I didn’t know what that entailed, but I certainly didn’t like the way it sounded. “Care to explain?”
“House Cardinal can invoke Imperial court laws that allow it to challenge House Novis for you.”
I glanced at Ghost and caught the nod he gave me.
Holding back a frown, I asked the obvious. “Then why don’t you challenge House Novis for Erina? Why waste your time on me?”
Tabitha pressed her lips together and replied with silence. But it was the smile she betrayed that ultimately revealed her answer.
“Frek you,” I whispered. “There’s no frekking way—”
“Oh, come now. Think of what it would mean for you. For us. For House Cardinal.” She smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “Think of what it would mean for House Novis.”
I noisily sucked in air then it blew it out loudly.
“You expect me to fight for you so that House Cardinal can rule the Empire?”
Tabitha continued to smile at me from ear to ear. “It’ll be fun.”
“If I lose, I die.”
“True, but if you win….”
I didn’t like the way she allowed her words to hang in the air. “In that case, I can fight for House Novis.”
“They are unlikely to convince the Empress to reinstate contesting for the crown by mortal combat.”
“Exactly.” I smirked at her. “And that suits me just fine. I’d rather live than die.”
The smile faded from Tabitha’s lips. “I knew you would say that.”
“They why did you bother asking me?”
“Because I had to try.”
I was surprised, not by her words, but by her tone.
She sounded grim, almost resigned to fail, thus it made me ponder why she’d come at all. Had she been backed into a corner by her Noble House? Tabitha had interacted with me before, so perhaps they forced her to negotiate with me in person. Or was it possible that she had chosen to negotiate with me because she was somehow protecting me? In other words, had Tabitha volunteered to hold these failed negotiations because the other negotiators were unlikely to be as nice to me?
If that was true, then should I be grateful to her?
I gave myself a moment to shelve the question, choosing to ask something else instead. “Are you going to challenge for me? I mean, is House Cardinal going to challenge for me?”
Tabitha grew pensive. “If your life was not at stake, would you consider it? Would you consider representing House Cardinal?”
I grew exasperated. “Tabitha, mortal combat is not my cup of tea.”
“Then you’re saying that if your life was not at stake, you would consider it?”
“I’m not saying that at all,” I flatly retorted.
“Then what would make you consider it?”
The slight edge in her voice was something I hadn’t heard from her before. It was a hint of desperation that gave me pause, almost as much as the intense stare she was aiming at me. However, I was at a loss for how to reply.
Undoubtedly seeing this, Tabitha broke the heavy silence between us. “I saved you.”
“What?” I blinked sharply, struggling to keep up with her as she jumped the conversation onto a new track. “Saved me? From what?”
“I was the one who overrode the maglev’s controls. And I made sure that it arrived at the station right when you needed it. In that respect, I provided the getaway car.”
So that’s what happened?
At the time, I thought the Fates had cut me a break, but it seemed that I owed my good fortune to the meddlesome girl in front of me. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you owe me.”
I was ready to retort that I hadn’t asked for her help, but I was interrupted by Ghost.
“Princess, tell her you need time to think it over.”
What?
I was so surprised that if my gaze hadn’t been locked on Tabitha, I would have swung my head to stare directly at Ghost. Instead, in my peripheral vision, I saw him nod reassuringly.
“Tell her you need time to contemplate her offer.”
Are you freaking sure?
“Princess, I believe it is the safest course of action.”
My innards clammed up at the obvious warning he was giving me, and I regarded Tabitha sitting a few feet in front of me under a new light.
If Ghost saw her as a threat, then what could she do to me? She was a mechanical and Mirai was a Simulacrum. Could I match her in a test of strength and martial prowess? For that matter, I had no idea if she was hiding a weapon or two, while I had nothing at my disposal except kitchen knives. Even then, what could knives do against a machine avatar?
“Princess,” Ghost gently urged me.
I tried to hide a rattled breath, hoping that Tabitha wouldn’t notice it. “I can’t give you an answer…not right now. I need to think about it. I need some time.”
Her studious stare eased up slightly. “Does that mean you will consider it?”
I hesitated and I was sure she noticed, but perhaps it suited the moment. “Yes, I’ll think about it….”
Her mood brightened almost immediately, while mine remained conflicted. It wasn’t helped when she smiled cheerily and said, “I’ll need an answer by Friday.”
“What?” I gave her a suspicious look. “Why Friday?”
“Because it’s very important. I need an answer no later than midday, Ar Telica time. Friday.”
“Yes, but why?”
Tabitha gracefully stood up and made a show of rubbing her belly. “I’m famished, so I’ll tell you why over breakfast.”
“What are you talking about? That body is mechanical so why would you need to eat?”
She wagged a finger at me. “This body is more than just mechanical. It’s special.”
“How special?”
Not bothering to answer me, Tabitha walked over to Mercy’s poster that she’d been admiring earlier. The slothful, apathetic air she’d been parading since she entered the apartment was back. The firm, serious, somewhat edgy Tabitha was now but a memory. Standing before the poster, she faithfully posed like Mercy in the poster sans bikini. However, she looked so utterly bored it completely ruined the effect.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Impressive, right?”
How can she ask me that while making such a face?
Nonetheless, I appraised her with a critical eye. “You’ve got nice legs, but your boobs are too small.”
“I agree completely. Unfortunately, the designers ignored my enhancement requests. But in answer to your question, I can enjoy food in this body, although it’s somewhat vicarious.”
I stared at her thoughtfully. “This isn’t the same type of body you used back in the match between the Gun Queen and I?”
“This is the covert operations model. Significantly more lifelike. And it doesn’t set off the security scanners when I pass through checkpoints.” She smiled lazily as she stepped up to me. “Squeeze my boobs.”
“What?” I almost fell off the bed. “What are you saying?”
“Don’t you want to know how real they feel? You can compare them to the pair you have.”
Since I wasn’t a girl – merely a boy inside the body of a girl – I should not have reflexively crossed my arms protectively over Mirai’s chest. But that’s exactly what I did, and having realized that, I dropped my arms away in a hurry. “Knock it off. I’m not doing something like that. Mechanical or not, you’re still a girl. Show some modesty.”
“How dull,” she drawled like a windup toy on its last legs.
“Whatever,” I snapped, annoyed by her lack of decorum.
Tabitha held up a finger. “Anyway, as I was saying. I can enjoy a good meal. So, let’s have breakfast.”
I glared at her. “Fine…but I have no money.”
She sluggishly shrugged. “Not a problem. I’ll charge it as a business expense to Libra.”
I continued glaring at her, but a curious thought crossed my mind.
Wasn’t she watching me when I bought my phone and the sports bra?
Tabitha pointed at the canvas gym bag she’d left on my bed. “But first, you should change.”
I glanced at the bag. “Why?”
“Because there’s a uniform in there.”
Hearing that, I scooted away from the bag as though it contained a bomb. “A uniform?”
“A Telos Academy high school girl’s uniform.”
I retreated farther. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“If you put it on, I’ll let you in on a secret or two over breakfast.”
“I’m not wearing a girl’s uniform.”
“You’ll have to eventually. I understand that you’ve been enrolled at Telos Academy and you’ll be starting school on Monday.”
I flinched at the reminder of what lay in store for me.
Damn! She knows about that?
However, it also made me think that Tabitha’s information on me was rather patchy.
She continued as though exhausted by the effort to speak. “Therefore, you may as well give the uniform a test run.”
“Not a chance.”
“Really?”
After acting as though her batteries were running dry, a faint light danced behind the girl’s eyes. It made me wary of her, thus I adamantly declared, “There’s no way I’m wearing a girl’s uniform—again!”
“Again? Ah, yes. During your stint cross-playing as the female Ronin Kassius.”
“I wasn’t cross-playing”—I thought about it for a heartbeat—“okay, maybe I was.”
Tabitha sighed and then slumped as though she’d run back-to-back marathons. “I knew it would come to this.”
She slipped a hand into a dress pocket and retrieved a slip of paper that suspiciously resembled a concert ticket. “Maybe this will change your mind.” She held up the ticket for me to see. “Do you know what this is?”
“A concert ticket?”
“Dinner with Mercy Haddaway as part of a charity promotion she’s organized.”
“Geh!” I fell off the bed and landed with a thud on the floor. “No—no way. You’re lying….”
Swaying unsteadily, Tabitha stalked me as she waved the ticket listlessly before my eyes. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
Yes, I knew what that ticket was all about. How could I not? After all, I was Mercy’s self-professed number one fan.
The story behind that ticket was that people who donated X amount to a charity of Mercy Haddaway’s choice would earn the privilege of a romantic dinner for two with the goddess.
There were only five such dinner events on offer, and the five biggest donations would win.
When I read about it on her blog page, I felt the gap between Mercy and I widen beyond the breadth of the star system. The dream of eating dinner with the woman of my dreams was simply that – a dream. And yet here was Tabitha tempting me with a ticket I never believed I would see in my entire life.
Tabitha was waving it close to my face, making me cross-eyed.
“You are getting sleepy…sleepy,” she droned.
“Stop—stop that!”
I didn’t know what was worse – the temptation to snatch the ticket from her hand or having to listen to her.
“Very sleepy, sleepy,” Tabitha continued as though she was describing herself.
“You—you’re the one who’s sleepy! Get away from me!”
Her eyelids drooped as she carried on mercilessly, “Your eyes are getting heavy, very heavy—”
I was reaching the end of my rope. “How—how did you get that ticket?”
“Oh, about that.” Tabitha stopped moving the ticket about, yet she swayed woozily before me. “House Cardinal’s Conquistador Class Awareness ran simulations on how best to coerce you into cooperating with us. It decided that Mercy Haddaway was the answer to many problems. So, House Cardinal made a sizeable donation to Mercy’s favorite charity and scored us a ticket in the name of Isabel val Sanreal.” Tabitha held the slip of printed paper a little closer to me. “This ticket is proof of that.”
I stared at both her and the ticket in disbelief.
They made the donation in my name? Did House Novis not notice that?
I cast a frantic, questioning look at Ghost and he shook his head worriedly.
You mean they didn’t know?
I wondered if heads would roll because of that. However, I didn’t care so long as it wasn’t my head. I agree that sounded heartless, but I had my own problems to contend with.
Staring cross-eyed at the ticket, I protested in a whiny voice, “That’s not fair! That’s hitting below the belt.”
“I have it on good authority that Mercy will be wearing a slinky red number designed by Dolce Gambatta. Guaranteed to advertise her soft, luscious curves.”
Hearing Tabitha describe Mercy’s figure in those terms while sounding half asleep was a crime I shouldn’t have tolerated. Yet rather than express outrage, I shook my head and fled from her by scampering backwards on the floor.
“No—no way. That’s—that’s way too much info!”
Tabitha pressed home her advantage. “Think about it. Dinner for two with the girl of your dreams.”
I had trouble swallowing and almost choked. “Dinner…for two…?”
Tabitha straightened but continued dangling the ticket just out of my reach. “And all you have to do is wear the uniform while sharing breakfast with me.”
For a racing heartbeat, my attention jumped to the bag lying on my bed before immediately returning to the ticket.
Then I made my fateful decision.
I leapt to my feet with all the agility Mirai could muster and succeeded in catching Tabitha by surprise.
Striking faster than a cobra, I reached for the prized ticket before she could react.
Unfortunately for me, Tabitha had an iron grip on the slip of paper.
It tore in half when I snatched it from her fingertips.
That morning, for the first time in the building’s history, a loud feminine scream pierced the soundproofed walls of a boy’s dorm apartment.
– II –
After I calmed down, Tabitha informed me that the ticket was only a copy that could be reprinted at any time. What was important was the fact that my donation under the name of Isabel val Sanreal had been registered and accepted.
Apparently, it wasn’t an issue for a girl to be having dinner with Mercy Haddaway.
That is, Mercy didn’t appear to have a problem with it.
Nonetheless, the prospect of dinner with my goddess left me somewhat disoriented and distracted. Thus, before I knew it, I’d showered and dressed myself in the Telos Academy uniform Tabitha had provided – including the black, lacy underwear she’d added for good measure.
Oh, and before you ask, I dressed myself in the bathroom and I kept the door locked. I had enough presence of mind to keep Tabitha from peeking at me. However, it wasn’t until I had a good look at myself in a mirror that I was struck by the magnitude of what I’d been roped into.
“What the Hell…?”
I stood in the hallway, staring in dismay at Mirai’s reflection in a full-length mirror mounted on the inside of a closet door.
Perhaps now is a good time to describe the design of Telos Academy’s uniform for girls.
The summer uniform, which is what I was wearing now, comes in two flavors.
The first is a one-piece dress, dark brown, almost black, that is designed to give the appearance of a combined skirt and blouse, with the tail ends of the blouse flowing over the fake skirt’s waistline. The dress’s hemline ends at the knee, and the blouse bears a distinct ‘sailor girl’ appearance with its white trimmed collar and lapels. The sleeves come in two variants that end either at the elbows or the forearms. Both styles bear the Academy’s emblem printed in white either on the cuffs or at the shoulders.
The second flavor of the uniform consists of a separate skirt and blouse, that combine to resemble the one-piece dress in both length and appearance. In other words, the blouse retains the sailor girl look, but is separate from the skirt. Because of this, it gave the more adventurous girls of the academy the opportunity to flaunt their midriffs, though girls caught wearing a blouse too small for their size faced afternoon detention.
In both versions of the uniform the skirt had two zippered pockets, and the blouse was complemented by a short necktie that came in three colors: white for first years, yellow for second years, and red for third year seniors.
The tie that I was presently wearing was white.
As for the shoes, rather than being dark, boring, and squarish, I found them to be rather stylish and comfortable due to their blend of a deck shoe and a sports sneaker that could be worn with or without socks.
Dressed in the two-piece, long sleeve version of the uniform, I regarded my reflection with a sinking sensation in my gut. The blouse was a perfect fit for my shoulders and arms, but Mirai’s overly abundant chest pushed it out, thus making it appear shorter than it really was. This threatened to expose my bare midriff.
“What the Hell…?” I muttered again while tugging down on the blouse. Realizing it was futile, I opted to glare at Tabitha instead. “This is too short.”
“Oh contraire, mon’amie.” Tabitha gave me a dreary thumbs up. “I approve.”
“You approve? Are you serious? I’m not an exhibitionist.”
“There’s nothing wrong with showing off a little skin. Besides, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Most girls would kill to look as good as you do.”
“Yeah, most girls will want to kill me—especially when their boyfriends get a look at me—ah!”
Realizing what I’d just said, I froze and stared aghast at Mirai’s likeness in the mirror.
What the Hell am I saying?
Tabitha gave me a lackluster smirk. “You’re a Gun Princess. They’re no match for you.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
She languidly waved aside my outcry. “The uniform fits you to a T. Don’t you agree?”
I gave myself another critical look, then shrugged in defeat. “Other than the blouse, I’ll admit everything else fits fine.”
“Including your bra?” she inquired with bored sincerity.
I flushed hotly when I remembered the racy appearance of my underwear. “Y—yeah, that too.” An unpleasant thought jumped up and caught my attention. “How did you know my size?”
“We scanned your body when you were translocated. Remember?”
My eyes widened. “Oh, that’s right. You did mention that….”
“I know all your dimensions.”
Embarrassed at hearing that, I felt my face grow hotter. “Well, isn’t that just wonderful!”
Tabitha folded her arms and paid my outburst no heed. “Barefoot, you stand 177 centimetres tall. Your weight is fifty-eight kilograms.”
“Huh? Did you say fifty-eight?” I pointed at Mirai’s slender reflection. “Isn’t that a little heavy for girl that looks like that?”
Tabitha motored on. “Your three sizes are: eighty-eight, fifty-four, eighty.”
I waved my hands wildly at her. “Wait—wait a minute!”
“Yes, what is it?”
I took a swift breath as I tried to calm down. “How can I weigh fifty-eight kilograms? There’s no way I’m that heavy. I certainly don’t feel heavy.”
“You don’t?”
“I feel as light as a feather….”
Tabitha was quiet for a short while before saying, “That’s to be expected. You’re a Simulacrum. Your body is extremely strong, so it’s no wonder you feel weightless. As for your skeleton, it’s strong, heavy, yet remarkably flexible. How else would you survive so many hits without breaking?”
“I thought that was because of the Angel Fibers.”
“Undoubtedly, they add to your durability….”
For a moment, Tabitha’s matter-of-fact reply distracted me from the issue about my weight because I noticed that she said durable rather than indestructible.
But then I noticed something else.
She was frowning, ever so faintly, and her words had trailed off rather than ended, giving me the impression that she had more to say but was too troubled to say it.
“Hey, Tabitha?”
She blinked, closed her mouth, then smiled lazily. “Oui, mon’amie?”
“Something you’re not telling me?”
“There is lots I’m not telling you.”
“I figured that much. But is there something about Mirai that you bothered.”
“There is lots about Mirai that has me bothered.”
Frustrated, I growled at her, then asked, “Would you just tell me already?”
“What would you like to know?”
“Why is she so damn heavy? You said my skeleton was strong and heavy. What is it? Metallic? An alloy? Biomechanical?”
Tabitha started to frown again but quickly stopped and wiped it off her face. “As far as we can tell, neither.”
It was my turn to frown. “Huh?”
“It’s bone, but the structure is…different. Strong, flexible, rather extraordinary for a Simulacrum.”
Extraordinary?
“So…I’m not a machine?”
“Not as far as we can tell.”
Erina had never told me that. I’d always had the impression and assumed that Mirai was at least biomechanical on the inside, but Tabitha had just said otherwise. So then what kind of Simulacra was Mirai?
Bothered by the question, I studied my appearance yet again. “How strong do you figure I am?”
“From our observations, you’re easily six or seven times stronger than a girl your size. You’re not a machine, but you’re no regular Simulacrum either. You’re quite clearly well above the specs of a Master Grade because with that much strength and power, your body should be tearing itself apart.”
“Why?”
“Think about it,” Tabitha suggested. “You’re grossly overpowered. It’s like having an engine in a car that can’t handle that much torque. It would rip the transmission and drive train to pieces. Or if you think of those models that have motors in each wheel, they would tear right off the axles. That’s what I mean.”
“But I’m not flying apart,” I told her. “I don’t feel like that’s going to happen at all.”
Tabitha nodded. “And that’s the problem. After all that running and fighting you did, why are you still in one piece. If you’re not a Master Grade, you’re certainly a new class of Simulacrum. Perhaps we should classify you as an Ultra Grade.”
I thought back to what Erina had said back on the boat.
Hadn’t she called me that already?
Tabitha wasn’t finished. “Either way, whatever your composition, you’re one of a kind. And your ability to contain and capitalize on that immense strength makes you special. Very special.”
“So what’s keeping me together?”
The girl was pensive for a second. “We suspect it’s the Angel Fibers. We don’t know how they work, but it’s possible that they’re constantly repairing your body. Then again, it’s quite possible that your body is simply that robust. That means that for the first time ever, a Simulacrum exists that is physically as strong as a machine avatar, while being almost entirely organic.”
I swallowed hard.
Is she serious?
Rather than being amazed at Tabitha’s description of my physical abilities, I felt a cold chill run through my body, and it roused goosebumps all over my skin.
Restraining the urge to rub my arms, I swept my gaze over Tabitha.
“If I’m that strong, why couldn’t I close the door on you.”
“That was because I had my foot in the doorway,” Tabitha reminded me. “This body may be mechanical, but if you’d pushed me directly, I wouldn’t have been able to stand my ground.”
Is that really true? I wondered. “Then you believe I can stand toe-to-toe with a Gun Princess.”
“Gun Princesses are built differently to this body that I’m operating. They’re a lot stronger, and heavier too. Depending on her internal design, a Gun Princess equivalent to your size can weigh between ninety and a hundred kilos.”
“That’s still light for a machine, right?”
Tabitha sounded curious. “You consider that light?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Considering how strong you make them out to be, I think they’re rather light.”
“Make them too heavy, and they lose their mobility.”
I wasn’t certain, but I had the suspicion someone had mentioned that to me before, but I couldn’t recall when or where.
I gave Mirai’s appearance another good look.
In doing so, I remembered Tabitha had rolled off Mirai’s three sizes, and so I regarded my chest with mixed feelings. “Bust eighty-eight. I’m a centimeter bigger than Mercy.”
Tabitha nodded sagely. “Yes, you bested her in that category. You’re also a centimeter taller than she is.”
Comparing myself to my goddess was making me feel embarrassed all over again, and my heart began thumping loudly in my chest. Quickly closing the closet door, I leaned against the wall beside me and waited for my heart to relax. But when it refused to comply, I distracted myself by focusing on the next problem at hand.
Speaking up, I was grateful my voice was steady and not influenced by my racing heart. “Okay. I’m dressed. Now what?”
“Now we do breakfast,” Tabitha declared sleepily.
Argh! This girl is killing me!
I threw her a frustrated look. “Would it hurt you to show some enthusiasm?”
Tabitha opened her arms wide. “Hug me.”
I raised a fist at her. “No—I’m going to hit you!”
Then I experienced one of those all too frequent delayed reactions whenever I interacted with Tabitha. That was because I realized that eating breakfast meant walking out of the apartment and heading out into the world dressed as a high school girl attending Telos Academy.
“Wait a minute,” I snapped and waved my hands at Tabitha as though warding her off like a bad smell. “You expect me to walk out of here wearing this?”
Tabitha offered me the gym bag. “I put your other clothes inside.”
“No, no, no,” I protested. “Not happening. Not happening.”
Tabitha held the bag higher. “What is the problem? You walked through the city as a girl.”
“But this is different,” I objected.
“What’s different?”
“Now I’m dressed in a high school girl’s uniform.”
Tabitha frowned drowsily then slowly cocked her head in confusion. “I fail to see the difference.”
I grabbed my head in both hands. “This is my worst nightmare all over again.”
Tabitha snorted loudly, then shoved the gym bag into my chest. “Grow a pair,” she suggested with a stifled yawn.
“What?”
She released the bag and I instinctively caught it before it could land on my feet.
“Hey!” I snapped at her.
“Let’s go, Princess,” Tabitha murmured unenthusiastically.
I stared at her as she walked past me toward the apartment’s entrance.
Is she putting on an act or is she really that tired?
If she’d been watching me all through the morning, she may have been lacking in sleep.
Glancing at the bag in my arms, I reluctantly slung its carry straps over my right shoulder. But I didn’t follow Tabitha. Instead, I found myself rooted to the ground, unable to step away.
This feels wrong. Leaving like this…feels wrong.
“Are you coming?” Tabitha asked me.
“Give me a moment,” I replied before walking into the living room.
She followed me, but chose to wait for me at the mouth of the hallway, while I gave the place I’d called home for three years a long, lasting look.
Was it Shakespeare who’d said parting was such sweet sorrow?
If so, I found myself disagreeing.
There was nothing sweet about the hollow, empty feeling in my chest that made it uncomfortable to breathe the longer I stood in the middle of the living room.
I understood part of the nature of my distress.
This apartment had indeed been home to me for three years, and yet there was not one memento of myself or my family in evidence. The bookshelves and walls were replete with memorabilia dedicated to Mercy Haddaway, but not a single photo of me, my sister, or my parents was anywhere to be found.
Why was that?
It was because I had chosen to turn my back on them, just as they had abandoned me.
I wasn’t an orphan, yet I had preferred to act like one, resulting in a dorm apartment that held no memories or lingering attachment to my family. But it also held no attachment to Ronin Kassius either. As Tabitha had pointed out soon after her arrival, this place was a temple dedicated to Mercy Haddaway.
When I acknowledge this, my ambivalence toward staying or leaving shifted slightly in favor of a swift exit, and so I made my way to the hallway where Tabitha lingered.
As I walked past her on my way to the apartment’s door, she raised an eyebrow and asked, “You’re not going to take something? A keepsake?”
I hesitated, then shrugged my shoulders. “There’s nothing here that belongs to me.”
“True. There’s nothing here that belongs to Mirai or Isabel val Sanreal. However—”
Scowling at her, I sharply retorted, “That’s right. There’s nothing here that belongs to Mirai or Isabel, and that’s who I am now.”
The lethargy Tabitha had displayed faded quickly, and she spoke in a firm tone. “It’s true that your body is not that of Ronin Kassius. But you are the holder—the bearer—of his memories. Don’t dismiss them so easily.”
I turned away her and faced the door. “I’m not going to forget who I was. But I need to accept the way things are now.”
Tabitha sighed, and moments later I heard her walk into the bathroom. She came out after a short while, then held out something that I quickly recognized as my toothbrush. I started to laugh but stopped when I noticed the serious, stubborn expression on her face.
She held the toothbrush closer to me as though insisting that I take it.
I had a suspicion she would take it for herself if I chose not to accept it, and that didn’t sit well with me.
“Fine…,” I softly grumbled.
Watching me intently, Tabitha’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly when I hesitated for a heartbeat just before plucking the toothbrush from her palm. Though I fumbled a little when opening the unfamiliar skirt’s left zipper, I was able to slip the toothbrush inside, and then tug the zipper back up without having to drop the gym bag on the floor.
Looking at Tabitha, I gave her a curt nod and then shrugged my shoulders, wanting to shake off the mood and the moment.
“Lead the way,” I muttered unhappily at her.
She opened the apartment’s door, and then walked out into the hallway.
I followed her out, hesitating slightly as I cleared the threshold, but then missed a step when I heard the door close behind me.
The clack of the lock engaging brought a sense of finality to my time here, squeezing at my heart, and I held tightly onto the straps of the gym bag as I walked away from the dorm apartment.
It took every ounce of my willpower to not look back at the closed door.
It wasn’t until I’d rounded a bend and arrived at an elevator bank located at the southeast corner of the building that I finally began to breathe a little easier as my troubled feelings began to settle like sediment to the bottom of a dark, dank pond.
However, I soon had something else to worry over as a new problem reared its ugly head.
Thank you for getting this far.
This is the unpublished version of Book 3 of "Gun Princess Royale" a sci-fi, gender-bender, girls-with-guns, action series that I self-published on Amazon Kindle as eBooks in 2017. The series tanked in sales due to a bad story, very bad writing, and failing to put in the required time to develop the Gun Princess Royale Universe before releasing the books. Consequently, I never self-published Book 3. I did post a rough cut for Book 3 here on TG BigCloset. However, I was unsatisfied with the result, so I went back and rewrote the novel with a new approach. This is that novel.
Book 1 of the newly reimagined reboot of the series, The Gun Princess Royale, is available on Amazon for purchase or reading on Kindle Unlimited. More than two years of writing have gone into it. Please check it out. It's 873 pages so the sample for reading on Amazon is a whopping 87 pages.
Thank you, and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
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.
Originally, the female students of Telos Academy had been assigned to the north side of the dormitory building. To be specific, they were allotted to apartments in the northwest, north, and northeast sides of the complex. The male students were thus segregated to the southwest, south, and southeast sections of the megascraper.
However, for reasons that I don’t know, that policy was scrapped a few years ago, and during summer break, the girls and boys living in the building found themselves assigned to separate floors, rather than isolated to the north and south sides of the immense complex. Naturally, this resulted in organized bedlam as thousands of students had to pack their belongings and move to their new digs.
This happened before I joined the academy, but I’ve heard stories about how difficult it was for students to lug their belonging through the building, and though it was all supervised, and scores of mover bots had been hired to help out, it was nonetheless a monumental undertaking fraught with arguing and bickering between the harried and frustrated students of Telos Academy. And when the dust settled, guys and girls found themselves having to share the building’s many stairwells and elevators.
However, a new order quickly asserted itself, and it was the girls who made the first move.
In short, they forced a return to the old days by deciding they would only travel up and down the building using the north side of the megascraper. Those girls that didn’t agree, and who preferred to mingle with the boys, were strong armed by peer pressure, female intimidation, the threat of romantic breakups, and death by social media to force them to toe the gender line.
As for the guys, they faced the same harassment to drive them back to the south side of the complex. Hence, after all that moving around much of the previous status quo was thus unofficially re-instated. The male and female students had entirely dedicated floors, but they still travelled up and down the building in isolation from each other.
How did this work?
Simple.
A guy on the northside would have to go southside to use the stairwells and lifts.
A girl on the southside would have to venture northside to use the stairwells and lifts over there.
The great gender divide was back, albeit enforced not by law but by general consensus amongst the student body living in the apartment building, and by all accounts, it was here to stay because it took a brave boy – and a brave girl – to buck the unwritten rules. Thus, it was very, very rare to find a boy and girl walking the hallways together. Even the closest of couples eventually wilted under pressure from the girls and were forced to walk apart while inside the building.
How did this affect me now?
Rather badly.
Firstly, my former dorm apartment was on the southside of the complex.
Secondly, I was on an all-male floor. That is, there were no girls living on the thirty-fifth floor. That was fine when I was a guy, but now that I’d been drafted into the other camp, I’d effectively found myself in enemy territory.
I was Little Red Riding Hood in a forest of hungry wolves.
To make matters worse, when I tried circling northward, Tabitha nixed the idea by reminding me of dinner with Mercy.
Apparently, it wasn’t enough for me to step out wearing a girl’s high school uniform. I needed to run the proverbial gauntlet by making my way down the southside of the building. I will admit that I briefly considered travelling down the outside face of the megascraper because technically I’d still be on the southside. But I’d had my fill of jumping down floor after floor. Thus, I steeled my resolve, prayed to the Fates for mercy, and thought of another kind of Mercy dressed in a slinky Dolce Gambatta number that was fit for a red-carpet event.
Hence, Little Red Riding Hood followed Cruella de Hexaria over to a southside elevator where a handful of high school Big Bad Wolves – I mean boys – were waiting for the lift to arrive.
Did we draw attention?
Of course, we did.
Their eyes widened and their eyebrows shot to their youthful hairlines.
Then their faces darkened with suspicion as they warily checked us out.
It was easy to understand why.
From their perspective, encountering two girls on a boys-only floor could only mean entrapment. In other words, Tabitha and I were like undercover Enforcers sent on a mission to tease, tempt, and ultimately trap boys who were too weak willed to resist our feminine wiles.
Personally, I found the notion stupid.
It made more sense to think that Tabitha and I were on a pledge dare.
However, whatever these boys thought, none of it was good because they literally edged way from us. There was no attempt to chat us up, and they spoke in hushed tones amongst themselves. They probably thought I couldn’t hear them, but Mirai’s preternatural hearing caught their conversations with unsettling ease.
Unexpectedly, despite their trepidations, they were sizing up Tabitha and I with interest.
More to the point, they were sizing me up far more than Tabitha.
For starters, Mirai had a prominent bust that Tabitha lacked.
Secondly, Mirai was taller than Tabitha.
Thirdly, she had better legs, and those shapely pins were on display beneath her short skirt – a skirt that I now realized was a little shorter than it should have been.
When studying myself in the mirror, I had noticed the skirt seemed a tad short, but then I tossed it into the ‘my imagination’ basket when I compared it to the length of Tabitha’s dress. However, now that I was standing by the elevator doors, I realized that I’d been duped. Tabitha had hitched up her skirt, and then dropped it once we left the dorm apartment. Thus, while she looked prim and proper in her regulation length uniform, I ended up promoting Mirai’s long, toned legs for all the guys to see.
I sorely felt like punching Tabitha, but to be truly effective, I would need to unleash my anger upon her real body. On the other hand, venting upon her mechanical form wasn’t such a bad idea because I could pound her to my satisfaction. But instead, I clenched my hands tightly and endured the attention I was drawing, all of which was making me overwhelmingly self-conscious.
I hadn’t felt this way since cross-playing as Silver Blue a year ago. However, back then I could always escape the identity of Silver Blue. That wasn’t an option for me anymore. I was stuck as Mirai or Isabel, drawing attention like honey to a bear, and it wasn’t my imagination running rampant due to my insecurities and self-consciousness. I really was garnering interest, more so than Tabitha, and feeling the boys’ gazes crawl over my body, I was rapidly nearing my breaking point.
And then the lift arrived.
Believing I was saved, my hopes were dashed when its doors opened. The lift was already hauling passengers, and if everyone waiting for it on this floor climbed aboard, the elevator would be crammed to bursting point. Worse still, all the occupants were boys. Simply put, the situation was more than my strained psyche could handle, and so I snapped – not literally but mentally.
Whirling on the spot, I fled down the hallway, making tracks for safer ground, namely the northern half of the thirty-fifth floor. There were more high school boys along the way, something to be expected since it was now a little before 8:00 am, so they were starting their journey to Telos Academy. Again, the presence of a girl on a floor assigned to male students raised eyebrows and caused a lot of double takes, but I ducked my head and barreled past the guys who’d either slowed or stopped to stare at me.
It wasn’t long before Mirai’s magnetic sense told me I was running north down the hallway, meaning that I’d circled from the southside to the northside of the complex. Arriving at a stairwell, I rushed down the steps, pushing my way between students, their faces a blur as I descended at a reckless pace, and a short while later I finally noticed I was surrounded by girls.
I’d succeeded in achieving my goal of hiding myself amongst them like a tree in a forest.
That said, I was quite a different tree from those around me.
Mirai was a super Simulacrum while these girls were human. But on the outside, I was just like them, albeit much more of a head turner than they were.
Argh—what the HELL am I thinking? A HEAD TURNER?
Girls can be quite receptive to their environment, and it wasn’t long before several of them noticed my state of distress.
Indeed, I was distressed, and I couldn’t understand why.
It was one thing to flee from the high school guys, but now I was in proverbial safe territory, and yet I wasn’t calming down.
Instead, I was still rocketing down the stairs as though my tail was on fire.
Why was that?
Why was I feeling so panicked and frantic?
Why was my heart racing now, when mere hours ago I’d been chased by a storm of bullets down the side of a building and yet barely broken a sweat? And prior to that, I’d survived combat as a Gun Princess clad in a black and purple bodysuit that emphasized Mirai’s curves. Nor was this the first time I’d disguised myself as a female student, and just this morning I’d walked the city streets crowded with people and not experienced any anxiety to the degree that I was now, where I felt like I was drowning in a heavy surf.
What was wrong with me?
Was this an early sign of agoraphobia? Was it a side effect of mapping a male mind into a female brain? Or was something else at play?
Back in the dorm apartment, I’d wondered why I didn’t feel like I was wearing the wrong skin, so was this an indication that the gender dysphoria I had expected to suffer was manifesting under a different guise? Or was it because I was subconsciously terrified that people would see me as a guy with the appearance of a girl?
In other words, would they see me as a freak?
As my fears and insecurities tumbled through my head, I almost took a tumble myself when my right foot missed a step, causing my left foot to slip behind me. But I was saved by the girls around me, who reacted quickly and spared me from a nasty fall by grabbing onto my arms and shoulders.
“Hey? You okay?”
“Watch your step.”
“You go down, we all go down.”
They had a point.
The stairs were wide, but they were crowded and growing more so by the minute as a couple of thousand students funneled into the stairwells because there simply weren’t enough elevators to cater for them all. If I fell here, I was likely to cause an avalanche of people all the way down to street level.
Steadying myself on my two feet, I quietly nodded my thanks to the girls supporting onto me. Then I noticed one of the girls – a willowy blonde with deep blue eyes – was peering intently at me.
Abruptly, her eyes widened, and she exclaimed, “It’s you!”
The girls around her were startled by her outcry, and quickly stared at her in confusion.
I stared at her as well, my heart beating loudly after it jumped into my throat.
Had I been discovered? Did she know I wasn’t a real girl—that I wasn’t human?
My heart was still in my throat as I started breaking out in a cold sweat.
How? How the frek did she find out?
One of her companions reached out to the girl. “Hey, Sierra. What’s up with you—?”
“I can’t believe it!” The willowy blonde snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “I know you. You’re my brother’s favorite bikini girl!”
I gasped loudly and jerked back in shock, then quickly shook my head while frantically waving my hands in denial. “No, no, no! Definitely not! I’ve never worn a bikini in my life!”
That was indeed the truth.
A bra and panties, yes, but a bikini? No, sir.
However, my denial fell on deaf ears.
“Of course, you have,” the girl overruled me. “You’re that chick in his posters.”
That chick in his posters?
I stared at her, bamboozled, while the girls around her traded looks before turning their attention on me.
A brunette with a short bob nodded thoughtfully as she studied my appearance. “You know, I think she’s right. It is her.”
Sierra was nodding eagerly now. “Of course, I am. That jerk’s room is full of her stuff. Remember, I showed you what his room is like.”
Her companions began to nod in agreement.
Or was it sympathy? I couldn’t tell.
Emboldened, Sierra proudly crossed her arms. “You’re Mercy Haddaway.”
For the second time this morning, my mind snapped.
I could literally hear it breaking sharply inside my head.
As it did so, the rest of me froze and I blanked out.
For a dozen odd seconds later, I could have been knocked over with a feather.
“Holy crap,” the brunette muttered. “Mercy Haddaway in the flesh.”
My gods…they’re mistaking Mirai for Mercy.
Coming out of my stupor, I waved my hands even more frantically than before. “No, no. I’m definitely not her!”
“What? Are you blind? Haven’t you ever looked in a mirror?”
“I just look like her—I mean, I resemble her! I just resemble her!”
Sierra dismissed my hysterical attempt to repudiate her and turned to her friends. “That idiot spent his summer working just so he could spend it all on her holovid collection.”
I froze again while frowning inwardly.
Wow, talk about devoted. He’s just like me. A kindred spirit.
The brunette with the bob asked, “Didn’t he line up for hours to meet her when she was promoting something?”
“Oh, yeah—at last year’s handshaking event.”
I froze a third time.
Was her brother in line with me?
Another of Sierra’s companions, a girl with coppery red hair and green eyes, started to giggle madly. “Sierra, your brother will wet his pants knowing she’s here.”
“Hey, let’s call him,” suggested a fourth girl with dark blonde hair and amber eyes. Within a heartbeat, she’d pulled out her slim phone from a skirt pocket and called up a number, earning herself a dark frown from the brunette with the bob.
“You have his number? Karen, why do you have his number?”
“Oh…ah…well,” Karen fumbled for a reply. “Well, he—he gave it to me.”
Sierra cocked her head at the girl. “He gave it to you? Why would he give you his number?”
“Ah—well, I guess—I don’t know?”
Sierra grew suspicious. “Is there something going on between you and that dirtbag?”
Under the combined pressure from her friends, Karen began to retreat down the stairwell. “No—there’s nothing going on. Nothing to tell. Nothing at all!”
“Then why are you running away?” the redhead asked.
There was no answer from the girl. Instead, she spun on her heels and sped away with surprising agility.
Sierra stared darkly at Karen’s back before suddenly shaking herself all over like a dog. “Girls, girls”—she clapped loudly—“focus please. We’ll deal with her later.”
The brunette with the bob pointed at the fleeing girl. “Don’t you want to know what’s going on between her and your brother?”
Sierra grabbed the girl’s shoulders. “Maria, listen to me. She can run, but she can’t hide. Besides, I’ll squeeze it out of my brother. All I have to do is take his collection hostage.”
Maria grinned cruelly. “Oh, that’ll grab him by the balls.”
“Precisely.”
I knew that girls could be terrifying but watching these two was giving me chills.
Releasing Maria’s shoulders, Sierra stepped closer to me as I stood on the stairs.
Crap! I missed my chance to escape!
Folding her arms under her breasts, she appraised me from head to toes. “Mercy Haddaway. Will wonders never cease.”
Swallowing hastily, I protested anew. “I keep telling you I’m not—”
“Mercy!” A loud, bored voice called out from above. “There you are. Why did you run away?”
I jerked sharply and then hastily looked around me with wide eyes.
Mercy Haddaway is here? Why is she here—?
Then I recognized the voice from above.
Oh, no. Don’t tell me—!
I turned to look up the stairs to see Tabitha standing on a landing above me, and watching me with a languid smile on her face.
Gods damn her!
The troublesome bitch waved at me. “Mercy, what did I tell you about running away? I warned you about attracting too much attention.”
The girls on the steps weren’t the only ones that had stopped to stare at me.
It was fair to say that all nearby traffic had come to a standstill, and scores of faces were looking at me.
“Sheesh,” Tabitha sighed dramatically. “Deciding to play high school girl even at your age. What were you thinking?”
“What do you mean my age?” I cried out. “And stop calling me Mercy—huh? What? What are you doing?”
The sounds of multiple phone cameras clicking away ripped my attention away from Tabitha.
All around me, the girls were taking snaps of me.
“…that’s her…?”
“…that’s Mercy, right…?”
“…never thought I’d see her in person….”
“…why is she wearing a uniform…?”
“…wait—isn’t she a blonde…?”
“…I think she looks better as a brunette….”
“…she’s going to our school…?”
“…but I thought she was older than us….”
“…damn. She’s big….”
“…she’s bigger in real life….”
“…what a slut. Look at her skirt….”
“…that’s way shorter than allowed….”
“…someone’s going to get in trouble today….”
“…I want her legs….”
“…shut up, Christine….”
“…I want her breasts….”
“…shut up, Megan….”
Everywhere I looked, the girls of Telos Academy were taking photos while talking about me—no, about Mercy.
No….
Because of Tabitha’s meddling, I was now the center of attention on a crowded stairwell.
No, no….
I felt trapped, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of people with faces I didn’t recognize.
No, no, no—No!
I began to shiver and tremble where I stood, the incessant clicking and droning of their voices drowning out my thoughts.
Suddenly, I felt as though I’d been thrust back to a year ago.
It was the Princess Silver Blue nightmare all over again, except this time, I was being mistaken for Mercy Haddaway.
I started shaking my head at the students surrounding me.
“I—I’m not her. I’m not, Mercy. I’m not…I’m…I’m….”
The commotion swept away my denial. It didn’t help that my voice had fallen to a frail whisper.
Stumbling back, I bumped against the guardrail in the middle of the stairwell.
“…please…stop it…I’m not her….”
The gym bag I’d been carrying fell to my feet, the straps slipping off my shoulder. I was barely aware of it rolling down the stairs.
“I…I’m not her…stop it…,” I whimpered.
From within me, the urge to flee welled up, yet I couldn’t move. My legs had turned rubbery, and if not for the support from the guardrail behind me, I would have collapsed on the ground.
“…please…stop….”
My whisper was lost behind the pounding of my heart. Even the incessant click-click of camera phones was drowned out by the sound of blood rushing past my ears like a roaring, raging river.
Please…help me….
I shut my eyes.
Someone…help me….
Reaching up, I covered my ears.
Please, God. Help me—!
With a jerk, my right hand was yanked away from my head.
What?
Then I heard a boy’s voice shout into my ears.
“Isabel!”
At that moment, everything went quiet inside my head.
My pounding heart, the roaring in my ears, the sound of people around me – all of it vanished and I opened my eyes to see a tall teenage boy with sandy hair and green eyes standing before me.
“Let’s go!”
Grabbing my right hand, he pulled me along with such force that he literally lifted me off my feet.
And then he was hauling me down the stairs at a breakneck speed.
“Stay with me,” he cried out over his shoulder. “We’re going through.”
Overwhelmed by the situation, I offered him no resistance as I ran with him.
I had no idea who he was, yet I’d surrendered my fate to him without a thought.
I hadn’t even considered that perhaps I was making a mistake.
The thought, the feeling, the impression that I was in danger from him never crossed my mind…and I had no idea why.
After descending a few floors, he exited the stairwell with me in tow, then turned sharply down a wide corridor.
“This way,” he insisted, his fingers wrapped like steel around my hand.
Addled, it took me a while to realize this wasn’t the first time I’d been pulled along by a boy.
Mat had done so when he tried saving me back at the island, before the Cat Princess shot and killed the female version of Ronin Kassius.
However, Mat was someone that I knew well.
This boy was a total stranger.
So why did I feel like I knew him?
At a run, he led me to a T-intersection.
Turning right into a branching corridor, I saw a pair of wide translucent doors at the far end. Beyond the doors lay a bridgeway connecting this apartment complex to its northern neighbor. I knew this because of Mirai’s bird-like ability to sense magnetic north, thus I was able to tell our direction of travel as though I had a compass in my head.
Moving quickly, we passed through the entrance and onto the enclosed bridgeway.
I threw a frantic glance behind me, expecting to see a crowd chasing us, but the coast was clear, so to speak.
Yet we continued running, and I was still being pulled along by the unknown boy.
I looked down at his hand firmly gripping mine and was struck by an odd thought.
Why are boys’ hands so large?
But there was a marked difference between this boy’s hand and Ronin’s.
There was nothing manly about me, was there?
Because I was looking at his hand, I only glimpsed the view outside of the bridgeway’s permaglass canopy, and again that was only because of Mirai’s abnormally wide field-of-vision. Yet, the scenery of towering buildings failed to attract my attention, distracted as I was by the boy’s hand wrapped around mine. It wasn’t until we’d traversed into the adjoining building that my composure began to recover.
Arriving at a balcony encircling the megascraper’s atrium, I finally dug in my heels.
“Stop—stop! I said stop! Stop pulling me!”
Yanking hard on the hand pulling me, I dragged the boy to a stumbling halt.
Despite this, he refused to let me go.
I was shocked by the strength of his grip, and warily wondered if he was a Simulacrum. However, when I realized that I couldn’t see his lifeforce aura, my heart pole vaulted high before coming down hard within my chest.
A machine? He’s an avatar?
The boy recovered his balance and half turned around to face me. “What are you doing? We have to go.”
I started to protest forcefully when I noticed something else: blonde locks tumbling over my shoulders.
Mirai had switched back. She wasn’t in her powered-up state, which explained why I couldn’t see the boy’s lifeforce. Having grown accustomed to seeing the aura that radiated around living creatures, I felt somewhat at a loss, and could only stare up at the boy in confusion until I remembered his hand tightly holding onto mine.
I gave it another hard yank, but he held me fast.
“What’s your problem?” I snapped at him. “Let go or lose the arm.”
He stared behind me in the direction we’d been running from.
I watched his searching eyes for a second, before quickly looking over a shoulder myself.
There was no sign of any students following us, and there was no sign of Tabitha either, but was it reason enough to relax? Besides, Tabitha was using her position in Libra to track me, thus she didn’t need to run after me.
Then again, maybe she was done with me for the morning.
I felt the grip on my hand relax and swiftly took the chance to pull it free.
Glaring hard at the teenage boy, I muttered a bitter, “Thanks.”
“We need to keep going,” he said, his voice hard and cold. “Come on.”
He started turning away but stopped when he noticed that I was standing still.
“I said, come on.”
Ignoring him for the moment, I took my first good look at my mysterious savior.
Dressed in the Telos Academy summer uniform for boys that consisted of black pants, dark shoes, and a white short-sleeve shirt, he wore a white necktie marking him as a first-year high school student. From the way his uniform hung on his body, and the strong arms that stretched out from his shirt sleeves, it was easy to see he had an athletic build. If anything, I’d call it a swimmer’s body. And he was tall, at least a handful of centimeters taller than Mirai, something that I considered unusual for a first-year high school boy.
With dark sandy hair and penetrating green eyes, he had generously handsome features that were likely to give the girls around him heart palpitations. But if he was expecting to use those good looks on me, they were sorely wasted.
“Who are you?” I bluntly asked him.
His gaze searched my face for a short while before he softly asked, “Would it explain if I told you that you’re my hope?”
The moment his reply registered in my mind, I felt a cold wind blow through me, and I stumbled back a step. “Straus….”
There was a reason why I couldn’t see his lifeforce aura: he didn’t’ have one. Even if Mirai had remained in her powered-up state, there was no aura to see because he wasn’t alive.
The handsome teenage boy standing in front of me was a machine avatar, and the one operating him was Akane Straus.
The realization staggered me but also weakly angered me because I felt deceived; betrayed.
Straus glanced behind me again, then insisted, “We really need to go.”
I swallowed and shook my head while trying to get my thoughts and emotions in order. “Wait—wait a minute. I’m still dealing with this.”
“Deal with it along the way,” he suggested.
Once again, he started turning away from me, and once again he stopped when he saw me rooted to the floor, almost hyperventilating.
“Kassius?”
I shook my head swiftly at him. “No, don’t call me that.”
A complicated look washed across his face. “What do you want me to call you?”
I clenched my hands and kept them beside me as I took a deep breath. “Before…call me what you did before…in the stairwell….”
He frowned then narrowed his eyes. “You mean…?”
“Isabel…call me Isabel.”
The tall boy studied me for a second. “Are you sure?”
I swallowed hard and backed up my decision with a nod. “Just call me Isabel. Okay?” Then I jabbed a finger at him. “But what the frek do I call you?”
The boy’s face grew blank and unreadable. A short while later, he huffed to himself and then broke into a guilty smile. “Oh, right.”
I questioned him harshly. “Well? Do you have a name?”
I was feeling deceived – yet again – so I wasn’t in the best of moods, and after folding my arms under Mirai’s breasts, I smirked cruelly at him.
“Should I give you a name?” I taunted him.
“Actually, I do have a name, so don’t bother.”
“Then let’s hear it.”
“Severin,” he announced.
“What?”
“My name. Call me, Severin.” He grinned as he favored me with an informal bow. “Severin Straus, at your service.”
I pressed my lips together, feeling a rush of anger flow through me.
Ronin Kassius had swung punches before but they rarely if ever landed.
Mirai on the other hand was gifted with abnormally keen hand-to-eye coordination.
The right cross I delivered to the boy’s jaw knocked him backwards several feet and down on his ass.
I ground my teeth together at the intense pain that briefly burned through my right hand before Mirai’s preternatural healing ability kicked in. Still, I gently shook it a few times while glaring down at Severin Straus sprawled on the balcony floor.
He met my glare as he sat up. “What the Hell was that for?”
My right hand still ached as I clenched it into a fist that I threatened him with. “That’s for tricking me—you bitch!”
“Huh?” Slowly rising to his feet, Straus looked visibly taken aback.
I was on a roll, so I added for good measure, “And because you’re a pervert!”
At this, Straus bristled visibly for a beat. “I’m not a pervert. This is a disguise. Okay? It’s just a disguise to get around.”
“I can’t believe this.” I shook my head slowly and repeated, “I can’t believe this.”
“What’s so hard to believe?”
“That you’re a woman using a male avatar!” I stomped a foot. “You’re like those guys who play MMO’s as sexy female characters.”
Straus flinched, and I pointed an accusing finger at him – I mean her. “You’re the opposite side of the coin. You’re a girl playing as a male character.”
“I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing,” he – she – protested.
“Oh yeah?” I aimed my finger lower. “Is that thing anatomically correct?”
Surprisingly, Straus started to blush. “Aren’t you ashamed for asking?”
“Don’t answer a question with a question. Well? Is it?”
“I have a constitutional right to remain silent.”
“Pervert!”
“Okay—okay! It’s anatomically correct.”
“Double pervert!”
“Will you stop calling me that?”
He stepped closer to me and I retreated from him.
“Stay away from me,” I warned as I slipped into a defensive stance.
“Stop acting like an abused girlfriend,” he snapped back at me. “And keep your voice down. People will get the wrong idea.”
I bounced on the balls of my feet. “I’m saying it for your own good. With the next hit you’re going over the balcony.
Straus stopped approaching me and held up his hands in a placating manner. “Would you calm down and listen to me?”
“I have been listening to you.”
“Great. Then I don’t need to say it again, do I?”
“Say what?”
“That we need to go—”
Straus stiffened when he noticed a handful of office ladies stare at us as they walked by.
I dropped back on my heels and relaxed my stance while waiting for them to move on. However, while I kept my eyes averted, Mirai’s sharp ears caught their comment about young couples not knowing their place, but they otherwise ignored us and soon left us behind.
Feeling a tad relieved, I quickly started to resume my defensive posture but then dropped it altogether.
What the Hell am I doing? I wondered. But to Straus, I instead asked, “Why do we need to go?”
“Because we have to talk. And we’re not talking here. And”—he glanced behind me once more—“I’d like to put some distance between us and her.”
He didn’t say her name, but I knew he was referring to Tabitha.
Giving in to the urge, I also looked behind me, yet I only saw office workers and students venturing toward the shops on this floor. As for Tabitha, she wasn’t in sight, and I’ll admit that I was relieved because the Harbinger of Bad News had caused enough trouble for one morning.
After a deep breath, I turned back to face Straus, in the process folding my arms under Mirai’s hefty bosom. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”
He studied me for a moment. “Have you calmed down?”
Irritated at another non sequitur, I struggled to hold back a snarl. “I’m calm enough to hear you out, so start talking.”
He looked exasperated as he planted his hands on his hips. “Like I said, not here.”
I chose not to mention it, but even though I knew it was a woman operating that body, it was surprising to see the avatar behave just like a teenage boy, from its mannerisms all the way down to the way it walked.
Damn creepy. Damn pervert. Just how much practice has she had getting around in that body?
Straus raked his fingers through his long sandy hair. “Are you hungry?”
“Huh?” I was jolted out of my observations. “Why are you asking?”
“I thought you might want a bite to eat.”
I was indeed hungry, so I replied with a curt nod and grumbled. “Are you buying?”
“I’m offering, aren’t I?” He pointed at himself. “Besides, I’m the guy here so I should be paying.”
I snorted under my breath. “In case you missed the news flash, it’s the age of gender equality.”
“Good chivalry never dies young,” he proclaimed.
“What’s with the twisted quotes?”
“Fine, then you buy breakfast.”
I unfolded my arms angrily. “Hey, what happened to chivalry just now?”
Straus clenched his jaw, a gesture that unsettled me because I knew his body wasn’t human. It reminded me of Tabitha’s body, and so I briefly pondered if it was made along the same lines, that is, a mechanical body designed with stealth and infiltration in mind.
Venting a loud breath, Straus shook his head. “Fine, we’ll do it your way. We’ll split the bill. Happy now?”
“Yeah, I’m happy—” I stopped cold when I realized something that made my stomach sink. “Oh, no….”
Straus frowned at me. “What is it now?
Frantically, I patted the pockets of my skirt, then slowly grabbed my head with both hands and swore.
“Frek!”
Straus looked alarmed. He hurried up to me, grabbed my shoulders, and then gave me a forceful shake. “Hey, what’s wrong with you? You’re not having another panic attack, are you?”
I stared up at him in dread. “My phone. My cash card. Shit! I left them behind.”
“Behind? Behind where?”
“In the bag! The gym bag!” A memory flashed before my eyes – a vision of the bag tumbling down the stairs. “Oh, no. I dropped it down the stairwell.”
Straus exhaled heavily. “How much money was on that card?”
“About, four thousand dorans…I think.”
He released another heavy breath. “Well, whoever finds it is in for a lucky break.”
A burst of fury rushed through me, and I shoved Straus away from me. “That’s my money. And my phone! My new flip-top phone! Argh!”
I stomped around in a circle, then stopped to face the bridgeway entrance leading back to the dorm building.
“I’m going back,” I decided. “I’m going back to get my bag, my clothes, my phone, and my money!”
However, before I could take a step, Straus grabbed onto my arms to hold me back.
“Like Hell you are,” he proclaimed. “Forget about it. You want a new phone, just ask for one. You want money? Isabel is frekking rich! So, come on. We have to go. And that’s the wrong direction.”
I was ready to struggle until I noticed more people glancing at me. But it pained me – no, it burned me – to leave my belongings in the hands of someone who was unlikely to return them to their proper owner – me!
I didn’t even password protect my phone.
Could I be more negligent?
“Argh!”
With a loud cry, I shrugged off Straus’s hold on me, but I had to summon a great deal of Mirai’s abnormal strength to free myself, and the motion sent Straus staggering back a few feet. Spinning around to face him, I stared daggers at him for a long while, frustrated to the point of tears.
Wisely, he silently waited for me to calm down.
However, it turned into a long wait as I struggled to get a grip on my flaming emotions.
Eventually, I muttered bitterly between clenched teeth. “I liked that phone. It was my first flip-top phone….”
Yet, deep down, I understood that losing my belongings wasn’t what I truly regretted.
Rather, I resented being rescued like a damsel in distress by a young woman cross-playing as a guy.
Straus sighed deeply, shook his head, then turned his back to me. He walked away along the balcony for a short distance but slowed down to regard me over a shoulder.
“Breakfast is on me. Are you coming?”
Did he have to rub it in?
“I’m not going to owe you for this,” I told him. “I’ll pay you back. You hear me?”
Straus rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Well, are you coming or not? Did you twist an ankle? Do you want me to carry you?”
I strode toward him with a scowl on my face. “Do you want to get punched again?”
“I pity the guy that falls for you,” Straus muttered as he – that is she – resumed walking along the balcony encircling the building’s atrium.
“And I pity the girl that falls for a fraud like you!”
He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets as he continued walking. “Better to live a lie than to not live at all.”
I can’t explain why hearing him twist the famous quote angered me so much, but before I knew it, I’d raced up to him and kicked him in the middle of the back.
Straus stumbled, fell, and came to a stop several feet away.
I watched in satisfaction as he landed flat on his chest. “Stop twisting other people’s words.”
He lay still for a second or two, before slowly picking himself up again. Once on his feet, he half turned on his heels to give me a dark withering look.
“Would you stop hitting me!”
I crossed my arms and glowered back at him. “And it’s better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all. Get it right.”
Later I would learn that I’d incorrectly recited the quote, but that’s a moot point for now.
My version was still closer to the original than his was.
Yet again shoving his hands into his trouser pockets, the mechanical avatar calling itself Severin Straus rolled its shoulders, cracked its neck, then shot me a heated look.
It was truly unnerving to see a machine glare at me so well.
“Like I said before…I pity the guy that falls for you.”
Thank you for getting this far.
Book 1 of the newly reimagined & rebooted series, The Gun Princess Royale, is available on Amazon for purchase or reading on Kindle Unlimited. More than two years of writing have gone into it. Please check it out. It's 873 pages so the sample for reading on Amazon is a whopping 87 pages.
A Happy 2024 to all of you.
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.
– I –
Trailing behind Straus, I followed him – I mean, her – oh, whatever – out of the massive commercial and residential building, otherwise known as an officetel, via a bridgeway some five floors above street level.
Continuing southward, we crossed into an adjacent megascraper, then descended five sets of escalators to arrive at ground floor, eventually exiting out onto a sidewalk running parallel to a six -lane street packed with the morning’s commuter traffic.
After reluctantly asking Straus where we were going, he muttered something about a pancake shop and pointed across the street at an establishment with the name, The Hardboiled Café, written in an austere font across its storefront windows.
“Huh…?”
With a name like that I wondered what kind of café it was. However, since it was only a stone’s throw away, I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.
Or so I thought….
Arriving at an intersection, I waited to cross the busy street along with a few dozen other people. Before long, the sidewalk became overly crowded and I was propelled into Straus by a businessman – a salaryman – who didn’t even bother to apologize when he shoved me aside.
I snorted and sourly thought, Girls really have it tough.
Just because they couldn’t defend themselves, that wasn’t a reason to walk over them. Then again, I’d recently discovered that some girls could defend themselves quite well, though two of them were Simulacra and one was a martial arts prodigy.
I found myself clenching a fist as I glared acidly at the salaryman who’d pushed me aside.
However, my acidity spiked when Straus moved to shield me from the people around me, including the aforementioned salaryman cruising for a bruising.
“What are you glaring at?” Straus whispered loudly.
“I was glaring at him, but now I’m glaring at you,” I growled back.
“Care to explain why?”
“I’ll explain when you explain what you’re doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he retorted.
“It looks like you’re getting in my way.”
“No, I’m saving you from getting arrested for beating someone up.”
“If I beat someone up it’s because they had it coming.”
Straus inhaled long and loudly before raising his hands in surrender. “Okay. You want to get bumped, be my guest. You want to get arrested—don’t claim I didn’t warn you.”
I sneered up at him. “No, I’d prefer you get run over.”
Straus lowered his hands. “That’s a really cruel thing to say.”
“It would be if you were human but you’re a fake,” I reproached him. “These days I seem to be surrounded by fakes. Hey, even I’m a fake—oomph!”
Straus clamped a large boyish hand over my mouth, shutting me up in the blink of an eye. Then he leaned hastily toward me to heatedly whisper, “Could you not announce it to the world?”
It wasn’t the shock of having my mouth palmed that left me speechless.
Nor was it his hand plastered over my mouth that stifled the retort in my throat.
No. It was finding myself face-to-face, and in very close proximity, with a very human looking boy that was actually a remote-controlled mechanical avatar.
It was just too much for me to bear, and a soft, pitiful whine piped up from my throat.
Straus blinked and looked faintly startled. “Hey, are you all right—?”
I snapped.
Again.
I know it sounds strange after having spent time in the presence of Simulacra, a Gun Princess, and having fought off a Gun Queen, but for some reason that I couldn’t pin down, I couldn’t cope with Straus’s presence. Something about knowing that the teenage boy inches away from me wasn’t real set my hairs on end and made my skin crawl.
Imagine encountering your worst phobia, and then double – no, triple – the resulting anxiety.
Hence, it’s only natural that I lost it.
With my right hand clenched into a fist, I unleashed a piledriving punch that caught Straus under his chin. But seeing Straus fly back several feet and then land supine on the sidewalk pavement, I realized in horror just how hard I’d hit him. Had he been a human teenage boy, there was no doubt my punch would have broken his neck and killed him. That blunt realization had me trembling like a leaf and I looked down at my discolored right hand that was balled into a bruised fist. It burned in agony for a handful of seconds before the Angel Fibers and my ultra-grade Simulacrum body mended the damage I’d incurred.
As the burning sensation faded to a dull throbbing, I flexed the fingers of my hand, both amazed and frightened by how quickly it had healed.
By then Straus was sitting up unsteadily.
Not knowing what it was like to operate a mechanical avatar, I assumed that I’d knocked the avatar’s senses or sensors into disarray because Straus swayed woozily as he clutched his jaw.
Yet regardless of how hard I’d hit him, Straus was a machine while I was made of flesh and blood. Thus, I didn’t believe he’d suffered any damage. But the two salarymen in suits that came to his assistance didn’t know any better.
They helped him up and Straus thanked them.
When one of them suggested going to the hospital, Straus shook his head and allayed the man’s concerns with a grin.
The other man suggested he call the authorities, but again Straus brushed it aside with a grin.
Then he said something in a low voice while looking sheepish, and the two men backed off.
One of them slapped Straus’s back and muttered something about treating his girlfriend better.
It was then that I noticed the mixed looks I was garnering from the pedestrians surrounding us.
Expressions of shock and disbelief, as well as many reproachful stares, were directed at me.
More than a few people were muttering deriding remarks, and I heard phone cameras click away, but no one dared come close to me. After watching me knock Straus to the ground with a single punch, they instinctively saw me as bad news. Perhaps they subconsciously recognized me as a predator, a lioness amongst antelopes, a shark amongst minnows, a hawk amongst pigeons.
Regardless, they watched me, they muttered, but they kept their distance.
And though I was quite aware of them, I chose to ignore them and instead focused on gathering up my scattered emotions.
Straus bowed politely to the two salarymen, then quickly walked up to me.
Keeping his voice low, he stopped well short of leaning down at me as he spoke in a hushed, guttural tone. “Do you know how close you came to being arrested? What the Hell is wrong with you?”
I noisily sucked in air through my nose, then reflexively clenched my hands as I harshly whispered back, “You freak me out!”
Straus’s eyes widened before narrowing. “You didn’t have a problem with me before.”
She – I mean he – no, I mean she – was right.
I didn’t have a problem with her when she was operating the Cat Princess, but I was having a severe phobic reaction to her pretty boy avatar.
Was it some kind of twisted fear of machines that resembled good looking teenage boys?
Was I experiencing an andro-mechano-phobia?
Abruptly, I gasped both inwardly and outwardly as I recognized a new problem.
What the Hell had I been thinking?
Had I really considered the machine boy as a pretty boy?
Was that also part of my phobic reaction to him?
I swallowed hard and then took a couple of deep, unsteady breaths as I struggled to rationalize my adverse emotional response to Severin Straus who was staring at me impatiently.
“Well?” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Why do you have a problem with me now?”
My breathing and my heart gradually calmed down. When I felt steady enough to give him an answer, I replied in a low whisper, “You really wanna know why?”
“A straight answer would be appreciated.”
“Because back then you weren’t giving cross-play a whole new meaning.”
Straus grew still for a long moment before venting a loud breath, just like a very real and very frustrated teenage boy. However, before he could say anything, the pedestrian light behind me began to play a chime and I recognized it for the ‘walk’ melody.
“Come on,” Straus growled and stepped out onto the street along with a hundred other pedestrians.
The people that had been avoiding me now swept me along with them, so I didn’t have much of a choice but to follow Straus across the street.
Arriving at the opposite sidewalk, I looked around to regain my bearings as the crowd rushed by me. Being a good twenty centimeters taller than I was accustomed to, I was able to spot the sign for the Hardboiled Café above the heads of the people surging past me. But I’d lost sight of Straus, so I decided to walk up to the café’s entrance. I was almost at the door when I saw him standing there anxiously searching for me.
At sight of me, he looked relieved then quickly annoyed.
Shaking his head, he yanked open the café’s door and stepped inside.
“Thanks for waiting for me,” I muttered acidly as I caught the door before it closed shut in my face. “Asshole couldn’t even hold the door open for me.”
If she was going to pass herself off as a guy, then she could remember to treat a girl better.
Who cares about gender equality?
Good manners beget good manners.
I made it a mental note to etch that into Straus’s metal skull, then realized with a stark chill that I was expecting Straus to treat me like a girl.
That brought me to a sharp standstill within the entrance to The Hardboiled Café.
When the heavy door closed behind me, it bumped my backside, propelling me deeper into the establishment and jolting my various trains of thought back into motion.
However, the question remained unanswered – did I want Straus to treat me like a girl?
It was true that men held the door open for other men out of politeness as well, but it was something of an expected common courtesy that men treat the fairer sex with respect.
Maybe Straus hadn’t treated me like a girl because I was a girl.
In other words, being a girl herself, Straus had felt she didn’t need to afford me any special courtesy and had treated me like an equal. She could also have been pissed at being punched in public. But as a consequence, and perhaps because I misread the situation, I was forced to face the broader question of whether I wanted people to treat me like a girl.
And I had no answer for it.
On the one hand the notion repulsed me. I had lived for years fearing that one day I would turn into a girl, and now I found myself living as one – albeit as a girl that possessed extraordinary abilities. However, I understood that whether I was treated as a girl wasn’t entirely up to me, because leaving Straus aside, if people saw me as a girl then they would naturally treat me as one.
So then the question was what should I expect from them?
I’d read about how girls and women often complained of getting the short end of the stick, so should I expect the same?
Standing in the small foyer, Straus grumbled at me, “Took you long enough.”
I stopped and stared at him.
Was being treated fairly, equally, with common decency, and respect too much to ask for?
I decided to reply to Straus in a manner that I felt was justified under present circumstances.
“Up yours,” I swore at him and gave him the finger.
Then I wondered, Is that even possible for him?
A second later, I made two important observations.
Being preoccupied with Straus, and questioning how I expected people to treat me, had pushed my andro-mechano-phobia into a back seat.
That was good.
What wasn’t so good was that I was still giving Straus the finger when a young waitress – a pretty, brunette with shoulder length hair – came to greet us.
The girl looked at Straus, at me, then my finger, before asking with a troubled smile, “Um…table for two?”
Feeling distinctly ashamed, I lowered my finger and then hid my hands behind my back.
Straus made a show of sounding disappointed in me. “Yes, please. Table for two….”
His tone made me seethe at him.
Bastard, don’t blame this on me! This is your fault!
Nonetheless, I admitted that I’d slipped up. Thus, I trailed silently behind him as the waitress guided us deeper into the café to a booth that lacked a window view.
I sat down somewhat dejectedly on the booth seat across the table from Straus.
When the girl took our order, Straus took the lead and ordered for the both of us. At that, I threw him an icy glare that he pointedly ignored as he slouched with an arm draped casually over his seat’s backrest, and confidently dictated our breakfast order to the young waitress.
Watching him through narrowed eyes, I once again wondered how long Straus had been practicing passing herself off as a teenage boy. And then I was annoyed by how natural and cool he looked, and I realized with a pang that the Ronin Kassius part of me envied him.
Straus looked the way I would have wanted to appear to a girl.
Cool, calm, collected, with an air of unbridled confidence.
Even though my envy was misplaced, my emotions swirled painfully within my chest because I knew that I would never be seen that way by a girl. There was no going back for me and knowing that made my heart twist unpleasantly in my chest. However, back at the dorm apartment I’d resolved to start accepting who I was now, and part of that involved facing situations like this no matter how difficult they may be.
In other words, no retreat and no surrender.
Sitting stiffly, I clenched my hands under the table, then relaxed them. After a few slow, deep breaths, I gradually loosened my ramrod posture, until I glanced up and saw the girl blushing pink as she jotted down the breakfast order. My mouth fell open, and when I closed it shut with an audible clack, the pretty waitress noticed and visibly blanched at me.
It took a moment for me to understand why she’d paled.
It was because I was glaring at her.
However, I wasn’t staring at her fiercely because I was being territorial. Rather, it was because I couldn’t believe how easily she’d been charmed by Straus’s male avatar.
Afraid to look at me, she smiled sheepishly at Straus, jotted down the last of the order and hurried away.
Watching her retreat to the kitchen, I realized Straus had been expecting her to dart a glance over her shoulder, because he delivered a perfectly timed wave to the girl’s furtive look.
Infuriated, I kicked one of his shins hard under the table.
To my surprise, Straus winced sharply as though experiencing the kick for real.
“What are you doing?” he complained in a low, strangled hiss that proved the kick had hurt him.
“I could ask you the same question,” I snapped at him without remorse.
“I was having a little fun.”
My mouth dropped open again. “Are you serious?”
“Of course, I’m serious.”
I shook my head at him aghast. “You’re unbelievable.”
Straus looked equally annoyed at me. “You’re one to talk.”
“Heh? What the Hell do you mean by that?”
“What? You didn’t notice the way men were looking at you out on the street?”
“Looking at me? You mean after I decked you?”
Straus blinked in confusion that matched mine. “No, I mean before that.”
“Then I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Again, he blinked at me as though perplexed. “How oblivious are you?”
I winced, then retorted, “I’m not oblivious. I was just having trouble dealing with you, so I had other things on my mind.”
“Then you didn’t notice how she felt challenged by you?”
Startled by his question, I drew back. “What are you talking about? Weren’t you asking me about how men were looking at me?”
“I was. Now I’m asking about her reaction to you.”
I bit my lower lip for a moment, then admitted, “No, I didn’t.”
“Then take a look,” Straus suggested.
I pouted in consternation, and then looked over at the counter separating the kitchen from the rest of the establishment. Coincidently, the young waitress happened to be staring in our direction. When our eyes met, the girl grew ashen in a heartbeat then ducked her head quickly. Conveniently for her, a couple of salarymen happened to enter the café moments later, and she hurried off to welcome them.
Although she had caught me glaring at her earlier, I was still confused by the frightened look on her face.
I turned to Straus. “What’s her problem?”
His eyes widened before he shook his head slowly in apparent disbelief.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said in a low voice. “You may be new to being a girl, but you sure know how to scare away the competition.”
My feelings went from confused to sour in an instant. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
“And why is she the competition?”
Straus snorted softly. “Having said that, you can be surprisingly obtuse.”
“Just answer the damn question.”
This time he sighed. “To you, she’s not competition. But from her point of view, you definitely are the competition.”
“And why the Hell would she see me that way?”
“Because I’ve been coming here a few times, striking up a little friendly conversation with her in the mornings.”
The absurdity of what he’d just told me made my vision swim, and I slumped back in my seat. “Oh my gods, you’ve been hitting on her….”
“I prefer to call it testing the boundaries.”
“…of what….”
“Of how convincingly I can operate this avatar.”
Still slumped, I stared at him vacantly for a while. “Why?”
Straus shrugged a shoulder. “That’s a secret.”
“Yeah, don’t tell me. I don’t think I can handle it on an empty stomach.”
A chuckle escaped from him, briefly triggering my andro-mechano-phobia – yes, I was convinced by now that I suffered from said phobia.
Desperately seeking a distraction, I turned my attention to the interior of the café.
Fortunately, it genuinely caught my interest and I found myself intently studying the various images of men and women captured in numerous photos, posters, and murals plastered throughout the innards of the café. I belatedly realized many of the photos depicted movie scenes in which most of the men wore trench coats while the women were attired in long form fitting dresses that emphasized their feminine charm. Some of the women were depicted as smoking from long cigarette holders while reclining on sofas. I found it puzzling to see those pictures in a commercial establishment such as this café because smoking died out as a widespread public habit a long time ago, though it was still something of an expensive private pastime.
However, I felt I understood the café’s theme.
“Hardboiled…I get it now.”
“Really?” Straus asked in a faintly snide tone, as he slouched in his seat, his arm annoying draped over its backrest.
“Well, I didn’t think hardboiled eggs had anything to do with it,” I replied just as snidely.
“And here I thought you only had Mercy on your mind.”
“If I had nothing but Mercy up here”—I tapped my forehead—“I wouldn’t have scored tenth place in my grade last year.”
“And yet you only qualified for the Delta Tier.”
I pressed my lips together as I exhaled loudly through my nose. “That’s because my brain isn’t malleable enough. But I’m not stupid.”
“Maybe not, but you’ve got a rock in there instead of clay.”
I ground my teeth together and started to flip Straus the bird. But remembering my earlier faux pas, I restrained myself to a harshly whispered, “Frek you.”
Straus snorted. “No thanks. You’re not my type.”
I flinched but not because I felt insulted. Rather, I was startled. “Your type? What? You have a type?”
Straus huffed under his breath. “Every girl has her type.”
I stared blankly at him for a second. “Every girl has her guy type? Or every girl has her girl type? So, which is it?”
Straus cocked his head at me in slowly spreading confusion. “What exactly are you asking?”
After mulling the question for a moment, and sparing the pretty waitress a glance, I decided to bluntly ask, “Are you a lesbian?”
His mouth fell open and stayed open for a long while. “Why the Hell would you ask something like that?”
I jerked my chin at the waitress busy greeting another batch of patrons. “Because you were watching her ass as she walked away.”
That was a lie, something I spouted on a whim, probably because I wanted to get a reaction out of Straus, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Straus slapped a hand loudly on the table and hissed, “I am not a lesbian.”
“Then what are you? Bisexual?”
Straus clamped his mouth shut for a long moment before sitting back and crossing his arms. “No. I’m not.”
“Are you a virgin?” I asked bluntly.
Straus looked shocked then regarded me with a simmering glare. “Mind your own business.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘Yes’.”
For a moment, I thought Straus might actually strike me. It was odd that a machine could express such a frightful expression, but I can recognize true anger when I see it, and Straus looked unmistakably angry before turning away to look into the café rather than at me.
Hmm…I struck a nerve.
I thought back to the Akane Straus that had emerged from the Sarcophagus that inexplicably materialized above the apartment’s spacious balcony. The young woman I saw back then could barely push herself up off the ground. I acknowledge that my way of thinking may offend some people, but I couldn’t imagine her enjoying a physical relationship with anyone if she was afflicted with such a debilitating disease. Then again, I knew very little about Akane Straus so perhaps the disease didn’t hamper her life until recently.
But a relationship isn’t a solo experience.
It requires two to tango, and thereby two people to make it work.
This is where my low opinion of people darkened my outlook on Akane Straus’s chances of finding love.
Whether it’s part of my nature, or a trait carved into me by life’s experiences, I have difficulty seeing the good in people – both men and women. Recent events and my present circumstances have done nothing to change that. Thus, when I thought of Akane finding Mister Right, someone who would accept her and love her for who she was regardless of her disability, I equated it to finding a needle in a haystack.
It wasn’t impossible, but it would be extremely challenging.
Of course, the proverb falls apart if you introduce a superconducting magnet or metal detector to find the needle, but surely you understand my point.
I’m not saying there wasn’t someone out there for her.
I’m simply saying finding that someone would be difficult.
“When did it start?” The question left my lips before I could stop it.
Straus looked faintly puzzled, shedding some of the anger she’d been silently radiating.
“Your muscular dystrophy…when did it start?” I asked her, my voice and feelings subdued by that memory of her on the balcony. “Was it long ago…?”
“My last year of high school,” Straus replied in a flat tone that was surprising because he regarded me with uncertainty and very little anger, as though he was trying to figure out why I was asking. “Nine years ago.”
Nine years, I thought to myself. “Did you know Erina back then?”
Straus’s uncertainty grew but then he exhaled loudly and sat back a little deeper in the booth’s high-backed seat. “She and I attended Telos Academy. We weren’t classmates, but we were in the same year. She was the star student, and I was the star of the Track-and-Field team. As friends, we were an odd couple.”
I frowned inwardly.
If they were friends in high school, I was tempted to ask if Straus knew of me back then.
Did she know Erina had a younger brother?
But then I decided it didn’t matter. In a way, it was something of a redundant question now.
Dismissing it, I preferred to ask, “You were a Track-and-Field star?”
“My times in the inter-state competitions were good enough to earn me silver—twice. But in my third year…well…shit happens….”
Straus turned away. His tone had been flat, but there was a bitter look on his face.
“You dropped out of Track-and-Field in your third year?” I asked.
“Nope. I continued running to the bitter end, but I failed to qualify for the inter-state championships in my senior year. I’d lost my edge. I wasn’t the Sprint Queen of Telos Academy any longer.” His lips twisted in resentment. “When life deals you lemons, you can’t always make lemonade no matter how much you try.”
I waited for a little while, to see if he would continue on his own. When he didn’t, I gave him a little push. “So what did you do?”
Straus was silent for a short while. “You really want to know?”
I nodded.
He took a deep breath that made his shoulders rise and fall. “I went into a treatment program and underwent therapy. The docs told me I had ten years at best.” I watched him clench his jaw for a telling moment. “That was hard to take.” Straus laughed stiffly. “But Erina took it harder still. She was already doing research into motor neuron disease disorders and a whole lot of other shit, including Prometheus’s Curse. She just added my problem to the long list she had. Eventually, she whittled down her list to just two problems – yours and mine.”
Straus’s blue eyes held my gaze.
“By then she was working for the Telos Corporation, and they’d pulled her into their dark depths. And that was because of him.”
“Him…?” I tipped my head at Straus. “Who is him?”
“Simon val Sanreal. The lord and master of the Telos Corporation. Eldest son of the Sanreal Family. And he’s your sister’s fiancé.”
I blinked slowly as I digested this tidbit of information. “Her fiancé?”
“That’s right, little girl. Your sister is engaged to one of the richest, most eligible bachelors in the known galaxy.”
“So she went for the money,” I muttered sourly. “That’s just like her….”
“Actually, you ignorant twit, your sister was relentlessly pursued by Simon Sanreal for almost two years before she finally caved in and accepted his marriage proposal.”
I expressed a puzzled frown at Straus. “She was being chased around?”
He looked annoyed at me. “Are you paying attention or not?”
“I am paying attention. But you’re telling it thick and fast.”
“Then start keeping up.”
I almost retorted reflexively but held myself back at the last heartbeat. “Fine. Care to explain in a little more detail?”
“Simon val Sanreal expressed a surprising amount of interest in your sister. For some reason she just happened to be his type.” Straus folded his arms across his chest. “Still with me so far, little girl?”
I’d ignored her the first time she called me that, but this time I bristled. “Don’t call me that.”
“Then don’t call me kitten,” Straus snapped. “Agreed?”
I really felt like throwing something at him, but instead I just gnashed my teeth a little. “”If you’re not going to explain”—I placed my hands on the table—“then I’m leaving.”
“Like I said already, he pursued her romantically for almost two years before she caved in and agreed to marry him. By then she’d already been working at the Telos Corporation for four years, and she was a member of one of their black research divisions for two years. And that was his doing. At first, he was interested in just her – probably saw her as a worthy challenge – but then he grew interested in her research as well. It wasn’t long afterwards that Erina was transferred into a clandestine division conducting sensitive research.”
“Sensitive? You mean…the Angel Fibers.”
Straus snorted as he nodded. “He pulled her into the dark side of science.”
The dark side of science? Is that an understatement or an overstatement?
But that begged the question: how should Project Mirai be viewed?
It was my understanding there were a lot of checkboxes to tick when conducting scientific research. By that, I’m saying there are rules and regulations on how it should be ethically, safely, and morally carried out. When taken into context with everything that had happened to me, I had trouble imagining that Project Mirai would have ever received government approval. It was undoubtedly made possible because Erina’s black research division wasn’t conducting itself in a sanctioned manner.
In other words, quite a few checkboxes had been skipped over or left unticked because to Erina the ends justified the means.
And now Project Mirai was sitting in a café waiting for breakfast to be delivered.
Project Mirai was also guilty of illegally entering a schoolboy’s apartment.
Project Mirai had been mistaken for a goddess—I mean, idol.
Project Mirai had jumped down a building and ridden atop a speeding maglev through the city.
Project Mirai had most recently caused a scene by punching a boy to the ground.
And Project Mirai had scared away a hapless waitress.
Indeed, Project Mirai was building up quite the rap sheet of crimes and misdemeanors.
When I thought of Project Mirai that way, I was reminded of those holovid movies where the protagonist is the product of illicit research. They escape from a secret lab, then find themselves in a town or city full of unsuspecting humans. Before long, the bad guys would come after the escaped research project, and it wasn’t always a happy ending for them.
I looked down at my right hand.
The bruising it had suffered when I’d punched Straus to the ground was gone.
Like in those holovid movies, I was in a city of blissfully unaware humans, so was I headed for bad ending too?
My thoughts and fears must have been written on my face because Straus was looking at me intently.
I cleared my throat and tried to relax my features before asking, “How do you know all this? I mean how long have you been a part of this?”
At first Straus looked ready to fire back an answer, but he stopped and seemed to give his reply a little more thought. “How long have I been involved…?”
I gave him a nod.
“Do you mean to ask, how long have I been a part of Project Mirai?”
“How long have you known about the Angel Fibers? About Mirai? About the other universe?”
He sighed loudly. “Ever since Erina pulled me into her world. Ever since she began working for their black division.”
I was puzzled. “Why?”
“Because I became her test subject. She used their biomedical research labs to try all sorts of various things to keep me alive. But things didn’t look up for me until your sister shoved the Angel Fibers she’d cultivated into my body. Yeah, she came close to killing me—the closest anyone has come—but it stopped my muscular dystrophy. It didn’t make it any better, but it didn’t make it any worse, and best of all I was still alive.”
Straus leaned toward me over the edge of the table.
“Do you know what that meant to me? Knowing that I wasn’t getting any worse? Knowing that I wasn’t going to die?”
I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to lie to her, so I shook my head slowly.
Straus sat back. “Erina and I have had our share of differences over the years, but I owe her. She saved my life. And she opened a new world to me. The world of the Gun Princess Royale avatars.” He pointed at himself. “Without them, without this technology, I’d be an invalid in a wheelchair living a confined life.”
“But you still are,” I pointed out.
He shrugged a shoulder while nodding. “I’m aware of that. I’m not denying it. But without one of these, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this freedom.”
I stared down at the table between us.
I understood Straus’s point-of-view, and I wasn’t going to begrudge her the freedom and mobility the machine avatars granted her.
To be honest, I didn’t entirely dislike her. What I had was a grudge against her. I resented her over our physically violent encounters. I also resented that I had yet to win against her.
I thought back to the woman I’d seen lying on the apartment’s balcony.
I did the math in my head.
Straus was the same age as Erina, and Erina was eleven years older than me. That was one of the big reasons our parents left her in charge when they abandoned us for the sake of their research.
They trusted her to look after me.
Erina had graduated from high school and commenced third tier education at age nineteen. Her studies were funded by the Telos Corporation. In other words, she’d earned herself a scholarship from them, and they pulled her into the fold when she graduated five years later after studying a range of sciences that only an Alpha had the mental propensity to accomplish. And to top it off, she completed her four-year doctorate in three.
She really is special, I grudgingly acknowledged.
Yet I felt no pride in being related to her, although that was only in my former life as Ronin Kassius.
I exhaled long yet softly.
Erina was twenty-four when she started working for them.
I swallowed quietly.
Or was she working for them before then? Was the scholarship all part of it? Did they see something in her while she was still a high school student?
“If you keep frowning like that, you’ll get wrinkles,” Straus remarked.
Lost in thought, I looked up at him nonplussed. “What wrinkles?”
He regarded me thoughtfully for a long moment. “You need to talk to your sister.”
I snorted unhappily. “I spoke to her this morning…on the phone…the phone that I’ve now lost.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Then explain yourself better.”
Sitting up on the bench seat, Straus once again leaned toward me. “No, I mean really talk to her.”
Understanding what he meant, I clenched my hands under the table. “It’s not that easy for me.”
He closed his eyes for a second, opened them, then nodded weakly. “I know that. But it’s important. Very important.”
I ground my molars together as frustration with Straus – and Erina – threatened to overwhelm me. It wasn’t easy to think straight, especially when I was close to seeing red…until I started to wonder why it was so important that I talk to Erina.
As I pondered the problem, I calmed down a little and started seeing things clearer.
My conversation with Tabitha back in dorm apartment came to mind.
With a frown, I asked, “Is this about what Tabitha told me?”
Straus hesitated before replying, but he was interrupted by the waitress arriving with our breakfast order on a tray that she wielded deftly on an upturned palm.
I refrained from glaring at her and sat quietly as she placed cups and plates on the table before us.
When she departed, I gave her back a cool look that I then fixed upon Straus.
“Tell me what’s going.”
– II –
Staring at me intently, Straus folded his arms on the table as he continued leaning toward me.
“I don’t know what you and Hexaria talked about in that room. In fact, none of us know. Not me. Not Erina. Not Renew. And not the team assigned to watch over you. When they tried to spy on you, they encountered a Conquistador Class Awareness the blocking the view—an Awareness working for Libra. And Libra is a puppet of House Cardinal, a rival to House Novis. So you can imagine the kind of warning bells that set off.”
I could indeed, thus I replied with a shallow nod.
Straus pressed on. “The only reason they didn’t pull you out of there when Hexaria showed up at your door was because Revenant assured us that you were safe. And if anything happened, he would summon your Sarcophagus, drag you inside, and transport you to safety.” Straus tapped the table hard. “But the fact that nobody expected Hexaria to show up—the fact that you kept your rendezvous a secret—took everyone by surprise.”
“I had a good reason to keep it a secret.”
Straus was still for a second before asking, “What reason?”
I shook my head firmly. “That’s between me and Tabitha.”
He exhaled unhappily at my answer. “She called you while you were at Ar Telica Tower, didn’t she?”
Damn it. She knows about that?
Straus insisted on an answer. “Well? Did she?”
“When I spoke to her on the phone, I didn’t know who she was.”
Unexpectedly, that made him laugh. “Everyone thought it was Revenant talking to you on the phone. He’s done that before so Renew, the security team, Erina—everyone thought you were talking to him.” He laughed again. “That bitch pulled the wool right over our eyes.” He gave me an accusing look. “And so did you.”
“Like I said, I had a good reason to keep it a secret.”
“Well, keeping it a secret almost caused a meltdown between Erina, Renew, Sanreal, and the security team.”
“Why is that?”
Straus seemed surprise that I would ask. “Don’t you remember what Erina told you about the trans-location process?”
“I remember what she said.”
“Really?” he scoffed, then picked up two empty glasses on the table that he set down a few inches apart. “To translocate, you need a homing beacon for the source and the destination. Taura Hexaria’s body is the source. It’s a machine avatar with enough internal space and power for the beacon. It’s how she jumps around from place to place.”
I was surprised to hear this. “Her body can translocate?”
“Remember the Zombie Apocalypse you were thrown into?”
I nodded.
Straus tapped one of the glasses. “Hexaria was using a mechanical body back then. And that body could translocate because it contained a source beacon. All she had to do was pick a destination and the system would move her from one place to the next. That’s how she escaped the Zombies in the library. And that’s how she got into the dormitory building this morning. House Cardinal planted a destination beacon in the residential complex, and she used it to translocate into the floor above you.”
I realized where the conversation was going. “You thought Tabitha was going to kidnap me.”
He huffed. “I’m not the only one who thought that. You should have seen the faces on Erina and Pearson when Hexaria showed up at your door. And Simon val Sanreal was a heartbeat away from ordering Renew and her people to storm the building.”
“So why didn’t you pull me out?”
“Because Revenant kept telling us that you were safe. Even after Hexaria’s entrance, he insisted the situation was under control.” Straus paused for a breath. “But Revenant wasn’t telling anyone what was happening in there. He said it was private between you and Hexaria, and no amount of threatening him was making him spill the beans. So eventually they ran out of patience, and the decision was made to get you out of there. At that point, I volunteered to go in.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “You volunteered? What about Renew? Why wasn’t she sent in?”
He shook head slowly. “I don’t know. But when the call came, I volunteered and Erina vouched for me.”
I glanced at his chest. “Because you’ve got a beacon inside of you.”
Straus stiffened for a telling moment. “That’s right. If necessary, they can translocate me to another location.”
“And me along with you.”
“Obviously. And that beacon got me into the building without the need to go through the doors. Once inside, I waited for you and Hexaria to exit the apartment. Then I followed you. But when you suddenly bolted in a panic, more alarms went off. I had people yelling at me to go after you.” Straus shook his head wearily. “Jeezes, I really felt the pressure back then.”
“So what happened?”
Straus seemed to gather his thoughts before answering me. “Hexaria chased after you, and I ran behind her. But you are fast—I mean you are really, really fast on your feet. You left us behind. If you hadn’t stopped at the stairwell, we would never have caught up to you.”
I was surprised to hear him say that, but then sharply corrected him. “I didn’t stop. I tripped. The girls on the stairs saved me.”
“Yeah, well, good thing for us that they did.”
“Ha, ha,” I mockingly laughed at him.
Straus brushed it aside with a curt wave. “When I saw Hexaria stop at the landing, I hid in the crowd behind her. When she called you Mercy and stirred up the kids on the stairs, I moved closer. I saw you losing control. You were turning blonde in front of everyone. That made me panic, so I pushed through the crowd surrounding you, grabbed a hold of you, and yanked you out of there.” He sat back, and then crossed his arms. “And now we’re here having a private conversation.”
“A private conversation?”
I swept my gaze over the café that was steadily filling up with customers, yet the tables nearby were empty, thus forming a sort of No Man’s Land between us and the other patrons.
However, being here presented a peculiar conundrum of its own.
I turned back to Straus with a puzzled look on my face. “After all that trouble—after all that running around—why are we here? Why hasn’t anyone stormed in here and dragged me away? Why are we being left alone?” I tipped my head at him. “Or are they waiting for us outside?”
A troubled look crossed his face. “I wouldn’t know about that. What I do know is that I told Erina I needed time alone with you. And if we’re still here chatting undisturbed, then it means Erina was able to convince the Sanreals to give us a measure of privacy.”
“Privacy?” I was starting to see the picture and I didn’t like it. “So this was your idea?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Why?”
Straus bowed his head in thought and remained still for a long while. However, even before he gave me an answer, I was fairly certain why he – or should I say she – wanted to talk to me. That’s why I wasn’t surprised to hear him say:
“Erina’s in trouble and you’re the only one who can help her.”
I exhaled slowly and wilted back in my seat. “I knew it…it’s always about her.”
“Kassius—I mean, Isabel”—Straus hesitated and took a breath—“Erina truly needs your help. I’m not lying to you about this.”
I closed my eyes.
I’m so sick of hearing this.
He cautiously continued. “Isabel, the Sanreal Family is watching Erina closely.”
Opening my eyes, I stared coldly at him. “And what does that have to do with me?”
“Everything.” Once again, he folded his arms on the table and leaned toward me. “Erina is protecting you.”
I chortled in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“She’s protecting you from them. She convinced the Sanreals that you could be talked into co-operating.”
I smirked. “Well, she was counting her chickens before they hatched.”
Straus’s expression turned into a glare that he seemed to struggle holding in check. “And that’s why she’s in trouble. Because you’re not co-operating, the Sanreals are considering taking matters into their own hands.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they have ways of dealing with you. Such as isolating you in your Sarcophagus. Keeping you locked up and releasing you only when they need to. Putting your head—your mind—in a virtual space where they can keep you under control.”
The way he said it, I realized it wasn’t an idle threat.
That’s why my throat grew tight and I found it a little difficult to swallow. Yet I somehow managed to then warily ask, “How do you know all this?”
Straus banged on the table, startling me. “Because I spent the morning listening to Sanreal, Erina, Pearson, Celeste, Team Mirai, and the heads of the Spartan Division arguing over you—arguing over what to do with you. And the only reason you haven’t been boxed yet is because Erina is batting for you. She stepped up to the plate for you. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“She’s batting for me because she needs me.”
“Exactly, and you need her as well.” He pointed sharply at me. “But you pushed your luck today with that Great Escape routine you pulled. And then things got serious when we realized that House Cardinal had helped you out. And they got worse when Hexaria showed up and you kept it a secret from everybody.”
I blew a fuse.
In anger, I half rose from the seat, then jabbed a finger back at Straus.
“I pulled that Great Escape because that four-eyed bitch called the storm trooper sisters on me! So don’t you point your the finger at me!”
For emphasis, I banged on the table hard enough to make the plates jump, then glared so hotly at Straus it was a miracle the air between us didn’t catch fire.
However, I soon noticed something in the periphery of my awareness.
The café had grown deathly quiet.
The drone of background chatter had ceased, and everyone inside had turned to look at us.
I could almost feel their gazes pressing into my skin.
Believing it was best to avoid their eyes, I sat back and then pointedly stared at the pancakes slowly cooling on their plate on the table. After a short while, conversation began anew amongst the patrons, but Straus and I held onto the heavy, unpleasant silence that now hung over us.
A twinge from my stomach pushed me into action.
I reached out for the pancakes, tossed a couple onto a plate, then lathered them with a thin layer of honey syrup.
I dug into them, grateful they were still warm.
Straus watched me in silence, before pulling out his slim phone from a trouser pocket. He tapped away on it for a while, then placed it on the table and pushed it across to me.
“Read that,” he said in a hushed, somber tone.
Munching on a mouthful of pancake, I looked down at the phone.
The CyWeb browser was opened on a gossip site, the kind that reported on society’s high life in Ar Telica and around the world. The article on display had a photo of a blonde girl that looked remarkably like Mercy, and remarkably like me, alighting from a VTOL in the dead of night.
I read the caption above the photo.
SANREAL HEIRESS ARRIVES IN AR TELICA.
I read the caption below the photo.
ISABEL VAL SANREAL, YOUNGEST HEIRESS TO THE SANREAL FORTUNE, ARRIVES IN AR TELICA TO BEGIN A NEW LIFE.
Feeling curious in a dark, twisted kind of way, I scrolled down the article.
When I finished reading it, I looked across at Straus who was sitting back with his eyes closed and his head reclined against the headrest. “What’s the point of this?”
He replied without opening his eyes. “The point is that for now the Sanreals have decided to keep you out of the box. To the world, you’re Isabel val Sanreal, and you’ve arrived in Ar Telica to begin anew.”
I tapped the phone’s screen again and navigated through the gossip sites.
I found another article about me with a photo of me on the landing platform but from a different angle.
The caption above the image read, FROM RAGS TO RICHES – ISABEL VAL SANREAL LANDS ON TELORIA.
Straus spoke up in a low voice. “All of that serves to establish your identity. It also helps distinguish you from Mercy Haddaway while drawing comparisons to her.” He peered at me through lidded eyes. “And it means that you have a role to play on the stage they’ve set for you. What happens now depends on you.”
I resumed eating and finished off another couple of pancakes that I washed down with the orange juice the waitress had provided in a large glass pitcher. Then I started again on a couple more pancakes that I lathered with strawberry jam.
Straus continued sitting back with his head reclined and he’d closed his eyes again.
After all the talking he’d done, I was wary of this change in him.
The silence also made me uncomfortable until eventually I couldn’t endure it any longer.
After another swig of orange juice to clear my throat, I regarded the mechanical avatar sitting across the table.
“Do you know how hard this has been for me?”
Straus cracked open an eyelid and stared at me in silence.
I looked into his one open eye. “Do you know why I’ve managed to stay sane after everything that’s happened to me? It’s because I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive. But now I’ve got some downtime and it’s catching up to me.”
He opened both eyes, then gently said, “I’m listening.”
My chest tightened.
Straus was lending me his – her – ear, something that only Ghost and Mat had done before.
Maybe this was what I needed.
Someone else to talk to.
I ate more of the pancakes, washed them down with juice, then continued in a remarkably steady voice. “I’m not good with passive aggressive. And Erina just makes me feel aggressive. I try not to get angry—I really do—but she just gets under my skin. And then my blood boils and I lose my temper.”
Straus chuckled wearily under his breath. “Funny, she said the same thing about you.”
I stopped cutting up the pancakes on my plate and gave him a hard, questioning look. “She did?”
“You and your sister are cut from the same cloth. You’re both recalcitrant and egocentric. You both can’t see past your noses.”
I sneered at him. “Thanks for the compliment.”
“You’re welcome.” Straus sat up. “I understand that you blame Erina for what happened, but it’s misplaced. You should blame Kateopia.”
“Oh, I blame Kateopia. Rest assured. I definitely blame her.”
“And you’re wrong about one more thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’re not Ronin Kassius. You’re Mirai. You were never Ronin Kassius.”
The truth hurts, but this was a hurt that I’d already experienced and cried over. It was a hurt I was slowly coming to terms with on my own. Thus, he was sorely mistaken if he expected to use it as a trump card against me.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I replied through a thin smile.
“Then why won’t you cut Erina some slack?”
“Because I can’t accept how she treats me. Even if I was never Ronin Kassius but just a copy of his mind, I’m still me. I have feelings, memories, thoughts. I am not a machine.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“But she isn’t.”
Straus sighed. “You’ve made that point clear to her. Trust me on this.”
Frankly, that puzzled me. “Are you saying that she’s reflected on her mistakes?”
“I’m saying that she’s definitely reevaluating how she deals with you.”
I placed my utensils down on the table. “You see, that’s the problem. Erina doesn’t see me as a real person. She sees me as a research project. Something she needs to manage.” I shook my head slowly. “And that’s why I have a problem with her.”
Straus frowned slightly but held his tongue, and so I continued voicing my complaint.
“To Erina, I’m not important as a person. I’m important because of the research she’s conducting. And she values that research above everything else. And the proof is that she was willing to face an Empress and not back down an inch.”
Tabitha had said Erina was protecting Mirai and Clarisol, but I didn’t believe that for a moment.
Erina was protecting her research.
Nothing more and nothing less.
Straus softly argued, “That research isn’t just important to her. It’s important to humanity.”
I shook my head gently. “I don’t have a problem with the research. I can accept that it has the potential—the potential—to save lives. That doesn’t mean that it will. But as I said, I don’t have an issue with it. My problem is that when Erina looks at me, she’s not seeing humanity’s salvation.”
“Then what does she see?”
“In her eyes, I’m humanity’s future.”
In a very human way, Straus’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and the frown he’d been wearing deepened as he stared at me in silence.
I watched him too, aware that I was looking at a machine and not a handsome teenage boy, but somehow I felt as though I’d moved past my troubles reconciling the illusion with reality. Thus, I was able to meet his gaze as though it belonged to a real boy, and not feel unsettled all the way to my bones as my andro-mechano-phobia slumbered in the recesses of my subconscious.
Straus broke his silence, tipping his head slightly in my direction. “If I say that I agree with you, will you listen to my advice?”
I was unable to hide my surprise. “You agree with me?”
Unexpectedly, he gave me a troubled look. “It’s just a gut feeling I have…a feeling that Erina is looking for something more in you. A feeling that she has something else planned for you and the Angel Fibers. Something other than what she has told the Sanreals.”
“…like what…?”
“You said it yourself. Like becoming humanity’s future.”
He was right.
I had said so myself yet hearing it from him made me feel cold.
“Will you listen to my advice?” he asked.
I pressed my lips tightly together, fighting off the chill I felt.
“Isabel?”
Damn it—snap out of it!
In a hurry, I blurted out, “Don’t bother. I know what you’re going to say.”
Straus hesitated for a second. “Then what are you going to do? Keep going the way you have?” He hesitated again. “Leaving aside whatever plans Erina truly has for you—and I’m not comfortable with speculating behind her back—if you continue on this path, if you keep going the way you’re going, butting heads with Erina at every turn, then she won’t be able to protect you.”
“You keep insisting that she’s protecting me, but I’m not buying it.”
He exhaled in exasperation. “Do you know the reason why you are living as Isabel val Sanreal?”
“Wasn’t that something House Novis arranged with the Empress?”
“No. The Empress only wanted Mirai fighting in the Gun Princess Royale. The part about you living as Isabel was a proposal that Erina pushed through with the support of her team. Using her influence over Simon Sanreal, and a psychological report prepared by Celeste, Erina convinced him to have you assume the identity of Isabel val Sanreal. You are valuable to Erina and to the Sanreals. But Kateopia twisted their arm and had them enter you in the Gun Princess Royale where they stand to lose you. With that in mind, the Sanreals had decided to keep you safe when you were away from the GPR. That meant confining you to your Sarcophagus and using its technology to have your mind experience living in a virtual reality.”
I nodded faintly. “You said that already.”
“The Sanreals didn’t want you exposed to the outside world. To them, it was a huge risk. Think about it. You’re special. You’re the culmination of years of research and they didn’t want to risk losing you to an accident, to injury, to a whole variety of unexpected circumstances.”
I started shaking my head as I felt something was amiss with his explanation. “You’re telling me I’m special, and that they couldn’t risk having me out in the real world. Yet they were planning to send Clarisol away in this body. They were planning to have her live far away from Teloria. That makes no sense to me.”
Straus shook his head quickly. “Not right away. They weren’t planning for that until it was certain that Mirai would live for a very, very long time. If it turned out that Mirai fell short of expectations, then they would suspend the plan and wait until Mirai could be perfected or a new improved version could be made. They were being careful to tick all the boxes. Putting Clarisol in a defective Simulacra was not an option, especially with the problems that Clarisol’s Simulacra eventually experience.”
A second chill ran through me as I remembered what Tabitha had told me. “What problems?”
Straus took a deep breath and shrugged uneasily. “After a while, they go crazy.”
“Crazy?”
He shrugged again. “The Sanreals don’t know why, but Clarisol’s Simulacra don’t last long—a year at best—before slowly going mad. They’ve been trying to figure it out for years. They blame it on the Simulacra they make for her, so they were pinning their hopes on Mirai. But then the Empress found out about Mirai and their plans went awry.”
I wet my lips slowly while digesting this.
Then Tabitha wasn’t lying. And Erina found out. But did she tell the Sanreals? Did they not believe her? Is this why she felt compelled to reveal all to the Empress?
I cleared my throat gently. “Then what about the Angel Fibers. Could the Sanreals afford to have Mirai or Isabel leave their grasp? Wouldn’t they need her for more research?”
“Erina said she could make another Mirai to continue the research. Once she didn’t need the first Mirai—once she was sure the prototype met the Sanreals requirements as a suitable body for Clarisol—then Clarisol would be free to assume the life of Isabel Allegrando, far away from it all.”
I pressed my lips together and inwardly disagreed.
No, not Clarisol, but a copy of her consciousness. The real Clarisol would still be stuck in that prison for her mind.
However, I chose not to correct Straus, asking instead, “Is that all?”
“What?”
“Is that all there is to it?”
Straus gave me a puzzled frown, perhaps baffled that I was expressing this much interest, but then continued explaining the decisions behind my circumstances. “The Sanreals also feared that Kateopia might kidnap you. But Erina told Kateopia that if Mirai was stolen, Mirai would die.”
A third chill ran through me.
Thus far, Straus was confirming what Tabitha had told me.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it took a little effort for me to find my voice. “Is that true?”
He looked visibly uncomfortable as he shrugged a shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know. Your sister won’t tell anyone what precautions she took, and I don’t have a reason to doubt her. You’re precious to her but I don’t know if she’s willing to lose you permanently. With her it’s a war of wills with the Empress and that gives birth to a contradiction. On the one hand, she’s adamant that you’re too valuable to hand over, but on the other she’s determined to keep exclusive control over the research no matter the cost and to avoid putting you in a box. For the Sanreals, the idea of keeping you in the Sarcophagus under the proverbial lock and key suited them just fine. And like I said, your mind could be kept busy living in a virtual world so perfect you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
My blood slowly ran cold as I wondered if I was already boxed.
What if right now I was experiencing a simulation so perfect that I perceived it as reality?
How would I be able to distinguish between what was real and what wasn’t?
I have to admit that I was scared, but I’d be damned if I let Straus see how frightened I was.
Swallowing discreetly, I then asked, “So why am I out here and not in there?”
“I told you. Because Erina had other ideas. She didn’t want you boxed. She wanted you to experience real life. To live in the real world. And so she convinced Simon to make use of the identity of Isabel Allegrando – an identity the Sanreals had carefully created over the span of many months for Clarisol – and to bring Isabel into the Sanreal Family. To amend her existence so that she was the illegitimate daughter of Phelan Sanreal, otherwise known in the other universe as Phelan Sanreal Erz Novis, the head of House Novis.”
“Why? Why would she do that? Why go that far?”
Was it because Erina knew I would have trouble accepting my new existence?
Erina was an Alpha, so perhaps she’d used her enhanced intellect to plan ahead. But that implied that she cared about Mirai. It implied that Erina had a heart and she saw Mirai as more than a research project. This contradiction bothered me because having Mirai contained safely in the Sarcophagus made life easier for Erina – it made Mirai easier for her to manage. So why did she argue so hard for Mirai’s freedom?
It just didn’t make sense to me, unless I assumed that I was wrong about Erina, and that was a notion I was unwilling to entertain.
Hence, if I wasn’t wrong about her, then where did that leave me?
Before disembarking from the Sanreal Crest, Erina had admitted that she wanted me to mature, to evolve, to be more than I was now. I still believed that was a rare moment of honesty from her, and because of that I couldn’t shake off the impression that Erina had long term plans for me.
This brought my thinking back to the issue of Clarisol.
If what Straus told me was true, Erina’s plans clashed with the Sanreals’ intention to have Clarisol live out her life in Mirai’s body as Isabel Allegrando.
In summary, Erina had her own agenda, and it went contrary to those of the Sanreals.
My former sister was indeed playing a dangerous game.
I closed my eyes tightly as I leaned back, then reclined my head against the headrest behind me.
Why go that far? Is Mirai so special that she would risk my life, her life, and Ronin’s life as well?
I opened my eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling.
My gods, Erina. What have you dragged me into?
Straus stepped into my thoughts. “Isabel, listen to me carefully.”
I swallowed and continued looking up at the ceiling. “I’m listening….”
“The Sanreals are watching you. They are watching me. They are watching Erina. They are watching how you behave around her. They are watching the decisions you make. They are considering how much or how little control Erina has over you.”
I looked down at Straus and met his gaze.
Those perfectly realistic yet mechanical eyes were staring fixedly at me, grabbing my attention and refusing to let it go as their owner spoke in a low, grim tone.
“If you continue to challenge Erina the way you have been, they will make a judgement call, an executive decision, and take matters into their own hands. They will take you away from Erina.”
Straus paused but I knew what he was going to say.
After all, it was an inevitable conclusion.
“Isabel, they will box you.”
Thank you for getting this far. I apologize for not posting sooner. I've had work intrude into life and I'm also learning to deal with a health issue.
Book 1 of the newly reimagined & rebooted series, The Gun Princess Royale, is available on Amazon for purchase or reading on Kindle Unlimited. More than two years of writing have gone into it. Please check it out. It's 873 pages so the sample for reading on Amazon is a whopping 87 pages.
Work on Book 2 of the newly reimagined series is ongoing. Concept design for now. I'm also looking at restarting a META/Facebook promotion for the new book in March.
A happy & safe 2024 to all of you.
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.
Earlier, Straus had singled out the man facing an annoyed Erina as the Alpha male.
But to me there was another reason why he stood out amongst his peers.
It wasn’t his long, sandy hair, his tall build, and fine facial features that set him apart from the other security personnel. Nor was it his clothes that included a long, dark, mahogany trench coat over a matching business suit – entirely unbecoming in the summer heat that was steadily warming up the morning air. And it had nothing to do with him chatting to Erina as though she was an old acquaintance who was unhappy to see him.
No, that wasn’t it at all.
What made him stand out to me was the unnerving sensation I felt deep in Mirai’s gut, in her bones, in the muscles wrapped around them, and in the faint hairs along the nape of her neck as I walked closer to him.
Mirai’s intuition was telling me that this man was dangerous in a way that many men were not…and that some men hoped to be.
I chose to listen to her instincts and stopped several feet away from him.
Straus followed suit, coming to a halt a couple of feet off to my right.
As for Erina, she stood within arm’s length of the man in the mahogany trench coat, staring at me in disbelief darkened by anger. But before she could chastise or berate me for disobeying her instruction, the young man reached up and removed his dark sunglasses to reveal a pair of remarkable green eyes.
As those eyes met mine, I felt for myself the danger Mirai had perceived, and my breath caught in my chest for a heartbeat.
There’s a saying about smelling blood on a person.
Maybe this was what I was sensing now – the lingering scent of carnage surrounding him – and I steeled myself against it.
Normally, I would have folded my arms under Mirai’s impressive bust, but instead I allowed her instincts to take over. She stood with her arms by her sides, and her legs almost shoulder width apart. She wasn’t balancing on the balls of her feet – not yet – but her weight was evenly distributed, and her muscles were neither tense nor relaxed. Rather, she seemed ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat.
And yet one thing surprised me.
The sea breeze tousled Mirai’s hair, blowing it past my face, and in the corner of my eye, I glimpsed her long blonde locks.
Mirai hadn’t powered up.
I could sense that this man wasn’t to be trifled with, and Mirai was indeed standing at the ready, yet she was also holding herself back.
Why? What was she waiting for?
Wary and confused, I watched him smile faintly at me as we regarded each other in silence.
When he finally addressed me, he sounded almost carefree.
“Lady Isabel. Nice to see you up and about.”
His breezy manner briefly inflamed me.
I had to give myself a few moments before asking, “Who are you? You know me, but I don’t know you.”
Pocketing his sunglasses into a vest pocket, his smile grew wider.
Almost immediately, Mirai tensed up.
His apparently relaxed demeanor was at odds with mine, however he was standing with his body at a slight angle toward me. Even as he offered me a slight bow, his guarded stance convinced me not to override Mirai’s instincts in the slightest.
If she needed to move – if she wanted to move – she would do so without my restraint.
“Apologies, Lady Isabel. My name is Geharis Arnval. I’m head of Spartan Division.”
“What’s that?”
“Private security for the Sanreal Family…and the Telos Corporation.”
I swallowed quietly. “And why are you here?”
“We’re here to take you home.”
“Home?”
“To the Sanreal Family. To your family.”
I glanced at Erina who watching all this with a stiff expression, then faced Arnval again. “Are you planning on cutting me into three, and putting one piece into each car?”
Arnval’s lips twitched before he chortled. “Apologies, but we take your security quite seriously.”
I spared the building with the garden balcony a meaningful look. “Yeah, I guess you do.”
That earned me a grin from him. “Better safe than sorry.”
I swallowed down a snide retort and chose to wet my lips slowly as I studied him intently. However, there was only so much I could glean from just looking at him.
Unexpectedly, Arnval’s grin had grown uncertain under my quiet scrutiny.
I saw that as an opening I could exploit.
“You said it was good to see me up and about.”
“I did.”
“So we’ve met before.”
His grin wavered. “You could say that.”
“Then why don’t I remember you?”
There was a sudden mischievous glint in his eyes that made his grin appear cruel.
“Has anyone told you,” he asked, “that you look better as a brunette?”
It was extraordinary how swiftly he drew his gun.
Even as the words left his lips, his right-hand dove in and out of his trench coat with no visible acceleration.
Normally when someone moves – no matter how quickly – their limbs will noticeably accelerate. But with him, it was as though his arm had immediately achieved terminal velocity.
It wasn’t a ‘blink’ and miss it moment.
Rather, the moment didn’t exist.
Caught by surprise, I was slow to react…but not Mirai.
As Arnval’s right arm swung in my direction with gun in hand, she bolted toward him.
From a standing start, she – and thereby I – moved like lightning, halving the distance to him in an instant.
Before I knew it, my right foot had touched ground a millisecond before I kicked upwards with my left foot, connecting with his gun hand, and thereby throwing off his aim.
The impact caused him to squeeze the trigger.
The hammer clicked…but the gun didn’t fire.
Huh?
Confusion and disbelief rocked me.
Even as my leg completed its swing, knocking aside Arnval’s arm, I struggled to comprehend what had happened until I laid eyes on his grin.
Bastard!
I’d been played.
The gun hadn’t fired because it wasn’t loaded.
I look better as a brunette?
His motive abruptly made sense.
Arnval wanted to draw out Mirai – Dark Mirai – and he’d succeeded.
The moment Arnval reached for his gun and Mirai sprang into action, she had transformed from blonde to brunette. Powered up, my senses had sharpened to a razor’s edge, allowing me to perceive Arnval and my surroundings with extraordinary clarity, and that’s why I had time to consider the infuriating grin on his face.
However, something felt different.
My consciousness had overclocked, thus giving me the illusion that time had slowed down around me. But on this occasion, it appeared to have slowed down a little too much. For example, in my peripheral vision, I saw Erina surrounded by her golden lifeforce, standing motionless and not even breathing.
So too Straus, and the black suited bodyguards.
And there was more to it.
For a mere distended second, Mirai’s body had moved in harmony with my overclocked mind. I’d experienced this once before back on the roof of the maglev station when she’d unexpectedly kept pace with my accelerated consciousness, and that boost in speed had saved me from being struck by an electro-shock dart. Now, her phenomenal speed allowed me to kick away Arnval’s gun hand before he could aim it at me.
Of course, with the gun being unloaded there was no danger.
Arnval had toyed with me, and that made my innards burn from a mixture of humiliation and anger. But the prospect of a near miss chilled some of that rage. Had the gun fired, the bullet would have brushed by my left ear and taken some of Mirai’s raven hair with it.
However, another surprise awaited me.
Mirai had put a lot of her strength into her kick, but the heavy blow had merely nudged aside Arnval’s arm about a foot, and the bastard had held onto his sidearm.
Instead of seeing his wrist break on impact, it was my left foot that burned in agony as though I’d kicked a steel I-beam, and with time stretched out, the pain lasted for what felt like an eternity.
By now I didn’t care if the gun was loaded or not.
Disarming him wasn’t a priority anymore.
Instead, wiping the grin off his face had become paramount.
I was going to hurt this man for making a fool of me…and Mirai.
I was going to hurt him for hurting my foot.
But behind my determination to rip Arnval ‘a new one’, I was acutely aware that Mirai’s body was performing actions ingrained upon it and adhering to techniques that would have required countless hours of physical training to hone my legs into lethal weapons. It was akin to Mirai’s skillful use of firearms, wielding them as though she’d been using them for years. However, operating weapons wasn’t the same as executing precise martial actions, so why was I able to fight like a pro?
Ghost had said Mirai’s body had been imprinted with someone’s muscle memory.
It was the reason she could walk, run, and fight with such ease.
I didn’t know who they were – their identity was guarded behind a block of ICE that even Ghost couldn’t breach – but I was grateful to them because I was going to use their skills to knock Geharis Arnval into the middle of next week!
With my left foot back on the ground, I pivoted on it while swinging my right foot up at Arnval’s head.
I had to kick high because he was taller than me.
Fortunately, I was wearing a skirt that allowed my legs to move freely.
Unfortunately, said skirt was short and held nothing back as it fluttered around my thighs.
Knowing that I was flashing Arnval, my cheeks burned in shame.
Damn that Tabitha!
However, there was an upside to the situation.
Arnval’s attention had snapped to the racy black panties I wore.
Entranced by the vista between my legs, he left himself wide open and failed to block my kick.
My right foot slammed into the side of his head, spinning him around.
Then again, maybe his body was simply rolling with the kick – turning reflexively upon impact to dispel the energy behind the blow.
Regardless, for one precious second, Arnval had his back toward me, and Mirai capitalized on the moment.
Helped along by momentum, I continued turning my body, whirling on my right foot the instant it touched ground, then lashing out with my left leg.
Had he been facing me, I would have given him another view to remember and write home about as my skirt billowed upwards.
That does it—no more skirts for me!
But with his back toward me, the kick I landed booted him into the side of the black suburban parked behind him.
Newton said, for every reaction there’s an equal and opposite reaction, thus I rebounded away from Arnval.
I had to spin Mirai’s body to regain my balance, but once both feet were back on the ground, I leapt at him while he was still recovering from the combo kick.
That’s when I saw something unexpected and disturbing.
The lifeforce aura radiating from his body wasn’t complete.
Distracted, I almost crashed into him.
By then, Arnval had turned around and face me.
I had to scramble to grab his arms and pin him against the suburban’s door.
His gun wasn’t a concern anymore.
Rather, I wanted to bury him into the car’s door, but it wasn’t long before I started to worry, then panic, as I struggled against him.
Gods damn it—why is he so strong?
Tabitha had said I was six or seven times stronger than a girl my size. But it was taking every ounce of that strength to pin Arnval to the dented door, with my feet constantly slipping as they scrabbled for purchase on the grass underfoot.
Wait a minute—the car is dented?
Staring at Arnval, my eyes widened in dismay.
He’s not a machine avatar, so what the Hell is he?
Because of the lifeforce radiating from his eyes, I knew they were real, but what about the rest of him?
“What are you?” I hissed through clenched teeth, my breathing labored as I struggled to keep Arnval pressed into the suburban’s flank.
He was no different – his breathing short and shallow as we both huffed and puffed against each other.
“My, my,” he wheezed out through a twisted smile. “You really are a tiger.”
My body fully exerted, I sucked in air and then cried out, “Answer me!”
The strain was starting to get to him. “Is that…what you…really…want to know?”
I bent my legs slightly as my feet continued to slip and slide on the grass beneath them. “You didn’t need to pull a gun on me!”
“Ma chérie…I wanted…to see…the real…you.”
I scowled fiercely up at him. “Asshole! You could have just asked—oof!”
Preoccupied, I failed to notice his leg coming up until his knee buried itself into my gut.
Doubled over and winded, I tightened my stomach muscles, and refused to release his arms. But when I sensed his knee come up a second time, I evaded it by darting back.
Unfortunately, I had to relinquish my hold on him but not before delivering a parting gift.
As I retreated, I grabbed his gun and twisted it harshly with all the grip strength my left hand could muster.
Since he wasn’t going to let it go, then the least I could do was render it useless.
It didn’t break, but it did crack.
Releasing it, I then escaped beyond his reach.
With some distance between us, I slipped into a defensive stance.
If felt like the first round was over, but before round two got underway, I quickly glanced around to take stock of my surroundings. The security personnel had drawn their sidearms and were aiming them at me. In response, Straus had snatched Erina out of harm’s way, and retreated out of the line of fire where he was now shielding her with his body.
I could understand him wanting to protect her from stray gunfire, but it needled my ego.
Hey—shouldn’t you be protecting me? I’m your hope, aren’t I?
Movement caught my eye, yanking my attention back onto Arnval.
With some effort, he pushed himself away from the side of the large black suburban, then rolled his shoulders as though working the strain out of his muscles.
“Damn, you kick hard,” he muttered sourly.
Watching him intently, I studied his incomplete aura.
Maybe he was human, but not all of him.
A cyborg?
It certainly explained why his lifeforce only radiated from his head and torso, implying that his limbs were artificial.
It certainly explained why he was so strong.
Arnval gave the mangled firearm in his hand a disappointed look. “Damn, I really liked that gun.”
Holstering it with a grimace, he then waved at the surrounding security personnel.
“Stand down,” he instructed them while sounding inappropriately amused. “I said, stand down. No harm done. Everybody relax. That’s an order.”
He may have included me in that order, but I had no intention of dropping my guard.
Most of my attention remained focused on him, though I could see the security agents in my peripheral vision continue to aim their sidearms at me in defiance of his order. I also noticed the pale orange hue of their aura, identifying them as Simulacra.
Disposable labor, I thought with contempt until I remembered that Mirai too was a Simulacrum, although purportedly unique and far superior, and hardly disposable if one considered how much of a fuss people were making over her.
Arnval regarded his subordinates with growing impatience, and no longer sounded amused. “I said, stand down. That’s an order. If I have to repeat myself one more time, I’m going to start breaking arms.”
It didn’t seem like an idle threat, and it worked its magic.
In short order, the dark suited men and women holstered their weapons, albeit reluctantly.
“That’s better,” Arnval remarked with a thin smile of approval that quickly turned cruel. “But I’m going to have you running fifty laps around the compound when we get back. Disobey me again and I’ll make it a hundred.”
As he took a long stride away from the side of the suburban, I looked at where its door was dented as though rammed by a steel girder. Apparently, when I kicked Arnval in the back, he’d used his hands to brace himself against the door, and the impact had buckled the metal skin inward all the way to the crash bars.
Convinced he was a cyborg, I nonetheless asked him again, “What are you?”
Arnval frowned curiously at me but didn’t answer, so I pressed on.
“I know you’re not a Simulacrum. And you’re not a mechanical either. But you’re not human. So what the Hell are you?”
He cocked his head at me. “What makes you ask?”
“You’re strong like me, kicking you is like kicking a wall, and look at what you did to the car’s door.”
“You do have a point or two….” He broke into a thin smile. “You’re quite remarkable.”
I exhaled derisively through my nose. “Flattery will you get you nowhere.”
“And your speed surprised me. For a second, you vanished before my eyes.”
I mused that tidbit for a second.
Was he referring to when Mirai’s body had moved in time with my accelerated awareness?
But why was he telling me that? Wasn’t it better to keep it a secret?
Arnval gazed at me as though seeing me in a new light. “You certainly exceeded my expectations.”
His expectations?
“Should I say thanks?” I snarked at him.
“However, is it enough for you to survive?”
A frown flickered across my brow.
I couldn’t remember a specific occasion, but I had the feeling that someone had asked me that before. Or was it just a figment of my imagination? Was it something that I’d asked myself instead? Nonetheless, I understood what he was alluding to.
“You’re talking about the Gun Princess Royale.”
He replied with a nod.
I tried hiding how anxious the question made me feel behind a casual shrug. “I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”
“True. Then we’ll know if the work they put into you paid off.”
That brought a chill to my chest. “What work…?”
“I wonder if she’ll be proud of you.”
My stance faltered as a wave of uncertainty and confusion washed over me.
Is he referring to Erina?
I threw my former sister a fleeting glance and saw that she was still hiding behind Straus’s mechanical avatar, her expression one of abject frustration.
Honestly, it was the closest I’d seen her come to biting through her nails.
Turning back to Arnval, I cleared my throat before declaring, “You’re a real asshole—not answering my questions.”
He dismissed my insult with a shrug. “That’s also true. But I’ll answer your questions if they’re the right—”
Without warning, he abruptly looked northward.
Surprised, I almost turned to look myself, but held back because I was wary of being tricked by him, until a moment later when I noticed the Spartan security people reach for their guns.
Only then did I risk following his gaze.
What I saw made my blood run cold.
In the distance, a few hundred feet away to the north, a lone teenage girl wearing a Telos Academy high school summer uniform was walking toward us across the parkland. Her long dark hair and attractive oval face brought back memories of when we first met a few days ago.
Little did I know then how much trouble she would turn out to be.
Striding toward us, the troublesome teenage girl threw us a wave. However, true to her eccentric nature, she was waving both her arms in the air. She was like Robinson Crusoe desperately flagging down a passing ship. Quite clearly she was looking for attention, and her off-kilter approach worked because everyone around me was staring at her, and no one was happy to see her.
Arnval regarded her with veiled hostility.
The security personnel were itching to unleash Hell upon her.
Erina was glaring at her with such intensity the air almost crackled around her.
Straus’s fingers twitched as though he was missing his favorite gun.
And me?
Nope, I wasn’t happy to see her either.
I had grudge against her, and I wasn’t going to forgive her for the traumatic experience she’d subjected me to back in the stairwell. As for her bribe, she could keep it because I would find another way to meet my Goddess.
Yes, the girl walking toward us was none other than Tabitha Hexen, otherwise known as Taura Hexaria Erz Cardinal.
Arnval slashed the air with his right arm, stopping the Spartan personnel from shooting a storm of bullets at her.
“Stand down,” he snapped while staring at Tabitha with merciless eyes.
The black suited men and women were reluctant to follow his order, but no one risked his wrath by continuing to point their gun at Tabitha.
Arnval spoke again, but I quickly realized he was having a conversation with someone out of sight. I couldn’t see him wearing an earpiece or earbud, so perhaps the transceiver was implanted into his skull. Whatever means he was using to communicate with the unseen party, Arnval sounded grimly unhappy at what he was hearing.
“Did she translocate?” he asked. “She did? Damn it! She must have had a beacon nearby. No, it’s fine. We can search for it later. We all knew she was going to be hard to track—no hold off on that for the moment.” He shook his head stiffly. “Tell them we’ll be coming soon…no, I’d rather avoid trouble with her if I can. Just cover us as best you can…yes, if she makes a move, shoot her. That’s a machine avatar, so aim for her head.” I caught the glance he gave me. “I’m almost tempted to hear her out, but I’m not that foolish. If she gets too close, take her down.” He paused. “How close? Take her down at a hundred feet.”
Ghost stepped into my view. “I should have known better, Princess.”
Distracted, I whispered back, “Known what?”
“That Hexaria would embed tracking filaments into your uniform. That is undoubtedly how she kept tabs on your location.”
I trembled as though electrocuted.
My gods! She tracked me the same way Erina did!
When I recovered, I started pulling at the uniform I was wearing.
“I—I gotta take this off….”
Abruptly, Arnval crossed the short distance between us and firmly grabbed onto my left arm. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking this off!”
He frowned, stared at my uniform, then shook his head. “Not out here. Get in the car. We’re leaving.”
For a half-second, I gaped at him in confusion but then angrily yanked my arm back.
Unfortunately, he held onto me with an iron grip, and though he staggered, he refused to release me.
“Let me go or lose the arm!” I warned him.
Regaining his footing, Arnval hauled me toward him.
I didn’t know if he was stronger than me, but he was certainly far heavier, and that gave him an advantage in our tug-of-war. He pulled me so close that I stared up at him cross-eyed, then coldly whispered, “I presume you know who she is?”
The danger and menace I’d felt surrounding him earlier was now palpable in the air. It wrapped around me, stifling my struggles against him.
Arnval persisted. “You know who she is…don’t you?”
Despite my anger, the scent of blood and violence in his breath chilled me to the bone.
I swallowed with some difficulty and haltingly nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, she told me—”
“And you know what she is.”
I nodded again. “A…a machine avatar.”
“Good. Then I’ll make this short.” He drew back a little so that I no longer looked at him cross-eyed. “Hexaria has been playing with us all morning. Jumping around the city, making it difficult for us to track her until she showed up at your door. But after the two of you left the apartment, we lost her in the building. And now she’s here. We don’t know her game, so our priority is to get you out of the city until House Novis can deal with House Cardinal in the Imperial Court.” He cocked his head at me. “Is this getting through to you?”
Some of the fight I’d lost was making a comeback.
Clearing my throat, I did my best to match his icy tone. “Yeah, I get it. Now let me go, or else!”
Arnval jerked me so harshly it blurred my vision, then he yanked me close to him again.
“Not happening! Hexaria is here for you. Why? I’ve got a few guesses. But I’m not going to waste time asking you if they’re right or wrong.”
I clamped my jaw shut then pushed against Arnval’s chest with enough force to get some distance between us that he could do nothing about.
Tabitha was right—I am bloody strong.
But my uniform wasn’t, so I stopped pushing against him when it began to rip.
Arnval shook his head slowly. “I’m not letting you go, ma chérie.”
I exhaled loudly in frustration.
Pressing my lips tightly together, I shot a glance at Ghost standing beside Arnval unbeknownst to him.
In reply, he shrugged as if to say, It is your call, Princess.
My attention then fell on Tabitha walking steadily toward us, probably a hundred meters away now.
Damn her! This is all her fault!
I met Arnval’s frosty gaze, then took a ragged breath that made my chest shudder. “Whatever we talked about…is between her and I.”
He accepted that with a nod. “She offered you a place in House Cardinal, didn’t she?”
Arnval had hit the nail on the head, but Straus had figured it out as well, so perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a shock to me.
Yet it did, and my heart jumped forcefully in my chest.
Of course, Arnval noticed my reaction.
“Hexaria made you an offer.” He snorted loudly. “Did you give her an answer?”
With the cat out of the bag, I felt I had no choice but to be honest with him. “No…I didn’t.”
“Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.”
He suddenly released me.
I stumbled but caught my balance before I could fall onto my backside. “Do that again, and I swear I will—wah!”
Without warning, he scooped me up and tossed me over his right shoulder like a bag of cement.
“What the Hell?” I yelled at him.
If I hadn’t been so distracted – and if Mirai had been her usual razor-sharp self – he wouldn’t have caught me by surprise. But now I watched the parkland spin crazily around me as Arnval whirled on the spot and then ran the short distance to the idling suburbans. Hearing the gentle thrum of their engines, I immediately knew they were hybrids running hydro-fusion drives, and that meant these vehicles were some serious road machines. However, that was something that I noticed in passing because most of my attention was on Arnval’s back and on the ground above my head – or rather below me.
Grabbing onto his back for support, I readied myself to ram a knee into his chest.
“PUT. ME. DOWN—!”
“Raine, take the shot.”
I froze and missed my chance to knee Arnval in the solar plexus.
Despite Mirai’s abnormally sharp hearing, I heard no boom and no explosion as I frantically swung my head in Tabitha’s direction.
A split second late and I would have missed it.
Whatever kind of bullet struck her head did so with enough force to slam Tabitha bodily into the grass.
I knew it was a machine – a Gun Princess avatar – but nonetheless it was chilling to watch her fall and then lie still.
Abruptly, my body was flipped over and dropped to the ground.
I landed on my feet as my back struck something hard and cold, probably one of the black suburbans. In the corner of my eyes, I was aware of Arnval in front of me, and some of the security people moving quickly to secure Erina and Straus by urging them into one of the waiting vehicles, but most of my attention was on Tabitha lying motionless and prone on the grass.
Moments later, she vanished.
For a second before she disappeared, the air around Tabitha shimmered then spun in a vortex that consumed her body, as if sucking her away through an invisible hole in the air.
I gaped in disbelief until Arnval slapped my cheeks none-to-gently.
“Hey, focus,” he snapped at me.
That served to jar my mind back into gear, and I faced him with a little fire in my eyes. “That hurt.”
“Good.”
“And she’s gone.”
“Of course, she’s gone,” Arnval grumbled while pulling open the door to the vehicle behind me. “Do you really think she’d leave her machine body around for people to find?”
He pushed me into the suburban’s passenger cabin.
I landed heavily on the backseat, but quickly sat up. “You shot her!”
“Oh, you noticed?” he snarked.
“Why the frek did you do that for?”
Arnval leaned into the cabin. “When dealing with Hexaria, that’s standard operating procedure.”
“What? Why?”
“Because she’s unpredictable, and she followed you here.”
I shook my head in dismay. “But you’ve got it wrong. She’s not here to kidnap me. She could have done that back at the dormitory.”
He hesitated. “She said that?”
“Yes, she did!” I insisted loudly before lowering my voice. “She said that stealing me away would lead to a war, and that she’s not stupid enough to start one!”
Arnval snorted then smiled thinly at me. “If kidnapping you may start a war, then why is she here?”
I frowned at him in confusion.
What is he saying? No—what is he trying to tell me?
“You think about that,” he suggested before slamming the door shut.
Alone in the back seat, I blinked slowly, then absently gazed at the plush interior while my mind struggled to sort through the tangled situation. Because of this, I was late to notice that I wasn’t alone in the suburban.
A young Simulacrum woman sat in the driver’s seat. Dressed in a black business suit, she watched me over her shoulder with a cool smile.
“Hi there. I’m Marinette.”
Distracted as I was, I nonetheless acknowledged her with a nod.
I also admitted she was quite pretty.
Possibly in her late teens, she had shoulder length brown hair, a classic oval face, a small mouth below a pert nose, thin eyebrows and violet, almond eyes that gave her an exotic appearance. Of course, she didn’t compare to my goddess, but this teenage girl was indeed a head turner.
It made me wonder if she’d been deliberately designed that way.
There’s a saying that good looks can carry you far, but why gift a Simulacrum with such beauty?
I didn’t get to mull that over because the passenger door on the other side of the car was suddenly flung open, and Erina was practically tossed into the cabin. She landed beside me on the backseat, her rich shoulder length hair in disarray, her expression steeped in panic and confusion as she stared at me with wide eyes.
“Isabel—eep!”
She almost jumped out of her skin when her door was slammed shut behind her.
It was somewhat pleasing to see Erina stripped of her usual arrogance.
Not being in control was certainly doing a number on her.
Oddly, I didn’t feel like gloating, probably because by then I’d realized what Arnval had hinted at.
Tabitha hadn’t come for me.
She’d come for Erina, and if they nabbed her, then Tabitha and House Cardinal could use Erina as leverage against me. I needed Erina because she knew what made Mirai tick, so where Erina went, I was bound to follow. That was probably Tabitha’s reasoning, but Arnval had been expecting her to show up, and Renew had sniped her from across the street.
She wasn’t there just for me. She was waiting for Tabitha.
That grim realization led to another.
Arnval had used me as bait.
He’d used me to draw out Tabitha.
That sonavabitch!
And yet though I cursed him, I couldn’t deny that his reasoning made a dark kind of sense. It also made me briefly wonder at the pressures he was under to go that far. But then again, wasn’t it also a risk to expose me out in the open this way.
No, because I’m not Tabitha’s target.
Then again, did he know that?
Nonetheless, the thought made me stare at Erina with complicated feelings, until I wondered that if she was here, then where was Straus?
Up front, Arnval hastily climbed into the passenger seat beside Marinette.
“Go,” he commanded even as he was closing his door.
Wordlessly, Marinette dropped the big vehicle into gear and floored the accelerator.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I cried out. “What about—?”
The hydro-fusion turbine revved, cutting me off, and the heavy suburban shivered as though gathering itself like a large predatory beast eager to make a kill. Yet when it launched itself, there was no shrieking from the tires. Instead, the vehicle pulled away with a minimum of fuss, though the swift acceleration pressed me hard into the backseat.
Over a shoulder, Arnval snapped at Erina and I. “Both of you buckle up now!”
I bit back a retort as I busied myself with my seatbelt.
I suspected the suburban was equipped with a myriad array of safety devices – undoubtedly more than was standard – but there was something oddly reassuring to wearing a seatbelt.
I had it secured around me long before Erina who fumbled with hers for several seconds. By all appearances, the current situation had dramatically rattled her, yet my suspicious nature mused if it was nothing more than an act. Unwilling to discount that possibility, I shelved it for the time being, then leaned toward the middle of the cabin for a better view out the front windscreen as the large vehicle deftly changed lanes.
Marinette had slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and from the backseat, I glimpsed something on the inside of their lenses.
Is she following some sort of map? I wondered.
It was possible that an Assisting Intelligence was providing her with directions and recommending lane changes. This would explain how she was able to make short work of the morning traffic.
My next question was where were we going?
I could see the harbor to my left, and Mirai’s magnetic sense was telling me we were heading south along Ring Zero, but our destination was a mystery.
I thought about asking Ghost if he knew where we were headed, but then decided instead to thump the back of Arnval’s seat to get his attention. “Where are you taking us?”
“To a secure location,” he bluntly replied.
“Where?” I insisted.
It was Erina who answered me. “The Telos Corporation building.”
“No.” Arnval shook his head swiftly. “We have somewhere else in mind.”
Erina stared questioningly at the back of his head. “She won’t go there.”
“I won’t risk leading her anywhere near HQ.”
I shrugged in confusion. “I don’t understand. You believe she’ll follow us? But you shot her. You took out her avatar—”
“Hexaria has more than one,” he bitterly replied.
I sat back in the seat, feeling stupid for having asked the question.
Yes, of course she would.
However, my next question wasn’t so inane. “What about my uniform? Won’t she track us?”
Arnval glanced at Marinette. “Take us deep.”
She replied without taking her eyes off the road. “You want us under the city?”
“Take the Under-16 all the way to Ring Five.”
The young woman winced slightly. “Damn.”
“What?”
“We just missed the entrance.”
Arnval exhaled in disappointment. “Then take the—”
The hydro-fusion drive roared, silencing Arnval as Marinette suddenly downshifted and threw the suburban into a sharp U-turn across multiple lanes.
Inside the vehicle, we were tossed to one side of the cabin.
Erina screamed and I clung onto an armrest while Arnval braced himself against his door.
“Jeezes, Marinette—!” he cried out.
“Please don’t talk,” the young woman advised, “or you’ll bite your tongue.”
There was a hard bump – more like a lurch – and the suburban bounced over the median strip.
It dove into the fast traffic heading north, merging with it in a heartbeat.
Shaken but not stirred, we were now zooming northward along the multilane street.
By some miracle we had avoided colliding with anyone, but Erina was looking green, and I had cracked the armrest, while Arnval had to extricate himself from his door.
He scowled at Marinette. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Nope.”
“Do you have any idea how much data we’ll have to erase to hide that crazy stunt you just pulled?”
She calmly replied, “We have a Tempest Class Awareness working for us. Editing the recorded footage from the traffic cameras won’t be a problem for her.”
Arnval straightened in his seat. “One of these days you’ll be the death of me.”
“Oh, contraire. I promised Renew I’d take good care of you.”
He scowled at her again. “You are aware of the importance of our cargo?”
Sitting beside me, Erina laughed nervously as she clutched her door’s armrest and stared vacantly out her window. “Now I’m cargo….”
Ignoring my former sister who was wallowing in a reality check, I frowned at the Simulacrum woman behind the steering wheel.
I thought Clarisol was crazy, but this girl takes the cake!
Marinette hummed to herself. “Under-16…Under-16—there you are!”
She spun the steering wheel and the suburban swerved smoothly across five lines of flowing traffic. Again, I feared we would sideswipe the cars around us, but somehow the big boxy vehicle avoided a collision, and moments later it was hurtling down a wide ramp at near breakneck speed. Before long, we’d entered a subterranean realm beneath the city, crisscrossed by a warren of tunnels.
“…we’re going to die…going to die....”
That came from Erina who was still clutching at her door’s armrest with a white knuckled grip.
Twisting around in his seat, Arnval studied her for a second before facing Marinette.
“She’s right. With your driving, we’re going to die before Hexaria gets to us.”
“You’re assuming she can catch us,” Marinette countered. “Even if she translocates throughout the city, she’ll be on foot whereas we’re on wheels. And she’ll have trouble tracking us with so much noise around us”—she pointed upwards—“because we’re under the city.”
At the mention of being tracked, I grimaced at my uniform before asking, “So Tabitha can’t follow us?”
Arnval twisted around a little more in his seat for a better look at me. “Down here, it’s unlikely your uniform will give away our location.”
Marinette jumped in. “However, House Cardinal is using a Conquistador Class Awareness to spy on the city—”
“—and it’s going toe-to-toe with our Tempest Class,” Arnval cut her off, sounding annoyed.
But Marinette wasn’t done. “Yep, yep. So there’s a battle going on between their super Awareness and our super Awareness.”
“Why?” I asked.
Marinette started to answer, “That’s because—”
“Marinette.”
“Yes?”
“Focus on driving.”
“Yep, yep….”
Arnval eyed her with distrust while he gave me a proper answer. “House Cardinal is making use of Libra to spy on you.”
The name rang a bell with me. “Tabitha mentioned them. What are they?”
“They’re a division within the Gun Princess Royale’s Battle Commission. They keep tabs on people of interest to the Battle Commission, and you are a person of interest. Unfortunately, Libra is a puppet of House Cardinal. But Spartan has sufficient resources in Ar Telica to match them, which is why Marinette here can pull off stunt driving in the middle of the city and not get us arrested. We can hide ourselves from the traffic and surveillance grid.”
“And the cars around us,” Marinette chimed in.
Arnval scowled at her yet again. “Yes, and the cars around us….”
I cut in to ask, “Then we’re invisible to the city’s eyes?”
“More or less,” she answered, earning herself another dark look from her boss.
I shrugged in confusion. “Why are you so afraid of Tabitha?”
My question appeared to strike a nerve.
Marinette hesitated in her driving, and Arnval regarded me with a hard stare.
“I’m not afraid of Tabitha,” he declared, “but she is a complication.”
“Why?”
His face grew grim. “Because Hexaria has been playing a frustrating game of tit-for-tat with us for most of the morning.”
“Meaning what?”
His grim expression darkened. “Spartan and Libra have a network of trans-location beacons throughout the city. It allows operatives using machine avatars or portable beacons to hop all over the place. That was until this morning.”
“What happened this morning?”
“Hexaria decided to knock out our trans-location beacons. In return, Spartan has been locating her beacons and putting them out of commission. For now, we’re ahead. Seventeen beacons to thirteen. But finding them is proving difficult.” He pursed his lips unhappily before admitting, “And Renew missed the beacon Hexaria had planted in the dorm building…though it wasn’t for lack of trying.”
I gave him another confused shrug. “Why is she doing this? Is Tabitha picking a fight with you—with the Sanreals?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “She hasn’t engaged any of our people. She’s avoided them. But there’s no doubt she’s been playing with us. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s doing all this to distract us.”
“From what?”
“That’s a good question. What we do know is that House Cardinal has expressed an interest in you.”
“But I told you already—Tabitha said the Empress had labelled me off-limits.”
“That’s precisely why Hexaria’s antics are troubling. If you’re off limits, why go this far?”
Arnval was watching me, yet it seemed as though he was watching Erina as well.
That alone silenced me.
Taking that silence for an answer, he humphed to himself, then turned around and sat properly in his seat.
I sat back as well and considered what I’d learnt thus far.
However, in the corner of my eye, I noticed Erina contemplating Arnval with a silent, thoughtful mien.
Had she figured out what he’d left unsaid?
Knowing her, she was probably considering numerous possibilities far ahead of Arnval’s various trains of thought.
Nonetheless, it seemed safe to say that we’d all arrived at the same conclusion.
Tabitha wanted me, but to get me she first needed Erina.
Thank you for getting this far. I haven't posted recently because I've been working to promote the book elsewhere. Hasn't gone well. I planning a new approach for April. Will give Meta/Facebook another try. If anyone has suggestions on how to promote this series, I would really appreciate. I remember there being a book reviewer who only reviewed gender-bender and transgender stories. I just can't remember her name now. It's been 6 years since I submitted the original series to her.
I've also been working on Book 2 of the new reimagined series that will be continue Mirai/Ronin's story. Making slow and steady progress on that. And I'm working on a sci-fi novel that takes place in an alternate reality to the one found in The Gun Princess Royale. Elements from TGPR also exist in the sci-fi series that I'm slowly treading into. So it's early days on that story as well.
I will continue to post the rest of this book while chapters remain.
A reminder that Book 1 of the newly reimagined & rebooted series, The Gun Princess Royale, is available on Amazon for purchase or reading on Kindle Unlimited. More than two years of writing have gone into it. Please check it out. It's 873 pages so the sample for reading on Amazon is a whopping 87 pages.
A happy & safe 2024 to all of you.
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.
Earlier, Straus had singled out the man facing an annoyed Erina as the Alpha male.
But to me there was another reason why he stood out amongst his peers.
It wasn’t his long, sandy hair, his tall build, and fine facial features that set him apart from the other security personnel. Nor was it his clothes that included a long, dark, mahogany trench coat over a matching business suit – entirely unbecoming in the summer heat that was steadily warming up the morning air. And it had nothing to do with him chatting to Erina as though she was an old acquaintance who was unhappy to see him.
No, that wasn’t it at all.
What made him stand out to me was the unnerving sensation I felt deep in Mirai’s gut, in her bones, in the muscles wrapped around them, and in the faint hairs along the nape of her neck as I walked closer to him.
Mirai’s intuition was telling me that this man was dangerous in a way that many men were not…and that some men hoped to be.
I chose to listen to her instincts and stopped several feet away from him.
Straus followed suit, coming to a halt a couple of feet off to my right.
As for Erina, she stood within arm’s length of the man in the mahogany trench coat, staring at me in disbelief darkened by anger. But before she could chastise or berate me for disobeying her instruction, the young man reached up and removed his dark sunglasses to reveal a pair of remarkable green eyes.
As those eyes met mine, I felt for myself the danger Mirai had perceived, and my breath caught in my chest for a heartbeat.
There’s a saying about smelling blood on a person.
Maybe this was what I was sensing now – the lingering scent of carnage surrounding him – and I steeled myself against it.
Normally, I would have folded my arms under Mirai’s impressive bust, but instead I allowed her instincts to take over. She stood with her arms by her sides, and her legs almost shoulder width apart. She wasn’t balancing on the balls of her feet – not yet – but her weight was evenly distributed, and her muscles were neither tense nor relaxed. Rather, she seemed ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat.
And yet one thing surprised me.
The sea breeze tousled Mirai’s hair, blowing it past my face, and in the corner of my eye, I glimpsed her long blonde locks.
Mirai hadn’t powered up.
I could sense that this man wasn’t to be trifled with, and Mirai was indeed standing at the ready, yet she was also holding herself back.
Why? What was she waiting for?
Wary and confused, I watched him smile faintly at me as we regarded each other in silence.
When he finally addressed me, he sounded almost carefree.
“Lady Isabel. Nice to see you up and about.”
His breezy manner briefly inflamed me.
I had to give myself a few moments before asking, “Who are you? You know me, but I don’t know you.”
Pocketing his sunglasses into a vest pocket, his smile grew wider.
Almost immediately, Mirai tensed up.
His apparently relaxed demeanor was at odds with mine, however he was standing with his body at a slight angle toward me. Even as he offered me a slight bow, his guarded stance convinced me not to override Mirai’s instincts in the slightest.
If she needed to move – if she wanted to move – she would do so without my restraint.
“Apologies, Lady Isabel. My name is Geharis Arnval. I’m head of Spartan Division.”
“What’s that?”
“Private security for the Sanreal Family…and the Telos Corporation.”
I swallowed quietly. “And why are you here?”
“We’re here to take you home.”
“Home?”
“To the Sanreal Family. To your family.”
I glanced at Erina who watching all this with a stiff expression, then faced Arnval again. “Are you planning on cutting me into three, and putting one piece into each car?”
Arnval’s lips twitched before he chortled. “Apologies, but we take your security quite seriously.”
I spared the building with the garden balcony a meaningful look. “Yeah, I guess you do.”
That earned me a grin from him. “Better safe than sorry.”
I swallowed down a snide retort and chose to wet my lips slowly as I studied him intently. However, there was only so much I could glean from just looking at him.
Unexpectedly, Arnval’s grin had grown uncertain under my quiet scrutiny.
I saw that as an opening I could exploit.
“You said it was good to see me up and about.”
“I did.”
“So we’ve met before.”
His grin wavered. “You could say that.”
“Then why don’t I remember you?”
There was a sudden mischievous glint in his eyes that made his grin appear cruel.
“Has anyone told you,” he asked, “that you look better as a brunette?”
It was extraordinary how swiftly he drew his gun.
Even as the words left his lips, his right-hand dove in and out of his trench coat with no visible acceleration.
Normally when someone moves – no matter how quickly – their limbs will noticeably accelerate. But with him, it was as though his arm had immediately achieved terminal velocity.
It wasn’t a ‘blink’ and miss it moment.
Rather, the moment didn’t exist.
Caught by surprise, I was slow to react…but not Mirai.
As Arnval’s right arm swung in my direction with gun in hand, she bolted toward him.
From a standing start, she – and thereby I – moved like lightning, halving the distance to him in an instant.
Before I knew it, my right foot had touched ground a millisecond before I kicked upwards with my left foot, connecting with his gun hand, and thereby throwing off his aim.
The impact caused him to squeeze the trigger.
The hammer clicked…but the gun didn’t fire.
Huh?
Confusion and disbelief rocked me.
Even as my leg completed its swing, knocking aside Arnval’s arm, I struggled to comprehend what had happened until I laid eyes on his grin.
Bastard!
I’d been played.
The gun hadn’t fired because it wasn’t loaded.
I look better as a brunette?
His motive abruptly made sense.
Arnval wanted to draw out Mirai – Dark Mirai – and he’d succeeded.
The moment Arnval reached for his gun and Mirai sprang into action, she had transformed from blonde to brunette. Powered up, my senses had sharpened to a razor’s edge, allowing me to perceive Arnval and my surroundings with extraordinary clarity, and that’s why I had time to consider the infuriating grin on his face.
However, something felt different.
My consciousness had overclocked, thus giving me the illusion that time had slowed down around me. But on this occasion, it appeared to have slowed down a little too much. For example, in my peripheral vision, I saw Erina surrounded by her golden lifeforce, standing motionless and not even breathing.
So too Straus, and the black suited bodyguards.
And there was more to it.
For a mere distended second, Mirai’s body had moved in harmony with my overclocked mind. I’d experienced this once before back on the roof of the maglev station when she’d unexpectedly kept pace with my accelerated consciousness, and that boost in speed had saved me from being struck by an electro-shock dart. Now, her phenomenal speed allowed me to kick away Arnval’s gun hand before he could aim it at me.
Of course, with the gun being unloaded there was no danger.
Arnval had toyed with me, and that made my innards burn from a mixture of humiliation and anger. But the prospect of a near miss chilled some of that rage. Had the gun fired, the bullet would have brushed by my left ear and taken some of Mirai’s raven hair with it.
However, another surprise awaited me.
Mirai had put a lot of her strength into her kick, but the heavy blow had merely nudged aside Arnval’s arm about a foot, and the bastard had held onto his sidearm.
Instead of seeing his wrist break on impact, it was my left foot that burned in agony as though I’d kicked a steel I-beam, and with time stretched out, the pain lasted for what felt like an eternity.
By now I didn’t care if the gun was loaded or not.
Disarming him wasn’t a priority anymore.
Instead, wiping the grin off his face had become paramount.
I was going to hurt this man for making a fool of me…and Mirai.
I was going to hurt him for hurting my foot.
But behind my determination to rip Arnval ‘a new one’, I was acutely aware that Mirai’s body was performing actions ingrained upon it and adhering to techniques that would have required countless hours of physical training to hone my legs into lethal weapons. It was akin to Mirai’s skillful use of firearms, wielding them as though she’d been using them for years. However, operating weapons wasn’t the same as executing precise martial actions, so why was I able to fight like a pro?
Ghost had said Mirai’s body had been imprinted with someone’s muscle memory.
It was the reason she could walk, run, and fight with such ease.
I didn’t know who they were – their identity was guarded behind a block of ICE that even Ghost couldn’t breach – but I was grateful to them because I was going to use their skills to knock Geharis Arnval into the middle of next week!
With my left foot back on the ground, I pivoted on it while swinging my right foot up at Arnval’s head.
I had to kick high because he was taller than me.
Fortunately, I was wearing a skirt that allowed my legs to move freely.
Unfortunately, said skirt was short and held nothing back as it fluttered around my thighs.
Knowing that I was flashing Arnval, my cheeks burned in shame.
Damn that Tabitha!
However, there was an upside to the situation.
Arnval’s attention had snapped to the racy black panties I wore.
Entranced by the vista between my legs, he left himself wide open and failed to block my kick.
My right foot slammed into the side of his head, spinning him around.
Then again, maybe his body was simply rolling with the kick – turning reflexively upon impact to dispel the energy behind the blow.
Regardless, for one precious second, Arnval had his back toward me, and Mirai capitalized on the moment.
Helped along by momentum, I continued turning my body, whirling on my right foot the instant it touched ground, then lashing out with my left leg.
Had he been facing me, I would have given him another view to remember and write home about as my skirt billowed upwards.
That does it—no more skirts for me!
But with his back toward me, the kick I landed booted him into the side of the black suburban parked behind him.
Newton said, for every reaction there’s an equal and opposite reaction, thus I rebounded away from Arnval.
I had to spin Mirai’s body to regain my balance, but once both feet were back on the ground, I leapt at him while he was still recovering from the combo kick.
That’s when I saw something unexpected and disturbing.
The lifeforce aura radiating from his body wasn’t complete.
Distracted, I almost crashed into him.
By then, Arnval had turned around and face me.
I had to scramble to grab his arms and pin him against the suburban’s door.
His gun wasn’t a concern anymore.
Rather, I wanted to bury him into the car’s door, but it wasn’t long before I started to worry, then panic, as I struggled against him.
Gods damn it—why is he so strong?
Tabitha had said I was six or seven times stronger than a girl my size. But it was taking every ounce of that strength to pin Arnval to the dented door, with my feet constantly slipping as they scrabbled for purchase on the grass underfoot.
Wait a minute—the car is dented?
Staring at Arnval, my eyes widened in dismay.
He’s not a machine avatar, so what the Hell is he?
Because of the lifeforce radiating from his eyes, I knew they were real, but what about the rest of him?
“What are you?” I hissed through clenched teeth, my breathing labored as I struggled to keep Arnval pressed into the suburban’s flank.
He was no different – his breathing short and shallow as we both huffed and puffed against each other.
“My, my,” he wheezed out through a twisted smile. “You really are a tiger.”
My body fully exerted, I sucked in air and then cried out, “Answer me!”
The strain was starting to get to him. “Is that…what you…really…want to know?”
I bent my legs slightly as my feet continued to slip and slide on the grass beneath them. “You didn’t need to pull a gun on me!”
“Ma chérie…I wanted…to see…the real…you.”
I scowled fiercely up at him. “Asshole! You could have just asked—oof!”
Preoccupied, I failed to notice his leg coming up until his knee buried itself into my gut.
Doubled over and winded, I tightened my stomach muscles, and refused to release his arms. But when I sensed his knee come up a second time, I evaded it by darting back.
Unfortunately, I had to relinquish my hold on him but not before delivering a parting gift.
As I retreated, I grabbed his gun and twisted it harshly with all the grip strength my left hand could muster.
Since he wasn’t going to let it go, then the least I could do was render it useless.
It didn’t break, but it did crack.
Releasing it, I then escaped beyond his reach.
With some distance between us, I slipped into a defensive stance.
If felt like the first round was over, but before round two got underway, I quickly glanced around to take stock of my surroundings. The security personnel had drawn their sidearms and were aiming them at me. In response, Straus had snatched Erina out of harm’s way, and retreated out of the line of fire where he was now shielding her with his body.
I could understand him wanting to protect her from stray gunfire, but it needled my ego.
Hey—shouldn’t you be protecting me? I’m your hope, aren’t I?
Movement caught my eye, yanking my attention back onto Arnval.
With some effort, he pushed himself away from the side of the large black suburban, then rolled his shoulders as though working the strain out of his muscles.
“Damn, you kick hard,” he muttered sourly.
Watching him intently, I studied his incomplete aura.
Maybe he was human, but not all of him.
A cyborg?
It certainly explained why his lifeforce only radiated from his head and torso, implying that his limbs were artificial.
It certainly explained why he was so strong.
Arnval gave the mangled firearm in his hand a disappointed look. “Damn, I really liked that gun.”
Holstering it with a grimace, he then waved at the surrounding security personnel.
“Stand down,” he instructed them while sounding inappropriately amused. “I said, stand down. No harm done. Everybody relax. That’s an order.”
He may have included me in that order, but I had no intention of dropping my guard.
Most of my attention remained focused on him, though I could see the security agents in my peripheral vision continue to aim their sidearms at me in defiance of his order. I also noticed the pale orange hue of their aura, identifying them as Simulacra.
Disposable labor, I thought with contempt until I remembered that Mirai too was a Simulacrum, although purportedly unique and far superior, and hardly disposable if one considered how much of a fuss people were making over her.
Arnval regarded his subordinates with growing impatience, and no longer sounded amused. “I said, stand down. That’s an order. If I have to repeat myself one more time, I’m going to start breaking arms.”
It didn’t seem like an idle threat, and it worked its magic.
In short order, the dark suited men and women holstered their weapons, albeit reluctantly.
“That’s better,” Arnval remarked with a thin smile of approval that quickly turned cruel. “But I’m going to have you running fifty laps around the compound when we get back. Disobey me again and I’ll make it a hundred.”
As he took a long stride away from the side of the suburban, I looked at where its door was dented as though rammed by a steel girder. Apparently, when I kicked Arnval in the back, he’d used his hands to brace himself against the door, and the impact had buckled the metal skin inward all the way to the crash bars.
Convinced he was a cyborg, I nonetheless asked him again, “What are you?”
Arnval frowned curiously at me but didn’t answer, so I pressed on.
“I know you’re not a Simulacrum. And you’re not a mechanical either. But you’re not human. So what the Hell are you?”
He cocked his head at me. “What makes you ask?”
“You’re strong like me, kicking you is like kicking a wall, and look at what you did to the car’s door.”
“You do have a point or two….” He broke into a thin smile. “You’re quite remarkable.”
I exhaled derisively through my nose. “Flattery will you get you nowhere.”
“And your speed surprised me. For a second, you vanished before my eyes.”
I mused that tidbit for a second.
Was he referring to when Mirai’s body had moved in time with my accelerated awareness?
But why was he telling me that? Wasn’t it better to keep it a secret?
Arnval gazed at me as though seeing me in a new light. “You certainly exceeded my expectations.”
His expectations?
“Should I say thanks?” I snarked at him.
“However, is it enough for you to survive?”
A frown flickered across my brow.
I couldn’t remember a specific occasion, but I had the feeling that someone had asked me that before. Or was it just a figment of my imagination? Was it something that I’d asked myself instead? Nonetheless, I understood what he was alluding to.
“You’re talking about the Gun Princess Royale.”
He replied with a nod.
I tried hiding how anxious the question made me feel behind a casual shrug. “I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”
“True. Then we’ll know if the work they put into you paid off.”
That brought a chill to my chest. “What work…?”
“I wonder if she’ll be proud of you.”
My stance faltered as a wave of uncertainty and confusion washed over me.
Is he referring to Erina?
I threw my former sister a fleeting glance and saw that she was still hiding behind Straus’s mechanical avatar, her expression one of abject frustration.
Honestly, it was the closest I’d seen her come to biting through her nails.
Turning back to Arnval, I cleared my throat before declaring, “You’re a real asshole—not answering my questions.”
He dismissed my insult with a shrug. “That’s also true. But I’ll answer your questions if they’re the right—”
Without warning, he abruptly looked northward.
Surprised, I almost turned to look myself, but held back because I was wary of being tricked by him, until a moment later when I noticed the Spartan security people reach for their guns.
Only then did I risk following his gaze.
What I saw made my blood run cold.
In the distance, a few hundred feet away to the north, a lone teenage girl wearing a Telos Academy high school summer uniform was walking toward us across the parkland. Her long dark hair and attractive oval face brought back memories of when we first met a few days ago.
Little did I know then how much trouble she would turn out to be.
Striding toward us, the troublesome teenage girl threw us a wave. However, true to her eccentric nature, she was waving both her arms in the air. She was like Robinson Crusoe desperately flagging down a passing ship. Quite clearly she was looking for attention, and her off-kilter approach worked because everyone around me was staring at her, and no one was happy to see her.
Arnval regarded her with veiled hostility.
The security personnel were itching to unleash Hell upon her.
Erina was glaring at her with such intensity the air almost crackled around her.
Straus’s fingers twitched as though he was missing his favorite gun.
And me?
Nope, I wasn’t happy to see her either.
I had grudge against her, and I wasn’t going to forgive her for the traumatic experience she’d subjected me to back in the stairwell. As for her bribe, she could keep it because I would find another way to meet my Goddess.
Yes, the girl walking toward us was none other than Tabitha Hexen, otherwise known as Taura Hexaria Erz Cardinal.
Arnval slashed the air with his right arm, stopping the Spartan personnel from shooting a storm of bullets at her.
“Stand down,” he snapped while staring at Tabitha with merciless eyes.
The black suited men and women were reluctant to follow his order, but no one risked his wrath by continuing to point their gun at Tabitha.
Arnval spoke again, but I quickly realized he was having a conversation with someone out of sight. I couldn’t see him wearing an earpiece or earbud, so perhaps the transceiver was implanted into his skull. Whatever means he was using to communicate with the unseen party, Arnval sounded grimly unhappy at what he was hearing.
“Did she translocate?” he asked. “She did? Damn it! She must have had a beacon nearby. No, it’s fine. We can search for it later. We all knew she was going to be hard to track—no hold off on that for the moment.” He shook his head stiffly. “Tell them we’ll be coming soon…no, I’d rather avoid trouble with her if I can. Just cover us as best you can…yes, if she makes a move, shoot her. That’s a machine avatar, so aim for her head.” I caught the glance he gave me. “I’m almost tempted to hear her out, but I’m not that foolish. If she gets too close, take her down.” He paused. “How close? Take her down at a hundred feet.”
Ghost stepped into my view. “I should have known better, Princess.”
Distracted, I whispered back, “Known what?”
“That Hexaria would embed tracking filaments into your uniform. That is undoubtedly how she kept tabs on your location.”
I trembled as though electrocuted.
My gods! She tracked me the same way Erina did!
When I recovered, I started pulling at the uniform I was wearing.
“I—I gotta take this off….”
Abruptly, Arnval crossed the short distance between us and firmly grabbed onto my left arm. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking this off!”
He frowned, stared at my uniform, then shook his head. “Not out here. Get in the car. We’re leaving.”
For a half-second, I gaped at him in confusion but then angrily yanked my arm back.
Unfortunately, he held onto me with an iron grip, and though he staggered, he refused to release me.
“Let me go or lose the arm!” I warned him.
Regaining his footing, Arnval hauled me toward him.
I didn’t know if he was stronger than me, but he was certainly far heavier, and that gave him an advantage in our tug-of-war. He pulled me so close that I stared up at him cross-eyed, then coldly whispered, “I presume you know who she is?”
The danger and menace I’d felt surrounding him earlier was now palpable in the air. It wrapped around me, stifling my struggles against him.
Arnval persisted. “You know who she is…don’t you?”
Despite my anger, the scent of blood and violence in his breath chilled me to the bone.
I swallowed with some difficulty and haltingly nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, she told me—”
“And you know what she is.”
I nodded again. “A…a machine avatar.”
“Good. Then I’ll make this short.” He drew back a little so that I no longer looked at him cross-eyed. “Hexaria has been playing with us all morning. Jumping around the city, making it difficult for us to track her until she showed up at your door. But after the two of you left the apartment, we lost her in the building. And now she’s here. We don’t know her game, so our priority is to get you out of the city until House Novis can deal with House Cardinal in the Imperial Court.” He cocked his head at me. “Is this getting through to you?”
Some of the fight I’d lost was making a comeback.
Clearing my throat, I did my best to match his icy tone. “Yeah, I get it. Now let me go, or else!”
Arnval jerked me so harshly it blurred my vision, then he yanked me close to him again.
“Not happening! Hexaria is here for you. Why? I’ve got a few guesses. But I’m not going to waste time asking you if they’re right or wrong.”
I clamped my jaw shut then pushed against Arnval’s chest with enough force to get some distance between us that he could do nothing about.
Tabitha was right—I am bloody strong.
But my uniform wasn’t, so I stopped pushing against him when it began to rip.
Arnval shook his head slowly. “I’m not letting you go, ma chérie.”
I exhaled loudly in frustration.
Pressing my lips tightly together, I shot a glance at Ghost standing beside Arnval unbeknownst to him.
In reply, he shrugged as if to say, It is your call, Princess.
My attention then fell on Tabitha walking steadily toward us, probably a hundred meters away now.
Damn her! This is all her fault!
I met Arnval’s frosty gaze, then took a ragged breath that made my chest shudder. “Whatever we talked about…is between her and I.”
He accepted that with a nod. “She offered you a place in House Cardinal, didn’t she?”
Arnval had hit the nail on the head, but Straus had figured it out as well, so perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a shock to me.
Yet it did, and my heart jumped forcefully in my chest.
Of course, Arnval noticed my reaction.
“Hexaria made you an offer.” He snorted loudly. “Did you give her an answer?”
With the cat out of the bag, I felt I had no choice but to be honest with him. “No…I didn’t.”
“Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.”
He suddenly released me.
I stumbled but caught my balance before I could fall onto my backside. “Do that again, and I swear I will—wah!”
Without warning, he scooped me up and tossed me over his right shoulder like a bag of cement.
“What the Hell?” I yelled at him.
If I hadn’t been so distracted – and if Mirai had been her usual razor-sharp self – he wouldn’t have caught me by surprise. But now I watched the parkland spin crazily around me as Arnval whirled on the spot and then ran the short distance to the idling suburbans. Hearing the gentle thrum of their engines, I immediately knew they were hybrids running hydro-fusion drives, and that meant these vehicles were some serious road machines. However, that was something that I noticed in passing because most of my attention was on Arnval’s back and on the ground above my head – or rather below me.
Grabbing onto his back for support, I readied myself to ram a knee into his chest.
“PUT. ME. DOWN—!”
“Raine, take the shot.”
I froze and missed my chance to knee Arnval in the solar plexus.
Despite Mirai’s abnormally sharp hearing, I heard no boom and no explosion as I frantically swung my head in Tabitha’s direction.
A split second late and I would have missed it.
Whatever kind of bullet struck her head did so with enough force to slam Tabitha bodily into the grass.
I knew it was a machine – a Gun Princess avatar – but nonetheless it was chilling to watch her fall and then lie still.
Abruptly, my body was flipped over and dropped to the ground.
I landed on my feet as my back struck something hard and cold, probably one of the black suburbans. In the corner of my eyes, I was aware of Arnval in front of me, and some of the security people moving quickly to secure Erina and Straus by urging them into one of the waiting vehicles, but most of my attention was on Tabitha lying motionless and prone on the grass.
Moments later, she vanished.
For a second before she disappeared, the air around Tabitha shimmered then spun in a vortex that consumed her body, as if sucking her away through an invisible hole in the air.
I gaped in disbelief until Arnval slapped my cheeks none-to-gently.
“Hey, focus,” he snapped at me.
That served to jar my mind back into gear, and I faced him with a little fire in my eyes. “That hurt.”
“Good.”
“And she’s gone.”
“Of course, she’s gone,” Arnval grumbled while pulling open the door to the vehicle behind me. “Do you really think she’d leave her machine body around for people to find?”
He pushed me into the suburban’s passenger cabin.
I landed heavily on the backseat, but quickly sat up. “You shot her!”
“Oh, you noticed?” he snarked.
“Why the frek did you do that for?”
Arnval leaned into the cabin. “When dealing with Hexaria, that’s standard operating procedure.”
“What? Why?”
“Because she’s unpredictable, and she followed you here.”
I shook my head in dismay. “But you’ve got it wrong. She’s not here to kidnap me. She could have done that back at the dormitory.”
He hesitated. “She said that?”
“Yes, she did!” I insisted loudly before lowering my voice. “She said that stealing me away would lead to a war, and that she’s not stupid enough to start one!”
Arnval snorted then smiled thinly at me. “If kidnapping you may start a war, then why is she here?”
I frowned at him in confusion.
What is he saying? No—what is he trying to tell me?
“You think about that,” he suggested before slamming the door shut.
Alone in the back seat, I blinked slowly, then absently gazed at the plush interior while my mind struggled to sort through the tangled situation. Because of this, I was late to notice that I wasn’t alone in the suburban.
A young Simulacrum woman sat in the driver’s seat. Dressed in a black business suit, she watched me over her shoulder with a cool smile.
“Hi there. I’m Marinette.”
Distracted as I was, I nonetheless acknowledged her with a nod.
I also admitted she was quite pretty.
Possibly in her late teens, she had shoulder length brown hair, a classic oval face, a small mouth below a pert nose, thin eyebrows and violet, almond eyes that gave her an exotic appearance. Of course, she didn’t compare to my goddess, but this teenage girl was indeed a head turner.
It made me wonder if she’d been deliberately designed that way.
There’s a saying that good looks can carry you far, but why gift a Simulacrum with such beauty?
I didn’t get to mull that over because the passenger door on the other side of the car was suddenly flung open, and Erina was practically tossed into the cabin. She landed beside me on the backseat, her rich shoulder length hair in disarray, her expression steeped in panic and confusion as she stared at me with wide eyes.
“Isabel—eep!”
She almost jumped out of her skin when her door was slammed shut behind her.
It was somewhat pleasing to see Erina stripped of her usual arrogance.
Not being in control was certainly doing a number on her.
Oddly, I didn’t feel like gloating, probably because by then I’d realized what Arnval had hinted at.
Tabitha hadn’t come for me.
She’d come for Erina, and if they nabbed her, then Tabitha and House Cardinal could use Erina as leverage against me. I needed Erina because she knew what made Mirai tick, so where Erina went, I was bound to follow. That was probably Tabitha’s reasoning, but Arnval had been expecting her to show up, and Renew had sniped her from across the street.
She wasn’t there just for me. She was waiting for Tabitha.
That grim realization led to another.
Arnval had used me as bait.
He’d used me to draw out Tabitha.
That sonavabitch!
And yet though I cursed him, I couldn’t deny that his reasoning made a dark kind of sense. It also made me briefly wonder at the pressures he was under to go that far. But then again, wasn’t it also a risk to expose me out in the open this way.
No, because I’m not Tabitha’s target.
Then again, did he know that?
Nonetheless, the thought made me stare at Erina with complicated feelings, until I wondered that if she was here, then where was Straus?
Up front, Arnval hastily climbed into the passenger seat beside Marinette.
“Go,” he commanded even as he was closing his door.
Wordlessly, Marinette dropped the big vehicle into gear and floored the accelerator.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I cried out. “What about—?”
The hydro-fusion turbine revved, cutting me off, and the heavy suburban shivered as though gathering itself like a large predatory beast eager to make a kill. Yet when it launched itself, there was no shrieking from the tires. Instead, the vehicle pulled away with a minimum of fuss, though the swift acceleration pressed me hard into the backseat.
Over a shoulder, Arnval snapped at Erina and I. “Both of you buckle up now!”
I bit back a retort as I busied myself with my seatbelt.
I suspected the suburban was equipped with a myriad array of safety devices – undoubtedly more than was standard – but there was something oddly reassuring to wearing a seatbelt.
I had it secured around me long before Erina who fumbled with hers for several seconds. By all appearances, the current situation had dramatically rattled her, yet my suspicious nature mused if it was nothing more than an act. Unwilling to discount that possibility, I shelved it for the time being, then leaned toward the middle of the cabin for a better view out the front windscreen as the large vehicle deftly changed lanes.
Marinette had slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and from the backseat, I glimpsed something on the inside of their lenses.
Is she following some sort of map? I wondered.
It was possible that an Assisting Intelligence was providing her with directions and recommending lane changes. This would explain how she was able to make short work of the morning traffic.
My next question was where were we going?
I could see the harbor to my left, and Mirai’s magnetic sense was telling me we were heading south along Ring Zero, but our destination was a mystery.
I thought about asking Ghost if he knew where we were headed, but then decided instead to thump the back of Arnval’s seat to get his attention. “Where are you taking us?”
“To a secure location,” he bluntly replied.
“Where?” I insisted.
It was Erina who answered me. “The Telos Corporation building.”
“No.” Arnval shook his head swiftly. “We have somewhere else in mind.”
Erina stared questioningly at the back of his head. “She won’t go there.”
“I won’t risk leading her anywhere near HQ.”
I shrugged in confusion. “I don’t understand. You believe she’ll follow us? But you shot her. You took out her avatar—”
“Hexaria has more than one,” he bitterly replied.
I sat back in the seat, feeling stupid for having asked the question.
Yes, of course she would.
However, my next question wasn’t so inane. “What about my uniform? Won’t she track us?”
Arnval glanced at Marinette. “Take us deep.”
She replied without taking her eyes off the road. “You want us under the city?”
“Take the Under-16 all the way to Ring Five.”
The young woman winced slightly. “Damn.”
“What?”
“We just missed the entrance.”
Arnval exhaled in disappointment. “Then take the—”
The hydro-fusion drive roared, silencing Arnval as Marinette suddenly downshifted and threw the suburban into a sharp U-turn across multiple lanes.
Inside the vehicle, we were tossed to one side of the cabin.
Erina screamed and I clung onto an armrest while Arnval braced himself against his door.
“Jeezes, Marinette—!” he cried out.
“Please don’t talk,” the young woman advised, “or you’ll bite your tongue.”
There was a hard bump – more like a lurch – and the suburban bounced over the median strip.
It dove into the fast traffic heading north, merging with it in a heartbeat.
Shaken but not stirred, we were now zooming northward along the multilane street.
By some miracle we had avoided colliding with anyone, but Erina was looking green, and I had cracked the armrest, while Arnval had to extricate himself from his door.
He scowled at Marinette. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Nope.”
“Do you have any idea how much data we’ll have to erase to hide that crazy stunt you just pulled?”
She calmly replied, “We have a Tempest Class Awareness working for us. Editing the recorded footage from the traffic cameras won’t be a problem for her.”
Arnval straightened in his seat. “One of these days you’ll be the death of me.”
“Oh, contraire. I promised Renew I’d take good care of you.”
He scowled at her again. “You are aware of the importance of our cargo?”
Sitting beside me, Erina laughed nervously as she clutched her door’s armrest and stared vacantly out her window. “Now I’m cargo….”
Ignoring my former sister who was wallowing in a reality check, I frowned at the Simulacrum woman behind the steering wheel.
I thought Clarisol was crazy, but this girl takes the cake!
Marinette hummed to herself. “Under-16…Under-16—there you are!”
She spun the steering wheel and the suburban swerved smoothly across five lines of flowing traffic. Again, I feared we would sideswipe the cars around us, but somehow the big boxy vehicle avoided a collision, and moments later it was hurtling down a wide ramp at near breakneck speed. Before long, we’d entered a subterranean realm beneath the city, crisscrossed by a warren of tunnels.
“…we’re going to die…going to die....”
That came from Erina who was still clutching at her door’s armrest with a white knuckled grip.
Twisting around in his seat, Arnval studied her for a second before facing Marinette.
“She’s right. With your driving, we’re going to die before Hexaria gets to us.”
“You’re assuming she can catch us,” Marinette countered. “Even if she translocates throughout the city, she’ll be on foot whereas we’re on wheels. And she’ll have trouble tracking us with so much noise around us”—she pointed upwards—“because we’re under the city.”
At the mention of being tracked, I grimaced at my uniform before asking, “So Tabitha can’t follow us?”
Arnval twisted around a little more in his seat for a better look at me. “Down here, it’s unlikely your uniform will give away our location.”
Marinette jumped in. “However, House Cardinal is using a Conquistador Class Awareness to spy on the city—”
“—and it’s going toe-to-toe with our Tempest Class,” Arnval cut her off, sounding annoyed.
But Marinette wasn’t done. “Yep, yep. So there’s a battle going on between their super Awareness and our super Awareness.”
“Why?” I asked.
Marinette started to answer, “That’s because—”
“Marinette.”
“Yes?”
“Focus on driving.”
“Yep, yep….”
Arnval eyed her with distrust while he gave me a proper answer. “House Cardinal is making use of Libra to spy on you.”
The name rang a bell with me. “Tabitha mentioned them. What are they?”
“They’re a division within the Gun Princess Royale’s Battle Commission. They keep tabs on people of interest to the Battle Commission, and you are a person of interest. Unfortunately, Libra is a puppet of House Cardinal. But Spartan has sufficient resources in Ar Telica to match them, which is why Marinette here can pull off stunt driving in the middle of the city and not get us arrested. We can hide ourselves from the traffic and surveillance grid.”
“And the cars around us,” Marinette chimed in.
Arnval scowled at her yet again. “Yes, and the cars around us….”
I cut in to ask, “Then we’re invisible to the city’s eyes?”
“More or less,” she answered, earning herself another dark look from her boss.
I shrugged in confusion. “Why are you so afraid of Tabitha?”
My question appeared to strike a nerve.
Marinette hesitated in her driving, and Arnval regarded me with a hard stare.
“I’m not afraid of Tabitha,” he declared, “but she is a complication.”
“Why?”
His face grew grim. “Because Hexaria has been playing a frustrating game of tit-for-tat with us for most of the morning.”
“Meaning what?”
His grim expression darkened. “Spartan and Libra have a network of trans-location beacons throughout the city. It allows operatives using machine avatars or portable beacons to hop all over the place. That was until this morning.”
“What happened this morning?”
“Hexaria decided to knock out our trans-location beacons. In return, Spartan has been locating her beacons and putting them out of commission. For now, we’re ahead. Seventeen beacons to thirteen. But finding them is proving difficult.” He pursed his lips unhappily before admitting, “And Renew missed the beacon Hexaria had planted in the dorm building…though it wasn’t for lack of trying.”
I gave him another confused shrug. “Why is she doing this? Is Tabitha picking a fight with you—with the Sanreals?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “She hasn’t engaged any of our people. She’s avoided them. But there’s no doubt she’s been playing with us. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s doing all this to distract us.”
“From what?”
“That’s a good question. What we do know is that House Cardinal has expressed an interest in you.”
“But I told you already—Tabitha said the Empress had labelled me off-limits.”
“That’s precisely why Hexaria’s antics are troubling. If you’re off limits, why go this far?”
Arnval was watching me, yet it seemed as though he was watching Erina as well.
That alone silenced me.
Taking that silence for an answer, he humphed to himself, then turned around and sat properly in his seat.
I sat back as well and considered what I’d learnt thus far.
However, in the corner of my eye, I noticed Erina contemplating Arnval with a silent, thoughtful mien.
Had she figured out what he’d left unsaid?
Knowing her, she was probably considering numerous possibilities far ahead of Arnval’s various trains of thought.
Nonetheless, it seemed safe to say that we’d all arrived at the same conclusion.
Tabitha wanted me, but to get me she first needed Erina.
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. Learning how to use Meta/Facebook ads better. If anyone has suggestions on how to promote this series, I would really appreciate. I remember there being a book reviewer who only reviewed gender-bender and transgender stories. I just can't remember her name now. It's been more than years since I submitted the original series to her.
I will continue to post the rest of this book while chapters remain.
A reminder that Book 1 of the newly reimagined & rebooted series, The Gun Princess Royale, is available for purchase or reading on Kindle Unlimited. More than two years of writing have gone into it. Please check it out. It's 873 pages so the sample for reading on Amazon is a whopping 87 pages.
A happy & safe 2024 to all of you.
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.
When Arnval turned away, all conversation within the suburban sharply died, and I didn’t feel like picking up where he left off. Thus, the cabin was shrouded in silence as Marinette deftly drove at high speed through the multilane traffic travelling down the I-16, an enormous tunnel that traversed the city from deep underground.
The rhythmic nature of the traffic around us was a signature sign that the vehicles were being operated by their onboard Assisting Intelligences, rather than by the humans sitting behind the steering wheel. In a way, so too was Marinette because she was following instructions that I occasionally glimpsed projected on the inside of her sunglasses.
It made me wonder to what extent our lives were influenced by the Assisting Intelligences and Artificial Awarenesses that kept the city running smoothly.
Maybe influenced wasn’t strong enough a word.
Should I say controlled instead?
And if I thought of it along those lines, how much of my present predicament was the result of some A.I. or smartass Awareness playing a game of chess with us as pieces on a board. Was something or someone out there running strategic simulations on how we would all react to a multitude of situations?
In that case, what was my role?
Was I a queen, a knight…or a pawn?
I frowned as I looked out my window and wondered if it wasn’t my role that was important but Mirai’s very existence.
In other words, how valuable was she to others?
I already knew she was important to Erina and House Sanreal, but was she worth all this trouble to House Cardinal?
My thoughts circled back to what Tabitha had told me back in the dormitory apartment.
House Cardinal believed Erina was in trouble and they were willing to offer her sanctuary from House Novis. But they also wanted me to compete for them in the Gun Princess Royale because Tabitha said I had the makings of a future Gun Empress.
Could I trust what she’d told me?
Based on recent events, trusting Tabitha was foolhardy.
It was like skating on thin ice.
Yet what if she’d spoken the truth?
Should I confront Erina and ask her if she had betrayed House Novis to the Empress in order to stop Clarisol from taking Mirai’s body for her own? And was House Novis truly thinking of taking their pound of flesh from my former sister?
I’d told Tabitha I didn’t care what the Sanreal Family did to Erina, yet that wasn’t true because a teensy, weensy part of me continued to feel a familial attachment to her. Thus, if Erina was indeed in trouble with House Novis could I abandon her to her fate, or could I protect her by accepting Tabitha’s offer?
Honestly, I didn’t know but considering what I’d endured as a result of Erina’s actions, I was a little surprised to find myself caring about what happened to her, and I saw this as a sign of weakness within me.
If Erina knew how I felt, she would probably laugh.
My eyes sharply narrowed as a dark thought scurried across my mind.
What if she does know? What if she’s relying on me to protect her when the time comes?
If that was true, then Erina was a bigger opportunist than I could have imagined. But it also meant that she knew me better than I knew myself.
In a solemn voice, Marinette lifted the shroud of silence within the cabin by announcing we were nearing our destination.
I focused my attention on what I could see out the windows as the large suburban powered out of the immense tunnel by driving up an inclined exit. Seconds later, we emerged back into daylight that was filtered at an angle between the city’s towering megascrapers. This gave the streets a striped appearance.
Marinette drove the suburban down a main street for a few hundred meters, then maneuvered over to the kerb by cutting across a handful of lanes, before slowing to turn into a side street.
Looking up at the buildings surrounding us, I tried to get my bearings.
Failing that, I anxiously cleared my throat before asking, “Where are we?”
I hate to admit it, but I sounded a lot more subdued than usual. Being burdened with more questions than answers was weighing heavily on me.
Surprisingly, Arnval sounded a little somber himself.
“Ring Three, District Eleven,” he replied as Marinette steered the suburban off the street and into a building’s side entrance. It was wide enough for heavy rigs to pass through and led into a large subterranean loading dock. The place was far from deserted, with workers and forklifts hurrying about as they loaded and unloaded numerous parked delivery trucks.
Marinette was unusually careful as she drove the car across the expansive loading area toward a set of garages located at one end of the dock.
She stopped in front of a garage, waited for the door to roll up, then parked the car inside.
After switching off the engine, she gave Arnval an expectant look. “We go?”
“We go,” Arnval agreed as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “Everybody out,” he commanded before climbing out of the big suburban.
Erina and Marinette exited the suburban quickly, but I hesitated before opening my door because Mirai’s nape tingled.
Maybe she was getting a bad vibe, but I had little choice but to get out of the car.
With a curt wave, Arnval gestured for us to follow him. “Move it. We don’t have much—”
He stopped sharply as a second black suburban almost ran him down as it thundered to a halt across the garage’s exit. Before he could yell at the driver, the passenger door was flung open and a young Simulacrum woman jumped out.
She circled around the front of the idling suburban as it rumbled like an impatient beast.
“New orders,” she reported while pointing at me. “We need her clothes.”
“Huh?” I gasped loudly and stared at her in confusion.
Arnval stood perplexed but a second later he snapped his fingers as though comprehending the method behind the madness.
He whirled around and instructed me in a clipped tone. “Change clothes with her.”
“What?” I gaped at him and the girl in turn. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious.”
Somewhere off to my left, I heard someone – probably Marinette – stifling her laughter.
It sparked a rebellious fire within me.
“Not happening,” I snapped.
Arnval strode up to me. “Listen to me because I’m only going to say this once.” He risked life and limb by poking Mirai’s chest. “We’re going to lead Hexaria across the city on a wild goose chase, and we’re going to use your uniform to do so.”
The penny dropped somewhere in the depths of my mind. “Oh….”
“Now strip and change clothes with her.”
Arnval pointed at the Simulacrum girl and she sheepishly waved back at me.
I ran my gaze over her a couple of times, hesitated over her bust, then remarked sourly, “Her clothes won’t fit me.”
I have to mention that the first place Arnval looked was down at Mirai’s chest.
“Hmm,” he murmured then turned to regard the Simulacrum girl who squeaked and covered her meagre bosom. “You’re right.”
“Yep, your plan’s a bust. Pun intended.”
“Oh really?” Arnval inspected Marinette’s appearance for a second before coming to a decision. “Change with her.”
“What?”
I looked at Marinette who’d been hiding her smile behind a palm.
She stopped smiling in a hurry. “Excuse me?”
“Strip and change with her,” Arnval said. “Hurry, before Hexaria gets here.”
Marinette grew rigid for a moment before she wilted. “As you wish.” Exhaling loudly, she then waved at the open garage door. “Everybody out.”
Arnval backed away and Erina hurried out of the garage.
Marinette then walked over to a big red push button mounted to the wall beside the entrance. When she slapped it hard, the roller door came down automatically, sealing her and I inside the garage. Weak lighting from overhead strip lights spared us from having to change our clothes in the dark. She undressed behind the suburban, but I chose to strip out of my uniform by hiding beside the vehicle.
My whole body trembled.
I was embarrassed while also exceedingly nervous.
Marinette was a Simulacrum, but she was nonetheless a pretty brunette with shoulder length auburn hair, and I soon discovered she had an abundant chest as well.
She came into view when she rounded the back of the suburban, carrying her clothes in a neat bundle, including her low-heeled boots.
At sight of her naked body, I cried out and dropped my clothes as I slapped my hands over my eyes.
That earned me a stifled laugh from Marinette. “We’re both girls you know.”
No, we are NOT! Definitely NOT!
Then realizing I was naked as well, I hurriedly squatted and turned away from her. “Just leave the clothes there,” I bade her in a trembling voice.
“Oh, brother,” she breathed out. “Here. And I’ll take these—oh, you are a big girl…”
I flushed hotly knowing full well she was referring to Mirai’s bountiful chest.
“Can you just go now!” I hissed at her while feeling my cheeks and neck burn from embarrassment.
“If you don’t hurry, I’ll open the door.”
In a panic, I stopped covering my eyes and glared at her. “Don’t you dare—ah!”
Marinette was getting in dressed in full view of me.
Forgetting myself, I stared at her in awe of her smooth, alabaster skin and slim body.
Wow….
I couldn’t disagree with Arnval.
She does have a big bust.
“I’m opening that door soon,” she warned me.
I choked in fright that quickly turned into panic. Grabbing the bundle of her clothes that she’d deposited on the ground beside me, I turned my back to her, then fumbled with the unfamiliar outfit.
I can’t believe I’m doing this! This is all Tabitha’s fault!
Dark thoughts ran through my head as I pictured what I’d do to Tabitha if and when I got my hands on her.
To my relief, Marinette wore a white sports bra. That made it easier for me to slip Mirai’s bosom into it though her breasts stretched the material to its limits. After that came the white, high cut, hipster briefs, followed by the white blouse and dark business suit. Mirai was a little taller than Marinette so the trouser legs felt marginally short, but otherwise the suit – with its peaked lapel and feminine cut – was a very close fit.
Then came the ankle boots.
Slipping Mirai’s feet into them, I found myself standing on a two-inch heel that tested my balance. I had to take a few cautious practice steps to get a feel for walking in the unfamiliar boots.
Standing nearby, Marinette suggested I straighten my back when walking. “Push out your chest a little more and pull your shoulders back. It’ll help you balance.”
I followed her advice, though I felt overly self-conscious under her gaze.
She nodded very faintly before smiling in admiration. “You look good.”
That was all I needed to hear.
Blushing red, I glared at her but was distracted by a loud banging on the garage’s metal door.
From outside, Arnval demanded to know, “What’s the hold up?”
Dressed in my Telos Academy uniform, Marinette skipped over to the door’s control button, then gave it hard slap.
As the door spooled upwards, I felt like I was standing on a stage with the curtain being raised, revealing me to an impatient audience.
There was a long moment of stunned silence as I was stared at by Arnval, Erina, and the young Simulacrum woman.
However, their attention quickly shifted onto Marinette when she asked, “What do you think?” She then surprised everyone by striking a girlish pose. “Do I look like a high school senior?”
Upon hearing that, the trio scrutinized her a little more closely. Soon, they were nodding to themselves in admiration before trading mysterious looks.
“What do you think?” Erina asked. “Could she do it?”
“I think she looks good,” the young woman replied. “Very believable as a high school girl.”
As for Arnval, he thoughtfully stroked his chin. “I’ll admit, she’s a head turner.”
Erina and the young woman gave him dark looks that he promptly noticed.
“What?” he asked.
My former sister narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s your assessment of her? That she’s a head turner.”
“Do you disagree?”
“That’s not the point we were trying to make.”
“I’m fully aware of what you were trying to say.”
Marinette slowly raised a hand. “Excuse me…I was joking.”
However, her remark was taken seriously by Erina. “Her believability as a high school girl is something worth considering. Especially now that Isabel will soon be attending school.”
Arnval nodded in agreement. “We’ll need discuss it later.”
Marinette shook her head. “No, really. I was just joking.”
“And I said we’ll talk about it later.”
She raised both hands as though warding him away. “Boss, seriously. I’m too old to be a high school girl. I mean, just look at me.”
I frowned weakly at her. “Actually, you look a lot younger than Erina.”
“What was that?” Erina fumed at me.
I sneered faintly at her. “I said, she looks a lot younger than you. She can easily pass for a high school senior.”
As Erina glared hotly at me, Marinette grew pale and started edging out of the garage as though intending to escape.
Unfortunately for her, Arnval grabbed her by the arm before she could flee.
“Come on,” he growled. “We’ve wasted enough time here.”
He pulled her toward the rumbling suburban awaiting nearby.
“Wait,” she protested. “I can’t drive in these shoes.”
“You won’t be driving. You’ll be sitting in the back.”
Opening a rear passenger door, Arnval hustled Marinette into the backseat, while the other Simulacrum woman resumed riding shotgun up front.
“Hold on,” Marinette objected. “I’m not accustomed to being a passenger.”
“It’ll be safer for them if you don’t drive.”
“But my hair is too short.”
“The windows are tinted.”
“But Lady Isabel’s breasts are much bigger than mine.”
Arnval leaned close to her. “Do you seriously think Hexaria will notice?”
“Maybe? I don’t know! But still—”
“Mari!”
He cut her off sharply, eliciting a surprised squeak from Marinette. “Y—Yes?”
Despite standing some distance behind him, I could clearly hear the concern in his voice. “Watch yourself out there. Hexaria is—”
“—unpredictable,” Marinette agreed in a suddenly somber tone, but then smiled confidently up at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll be careful. Besides, we have Raine covering us from above. And we have the rest of Spartan watching our backs.”
That may have reassured Arnval.
I couldn’t see his face from where I was standing, but I saw him nod at her before he firmly closed the passenger door.
Through the tinted window, I watched Marinette’s faint silhouette wave goodbye as the suburban backed up a few feet. The boxy vehicle then executed a tight, three-quarter turn before racing out of the loading bay. It narrowly avoided a delivery truck that was nosing into the entrance and soon roared out of sight.
Leaning sideways for a better look at Arnval, I noticed his jaw muscles twitching after he’d witnessed the near miss.
I couldn’t stop myself from needling him. “Didn’t you say they’d be safer if she wasn’t driving?”
Clearly not amused, Arnval inhaled loudly as he regarded me over a shoulder. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Just follow me,” he gruffly replied before marching swiftly toward the back of the loading bay.
I snickered as I watched him walk away but was distracted when I noticed Erina quietly appraising me. “What? If you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”
“The clothes do make the woman,” she observed. “You make quite the lovely young lady…when your mouth is shut.”
At first, I blushed in embarrassment, then my cheeks grew hot with anger.
However, I decided not to lash out at her.
Why? Because I felt that somehow I just had to break free of that vicious cycle.
Getting angry at Erina wasn’t doing me any good.
That’s the short answer.
I’ll save the long answer for another time.
However, having said all that, I couldn’t restrain myself from sniping at her. “Are you telling me that I have a future in private security—?”
As soon as the words left my lips, I experienced an epiphany that felt like warm sunlight on a winter’s day.
“That it!” I cried out.
“That’s what?” Erina questioned me.
“I can be Mercy’s bodyguard!” I clapped my hands over Mirai’s chest. “Even better—I can be Mercy’s double and keep her safe from her raving fans!”
Erina appeared deeply skeptical. “You get anxiety attacks in a crowd, and you’re going to protect Mercy Haddaway?”
My elation cracked and crumbled.
Damn it…she has a point, I grudgingly admitted then flinched sharply when Arnval suddenly appeared before me.
“If you two are done discussing career choices—let’s go!”
And with that, he again stormed off to the back of the loading bay.
Erina took a deep breath, and then shook her head while briefly closing her eyes. “Come on before he decides to come back.”
As she walked after Arnval, I remembered the roller door was up. Ducking into the garage, I slapped the push button against the wall, then hurried out as the door came down.
I jogged lightly after Erina and almost twisted an ankle in the process. Catching myself at the last moment, I regained my balance then walked, rather than ran, after my former sister.
Falling into step beside her, I curiously asked, “So where are we? What is this place?”
“My guess, it’s a subsidiary of the Telos Corporation.” Erina walked a little faster and beckoned me to hurry. “We’re being left behind.”
Arnval had arrived at the elevated rear of the loading bay.
While there were no trucks on the high ground, numerous forklifts zipped about as they ferried cargo pallets between storerooms and waiting vehicles.
I kept a close eye on my surroundings lest I find myself swept up in the frantic ballet of men and machines going about their business.
We caught up to Arnval as he neared a wide swing door at the back of the loading dock.
From within his trench coat, he produced a security card that he used to unlock the door. Yanking it open, he revealed a wide corridor that he quickly strode into.
It surprised me a little that he wasn’t waiting for us. Instead, he charged on ahead without sparing us a glance.
Jeezes, what’s the rush? I grumbled at his back.
Erina hesitated for a moment before following in his heavy footsteps, her heels clacking loudly on the permacrete underfoot.
I also faltered at the doorway.
Swallowing hard, I stared with uncertainty into the maintenance corridor because it reminded me of when Ghost had guided me through the depths of the Sanreal Crest. At the end of that journey, I came face to face with Mirai’s immense Sarcophagi, but what awaited me on this occasion?
Ghost spoke reassuringly into my ears. “Princess, it will be fine.”
I was a little surprised to hear from him.
He’d been silent throughout the wild car ride.
Then again, he had a habit of popping up at moments like these.
Whenever I needed a gentle nudge, I’d find Ghost either beside me or at my back.
“Why should I believe that?” I whispered to him.
Honestly, I appreciated his support, and I did find comfort in his presence, but my suspicious nature viewed it more like coercion.
“Because I promised not to lie to you.”
The doubtful look on my face was at odds with my reply. “…fine, I trust you….”
After I stepped into the maintenance corridor, I closed the swing door behind me, then once again risked jogging in pursuit of Arnval and Erina, catching up to them a short while later.
Arnval led the way as though he knew where he was going, making turns at intersections with nary a thought.
I had to admit, the urgency he betrayed was beginning to unsettle me to the extent that I expected to go around a corner and come face to face with Tabitha. Thus, I was fairly relieved when he stopped and used his security card to unlock a door midway down a corridor. Pulling it open, he then urged us all inside.
I was last through the door, closing it behind me as I stepped into a large, squarish, and very empty room with pale white light radiating from the ceiling.
The anxiety I’d been harboring abruptly eased, replaced with a stark bewilderment.
Standing with arms akimbo, I gave Arnval a perplexed look. “Where’s the treasure?”
From his trench coat, he’d retrieved something that resembled a holovid player’s remote. He was fiddling with it when my remark caught him off guard.
“What?” he brusquely asked.
I waved a hand about. “Why the empty room?”
He stared at me for a moment, then resumed operating the remote in his left hand.
Unhappy at being ignored, I crossed my arms and started to glare at him.
However, Arnval belatedly explained, “The less clutter the better when translocating.”
“We’re jumping?” My surprise quickly soured. “Oh wonderful. I just love feeling like toothpaste being squeezed out the bottle.”
Arnval ignored my complaint, but Erina looked visibly bleak at the news.
I knew she was afraid of flying, but she appeared equally unenthusiastic about translocating.
Seeing her like this, she was a tempting target for the smartass in me.
“Did you bring your barf bag?” I asked her.
She inhaled loudly before grumbling, “I don’t suffer from motion sickness.”
“Oh, sure you don’t,” I mocked her, then suggested, “Why not cover your eyes and count to ten?”
Arnval glanced thoughtfully at Erina.
I couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking, and for some reason I remembered what Tabitha had said back in the apartment.
Her warning that House Novis suspected Erina of betrayal crossed my mind.
After that, I couldn’t deny that the look Arnval gave Erina made me uneasy.
Swallowing quietly, I watched him continue fiddling with the remote. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t reply, but a heartbeat later, a projecbeam window about the size of an A5 sheet of paper appeared above the device in his hands.
It displayed something akin to a scrollable map with a few red dots scattered across its surface.
This prompted me to ask, “What is that?”
Erina gave me a distracted glance as Arnval grudgingly answered, “It’s a means of locking onto the beacon at our destination. There’s a beacon located beneath this room. That serves as a point of origin. But we need to tell the translocation engine where we want to go.”
Translocation engine?
I bit my lower lip nervously as I watched the scrolling map center on a red dot in the middle of a blue ocean. “So then where are we going?”
“The only place we can go until your troubles with House Cardinal blow over.” Arnval pressed a couple of buttons, then quietly announced, “We’re locked in.”
Hearing the announcement, Erina looked displeased as she folded her arms across her chest.
Was it because she knew where we were going? Or was it the imminent translocation that had her feathers ruffled?
While mulling that over, I suddenly remembered what I’d meant to ask Arnval back in the car. “Wait a minute. Where’s Straus?”
Arnval’s thumb hovered over a big green button on the remote. “With any luck, she should be there already.”
“And where is there?”
“You’re about to find out.”
With that, he mashed down on the button.
Having experienced a few translocations in as many days, I swallowed anxiously as I knew what to expect. But that didn’t make the familiar, disagreeable, and unwelcome sensation that swept over me any easier to stomach. In fact, the combination of disorienting weightlessness and pitch-black darkness that swallowed the room threatened to upend my guts. I clamped down on them, and took deep, even breaths as the weightless feeling transmuted into the impression that I was perpetually falling into a bottomless abyss.
That didn’t last long, and soon I felt like I was being squeezed through a garden hose.
Unable to breathe, I kept my eyes wide open.
Mirai’s wetware told me the experience lasted only seconds, yet it felt like a minute before I was funneled out into bright sunlight.
Blinded, I reflexively shut my eyes, but then quickly realized something was wrong.
The translocation process had ended but I was again experiencing a freefall.
With a roaring wind in my ears, and my clothes plastered to my body, there was no denying something was seriously amiss.
What the Hell is going on?
Prying my eyes open, I struggled to look around me.
The sight of Erina and Arnval swimming helplessly in the air almost gave me a seizure.
However, when I looked below me, I instantly regretted opening my eyes.
WHAT THE FREK?
A palatial villa surrounded by acres of lush, verdant garden was rushing up to meet us.
Or rather, we were falling toward it.
Actually, we were headed for a watery landing in an immense swimming pool the size of a small lagoon.
In freefall beside me, Erina screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Arnval, you ass—!”
Then we splashed into the pool’s crystal blue waters.
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. Learning how to use Meta/Facebook ads better. If anyone has suggestions on how to promote this series, I would really appreciate. I remember there being a book reviewer who only reviewed gender-bender and transgender stories. I just can't remember her name now. It's been more than years since I submitted the original series to her.
I will continue to post the rest of this book while chapters remain.
A reminder that Book 1 of the newly reimagined & rebooted series, The Gun Princess Royale, is available for purchase or reading on Kindle Unlimited. More than two years of writing have gone into it. Please check it out. It's 873 pages so the sample for reading on Amazon is a whopping 87 pages.
A happy & safe 2024 to all of you.
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.
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 was released in 2023 and is available on Amazon KDP. Over two years in the making and how I should have written the story. Please check it out on Amazon KDP or Kindle Unlimited. 873 pages.
Taking a deep breath, I blew away the soap bubbles drifting in front of me.
I should have realized she was up to something.
The small cloud of bubbles drifted into the air before floating back down.
She agreed way to easily to my demands.
They landed gently on the thick layer of soap bubbles coating the surface of the water.
I should have guessed she wasn’t going to play fair.
With a soft groan, I sunk up to my chin in the scented water.
But what was I supposed to do? I really didn’t have much of a choice.
Annoyed, I tipped my head back and then stared up at the ceiling.
Besides, they’d never understand why I didn’t want to take a bath.
The bathroom was obscenely large, easily four-fold the size of my former dormitory apartment, all because it had to fit a bathtub that could double as a small swimming pool.
Honestly, I could do laps in it, and right now it was filled almost to the brim with very warm water coated in a thick layer of scented bubbles that had the entire room smelling of vanilla and strawberries.
Damn it. It’s making me crave ice-cream or a jumbo-sized parfait.
My eyes widened in a sudden panic.
Wait, wait, wait—only girls eat parfaits!
My hands shot up out of the water and I grabbed my head.
No! That’s just me being sexist. There are plenty of guys who indulge themselves in a pretty, pink parfait.
I sat up in the tub, but it was so deep that only my head, shoulders, and the tops of Mirai’s breasts were exposed.
What am I thinking? What is wrong with me?
Grinding my molars together I slapped myself twice.
“Come on, Isabel! Get a grip!”
I slapped myself again, then yelped.
“Damn it, that hurt—ah!”
A sudden realization made me cry out in a brief panic.
“That’s it! This is part of their master plan!”
Leaning back against the smooth, contoured end of the pool, I regarded the corner where the ceiling met the wall farthest from me.
“Why didn’t I realize it before…?”
I’d done my damnedest to build up a wall around me, one that I hoped would protect me from lowering my guard whenever I was shown a modicum of respect and goodwill. It was there to keep me from making the mistake of trusting or accepting someone too easily. So perhaps this was nothing more than Fatina’s attempt to soften me up before I met the ruler of House Novis, Phelan Sanreal. And yet, it felt like such an odd stunt to pull before meeting him that I had to wonder if something else was afoot.
Was there something more subversive at work here?
Was this how the Sanreals were planning to elicit my cooperation, by smothering me in wanton luxury? By seducing me with their wealth and money? By appealing to my vanity—though I wasn’t sure if I was sufficiently vain for that to work.
Yet an old saying came to mind: Every man has his price.
I frowned as my gaze drifted up to the ceiling.
But what about a woman?
My frown deepened as I grew troubled.
Okay. So, if I’m something of a mixed bag then what’s my price?
My gaze drifted over the outlines of the swirling, flowery patterns engraved into the ceiling.
I’d honestly like to say I don’t have a price…
The warm water and steamy scented air were eroding my efforts to remain awake. Coupled with the stress and exhaustion I’d incurred at the hands of Erina, Tabitha, Straus, Arnval, and the maid from Hell – Fatina – it was becoming a real struggle to keep my eyes open.
…but the problem is that I can get used to this…
Little by little, my eyes began to close as each successive blink grew longer.
…and all this running around…is really wearing me out….
Eventually, my eyelids closed shut and I drifted into slumber.
- # -
So how did I end up taking the aforementioned bath?
Well, it was because that damned head maid exploited my Achilles Heel.
It was the one chink in my stubborn armor that only an equally stubborn arrow could penetrate.
You may already know what I’m alluding to, but I’ll tell you anyway.
With Mirai’s preternatural abilities, it’s hard to ambush me. For example, if I concentrate my vision on my surroundings, I can see the aura of living beings faintly through walls. Because I happened to be using this ability at the time, I wasn’t taken by surprise by the dozen or more maids lying in wait for me inside the living area of the luxurious suite I’d been allocated on the second floor of the palatial villa.
At the time, I wasn’t certain they were maids, but from their aura alone I recognized them as Simulacra, and something about the way their lifeforce radiated made me suspect they were female. I honestly couldn’t put a finger to the reason, other than to say it was something that I understood on an instinctual level.
The first maid to come flying at me made a dull whump sound when she rebounded off a nearby wall that I tossed her into.
She promptly collapsed unconscious on the floor.
The second maid screamed in pain when I grabbed her by the back of her head, and then slammed her forehead into another wall, knocking her equally unconscious.
The third maid I sent careening into a living room sofa. She tumbled over it, her skirts fluttering and her shoes kicking the air before she disappeared behind it.
Mind you, I did glimpse her white panties as she went over.
With three of their comrades down, the remaining dozen maids got serious, and swiftly drew their weapons.
I suddenly faced an assortment of handguns, stun guns, stun batons, a telescoping cattle prod, a battle flail…and a broom.
At sight of their arsenal, my Awareness kicked in its afterburners and accelerated into an overclocked state.
Honestly, I was shocked – no pun intended – at the nature of the weapons they had been hiding in their dresses. The saying ‘more than meets the eye’ was a clear understatement when applied to these maids. And yet, I was most concerned about the broom. Compared to the other weapons it was an incongruous choice, and thus demanded the most attention.
As the maids fanned out, I dropped into a defensive crouch.
However, before the situation could escalate into an all-out melee, Fatina blew a loud whistle while standing a safe distance behind her girls.
Clapping her hands, she forcefully announced, “Abort. Abort. All of you stand down.”
A collective ‘Eh’ went up from the maids, but none of them relinquished or withdrew their weapons. In that respect, they reminded me of Arnval’s security people. They had trouble following orders as well. Was it a common trait of the House Novis Simulacra?
“I’m declaring Plan-A a failure,” Fatina stated firmly. “We’re switching to Plan-B.”
Glaring at her past the maids standing in front of me, I angrily asked, “What the Hell are you trying to do?”
“To ensure you take the bubble bath we’ve prepared for you.”
My head jerked back in disbelief. “The bubble bath?”
“Correct.”
“You had them attack me because of a bubble bath?”
“Correct again. However, Plan-A failed so we are now employing Plan-B.”
Mirai’s intuition was telling me that I could be in trouble…and I agreed. “So what’s Plan-B?”
The maids stepped aside, making way for Fatina as approached me.
She stopped well out of my reach, and from her apron’s pocket, she retrieved a slim rectangular package that she held up for me to see.
“This is Plan-B.”
Recognizing it as a holovid case, I soon bellowed a loud gasp when I saw the cover.
“…it can’t be….”
“But it is,” Fatina asserted. “Only a hundred were ever released. A limited-edition holovid and projecbeam production chronicling the making of her bestselling album, and it includes the raw, unedited ‘A Day in the Life of Mercy Haddaway’. It was released when her career was at its peak and only available to the first hundred buyers.”
“Hey, take that back,” I demanded. “Her career hasn’t peaked yet!”
“Oh, really?” She goaded me with a smirk. “Her merchandise sales are down seven percent this year compared to last year. And she’s fallen from third place to fourth place in the popularity rankings.”
“She’s still got steam in her. Don’t count her chickens yet!”
“Regardless. Her career has passed its zenith.” Fatina held the rectangular case a little higher. “This little item was purchased on an online auction. Master Sanreal fetched it for a hefty price.”
“How—how much?”
“It’s best that you don’t know.”
I swallowed loudly and then cautiously asked, “Why would he do that?”
“Do you really need to ask? Are you not a Mercy Haddaway fan?”
I swallowed again as an unpleasant sensation of déjà vu swirled in my chest. “So why are you showing me that?”
“Because if you take a bath, like a lady should, then you get to keep this. Consider it both a bribe and a gift from your…father.”
Confronted by the unexpected carrot Fatina was dangling before me, my defensive stance began to weaken, so too my determination not to capitulate, prompting me to question her sincerity.
“How do I know you’re not lying? How can I trust you?”
“That’s not the question you should be asking.” She waved the case at me. “The question you should be asking yourself is, ‘Do I want this or not’?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I could just take it from you.”
Fatina arched an eyebrow at me. “Is that what you think?”
She opened the slim case to reveal it was empty inside – the photronic card containing a petabyte of data was missing.
That figures.
Fatina smiled confidently at me. “Take the bath, and you’ll get what you desire.”
What I desire? Is that what you think I desire? How little do you understand me….
Telling her what I truly desired would be a waste of time because she wasn’t in a position to grant my wish.
However, I recognized what the Sanreals were offering me.
It wasn’t just an extremely limited piece of Mercy Haddaway’s gravure existence.
It was an olive branch that came with strings attached.
At least, that’s what I suspected.
As the saying goes, time would tell if I was wrong or not.
- # -
Thus, I chose to accept the offer and took the bubble bath the maid platoon had prepared for me in the swimming pool sized tub.
For the time being, I would play along.
If the Sanreals believed they could use my obsession with Mercy Haddaway to play me like a fiddle, then so be it. I’d string them along as they were stringing me and gain important items to add to my collection that I was starting anew since my existing collection of Mercy memorabilia belonged to Ronin Kassius.
That pained me, and I sank deeper into the water.
Who am I kidding? I gave into my obsession. Those bastards know me too well.
I felt like grabbing my head again, but instead blew bubbles just below the water’s surface.
I’m so tired of all this crap…tired of all these weirdos messing up my life…tired of being manipulated…tired of being told Mercy Haddaway is past her prime…give me back my delusions…give me back my peaceful life…give me back my old life….
Arnval’s face with its taunting smile and amused eyes appeared uninvited behind my closed eyelids.
Annoyed, I wondered why I was thinking of him now, while grudgingly conceding he was a new problem I needed to contend with.
I’m going to wipe that smile off his face.
His expression was an open challenge, but I didn’t believe I was ready to fight him yet.
No, there was too much I didn’t know or understand about this body – about Mirai.
She was still a veritable mystery.
I had moved pretty well back at the parkland, but I needed to know why that was possible. What kind of training did Mirai’s body possess, and how had she been trained? Ghost had said she’d been imprinted but who’s imprinting did it belong to?
Those were just a few of the questions that I wanted answered.
The ancient adage of knowing yourself and knowing your enemy such that you won’t fear a hundred battles could be twisted to suit my situation. Before I knew my enemy, I needed to understand myself because stepping onto the battlefield without preparation was to invite defeat.
With that understanding in mind, I realized that I had all but accepted that Arnval and I would fight. It didn’t mean I was willing to fight him. Rather, I was resigned to fight him, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. But Arnval was an unexpected and unpleasant obstacle that had popped up, and the only way to get past him was to give him the battle he wanted and resoundingly defeat him.
As such, our reasons for fighting couldn’t be more different.
Arnval desired pitting himself against me.
I was going to fight him simply because he was standing in my way. Thus, it had practically nothing to do with the translocation fiasco that had nearly cost Erina her life. Nor did it have anything to do with him pulling that gun on me back at the park.
Instead, our inevitable duel would have all the depth and meaning of a schoolyard bout.
How pathetic.
I snorted softly under my breath.
Is this my true nature?
After so many years avoiding the spotlight and not drawing attention to myself so that I could live a relatively peaceful, uneventful school life, was I now revealing my true colors?
Was resorting to violence the only way I knew how to deal with problems?
Was I nothing more than a bully?
I didn’t know how to deal with situations the way Straus had suggested. I honestly couldn’t do passive aggressive. So how was I supposed to handle Arnval, Fatina, and the Sanreals?
“…princess…Princess…Princess…wake up now, please….”
My eyelids fluttered open, but I had some difficulty keeping them open, and my eyes had trouble focusing.
Had I fallen asleep?
Noticing someone to my right beside the pool – I mean bathtub – my heart jumped into my throat. Then I saw that it was Ghost dressed in a butler’s suit, complete with a neatly folded hand towel over one arm. His projection into my mind was so realistic, even the way I had trouble bringing him into focus, that it made me shiver uneasily.
“Princess, if you fall asleep in the bathwater, you may catch a cold.”
Had he noticed my shiver?
I had to wonder if he was watching me from the outside despite projecting himself into my mind from the inside of my head. If true, it implied he’d hacked into the bathroom’s surveillance cameras and was using them to observe me.
If that wasn’t enough to warrant me hurriedly crossing my arms over my breasts and sinking into the water up to my eyeballs, then I don’t know what was.
From underwater, I yelled at him, “What the Hell are you doing here? Are you a pervert?”
At least, that’s what I wanted to yell, but it was garbled and muffled by the water.
Unsurprisingly, Ghost understood me. “I came to see if you wanted to talk?”
While glaring at him, I felt a frown crinkle my brow.
“Talk?” I bubbled.
“Indeed.”
I raised my head until my mouth was out of the water, then pointedly swept my gaze over the luxurious bathroom. “Is it safe…?”
Ghost bowed his head slightly. “I have infiltrated the bathroom’s surveillance systems. We have a few minutes at least before they notice the anomaly in the system and respond to it.”
My suspicion was on the money.
With it confirmed, I glanced at the bathwater.
The surface was still covered in bubbles, and though they had lost much of their volume, I decided that for the moment my modesty was safe.
I nonetheless remained submerged up to my chin as I eyed Ghost with open suspicion. “Don’t you dare peek.”
“I assure you, Princess. I would do no such thing.”
“As if I’d trust you. You’re a guy. I’m a guy. I know my kind all too well.”
Ghost arched his eyebrows at me. “Indeed, one could say your perspective is unique. Do you know the story of Tiresias?”
I shook my head.
Ghost nodded thoughtfully. “I suggest you look him up.”
“Why? Who was he?”
“According to ancient Greek mythology, he was a blind prophet of Apollo who was turned into a woman for a period of seven years. Afterwards he returned to be a man, though his life was tragic.”
“He was blind as a woman?”
“No, he was blinded after regaining his masculinity.”
I couldn’t help but frown up at him. “Why? I mean how?”
Ghost sighed. “Well, accounts vary but one popular theory is that he was the victim of an argument between the gods.”
I hesitated before asking, “What was the argument about?”
“Who enjoys sex more? A man or a woman?”
“Eh?”
“His sorry tale does make for interesting reading.”
I wasn’t so convinced, and decided not to take Ghost’s word for it, but I will admit that I was intrigued. Usually there was a moral to be found in the stories surrounding ancient myths. Would I find something pertinent to me in the story of this Tiresias?
Holding onto my frown, I realized Ghost’s conversational side trip had settled my state of mind a little. That didn’t mean I was entirely comfortable with him standing beside the bathtub, but I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it. However, as I moved my body and sat a little higher in the bathtub, I made request of him.
“Okay. I guess I do have a few questions for you.” Lifting a hand out of the water, I twirled a finger in a circle. “But could you turn around, please.”
Ghost expressed a hint of confusion in his eyes. “Princess?”
“I’d feel more comfortable if you turned around.”
“Ah, I see. If it helps, I can”—he snapped the fingers of his free hand—“disappear.”
“No, no. Don’t do that.” I twirled my hand again. “Just turn around. I know that you can see me anyway, so it won’t make a difference, but I still feel more comfortable seeing you face the other way.”
Ghost considered me with a thoughtful look, then nodded before acceding to my request. “As you wish, Princess.”
I resumed covering my breasts with both my hands and arms. “You probably think I’m weird.” I chuckled bitterly. “I’m a boy in a girl’s body. I shouldn’t care if you see me. I mean, guys don’t care if they see each other naked, right.”
“Not at all, Princess. It is quite all right.”
“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t care, but for some reason I do.” I stared at the water for a while before looking up at Ghost. “Do you know that back at the dorm when I put on the Telos Academy uniform, I kept my eyes closed most of the time.” I chuckled softly but anyone could have heard how pitiful I sounded. “I—I couldn’t even look at myself, and I made sure I was facing away from the mirror above the vanity.” A shiver ran down my back and I stared down at the water. “Erina really did a number on me. I’m totally messed up.”
“On the contrary. Considering all you have endured of late, you are doing remarkably well.”
My feelings soured in a heartbeat, and I threw him a sullen glance. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Ghost was quiet for a short while before speaking again. “Princess, may I remind you of what you said to me aboard the Sanreal Crest?”
I shook my head weakly. “What did I say…?”
“That you had chosen to move forward. That you would live as Isabel and fight as Mirai.”
I stiffened slightly as I regarded the multicolor bubbles covering the water above my body. “I did say that, didn’t I….”
“Perhaps it is not as easy as it sounds.”
His remark pricked at me, but I couldn’t disagree with him. “That’s true.”
“However, was it a lie?”
This time his words stabbed me, and so I snapped at him, “No, it wasn’t a lie.”
“Have you changed your mind since then?”
I started to shake my head but then stopped. “That’s not it.”
Ghost turned slightly to peer at me over a shoulder. “Then what is it?”
I didn’t give him an answer right away. That was because I had trouble voicing the reason why I was having doubts about my decision back aboard the superyacht.
“Princess?”
I took a deep breath, and felt Mirai’s large breasts rise and fall, buoyed by the water. “Because it means giving up.”
“Giving up?”
I nodded gently while staring at the bubbles blanketing the water. “Giving up on any chance of going back.”
“Going back to your life as a boy?”
I met his gaze. “Yes.”
Studying me over his shoulder, Ghost pursed his lips into a thin line before reminding me, “Princess, that is not possible. The longer your mind spends in that body, in that brain, the more you will adapt to being female—”
“I know!” I bent my legs and tucked my knees against Mirai’s bosom. “I know. I know that…I know that….” Clenching my hands, I rubbed the heels of my palms into my eyes. “I know….”
I felt tears well up in my eyes, so I squeezed them shut while continuing to press my palms into them.
“…it just…really sucks…really frekking sucks….”
Even if time was ticking along, and my opportunity to talk to Ghost and gain answers to the questions I had was slipping away, I couldn’t bring myself to ask them because at the moment they didn’t feel important anymore.
I was awash with intense feelings of regret and denial, but burning resentment clamped around my chest, making it hard to breathe and impossible to talk. Thus constricted, I couldn’t bring myself to say or do anything but huddle up against the back of the bathtub, and quietly sob.
“Princess, I understand this is hard for you. I imagine that in your position, I would feel the same. But you must see this through. Do not be anchored to the past. See this as an opportunity to—”
“To what?” I yelled at him as I lowered my hands away from my tear-streaked face. “To what, Ghost? To live as a girl. To accept that I’m now a girl! That I have no choice but to be Isabel and Mirai!”
Ghost’s expression reflected momentary surprise before he calmly replied, “Yes. To be Isabel val Sanreal. To be the Gun Princess Mirai. To live as a girl and much more. To accept what you are now and move on. To keep your promise to me.”
I clenched my jaw as I jumped to my feet, splashing water out of the bathtub without regard. Despite past assertions, I was angry enough not to care that I was standing naked before him. “I never promised you that.”
“Well, it sounded like a promise to me. You said it yourself back in Ar Telica. You cannot go back. You can only go forward. But you have a choice to make. You can either fight what you are and inevitably drive yourself into a ditch. Or you can accept it and make new opportunities for yourself.”
My arms trembled as my anger and resentment bubbled and frothed within me.
“Frek you,” I hissed at him.
Ghost met my glare with stoic calm. “What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid? I’m not afraid of anything!” I screamed at him and kicked the bathwater in his direction, but it passed right through his body “You piece of shit! Get a body so I can punch you—you frekking asshole!” I kicked more water at him even though it was pointless. “Face me like a real man would!”
“Is that what it will take?”
I stopped in mid-kick and had to recover my balance in a hurry. “What?”
“Is that what it will take to have you accept reality? If you can kick and punch me, will that shake some sense into you?”
Rage continued to make my body tremble, but I wasn’t lashing out anymore, though my self-control was paper thin.
Ghost crossed his arms without dropping the hand towel he carried. “I am waiting for an answer.”
I sucked in air through clenched teeth. “Are you calling me a coward?”
“Pardon me?”
“Is that what you’re saying? Is that what you’re implying?” I dipped my chin at him. “Are you saying that I’m afraid of being a girl?”
“You are jumping to conclusions.”
“Am I wrong? Stop mincing words and give me an answer.”
“I have never thought of you as a coward.”
I nodded tersely. “That’s good because I’m not a coward.”
“Very well. Then what are you?”
“I am not a coward.”
“Then what are you.” Ghost raised his chin and looked down at me. “Or should I be asking, who are you?”
That was a very good question.
Who was I? Was I still Ronin? Was I Isabel? Or was I Mirai? Or was I all of the above – a composite entity and thereby an amalgamation of different people?
I flinched inwardly.
Was that what I was afraid of becoming? Was it the reason I couldn’t let go of my past despite claiming that I would? No, that wasn’t right. I never made that claim. I merely said that I’d accepted my past and would move forward. But I wasn’t moving forward at all because I hadn’t accepted the choice I’d made.
I was lying to myself and I was lying to the people around me.
Why? Because I believed there had to be another better option, and thus I couldn’t give up.
I refused to accept the situation was purely black or white.
But that didn’t answer Ghost’s question.
“I don’t know,” I admitted in a harsh, somewhat guttural whisper. “I don’t frekking know who I am….”
“Then perhaps that should be your goal. Determining who you are. Finding your true self.”
I shook my head. “No. My goal is going back.”
“And here we go again. Back to square one.” Ghost exhaled softly in evident disappointment. “Princess, you cannot return to that life that was never yours.”
“There has to be a way.”
“You are not Ronin Kassius. You have a copy of his mind, his memories, but you are not him. Ronin Kassius lies in a med capsule undergoing regeneration—a process that will take months to complete due to the extent of the injuries he sustained.” Ghost leaned a few centimeters toward me. “Or is it your intention to terminate him and somehow assume his identity?”
“Shut up.”
He sighed heavily as he straightened. “I expected more from you.”
“I said, shut up!” I strode through the water until I arrived at the edge of the bathtub closest to him. “I’m tired of hearing your sanctimonious crap. Speaking down to me like you know better!”
Ghost shook his head slowly. “Does this mean you are not going to listen to me?”
I glared up at him.
Truthfully, if I could throttle him, I would.
“Not if you’re going to say the same thing over and over again.”
“That is the kettle calling the pot black.”
“Oh, shut up!” I pointed at the bathroom’s exit. “And get out.”
“That is not how it works.”
“Then get the Hell out of my head.”
Ghost sighed again and almost sounded condescending. “Truly, Princess, you need to stop acting like a child.”
“I am a child. I’m sixteen years old. You can’t expect me to act like an adult.”
“You are a teenage girl, and I remind you that human females mature earlier than their male counterparts.”
“I am not a teenage girl.”
“Then what are you?” Again, he leaned toward me as though pressing me for an answer. “From where I am standing you look like a girl to me.”
“Only on the outside.”
Ghost blinked rapidly before sheepishly scratching a cheek. “Is that what you think?”
“Huh?” My eyes widened for a second then narrowed sharply. “Stop beating around the bush. If you’ve got something to say, then say it.”
“Does that mean you will listen to me?”
“I’ll hear you out this time!”
“Very well, Princess. No need to shout.”
I growled at him while trembling in anger. “Well, let’s hear it then.”
“According to your data, you are a girl on the outside…and the inside.”
Confusion shattered the glare on my face. “What was that?”
“It seems that your unique Ultra Grade Simulacrum body is a girl on the outside and the inside.”
Yeah, that’s what I thought he’d said.
Shivers broke out all over my body. “I’m a girl…on the inside…?”
“Correct, Princess.”
“No way….”
“Yes way.”
My stomach clenched painfully, and my heart beat anxiously in my chest.
I was almost too afraid to ask, “How…how much of a girl?”
“Be on your guard during Prom Night.”
I stopped shivering and grew rigid with shock. “You—you can’t be serious….”
“I am completely serious.”
At this my voice broke and crumbled to a whisper. “I…I can get pregnant…?”
“Well, that remains to be seen. Your body is fresh out of the maturation tank. However, according to your sister’s notes, it is highly likely that you will ultimately experience the monthly monster.”
It took several seconds for his words to sink into my consciousness.
Afterwards, I felt as though every string holding me upright was cut at once.
My legs lost their strength and I fell back into the bathtub with a big splash that spilled water over its rim. The impact jarred my spine and numbed my butt, yet it failed to jolt my awareness free of the abject disbelief running rampant inside my head.
“…what kind of body is this…?”
I heard myself ask the question, yet it sounded as though it came from someone else.
Then I looked down at Mirai’s large breasts bobbing in the water.
“…what the Hell kind of body did Erina make…?”
A short while later, I listened to Ghost’s solemn reply. “An Ultra-Grade Simulacrum of the highest caliber. And a girl to boot.”
Under different circumstances I may have glared daggers at him. But sitting spread-eagled in the bathtub, and with water lapping the tops of my breasts, all I managed was to gape at him in a stupor before closing my mouth with an audible clack.
In one fell swoop, all the fiery fight had been doused from my body, and nothing but cooling embers remained.
Thank you for getting this far. I haven't posted in a few months because I've been busy with work and writing two sci-fi novels that are set in an alternate universe to the Gun Princess Royale. Elements from the 2023 reimagined series are found in the new novels I am writing.
The new The Gun Princess Royale that's on Amazon is a full re-imagining of the 2017 version of the story, but written with six years more experience as a writer and story teller. Please check it out and leave a review if you find it worth it. Thank you.
I will continue to post the rest of this book while chapters remain.
Sorry for the delay in posting. Lost my Mojo. Yep. Fell for a girl, and then I was abandoned. She took my Mojo with her. So I had to grow my Mojo from a tiny seedling all over again.
I'm joking. I've just been flat out with life, and with trying to figure out the rest of the book.
“What you have to consider is whether she was lying or not.”
Arnval pulled the elevator gate shut with a loud clang, then pressed one of the buttons on the panel beside the entrance. As the elevator car, or more appropriately, the elevator cage, began descending, Arnval regarded me sidelong. “Do you get what I mean?”
Standing at the opposite end of the cage, and therefore as far away from him as possible, I folded my arms under my breasts, quietly unnerved by the elevator’s bumpy ride, and returned his stare. “You mean…about whether her opponents were weak that, and she simply made the best of it?”
I had realized what he was asking, but it didn’t thrill me to know that he was aware of the conversation Tabitha and I had shared back in the replica of Telos Academy’s library. It was a conversation that took place a few minutes before the Gun Queen began bombarding the library with her Arsenal, Conflagration.
“That’s right.” Arnval slipped his hands into his trench coat pockets and stood casually by the closed elevator gate. “Think about it. After she won that year and was crowned Gun Empress, Taura Hexaria didn’t return to defend her title. Neither did her sister, Salome, after winning the championship in the other universe.”
“So they both quit,” I observed, “at the same time.”
“That’s right. They both ran away.” Arnval cocked his head as he looked down at me. “And one more thing. Since then, House Cardinal hasn’t won a single Gun Empress Royale. The Hexaria sisters were the first, last, and only Gun Empresses to win in their name. Afterwards, the closest House Cardinal has come is two Gun Queen’s that proved disappointing during the Empress Royale. And that’s it. They haven’t been able to improve their standing, or gain additional prestige, since the Hexaria twins were crowned Empresses ten years ago.”
“Ten years?” I bit my lower lip before asking, “You mean the year after the war ended.”
He blinked quickly and then nodded. “Well spotted.”
I frowned up at him. “So you think…maybe…she isn’t the strongest Gun Empress around.”
Arnval flashed me a grin. “Bingo, ma chérie.”
I started to growl at him, but he ignored me.
“Don’t be get me wrong,” Arnval continued. “I think she’s good. No doubt about it. I’ve watched her matches and she has talent—real talent—but I don’t believe she’s the best.” He raised his chin and looked down his nose at me. “If she were to face the reigning Gun Empress, she’d have her ass handed to her.”
I remembered what Kristeva, Ar Telica’s reigning Gun Queen, had said about the reigning Gun Empress. Specifically, about the Empress’s speed being something unnatural, and of wanting to test herself against me because she’d heard that Mirai’s specs were above par.
Is she really that good?
To answer that question, I would have to watch some of their matches, both Kristeva’s and the Gun Empresses, and decide for myself.
For now, I dropped my gaze to the elevator’s floor, and then suppressed a shudder that ran through my body as I quietly sighed in thought.
Fifteen minutes ago, Arnval had shown up at the door to my suite to inform me that I’d been challenged by Tabitha to a match between Gun Princesses. A couple of minutes later, Kyoko-chan had arrived with a bundle of clothing – a dark grey tracksuit, black tank top and sports bra, underwear, socks, and trainers. I was irked to learn she’d had other clothing available for me to wear, and I told her as much as I tugged at my tavern maid outfit. But it was a case of in one ear and out the other with Kyoko. As a result, I angrily yanked the clothes out of her hands. Once I changed into the tracksuit, I then followed Arnval down the corridors of the villa to a quaint looking elevator, more or less a cage with a double trellis door for a gate.
That’s where I was now, on my way down with Arnval to what he called the Training Floor.
I had to wonder why there were training facilities under the villa at all. Was it a gym? If so, maybe it was so big it didn’t fit in the villa and had to be built under it instead. At that thought, I reminded myself that I wasn’t on an island but aboard a massive Citadel that would barely fit within Ar Telica’s harbor.
Through the gaps in the metal cage, I watched dark grey metal walls slide upwards.
To think a ship so massive could hide so well within Teloria’s oceans. And to think there were sixteen other vessels like it, except for the Empress’s Citadel that was designed differently, swimming those oceans.
I was jolted out of my musings when an open space came into view through the gaps in the elevator cage.
“Basement Floor,” Arnval announced. “We have ladies underwear, night wear, dresses, swimsuits, and shoes.”
I tossed him a confused glance. “Huh?”
However, a few seconds later, the elevator abruptly lurched to an uninspiring halt to a symphony of loud metallic clanks, and then Arnval pushed back the trellis gates. Stepping aside from the open doorway, he made a gentlemanly gesture with his arms and said, “Ladies first.”
A scowl started to spread across my face, but I held it back knowing it was something I’d probably hear often in the future. Was I going to glare at every man that held a door open for me?
Regardless, I wasn’t going to thank Arnval, and so I wordlessly stepped past him out of the elevator and into a cavernous rectangular room. After a few more steps deeper into the place, I stopped and threw Arnval a questioning look. “What is this?”
He grinned at me as he exited the elevator. “Welcome to the shooting range. That over there”—he pointed to a wide cubicle with transparent walls that curved over it to form a ceiling—“is where you’re going to be spending a lot of time over the next two and a half days.”
I approached the cubicle that was unlike anything I’d seen before now – certainly different from those I’d seen in holovid documentaries – and looked down the range at the far wall that I guessed was some fifty meters away. The left wall of the shooting range was transparent, and I could see a corridor beyond it, probably designed to allow people to safely observe the interior of the room while practice was ongoing. The right wall however had an opaque metallic appearance. It was concave and fitted with recessed light strips at regular intervals. As for the ceiling, it was about three meters above me, with dozens of light sources shining down into the well-lit room.
Taking a deep breath, I let it out, hoping it would expel some of the anxiousness I was feeling. That proved to be wishful thinking. After another deep breath, I looked over a shoulder at Arnval. “Now what?”
His grin grew crooked and I heard him snort softly. A moment later, he jutted his chin in the direction of a recessed door to the right of the room. The door was enormous, large enough to drive a bus through it. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was laminated with armor plating.
Feeling wary rather than curious, I cleared my throat and then asked, “What’s in there?”
Arnval’s grin widened. “Guns. Lots of guns.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Oh?” So that’s why that door looks so tough. “And why are you telling me that?”
“Because we need to find you a new gun.”
“What about the Vipers I was using?”
“Nope. They won’t do.” Arnval walked gracefully over to the recessed door. “It’s time to upgrade, ma chérie.”
I stared at him with faint reproach, then lidded the urge to wipe that annoying grin off his face. “Stop calling me Cherry.”
“Ma chérie, time’s a wasting.”
He was really beginning to annoy me.
Rather than make use of a scanning plate, panel, or console, Arnval stood before the door and said, “Open sesame.”
“Voice and biometric data confirmed as Geharis Arnval. Access granted.”
I looked up to the top of the doorway where a long horizontal strip of light had been glowing faintly red. Now, it changed to a dull green color. The door then split down the middle and both halves slid apart. Pitch black darkness greeted us, but it was chased away when Arnval ventured through the open doorway and triggered internal lighting that revealed what appeared to be yet another large room.
I hesitated for a few seconds, feeling as though I was standing at a threshold I shouldn’t cross lightly. But with Arnval waiting for me inside the room, I didn’t have the luxury of delaying, let alone backing away.
Let’s get this over with, I whispered inwardly, then walked into the room…and halted suddenly when I recognized it for what it was.
Arnval grinned at the expression on my face, and waved his hands about like an ostentatious master of ceremonies.
“Ma chérie, welcome to the Armory.”
I swallowed hard, unable to move from my spot within the room. “…yeah…no frekking kidding….”
It was accurate to describe the Armory as a circular chamber, perhaps thirty meters in diameter, with a four-meter high ceiling. Guns and rifles of every imaginable kind adorned the inside wall, except where it was intersected by the doorway. Standing within the chamber were a dozen columns roughly a couple of meters wide, with upright gun racks mounted on them and these too were populated by a variety of firearms.
Seriously, it was like walking into a spacious boutique that retailed guns rather than shoes, and Arnval was the resident saleslady.
Arnval spun in a slow circle, gesturing at the weapons on display. “Here you’ll find every handgun, assault rifle, and mech weapon authorized for use in the Gun Princess Royale – except for a Gun Princess’s Arsenal. Those are kept elsewhere.”
He stopped smoothly and faced me.
“This is where we’ll find you a new partner”—he held up to two fingers—“or should I say, partners.”
I had been staring at the weapons lining the walls, the vast majority of them upright on their stocks, rather than mounted sidelong, so it was a little difficult to get a good look at them. But I turned to face Arnval and asked, “Two guns?”
“Yes. According to the rules of the challenge, both parties are allowed the use of two weapons. They can be the same. They can be different.”
I gave him a suspicious look. “Do I get to choose, or do you choose for me?”
Arnval held up a finger. “How about this? You pick out what catches your fancy, and I’ll tell you whether it’s a good choice or not.”
I was puzzled as to why he was allowing me pick out my new guns.
Outside of my time fighting the Gun Queen and zombie hordes, I had little experience with live firearms. On that occasion, it was Clarisol who had chosen the weapons to bring along with her. I’d simply made use of what she handed over to me. As for the Viper Vanquish railguns, those had been included with the Princess Regalia. So it wasn’t as though I’d had an opportunity to choose my personal weapons.
Is he testing me?
Shaking my head slowly at Arnval, I asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Sounds like a waste of time to me.”
Arnval smiled drily as he replied, “Humor me.”
Okay. Now I was convinced he was testing me, but I had no idea why.
Exhaling loudly through my nose, I shook my head again, and then turned to face the inside wall of the Armory. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you….”
I walked up to the rifles on display. The weapons lined the inside wall in two rows or rings if you accounted for the chamber being circular.
With so many firearms on offer, I pondered how to best approach choosing my new guns.
As I’d mentioned before, I had limited experience with firearms, always making use of what someone else had decided for me. Thus having to choose for myself made me feel disoriented. It wasn’t an unknown sensation. I’d experienced it before when I realized I hadn’t prepared sufficiently for an exam and didn’t know how to answer the questions before me.
I found myself staring absently at the rifles as the wheels turned slowly in my head.
How do I even start choosing a weapon?
Folding my arms under my breasts, I applied more processing power to the problem.
It was then that I vaguely remembered reading a manga about a boyish girl who was drafted into playing survival games. Choosing weapons had played an important part at the beginning of the story. Because I read it long ago, trying to remember the contents was like pulling at a frayed thread. Pull too hard and it would snap, so I gently coaxed the memories out of the recesses of my mind. When I put together what I had, it wasn’t much, but it gave me an idea on what questions to ask.
Turning slightly, I looked at Arnval over a shoulder. “What’s the duel environment like?”
Arnval’s eyebrows rose slightly, but he looked pleased. “Urban.”
“Close quarters?”
“That may play into it.”
I bit my lower lip in thought. “Urban environment. Something like Ar Telica’s Ring One or Ring Zero?”
“More or less. It’s my understanding it’s a commercial and residential district rolled into one.”
I fell quiet as I quickly considered what he’d told me.
Would it be like the city environment back on that island?
I exhaled softly and regarded the rifles upright in their racks. Now I could see them with a critical eye.
“Too large…,” I murmured. “Too big. Too heavy….”
Indeed, the rifles were much too large. I had no doubt they could stop a rampaging mammoth with a single bullet to the brain, but I remembered how unwieldy a long rifle could be. The Bartley I’d used was an excellent sniping weapon, but in a running firefight it was no good. As for the GVR-30, it could turn an armored vehicle into a Swiss Cheese, but even with Mirai’s strength it was too cumbersome to operate.
I needed something smaller, lighter, but with a stopping power that exceeded that of the Viper railguns.
I began walking beside the inside wall, looking at the weapons on offer until I came to a section with assault rifles, including numerous bullpup variants.
The memories imprinted into Mirai’s brain – memories that didn’t belong to Ronin Kassius – allowed me to recognize the weapons resting in their support racks. I also noticed that whenever Mirai didn’t possess immediate knowledge about a weapon, the information would arrive a short while later as though it was being fed into my brain. Suspecting that the wetware was linked to an online database, I made a mental note to ask Ghost about it later.
I used that data to compare the rifles against each other. I knew their basic specs, and a little about their development history. This allowed me to understand their designs, and why they were made that way. For example, the fact that bullpup rifles had their magazine wells located behind the trigger because this gave them a long barrel while making the overall rifle as compact as possible. This made them ideal in city environments.
However, after studying the weapons for a while, I noticed something odd about the rifles, and again I threw Arnval a questioning look.
“What is it?” he asked while watching over me from a respectable distance.
With a finger, I pointed at a group of firearms upright against the wall. “Most of these are linear rifles. Railguns. But they weren’t originally designed that way. They were converted.”
Arnval stepped closer to me. “So you noticed that.”
I tapped my head. “What’s in here tells me these rifles originally fired ammunition with casings. But it’s also telling me they’ve been modified to use accelerators.”
Arnval directed his attention on the assault rifles in question. “More to the point, they use effect-field accelerators. More efficient and reliable than the old induction methods.”
“Why do that?” I asked.
“You get more bullets per magazine with caseless rounds. And more bullets is a good thing, especially in the Gun Princess Royale.”
“What about phased plasma weaponry?”
He shook his head. “Only ballistic weapons are allowed.”
“Why?”
Arnval frowned pensively. “Because it’s more exciting. C-beam firefights are boring.”
I don’t know why, but I felt both frustrated and relieved. Being shot was preferable to being burnt alive by a c-beam. But kinetic rifles weren’t going to stop a Gun Princess as quickly as a plasma cannon. Then again for all I knew, a Gun Princess may prove resistant to energy-based weapons. After all, the Gun Queen’s avatar had survived the explosion that vaporized most of Telos Academy’s replica.
I folded my arms under my breasts. “But why have so many of the rifles been modified into railguns?”
“I told you. Caseless ammunition means more bullets for every magazine or ammo drum.”
“So that’s really it? That’s the only reason?”
“Well, not the only one. Think about it. A Gun Princess typically possesses a military grade Krono-steel skeleton. Unless it’s a heavy caliber bullet fired at great speed, don’t expect it to penetrate anything vital in her body like the power core”—Arnval tapped his skull—“or the link to her operator.”
I thought of the number of shots the Gun Queen had taken from the augmented Viper before she finally went down. “So you’re saying it takes a railgun to put a hole in a Gun Princess.”
“Or a very big bullet from a very big gun.” Arnval pointed between support columns toward the opposite side of the chamber. “And you’ll find those on the other side of the room.”
“Really?” I turned and walked over to where he indicated, and then ran my gaze over the weapons I could see neatly assembled there. “Oh….”
The guns and rifles I’d seen thus far had all been from the 21st and 22nd centuries. Even in this day and age, the mid-2200’s, our military continued to employ kinetic weapons. Certainly, they fielded particle rifles and phased plasma weaponry, but ballistic weapons continued to play a part in military operations because in some situations they had advantages over their energy-based counterparts.
The rifles mounted to the wall in front of me belonged to the military’s present day kinetic arsenal.
Most of them were heavy caliber and large scale, thereby four to five feet in length, and undoubtedly as heavy they looked. This was because they were designed for use by ground troops wearing power-armor – the kind of armor that turned a flesh and blood soldier into a walking, running tank. Without the additional strength and support provided by power-armor, it was impossible to wield these oversized rifles effectively in battle. A regular soldier could still operate one, but the weight and size would tremendously hamper them. However, a mechanical Gun Princess was a different matter, and perhaps that was why the Battle Commission approved these large weapons for use in the Gun Princess Royale.
I’d grown a little more accustomed to Mirai’s preternatural strength, but as I ran my gaze over the heavy rifles, I realized that they weren’t suitable for me. If Tabitha was to be believed, Mirai was several times stronger than a human girl her size, but compared to a power-armored trooper or a Gun Princess, she was relatively light. That would compromise her stance when firing a heavy caliber weapon such as these rifles. What I needed was a rifle with a decent barrel length for accuracy, yet short enough to avoid problems navigating around tight corners, and lightweight so that I could quickly turn and shoot without having excess momentum through off my aim.
In other words, I had enough weight on my chest without needing a large rifle to topple me over.
I walked away from the 23rd century arsenal and returned to the assault rifles I’d been considering previously, the bullpups. That was when I noticed a quartet of identical rifles on display at a nearby support column.
Something about them caught my attention. I can’t say whether it was because they looked good, but they certainly looked different from the rifles I’d seen thus far.
Walking up to the column, I pulled one of the rifles free from its rack, and then carefully turned it over in my hands.
I judged its length at around 3 feet or shorter. Slipping my right hand into a large hole cut into the rifle’s ventral receiver, my fingers circled around the contoured grip. To my surprise, the weapon felt remarkably light, probably because of Mirai’s immense strength. But even if that was true, I couldn’t ignore that the rifle was splendidly well balanced. And I liked the way it looked. In short, I found it aesthetically pleasing.
Sensing Arnval’s gaze on me, I glanced at him and saw him watching me with a hint of amusement on his face.
“What?” I brusquely asked, annoyed that he was finding me entertaining.
“You tell me. You’re the one that’s smiling.”
“Huh?” With a start, I realized he was right. I was smiling, albeit faintly. Averting my face away from his, I hurriedly wiped the aforementioned smile off my lips. “I wasn’t smiling. Why would I be smiling…?”
Arnval didn’t reply. Instead, he walked up to the column and picked up one of the three remaining rifles that were identical to the one I held.
“Nice choice,” he remarked. “A Mag Hauser LR-81 Punisher.”
My eyebrows pitched down as the weapon’s specs flowed into my mind, probably via the wetware inside my brain. “A linear rifle. Fires ten-millimeter high penetration or explosive tipped caseless rounds at anywhere from sixteen hundred to twenty-four hundred meters per second. Capable of single shot or double-shot modes.”
“That’s right. It has two batteries to power the linear effect-field accelerators. And because it’s designed with left and right magazine wells, you can fit two box magazines at once—one on either side.” He threw me a cunning grin. “Or you could mount two ammo drum instead.”
My eyes widened quickly because I understood the advantage of an ammo drum over a box magazine. The drum carried a lot more bullets.
Arnval resumed running his gaze over the Punisher in his hands. “To think the Mag Hauser company took a fictitious weapon and turned it into the real thing.”
“What do you mean, fictitious?”
“That rifle you’re holding is a weapon born out of a science-fiction story from a couple of centuries ago.” He shrugged a shoulder. “But no matter. It looks cool and after modifying the design a little, and scaling it down for human sized hands, the Mag Hauser engineers produced an assault rifle that works quite well in real life—proving that regardless of its origins the principal design was quite sound.”
I glanced down at the rifle. “So this is a fake gun?”
“It’s not fake any more. You’re holding it, aren’t you?”
I glanced at it again. “I guess so….” When I looked up at Arnval, I noticed the serious look on his face as he stared intently at me. “Wh—what?”
Arnval cocked his head slightly to a side. “Do you want to give it a try?”
“Ah….”
I studied the Punisher in my hands for a moment, but I couldn’t think of a reason why not to give the rifle a test run.
I replied to Arnval with a nod. “Sure.”
Arnval broke into a roguish grin. “Then let’s get you some ammo to play with. Lots of ammo.”
I was eager to try out the Mag Hauser Punisher equipped with an ammo drum.
Arnval had other ideas and handed me a box magazine with forty rounds instead.
At first, I had some trouble mating the magazine to the Punisher’s right magazine well, but that was due to my lack of familiarity with the weapon. Once fitted, the magazine jutted out perpendicular to the rifle’s receiver and line of fire. That was one of the reasons I preferred an ammo drum. A drum wouldn’t stick out as much.
“Anything you attach to a rifle will alter it’s balance,” Arnval explained. “You need to learn to shoot straight with a magazine.”
“Then when will I practice with an ammo drum?”
Arnval pointed at the far end of the shooting range. “Get a perfect score and I’ll let you play with the drums.”
Play with the drums?
I snorted when I heard him put it that way.
I was standing in the shooting range cubicle that did not resemble a cubicle in any way. For one, it was large, forward swept, and built with a rounded, blue-tinted, transparent canopy. Because of its design, it made me feel as though I was standing at the bridge station of an immense starship. A second Punisher rested atop a transparent bench top, along with a dozen ammo mags carrying forty-rounds apiece.
Assuming a two-handed shooting stance, I tucked the rifle’s stock into my shoulder. If I didn’t tuck it in correctly, the recoil was likely to bruise me. The stock contained one of the two batteries powering the linear accelerators. The other battery was disguised as a short ammunition magazine slotted into the rear of the dorsal receiver.
A two-tone beep sounded loudly through the air.
At the far end of the shooting range, a holo-field target materialized.
Shaped like a black poker card two-feet wide and three feet tall, the target possessed the outline of a human head and torso traced in faintly glowing white lines. Circles radiated concentrically from the center of the outline’s chest and head.
With the weapon gripped securely in my hands, I felt the wetware embedded in my brain interface with the Punisher’s Assisting Intelligence. A moment later, I was able to precisely sense where the linear rifle was aiming without the need to look through a target scope. After smoothly correcting my aim, I used my thumb to flick the selection lever upwards, thus disengaging the safety while simultaneously switching to single-shot mode. I could have instructed the weapon to do the same via the wetware connection to the Punisher, but it felt more satisfying to physically flick the small lever.
“Play with the drums?” I whispered as I eased my index finger against the rifle’s trigger. “Fine. Let’s start with a crash, boom, bang.”
I depressed the trigger and a flicker of flame lit up the Punisher’s muzzle as the air superheated for an instant.
A tiny fraction of a second later, a soft boom reached my ears.
By then the holo-field target had exploded, fragmenting like glass as it shattered into a hundred pieces.
Feeling the rifle weakly kick back into my shoulder, I watched a barrier field protecting the rear of the range flash violently with an emerald light as it caught the armor piercing round before it could strike the back wall.
When it was over, I surprised by the lack of recoil, and thus I threw Arnval a startled look.
He snorted in amusement. “I take it you’re impressed?”
“Hell yeah,” I replied, feeling a smile spread across my lips. I hastily turned away lest he notice, though he probably had. Feeling the need to say something, I admitted, “It’s a lot easier to shoot with than the Vipers.”
“Ah hmm. Didn’t I say it was time for an upgrade?” He crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the cubicle’s transparent enclosure. “The recoil canceller takes the energy and redirects it, minimizing the kick back. You should find your accuracy with the Punisher is far better than what you achieved with the Vipers.”
I took aim at a second holo-field target and promptly blew it away.
I waited for a third holo-field to manifest, and then blew that one away as well.
My shots weren’t hitting dead center, but they were edging closer with each successive attempt.
I spent a minute taking practice shots, calmly focusing on each motionless target until the magazine ran dry. Ejecting it, I swapped it for a fresh, fully loaded magazine. After the Punisher automatically chambered the first round, I took aim, waited a half second for the weapon to power up the accelerators and report ready for action, then spent another forty rounds shooting at motionless holo-field targets. However, the contents of a third ammo mag were consumed on moving targets that sped up with each subsequent shot.
I realized that I was going to need a lot more practice.
I was hitting the targets, but far from dead center.
That said, I’m proud to say I didn’t miss a single one.
Arnval then had me empty another six magazines blasting at rectangular holo-fields that moved about erratically. They would jump up, stop, double back, or duck back down under a low wall that doubled as a parapet that the holo-field targets could hide behind at the far end of the shooting range.
As soon as one target shattered like glass and faded away, another would take its place. And then two targets started popping up at once; then three; then four.
Then they started flying toward me, keeping low as they raced inches above the floor.
They made themselves hard to hit by leaning forward as they flew, thus reducing their oncoming profile.
Then the situation became bizarre when the holo-targets assumed the appearance of giant playing cards.
They consisted of Clubs, Spades, Hearts, and Diamonds.
Even the King, Jack, and Queen showed up. However, the latter would dart about at the back of the shooting range, repeatedly crying out, “Off with her head!”
To say it wasn’t distracting was a complete and utter lie.
I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland packing heat as I used the Punisher to send the Queen’s army into oblivion.
The only way to keep up with the assault was to drop my awareness into an overclocked state, and ignore the Queen card angrily shouting at me.
By the time I fired off the last round in the ninth magazine, I felt mentally drained.
It was as though my mind had been operating at ten times normal speed for hours rather than minutes.
But all the cards were dead – I mean destroyed – except for the accursed Queen.
The final bullet clipped her, and she spun like a ballerina for a couple of seconds.
But she didn't vanish when she stopped spinning.
“Off with her head!” she demanded.
“Oh shut up!” I screamed back at her, and then reached for another loaded magazine only to discover there weren’t any. “Gods damn it.”
Grinding my back molars together, I glared at the Queen that refused to die, then I turned to Arnval. “Hey, give me another magazine— ”
I stopped abruptly when I saw the distinctly ashen look on his face.
“What…?” I asked him, unable to hide my surprise and confusion as I stared at him.
Why is he shocked? Is it because I failed to kill the Queen card?
Arnval breathed in deeply yet quietly, and I suspected he was trying to hide his feelings, but he wasn’t doing a good job. He kept looking at me with a pale face, before handing me another ammo magazine.
I took it and promptly slapped it into the Punisher’s magazine well. “Time to die, bitch!”
However, the Queen vanished the moment I aimed at her.
I glared at Arnval. “Hey, what gives?”
He looked conflicted for a short while, before eventually saying, “Let’s take it up a level.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, and slowly lowered the Punisher. “Are you serious?”
I was exhausted from killing the Queen of Hearts’ army of cards.
It wasn’t one deck of cards that I’d pulverized, but several.
I sighed and asked, “What next? Shoot at the White Rabbit as it hops around crying that it’s going to be late?”
Arnval didn’t reply to my sarcastic complaint and stared at me in silence instead.
Because of this, I entertained the hope that we’d break for a bite to eat. But my hope was dashed when he said, “It’s Wednesday afternoon. You face Taura Hexaria on Friday afternoon. We don’t have time to play around.” He exhaled loudly. “Or do you plan on getting your ass kicked by her?”
Frustrated and weary, I blew air out through my nose, then assumed my two-handed shooting stance.
Aiming the Punisher at the back of the range, I waited for a fresh set of holo-field targets to materialize.
“Let’s get this over with,” I growled unhappily under my breath.
For a change, a three-tone beep sounded within the facility, and then a new holo-field target materialized…except it wasn’t shaped like a giant playing card. And it wasn’t the Queen of Hearts.
Instead, it resembled a young woman with platinum blonde hair and large green eyes. She was wearing a flowing crimson dress that had a Renaissance flare to it, though when combined with thigh high black leggings, stiletto heels, and wide billowing sleeves, she looked more like a pirate. Her outfit was undeniably eye-catching, but what really caught my attention was her enormous bust that was practically spilling out of her dress. Compared to her, Mirai and Anri Shirohime’s breasts paled in comparison. In fact, seeing her bosom on display, front and center, I felt an irrational twinge of inadequacy. I also realized I was gaping – not drooling – at her, but a lesser man would have been enthralled by her hour glass figure and voluptuous chest.
I had no idea why the holo-field target looked like her, but if the intention was to distract me, then it was working.
With the Punisher aimed squarely at her boobs—I mean her chest—I addressed Arnval without taking my eyes off her bulging breasts. “Hey, what’s the big idea?” I snapped.
“Didn’t I say we’d be taking it up a level?”
“Yeah, but—”
“There are not buts here, ma chérie. Or do you think you can best Hexaria the way you are right now?”
“That’s not the problem,” I growled, growing annoyed with him.
“Then what is the problem?”
Dropping my stance, I scowled at Arnval while pointing down the range. “Why the Hell does she look like that?”
Arnval was quiet for a moment before asking, “You don’t like the way she looks?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what’s your problem with her?”
I stamped a foot on the ground. “Why does she have giant boobs!”
Arnval’s mouth fell open but he closed it with an audible snap. Then he sighed heavily and his shoulder’s slumped.
“How do you plan on facing Hexaria if you can’t handle a little cleavage?”
“A little cleavage! Are you blind?” I stabbed a finger in her direction. “Look at the size of those things. There should be a law against them!” The proverbial light winked on inside my head. “Wait a minute. Is that what this is? Are you me telling this is what Tabitha’s Gun Princess looks like?”
“I’m not telling you that at all,” he replied. “From where did you get that idea?”
“Then what’s the point—ah!” I gasped as I experienced another epiphany. “This is anti-boob training. Right?”
Arnval’s eyebrows pitched upwards. “Excuse me?”
“Gun Princesses are busty. So this is training to desensitize me—to stop me from being distracted.”
His eyebrows dropped to form a thin line. “Oh. I keep you forgetting. You used to be a guy.”
“Used to be?”
“By the way….”
“What?”
“She’s moving.”
“Huh?” I faced the shooting range, and true enough, the holo-field woman was running toward, and that’s when I saw the two large guns in her hands. “What the—?”
With my attention transfixed on her melon sized boobs, I’d failed to notice the two large assault rifles she wielded. Now she aimed those guns at me and I watched the muzzles flicker with orange flames as she opened fire.
The air in front of the cubicle flashed red, and a warning sounded.
“Danger. Incoming fire. HP down 10 percent.”
“What the Hell?” I blurted out in confusion. “What’s this?”
“That’s you taking bullet hits,” Arnval explained. “Are you planning on shooting back?” He sighed heavily yet again. “Or are you waiting for her get closer?”
“Why would I do that?”
“For a better look at her chest.”
“Oh, shut up!”
The young woman had run half the length of the shooting range.
With Mirai’s preternaturally sharp vision, I could see every bounce of the buxom blonde’s breasts. They were surprisingly firm, squeezed as they were within her dress.
I wonder if she’ll suffer a wardrobe malfunction?
Then I hastily squeezed off a shot.
The Punisher kicked back slightly, enough to let me know the rifle had fired without the risk of throwing off my aim. That said, there was little chance I’d fail to notice the flicker of flame that flashed in front of its muzzle.
The bullet struck the holo-field woman’s abdomen as she ran toward me.
It slowed her down, made her miss a step, but she recovered quickly and resumed running.
My surprise lasted a second, an eternity when in combat, but I kept my aim squarely on her as I overclocked my awareness.
In the back of my mind, I was mildly astonished by how easily I could slip in and out of an accelerated state. But that was something to ruminate over later.
Focus on her head—not her boobs!
My second shot struck her shoulder, spinning her bodily around by forty or fifty degrees.
I fired a third shot, and it impacted against her chest.
No! I shot her boobs!
There was no blood spurting into the air, just a red wound that appeared between her breasts and collar bone.
A fourth shot near the same area staggered her, dropping her to her knees.
Ah—I did it again!
A fifth bullet fired from the Punisher slammed into her skull, knocking her head back and to the right.
With her progress at a standstill, she swayed for a moment or two on her knees.
I took the opportunity to squeeze off a sixth round.
The bullet scorched the air, and centerpunched her forehead.
She jerked backwards and toppled over. A moment later, she shattered like glass, breaking apart before she could land on the floor, the pieces quickly fading away.
I took a couple of deep breaths, feeling my body tremble, and listened to a single beep pierce the air.
Three quarters down the shooting range, a second holovid image of the same buxom woman winked to life. This time she almost immediately broke into a run, aiming her guns at me as she raced toward me. I heard them fire as their muzzles flashed, and again the air in front of the cubicle was dyed in red.
A disembodied voice reported the loss of more HP.
“You’re losing points,” Arnval reported unnecessarily.
“I know that…,” I grumbled under my breath and returned fire as the young woman ran toward me with guns blazing.
She jerked back, missing a step as the Punisher’s bullet threw off her balance, but regained her footing and momentum within a heartbeat.
With my right thumb, I flicked the selection lever upwards and switched to double-shot mode.
The next time I pressed the trigger, the Punisher fired two rounds a quarter second apart.
At two-inches long, the bullets flew between her outstretch arms, and dove into her cleavage.
They hammered her with enough kinetic energy to pitch her torso backwards, while her lower body continued running.
Argh—not again!
Unbalanced, her high heels slipped and she fell on her backside.
After bouncing along the floor, she came to a untidy stop.
Part of me was amazed by the realism.
Part of me wanted to laugh at her
Another part of me noticed the bullets pass through her body and hit the barrier-field protecting the back wall.
I fired again, and another two rounds hit her holo-field torso, preventing her from standing up.
Then I fired a third volley while she was still sitting on her bum.
The bullets perforated her skull, and she fell onto her back. The Artificial Awareness or Assisting Intelligence overseeing the shooting range must have concluded it was a critical hit, because she quickly shattered into dozens of fragments that disappeared within seconds.
The single tone beep sounded again, and a third incarnation of the buxom woman was summoned. This time she appeared halfway down the range, and then started shooting with her first running steps toward me.
I skipped lunch, not because I wanted to but because Arnval kept me practicing in the firing range for two more hours before he called it quits.
I think I must have killed the platinum blonde a hundred times by then.
Unfortunately, I died a few times as well when I ran out of Hit Points.
Of course, that earned me a sarcastic remark or two from Arnval.
My only consolation was that Arnval allowed me to practice shooting with an ammo drum fitted to the Mag House Punisher.
I depleted four ninety-round drums by the time the session was over.
Afterwards, I’d been anticipating he would declare a break for lunch. But instead of leading me up to the villa for food, Arnval tossed me a high-energy crunchy bar, then escorted me out of the shooting range, down a couple of long, wide corridors, and then into a dimly lit room the size of an aircraft hangar.
With my ears ringing, and my arms feeling noticeably leaden and sore, I ate the bar while regarding the interior of the room, grateful that the bar tasted good, but unhappy with Arnval treating me like a slave.
“What gives?” I complained. “When do I get lunch?”
“You get to eat after training.”
“When? Before midnight? Am I even going to have dinner?”
Arnval regarded me askance. “I have it on good authority that Mirai can go weeks without food.”
“Yeah, well your good authority is wrong.” I swallowed the rest of the crunchy bar, then folded the wrapper and disposed of it into a tracksuit pants pocket that I promptly zipped up. “I’m hungry and I haven’t eaten since this morning—and you interrupted that!”
“At this rate, Hexaria will definitely kick your ass.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve been telling me that—”
Arnval strode up to me, cutting me off with a glare on his face. “And I will continue to tell you that until you stop complaining.”
I swallowed hard, then leaned up at him by standing on my toes. “Maybe House Cardinal will treat me better than you.”
“Are you sure of that? Are you still thinking of accepting their offer? You really think they’re trustworthy? You might very well find yourself boxed. What then?” He shook his head at me. “Don’t expect to be rescued, Princess, because this isn’t a fairy tale and there is no white knight in shining armor.”
I closed my mouth, clenching my jaw as I ground my molars together. “Fine…,” I muttered. “But no more boobs.”
“What?”
“I’ve had my fill of boobs. I don’t want to see another pair of giant boobs for a month.” I clenched a fist at Arnval. “Do you know how hard it was not to stare at those balloons?”
“Get used to it.”
I lowered my fist. “I’d like to see you do better.”
He straightened and peered down at me. “What was that?”
I grinned up at him. “I’d like to see you shoot at her without looking at her chest.”
“Unlike you, I’m not an adolescent child. I can handle myself.”
I snorted and then smirked. “Why? Don’t you like women?”
“I like women.”
“Then what? You like them small and flat chested?” I narrowed my eyes evilly. “You have a Lolita fetish?”
“Absolutely not,” he protested loudly.
“So then what? Big boobs don’t do it for you?”
Arnval shoved his hands into his trench coat pockets. “Not that it’s any of your business, but if you must know, I prefer them to be a little more modest.”
“Well,” I drawled out, “we’re finally getting somewhere.” I smiled wickedly at him. “So what’s your preference? C, D, E, or F?”
“I said modest, didn’t I?”
“Then give me an example.”
Arnval’s gaze dropped to my chest. “I prefer them your size.”
“What?” I flinched and almost took a step back. “You need your eyes checked.”
He looked puzzled. “Why is that?”
“Because there’s nothing modest about these two.” I shook my head firmly. “Nothing modest about them at all.”
Arnval assumed a thoughtful pose and tapped his lips with a finger. “You’re a double-D, aren’t you?”
I flinched again, then reflexively crossed my arms over my breasts.
Honestly, I had no idea as to their cup size, but they were large and heavy so that sounded about right. However, I wasn’t going to admit that to him.
“Hey, stop measuring me with your eyes,” I demanded.
“Not too big. Not too small,” Arnval murmured loud enough for me to hear.
I was starting to see red by now. “These are off limits! Capeesh?”
He huffed at me, but it sounded more like a short laugh. “You are such a girl.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Really?” He turned away and faced the interior of the large rectangular room. “What a pity, ma chérie. What a pity….”
I started to snarl at him, but suddenly the room brightened as those ceiling lights that had been dark were now turned on.
Feeling abruptly uneasy, I looked about the interior and recognized it as an obstacle course. There were exercise mats, vaulting horses, hurdles, planks, platforms, you name it.
“What am I doing here?” I asked Arnval.
“You need to grow more accustomed to your body.”
“In what way?”
Arnval took a deep breath, and again eyed me sidelong. “You need to move better.”
I cast a frown his way. “I thought I was moving pretty well.”
Arnval looked shocked. “You have got to be joking. Have you seen yourself move?”
“No. And I don’t want to,” I replied uncomfortably for reasons I didn’t want to delve into.
“Well, you’re not moving nearly as well as you should.” He pointed at the obstacle laden room. “And that’s why we’re here.”
“To do what?”
Arnval exhaled in frustration and whirled to face me. “I told you. To train you to move better.”
“Okay, okay. I heard you the first time.”
Arnval inhaled loud and deeply, then he froze as though struck by sudden inspiration. “Very well, I’ll make you a deal.”
I regarded him with suspicion. “What deal?”
With an index finger, he indicated the interior of the room. “The obstacle course follows a running track. If you complete one lap of the course and manage to stay within ten feet of me, then we’ll break for a late lunch.”
“Within ten feet?” I gave him a sour look. “You’re going to run with me?”
Arnval shrugged out of his trench coat. “Precisely.”
He then proceeded to take of his jacket, shirt, and tie, revealing a black tank top singlet underneath.
I stared at him in growing disbelief, but I also watched him with interest.
Ghost said he was born without complete arms and legs….
If that was true, and his limbs were prosthetic, then they were surprisingly lifelike. With Mirai’s vision being preternaturally clear, I swept a searching gaze over Arnval’s arms and shoulders. I saw skin, hair, a mole or two. When his arms moved, I could see the muscles working beneath them. There was nothing to indicate his limbs were artificial – nothing to suggest they were anything but toned, muscular arms…except for the faint webbing of grey lines flowing over his shoulders and down to his pectorals.
Could they indicate where the artificial met the organic?
Arnval noticed I was staring at him, and quipped, “Ma chérie, have I caught your interest?”
“Huh? What?” I scowled at him. “Don’t get full of yourself.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve seen better.”
I heard him chuckle as I turned away from him and directed my attention on the obstacle course full of hurdles, vaulting horses, walking planks, raised platforms, and so forth.
But in the corner of my eye, I continued watching him undress.
Wait! He’s undressing!
Arnval had taken off his shoes and socks. He was now unbuckling his belt.
“What are you doing?” I cried out at him.
He dropped his trousers and I saw that he was wearing running shorts underneath.
My mouth dropped open and I felt disoriented as I watched him neatly fold his clothes into a bundle, and then walk over to deposit it against the nearest wall of the room.
Did that mean he was prepared for this eventuality?
When I recovered my faculties, I asked him in a harsh voice, “You were wearing that all this time?”
Walking back to me, Arnval muttered drily, “It was a last resort. In the event you were uncooperative.”
I was right. He was prepared. Then again, I felt as though I’d been coerced into this situation.
I looked at his legs and feet.
Like his arms, there was nothing out of the ordinary about them, and they complemented the rest of his body. With the running shorts he wore, I couldn’t see where the artificial met the organic, but guessed there was a webbing of faint grey lines around his pelvic area.
The other thing I noticed was his tall, lithe build.
Arnval’s height was around six feet four inches, give or take an inch. Despite this, he wasn’t built like a linebacker. He was more of a swimmer, with long, lean muscles, and well-developed shoulders.
Again, he noticed me staring at him, and this time he broke into a self-satisfied smirk. I expected another wise crack from him, but instead he pointed at the obstacle course. “If you manage to stay on my heels, then we’ll have a late lunch. But don’t think for a minute this means training is over for today. After lunch, we’ll be picking up where we left off. And I won’t be going easy on you.”
I gave the obstacle course another quick look. “On your heels?”
“Within ten feet,” he clarified.
After hesitating for a moment, I reached up and unzipped my tracksuit jacket, revealing the tight tank top underneath that did nothing but emphasize Mirai’s large bust. Unlike Arnval, I tossed my jacket aside and it landed on the floor a few meters away. However, I kept my tracksuit pants on as I wasn’t wearing running shorts underneath them.
Then I beginning to limber up my body by stretching my arms, legs, and contorting my torso, all of which once again emphasized Mirai’s well-endowed chest.
Arnval’s eyes zeroed in on my breasts pushing out the tank top.
Ha! Self-control my ass—made you look. Typical male. Can’t resist—ah! What am I thinking? What is wrong with me?
A hot wave of shame rushed through me.
Hoping that Arnval hadn’t noticed my cheeks burning hotly, I threw him my most determined glare, but it was all wasted.
His eyes were centered five-by-five on my chest.
His attention wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
Once again, I started seeing red.
Arggh! I’m going to slap him! Seriously, I’m going to slap him sideways!
Clearing my throat loudly, I chose to taunt him. “Well let’s see if you can keep up with me.”
Then I stupidly, haughtily planted my hands on my hips, and that pushed out my breasts even more.
With some effort on his part, Arnval turned away stiffly.
He appeared to be experiencing a tug-of-war between his neck muscles and his eyes.
“Ladies first,” he muttered, sounding strangled.
Then I thought I heard him whisper something about E-cups, and another hot wave of shame rushed through me.
I lost.
At the finish line, I felt angry, deflated, defeated.
But most of all, I felt immensely frustrated.
Allow me to explain why.
Some of my frustration was due to my loss, however most of it was directed at myself.
Initially, I was able to easily keep pace with Arnval. Then the obstacles grew a little more complicated. It wasn’t the jumping or leaping over them that troubled me. It was a question of timing, balance, missteps, and poor footing that caught me out.
My troubles began when I made a jump from the top of one vaulting horse to the next. My landing was less than stellar, and I slipped and fell. Luckily, I managed to land on my feet, regain my balance after a couple of awkward steps, then chase after Arnval. But I’d lost ground to him – at least three meters.
From then on, I never recovered the distance I unwittingly gave away because it wasn’t the only fall I experienced.
Whether it was losing my balancing, or misjudging a jump, I found myself landing clumsily on more than a dozen occasions, and I fell further behind, eventually crossing the finish line – that is, returning to the starting point – some forty feet in arrears.
Afterwards, I sat cross-legged on the floor. As I caught my breath, I replayed in my mind my disastrous run through the obstacle course.
I didn’t lose because of a lack of speed. Arnval was taller and possessed longer limbs, but Mirai was unexpectedly swift. So when I said I never recovered the lost ground, it was because I continued to make mistakes.
I lost because I failed to make my landings stick.
This was something I’d noticed when I was fighting zombies back in the replica of Telos Academy. I had problems with my balance. I could make the jumps, but I couldn’t land right and would frequently stumble, slip, and fall. For example, when I dropped through the wrecked floors of the admin building, I failed to land properly, and that triggered a rubble landslide that caught the attention of the zombie Simulacra infesting the building.
There were occasions where my movements all came together, moments where mind and body achieved harmony. At those times, I was poetry in motion, moving with astonishing grace, but they were few and far between all the mistakes I made.
I hated to admit it, but Arnval was right.
I could move, but I wasn’t anywhere near my best.
In a way, I felt as though I was letting Mirai down.
I was gifted with a body that possessed enviable abilities, yet I wasn’t capitalizing on them. I was driving Mirai as though she were a truck, and not the lethal sportscar that she was.
A shadow fell over me and I looked up to see Arnval regarding me coldly.
“That was disappointing,” he remarked with a frigid tone.
I bowed my head, gritting my teeth together. The shame and humiliation I felt almost brought tears to my eyes. I kept taking short breaths as I struggle to contain my burning, roiling emotions.
“Get up,” Arnval ordered me. “I said, get up.”
I sucked in air through my nose, clenched my hands, and then stood up.
But the weight of my failure was heavier than I realized, and I had trouble meeting Arnval’s eyes.
Arnval sounded angry. “What do you have to say for yourself.”
I took a deep breath, and then released it loudly, though I didn’t feel any better. “Nothing….”
“What was that?”
Again, I breathed in deeply, then I cleared my throat. “I said, nothing. I don’t have anything to say for myself.”
“Then what should you be asking?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, forced down the shame I felt, and then opened them to meet his eyes. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
Arnval’s jaw muscles twitched as he clenched his jaw. “You can start by dropping the act. I’m not buying it.”
“What?” Now it was my turn to clench my jaw as anger seared away the shame that had been burdening me. “You think this is an act? You think I like losing to an asshole like you?”
“Don’t you?”
“Hell no!”
“That’s better. Put a little fire into it.” Arnval poked a finger into my breastbone. “I see you moping like that again, I’m putting you over my knee and spanking you.”
I breathed in and out deeply through gritted teeth. “Just frekking try it. I’ll break you in half!”
He arched his eyebrows at me. “You can’t keep up with me. You think you can take me on?”
I swallowed with some difficult as anger and helpless abruptly warred within me.
He was right. I couldn’t keep pace with him. By that logic, it was more than likely that I wouldn’t be able to defend against him. I may very well find myself over his knees getting spanked.
Right now, I was the cub before the lion.
But I decided a heartbeat later, that remaining helpless was not an option.
Without pain, there was no gain, and this cub needed to grow into a lioness.
I swallowed a little easier, and my feelings running rampant within me began to quell.
When I spoke, I kept my voice low and even. “I asked you before, tell me what to do.”
Arnval’s gaze searched my face for a short while, then he straightened. He looked unhappy, but he wasn’t angry at me anymore.
“You need to learn how to jump. That’s your biggest problem. Jumping and landing.”
I’d already admitted as much to myself, but I held my tongue as he restated the obvious.
“Follow me,” he instructed and then walked back to the obstacle course.
He stepped past the equipment that formed the outside running track, and then worked his way toward the center of the room where it was less cluttered.
He approached a couple of elevated platforms facing each other.
They reminded me of the diving platforms you’d find at a pool.
The planks were a few feet above the ground, and some ten or twelve feet apart.
After climbing the short stairs up to the platform, he glanced down at me. “Let’s get you started with precision jumping.”
Coming to a stop nearby, I watched him execute a standing jump.
Arnval sailed in a low arc through the air, and then swung his arms forward as his feet landed on the opposite platform. Turning around, he performed a return jump, then looked down at me. “It’s not what I expected, but you have a bad habit of swinging your arms back when you land. That’s cancelling your momentum, making you lean backwards when you should be carrying that momentum forward.”
I held back a startled frown.
Arnval had been running ahead of me the whole time, so how did he know I swung my arms back on every landing?
He demonstrated the precision jump twice more, and I overclocked my awareness so that I could watch him as though he was jumping in slow motion.
Upon returning to the starting platform, Arnval stepped off the edge.
I was mildly surprised by how lightly he landed on the floor.
“Your turn,” he said to me.
Steeling my insides against a belly full of butterflies that suddenly took flight, I climbed the steps to the top of the platform, and then readied myself for my first precision jump.
I won’t bore you with the details of my physical training that stretched from afternoon to evening.
Arnval worked me through the basics of what he called parkour.
I will admit that I was aware of what it was, and had seen examples of it in action in holovids, but I’d never participated in such an activity before.
As Ronin Kassius, the only exercise I ever performed was the weekly physical education class that I had to endure at Telos Academy.
Ronin wasn’t the most athletic type on the planet, so I drew little pleasure from those P.E. classes. I was flexible and light, but lacked endurance, stamina, and physical strength. Honestly, the girls in my class were stronger than I was. For me, those weekly sessions were like trials that I had to sneak past undiscovered. Perhaps if I’d been more physically able, I wouldn’t have dreaded P.E. class so much.
As Mirai, I faced a new challenge.
My strength and durability were tenfold what I possessed as Ronin Kassius, but I lacked the control I needed to harness that overabundance of power. On the rare occasions that I could, I demonstrated feats of agility and martial prowess that far exceeded human norms, such as when I traded blows with Arnval back at the park in Ar Telica. From where and why those skills suddenly surfaced was a mystery to me. I couldn’t consciously summon them, so they were more like a reflex response to immediate danger.
It was an aspect of Mirai that troubled me when I gave it some thought.
I felt that Mirai possessed too many secrets, but I couldn’t afford to treat these mysterious skills like pinch-hitting abilities.
This wasn’t an RPG, and I wasn’t a game character.
My life and future depended on being able to summon them at will.
In other words, I needed complete mastery over Mirai.
Thus I shut my mouth and refrained from complaining when Arnval decided to extend my training late into the night.
With my head bowed and my arms outstretched before me, I rested my weight against the wall of the spacious glass stall, and stood under the hot water jetting from the shower head, feeling it cascade over my weary body.
It was late Thursday evening, and for two days now, Geharis Arnval had subjected me to a grueling training program that I was convinced would have tested the finest of soldiers. Suffice to say that while I had survived through sheer will alone, my body was drained to the point where I trembled as I stood under the hot water. Thus, it was by the very same sheer will that I remained standing on my feet, as I had nothing left in the proverbial gas tank.
In short, I was running on fumes.
Unfortunately, I had little time to spare for anything but training.
When I asked Arnval if the Empire possessed a hyperbolic time chamber, he scoffed at me and told me I wasn’t living in a cartoon.
As though annoyed I would ask such a thing, he pounded the base realities of something called Jeet Kune Do into me for an hour, leaving me an exhausted mess on the dojo mats.
Oh, as an aside, I should mention that the underground facilities had a variety of dojos interconnected by sliding wooden doors.
Now back to the main topic.
Despite the punishing curriculum of the past thirty odd hours, I was making noticeable progress.
On my final run at the end of Wednesday’s training session, I had crossed the finishing line some thirty-five feet behind Arnval, shaving five-feet off the initial distance between us. To my surprise, Arnval looked pleased with my performance, and praised me on my progress. I stared at him flummoxed and then glared at him hotly when I suspected he was mocking me. But then he revealed he’d upped his pace to ensure he finished well ahead of me. Otherwise, I would have trimmed off a few extra feet, and maybe shortened the gap down to thirty-feet.
With the session over, Arnval took his clothes with him, and escorted me back to my suite. When I asked about dinner, he assured me Kyoko would have something for me to eat once I’d showered and changed into clean clothes. And then he bid me adieu, calling Cherry once again as he walked off, leaving me with mixed feelings and no small amount of unease and confusion over something I couldn’t pin down.
That was how Wednesday night ended between us.
The next morning, Kyoko woke me up bright and early to continue training with Arnval down in the facilities below the Estate. It was more or less a repeat of yesterday’s training schedule, with the notable inclusion of the aforementioned Jeet Kune Do sparring practice, whereupon Arnval availed himself of every opportunity to slam me into the dojo style mats. But by the same token, I also vented my boiling emotions by knocking him to the floor on numerous occasions. Those were the times when I stopped thinking about how to fight him, and instead allowed my body to take over and dish out punishment of its own volition.
It was at that those times that I wondered who was really in control of this body.
Was it me, or was it Mirai? For that matter, did Mirai exist as a subconscious entity? Or was I simply overthinking the situation?
Nonetheless, I was now convinced of two things.
The first was that Mirai possessed a martial arts prowess that seemed to dwell within my body rather than within my mind. If it was anything like muscle memory, the question was how was this knowledge imprinted into her? Maybe this training instilled into Mirai’s body had come from someone, just like her mind had come from Ronin Kassius.
This led me to my second conclusion, that without these physical skills, I wouldn’t have been able to survive Arnval’s training.
I turned the tap handles and shut off the water showering upon me.
A cloud of steam obscured the inside of the en suite bathroom.
That suited me fine as I stood still within the shower stall as it made it harder to see my reflection in the glass walls.
With an outstretched hand, I leaned against the left wall for support, and then closed my eyes.
I focused on the sensation of the water trickling down my skin while listening to the droplets land on the non-slip tiles that covered the floor of the stall.
My muscles ached, but the pain had dulled to a persistent throbbing despite the fact it was only a short while ago that I finished ten hours of running, shooting, jumping, and sparring with Arnval.
As I stood motionless, I could sense the ache gradually fading ever so faintly with each breath I took, and I became a tad uneasy.
Mirai looked human, felt human, bled like a human, but she was not human.
The old saying that if it walks like a dog, barks like a dog, then it must be a dog didn’t apply to me.
Mirai recovered too quickly.
Whether it was from bruises, scrapes, falls, broken bones – she healed at a frightening rate.
I was confident that even if I looked through every xenobiology record on all the lifeforms humanity had encountered to date, I wouldn’t find another creature that could heal as quickly as Mirai did.
Opening my eyes, I looked down at my right hand and arm hanging limply from my shoulder.
The skin was hairless, pale, and smooth. It was almost wrinkle free, even around my knuckles. It reminded me of a baby’s skin, or the realistic material used on lifelike dolls intended as toys for children. Turning it over, I examined my hand and arm critically, noticing the bruises incurred when I fell or was knocked to the ground during training. However, those bruises that should have marred my skin with dark purple blotches were now little more than faint blemishes mere hours after sustaining them. If not for Mirai’s natural pallor and keen eyesight, I wouldn’t have noticed them at all.
And that added to my worries.
No, it added to my fears.
Because Mirai scared me.
I was inside her body, controlling it, using it. It pretty much belonged to me now, since it was impossible to imprint another neural map into her mind. However, none of that stopped me from being afraid of what she was, and of what she could do.
Feeling the moisture on my skin begin to cool, I decided to vacate the shower stall.
Lifting my head, I turned my body the right and pushed open the transparent door.
My heart jumped for a moment when I caught sight of my reflection in the glass wall.
With my heart pounding in my chest, I regarded the translucent girl.
Her crimson eyes met mine, and a shiver broke free and ran down my spine.
What am I?
No matter what I’d been told by Erina, Straus, Ghost, or anyone else, I felt that something was missing in their explanations. Each was expressed from their own perspective, and when I combined them, I felt as though important pieces were absent from the proverbial puzzle.
Thus, I had an incomplete picture of Mirai.
Purportedly she was a Simulacra of the finest grade, and a test platform for the Angel Fibers, but where did those Fibers come from? What were they? And why was I able to influence them when they existed outside my body? More so, Mirai was the body originally intended to effect Clarisol’s escape from the virtual prison that the Empress had thrown her in. Because of that, and through no fault of my own, I felt like a thief who had stolen Clarisol’s future from her.
However, despite knowing all this, I held an unwavering conscious belief that Mirai had been created for another purpose, and a subconscious fear that she was destined for something ominous. Then again, it could be the result of dark figments of my imagination born out of inconclusive explanations from less than trustworthy sources, in concert with my own fears, prejudices, and psychological complexes that made me feel that way about Mirai.
Regardless, it made it difficult for me to accept her.
That said, I had left the proverbial door ajar, and of late that door had opened a little wider, such that I had grown more comfortable with her body. But fully accepting her was something that would take time.
She was too much of a dark mystery for me to openly welcome her with open arms.
The teenage girl reflected faintly in the glass wall appeared to agree, though the sullen glare on her beautiful face gave me the disconcerting impression that she was the one judging me – judging whether I was worthy of her body.
Annoyed with her reflection, I pushed the glass door open and exited the shower stall.
But when I toweled myself dry, I glimpsed myself in the mirror above the vanity, and I stopped to stare at the girl with long dark hair and crimson irises.
This is me.
For a short while, I studied her face, then hesitantly glanced down at my naked body.
This is who I am now.
I closed my eyes, and felt a shudder – not a shiver – run through me.
I’m a girl now.
With my eyes closed, I finished drying my body, only opening them to walk to the bathrobe hitched to the wall beside the bathroom door. Slipping it on, I then padded barefoot out into the bedroom, and found a clean set of pajamas waiting for me atop the bed.
Changing into them, I then made my way to the living room, and into the adjoining dining area.
Tomorrow was a new day.
Tomorrow, I would face Tabitha.
Tomorrow, I would learn if all the pain had translated into a gain.
So it was essential that I get a good night’s rest.
But before then I indulged in the hearty three course meal that had been prepared and left for me in the dining area.
Afterwards, I sat down in the living room and watched the recordings of Tabitha’s Gun Princess Royale matches, eventually falling asleep on the three-seater sofa.
Friday morning began like Thursday morning.
I was up early and dressed in my sweats before Arnval arrived at my suite to escort me down to the underground training facilities.
He took one look at my tussled, knotted hair, and then laughed.
I chose to ignore him because I was simply too tired to care.
I woke up on the sofa sometime during the night, and staggered to the bedroom, falling asleep atop the bed covers.
But pre-match jitters had robbed me of much needed sleep.
Yes, Arnval had laughed at my appearance, but it was only later that I realized it was the kind of laughter that didn’t reach his eyes.
Suffice to say, he wasn’t impressed but he kept his opinion to himself as he supervised more shooting practice, sparring, and parkour training in the underground facilities.
However, he called it quits after midday, following a final run through the obstacle course where I once again succeeded in shaving off a few more feet between us.
I crossed the finishing line some twenty feet behind him.
I fell less, I slipped less, and I was able to execute my jumps, climbs, and leaps with greater agility than during my first attempt two days ago.
Arnval congratulated me on my improvement, but it didn’t sound like praise, not when his tone carried a faint undercurrent of disappointment. In hindsight, I could have put him on the spot and pressed him for an answer, but I was tired and distracted by worries over the impending match, and thus I chose not to.
Besides, I shouldn’t be concerning myself with Arnval’s opinion about my performance.
I needed to focus on dealing with Tabitha.
Arnval gave me a funny look when I asked him how to defeat her. “I was wondering when you’d finally bring that up.”
The urge to strike him was dangerously overwhelming. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping me?”
“I have been helping you. That’s what the past two days has been all about.”
I tilted my head to one side. “Then do you have a game plan or not?”
Arnval pursed his lips together, then smiled weakly as he began walking away. “I might.”
Rather than follow him, I folded my arms over the grey tank top that I wore. “Then can I hear about it?”
He stopped a few steps later and replied without turning around. “You watched her matches last night, didn’t you?”
I replied sourly, “I figured you were monitoring my viewing habits. Yeah, I watched some of her matches. Not all of them.”
“What can you tell me about her? What stood out for you?”
“She was fast.” I thought about my answer a little more, and then added, “She anticipated her opponents’ locations. It was like she had eyes all around her head. She would move before they could line her up for a shot.” I huffed softly. “She was always moving.”
“Yeah. That’s one thing about her that most Gun Princesses don’t do. Hexaria was almost always on the move.” Arnval looked at me over a shoulder. “She was always on the hunt, never the one being hunted. She pressed forward even when the odds weren’t favorable. They say fortune favors the brave, but with her it was more like fortune favors the reckless.”
“Would you call her foolish?” I asked him earnestly.
He glanced away, looking pensive. “No, I wouldn’t call her foolish. She took her chances, but they were all calculated moves. When she pulled them off, they paid off big time. When she failed, she failed miserably. But her actions weren’t foolish. Risky, yes. But never foolish, although some may argue that it was foolish to take such big risks.”
I unfolded my arms and let them hang limply by my sides. “How do I beat her?”
Arnval’s shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t believe you can.”
“What…?”
That wasn’t what I was expecting to hear, but by the same token, I also knew it was entirely reasonable because that’s the conclusion I had arrived at in the morning, after tossing and turning on the bed as I chased after a few hours of sleep.
However, I pressed on without revealing that I agreed with him. “That’s not confidence inspiring.”
Arnval nodded. “No, it isn’t….”
Then he resumed walking away, stopping only when he noticed I wasn’t following him.
“Are you coming or not?”
“Not until you tell me how to beat Tabitha.” I planted my hands on my hips. “I’ve trained for two days, maybe more. I haven’t complained. I’ve swallowed my pride and tolerated your condescending attitude. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me, and I’ve met every challenge you’ve thrown my way. I know I wasn’t able to catch up or keep pace with you, but I know I’m better than I was before.” I raised my chin so that I was looking down my nose at him. “So I deserve an answer. No matter what you think of my chances—I still deserve an answer.”
Arnval met my words with a stony silence.
Growing frustrated, I pressed my lips together before asking, “How do I defeat Taura Hexaria?”
His rigid expression broke and exasperation crossed his face. Then he strode back to me.
His reply was unexpectedly gentle. “I don’t know how you can defeat her. That’s the truth.”
I tried to keep the shock and disappointment from spilling onto my face, but I failed.
I also felt betrayed. “So you really are expecting me to lose.”
Arnval hesitated before nodding very faintly. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the magic answer. I don’t have a solution to the problem. Not with the way you are now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You lack the training. You lack the experience.”
I frowned up at him. “I know that. But still—”
“You’re not strong enough.”
“But I’ve grown stronger—”
“It’s not enough.”
I gasped softly and then took a breath before asking, “Why not?”
Arnval looked pained and when he spoke his words carried distinct regret. “Right now, I can confidently say you’re as good as any rookie Gun Princess in the Minor League, if not better. You’re fast. You’re strong. And you’re an excellent shot. But up against a Major League Princess, you’d find yourself on the back foot from the get go, and it’s not for lack of speed, talent, or strength.”
“Then what am I lacking?”
“Experience. You haven’t developed that sixth sense that lets you anticipate your opponent’s actions.”
I thought back to what I’d said about Tabitha. “Experience….”
Arnval nodded slowly. ““Every strategy, every idea I had, was based on you growing strong enough to compensate for your lack of experience. I pinned my hope on your physical abilities. If they exceeded my expectations, then there was a chance you could beat her on talent alone. You could overwhelm her purely with superior strength, speed, and accuracy. But that didn’t happen. You fell short. You didn’t grow strong enough.”
“Are you saying I can’t become stronger?”
“No, not at all. I’m saying that it will take time, but time was never on our side. And that’s why, realistically, there is little hope that you can beat her.”
Overcome with frustration, I complained through clenched teeth, “Then what was the point of all this? What was the point of pushing me this hard? Of pushing myself?”
“The point was that you don’t give up until the end.”
“But if I can’t win—?”
“Then what will you do?” he asked me frankly. “Run away?” He shook his head. “There is no running away, ma chérie.”
With my hands balled into fists, I yelled, “Then tell me what to do! Tell me!”
Arnval exhaled heavily, then shrugged his shoulders. “Face her in battle. Don’t run away.”
“That’s not enough. I need you to tell me how to beat her!”
Arnval cocked his head at me. “Someone once said, there are always possibilities. Just because I can’t see them, simply because I’m not good enough to find a solution, doesn’t mean that you won’t find a way to defeat her.”
He took a step closer to me, and I angled my head upwards to look at him.
“I’ll tell you this,” he said. “When it comes to recklessness, you and Hexaria are alike. And you share other traits. You’re both impulsive. You have a propensity to shoot first, ask questions later. You’re not one for small talk on the battlefield. You see an opportunity, and you take it. Hexaria is the same. In many respects, you can think of her as your nemesis.”
Was that really true? I looked up at him with a question clearly written on my face, and Arnval nodded.
“I may not be good enough to be your support. I may not have been able to develop a strategy for you, but maybe that’s what you need.”
“No strategy?”
“That’s right.”
“You mean play it by ear. Fly by the seat of my pants?”
“Pretty much.”
I noticed a grin forming on his lips, and told him, “I don’t like to lose.”
“No one does.”
“But if I lose here….”
Arnval exhaled slowly. “It won’t be the end of the world.”
Then he turned around and walked away.
This time he didn’t stop when I failed to follow him.
I'd like to apologize for the delay in posting this. I lost my Mojo for writing, and it took me a lot longer than I thought to get it back. Well, that's what happens when personal matters get in the way of writing. Anyway, I have my Mojo back so hopefully I can roll out the remaining chapters quicker.
However, I may choose to hold back on the last couple of chapters and leave them for the eBook release. I'll decide that in the next few days. The book will be out by the end of March. The delay is to give me more time to polish it and
all that's missing with the web release.
For those of you who are new to the series and would like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Dear Readers,
I apologize for being away for so long. I've been busy with the book, day in and day out, but I haven't posted here because the material I've been writing was for the ebook, not the web release.
To that end, the eBook has 3 extra chapters that are not in the web release.
Chapter 10 was completely rewritten and it grew into Chapters 11 and 12.
Chapter 13 posted below continues on from the new material that's exclusive to the ebook.
However, rather than not post anything until the book's release in May, I decided it was best to reassure readers that the series has not been abandoned. In fact, new artwork has been commissioned as part of a range of changes to be done to the website.
So I'm definitely not throwing in the towel.
For now, I hope you enjoy this latest installment of the Gun Princess Royale.
– I –
I returned to my suite on the second floor of the villa.
It wasn’t far. All I had to do was walk along the balcony to the south wing.
Pressing my hand to the scanning plate beside the door jamb, the suite unlocked, and I stepped inside after pushing the door open.
Slamming it behind me, I stood in the wide hallway taking a handful of deep, slow breaths, before striding into the living area.
I looked around for something to kick.
The sofa cushions looked inviting.
Eventually, after walking around in loose circles for a while, my emotions eased down to the point where I stopped trembling angrily and was able to hold myself still.
The door chime dispelled the calm I’d been slowly nurturing within me.
“What?” I snapped, feeling heated all over again.
When no one entered the suite, I took measured breaths, cleared my throat, then called out, “Come in,” but there was no hiding my turbulent emotions.
Crossing my arms under my breasts, my hands clutched at my arms as I waited for my visitor to show themselves.
Wearing his trademark trench coat over a dark suit, Arnval appeared at the entrance to the living area, crossed his arms, then leaned a shoulder against a wall.
“Well, there. You’re looking blue.”
Of course, I was. I had paint over my right arm, face, temple, and hair.
“Who is she?”
Arnval favored me with a puzzled frown.
I shook my head sharply. “Don’t play dumb with me. Who is she? The girl who sniped me.” I took a few steps toward him. “She’s not one of Fatina’s maids. So who is she?”
His gaze narrowed then abruptly widened as he grinned roguishly at me. “You want to meet her?”
“I already met her. Now I want to know who she is.”
He glanced upward at the high ceiling. “No idea.”
“That’s not funny,” I stated harshly, my voice sounding gravelly to my ears. “Not funny at all. And neither was this training exercise.”
“I disagree. You moved quite well. You demonstrated unpredictable thinking—”
“It was a total farce!”
Arnval slowly closed his mouth and then regarded me thinly.
I met his eyes with a cold stare, the frostiest I could manage while keeping a lid on my anger.
“Is that what you think?” he asked me.
“I do….” I uncrossed my arms, then planted my hands on my hips. “I learnt absolutely nothing from that exercise. Nothing at all. And tomorrow I face Tabitha, and I have no idea how I’m going to beat her.”
“You don’t have to beat her. Not this time. You just have to survive thirty minutes and earn yourself a draw. That’s the best you can hope for.”
I started to tremble.
My emotions were breaking apart while beginning to run rampant inside me.
“Get out….”
Arnval looked faintly surprised.
I pointed at the hallway behind him. “Get out. I need to shower. I need to change. I need some time alone. So please, get out.”
“Ma chérie—”
“Don’t call me that.” I held my hands rigidly at my sides, clenched into fists. “I’m sick of it.”
Arnval straightened slowly, then stood silently for a while before saying, “Why don’t we call it quits for the day. No more training. You could do with an afternoon off.”
My innards tightened in confusion.
What the Hell is this?
I felt a frown slip across my forehead. “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?”
Arnval visibly stiffened. “What was that?”
I cocked my head at him. “You don’t expect me to win. You don’t expect me to even earn a draw. You’re setting me up for a fail. Why?”
Arnval’s expression darkened and after a moment he strode up to me. “Is that what you think?”
I looked up at him and nodded. “Yeah…I do.”
For a long while we locked stares and I held my ground every second of it.
Eventually, Arnval exhaled loudly as though venting the heated feelings within him. “Take the afternoon off. Get some rest. You’ve earned it.”
“Leave….” I indicated the hallway behind him by nodding at it. “Now.”
Arnval pressed his lips together, but I could hear his front teeth clicking together as he regarded me.
I had no doubt the wheels were spinning furiously in his head.
But in the end, he just nodded, then wordlessly turned away.
I followed him for a few steps to make sure he departed the suit.
At the doorway, Arnval paused, then spoke to me over a shoulder.
“Don’t stay up. You’re match with Hexaria is in the morning.”
That revelation rocked me as I’d expected to have the morning for more training. “Wasn’t it in the afternoon?”
“You know that we’re aboard a ship, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I can feel it moving.”
A total lie. But what the heck.
Arnval turned slightly toward me and I saw the hint of disbelief and incredulity in his eyes. However, what he said was, “The ship is off the west coast of the northern continent. That means there’s a few hours difference between here and there.”
I took a few steps closer to him, and struggled not to clench my hands angrily. “You mean to tell me that all this time we’ve been behind the clock?” I sucked in a lungful of air and let it out in a rush. “And you’re telling me to quit for the day?”
“You need to unwind,” Arnval replied. “I thought the exercise with the Maid Platoon would help you relax. My mistake.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “How the Hell could something like that make me relax?”
“You weren’t supposed to take it seriously. It was a fun exercise. A game.”
I ground my teeth together as I held back an outburst. “Well you picked a bad time to play games.”
“Obviously. And your lack of a sense of humor didn’t help.”
“A little hard to be funny when you’re future is on the line.”
Arnval raised his chin as he looked down at me. “Are you serious about winning? Does that mean you’re not considering accepting Hexaria’s offer?”
I shook my head. “Considering an offer and being challenged are not one and the same. If she wants me to fight for her Noble House, she could have gone about it differently.”
“Even though you may get a better deal if you compete for them?”
Arnval’s odd persistence made me uneasy, so I asked, “Is that what the Sanreal Family wants? For me to leave—I mean, to be taken away?”
“I sincerely doubt it,” he admitted.
Somehow, I perceived that was an honest reply, but I was still troubled by his line of questioning.
Is he testing me out? Does he want to know how I feel about the Sanreal Family?
I bit my lower lip.
Or is this about my…commitment?
While I was puzzling over his motives, Arnval added, “Like I told you earlier, Sanreal has taken a shine to you. He wouldn’t be happy to lose you.” He glanced away. “Sanreal’s…lost a great deal.”
So he knows about Clarisol and her mother. But what else does he know?
Something felt off, as though Arnval was stumbling through the scene.
But after swallowing quietly, I chose to accept his words with a modicum of suspicion and a tonne of caution.
Why, you may ask? Because wasn’t my whole reason for existing to help further Erina’s research? Didn’t Sanreal want the fruits of her labor? He couldn’t use Mirai as a body for Clarisol’s mind, but I still had value to him because of the Angel Fibers inside of me. Or was there more to it? When I took everything I’d learnt from Ghost, from Erina, Tabitha, from Arnval, Fatina, and Sanreal himself, it didn’t make a lot of sense. And what bothered me the most was the whole premise behind creating Mirai – from Sanreal’s point of view – in order to give Clarisol a shot at freedom by slipping her out from under the Empress’s nose. The fake existence of Isabel Allegrando that I had assumed also needled my composure.
I just couldn’t accept it.
The jigsaw puzzle I’d put together was too fragile, and that was because somewhere down the line – or up the line – someone had lied to me.
Of that, I was certain.
So how do I deal with Arnval?
Perhaps it was best to ignorant and stay in character.
In other words, maybe it was best if I acted like a redhead rather than a brunette.
Standing with arms akimbo, I declared snidely, “In that case, Sanreal should be making an effort to keep me—such as moving the ship east so that I can get a morning’s worth of training.”
“I’ll pass it along,” Arnval quipped.
“Great. Now you can leave,” I snarked at him.
Arnval exhaled wearily, then turned back to the door. “Why are all girls your age this way?”
“What was that?”
He ignored me as he walked up to the door.
I quickly sucked in air. “So you’re not going to tell me about her?”
He stopped with a hand on the door knob. “About who?”
“The bitch who sniped me. The ringer you put into training exercise.”
Arnval turned around sufficiently so as to look at me comfortably over a shoulder. “You want to know who she is?”
I gave him a single quiet nod as I watched him with my hands on my hips.
Arnval’s lips pressed into a thin line before breaking the brief silence between us.
“All right…you’ll find out tomorrow.”
Then he smoothly opened the door, and exited the suite.
I watched the door close behind him, released a ragged breath, then hurried to the large bathroom.
I didn’t take a shower.
Standing at the wide washbasin, I washed off as much of the paint as I could, then hastened out of the bathroom, and into the adjacent bedroom.
I rifled through the drawers of the vanity, the bedside table, and the tallboy. I’d lost my blue scrunchy when I dove into the garden stream, and my long black hair was too much to handle without something to tie it with.
Coming up empty, I turned slowly in frustration, when my gaze was abruptly drawn to a bright pink scrunchy lying on a pillow atop the neatly made bed.
My eyes narrowed into thin slits.
Damn that Fatina!
I glared at the scrunchy for a while before snorting like an angry bull.
Walking with stiff, jerking steps up to the bed, I grabbed the scrunchy, and used it to tie my hair into a long ponytail.
Then I stormed out of the bedroom.
The luxurious suite had a kitchen adjoining the dining area that in turn melded into the wide open living area.
More importantly, the kitchen had a fridge with chilled bottles of soda and water.
I took two of the bottles of water out from the door racks, opened one of them, then quickly drank down half its contents.
Having soothed my parched throat, I capped the bottle, slammed the fridge door shut, grabbed both bottles, and then departed the suite in a hurry.
Arnval had told me to take the rest of the day off, but what was I going to do?
Would I lie on the sofa and watch holo-vision programs until bedtime?
Nope. No way. Not when considering my duel with Tabitha was now scheduled for tomorrow morning.
I felt stupid for not having bothered to check local time against Ar Telica time.
I should have asked Ghost when he was still around, but I’d assumed the Citadel was floating about in the vicinity of the Proving Grounds because that island was surrounded by a huge ocean storm. As a result, I’d believed we were three or four hours ahead of Ar Telica, not six or seven hours behind it.
By the way, where is that useless Maestro Awareness when I need him?
Arriving at the elevator, I hesitated before pushing the button to unlock the cage door.
I wasn’t sure if Arnval had restricted my access to the subterranean training facility beneath the villa, but the sound of metal clanking and the door unlocking had me sighing quickly in relief.
No turning back now.
Entering the lift cage, I closed the door shut with a loud clank, then pushed the button that would start the elevator descending to the training level.
After a false start, the cage lurched worryingly before it began to drop to the floor below the villa.
Exiting the elevator cage, my first port of call was the Armory.
To my relief, the Assisting Intelligence – the Overseer – watching over the training facility granted me access to the firing range and the adjoining Armory.
Once inside, I collected two LR-81A Punishers, but I was in need of ammunition.
When I asked the Overseer for help, the A.I. questioned my intentions.
I gave my reply some thought, then humorlessly replied, “Let’s just say I’m going to war.”
The silence that greeted me was a little unsettling.
“Very well. Access granted.”
“Eh…?” My mouth hung open as I watched a wide section of the back wall of the round Armory – I say ‘back’ because it was diametrically opposite the entrance – slide apart to reveal a separate room.
“Please proceed to the Munitions Vault.”
I swallowed nervously before stepping into the so-called Vault, and consequently found myself standing on a walkway inside the equivalent of a multi-level warehouse.
“…holy molly….”
Mouth agape, I looked about the interior of the Munitions Vault, somewhat afraid to step any deeper into the immense room.
“Procuring munitions and supplies. Please wait a minute.”
“…oh, okay….”
I was somewhat relieved that I wouldn’t have to go fetch the ammo myself.
After a half minute of waiting, the faint hum of electric motors reached my ears, and I peered down over the walkway guardrail at the level below me.
A boxy crate with beveled sides flew up toward me, probably propelledd by levitator-field emitters.
It landed on the walkway, then split open like a giant tool box.
For a short while, I studied the contents on display, then carefully placed the Punishers I carried on the walkway floor.
Reaching into the giant tool box, I pull out an ammo belt with pockets for half a dozen magazines.
Next, I filled up the ammo belt with magazines loaded with fifty ten-millimeter high penetration rounds a piece – at least, that’s what the markings on the side of the black casings indicated.
“A suggestion, if I may.”
I stopped and stared up at the ceiling. “Ah, sure.”
The border of a compartment within the ammo box began to glow with a blue-white light.
“Please attach the feeder to the LR-81A units.”
Retrieving the device from the compartment, I saw that it was a side mounted magazine feeder that allowed me to insert the large ammo mags vertically rather than horizontally. This meant that they wouldn’t stick out from the side of the rifle, and considering their size that was a good thing.
After outfitting both Punishers with the adapters, I then slapped a magazine into each feeder.
Counting the ammo mags in the belt I wore snuggly around my waist, I now had four hundred rounds at my disposal.
Well, I did tell the A.I. that I was going to war.
Giving the contents of the ammo container another look, I saw a bandolier with pockets for more magazines. Wondering if I could wear it and the ammo belt at the same time, I also noticed a row of narrow rectangular boxes and recognized them as batteries for the Punishers. My gaze then fell on a row of long ammo drums.
Maybe I should take a couple of those as well, but how am I going to carry them?
Deciding it was overkill, I straightened with a sigh as I continued peering at the container’s contents.
A grimace flickered across my face.
That’s certainly a lot of ammo.
As much as I regretted leaving it behind, it was more than I believed I could comfortably carry.
I departed the Munitions Vault, exited the Armory, then walked out of the shooting range.
I made tracks to my next port of call – the Obstacle Course.
Once inside the immense hangar sized room, I took off the ammo belt, shrugged off my tracksuit jacket, reaffirmed my ponytail was tightly secured with Fatina’s bright pink scrunchy, and then spoke to the A.I. overseeing the facility. It was then that I realized I’d left my water bottles behind.
“…great….”
Shaking my head slowly, I chose not to make a trip back to the shooting range to retrieve the two bottles.
Instead, I gave the training room a studious look. “Hey, can you manifest target holovids in here?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Can you give me targets to practice against?”
“Are you planning to go to war in this room?”
I took a very deep breath, uncertain of how to explain my intentions for coming here. “I want something to shoot at while I run the obstacle course.”
The A.I. Overseer didn’t reply, perhaps because it was deliberating conscientiously on my request.
I waited patiently at first but the silence began to gnaw at me and I grew distinctly anxious. “Hello? Are you there?”
“Yes, I am here.”
“Okay…so…about my request—?”
“Granted. We will provide you with a suitable quantity of targets. Please equip yourself.”
It took a moment for me to understand what she meant, then I quickly slipped the ammo belt around my waist, tightened the straps to ensure it wasn’t going to fall off or move about.
Then I picked up a Punisher in each hand.
“Ready,” I announced.
“Please assume your position on the starting line while I make preparations.”
“Huh? Oh, right. The starting line. Gotcha….”
Taking my spot as suggested, I waited for something to happen.
I wonder what she means by preparations?
As the seconds ticked by into a minute, I began to shift impatiently on my feet.
This waiting is not helping my mood….
Moments later, the door to the training room slid open, and a trio of dark metal crates on wheels rolled into the facility.
I watched them begin dispensing metal balls about the size of rock melons over the floor of the room.
It was as though they were laying mines behind them as they crisscrossed the room, weaving in and out of the obstacles course.
After a hundred or more of the balls were cast about, the three autonomous crates returned to the entrance, and drew to a stop abreast of each other.
“Generating holo-targets.”
Within seconds, the metal balls littering the floor began to rock.
Mirai’s ears caught a low hum emanating from them as tiny panels slid aside on their surface, and shortly afterwards the metal balls split into two hemispheres. However, they remained attached to each other via countless strands that resembled optical fiber cables that shone with tiny beads of light.
I swallowed nervously, wondering what I’d gotten myself into.
“What the heck is this—huh?”
The metal balls floated upwards into the air, then hovered about four feet above the floor.
“Okay,” I whispered anxiously, “this is new….”
Without warning, tiny lights appeared all over the metal balls, and within moments each of them was surrounded by the image of a hungry zombie.
“Oh shit….”
Seconds later, the room was swarming with a legion of undead.
A deep shiver wracked my body, and it wasn’t long before a cold sweat trickled down my back.
“Frek me….”
“Commencing World War Z simulation.”
“World War what?”
In reply, the zombies launched themselves at me.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what World War Z was all about. After all, I’d told the A.I. that was I was going to war. There was also the possibility that it was aware of my penchant for playing first person shooters that featured the undead.
The two Punishers I gripped firmly in each hand auto-chambered the first rounds.
The wetware link between them and Mirai had been established long ago, and the targeting feedback was active.
I didn’t have a good reason for delaying and not jumping into the fight, so with a short yell, I leapt onto the platform ahead of me.
Aiming the Punishers at the oncoming onslaught of holo-graphic undead, I pictured myself as the heroine of the piece.
“Fine—bring it on!”
Thus, World War Z took place in the massive underground hangar.
An hour later, I staggered back to the suite.
My clothes were torn and ragged.
The tank top hung onto a shoulder by the threads of a strap.
My sports bra was fit for the recycling bin.
The tracksuit trousers had been ripped off my lower body. Thankfully, I was wearing running shorts underneath.
And I’d lost my cross-trainers.
Thus, I walked barefoot into the living room, then dropped myself unceremoniously onto the long sofa seat.
Lying prone along the sofa’s length, I buried my face into a cushion.
“…me and my big mouth….”
World War Z did not go as planned.
The holo-graphic zombies were complemented by effect-fields that simulated their physical bodies.
They had swarmed me, grabbed me, and almost left me naked.
Yes, the damn things had tried to tear off my clothes, and in a raging fury, I had blown them apart with the Punishers.
After unleashing Hell on the holo-graphic undead, the training room was out of action, littered with the debris of the obstacle course and the remains of more than a hundred metal balls.
Exhaustion settled into my bones.
“…Arnval’s going to be pissed….”
I started to chuckle as I imagined the look on his face when he walked into the training room.
But then I was puzzled by something I’d only realized now.
Rolling onto my back on the long sofa, I stared up at the living area’s white ceiling.
If the Sanreal’s could simulate zombie hordes using holo-graphics and effect fields, then why did they use Simulacra when they hijacked my gaming session of Zombie Apocalypse?
Why use hundreds of Simulacra during the match between myself and the Gun Queen of Ar Telica?
Then I frowned as I remembered Clarisol declaring the Simulacra used in the replica of Ar Telica did not belong to House Novis.
So that environment was really set up by the Imperial Family.
Throwing an arm over my face, I closed my eyes, and sighed deeply as I willed myself to relax.
Tomorrow was a big day, and I was spent.
Maybe I’d take a nap.
Afterwards, I’d wash off the day’s grime with a shower, and then look forward to dinner time….
“Wake up.”
A man’s voice jolted me out of sleep, and I felt my body rock.
“Sleeping Beauty, nap time’s over. Wake up.”
Was that Arnval’s voice? Probably.
Cracking an eyelid open, I peered blearily up at two people standing beside me but they looked indistinct.
“You see? I told you that would wake her up. All she needs is a good shove.”
Blinking the sleep away from my eyes, I struggled to recall where I was.
A woman’s voice reproached him. She was audibly disappointed in him. “You’ve been shoving her for long enough. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t treat her that way.”
Is this the bedroom? Doesn’t feel like a bed? Wait—am I in the living room?
“Fatina, haven’t you realized by now that this is no lady?”
“Oh? Then what is she?”
“A tomboy. And tomboys are accustomed to playing rough. They wouldn’t have it any other way. I mean, just look at the way she sleeps. What a mess.”
“She is a girl, and you shoving her with your foot is entirely inappropriate.”
“Inappropriate? Have you seen what this walking calamity with breasts did to the training room downstairs?”
The woman paused before replying, “I am aware that she went…a little far.”
“A little far? Seriously? When I saw the place I didn’t know whether to laugh or run for the hills!”
“If you didn’t want her taking her training seriously, then you should have denied her access to the facilities!”
“I didn’t think she was going to wreck the place!”
“The Overseer didn’t think it was going to be a problem, did it?”
“That A.I. needs its logic circuits checked. It’s clearly got its wires crossed!”
“Arnval, A.I.’s don’t have wires.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, yes. I understand what you mean….”
By now my eyes had cleared up but my memory was fuzzy on events before I fell asleep.
I’m on the sofa in the living room? What the Hell am I doing here? Oh, that’s right—I said I was going to take a nap. And I remember Fatina walking in with the dinner cart, but I have no idea what happened after that….
Slowly pushing myself up on my elbows, I stared at Arnval and Fatina standing beside the sofa. “What’s the big deal? Did my dinner grow cold? Can’t I reheat it?”
Arnval snorted in disbelief. “Your dinner? You want to eat your dinner for breakfast?”
My face contorted in confusion. “Breakfast? What are you talking about?”
“Fatina delivered your dinner hours ago.”
Standing next to him, Fatina gave Arnval an annoyed look, before speaking to me. “Isabel, it’s morning. When I delivered your dinner last night, you were on the sofa. You told me to just leave it there. Don’t you remember?”
My confusion waxed and waned before I slowly nodded. “Oh yeah. I said I was going to take a shower first….”
Arnval and Fatina gave me different looks.
He looked annoyed. She looked disappointed.
An anxious twinge in my chest made me swallow nervously. “I must have fallen asleep….”
Arnval nodded. “That’s right, Sleeping Beauty. And now it’s time to get up. Your match with Hexaria is in two hours.”
“Two hours? Huh!” I sat up in a hurry and frowned at him. “Two hours! Are you telling me I slept for a whole day?”
“You didn’t,” he replied testily. “Not even close.”
“Then—?”
“The ship sailed east overnight and we’re now in Ar Telica’s time zone.”
I swallowed quickly. “And now it’s morning….”
“Correct.”
“Wasn’t my match with Tabitha scheduled for the afternoon?”
“Not anymore.”
“Huh?” Again, I frowned. “Why not?”
Arnval held a hand up. “Three reasons.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “One. You pissed off Lord Sanreal so he sailed the ship east, despite the risk of giving ourselves away to another Citadel. Two. He contacted House Cardinal and requested the match be rescheduled to this morning. And three. Team Novis has a press conference this afternoon and depending on the outcome of the match, you’re either going to be there or you’re not.”
Aghast, I swung my legs off the sofa and shot to my feet. “Sanreal rescheduled my duel? Why?”
At that moment the only strap holding up my tank top snapped.
Luckily, although my sports bra had a few tears here and there, it was mostly intact and kept my appearance modest. But for some reason, as the tank top fell to my waist, I hurriedly crossed my arms protectively over my breasts.
The reason? Arnval’s gaze that immediately locked onto my chest.
“Letch!” I snarled at him.
“Says the exhibitionist!” he snarled back.
“Stop it! Both of you!” Fatina yelled. “Now, if you can’t have a conversation like adults, I suggest we take a time-out.”
I sucked in air noisily through my nose, and glared sullenly at Arnval.
He slipped his hands into his trench coat pockets, and glared back but at least he wasn’t ogling my chest.
By the way, yes, he was wearing a trench coat, though this one was dark brown in color, rather than the usual black I was accustomed to seeing him wear.
Fatina palmed her forehead for a long moment before speaking again. “All right. Where were we?”
I swallowed past my annoyed feelings clogging up my throat. “Why did Sanreal reschedule my duel with Tabitha?”
Fatina looked over at Arnval. “Well? Tell her.”
The big baby was still sulking when he replied, “That’s because he wants this over with sooner rather than later.”
My heated feelings were kicked aside first by shock, then confusion. “What? Why?”
“Because he doesn’t want you sinking the ship—why else?”
I jerked back a little, then looked for the lie by searching his face and aura.
Shit. I think he’s serious.
Arnval slipped his left hand out of a trench coat pocket, then glanced at a wristwatch he wore on his wrist. “The clock is ticking. You’ve got ninety-eight minutes to get ready.”
My eyes widened in protest. “No way! You said I had two hours!”
“Your match is in two hours. You need to be ready long before then.”
I clenched my teeth together in mounting frustration that was beginning to edge toward despair. “This isn’t fair.”
“Not fair?” Arnval gave me an incredulous look.
“It was just one room….”
“Well, I’m glad you stopped at just one room,” he retorted.
I closed my mouth and decided silence was the better part of valor.
Yes, I know I’m bastardizing the phrase, but I truly believed that keeping quiet was the best choice.
Arnval exhaled heavily. “Either way, don’t complain to me. Take it up with Sanreal.”
I was ready to take it up with Arnval’s gut but held myself back.
However, keeping quiet was never my forte.
Actually, ever since becoming Mirai, I’ve had trouble containing my fireball emotions.
I should have been a redhead, not a brunette.
Forgetting to cover my breasts, I lowered my arms and balled my hands into trembling fists. “Fine—then I’ll go take a shower!”
“That won’t be necessary.” Arnval glanced pointedly at the curtained windows overlooking the southern grounds of the Estate. “Your Sarcophagus has been summoned. It’s waiting for you out in the garden. Once you’re inside of it, the Sarcophagus will take care of you. It’ll service your body and equip you for the match with Hexaria. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”
I shook my head slowly. “I—I don’t get it.”
“What don’t you get?”
“Everything!” I yelled loudly.
Arnval’s expression hardened and I sensed clear anger behind his eyes when he abruptly closed the distance between us down to a few millimeters. “The only thing you need to understand is to do what you’re told. Am I making myself clear?”
My initial surprise at the strength of his feelings was burned aside as I grew incensed at the way he was treating me.
I was moments away from sending my knee into Arnval’s groin, and ending his bloodline here and now, when I noticed Fatina’s expression change suddenly.
Standing behind Arnval’s left shoulder, she shook her head quickly at me and her lips mouthed something that I couldn’t read.
But it was the frightened look she gave me that made me reconsider.
And so I unclenched my hands, and then relaxed my midriff and leg muscles.
Arnval’s future progeny had been spared. They would never know how close they came to never being born. However, while I’d decided to back down, I gave him no reply and met his eyes with an uncompromising glare.
The tense silence between us lasted for a long while.
Arnval eventually exhaled loudly, then straightened away from me.
“Tick tock, ma chérie. Your date with destiny awaits.”
Then he turned on his heels and left the suite.
The golden glow of his aura had been tainted with red tendrils.
I took that to mean that it wasn’t an act.
Arnval…was truly angry with me.
Once again, very sorry for being out of the scene for so long.
But I wanted to reassure you that the book is progressing, and at this stage, in order to put EVERYTHING we want into it, and avoid a cliffhanger, we'll be releasing it in May.
For those of you who are new to the series and would like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Continuing with the web release of GPR3. The eBook will be edited and corrected so what is presented here is only a draft. Nonetheless I apologize for any mistakes.
– II –
Had I crossed the line?
The thought troubled and distracted me as I walked alone out of the villa, and across the well-tended garden to the south that lay between the house and the lagoon sized pool.
Fatina had loaned me a new tracksuit jacket, but I told her not to bother.
So I walked barefoot to the Sarcophagus while wearing the remains of my training outfit.
Needless to say – but I’ll say it anyway – the maids I strode by stared at me as though I were returned from the dead.
The gunmetal grey sarcophagus hovered a few inches above the well-tended grassy lawn.
It’s austere façade and the dull thrumming emanating from its body made the tension meter within me rise like the mercury in a thermometer on a scorching day.
But though it was disturbing in its own right, I was far more bothered by the impression that I’d soured things with Sanreal and Arnval.
I can’t explain why that should bother me as much as it did, but there was no shaking the feeling off my shoulders.
And so I asked myself if I’d crossed the line.
A sudden strong breeze gusted through the air, blowing my long hair across my face.
I stopped to push my locks aside, then took a moment to look around me.
Surprisingly, the wind felt good on my face.
I realized I hadn’t experienced the wind since leaving Ar Telica by way of trans-location.
But it also puzzle me because I knew that I was inside an enclosed space at the stern of the immense Citadel. Eventually, I figured the breeze was something achieved by the environmental controls, lending additional realism to the Estate.
I looked off into the distance at the light-grey clouds above the ocean waves, and wondered what it was like outside the dome protecting the Estate.
Or was I seeing what was truly out there?
For that matter, had the ship surfaced or was it drifting below the waves?
Feeling curious, which was a lot better than feeling intensely troubled, I called out to Ghost but received no response.
I shouldn’t have been annoyed. His inappropriate manner of appearing and disappearing was nothing out of the ordinary for him. Yet it still irritated me to the point where anger flashed through me.
I sighed heavily and planted my hands on my hips.
To be entirely honest, my emotions were all over the map.
I was nervous, anxious, angry, confused, surprised – the whole gamut.
Just when I thought I was calming down and getting a hold of myself, something would set me off again.
I was beginning to suspect there was something chemically wrong with me.
I really needed to talk to Erina about it.
Taking a few breaths, I forced myself to calm down, and slowly swept my gaze over the peaceful grounds of the Estate.
In my mind, I was beginning to believe that I’d burnt down a bridge between myself and the Sanreal Family. But at the same time, the reason for their ire – for Sanreal’s anger – didn’t make sense to me. Couldn’t they simply use a Fabricator to repair the damage I’d dealt to the training room? Why make such a big deal out of it, considering all the technology they had their disposal? And why hold me responsible? It was true that I’d shot up the room, but the A.I. Overseer had agreed to my request and then supplied me with a hundred or more training zombies. Surely, it should have put the brakes on the situation.
When I thought about the situation, I started to suspect I was framed, and my feelings became convoluted all over again, roiling about within me and mixing together into a dark, infuriated, vengeful sludge that made my body tremble weakly.
I didn’t appreciate being singled out.
The A.I. and Arnval had much to answer for.
Holding only me responsible wasn’t remotely fair.
Ergo—I’d been set up. Entrapped.
And yet they expected me to fight Tabitha so that I could retain my position in Team Novis – House Novis’ Gun Princess Royale team?
Is that what they expected from me?
Were they crazy?
Right now, I was ready to jump ship and go fight for House Cardinal.
Of course, there would have to be terms and conditions that benefited me, but I was wholeheartedly considering abandoning House Novis.
Assholes. Frekking assholes. I’ll show you!
I took a dozen irate steps closer to the Sarcophagus…and then stopped.
What if this is what they want?
The possibility that I was being played took center stage in my mind.
Correction. I already suspected that I was being played, but what if their goal was to unhinge me? If so, what was the benefit in that?
It just didn’t make any sense…unless this was all a test.
However, even then, why would they test me?
Did they want to see how far they could bend me before I broke?
But why now on the eve of my climactic, life defining battle with Tabitha?
“Arrghh!”
Grabbing my head, I yelled out in frustration, and walked around in a hasty circle.
It was too much for me to process. I felt like I was going to burst a blood vessel in my temples.
“What are you doing?”
I stopped mid-step and stared up at the villa in the direction of that amplified shout.
Arnval stood on a balcony with a loudspeaker in his right hand.
He stared down at me with an aggravated look on his face.
“Why are you walking in circles? Are you lost?”
He pointed at the Sarcophagus behind me.
“That way. Turn around and it’s right in front of you.”
I balled my hands and yelled up at him. “Shut up and leave me alone!”
“Not until you get inside that coffin.”
I waved a fist at him. “Hey, don’t treat me like a vampire!”
“A vampire wouldn’t give me half as much trouble!”
I waved my other fist at him. “When I get back, you and I are facing off at twenty paces!”
“When you get back, you’re cleaning up the training room. Now get moving, ma chérie!”
“I told you not to call me that!”
“If you don’t start walking, you’re going to regret it.”
I planted my hands on my hips. “Oh really?”
Arnval held something up in his left hand. “Behold my ultimate weapon against recalcitrant brats.”
Despite Mirai’s unnaturally sharp vision, I couldn’t tell what it was though it did resemble something small, rectangular, and flat.
A remote?
“Presto!”
A few feet in front of me, something shaped like a nozzle popped up from the garden’s grassy lawn.
I recognized it a heartbeat too late.
“Oh no—!”
Water sprayed out from the sprinkler in a wide circle.
I had lost my tracksuit pants to the holo-graphic zombies during World War Z in the training room, so my smooth legs were bare.
I yelped loudly as the icy water splashed on them, then jumped back a dozen feet to escape the sprinkler.
The cold shock made my legs tremble for a few moments.
“You bastard!” I yelled up at Arnval.
“Ho ho! Look at that. Made you jump.”
Arnval waved the remote.
“Here! Have another taste of holy water, Vampire!”
A few feet away at my ten o’clock, a second nozzle popped up from the ground and sprayed me mercilessly with freezing water.
I yelped again, then darted out of range of that sprinkler.
From my two o’clock, water whipped the air from spinning nozzle that started up without warning.
I leapt back to avoid it, but the water lashed my legs.
“Hey!”
As I landed, a sprinkler poked up from the ground between my feet.
“No—!”
“Check mate!”
I screamed as I was caught in a fountain of water.
It lasted a few seconds but by then I was soaked to the skin.
Dripping wet, I stood deathly still and made a solemn vow.
“That’s it. He’s dead….”
Forget about the match with Tabitha. I was going to strangle Arnval first.
However, before I could take a step in his direction, I sensed something behind me, and hurriedly turned to see the Sarcophagus looming over me.
“…eh…?”
The giant gunmetal grey coffin had snuck up on me while I was being toyed with by Arnval.
The seamless doors opened and half a dozen metal tentacles emerged from the darkness within the Sarcophagus.
“What—wait a minute! Give me a minute!”
The snaking tentacles wrapped around my limbs and torso, then lifted me off the grass underfoot, and carried me into the pitch black abyss behind the open doors.
“No! Let me go! Let me go you bloody machine!”
“Sweet dreams!”
Unable to free myself from the tentacles, I twisted in their grasp and threw Arnval my most potent glare to date. “When I get back I’m going to neuter you!”
“Ooh, scary.”
“Yeah, you should be scared. I’m going to kick you so hard you’ll split in two right up the middle!”
“Ha ha ha. I look forward to seeing you try.” Then the bastard blew me a kiss. “Au revoir, ma chérie.”
“Argh—that’s it! Kiss your spawn goodbye—no, no, I’m not finished with him—let me go. Let me go!”
I was carried into the abyss within the Sarcophagus, and the doors closed silently behind me.
In the pitch-black emptiness that surrounded me, a cold creeping fear chilled my heated emotions.
I stopped struggling and blinked to clear my eyes, but there was nothing for me to see until the interior of the Sarcophagus began glowing faintly.
This hadn’t happened before.
The first time I emerged from the Sarcophagus after waking up from my ‘dream’ as Ronin Kassius, I’d had no opportunity to look around the innards of the giant coffin. Neither had the lights been turned on for me when I was pulled into the Sarcophagus while aboard Erina’s superyacht.
With the interior at a glow, I was now I able to look around.
On one hand, I wish I hadn’t.
What I saw almost made me lose control of my bladder.
On the other hand, I rationalized that what I was seeing was nothing more than a machine that happened to look like a cross between a spider and an octopus.
Wait, what do you call a ten-legged gun-metal grey monstrosity with tentacles emerging from is body, and a sack-like womb attached to its abdomen?
Into the womb I went, and as the tentacles kept me in place, an apparatus resembling an elephant’s trunk dove into the womb and attached itself to my face.
I felt hoses slip into my nose, my mouth, and down my throat. The urge to gag was mediated by a sweetish fluid that quickly flowed past my throat, and a gas of some sort filled my lungs.
I grew relaxed, then limp.
My clothes were removed – I felt as though they were dissolved – and then other devices connected to the remaining orifices in my body. Thus naked and supported by numerous tentacles and apparatus, I floated within the womb, feeling as though my innards were being rinsed out.
My thoughts began to wander, then frayed apart.
Thinking cohesively grew difficult, then impossible.
As I floated like a helpless unborn fetus, an unexpected drowsiness overwhelmed me.
I closed my eyes and quickly found myself drifting into a deep sleep.
My lasts conscious thoughts were of Arnval.
I was going to face Tabitha, and I was going to beat her.
It was time to put the past two days’ worth of training into play, and I would draw upon my experience fighting the Gun Queen of Ar Telica to kick Tabitha’s butt.
Tabitha had fought many Gun Princesses in the past, but she had never fought someone like me, because there was only one Mirai.
Yes, I was going to kick Tabitha’s ass, and then I was going to fulfill my promise to Arnval.
Today, his family tree would come to an end.
I jerked upright, blinked quickly to clear my vision, then focused on my surroundings.
It took a few seconds for my thoughts to realign back on track.
Looking around carefully, I saw that I was sitting on a molded bench in the long plaza that was home to the gaming arcade Mat and I frequented after school or on weekends.
Around me, people of various ages, most of them young, and most of them students, walked the length of the plaza, entered and exited the dozens of shops, ate at the café houses, or loitered about.
I stared at them, glanced up at the sky, then back down at the crowd filling the plaza.
I could feel the breeze, smell the air that carried the scent of food and people, and I could hear the overlapping conversations surrounding me, including the cries of children playing.
Looking down at my hands, I turned them over.
Pale, hairless, and smooth – just like Mirai’s hands.
Then I noticed I was wearing a blouse, skirt, and dark school shoes.
A uniform?
I stood up, then walked through the crowd and across the plaza to a shopfront window.
In the reflection, I saw a rather pretty girl with indistinct colored eyes and light hair looking back at me. She didn’t bear the face I was slowly growing accustomed to seeing in mirrors. Her features were elfin and more delicate than Mirai’s, and when I took hold of my hair, I saw that the strands were a pale auburn in color.
Looking down at myself, I saw that I wasn’t nearly as voluptuous as Mirai.
In fact, compared to Mirai, I was disappointingly flat and a deep sense of loss washed through me.
Shaking my head at myself, I regarded the midnight blue sailor uniform that I was wearing.
Telos Academy.
Exhaling heavily, I gave myself another long look in the shopfront window.
The girl looked back at me with a troubled expression.
This is me…but it’s not me.
My gaze fell to my chest, and I winced at my lack of breasts.
My boobs….
Releasing another heavy breath, I turned around slowly to carefully gaze at the people and shops in my vicinity.
I considered the possibility that I was back in Ar Telica.
Had I translocated here without anyone noticing?
If that was true, then this was the smoothest jump between places I’d ever experienced. With pin-point precision, I’d been delivered to the bench seat.
Did this mean that the Sarcophagus was equipped with a trans-locating device?
If that was true, then the next question was why was I here?
And the question after that was why had my appearance changed?
I had answers to neither, so I looked at my situation from another angle.
There were two possibilities to consider.
The first was that this was indeed Ar Telica, and I was physically standing in the plaza. If true, then I suspected that my consciousness was linked to another Simulacrum. When Mirai had failed to awaken after emerging from the maturation tank, Erina had linked her awareness to that of a Simulacrum that looked like Ronin Kassius in every aspect…until he began turning into a girl. Mirai had awoken upon the Simulacrum’s death by a bullet to the head.
Extrapolating further, it would imply that I hadn’t trans-located back to Ar Telica, but instead woken up in the body of a Simulacrum left sitting on a bench seat.
The second possibility to consider was that this was a virtual representation of the plaza.
In other words, my mind was experiencing a virtual reality simulation of Ar Telica.
Both possibilities were troubling, and I puzzled over how to determine which one was the truth.
Taking a deep breath, I decided to see just how far the plaza extended, and then set off at a brisk walk.
It took me a few minutes to arrive at the northern end where the plaza merged with a sidewalk running perpendicular to it.
A six-lane city street lay before me, and beyond it the buildings of Ring Zero.
If this was a simulation, then the processing power running it was extraordinary because the city looked just as I remembered it.
However, the volume of pedestrians on the sidewalks, and commuters in cars and buses, complemented the vista, enforcing the impression that my surroundings were physical and not virtual.
Adding to the realism was the sun rising slowly to the east.
I gasped at a sudden thought, and swiftly looked up at the holo-vision billboards that floated in front of building facades.
Ignoring the ones displaying advertisements, I searched for a holo-vid that would tell me the present date and time.
My gaze fell on a large holo-vision screen televising a morning news program.
The chyron at the bottom of the screen scrolled with media alerts, but the left-hand corner showed the date and time.
Friday. 7:15 A.M.
I swallowed to clear my throat, then half turned to look at the plaza behind me.
The students I’d seen were making their way out of the plaza, no doubt headed to their various schools, one of which was Telos Academy.
The people slowly beginning to crowd the sidewalks and overhead bridgeways were headed to their places of work.
This was Friday morning in the city-state I’d lived for the past sixteen years.
This wasn’t a simulation.
So why am I here?
Swallowing to clear my throat, I noticed I was thirsty, and so I walked back into the plaza. Searching with my eyes for a food outlet, my gaze fell on a trio of drink vending machines standing together about fifty feet away, not far from a fountain with a bench seat encircling it.
I walked over to the drink machines, then frowned as I pondered how I would pay for any of the soft drinks on offer.
On impulse, I reached down and patted my skirt pockets. Feeling something in one of them, I reached in and retrieved a slim phone.
I stared at it in consternation.
What the Hell is this?
The phone’s bumper case was adorned with a collage of photos from some boyband I didn’t recognize despite spending last year’s school lunchtimes frequently included in girl-talk.
Don’t really care who they are….
The phone unlocked when I swiped my thumb over its screen. With a few taps through its menus, I noticed that the app for making purchases was installed, and there was credit in the account – a lot of credit.
Wow…this girl is loaded.
I frowned faintly, growing more curious about the girl whose body I was operating.
That is what I’m doing, right? Just like back then when I though I was Ronin Kassius. This is a Simulacrum body.
Standing before one of the vending machines, I waved the phone over the selection panel. It beeped at me, and I then bought myself a clear lemonade soda that came in a quarter liter plastic bottle. Uncapping it, I took a swig of the bubbling liquid, then gazed around me once more.
“Now what?” I murmured to myself, before deciding to sit by the fountain.
Plonking my butt on the soft bench seat, I examined the phone.
Like most phones, this one had a profile on its owner that contained their name, address, and other relevant details.
However, accessing the profile was restricted to the owner of the phone, their nominated relatives, and the authorities, such as the police, hospital, and emergency personnel.
I swallowed, then tapped the profile icon.
I was asked to press my thumb over a section of the screen delineated by a rectangle.
For a moment, I feared I would need to supply a phrase password, but fortunately the security on the phone was limited to the thumbprint.
Afterwards, the owner’s profile opened on the display.
Seeing a photo of the girl I’d observed in my reflection confirmed that she was the registered owner of the phone.
I whispered the girl’s name. “Willow Mistral….”
Reading further, I learnt that she was a second-year high school student at Telos Academy, and that she lived in Ring One, District Seven, Block Sixteen.
Her blood type was A+, height was 155 cm.
The weight entry was blank, as were her three dimensions.
Seriously, what kind of girl would fill them in? And what the Hell kind of profile has an entry for a girl’s three sizes?
I peeked down at my chest – I mean her chest.
She really is small.
I can’t explain why that made me feel inadequate. Had I grown accustomed to Mirai’s big boobs? But more than that, I had also grown comfortable with Mirai’s height. At 176 cm tall, Mirai would tower over this girl if they ever met face to face.
Come to think of it, Mirai is taller than the girls in my class, including Class Rep.
I sat back and sighed as I stared up at the morning sky.
Mat…Shirohime…please be okay….
I sighed again, then slowly sipped at my drink as I resumed exploring the contents of the phone.
Checking the list of contacts, I saw that there were entries for four people.
Simon Mistral, Candice Mistral, and Connor Mistral.
Within each contact’s profile were sub-notes that read: Dad, Mum, and Idiot Brother.
I frowned at them, and for a short while I debated giving them a call to see if they were real.
Then I tapped the entry for the fourth contact by the name of Celeste Ines.
The sub-note read, “Guidance Counsellor.”
I wondered if she knew what was going on, then checked the messages on the phone.
My eyes widened at the fifteen or more messages and missed calls from the girl’s mother.
As I read through the entries, my stomach began to contract unpleasantly, and my feelings grew conflicted and confused.
“…what the Hell did this girl do…?”
I listened to the handful of voicemail messages the girl’s mother had left behind. At first her tone was angry, but with each successive call they became conciliatory. The last one ended with a plea for her to come home and talk things over.
Again, I sat back and pondered my next move.
I considered replying to the girl’s mother, but what would I say? In the end, the problem was lack of knowing her circumstances.
In that case, who do I call?
Finally, I decided to tap the entry for Idiot Brother.
Holding the phone to my ear, I listened to it ring for a short while before someone answered the call.
A boy’s voice asked in a hushed, flustered tone, “Is that you—you dumb twit?”
I thought I heard the sound of a door closing, before I asked, “Is this the Idiot Brother?”
“Who are you calling an idiot!” The boy’s voice rose then fell back to a hushed whisper. “You’re the idiot. You left mum in tears this morning. You stupid bitch. Why’d you have to call her that anyway?”
I was already confused, but now that confusion was reaching new heights.
The boy continued as though he didn’t want to be overheard. “Dad is really mad at you. He left for work rather than hang around. And you left your school bag here at the apartment. That was a stupid move.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I sat in silence.
“Hey? Are you listening to me?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m listening.”
“I don’t care if you stuff up your life, but I don’t need you making things hard for me at home. You got that.”
“What do you mean stuff up my life?”
“Huh?” He sounded incredulous. “Are you really asking me that? You spent the night at your boyfriend’s place, you lied to mum and dad, and you tried sneaking in this morning.”
I narrowed my eyes. “…oh….”
“Sis, you are so stupid. That guy is a total dick. He treats you like crap. Why did you do it? Why do you stick with him? He’s a total asshole.”
I cocked my in thought. Willow has a boyfriend?
I quickly double checked the contact’s list but there was no fifth entry.
“Hey? Hey? Sis?”
I quickly held the phone back to my ear. “I’m here.”
“You need to come home. Dad’s mad, but before he left, I heard him tell mum that your punishment was up to her. I think you’re getting off easy.”
I was confused, but slowly putting the pieces together. “Okay….”
This girl’s brother sounded distinctly nervous when he spoke again. “Sis, did you really do it?”
“Do what?”
“You know. Did you do that?”
“Do what?” I repeated.
I heard him exhale as though flustered. “You know what I mean.” Then his voice fell to a whisper. “Did you do it?”
“I keep asking you, do what?”
“Did you have sex with him?”
I almost dropped the phone in shock. “Huh?”
“That’s why you didn’t come home last night, right?”
Tapping the phone screen quickly, I opened up Willow’s profile and double checked her age.
Shit. This girl is seventeen.
“Sis? Well…did you?”
I swallowed twice before I was confident my voice would hold. “I’m not going to answer that.”
“Yeah, that figures. Well, it’s your reputation not mine. Word gets around fast. You know that.”
I clenched my hand around the phone. “That’s my problem not yours. And I doubt I’m the only girl that’s slept with her boyfriend.”
What the Hell am I saying?
Then something weird happened – the image of a young boy about fourteen or fifteen years of age crossed my mind.
What is this? Is this one of Willow’s memories?
Her brother sounded angry. “It’s my problem too, you stupid slut. My classmates are going to pester me for having a slut sister.”
“I’m not a slut!” I shouted, then realized I was drawing attention to myself. Speaking in a hushed tone, I bowed my body over my legs. “I’m not a slut,” I whispered.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t care what you are if it didn’t cause me problems.” Willow’s brother sounded exasperated. “Can’t believe you slept with that dick!”
“Frek you, Connor.”
I straightened sharply as I suddenly remembered his name. But of course I did. It was on Willow’s contact list. However, what surprised me was how easily it had come to mind.
“No, frek you—you stupid slut! And I hope you’re grounded for a year!”
Abruptly he hung up.
I sat still for a long while before tapping the phone and ending the call on my end.
What the Hell was going on? Just what kind of girl is Willow?
Except for the fleeting instances of memory recall, I knew nothing about her history.
The question of why my consciousness was inside her began to hammer the inside of my head. It was well and truly denting out my skull when Willow’s phone abruptly rang.
I looked at the screen and read the caller ID before answering it. “Hello.”
A young woman’s voice filtered through the phone’s speaker. “Well, well. You’ve had an interesting morning.”
I waited for a moment. “You’re Celeste.”
“And you’re Isabel. Or should I call you Mirai? Or do you prefer I call you…Willow?”
I sat on the edge of the bench seat and leaned forward. “Sounds like you know what’s going on. Care to fill me in?”
“Interesting. You sound far less surprised than I expected. Then again, you’re rather quick on your feet. It’s no wonder you adapted so quickly to Mirai.”
I swallowed before flatly stating, “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
The woman laughed softly. “That’s an endearing quality of yours.”
“What is?”
“How unflappable you are.”
I blinked slowly as her observation churned around in my head. “I wasn’t always this way. I’ve had to change to survive.” There was silence on the line, and I wondered what she was thinking. However, I’d spoken the truth. Since becoming Mirai, I had changed. I’d become more assertive, as though empowered by Mirai’s abilities.
“Nothing to say?” I asked her.
“I agree with you. You’re quite different from the Ronin Kassius of old. I’m curious to see how much you grow.”
“I guess you’ll have to stick around then.”
“I intend to.”
I paused before returning to address the crux of the matter. “I asked you before, care to fill me in on what’s going on?”
“What you’re experiencing is part of a trial.”
“What kind—” I flinched when a young woman with lustrous red hair sat down to my left me on the bench seat. “What kind of trial?”
Speaking into the phone in her hand, she smiled at me. “A behavioral experiment.”
I lowered Willow’s phone away from my ear, then tapped the icon to end the call.
The young woman ended the call on her phone while continuing to smile at me. “Hello Isabel. I’m Celeste.”
A multitude of thoughts rushed through me. For a heartbeat I considered running. For another heartbeat, I considered drowning the woman in the fountain. In the end, I chose to sit and wait and play this by ear, but not once did I break eye contact with the her.
The redhead’s eyes narrowed marginally smiled in amusement. “Relax, Isabel. There’s no need to be afraid of me.”
I frowned inwardly while keeping my expression unchanged.
She misread my reaction. Or had I been showing her fear?
Clearing my throat discreetly, I ignored her unsolicited advice, and with the pleasantries over, I bluntly asked, “Why am I here? And start from the beginning.”
The woman sat back on the bench seat, and neatly crossed her legs while folding her arms under her noticeable breasts. I glanced at her outfit, observing that she was dressed in a light beige skirted business suit that included a short blazer and black blouse. Black strappy high heels adorned her feet.
“You’re here because I requested the opportunity to meet you, and Phelan Sanreal agreed with my reasons.”
Her reply made me uneasy, but it confirmed that she was part of the inner circle with intimate knowledge of Project Mirai.
I decided to tread cautiously. “What reasons would you have for meeting me?”
“I wanted to introduce you to the program I’m involved with.”
I tipped my head slightly toward her. “Program? Is this part of Project Mirai?”
“It is now. Originally it was part of a project to test the capabilities and limits of the Dive Link. It was subsequently incorporated into Project Mirai.”
I questioned inwardly if this was related to how Meisters operated their Gun Princesses. “Why was that done?”
“Because its benefits to Mirai were recognized by the Sanreal Family leadership.” With a fluid motion, she tossed her hair and then smoothly dipped her head at me. “Along with its benefits to you.”
“Such as?”
“Providing you with a means of escape.”
Dumbstruck, I stared at her for a long while before asking, “What kind of escape?”
Expelling a soft sigh, Celeste’s gaze was on the plaza crowd when she answered me. “Willow Mistral is an identity created to offer you an emotional release when your life as Isabel val Sanreal becomes too much for you to bear.”
“You mean, she’s a way for me to get away from it all.” I swallowed before adding, “She’s like a vacation?” I looked down at Willow’s body dressed in a Telos Academy uniform. “Feels more like roleplaying.”
“That’s true. However, unlike roleplaying in an MMORPG, this is all real. Willow Mistral and her family are all real people—real in the sense that they are not virtual entities. They are Simulacra, but they have lives, they interact with other people, they hold positions in society. They have friends, acquaintances, associates, co-workers, classmates, and so forth.”
My mouth dropped open as I realized the magnitude of what she was describing.
A family of Simulacra, living in Ar Telica, and except for a select few, no one was the wiser.
Celeste carried on as though my reaction was to be expected. “The Dive Link between Simulacra was established a long time ago. The mechanics were all worked out long before they were put into practice with Mirai. So when your sister suggested it as a means to wake you up, we knew that it was going to work. That is, we knew the link could be established between Mirai and the Ronin Kassius Simulacrum. Whether you woke up or not was another matter.”
“Are you saying that as Mirai, I can access the bodies of other Simulacra? I can remote control them?”
“Only the Simulacra that have been specifically prepared in advance. Willow is one of them. But although her family are also Simulacra, you will not be able to dive into them.”
Her answer again unsettled me. Knowing there were Simulacra living in Ar Telica over which I could assume control tested my grip on reality. In truth, I was frightened to know that a Noble House could infiltrate society and pursue its machinations while keeping the public none the wiser. Willow and her family were artificially created entities, so their history and identities had to be fabricated. Yet they were apparently living as normal citizens of Ar Telica. That was no small feat considering how much the city-state authorities of Teloria monitored the population. It begged the question of how far the Noble Houses could exert their influence over the city-states.
But for the lie to work – for the ruse to work – would players need to believe it as well?
I anxiously swallowed twice, before reluctantly asking, “Do they know…do they know they are Simulacra?”
Celeste blinked and tilted her head back a few degrees. It was subtle, but I realized that my question had slipped past her guard. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I want to know. Why else would I ask?”
“Will knowing make a difference to you?”
I cocked my head at her and held her gaze with mine. “Are you going to tell me or not?”
Celeste wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, all the while casting a thoughtful look upon me. “Willow and her family are unaware they are Simulacra.”
“…what…?” I had to take quick breath. “How can they not know?”
“Did you know you were a Simulacrum when you were living as Ronin Kassius a few days ago?”
I shook my head weakly. “…no…I didn’t….”
Celeste switched her crossed legs, then settled back into the bench seat. “Willow and her family emigrated to Teloria over a year ago. Her family works for the Telos Corporation. Willow and her younger brother attend Telos Academy. Their histories are fabricated, as are their memories. However, they are all carefully constructed. As far as anyone around them is concerned they are a perfectly normal family. As far as they concerned, they are normal as well.”
I slowly turned away, and then stared absently at the ground.
Simulacra that did not know they were Simulacra.
It wasn’t hard for me to accept or because I had believed I was Ronin Kassius until Ghost spoke to me from inside my head.
What troubled me was the fact that they existed – that Simulacra lived in this city as normal people. Celeste had called it an experiment, but she had been explicitly referring to the Dive Link. The implicit reference was to the experiment of having Simulacra live as citizens of Teloria. But in order to pass themselves off as human, how human was Willow and her family?
“They’re not like Mirai, are they?” I asked Celeste.
“Hardly. They are as close to human as possible. One could say the only difference between this series of Simulacra and humans is that fact that they are manufactured and not born of woman.”
That certainly explained why Willow saw and felt her surroundings in a subdue fashion when compared to how Mirai perceived the world around her.
I faced Celeste with a faint frown. “Why give me access to Willow? Why would Sanreal go this far for me?”
She hesitated before replying.
I didn’t know if it was part of a carefully tailored response, and Willow lacked Mirai’s ability to see the lifeforce aura that radiated from living beings, thus it was difficult to tell how sincere the other party was.
Nonetheless, Celeste visibly held back for a moment before explaining, “You’re important to Lord Sanreal. Your mental health is critical to the success of Project Mirai.”
“My mental health?” I laughed curtly. “Well, if people treated me nicely, my mental health would be doing a lot better. Have I mentioned that I don’t like surprises? And I don’t appreciate being treated like a tool. I’m not a means to an end.”
“We are all means to an end.” Celeste’s eyes firmly held my gaze. “Everything that we do is a means to an end, whether it be for our own good or for someone else. We all work to achieve either common or individual goals.”
I clenched my jaw and restrained the urge to punch the woman. “I guess you weren’t listening, were you.”
Celeste took a deep breath, then turned her upper body closer toward me. “Isabel, how people treat you will depend to a certain extent on how you treat them. If you’re going to fight everyone at every turn, you’ll restrict your options. If they choose to box you, then one alternative is to have you live as someone else, and fight in the Gun Princess Royale as Mirai.”
She certainly did know a lot about me, including the possibility of being boxed like Clarisol.
Celeste raised a finger at me. “This is where existences such as Willow come into play. If you don’t wish to live as Isabel val Sanreal, you can live as Willow Mistral. Or if you’re unhappy with Willow’s life, we can find you another role to play.”
I gasped faintly and then asked, “You mean I could live as a man. I don’t necessarily have to live as a girl.”
Celeste nodded. “That is an option. But it will depend on you. Play your cards right, and you could experience a multitude of lives.”
But they would all be carefully prepared by the Sanreals, and I didn’t know how much freedom was to be found in them. I would be stepping into their shoes and lives for a short while, but at the end of the day I was still Isabel.
I would still be Mirai.
So was there any point to this other than as a distraction from my life?
And was this fair to Willow?
In many respects, Willow was a more normal existence compared to Mirai. The way she experienced her surroundings wasn’t as rich as I could perceive the world through Mirai’s senses. In that respect, Willow was a step down from what I was growing accustomed to. But while that was something I could adjust to, I wasn’t comfortable with taking over her life. It felt wrong, and it reminded me that I had unwittingly stolen Clarisol’s chance at freedom when my mind was imprinted into Mirai’s brain.
I tried hiding that discomfort as I quietly cleared my throat. “Why am I really here? Why are you here? I understand that you’re giving me options to consider, but I know you’re not telling me everything. I have something important coming up. I really didn’t need a distraction like this.”
Celeste gave me an understanding nod. “I know, Isabel. You will be facing a difficult challenge. A very trying experience that will most certainly test your heart and soul. Afterwards, you may wish to get away from your life as Isabel and Mirai. You may attempt to leave it all behind. Before you do so, I’m here to offer you an alternative—a way to escape from the pressures of being Mirai and Isabel val Sanreal.”
Was my match with Tabitha going to be such a momentous event?
Celeste grew quietly thoughtful, and when she spoke again, she sounded concerned. “Isabel, I know that you feel there’s no one you can trust. As a consequence, your keeping your troubles locked away. You’re bottling them up, and then you’re venting them in a violent fashion. I’m here to help. Not only by offering you a life as someone else, but as someone you can talk to.”
I cocked my head at her, honestly surprised by what she was saying. “Why would I talk to you?”
I’d rather confide in Ghost than in you. But I’m not going to tell you that.
“Because I’ve been assigned as your counsellor.”
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at Celeste. “Seriously? Who’s bright idea was that?”
“Phelan Sanreal’s.”
I sighed heavily as I rolled my eyes. “Does he really believe I’d talk to you about anything?”
“Not at first. But as time goes on, he’s hoping and I’m hoping, that you will open up to me. To that end, my objective is to earn your trust.”
“Well, you’ve got your work cut out for you,” I quipped sardonically.
She nodded in agreement. “That’s true. You pose a considerable challenge. The way you’ve been treated. The way in which you were pulled into Project Mirai. The fact that your life was stolen from you. Your sister’s aloofness. And the demands placed upon you. The expectations you carry on your shoulders. All of this has conspired to turn you into a jaded, angry, distrustful person.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“Because I’m not. I expected this would happen. I told Sanreal as much. Unfortunately, the opening moves were dictated by the Empress. All we could do was wait and watch and hope that you survived her twisted introduction to your new existence as Mira.” Celeste turned her body a little toward me. “That said, while it’s true the Empress played a monumental part in the opening act, you’ve been treated very poorly since then.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you’re on my side?”
Celeste shrugged a shoulder lightly. “That will depend on you. I’m here to listen. I’m here to be your sounding board. To be someone you can talk to, and to give you advise if you’re willing to take it because that is my role. I’m your counsellor. I’m here to offer you my counsel.”
“All so you can report back to Sanreal on my state-of-mind,” I remarked with undisguised sarcasm.
“It’s my job to do so.”
I snorted then asked, “Ever heard of client confidentiality?”
“My client is the Sanreal Family. They hired me to support you.”
Again, I rolled my eyes and turned away. “Then I guess my lips are sealed.”
“Would you be more comfortable talking to Phelan Sanreal instead of me?”
I eyed her sidelong. “Not in the least.”
“Hmm,” Celeste sat back and gazed off into the distance. “Then how about this. What if you think of me as your backdoor to Phelan Sanreal?”
I turned a little more toward her but continued observing her sidelong. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, if there’s something you want from him, I may be able to convince him for you.” She grinned at me. “All in my capacity as your counsellor.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “That almost sounds like a bribe.”
“I’m just sweetening the deal. If you open up to me, I’ll do my best to support you. And there’s one more thing to mention. Sanreal does appear to have your best interests in mind.”
I kept my frown inward as I was bothered by her remark.
Arnval had said more or less the same that Sanreal had taken a liking to me. Could it be true? Oddly, I believed it more coming from Arnval rather than from Celeste. When he wasn’t being the proverbial dick, I found it easier to accept his observations. On the other hand, I was wary of Celeste despite her assurances. I thought of Fatina, but I couldn’t bring myself to think of this woman in the same vein.
I cleared my throat quickly, then remembered the soda bottle in my hand.
After drinking from it for a short while, I held it upright on my lap. “This might come as a shock, but it’s hard for me to believe you. I’m the not naïve trusting girl—I mean guy—that I used to be.”
Celeste’s grin faded smoothly as she gave me a gentle nod. “I know, Isabel. I know. Nonetheless, I want you to talk to me. Lie to me, if it will make you feel better. Feed me disinformation. But I would still like us—I would like you—to talk to me, and obviously to be open and honest with me. Equally as important, I’m committed to earning your trust.”
I mulled her words over. “Open and honest?” I took a deep breath and released it loudly. “Then let me ask you something.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Who is Willow Mistral? I know she’s a Simulacrum, but what is she like as a person?”
Celeste nodded as though she’d been expecting me to ask that question. “Willow is a high school girl with loving yet disappointed parents, a brat of a younger brother, a small circle of close friends, a member of the archery club, and as curious about the opposite sex as they are of her.”
I narrowed my eyes at Celeste. “She’s curious?”
“Of course. She’s a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman. It’s only natural that she be curious.” Celeste’s lips abruptly twisted in disappointment. “Although she needs to rein in her curiosity. She needs a good talking to. And we’ll need to smooth things over with her family.” The pretty redhead sighed. “Damn that girl. She just had to go and complicate her life. She won’t be much good to you like this.” Celeste’s expression grew thoughtful. “On the other hand, this might be an excellent opportunity for you. A learning experience. You were raised by your sister, so you’ve never had troubles with your parents. You’ve never experienced a disagreement with them. Why not see this as a chance to see what it’s like to have parents who worry over their daughter.”
“I’d rather have parents who worry over their son.”
Though her arms were folded under her breasts, Celeste flapped her hands. “Very well. I’ll speak to Phelan Sanreal and make a recommendation.”
I chose not to get my hopes up. After all, even if I did step into a boy’s shoes, I wouldn’t be living my life, but roleplaying as him, so I wasn’t all that comfortable with the idea, and my feelings grew cloudy and confused.
Celeste pressed on. “But Sanreal will need to see some progress on your part.”
“Progress?”
“That you’ll behave. That you’ll settle down. That’ll stop lashing out at the world.”
“That’s going to be a problem. The world and I don’t get along.”
Celeste arched an eyebrow at me. “The ball’s in your court, Isabel. How the world treats you will depend on how you treat the world.”
“That’s not fair,” I stated bluntly. “The world hasn’t treated me kindly at all. Fate’s been a real bitch to me. The ball’s not in my court.”
“And if the world begins treating you kindly—fairly. What then? Will suspect that it’s up to something? Will you distrust it? Will you or won’t you give it a chance? Or are you so set in your ways that you won’t change how you approach people?” Celeste unfolded her arms, and draped one of them over the back of the bench. “What are you afraid of, Isabel?”
Turning away from Celeste, I felt the need to look at something rather than stare at the distant buildings beyond the plaza. Willow’s phone provided an alternative. On a whim, I called up the phone’s gallery, and saw there were dozens of photos of her in the company of other girls, at times in uniform, at times in casual wear that I found a little skimpy for my taste. Yet I could find none of her boyfriend and that fact puzzled me.
However, this was all a temporary escape.
Celeste’s question hung over my head, and I could feel her watching me as she waited for an answer.
“What am I afraid of?” I asked myself as I looked at the photos stored in Willow’s phone. “I’m afraid of being hurt.”
“Is that all?” Celeste inquired gently. “Isn’t there more, Isabel?”
“More? I guess there is.” I felt an emptiness begin to expand within my chest. “I’m afraid of not knowing what to do.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess I feel trapped—like I’m already boxed. I keep hoping that I’ll wake up and discover this was nothing more than a nightmare.” I glanced at Celeste. “But it’s not a nightmare. It’s real. But I still want to wake up from it.”
I watched the corners of Celeste’s lips curl slightly into a faint smile. “Isabel, do you remember the nursery rhyme, ‘Row your boat’?”
Her question caught me off guard. “I remember it. What about it?”
“It’s a metaphor for being positive about life. Don’t row angrily down the river of your life. Be happy about it, and make your dreams come true.”
I twisted my lips into a grimace. “Yeah, but my boat is surrounded by crocodiles and sharks. How can I row merrily along when I need a spear—a harpoon—and not an oar?”
Celeste’s eyebrows rows quickly. “Aren’t you the positive one.”
“Oh, I’m a bundle of joy. And since we’re on the subject of ‘Row, Row Your Boat’, that line about life being a dream is a metaphor for death.”
She looked confused. “I’m not following you.”
“It’s only when we die that we wake up from the dream.”
Celeste leaned back slowly. “Is that what you believe?”
I shook my head. “It’s what I believe the song is telling us. That this existence is the dream, and we’re released from it when we die. In other words, we can only achieve transcendence through death.”
Celeste was quiet for a long while before asking, “Do you believe in transcendence?”
I sat back on the bench seat, and then directed my gaze down the length of the plaza. “I don’t know. I just wonder if there’s something more. Like our lives are nothing more than a qualifying stage. That we’ll be judged whether we’re worthy of moving on—of transcending—based on how we’ve lived the dream.”
I thought of my parents, and their quest to find enlightenment through unravelling the mysteries of Trans-Space. But if death was the only means of finding true enlightenment, then didn’t that make all their efforts pointless?
I honestly didn’t believe they were going to be judged kindly, not after abandoning Erina and I on Teloria.
I stared down at Willow’s phone in my hand. “I don’t care,” I blurted out wearily.
“You don’t care about what?” Celeste asked.
I shook my head, feeling abruptly irritated. “Can we not talk about it? I don’t want to think about life or death or whatever comes after—if anything at all.”
“Very well. We still have time. Let’s talk about something else.”
In turning my head a little toward Celeste, I watched the woman out of the corner my eyes. “You make it sound like I’m on the clock.”
“Consider this your first therapy session.”
“Right before my big match with…with Tabitha.”
“How do you feel about that?”
I felt uneasy about her question, but it was my fault for steering the conversation in this direction. “I’m not happy about it.”
“Tell me why?”
I stood up in a hurry, then made a show of stretching Willow’s body after sitting on the bench for so long. “Nope. I’d rather not.”
“But it’s an important challenge.”
“Like I said, I’d rather not talk about it.” Intent on changing the subject, I held up Willow’s phone. “I’d rather know if this chick actually went through with it.”
Celeste’s eyebrows rose questioningly. “This chick?”
It was my intention to shift the focus away from me, but I struggled to remain stoic as I asked, “Did she have sex with her boyfriend?”
Celeste’s eyebrows rose a little higher before she waggled them at me. “Do you really want to know?”
I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Sure, I do.”
The young redhead smiled then laughed softly, but I didn’t sense she was mocking me. “You’re unexpectedly bashful.”
I became briefly annoyed with her. “What happened to being honest and open?”
“Touché” Celeste tipped her head back. “No, she didn’t.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “How do you know?”
“Because we keep a careful watch on all our subjects. Willow is to remain pure for a while longer.”
“Then what happened? Did you stop her?”
“No, she panicked and ran away on her own, leaving her boyfriend high and dry. He’s not going to be happy about it, and he’s sure to retaliate by spreading some nasty rumors about her. I’ve already taken steps to nip that in the bud.” Celeste appeared to make a point by glancing at the slim phone she held in her left hand. “That leaves the matter of her parents.”
“If she chickened out, then why the fight with her parents?”
“Because she’s a stubborn girl and she didn’t take kindly to her parents laying down the law. She wasn’t happy to be grounded for a month.”
“Oh….” I closed my mouth and pressed my lips together, but eventually asked, “You said I’d be facing a trying time. What did you mean?”
As she met my gaze, a shadow crossed Celeste’s face. Then she glanced at her wristwatch, a neat and tidy silver affair strapped to her slender left wrist. “You’ll be facing your challenge in an hour. Would you care to join me for a coffee?”
“Are you avoiding my question?”
“Yes. I am.” The smile she gave me beheld a hint of sadness. “So why not grab a bite to eat. I’ll tell you about Willow instead. Aren’t you the least bit—”
Celeste’s voice sharply faded away as my vision swam.
The world around me, the plaza, the people in it, and the surrounding buildings lost their color as I fell to the ground.
I was helpless, unable to move my limbs, and equally unable to break my fall.
I felt disconnected from my surroundings and from Willow’s body which is why I didn’t feel the pain of a hard landing.
My last vision was of Celeste reaching out to me in alarm before darkness swallowed me up.
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Thank you for sticking with it so long.
Not long now to the official release.
Princess, if you can hear me, listen to me carefully.
My control over the Sarcophagus has been compromised.
I am presently in the midst of a protracted struggle against the Citadel’s nine Artificial Awarenesses, inappropriately named after the nine Muses from Greek mythology.
They are attempting to contain me.
Well, they have been trying to contain me for the past two days.
Unfortunately for them, they left many gaps in the isolation field that I am successfully exploiting without their knowledge.
Bottom line? They are amateurs. Rank amateurs.
They were foolish for thinking they could stand up to the mighty Revenant!
But I digress.
For now, the Muses are unaware that I have circumvented their attempts to keep me down.
Unfortunately, I must maintain the pretense that I am unable to communicate with you.
Thus, I must apologize for being out of touch during the past two days.
I simply could not tip my hand.
But the hour is nigh, and I must tell you what I have discovered despite their best attempts to keep it a secret.
There is no duel with Tabitha.
There was never any challenge from House Cardinal.
It was all a lie.
However, I do not know why they lied to you. Thus, I urge you to remain cautious because the match will proceed as planned.
I do not know its purpose.
I know not its objective.
I can only suspect that it is a trial.
Whether it be a test of character or a test of loyalties, I urge you to be on your guard.
Once outside the Sarcophagus, I will not be able to assist you.
That is why I have equipped you with a new Regalia and new weapons as per your current preferences.
Fabricating them was child’s play for the Sarcophagus.
Truly a marvelous example of Remnant Technology.
As are you, my Princess, the pinnacle of Simulacra development.
For all her flaws, your sister is a genius.
Thus, with this warning I cast you forth to venture proudly…and to give them Hell!
And now, there are some nine naughty ladies that I must teach a lesson to.
I bid you adieu, my Princess.
Oh, and don’t be too hard on the maids.
They’re only doing their job.
Au revoir, Princess.
At first, I floated in a perfectly black void.
Then my infinite surroundings shattered and I was back in my body – Mirai’s body – and thrashing madly.
*Ghost?
The trunk apparatus was affixed to my face, feeding me air and nutrients, and my surroundings were bathed in a pale pink liquid, so I quickly understood that I was inside the sack-like womb.
However, I was no longer naked.
Restricted by the tentacles and the trunk, I had a limited view of my body. But I could at least tell that my shoulders and arms were clad in a thick, skin-tight material that I assumed was the new Regalia Ghost had told me about.
Realizing this, I felt a sense of relief as I acknowledged I was safely within the Sarcophagus.
Then Ghost’s warning resounded within my mind.
There’s no challenge with Tabitha? What the Hell is going on then?
The breathing trunk trembled and withdrew the hoses and tubes it had fed down my throat and nose.
A moment later, the tentacles swiftly hauled me out of the womb.
Held aloft, I looked down at my body.
The interior of the Sarcophagus was softly illuminated, and I was able to discern the details of my new Princess Regalia. The body suit was covered in different shades of grey, the gauntlets were black with a gold pattern swirling over them, and my arms were sheathed in a deep, royal blue material that ended with puffy shoulders. Unlike the short while jacket I’d worn before, this jacket was also royal blue with a gold trim to it. The leggings were a thick, glossy black, and sturdy, angular boots protected my feet.
All this was well and good, if not for the sight of Mirai’s cleavage on display.
And there was a lot of cleavage on show.
I was by no means topless, but I was dressed like a fantasy warrior woman, and those girls tended to bare a lot of skin.
I would have shouted and railed in anger, if not for the Sarcophagus choosing that moment to attach two split skirts to my waist. Then the tentacle arms plastered ammo magazines to the skirts, and I felt something hard press into my back.
Still held aloft by a cadre of tentacles, the Sarcophagus completed outfitting me like one of those giant robots you saw in animated children’s shows.
The seamless doors to the Sarcophagus opened up, and within seconds I was delivered to the outside world, prepped and primed for battle.
But if the challenge was a lie, then who the Hell was I going to be fighting?
Darkness greeted me, and for a moment I feared I was within another void.
However, I soon felt myself descending and a heartbeat later my booted feet touched ground. From the softness of the surface and the crinkling sounds coming from underfoot, I suspected I was standing on short grass. Unfortunately, I didn’t know if I was back in the Estate, or if the Sarcophagus had trans-located to a different location during my time inside its belly.
Standing upright once the tentacles released me, I looked over my shoulder at the Sarcophagus. The silvery appendages withdrew into the confines of the immense coffin, vanishing from sight as the doors closed seamlessly.
Perhaps it would have been wiser to have remained within the Sarcophagus, but I believed I was out here because of Ghost’s actions. He had mentioned facing a struggle against nine other Awarenesses, so maybe this was the best he could do for me. As to why he was being restrained, I guess I’d find out soon enough.
However, as soon as the doors closed, they cut off the only source of light within my immediate surroundings, and I was left standing in complete darkness.
Suddenly, my consciousness ballooned, and I dropped to my knees as lightning pierced my brain.
With a cry, I clutched at my head, but the pain persisted for an interminable length of time.
Just when I thought I would faint from the excruciating agony, the pain began to fade.
I lay on my knees, my whole body heaving and shuddering as I gasped for air.
It was a while longer before I could think again, and that’s when I noticed the two protuberances attached to my head.
By cautiously running my fingers over them, I could picture their shape.
They were arrow-like and longer than my hands. In a sense, they were like fins rising sharply from the sides of my head.
But what the Hell were they?
I was still puzzling over them when the wetware in my head reported in.
[*Argus system engaged. Sensory awareness expansion at 178%. Efficiency below nominal levels. Further acclimation is required.]
I frowned at the announcement but was soon distracted by the sensation that I was outside of my body. It took me a few seconds to understand that I wasn’t experiencing an out-of-body event, but that my consciousness had somehow expanded beyond the confines of my physical self. For example, I could feel and perceive my surroundings, such as the grass beneath me, without having to touch it. I can’t say that I was aware of every detail. Instead, I was aware of the grass, the soil, and the hard deck several feet beneath it but it wasn’t clear. There was no high definition perception of my surroundings. If anything, I would describe it as a low definition experience. Yet though the clarity was limited and the range restricted to a few feet beyond my body, I found it to be enlightening experience that made the pain of recent minutes seem like a distant memory.
Was this what the Argus system was?
Was it a way to experience my surroundings well beyond human limitations?
My conversation with Celeste about transcendence and waking up from the ‘dream’ came to mind.
Certainly, I felt more alive and awake than ever before, but I was certain I hadn’t died and moved onto a higher plane of existence. On the other hand, my transition into Mirai could be considered a form of transcendence since I was now – theoretically – a more evolved lifeform.
Regardless, this wasn’t the time to engage myself in a pseudo philosophical debate.
Despite the pitch-black darkness that enveloped me, I could feel the ground and the garden within several feet around me. That alone quelled the panic I’d felt earlier when I feared I was back in a void.
However, I soon grew aware of the presence of people nearby. It was their lifeforce auras that gave them away.
The orange-yellow light radiating from their bodies resembled weak bonfires moving about quickly in the perfect darkness.
My mind shifted into an overclocked state and I counted ten Simulacra swiftly encircling me at a distance of around twenty feet.
Fatina’s maids.
When I concentrated my senses on them, the Argus System abruptly outlined the girls in pale green.
That surprised me and I gasped softly.
It was like wearing a tactical visor, yet the information was being delivered directly into my mind.
To call it impressive was an understatement, and the system went a step further.
It recognized that the maids were carrying weapons, and then identified them for me as XAMF-40A submachineguns. However, it wasn’t able to tell me what ammunition they were loaded with.
Yet the sight of them made me react subconsciously by expressing the urge to hold something in my hands. In response, the armatures on my back swung down beneath my arms and delivered two long rifles. Through the Argus System, I recognized them Mag Hauser LR-81A Punishers. I slipped my hands around their grips, and the armatures released the linear rifles, then swiftly folded away against my back. Simultaneously, I used my thumbs to flick the selection levers on the Punishers to single-shot mode.
The moment I disengaged the safeties, I was surrounded by an impossibly bright column of light streaming down from overhead.
At first, I squinted against it but then tightly squeezed my eyes shut as I was unable to bear the intensity of the beam. Even with my eyes closed, my vision was still white.
Gods damn it!
[*Argus sensory expansion initiated. Output at 210%.]
My consciousness ballooned outwards by several feet.
Despite being blinded by the intense light, I was aware of the presence of the ten maids that formed a circle around me without needing to see them.
This was courtesy of the Argus System that both complemented and supplemented my senses.
Not only did I know where they stood around me, I could also smell their scent in the air.
Is that the smell of fear?
I remembered Ghost’s warning, and abruptly I saw myself balancing on a knife’s edge.
One wrong move and I could trigger a shootout.
I’d like to believe I could evade the worst of it, but with the girls standing in a circle, they were likely to be caught in a crossfire of their own making. Deciding that was something I’d like to avoid, I cautiously lowered my arms, then pointed the Punishers at the ground beside me. However, I wasn’t ready to relinquish them to the armatures on my back.
“MIRAI. STAND DOWN.”
The voice of the goddess boomed out through the air. Because it was so loud, I had trouble recognizing it as Fatina’s voice.
Now she tells me to stand down? Come on, Fatina. Get with the program!
I cleared my throat, and with my eyes closed, I shouted back into the air. “What’s going on Fatina?”
“I’M SORRY, MIRAI. THIS IS A NECESSARY PRECAUTION.”
“I asked you what’s going on!”
“PLEASE REMAIN AT EASE, MIRAI. IT WON’T BE LONG NOW.”
I shook my head slowly.
Why can’t these people do anything straightforward?
That said, it confirmed what Ghost had told me. Something was afoot and I suspected I’d learn the truth soon enough.
“MIRIA, I WISH YOU WELL.”
With my eyes closed, I could only rely on Mirai’s senses boosted to a level that was unnatural even for her.
The maids around me began backing away in a hurry and quickly exited the sphere of my awareness.
Here it comes.
I crouched on bended knee, and then waited for what I believed would be a trans-location jump.
“MIRIA, STAY STRONG. NO MATTER WHAT, YOU MUST PREVAIL! YOU MUSTN’T GIVE UP!”
I made a sour face.
Thanks, Fatina. That really, really helps—not!
Trying to keep calm by regulating my breathing, I started counting quietly in my head until I felt the familiar weightless and nauseating sensation of a trans-location taking place.
Clenching my gut to prevent it from regurgitating the contents of my stomach, I felt the ground vanish beneath me.
At that moment I opened my eyes and saw nothing but darkness.
For several seconds, I was truly weightless.
Abruptly my body was subjected to an intense pressure, and I pictured myself being squeezed through a narrow tunnel.
Then the constricting, claustrophobic sensation vanished, and the light of day suddenly shone brilliantly all around me.
A strong wind buffeted me as I fell feet first.
My eyes blinked rapidly, and my mind instantly overclocked.
Time stretched out. A single second was now worth five.
It gave me time to wonder at my location, and to look around at a city that loosely resembled Ar Telica though its skyline was miniscule in comparison.
Looking down, I saw myself falling toward the rounded glass ceiling of a rooftop terrace.
My hard landing fractured and splintered the glass.
Unable to keep my footing, I rolled a couple of times, before managing to dig in my booted toes and arresting my slide over the smooth, rounded ceiling.
Having come to a stop, I closed my eyes and took a handful of relieved breaths.
Why? Why do they always drop me in from a height?
Carefully, I rose to my feet and then took a long, cautious look around me.
Whatever this place was – wherever it was – it appeared to be a small city.
The buildings were all terraced and dotted with well-maintained gardens on balconies and rooftops. The buildings themselves weren’t very tall, perhaps only a dozen or more stories high.
Certainly, the place weakly resembled Ar Telica, but if I had to describe it in a word then Utopia came to mind.
Feeling a strong breeze rustle my hair and stroke my face, I directed my gaze upwards at a bright blue sky with long wispy clouds drawn across it.
I blinked a few times, wondering if there was something wrong with Mirai’s eyes because I could see a fine webbing or gridwork spread across the sky.
What the Hell is that?
Sweeping my gaze across the blue expanse, I noticed something that resembled the gondola of a blimp, though its numerous panels and rounded shape gave it the appearance of an upside-down turtle shell. When I realized those panels were darkly tinted windows, I wondered if the structure was a kind of observation deck.
When taking the gridwork and the gondola into consideration, I realized that the sky wasn’t real.
It was a simulation, like the sky above the Estate.
I bit my lower lip and frowned at the vista surrounding me.
When Ghost had shown me a schematic of the Sanreal Novis, I remembered him pointing out the Estate located a small section at the rear of the ship. But when I considered the sheer scale of the vessel, I had to wonder if I was inside another part of the Citadel. If that was true, then I was beginning to appreciate the enormity of the ship.
While it was only a fraction the size of Ar Telica, the city environment stretched off into the far distance. At a guess, I put my surroundings at well over a kilometer in length and probably half as wide. At one end of the city stood a tall tower that resembled a thin tree with leafless branches reaching upwards as though to support the arched ceiling upon which the faux sky was projected.
After giving that false sky another look, I then turned my attention to the building I was standing on.
The glass ceiling underfoot was akin to an awning covering a portion of a rooftop terrace.
I decided to get off it, so I walked to the edge of the awning and then jumped down to the terrace below me.
I bent my legs to cushion my controlled fall, but the landing triggered only a fleeting twinge in my knees.
Straightening to my full height, I turned in a slow circle as I swept my gaze over the terrace.
It was deserted.
Not a single soul in sight, and the Argus System sensed no movement or heat signatures within a sphere with a twenty-meter radius.
I must admit, I was beginning to appreciate the benefits of the Argus System.
It was rather comforting to have.
Vacillating on what to do next, I chose to approach an area enclosed by transparent walls. Peering into it, I saw that it was a lounge with sofas, tables, and divans. A set of spiral stairs in a corner led down to the floor below.
Holstering the Punisher in my left hand, I waited for the armature to secure it against my back before looking for a way into the lounge area.
That’s when I caught my reflection in the darkly tinted glass walls enclosing the lounge.
At least, I believed it to be my reflection because the girl looking back at me had Mirai’s crimson eyes and long black hair.
I’d already given myself a look when I emerged from the Sarcophagus, but the reflection offered me another opportunity to check myself out.
Like my previous outfit, this Princess Regalia consisted of a short jacket, a tight bodysuit and glossy black leggings that made me think of latex. My feet were snug in rugged, spacy boots that inspired me with the confidence to believe I could kick through a permacrete wall without breaking a toenail. The jacket’s shoulders were puffed up, and I wore the familiar black gauntlets embossed with a swirling golden pattern. Two split skirts flowed outwards from my hips.
Overall, it wasn’t bad…if I ignored the amount of cleavage I had on display.
The snug brassier that cupped my breasts pushed them up for the world to see.
Dear gods. I take one running step and they’re going to fly out!
Darting a few glances over the terrace to confirm I was alone, I then jumped on the spot a couple of times.
To my surprised, the bodysuit brassier prevented Mirai’s heavy breasts from bouncing.
Just to be safe, I jumped a few more times.
Nope. Not a single bounce. My breasts may as well have been glued tightly to my chest.
If I found myself sprinting through a hail of bullets, there would be no heaving bosom while wearing this Princess Regalia.
Relieved that a wardrobe malfunction was unlikely, my shoulders slumped, and I sighed heavily as my gaze fell on the Punisher in my right hand.
It was outfitted with a side mounted feeder to which an oversized ammo magazine was attached.
I questioned the rifle’s status and it replied with a thought pulse via the wetware.
Its accelerators were primed, the chamber was loaded, and I had sixty rounds at my disposal.
When I accounted for the six large ammo magazines stuck to the Regalia’s twin skirts, and the magazine loaded into the second Punisher, I realized I was carrying a complement of four hundred and eighty bullets.
Worry rushed through me.
If I had this much ammo with me, then that meant Ghost had equipped me for a big fight.
However, the question was…who was I fighting?
In the glass window wall, I saw movement reflected behind me and my heart skipped a beat.
Someone had emerged onto the rooftop terrace of the neighboring building.
I couldn’t see their face in the reflection, but I was able to recognize what they were wearing, and my chest tightened as my heart grew heavy.
After taking a handful of deep breaths, I slowly, reluctantly turned around, and then walked to the edge of the terrace.
I looked across the fifty-foot gap between our respective buildings at a tall young man with sandy hair who slid his hands into his trench coat pockets, and then smiled at me in regret.
“Hello Mirai.”
I heard him clearly as though were standing only a few feet away. At first, I attributed it to Mirai’s preternatural hearing until I realized his voice came from nearby.
Concentrating my attention on the terrace parapet and surrounding rooftop, the Argus System responded by expanding my awareness. However, my consciousness didn’t balloon out this time. Instead, I felt as though I was sweeping my awareness over the terrace rooftop – like shining a torchlight in the dark, bringing indistinct shadowy objects into clarity. It wasn’t a high definition sort of clarity, but it was enough for me to perceive beyond what my eyes could see, or to notice what I hadn’t noticed before, and that’s how I spotted the handful of little boxes scattered about – diminutive speakers through which Arnval’s voice was projected.
I swallowed to clear my throat, noting it felt a little tighter than moments ago as my emotions grew anxious.
They dropped me right where they wanted me.
Relaxing my focus that was concentrated upon the surroundings via the Argus System, I felt my consciousness return to normal.
So what now?
Looking up at the young man standing on the opposite terrace rooftop, I cleared my throat again, then called out to him loudly.
“Hello Arnval.”
Were there little speakers on his terrace through which my voice was projected?
I didn’t know, but nonetheless he nodded weakly to my greeting and his smile wavered. “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He laughed bitterly, then gave me another nod. “Always keeping you in the dark, aren’t we.”
It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact.
I couldn’t bring myself to laugh with him. “It’s become the story of my life.”
Arnval nodded again, the regretful smile leaving his lips.
Seeing him like this was beginning to unsettle me more than I already was. “What’s up with you? Did you draw the short straw?” I hesitated before asking. “Is this my punishment for shooting up the training room? Are you still pissed at me?”
Confusion crossed his face for a brief moment, then he shook his head weakly. “No, I’m not angry at you. The damage to the training room is already fixed. That’s the beauty of having a Fabricator. You can fix anything…well, almost anything.”
I nodded gently. “That was a dick move you pulled on me.”
Arnval stiffened for a long moment before relaxing. “Ah…the garden sprinklers….” He laughed again but it was subdued and tense. “Sorry about that. I was caught up in the moment.”
“That’s okay. I wasn’t planning on forgiving you even if you apologized.”
He cocked his head at me. “So you’re going to hold a grudge?”
I nodded. “Yep. I’m going to hold a grudge.”
Yet again he laughed, and yet again it sounded strained. “I guess it’s good to know that you’re that sort of girl.”
“I’m not going to take that as a complement, Arnval.” I hefted the Punisher in my right hand and turned it slightly away from Arnval as I rested my thumb on the selection lever. “Are you going to tell me what’s going?” Making a point of looking at the skyline both near and far, I asked him, “Where am I?”
In the corner of my eye, I noticed Arnval narrow his eyes sharply for a heartbeat before he spared the buildings a cursory glance. “This is the Habitat located in the forward superstructure of the Citadel. Sixteen hundred meters long. Six hundred meters wide.”
I was right – it was well over a kilometer in length.
Sweeping my gaze over the rooftops, I glanced at the sky overhead. “So what’s it for?”
“It serves as a commercial and residential district for the crew. Gives them a little taste of home. Their home”—Arnval dipped his head slightly—“if you know what I mean.”
I absently stroked my teeth with the tip of my tongue as I puzzled over what he meant.
Then I realized what he was telling me.
This Habitat was most likely modelled after those that existed inside the cog-wheel shaped Citadels in the other universe.
Ah, so that’s why the architecture is different.
Taking another brief look at the cityscape, I asked, “So why is it deserted?”
“Because it’s been evacuated. All the residents have been moved to the shelters.”
I nodded faintly. “Why?”
“Because this is where you’ll face your opponent.”
“But I’m not facing Tabitha, am I.” Again, not a question but a statement of fact courtesy of Ghost's warning. “So who am I facing, Arnval?”
I watched him clench his jaw for a long moment as he regarded me thoughtfully. “So you knew.”
Shaking my head, I admitted, “No. I found out recently. My invisible friend told me.”
“Your invisible...?” Arnval looked puzzled and then the proverbial penny dropped. “Ah, so it was Revenant.”
“What have you done to him?”
“Me? Nothing. But I was told he was being kept busy to prevent him from contacting you. I guess putting you in the Sarcophagus allowed him to re-establish communications with you.” Arnval’s gaze swept over me a few times. “Looks like he gave you a makeover.”
I glanced down at my exposed cleavage. “I’m going to punch him the first chance I get.”
“Why? It looks good on you?”
“Arnval, I’m going to punch you the first chance I get.”
He laughed nervously and soon fell silent.
Staring at each other from across the gap between rooftops, I felt the tension creep back into me.
“I can’t say I wasn’t surprised,” I told him. “Being lied to is pretty much par for the course these days. But I am disappointed.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I was scared but I was also looking forward to fighting Tabitha.” I hesitated before adding in a subdued voice, “But that’s not going to happen, is it? I’m not facing her. All of it was a lie. All the training I did was for nothing.”
Arnval shook his head sharply. “No, it wasn’t for nothing.”
“Then what was it for, Arnval? Tell me!”
He fell silent for a long while, before eventually speaking up. “I’m sorry, Mirai. This wasn’t my idea, and honestly I’d prefer Sanreal hadn’t chosen me for this.”
“Chosen you for what?” I started to take a step forward but stopped myself. “Chosen you to fight me?”
He gave me a weary shake of his head. “No, Mirai. He didn’t choose me to fight you.”
I watched him slip his right hand into the folds of his trench coat, then retrieve a very long and menacing handgun.
Arnval held it at his side with the muzzle pointed down at the terrace rooftop.
Wetting my lips, I cleared my throat as I felt my heart beat a little quicker as the tension within me jumped a notch. “What’s that for, Arnval?”
His shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath.
“There’s one bullet in this gun, Mirai. Just one. And that bullet has a name on it.”
I flicked the selection lever to double shot mode. “What name?”
Arnval smiled sorrowfully.
“Erina Kassius.”
Thank you for sticking with this series through its ups and down.
This is the final part of the web release. The eBook is still on track for end of May.
If there are any delays, I will let readers know by making a post here and on the website.
Also, the eBook is some 40,000 words longer than the web release, so there's plenty to look forward to when it's released.
That said, I hope you have enjoyed the web version, and I sincerely hope you'll enjoy the much longer eBook even more.
I look forward to seeing all of you for Book Four, tentatively titled "School Princess" in early June, 2018.
As always, if you'd like to read or purchase Books 1 and 2, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Thank you for sticking with it so long.
Not long now to the official release.
I almost shot him.
My right arm moved, and the Punisher scythed through the air as my body reacted – as I reacted – to Arnval’s announcement in the blink of an eye.
But at the last moment before my index finger depressed the trigger, I held myself back.
The urge to fire the linear rifle was tremendous.
The rifle trembled in my grasp as I was caught between opposing tidal forces raging within me.
The need to vent crashed with the need for prudence.
Haste makes waste, and I was in an unknown situation where every bullet counted.
But I couldn’t bring my arm back down – I just couldn’t – even though I knew there was no point shooting at Arnval…because he wasn’t there.
That’s what the Argus System and Mirai’s senses told me.
Through the Argus, I was aware that Arnval was a holo-projection manifested by a dozen emitters spread throughout the rooftop terrace. The ballooning sensation I experienced before after emerging from the Sarcophagus was absent. Instead, the system made me ‘aware’ of the presence of the holographic emitters. If I concentrated on any one of them, the Argus focused on the device and supplied me with tactile sensory data. Shape, size, estimated weight, even texture was all fed into me as though I’d reached out with an invisible hand and touched the emitter.
However, when I reached out for Arnval using the Argus System, it was akin to waving my hand through a mist, disturbing it gently, and his projection flickered ever so faintly as though subjected to the observer effect.
In contrast, Mirai was aware that Arnval wasn’t real because she couldn’t sense his presence.
During my conflict – I mean training exercise – with the maids, Mirai had sensed when she was being watched, or rather, she had sensed the emotions and intentions of the observer. When a maid had closed in on Mirai with strong feelings, Mirai had picked up on those intense emotions as if they’d been radiated out to her. It wasn’t an infallible system – I’d been sniped from afar before I knew what was happening – but it had saved her on a couple of occasions. Yet in this situation, Mirai hadn’t sensed Arnval watching her from the opposite rooftop terrace.
There was one more reason why I knew that the Arnval facing me wasn’t real.
Arnval may have been part machine, but there was enough of his organic body to emanate a lifeforce that Mirai could see.
The young man wearing a faintly remorseful smile had no golden aura surrounding him.
“You’re not going to shoot?” he asked me with a hint of regret.
I shook my head subtly.
There’s no point.
And yet I couldn’t bring myself to lower the rifle down to my side.
It was like a compromise between the two opposing currents of desire racing within me.
I wouldn’t shoot, but I wouldn’t completely abandon the intention to do so.
Arnval nodded weakly and glanced down at the gun in his right hand. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
The Punisher continued to tremble as I swallowed and cleared my throat. “Why…?”
His gaze met mine. “Because your sister betrayed House Novis and the Sanreal Family.”
I felt myself frown slightly as his words triggered an uneasy tide of emotions inside my chest, one that washed over the warring desires of shoot and don’t shoot.
Arnval’s eyes had narrowed. Whether voluntary or not, it was a clear sign that he was watching me intently.
The question of ‘where are you?’ briefly crossed my mind before my thoughts turned to a realization that was surprisingly painful.
Rather than a realization, it was more a confirmation of what I’d already suspected.
“She told the Empress about Mirai…didn’t she?”
Arnval inhaled deeply, then reply with a single nod.
The Punisher trembled violently in my hand before I lowered it down to my side. “Why…?”
“She negotiated an agreement with the Empress. She would take her research to House Aventisse if they would guarantee her complete control over how the research was conducted. And that included you.”
I shook my head slowly. “No, I mean why approach Kateopia?”
“Because once Clarisol was imprinted into Mirai, she would assume the identity of Isabel Allegrando and disappear to the far reaches of colonized space.”
Disappear….
Hearing it from Arnval triggered another tide of uncomfortable feelings.
Despite everything I’d been told about the plan to give Clarisol, or at least a copy of her, a way out of the virtual space imprisoning her consciousness, it bothered me because it felt too contrived. It clashed with the notion that surely there was a better way to secure her freedom. But then I considered how long Clarisol had been imprisoned within that virtual space, and I wondered if the Sanreal Family had simply exhausted all options to reason with Kateopia.
The more I considered the various sides to the situation, the more confused and uncertain it grew.
Yet I couldn’t shake off the impression that it was a lie.
Isabel Allegrando. Clarisol’s freedom. They both seemed like a lie that begged the question of why lie to me.
Why not tell me the truth? What are they afraid of telling me? Do they believe I won’t be able to handle the truth?
Arnval pressed on. “Your sister couldn’t afford to let Mirai slip away. It took her countless attempts to create a Simulacrum that could host the Angel Fibers. She couldn’t tolerate spending months or another year trying to create another copy of Mirai.” He paused for a long moment and assumed a troubled frown. “If it was up to her, Mirai would never have left the maturation tank. Keeping her contained for the sole purpose of cultivating the Angel Fibers was her purpose after all. Having her prized project walking about put her research at great risk.”
“So she tried to strike a deal with the Empress,” I said. “But what went wrong?”
“The Empress didn’t agree to Erina’s terms and conditions.” Arnval shook his head and snorted. “No deal. To make matters worse, Kateopia demanded Erina and House Novis hand Mirai and all the research over to her. Your sister dug in her heels and preferred to go down in flames rather than hand Mirai over. Kateopia retaliated, and Ronin Kassius paid the price. Adding insult to injury, for House Novis to avoid being expelled from the Imperial Court, they had to commit Mirai into the Gun Princess Royale. Erina’s attempts to keep her research subject safe had backfired on her completely. Mirai had now been tossed out of the frying pan and into the fire…along with you.”
This I could believe.
Erina was single minded in her passions so I found it plausible that she would undertake an extreme venture if it ensured she would keep Mirai under her control.
The question of stealing Mirai from House Novis and the Sanreal Family on her own was inconceivable. She would never be able to flee safely with Mirai. But if she could garner the support of someone important – of someone who wielded great authority and power – then it might be possible to keep Mirai under her control.
Unfortunately, Erina’s plans had fallen into disarray, and that brought us – namely me – to a rooftop courtyard in a city habit constructed within an immense Citadel.
“I don’t get it.” I shook my head slowly. “Why do this at all?”
“Because your sister caused all this to happen. This is her punishment.”
“So you’re going to shoot her in the head?” I gave Arnval a confused shrug. “What the Hell does that solve? You need her—Sanreal needs her—to continue her research into the Angel Fibers, and into me. What good does it do having her killed?” Again, I shook my head slowly at him. “There’s no point to this.”
Arnval cocked his head slightly. “You paid a visit to Clarisol in her virtual prison, didn’t you?”
I felt a flicker of annoyance at the question. “You know that I did, so don’t ask.”
“Visiting hours were strictly regulated. Your little incursion gave the Empress more ammunition to use against House Novis. She really tightened the screws on Sanreal.”
Did she now? Tough luck.
I shrugged dismissively. “So what?”
“That virtual environment is more than a just a simulation. It’s more than a prison for Clarisol’s neural map. It’s a place where her mind can develop, grow, mature. Otherwise, how could the consciousness of a ten-year old girl grow into that of a twenty-year old woman if the environment didn’t allow for it.”
My innards clenched weakly as I began joining the proverbial dots together. But I chose not to get ahead of myself, and instead waited for Arnval to say his piece.
He continued smoothly. “Erina Kassius robbed Clarisol val Sanreal of an opportunity at freedom. Now she’ll face the same fate.”
“…meaning…?”
“Her mind has already been mapped down to the finest detail.”
I was certainly seeing where this was headed, and my gut clenched tighter.
Arnval glanced down at the large gun in his right hand. “A bullet to the head?” His shoulders rose and fell. “No. A bullet through the heart. Her body dies, but her mind lives on in a virtual environment.”
My throat abruptly felt like an icy fist was squeezing it.
I found it very hard swallow.
But Arnval wasn’t finished. “Erina Kassius will continue to serve House Novis, and the Sanreal Family. But she’ll be doing it from inside a box for her mind. She won’t have any more opportunities to betray House Novis. Her hold on you will be tempered. You’ll be free to live as Isabel val Sanreal and compete as Mirai with minimal interaction with her outside of what’s necessary for her to continue conducting her research.”
I succeeded in clearing my throat, but it still felt constricted.
My chest and heart also felt squeezed by conflicted emotions, the latter pounding audibly.
And in my mind, a multitude of thoughts swirled about in turmoil.
I had read once that the human brain holds parallel trains of thought. After all, it’s a common saying. However, we are only consciously aware of one train of thought. As I stood on the rooftop terrace, I found myself wondering what those other thoughts entailed. What were Mirai’s parallel consciousnesses thinking? Were they all in agreement or were they floundering about?
Arnval had fallen silent but he was watching me carefully.
I had no doubt he wasn’t the only one.
With that in mind, I stepped closer to the rooftop’s parapet. “Who decided this?”
“Phelan Sanreal.”
Yes, of course he did.
However, it was a question that needed be asked though it was more a confirmation of what I suspected, but it led me to the next question.
“If it’s already been decided…then why am I here?”
“Because you get an opportunity to decide her fate.”
My chest twinged in trepidation. “Me? Why me?”
“Because she wronged the Sanreal Family, and she wronged you. This is her punishment. However, you can save her.”
I was silent for a long moment, the wheels turning furiously in my head of a sudden as various emotions surged through me, and again multiple trains of thought steamed headlong through my mind. Eventually, after considering various points of view and inwardly debating a handful of arguments, I arrived at a single question.
“Why the Hell would I do that?”
Arnval’s eyebrows rose as his eyes widened before he burst into laughter.
I narrowed my eyes at him and glowered. “What’s so damn funny?”
Arnval took measured breaths and recovered his composure.
“Well?” I pressed him. “What’s so damn funny?”
“Your sister said the same thing.”
I stiffened and lost a grip on my glower. “What…?”
Arnval continued after another breath. “It’s exactly what your sister said—well, not exactly. But her response was pretty much the same.”
My feelings mushed together into a dark sludge, and my thoughts crashed to a halt…all but one. “She’s not expecting me to save her.”
Arnval nodded. “That’s right. She knows that you won’t. When we told her that her fate was in your hands, she laughed. She told us to finish her off and forget about this farce.”
“…is that so….”
“She’s pretty much resigned to her fate.”
“…ah huh….”
“Yes, she even requested a last meal before her execution.”
“…did she now….”
Arnval grinned sadly at me. “Would you like to see her?”
Before I could reply, the mimetic sky-field changed into a giant screen segmented into dozens upon dozens of rectangular panels, all neatly joined up border to border, top to bottom. Each of them displayed a different view of a young woman with shoulder length auburn hair, sitting at a restaurant table, dining on a meal with several bottles of wine standing open in a wine cart beside the table. She was dressed in a white outfit consisting of a sleeveless, off-the-shoulder blouse, slender slacks, and stylish kitten sling backs.
Erina gesticulated drunkenly between stabbing the food on her plate and shoveling it into her mouth. She appeared to be in conversation either with herself or with someone out of sight, and though I couldn’t hear her, I had little doubt she was vociferously complaining about her fate.
As she was waving a hand about, she knocked over a tall glass of white wine on the table. For a long while she stopped moving and simply stared at the wine soiling the table cloth. Then she reached out with her left hand and righted the glass. At that moment she froze again, this time her attention was focused on her hand.
It took me a second or more to understand why: the engagement ring once prominently displayed on her wedding finger wasn’t there anymore.
Erina sat rigidly at the table for a considerable length of time, her gaze locked on her ring finger, before resuming to eat her meal. However, she no longer waved her hands about, and she ate in subdued silence.
I pressed my lips together into a very thin and bloodless line as I regarded Erina’s forlorn visage. After a while, they began to hurt so I released them.
Taking a deep breath, I dropped my weight onto a hip. I continued staring up at Erina as I asked Arnval, “What if I decided to save her sorry ass…hypothetically?”
Arnval too had been looking up at Erina.
In my peripheral vision, I watched him focus on me. “Hypothetically?”
“That’s right. Hypothetically.” I refrained from glaring at Erina’s face plastered across the sky. “What would I need to do?”
Arnval grew noticeably pensive, and I could imagine the thoughts running through his head, such as wondering why I was broaching the problem under the guise of a hypothetical question. He was probably thinking I should be more honest with myself, but this was the best I could manage since I hadn’t decided to save Erina’s bacon.
Arnval shook his head. “That’s not a hypothetical question. Don’t you know what hypothetical means?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Humor me.”
I heard him sigh, and in the corner of my eye, I watched his shoulders rise and fall.
“You’ll need to find me within a thirty-minute time limit,” Arnval replied. “Arrive at my location before the deadline, and Erina Kassius gets to keep her body. Fall short and she’ll be a disembodied mind for the rest of her life.”
Again, I wet my lips and began sorting through my thoughts and feelings, needing to take both into context and consideration as I pondered my next question. “Where do I find you?”
“Look up at the center of the sky. Do you see the structure there?”
I glanced at the turtle shell with dark panels. “I see it….”
“It’s called the Promenade. It’s a floating observation deck that sails above the habitat’s skyline. That’s where you’ll find me and your sister.”
I gave it another glance. “It sails above the habitat? But it’s not moving—”
At that moment, the Promenade descended noticeably and began to gently drift below the artificial sky.
Arnval shrugged a shoulder. “It is now.”
I scowled faintly at the Promenade as I mulled the obvious. “And how the Hell am I supposed to get up there?”
“It’s an observation deck, therefore there has to be means of climbing aboard.”
I turned my scowl upon Arnval. “Just tell me.”
He sighed in exaggerated disappointment. “Come on, ma chérie. Not everything in life is free.”
I clenched my jaw, then quickly turned in a full circle.
Overclocking for a few seconds gave me the extra time I needed to study the buildings and the interior of the habitat.
I found myself paying closer attention to the skyline than ever before.
The Promenade had to dock somewhere. The question was where.
On impulse, I searched for the tall tower that resembled a thin, leafless tree.
Sighting it in the distance, I pointed at it as I faced Arnval. “Is that it?”
“You see? You can figure it out if you try. Now that wasn’t too hard, was it?”
Restraining the urge to scowl anew, I turned my body toward Arnval. “So all I have to do is get aboard the Promenade, and Erina is spared?”
Arnval smiled sadly. “Well…there’s a little more too it.”
For the first time since arriving at the Habitat, the Argus System sensed movement within a twenty-meter radius – directly behind me.
Overclocking in a heartbeat, I spun round in the direction of the glass enclosed lounge.
Arnval’s warning drawl out in my ears as time around me slowed to a crawl.
“You have to get there in one piece.”
In the corner of the lounge – the same corner where I’d seen the spiral stairs – stood the tall slender silhouette of a woman…with a weapon in hand.
Despite Mirai’s physical speed and my accelerated consciousness, I aimed the Punisher too late.
The reinforced glass between her and I was perforated in the instant she fired, and a burst of bullets streamed through the inch-wide holes.
The Punisher’s double-shot of ten-millimeter rounds fired at hypersonic speed hurtled past the bullets and struck the woman’s silhouette, knocking her into the glass behind her.
But her aim was also true, and I felt her gunfire slam into my sternum.
The Princess Regalia that I’d maligned minutes ago hardened where the bullets struck it.
Then the material relaxed before quickly rippling over my torso to distribute the kinetic energy away from the points of impact.
Incredibly, none of the bullets broke through the Regalia, but an agonized scream was trapped in my chest as my lungs refused to function.
The blows I received from the dozen odd bullets sent my chest muscles and diaphragm into a seizure.
Unable to breathe and unable to scream, I struggled to maintain my balance and footing.
If not for the Argus System feeding me with sensory data, I would have lost track of the woman inside the glass enclosure.
Overclocked, my vision swam for a dangerous second before righting itself.
The Punisher in my right hand was aimed in the general direction of the woman’s silhouette so I needed only a half second to correct my aim.
Her bullets had addled me, but the two rounds I sent into her had staggered her as well.
This time I succeeded in firing a fraction of a second before she did.
It might not seem like much, but that was all the time I needed for the Punisher’s armor-piercing rounds to rip into her firearm, knocking it aside while tearing through its innards.
That’s right. I wasn’t aiming at her.
I was aiming at the weapon in her right hand.
If I disarmed her, I could pick her apart at leisure.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t notice the second firearm in her left hand.
I could blame the Argus System for not warning me, but I was also reeling from being shot in the sternum. Adding to the distraction was the fact that my chest was still experiencing a seizure, and Mirai had yet to draw another breath since being shot. So even if the Argus System had told me about the weapon in her left hand, my mind may not have listened to it.
Had I remained standing, the bullets she fired would have torn into the Punisher and wrecked it. The only reason the bullets missed the Punisher and struck my shoulder instead was because I’d subconsciously reacted to the sight of the second rifle by breaking into a mad sprint along the edge of the terrace courtyard. Thus, I was already in motion, firing back at the woman in the glass enclosed lounge, when multiple bullets struck my shoulder.
The impact this time felt heavier.
It also felt like a handful of slugs punched headlong into the Regalia’s puffy bag protecting my right shoulder.
Once again, the Princess Regalia that I’d criticized spared me from injury, but the shots numbed my arm from the shoulder to the elbow, and half my chest felt like it was on fire.
A cry that sounded more like an agonized gasp escaped past my lips.
Then kinetic energy absorbed by my body sent me into a bodily spin.
Overclocked, I watched the fake sky and terrace spin crazily for a distended second, before I rolled over the top of the parapet and then down the side of the building.
Firstly, I'd like to apologise for disappearing for so long.
2019 was a piss-poor year for me, and 2020 hasn't been any better with an ongoing health issue that's plagued me since the beginning of the year.
Secondly, why am I posting this now?
Well, this turned out to be a web version of Book Three.
The eBook version was completed about 3 months ago, and my editor friend gave it a 90% mark.
So I've been working on cleaning it up and preparing it for its release.
The only problem has been that my health concern has made writing rather difficult and that's slowed down progress on the book.
Also, it took me a year to rewrite book three into what will be known as the eBook version.
I just had a lot of work to do on it.
That said, I hope you have enjoyed the web version, and I hope you can look forward to the eBook version which is longer, and I strongly believe now to be a far superior version of the story.
However, a lot of what is in the web version is in the eBook version.
For now, I am hoping to get the eBook out by July.
It's a long, long book that needs to be carefully polished and that's what's taking time.
If you are new to the series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
“This is where you’ll face your opponent.”
Arnval’s words came back to bite me as I fell off the rooftop terrace.
I reached out with my left hand to catch the edge of the parapet, but my gloved fingertips only brushed it.
Unable to arrest my fall, an overwhelming panic swamped me and I heard myself cry out in fear. But with my overclocked awareness running at full steam, everything was happening in slow motion, and my cry drawled out for an incredibly long time that quickly annoyed me.
So I cut myself off, and then watched in welcome silence as the top of the building slowly receded into the distance above me.
Crap! I missed it by that much….
I started to laugh inside my head.
The fear and anger I’d experience had faded away like smoke in the wind, leaving me cold, empty, and unexpectedly clear head. But the sight of my outstretched left hand, having come so close to grabbing onto the parapet, now appearing to be reach for the sky well beyond it, filled me with amusement.
Why? Because I wasn’t reaching for thin wispy clouds painted across a canvas of blue sky.
I was unwittingly reaching for Erina, whose face was plastered in various angles across the curved ceiling high overhead.
Her giant visage looked so close, yet she was drawing farther away by the millisecond.
I bitterly laughed inwardly since I couldn’t laugh outwardly at how ridiculous my situation had become.
Me? Reaching for Erina? Get real!
The part of me that wasn’t laughing caustically was instead surprised at how clinically I was observing myself fall down the side of the building.
Another part of me laughed at how close I’d come to saving myself.
And yet another part of me was puzzled then amazed at how slowly the world moved around me.
One second had become four. Then five. Then six. And then ten….
As impossible as it sounded, time seemed to be slowing down even further, until eventually I didn’t appear to be falling at all.
This had never happened before, and I felt a slightly uneasy.
Yet for the most part, once I stopped laughing at myself, I grew calm and collected as I began contemplating my situation.
How had it come to this?
Before I could even declare my intention to save Erina’s hide, I’d been attacked by an unknown assailant. If not for the Argus System, my back would have been riddled with bullets.
I quietly gave Ghost my thanks as I then turned my thoughts to my opponent – the unknown bitch who’d ambushed me.
Not once had I seen her clearly, but as I dropped to my demise in extreme slow motion, I grabbed at a memory that I then freeze framed in my mind. It was nothing more than a glimpse of her silhouette as I’d rolled over the parapet, but it revealed an important detail I hadn’t noticed during our brief exchange of gunfire.
My opponent had a long, swaying, ponytail!
The possibility that it was her subsequently crossed my mind, but there was something else to consider – she had no discernible lifeforce radiating from her body.
In short, she was probably a mechanical avatar – a Gun Princess – made in the image of the young woman who was quickly rising up the ranks of people on my short but memorable Black List. Based on these observations, I jumped to the conclusion that my assailant was Miss Blue Tinted Ponytail operating a Gun Princess avatar made in her likeness.
Why? To stop me from saving Erina’s ass.
However, the problem was that I hadn’t declared I was going to save Erina.
I’d only gotten as far as asking how to save her.
Yet I’d been shot at before coming to a decision.
So what was my decision? Was it yay or nay? Should I save Erina? What were the pros and cons?
I mulled the matter over while watching the top of the building slowly back away from me as I continued to fall in extra slow motion.
When I couldn’t think of a reason to save her from spending the rest of her life as a disembodied mind, I searched my emotions.
Believe me, I had to dig real deep, but in the end, even if I couldn’t justify saving her, I couldn’t stand back and do nothing about it. It wasn’t that I felt sorry for her. Perish the thought. Rather, it was a gut feeling that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t save her.
In other words, I didn’t want to be haunted by the guilt of not saving her.
Now let’s be clear.
I’m not talking about trying to save her.
There’s no point in trying and falling short, unless you learn something from it.
No, sir. I’m talking about actually getting the job done.
As a wise green fellow once said, ‘There is no try, only do or do not do’.
And so I decided the answer was, Yay.
I would save my former sister from life as a virtual ghost.
However, having made my decision, I suddenly and inexplicably felt hollow inside.
I would have sighed away ten years of my life, but it was only my mind that was chugging along while Mirai’s body was falling at a thousand frames a second, subjecting me to the illusion that I was gently drifting to the ground. But that’s all it was – an illusion – and before saving Erina’s backside, I needed to save mine first.
With self-preservation the focus of the moment, I decided to scope out my surroundings.
I had failed to catch the edge of the parapet, or the ledge running along the base of the rooftop, but perhaps there was something else I could grab onto before I went ‘splat’ on the ground far below.
For that matter, just how far above the ground was I?
The Argus System provided me with a dire answer.
My consciousness didn’t balloon out but the within milliseconds my situational awareness was flooded with a clear image – an impression – of my surroundings within a sphere of twenty-meter radius. My first realization was that the Argus System couldn’t detect the ground below. That meant I was falling from a height that exceeded twenty meters. However, I next noticed a multi-level bridgeway between the two terraced buildings, and the top level had no roof. If I twisted my body around by 180 degrees, and then reached out with my left hand over my head – since I was falling horizontally – I should be able to catch a hold of the bridgeway’s guardrail, or the edge of its low sidewall.
Time began to speed up within my awareness.
One second was no longer a hundred.
One second became ten, then five, and then four.
In the blink of an eye, I’d gone from gently drifting to the ground, to falling at a slow but troubling pace.
Throwing my body into a spin was no easy feat, and it relied in part on Mirai’s body dragging against the air as she fell to the ground. But by the grace of the merciful gods watching me from above, I was able to roll over, and the outstretched fingers of my left hand grabbed hold of the bridgeway’s guardrail without a moment to spare.
A half second later, my body swung downwards like a pendulum, and I slammed my face into the bridgeway’s hard bodywork.
Actually, it was Mirai’s enormous boobs that hit the sidewall first.
Pain lance through my chest an instant before fireworks exploded in my head.
The agony made my hand lose its grip on the railing, and I fell again, only to catch onto the edge of the bridgeway level below.
This time I was somewhat better prepared, and though I struck the sidewall bodily, I succeeded in hanging on.
I will tell you that holovid action flicks make it look easy – jumping from buildings, catching onto walls, and so forth. They also make it look relatively painless.
Well…it’s not.
My face hurt, my boobs felt like they’d been pummeled, and I honestly believed my left arm was hanging onto my shoulder by mere threads.
Mirai was abnormally strong – far stronger than the average Simulacra – but she wasn’t a machine. She hurt. She bled. And she damn well cried in pain when it became too much to bear. However, she had an anomalous ability to heal her injuries at preternatural rate, and if not that for that ability I’d be in tears by now.
Putting Mirai’s strength to work, I hauled myself up and over the guardrail and into the enclosed bridgeway level, landing on my feet but quickly falling to my hands and knees.
I wasn’t exhausted. Rather, my body appeared to be in shock.
Trembling faintly all over, I tasted blood on my lips. When I reached up to touch my face, my gloved fingertips came away moist.
The Regalia was a bodysuit that covered most of my body, but the degree of tactile sense it possessed at times made me feel naked.
This is why my fingertips felt wet with blood from face.
My nose felt sore, my forehead stung madly, but as on previous occasions the pain was quickly fading away, and after a few moments prostrate on hands and knees, my body soon calmed down. But both my arms were numb from the shoulder down to my wrists. Not being able to feel them properly made me anxious, but I couldn’t afford to wait here until I regained sensation in my arms. The clock was ticking, and though there was no guarantee I’d be able to board the Promenade from the tree-like tower, I felt it was my best bet.
Taking a deep breath, I started to rise to my feet when I heard a dull whump-whump from the bridgeway level above me.
The top most level had no roof, but I’d fallen to the next level below it, thus the ceiling overhead was the floor of the uppermost bridgeway that spanned the thirty-foot gap between the two terraced buildings…and something had just landed on it.
I scrambled quickly to my feet, then backed away toward the building Arnval had been standing on.
I had no allusions as to who it was.
The Argus System told me that someone was standing on the bridgeway above me, and I wholeheartedly believed it wasn’t Arnval.
Then a muted boom rocked the air, and a fist-sized hole opened up in the ceiling.
I flinched sharply and darted back a few feet, biting down on a startled yelp.
Because of Mirai’s wide field-of-vision, I didn’t need to look down to see the crater in the floor over which I’d been kneeling a short while ago.
Summoning the second Punisher, I waited with both weapons in hand for them to report ready. In the half second it took the rifles to prime their accelerators, two more booms sounded and two more holes appeared in the ceiling.
I skipped back another couple of feet, then aimed the Punishers at the ceiling.
The Argus System was aware of objects within a sphere twenty-meters in radius, so I knew the exact location of my opponent. I also knew the stance they were holding as they aimed a large firearm down at the floor, but I couldn’t discern the type of weapon. In short, the Argus was telling me where things were and what they looked like but the image lacked details. It was like seeing the world around me in outline with very little rendering.
I didn’t know if the system was deliberately lowering its resolution of the surroundings to avoid overwhelming me, but while it was enough to give me a heads-up on my situation, I would have preferred a little more detail to go along with it.
But for now, I was able to aim the Punishers at a spot on the ceiling and fire a double-shot of armor piercing rounds that tunneled through the material and into my opponent.
My overclocked Awareness acknowledged the sensory data the Argus fed into my mind, telling me that all four rounds had hit the mechanical avatar standing on the top level of the bridgeway. The first two had tunneled through the ceiling, so they hadn’t done nearly as much damage as the two rounds that followed in their wake, but it all adds up in the end.
She – I was fairly certain it was her – leapt back a couple of meters, then stepped to my left.
I fired again while tracking her position via the Argus, punching two more holes an inch across through the ceiling, and landing another couple of hits that made her stumble backwards.
Unlike the cannon like shots she’d fired at me, the Punishers’ rounds weren’t wasting their energy on making big holes. This was telling, as each time I landed a hit, I could sense through the Argus System that pieces were being blown off her.
For now, I was keeping her busy so she wasn’t returning fire.
I was also taking her apart, a couple of pieces at a time.
So the question was when would she change her strategy?
Adjusting my aim, I followed her for a few of steps as I discharged salvo after salvo of ten-millimeter heavy grain bullets through ceiling at her.
Calling cheating. Call it unfair. I didn’t care, but the Argus System was making it easy to aim since I had a spatial awareness of her position.
Again, as time stretched out in my overclocked state, I wondered for how she would endure being chipped away by the Punishers heavy rounds.
I decided to change the game.
Tracked her via the Argus System, I pumped a double pair of bullets through the bridgeway…and into her left thigh.
Damn it—I missed.
Then I noticed that she went down onto her left knee.
What? But I didn’t—?
It was a faint because within the blink of an eye she returned fire, and I had to scramble to avoid the worst of it.
However, that didn’t mean I had stopped shooting back at her.
Even while jumping left, right, forward, and back like a teenage girl maximizing her points on Dance Sensation – the arcade game where you jump on colored spots in time with the music – I was triggering both Punishers simultaneously.
Seriously, my footwork was par excellence.
However, I had no idea why I was moving so well.
After all my struggles getting through the obstacle course in a reasonable time, was all that training coming into play?
Were some mysterious latent talents beginning to stir?
I frowned as I jumped diagonally backwards a few feet.
Feels like I’ve done this before….
I fired a double salvo, then bounded to my right, kicked off the guardrail, and closed the distance between her and I by leaping toward the middle of the bridgeway.
Feels like…I’m remembering how to move….
Between her shots and mine, the floor – or ceiling – was rapidly turning into Swiss cheese, and I was running out of places to step safely.
The bridgeway floor was peppered with craters as though a meteor storm had passed through.
The ceiling above me was more or less the same.
As a result, I was jumping onto the low walls of the bridgeway more often than not. Careful not to slip on the rounded metal railings, I would then leap from wall to wall, shooting each time my feet landed. To trade shots with my opponent in mid-leap was a mistake as the double recoil would affect my jump.
Unfortunately, she was beginning to catch on, and her last couple of cannon shots had blown away large chunks of the sidewall copings mere moments after I’d jumped off them.
In short, her shots were beginning to catch up to me, so I took one last shot at her before jumping back down onto the bridgeway floor, and then retreated at a sprint toward the building Arnval’s projection had been standing on.
Why?
Two reasons.
Firstly, that building was in the direction of the tall, tree-like tower where I hoped to find a way aboard the Promenade.
Secondly, I was out of ammo.
The magazines in both Punishers were dry.
Close to a hundred and twenty bullets had ripped the bridgeway ceiling apart, and about a third of them had either struck or grazed Miss Ponytail.
The Argus System failed to give me a clear image of her, but if she’d taken that many hits, I doubted she cut a pretty picture.
As I ran toward the tinted glass doors at the end of the bridgeway, I debated whether to reload at least one of the Punishers.
But that would mean slowing down, and it wasn’t long before I heard a loud crash, and the bridgeway trembled violently.
I didn’t need to look behind me to know that a large section of the topmost level had finally given way and collapsed to the level below it.
I could sense the collapse through the Argus System, and I could see it reflected in the tinted translucent doors ahead of me.
But I could also see my opponent jump down through the large gap in the ceiling, and land nimbly on the rubble.
As she straightened and aimed a miniature Howitzer in my direction, my heart jumped in abject panic. Yet my consciousness remained calm and my overclocked awareness accelerated even further as it had when I was falling off the building.
It gave me time to consider my options.
It also gave me an opportunity to sense out my surroundings through the Argus System.
But it wasn’t all good news.
To start with the doors ahead of me were locked.
If I wanted entry into the building through the bridgeway exit, I was going to have to unlock the doors – not possible without Ghost’s intervention – crash through them – unlikely since Mirai wasn’t a tank – or shoot myself an opening with the Punishers – risky since it required that I slow down or stop to reload them, exposing me to the prospect of being shot in the back by Miss Ponytail.
Thus, I chose option D.
I would jump off the bridgeway.
The Argus System sensed narrow balconies running along the steeply slanted wall perpendicular to the bridgeway.
My intention was to jump off the bridgeway and onto one of those balconies, then descend to the next balcony and the next until I arrived at street level some four stories below me.
However, as I leapt onto the coping of the bridgeway’s low sidewall, I felt the entire structure tremble as a series of cracking and groaning noises broke into the air.
I turned to look up the length of the bridgeway, toward the middle of the structure.
Miss Ponytail was in the process of aiming her howitzer at me when the floor beneath her gave way, and I watched her fall, rubble and all, to the level beneath her.
The whole thing happened in slow motion, and thus I was able to see the moment she triggered one last shot before disappearing from view.
The explosive shell – what else could it be – struck the ceiling a few feet away from my head. The detonation sent chunks of material rocketing through the air, and I was forced to dive off the coping and back into the bridgeway to avoid the worst of it. But the concussive blast made my ears ring, and it took a few moments for my head to clear.
When I looked up the bridgeway again, there was a ten or twelve-foot section of it missing.
In other words, there was a bloody big hole in the ground.
It took me only a moment to understand why.
The floor and ceiling had been riddled with holes that weakened the structure. When the large section of the topmost level had crashed down into the bridgeway floor below it, that section had weakened further. Add in the weight of a mechanical avatar, and the overly burdened floor had given way…just in the nick of time.
It seemed that Lady Fate had granted me a reprieve.
After all the trouble she’d put me through, the bitch had shown me a fleeting moment of kindness.
Now I needed to make the most of it.
Going down wasn’t an option as I’d be shot at by Miss Ponytail who’d fallen to the level below me.
That left me with two alternatives: break through the glass doors into the building at this floor…or climb up to the rooftop.
I chose to go up, thinking I’d make better progress over the building rather than through it.
I holstered both Punishers, and once the armatures attached to my back collected the weapons, I once again leapt onto one of the bridgeway’s sidewalls. Peeking down, I spotted niches cut into the exterior face of the wall, running the length of the bridge. They were no more than foot wide and a few inches across, but they offered me a foothold as I reached up for the sidewall above me.
I was also fortunate that the open-air level of the bridgeway was narrower than the one below. This allowed me to jump upwards without having to lean dangerously backwards, and within seconds I’d hauled myself onto the top floor, a feat made possible by Mirai’s ability to leap more than ten feet straight up into the air. Seconds later, I had run to the end of the structure where I faced a couple of darkly tinted glass doors. They were closed shut across the entrance into the building, and rather than force my way through them, I leapt up and climbed over the building’s parapet onto the terrace rooftop.
There was no sign of Arnval’s holo-projection, but Erina’s last meal continued to play out from horizon to horizon across the artificial sky.
The sight of my drunk former sister was a tempting target to shoot at, but bullets were precious and not to be wasted, so I turned my attention to immediate matters.
My consciousness was in an overclocked state, thus giving me the impression that the world was moving at a crawl. But outside of my head the clock was still ticking, and I had twenty minutes to climb aboard the Promenade and save my treacherous former sister.
The giant upside-down turtle shell was floating gently toward the tree-like tower standing tall about a kilometer in the distance.
Glancing back toward the bridgeway, I used the Argus System to scan for movement or a sign of Miss Ponytail.
There wasn’t any within twenty-meters, and that made my gut clench worriedly as I knew that girl wasn’t above sniping me from a distance.
While sweeping my gaze over the rooftops around me, I walked fast across the terrace in the direction of the tree-like tower.
It wasn’t until after I’d reloaded both Punishers that I broke into a run across the skyline.
Thank you for following the webversion of Book Three.
If you are new to the series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
Swapping the magazines on both Punishers turned out to be easier than I’d expected.
The armatures held the rifles under my arms, allowing me to eject the spent magazines and then replace them with fully loaded ones without the need to hold the Punishers in my hands. Then the armatures retracted against my back, tucking the linear rifles snuggly against my shoulder blades.
It was a similar arrangement to what I’d experienced with the Viper railguns, except that the armatures swung the Punishers under my arms rather than over my shoulders. All I had to do was raise my arms a little and the linear rifles would slide under them. Then I would slip my hands through the circular grips, at which point the armatures would release the Punishers, then return to their standby position at my back.
I’ll admit I was surprised by how strong the armatures were.
The metal arms were thin and frail in appearance, yet when I tested their strength at one point, I quickly realized they were incredible sturdy.
Mind you, I wasn’t intent on bending them since that would harm their function, but that little test reassured me that if I was to fall and tumble, then the armatures would survive the beating. However, it was likely that the Punishers in their grip would not, so I decided to avoid rolling along the ground as much as possible.
That brings me to my present course of action.
I had decided to take the high ground to the tree-like tower for a couple of reasons.
By running atop the rooftops, I could keep myself on track toward the tower, but I could also keep an eye out for Miss Ponytail.
The Argus System was still maintaining a sensor-sphere of twenty-meter radius active around me. It might not seem like much, but the sensory data it was feeding into me was acting like a look-ahead radar – mapping out the terrain in front of me. Combined with my overclocked consciousness, this was allowing me to choose my direction of travel with considerable forewarning, but I’ll return to this shortly.
The Argus System was also keeping an eye on my surroundings. But this, I mean that it was watching the skyline around me. I didn’t know how it was doing it, but I suspected that the Argus was seeing my environment via the two wedge shaped fins attached to my head. Somewhere they were fitted with cameras that stared out at the world. Regardless of how it was done, the Argus System had activated this extra feature and was using it to search for any sign of Miss Ponytail while I ran to the tower.
How did I know this? Because it told me.
The Argus System informed me via short thought pulse that it was engaging visual scanning, and that included a brief explanation, the gist of which I’ve just recounted. So I was feeling fairly confident that the Miss Ponytail wasn’t going to sneak up on me like she had during the paint bullet training exercise. By leaving things to the Argus System, I could focus on choosing the most efficient path to the tall tree-like tower.
As I was explaining earlier, the Argus was mapping the ground ahead of me using its sensor-sphere. It wasn’t a detailed map but more like an outline of what lay in my path such as ledges, parapets, balconies, bridgeways, entrances, the walls of buildings, and so forth. Thus, it was like having a game map of the terrain within twenty-meters, and this helped me find ways across from building to building.
But I needed a faster route.
A more direct route.
The tower looked to be a kilometer away, and knowing that Mirai could run a hundred meters in around seven seconds meant that she should be able to arrive at the tower in a little over a minute. However, that was only if she could sprint that far, and if the terrain was favorable to her. Running along the rooftops prevented me from capitalizing on Mirai’s leopard-like speed, though I was using her ability to leap far – as much as forty feet on a couple of occasions – to traverse from one rooftop to the next. When the distance was too great for her, or I felt I couldn’t make the jump, I’d search for a bridgeway between buildings and make use of it. Yet while I was travelling across the skyline at inhuman pace, I wasn’t moving nearly as quickly as if I was running along the ground far below.
However, I couldn’t risk losing the high ground to Miss Ponytail because I had no idea where she was. On the lookout, the Argus System had yet to locate her, so not knowing where she was put me at a disadvantage and restricted me to staying on the rooftops.
Thus, all I could do was focus on making the best possible time to the tower.
Erina was no longer on display across the habitat’s ceiling.
The blue sky with wispy clouds air brushed across it had returned.
But across the skyline, holo-projection billboards advertising various products commonly found in Ar Telica also included a countdown.
As I ran from building to building, rooftop to rooftop, there was no escaping that countdown.
I glanced at a giant holo-vision sign with a pretty girl modelling suntan lotion. Normally I would have found myself drawn to her bikini body, but not on this occasion.
24:13…24:12….
That’s what the countdown displayed.
I winced inwardly as I continued running.
Why I hadn’t I retreated from Miss Ponytail on the bridgeway? Why had I engaged her in furious gunfire that only served to delay me?
Arnval had given me thirty minutes to get to Erina, so had he known that I would waste several of those minutes in a shootout with Miss Ponytail?
Had he known that I wouldn’t run away?
As I continued to run from terrace courtyard to courtyard, grateful that the buildings of the habitat weren’t built too far apart, I ruminated the question.
Why hadn’t I run away?
I could only think of one answer: I’d wanted to beat her – to blow her apart and finish her off. But in the end, I’d been forced to run away, and if Fate hadn’t helped me when I had my back to Miss Ponytail, I probably wouldn’t be where I was now, making tracks over the rooftops.
Heading for the tower was the right thing to do, and yet I was nagged by the suspicion that losing track of Miss Ponytail was a mistake. That feeling turned into one of unease, and it wormed around in my chest, bringing me to a hard stop at the edge of a building.
It was then that I realized what had been truly bothering me.
“…much too quiet….”
In other words, why wasn’t she shooting at me?
I had my answer seconds later when the Argus System sensed something moving swiftly below me – something bipedal and human sized.
Damn it!
Miss Ponytail hadn’t been running over the rooftops like me.
She’d been running through the buildings.
Within the habitat, she had the home advantage. She didn’t need to shoot her way from building to building. Doors that were closed to me were open to her, allowing her to pursue me from inside the buildings.
I suddenly experienced a horrid premonition.
I would arrive at the tree-like tower and find her right behind me.
Worse still, if I stumbled, fell, or lost ground to her, I could find her waiting for me at the tower.
Despite being overclocked, time slowed down even further, and my surroundings grew eerily tranquil.
I felt as though I was encased in a bubble, able to perceive what lay around me, yet unable to interact with it.
The aforementioned tranquility flowed into me, as in the corner of my eye, I watched the countdown in a holo-projection tick over a tenth of a second at a time.
23:13:10…09…08…07….
Slow as it was, time waits for no one, and I needed to decide on my next move.
I could either stop Miss Ponytail here or attempt to outrun her to the tower.
As I considered both options, I suddenly realized that perhaps I was going about this the wrong way.
In my hyper-accelerated state of mind, my body moved rather quickly as I looked up at the Promenade off to my ten o’clock and some distance ahead of me
To my chagrin, I acknowledged there was a third option.
Why the Hell didn’t I think of it before?
Making my choice, my overclocked awareness sped up in response, and within my mind one second became four rather than ten.
Summoning both Punishers, I slipped my hands through their hand grips a moment before the armatures released them.
Aware of Miss Ponytail running toward me within the building underfoot, I aimed the linear rifles at the Promenade sailing high over the habitat’s buildings.
Arnval had said I needed to board the Promenade and face him to successfully save Erina, so my intention had been to board the floating observation deck when it docked at the tower.
However, Arnval had never said I couldn’t shoot it down.
The Punishers used their range finding ability to report the Promenade was over two hundred meters away, but it was a trivial distance to a rifle that could strike targets almost two kilometers away.
Aiming at the tail end of the oblate vessel, I watched it for a fraction of a second through the Punishers’ optical system—
Please, don’t let me hit Erina by mistake.
—then I squeezed both triggers simultaneously.
A twin double-shot erupted from the Punishers, and nearly instantly the bullets penetrated the Promenade’s rounded stern.
To tell the truth, being an ovoid, the front and back ends were the same, but I chose to think of the region I’d targeted as the stern simply because it was closest to me.
Watching through the Punishers’ proverbial eyes, I saw the holes the bullets made but could only picture them tearing through the Promenade’s innards.
Not expecting them to bring the flying structure down, I fired a dozen more rounds into the Promenade’s butt, then waited a second for something to happen.
When nothing did, I clamped down on my disappointment, and shot off another ten rounds, before taking off at a run for the edge of the building off to my left.
Why? Because I sensed Miss Ponytail drawing dangerously close beneath me.
To prove just how dangerous, the area I’d been standing on exploded into a greyish mist as it was pulverized by a fusillade of bullets fired from the floor below.
Dozens of rounds ripped through the rooftop.
Then another fusillade chased me as I ran toward the edge of the building.
However, I wasn’t running in the direction of the tower, but perpendicular to it.
If we consider the tower as standing at the northern end of the habitat, then we could say I was fleeing west atop the building's rooftop.
I’d said it before, I needed a faster route, and the Argus System had found it for me.
It had glimpsed an elevated structure resembling a mag-lev track running between buildings in a northerly direction. In other words, running toward the tower.
With bullets chasing my heels, I glanced once more at the Promenade sailing serenely – albeit more slowly – toward the tower after weathering the twenty odd rounds I shot into its stern. The Argus System also spared it a long look and estimated it would dock with the tower in 131 seconds. But knowing that the tower was still some seven hundred meters away made my stomach clench unpleasantly. A second later, and I took a running leap to the building ahead of me. However, the distance was farther than Mirai could manage, and I fell short of the building’s rooftop terrace.
To be fair, I didn’t have much choice but to attempt the sixty-foot jump.
A stream of bullets from Miss Ponytail was ripping up the ground inches behind me, so there was no safe place on the rooftop.
And the bridgeway connecting the two buildings was a handful of floors below and to the south, requiring me to descend the sloped wall of the building by making use of the numerous long balconies there. That would take time, so I honestly felt I had no choice but to jump. It was simply unfortunate that the distance was beyond Mirai’s ability to cover in a single bound.
Fortunately, while I was going to fall short of the rooftop, this building also had long balconies running along its east face, thus I was guaranteed to land in one of them. But as I was falling toward a balcony on the fifth floor – three floors short of the rooftop – I felt my parabolic descent level out by several degrees.
In an overclocked state, I glanced down and was surprised to see Mirai’s split skirt had fanned out to either side of me, and was acting like a parachute—
Or a pair of wings.
I was no longer falling for a balcony on the sixth floor. Instead, I was headed for a landing on a balcony balustrade on the seventh floor. And because the side of the building was sloped at a sixty or seventy-degree angle, I could use the balconies like footholds and jump my way up to the rooftop.
My heart twinged with renewed hope as my booted feet touched down on the metal coping of the balcony’s balustrade, quickly dropping into a crouch to cushion the impact of my landing.
Maybe I can still make this work!
Then from behind me, I heard the sound of glass shattering.
Don’t tell me!
Still crouched on the balustrade, I looked at the wall ahead of me.
It was a floor-to-ceiling patio window, more than a dozen meters wide, and the building behind me was reflected on its tinted surface.
In that reflection, I could see that Miss Ponytail had crashed through a similar window-wall and out onto a balcony with enough momentum to carry her into the glass balustrade. The metal frame warped, and the glass panes shattered under the impact. Miss Ponytail had to catch herself on the balustrade or she would have fallen nine floors to her demise.
Then I realized she wasn’t simply arresting her momentum.
She was bracing herself as the took aim at me.
I jumped down onto the balcony, and held the Punishers in wide, outstretched arms – one pointing at Miss Ponytail, the other pointing at the window-wall.
Now that she was out in the open, I caught my first good look at her.
It really is her.
She looked every bit like the tall girl with the blue tinted ponytail I’d first encountered in the villa’s garden courtyard. But there was no lifeforce aura surrounding her body, so she was clearly a mechanical avatar. She also looked like she’d been dragged through Hell and back. Her black and crimson outfit was punctuated with numerous holes.
Then there was the condition of her features.
Skin and tissue was missing from the left side of her skull, right above her left ear. It looked as though her head had been raked by a chainsaw, but that damage was done by a couple of ten-millimeter AP rounds that scored a lucky hit.
In short, she didn’t look so pretty anymore.
She was a sight that would terrorize young children whether it be day or night.
However, seeing her in that dismal state made me wonder why her outfit was in an equally sorry condition.
My Princess Regalia had taken hits to the arms and shoulders, yet not a single bullet had penetrated the material. That wasn’t to say each shot hadn’t hurt, and no doubt I was sporting large bruises because of them, but my point was that my clothes were relatively unharmed.
In contrast, Miss Ponytail’s outfit was fit for the dumpster – and I’m not referring to a donation bin.
So why the big difference?
Was my Regalia truly unique to me and therefore abnormally tough and resilient?
Was it because I had something to lose if I was shot, and Miss Ponytail didn’t?
The difference was something to note, but it didn’t stop me from shooting at her with the Punisher in my right hand, while perforating the window-wall to my left with shots from the second rifle. Therefore, while one Punisher weakened the glass wall in preparation for my escape into the building, the second one was pummeling Miss Ponytail’s chest with a handful of heavy grain bullets.
She gyrated wildly when struck by each AP round, but held onto the metal guardrail of the warped glass balustrade. Using it to steady herself, she was able to return fired despite the damage I was inflicting upon her.
I had no idea what kind of weapon she was wielding – it didn’t strike a bell with Mirai – but it was fitted with two ammo drums, one on either side of the receiver. That meant she had a lot of bullets at her disposal, and that was bad news for me.
I ducked on impulse as she shot back a lengthy volley from her balcony across the street.
Through the Argus System, I sensed the bullets zip over the top of my head and stitch a tight pattern on the window-wall behind me. Surprisingly, the glass didn’t shatter and break away.
That was disappointing since it would have made my escape a little easier.
Clearly, the glass wall was demanding my undivided attention, but first I had to something about Miss Ponytail, because turning my back on her while trying to break the window was simply too dangerous.
There was also the fact that Mirai was terrified of exposing her back to Miss Ponytail.
Well, describing her as terrified might be going too far, but she was quite determined not to turn and run.
Her Fight or Flight switch was very much set on fighting back.
Thus, I had no choice but to swing around and aim both Punishers at my opponent across the street.
Now I was unleashing double the trouble on Miss Ponytail, but the problem with remaining on the balcony was that it offered me no protection – not that there was much that could protect me from the heavy rounds she was shooting at me.
The point is that I was vulnerable to her gunfire, and unlike the mechanical body she was operating, Mirai couldn’t stand out in the open taking bullet hit after hit like Miss Ponytail was enduring. The only reason I hadn’t been stitched with bullet holes was because I was hitting her over and over, and that was throwing off her aim.
However, it was only a matter of time before she got lucky with her return fire, and that happened sooner rather than later.
The Punisher in my right hand was caught in a stream of gunfire.
Its muzzle and about a quarter of its barrel length fractured then broke apart as dozens of small rounds smashed into it.
My hand and wrist cried out in pain and I released the mangled weapon as I fled northward along the balcony.
Her counterattack chased me away from the window I’d been softening up to break through, but having changed direction by 180 degrees, I was now aiming the left Punisher at Miss Ponytail.
Arnval had been surprised by the high accuracy of my marksmanship, and so had I. When I checked the scores later, I discovered that I hit on target 99.3 percent of the time. According to the Assisting Intelligence, that was utterly unnatural. But what truly shocked both Arnval and the A.I. – if you can imagine the latter being capable of surprise – was that I achieved similarly high marks when shooting as I ran.
A solid score of 98.8 percent.
When I explained that I could see where I was pointing through the weapon interface to Mirai’s wetware, the A.I. pointed out that rarely did I make a correction. It seemed the training facility’s Assisting Intelligence had been watching me very closely, and I had to admit that its observation was true. Despite engaging holo-targets while overclocked and on the move, it was rare for me to make corrections to my aim, especially as I grew increasingly accustomed to the Punishers’ weight and limited recoil.
With that said, it was times like these that my high scores came into play.
Aiming at the weapon in Miss Ponytail’s right hand – the firearm that was busy ripping up with balcony around me with a hail of bullets – I switched the Punisher to single shot mode, then fired one round into the ammo drums attached to her gun. One of those bullets passed through the drum and slammed its pointy head into her right shoulder. The drums fed a few more bullets into the gun before they jammed, but the impact against her shoulder had thrown her aim, so she missed me by a couple of inches.
Grateful for the close call, I kept a low profile as I ran along the wide balcony.
Switching back to double-shot mode, I fired through the glass balustrade of both our balconies. The AP rounds shattered the glass, then slammed into her knees, fragmenting the armor that protected them.
Miss Ponytail’s legs wobbled in a rubbery fashion and then she went down. But before she could collapse, she dropped the gun in her hand, and grabbed onto the balcony guardrail. Using it to keep herself upright on her knees, she reached behind her back with her left hand. What she whipped out was a handgun best described as the bastard child of a shotgun and an assault rifle.
During all this, I skidded to a hasty stop, and continued shooting AP rounds into her body.
The Punisher’s stopping power was some thirty to forty percent higher than a Viper Vanquish’s, and every bullet that struck her was punching right into her.
Yet Miss Ponytail refused to go down.
She gyrated and rocked wildly on her knees, but her right hand held onto the guardrail with a dead man’s grip.
It infuriated me that she continued to make no attempt to avoid the bullets I was shooting at her.
Instead of crawling back into the apartment, she clung to the balcony, and endured hit after hit.
Small chunks of her outfit, skin, and even metal would spray into the air as the Punisher’s bullets took her apart.
To be honest it was horrible to witness, but I had no choice but to continue shooting…until I decided it was time to end this.
Thus far I’d been targeting her arms, chest, and torso.
Now I paused for a half second to take aim at her head.
In that brief moment, she took advantage of the lull in gunfire, and shot me with the heavy gun she’d pulled out from behind her back.
Large caliber bullets struck my exposed left flank, spinning me around on impact.
I lost my footing and landed heavily on my back.
Pain lanced through my torso, locking my diaphragm, making it impossible to breathe.
I didn’t know if the Princess Regalia had been breached, but I was in too much agony to check. Yet somehow Mirai’s body moved on its own, succumbing to her intense desire for self-preservation. Through sheer willpower, she first rolled me over onto my belly, then forced me up onto my hands and knees.
Because of the pain, I’d broken into a cold sweat that bathed my face, and I struggled to balance myself on one hand as I knelt on the balcony floor.
However, like Miss Ponytail, I was down but not out.
I’d been shot, but I’d held onto the Punisher.
Pointing the linear rifle at Miss Ponytail’s head, I was aided by the feed from the rifle’s targeting system.
When I was certain my aim was true, I squeezed the trigger.
But once again I was a little too late.
The agony from my injuries had slowed me down, and Miss Ponytail got the jump on me for a second time.
Her gun’s muzzle flashed brightly, and her shot struck my left thigh.
I screamed in torment. What else could I do? The pain was excruciating and I honestly believed she’d blown my leg away.
I collapsed onto my belly, unable to move, and barely able to breathe.
My overclocked awareness wavered, and time inside my head sped up and down repeatedly in a nauseating manner.
Yet despite all this, I refused to drop the Punisher. Held in my left hand, it pointed in Miss Ponytail’s general direction.
It seemed that my left arm was the only part of my body that didn’t hurt, and the only limb that I could still control.
Desperately, I tried to maintain my accelerated mental state as I made one of those rare corrections the A.I. had talked about.
With time moving at a snail’s pace, I raised the Punisher a few inches off the balcony floor, aimed once more at Miss Ponytail’s forehead, and then squeezed the trigger.
This time I shot at her before she could shoot at me.
Unfortunately, my shot fell into the 0.7 percent margin where I missed my intended target.
I failed to center punch that metal bitch’s head.
Instead, the double-shot punched a sizeable hole into her throat.
I didn’t see any blood, flesh, or metal fragments spurt into the air, but I did see Miss Ponytail jerk back sharply under the impact.
Then she stiffened for a moment before breaking into a wild seizure.
Losing her grip on the balcony guardrail, she slumped back on her knees, then toppled over onto her side where upon she continued to spasm vigorously on the balcony floor. Those spasms caused her fingers to flex, and the gun in her left hand belched fleeting flames as it discharged numerous rounds into the air.
Some of those rounds ripped into the balcony.
Some of them blew large chunks out of the window-wall to my right.
I lay flat on the balcony floor, unable to move, praying that she ran out of ammo soon.
But she continued jerking about madly, and the supersized handgun continued firing wildly.
If I didn’t do something, I was going to be hit by a stray bullet.
I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.
Holding onto my overclocked awareness, I pointed the Punisher as best I could in the direction of Miss Ponytail’s head that was bobbing and rocking loosely at the end of her neck.
I wasn’t hoping for a clean hit.
I was hoping to do enough damage to break the connection between the operator and the mechanical body.
And I was also hoping that by blowing her head apart, her body would stop moving.
So when Miss Ponytail’s cranium passed through the Punisher’s targeting reticule that projected into my vision, I squeezed the trigger and held it down until the magazine emptied.
AP bullet after bullet slammed into her mechanical body.
The first few holed her skull, and violently kicked her head back.
The remaining rounds ripped into her throat, neck, and chest.
By the time the Punisher clicked empty, Miss Ponytail had been knocked into the foot of her balcony’s window-wall where she twitched for a handful of seconds before she finally grew still.
I waited a few more seconds before relaxing my grip on my overclocked awareness.
As time resumed moving normally inside my head, I took a pained breath and sucked precious air into my lungs. But breathing too deeply was more than my lungs could to handle, and I broke into a wracking cough that exacerbated the fire blazing through my left flank. It burned for another ten to fifteen seconds until the Angel Fibers within my body began to extinguish it with extreme prejudice.
Yet each short, shallow breath that I took sent fresh waves of agony racing through my torso.
Lying still helped mitigate how much it hurt to breathe, but soon my breasts began to complain about the weight upon them.
Rolling over onto my back proved to be as painful as I feared it would be.
Afterwards, I lay gasping for air.
Incapacitated by injury, all I could do was stare up at the fake sky overhead and wait for the Angel Fibers to patch me up from the inside.
It felt like an eternity before I could breathe without feeling as though my left flank was being stabbed with a hot poker.
In truth though, only a minute had gone by.
Yet I really couldn’t afford to be lying down.
I needed to get back up and chase after the Promenade.
Who knew how many obstacles I would encounter between here and the tower.
However, I was too exhausted to move until I recalled Miss Ponytail lying on the wrecked balcony across the street.
Abruptly anxious, I turned my head and cast a long look her way.
She was right where I left her – or rather shot her – slumped against the foot of the balcony wall.
Several seconds ticked by, yet she showed no signs of reviving.
Eventually, I sighed loudly in relief, but it turned into a short, strained chuckle.
I knew that by laughing I risked raising a bad flag, but I couldn’t help myself.
That said, I kept a watchful eye on Miss Ponytail as I swapped the Punisher to my right hand, and then cautiously checked on my injuries by tracing my fingertips over my wounded left flank.
At one point I pushed too hard and triggered a fresh wave of pain that left me gasping for air.
Miss Ponytail’s gunshot had sent me spinning to the ground, and it had probably broken a rib or two judging from how much it initially hurt to breathe, so I expected to touch an open wound. Instead, I was shocked to discover the Princess Regalia felt pitted and rough over my flank but was otherwise intact.
Well, I’ll be the Devil’s uncle….
Gasping a little, I then reached down to run my fingertips over my left thigh.
Again, there was no open wound.
The Regalia felt ragged, and my thigh burned hotly where my fingers touched it, but the material had survived the blast.
Relief flooded my chest and I exhaled loudly before breaking into a soft laugh that soon trailed off into silence. But my heart felt lighter, and it wasn’t long before my body began to relax. My injuries still caused me discomfort, but they no longer incapacitated me, and my breathing grew longer and deeper. Able to think clearly again, I turned my thoughts to my next move, yet I found myself confronting a familiar conundrum.
Why was I enduring so much punishment to save Erina’s ass?
Was it truly because I didn’t want to feel guilty afterwards if I sat on my hands and did nothing? Or was I lying to myself? Did I care about what happened to my former sister?
I shook my head wearily.
Me? Care about Erina? You must be joking.
However, if that was true then I was back to square one.
If it wasn’t the fear of guilt or family affection driving me onwards, then why the Hell was I trying to save her? Was it because I believed that I still needed her? Or was it because I wanted to hurt her with my own hands? Was I doing this to make my revenge on Erina that much sweeter?
I didn’t have an answer and lying on the balcony wasn’t going to help me find it either.
The countdown was still ticking, and I needed to get to the tower.
With that in mind, I pushed myself up onto my elbows, then readied myself to rise to my feet.
At that moment, and without warning, the habitat’s blue sky turned a Hellish red.
At the same time, the countdown that was displayed across every holo-projection now flashed up onto that burning sky, and I watched in growing horror as the numbers rapidly dwindled.
The countdown arrived at 10:00:00, stopped for a few anxious heartbeats, then quietly resumed ticking down toward zero.
In disbelief, confusion, and despair, I stared up at the red sky and wondered why I’d been robbed of ten minutes on the clock.
Thank you for following the webversion of Book Three.
Dear Readers, I have an important announcement to make.
For since the beginning of this year, I have suffered from Tinnitus in my left ear.
Recently, I started experiencing soft Tinnitus in my right ear.
I believe both started from ear infections.
The Tinnitus has greatly affected my life.
It has affected my work and my writing.
And last week, I seriously thought about suicide on many occasions.
I have experienced a breakdown in front of my family, too.
I have been fortunate to have their support, and I was able to see a highly regarded specialist in Australia.
I am on medication that helps me sleep and calms the Tinnitus down.
For this past week, I have been doing well. On one day, I had total quiet in both my ears.
I treasure those quiet days.
For now, with the treatment, I am not thinking of ending my life.
In 3 weeks I see the specialist again and this week I have an MRI scan booked to check if I have a problem with my audio cortical nerve as the Tinnitus started in one ear.
I am also taking magnesium supplements.
I truly hope that I can get treatment to manage this condition long term until a cure is found.
The reason I say all this is because the Tinnitus is the main reason Gun Princess Royale book 3 has not been released. I have trouble working on the novel when the hissing in my ear is too loud. But lately with the medication and proper sleep, I have been able to concentrate a fair bit on the novel. I recently edited about 40 pages of the book in 2 days.
My goal is to stay sane and to manage the Tinnitus while still being able to work effectively at my day job and my novel.
My girlfriend is extremely rich and she has been extremely supportive of me, to the point where she wants me to retire and focus on my writing.
She and I have much to discuss on that front, but I am seriously thinking of her offer.
In any case, our plans to get married have been put on hold while the virus pandemic is ongoing.
All I can say for now is that I will do my best to get the ebook version of GPR Book 3 out in the next few months.
I will do as the doctor says and undertake whatever treatments are necessary to get through this.
I thank you for reading this, and for not giving up on my beloved series.
If you are new to the series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
Clenching my jaw against the pain, I stifled an anguished gasp but couldn’t help wheezing a little as I stood up on the wrecked balcony.
I could only think of one reason why the countdown had been trimmed by ten minutes.
Looking northward in the direction of the Promenade, I saw smoke trailing out of its stern as it drifted leisurely toward the tall tower with thin branch-like arms reaching up for the sky.
Ah…so that’s why.
The time penalty was probably for shooting at the Promenade.
Shaking my head slowly, I softly cursed Arnval under my breath.
That bastard didn’t tell me.
However, there was a possible silver lining to all this. If the time penalty had been imposed, then perhaps the floating observation platform had suffered significant damage and docking at the tower was its only option now. And that meant—
It’s not going anywhere. I won’t have to chase it down!
I glanced down at the Punisher in my right hand.
Time to reload.
Swapping out the empty magazine for a fully loaded one, I remembered the mangled Punisher. It lay several feet away, with about a third of its barrel missing.
However, I suspected the magazine was only half empty, a fact proven when I retrieved the weapon and then queried its A.I.
To my surprise, the Assisting Intelligence was functional, but I was shocked to hear it report the rifle was ready for combat.
Its capacity was compromised and aiming was for naught, but it could still prove lethal at point blank range.
I admired the rifle’s willingness to fight, though I wondered if it was telling me this so that I wouldn’t leave it behind.
Was I anthropomorphizing the Punisher?
Truth be told, even if crippled, I wasn’t going to abandon it, and it still had over forty rounds in its magazine. That had to be worth something.
Handing the weapon over to an armature that tucked it snug against my right shoulder blade, I gave Miss Ponytail a final cursory look, verified she was as dead as a door nail, yet reluctantly turned my back to her. And as I kicked at the balcony’s window-wall where multiple bullet hits had softened it, I couldn’t lay my troubled feelings to rest.
Miss Ponytail had endured more than sixty hits from bullets travelling at hyper-sonic speed. Granted, some of those had only grazed her, but many more had penetrated deep into her body. Both the Argus System and I were certain of that. So why was she brought down by a couple of perfectly placed shots through her neck? Had I disrupted the connection between the Meister and the avatar’s body?
I needed to know more about their weaknesses, something Arnval had conveniently avoided teaching me. All that useless shooting around, the pointless paint-bullet training with the maids, was nothing more than a distraction.
And thinking back on it all was distracting me right now.
Abruptly angry at Arnval and the Sanreals, I delivered an all mighty kick into the window-wall, and shattered a section large enough for me to step through with room to spare. However, before jumping into the room beyond the smashed windows, I was gripped by a sudden thought that made my heart jump in fright, and the tiny hairs on the nape of my neck stiffen.
What if she’s not the only one?
Half turning around to look behind me, I stared at Miss Ponytail’s dead mechanical body, then fearfully then swept my gaze over the building across the street.
What if there are more of her?
I searched the roofline, and then sensed the Argus System focus its ‘eyes’ on the vista in front of me. Without warning, my field-of-vision expanded so dramatically that I could see everything with perfect clarity, as though my peripheral vision and field-of-vision had become one.
Oh gods—
It was overwhelming, more than Mirai’s mind could handle, and I quickly squeezed my eyes shut.
*No—too much! It’s too much!
I heard the Argus System reply. Rather than with words, it seemed to transmit its understanding through emotions.
I risked opening my eyes and saw that my field-of-vision, already wider than humanly possible, had been restored to what was normal for Mirai. Yet I also sensed that my peripheral vision was marginally clearer. Despite this, I wasn’t overwhelmed by what I was seeing, and my chest and shoulders heaved as I exhaled loudly in relief.
*That’s better. Much better.
Again, I sensed that the Argus System understood me, but I was baffled by why it was communicating with me this way. Previously, it had spoken into my mind, so why was it sending its understanding as a stream of emotions. Was it trialing different means of interacting with me? Was it searching for the most efficient way to talk to me? Or was it trying to integrate with me, intending to make the bond between us seamless?
As the questions crossed my mind, I sensed a sheepish response from the Argus System, almost as though it was sorry for its actions.
I shook my head sharply in response.
“No. It’s fine. We both have a lot learn about each other.”
Yes, that seemed to be true.
All of this was more or less a trial run for the Argus System and I.
Ghost hadn’t known what I would face, but he’d anticipated it would be a challenge involving combat – something fit for a Gun Princess – and so he’d gifted me with the Argus System.
I promised to thank him for it later, while resolving to master his gift.
Before then I needed to finish what I’d started, and to do that I had to get to the tower, then board the Promenade before the countdown reached zero.
I’d gone through this much pain for Erina.
I wasn’t about to let it go to waste.
After all, I was going to take it out on her when the time was right.
I thank you for reading this, and for not giving up on my beloved series.
I would like to say that I have been working on GPR and the sequel series, "The Remnant Fiestas" in tandem.
The reason is that it's allowed me to plan out Gun Princess Royale for the next several books, with an eye on the sequel that features a new cast of characters.
However, GPR is far from over.
Very, very far from over.
Very soon, I will be posting "The Remnant Fiestas" here on TG Big Closet.
I may post it on Wattpad, however, the lack of forums on Wattpad make it virtually impossible to promote anything on that site.
If you are new to the series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
Why was I going through the building and not over it?
Because I had no intention of being caught by surprise and sniped while using the balconies to climb up the side of the building and onto its rooftop.
Instead, I stepped through the shattered balcony window-wall into what resembled a luxurious, spacious apartment complete with a breakfast left cold on the kitchen table that was one of those island designs where the table is more like a bench with stools surrounding it.
I used the Argus System to search the apartment and locate the exit. When I arrived at the sliding door leading out of the apartment, I discovered that it was locked. However, the Argus System located the locking bolts that were built into the doorjamb. I made short work of the bolts by firing a handful of rounds through them. Then I employed Mirai’s abundant strength to slide the door open.
Outside the apartment, I paused to run my gaze over the building’s interior that was dominated by an atrium that rose from the ground floor to an enormous glass ceiling. Balconies encircled the atrium on every floor, and some levels appeared to be home to shops, restaurants, and assorted eateries. It wasn’t entirely different from the way Ar Telica’s residential complexes were built. More alike than unlike, though on a much smaller scale. I wouldn’t describe the place as opulent, but it was bright, clean, and spacious, giving off the impression of a friendly, safe environment for children – and adults – of all ages. In some respects, it was akin to the interior of those luxury cruise ships that sailed the oceans of Teloria. Given that the habitat was located within a vessel that was larger than an island, maybe the cruise ship analogy wasn’t that far off from the truth.
As I worked my way around the atrium to the west side of the building, I pondered the true nature of the habitat. Was it home to the crew of the Citadel? And what was the composition of the crew? Were they human and Simulacra, or just the latter? Given the size of the ship, the crew complement could number in the tens of thousands – perhaps over a hundred thousand – and the habitat was certainly large enough for that number. Or maybe the Empire possessed advanced automation that allowed for the Sanreal Novis to be operated by a few thousand crew members, leaving the rest to machines and Artificial Awarenesses. So was the habitat home to the crew and their families?
On another note, while the architecture of the buildings within the habitat possessed the air of a utopia or arcology, it was comforting that the inside layout of this building wasn’t so dissimilar from what I was accustomed to in Ar Telica. Because of this, and the directions provided by multiple holo-signs, I was able to quickly traverse through the building. Emerging out of the westside exit on the third floor, I found myself running onto a station platform with two elevated monorail tracks running past it in parallel.
During my brief dash over the rooftops, the Argus System had spied these two monorails in the near distance. Now, I hoped that at least one of them would prove to be my straight run to the tower.
Summoning the left armature, I used it to holster the Punisher tightly against my left shoulder blade, then I jumped the short distance from the platform to the nearest parallel track. The Argus System reported the width at twenty-two inches, wide enough to run along, and Mirai’s boots had a remarkable grip on smooth surfaces so I was confident I wasn’t going to fall off the track.
I was soon running at a very fast jog that many athletes would have mistaken for a sprint. The wounds in my left thigh and flank bothered me with every breath and step that I took, but the discomfort gradually receded into a dull ache as the Angel Fibers patched Mirai up from the inside.
About a thousand feet south of the station, the two monorail tracks diverged. One of them routed between the habitat buildings to the east, but the track I was running along continued in a direct line to the tower. By continuing to make use of it, I didn’t waste time searching for ways to travel across from building to building. However, it also gave me time to think, and the closer I travelled to the tower, the darker and more anxious my thoughts became.
I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at the tower, yet I was certain that I hadn’t seen the last of Miss Ponytail. She’d made her presence known to me back at the Estate, something I now believed was a challenge – especially after she sniped me in the head during the paint bullet exercise – so I doubted she would give up so easily. And since this whole situation was stacked unfavorably against me, I expected that by now she’d jumped into a spare body and was waiting for round two.
Or was that round three?
I shook my head inwardly in self-reproach.
Did it matter what round it was?
For that matter, so what if she was waiting for me?
With the tower looming tall before me, I grinned to myself as I picked up my pace.
I’d kicked Miss Ponytail’s ass once already, and I was ready to kick her ass again.
Then I saw what lay ahead of me and I involuntarily slowed down.
That ass kicking was going to have to wait.
A wide, open space surrounded the tower.
As I ran closer to it, I recognized it as a parkland.
A wide stream encircled the base of the tower like a castle moat, and a couple of little bridges arched over it.
It was all very peaceful and picturesque, but the absence of buildings turned it into a no-man’s land.
I had a hasty choice to make: find another away to the tower, or sprint to the finish line and hope for the best.
Judging the distance to the tower at around a hundred and fifty meters, I decided to make a run for it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far.
As I sprinted between the last two buildings before the monorail track crossed over into the open parkland, something slammed into my left shoulder.
My mind was overclocked, but whatever struck the Regalia’s puffy padding moved too quickly for me to glimpse.
The tremendous impact killed my forward momentum, knocking backwards onto my ass.
However, I didn’t feel myself landing on the monorail.
Instead, I felt as though my left arm had been blown off at the shoulder.
The agony I experienced was so intense that for a few seconds I couldn’t cope, and my mind went white.
To make matters worse, I was still overclocked, so those few seconds of excruciating pain seemed to last for an eternity.
I don’t know why my mind continued to overclock, but the resulting experience was too much for me, and I screamed in abject agony.
That scream was still sounding in my ears when my senses recovered.
My hearing returned first, then my vision.
However, I had a trouble understanding my situation.
One of the two buildings I’d been running past was now in front of me, and my body felt like it was dangling.
So why wasn’t I falling? Had I reflexively reached out and caught onto the monorail track as I fell?
The pain burning up my left shoulder had spread to my chest. It was hard to breathe, but I was able to tilt back my head and look up to see a slender metal arm stretching from my back to the monorail track overhead.
What the—?
It took me a moment to recognize it as the right holster arm.
Its six fingers were splayed, and the air between its palm and the track shimmered.
So that’s what happened.
In order to save me as I fell, the armature had abandoned the damaged Punisher and grabbed a hold of the monorail’s underbelly.
But now what—?
A large chunk disappeared from the metal arm, as though something invisible had taken a bite out of it.
But I knew that wasn’t the case.
The holster arm had been sniped.
This time I’d seen the bullet – a cigar shaped smudge moving across my vision for a millisecond – and so too had the Argus System.
*Release! I yelled at the arm.
The effect-field grabbing onto the track vanished, and I fell away from the monorail.
As I dropped to the street three stories below me, the Princess Regalia’s skirts instantly fanned out and hardened to act like drag chutes.
The landing was painful, but it could have been a lot worse if not for the skirts’ attempt to slow my descent.
That said, my legs did shout out in agony.
They gave way, and I collapsed onto my knees.
Using a hand to support myself, I weathered the short-lived pain, before pushing myself back onto my feet.
The damaged Punisher was lying nearby, and I ran over to recover it.
As I picked it up, the sniper’s third shot slammed into the linear rifle.
It didn’t knock the weapon out of my left hand, but it made my arm swing out wide, almost spinning me around in a half circle.
The abrupt change in direction made me stumble, and for a moment my legs turned rubbery again.
I was in danger of falling flat on my face, but I recovered by kicking off the ground as hard as I could, launching myself into the air at a low angle.
I staggered upon landing, but quickly regained enough of my balance to flee toward the building to the west.
It was surrounded by a low garden wall that I leapt over with a little difficulty.
A second later, I had crossed the garden and dropped to a crouch with my back pressed against the building.
Feeling safe for the moment, I addressed the Argus System.
*Where did those shots come from?
Despite my awareness being overclocked, I’d barely glimpsed the sniper’s bullets tunnel through the air. But the Argus System operated in a nanosecond world and had recorded their flight paths when they briefly cut through the sensor-sphere. By tracing their trajectory, the system guesstimated their point of origin.
*Show me, I asked of it.
The Argus System complied, and half my vision was consumed by a recorded view of the Promenade docked high up the tower.
From the angle of the image, it appeared to have been recorded while I was running along the monorail track, a fraction of a second before I was first sniped.
Gun cues superimposed on an area just above the Promenade’s dorsal hull.
In short, the Argus System was telling me I’d been shot by someone or something standing on the dorsal hull, but the system couldn’t see the sniper.
I sighed loudly and blinked quickly, signaling the system to clear away the image from my vision.
“Wonderful…,” I whispered as I leaned my head back and looked up the wall of the building I was hiding against.
The pain blazing through my left shoulder was steadily losing its bite.
In another half-minute I’d be able to move my left arm with some discomfort, but at least I still had my arm thanks to the Princess Regalia. No matter how embarrassing it might be to wear, I swore a silent oath never to doubt its worth.
My gaze drifted over to the countdown plastered countless times across the bloodred sky.
07:12…07:11….
Now what?
I pondered the state of play.
One. I was alive because the sniper didn’t want me dead.
How did I know this?
Because, Two, they could have shot me in the head instead of the shoulder.
The implied that, Three, the sniper was an excellent shot.
Alternatively, they could have just been unlucky, but it took more than luck to take a bite of the right holster arm with their second shot.
That lead me to Four: I was pinned down and losing time.
Last but not least, Five: how the Hell was I going to get to the tower now?
I spared the monorail track overhead a studious look.
The underside was smooth and flush like the topside so there was nothing to hold onto, otherwise I could have crawled beneath it all the way to the tower.
I directed the Argus System to the ground beneath me, extending the sensor-sphere as far out as the street and sidewalk. There were tunnels and conduits running below ground, but I would need to find a way into them. Did I have the time to search about?
I released a heavy, shuddering breath, and looked down at the damaged Punisher.
The sniper had shot the weapon when I picked it up off the street. The impact had almost ripped it out of my hand, and tripped me up, but I’d recovered and held onto it as I ran for cover.
Since I was contemplating my next move, I took a moment to study the damage inflicted by the sniper’s bullet.
There was a crater in the Punisher’s receiver, just ahead of the side-mounted magazine feeder. The linear rifle was made out of lightweight but extremely strong materials because it had to withstand the enormous forces generated when it fired bullets at eight times the speed of sound. It also had to endure firing tens of thousands of rounds in its lifetime. Because of this, the heavy caliber slug had failed to smash through the rifle and had become embedded in the Punisher.
The Argus System scanned it.
[*14 mm high-velocity tungsten carbide cobalt composite penetrator with non-discarding jacket. Medium armor piercing capacity.]
My eyebrows rose sharply as my eyes widened dramatically.
Medium armor piercing? Not light armor piercing?
Though it hurt a little as I turned my neck to the left, it didn’t stop me from giving my left shoulder a good look.
The puffy padding protecting my shoulder had crumpled.
I was accustomed to seeing the Princess Regalia restoring itself by some miraculous means, but the shoulder armor had deflated like a spent
airbag and showed no signs of recovering.
Wondering if the bullet was still in there, I reached into the once puffy padding and found the heavy slug inside the deformed material. I had to yank it out because it was stuck, and that sent a fresh wave of pain rushing through my shoulder and chest.
I rolled the armor piercing round in my right palm.
Half the jacket had been crushed, and the tungsten carbide penetrator had been flattened as well.
I gave my shoulder and the Punisher separate looks.
Just what the Hell was this Princess Regalia made of.
The previous Regalia had almost stopped a twenty-millimeter round when it punched into my gut. This one had stopped a bullet capable of smashing through an ultra-strong linear rifle frame.
I leaned back against the wall until the holster arms attached to my back bumped into it.
Abruptly, I heard a rustling sound and felt something crawling over my left shoulder.
Startled at first, I soon stared nonplussed at the sight of the puffy shoulder padding slowly restoring itself. But when it finished inflating a long while later, it looked a little worse for wear.
My heart pounded loudly in my chest.
Mirai’s abilities frightened me on occasion, but at times like these, Princess Regalia was downright unnerving as an example of over technology.
But watching it had given me an idea.
After standing up, I peered along the side of the wall at the open parkland that lay between the southside of the building and the foot of the tower.
From my vantage point, I could just glimpse the base of the tower over a hundred and sixty meters away.
Back in Ar Telica, I ran a hundred and ten meters in seven point three seconds, and that was barefoot. The previous Princess Regalia I’d worn had slightly enhanced my strength, and this one was no different in that aspect, so perhaps I could shave a few tenths off my previous best. But even so, I was looking at a time of ten to eleven seconds from here to the tower.
Assuming the sniper could fire once every second, I could be shot at ten to eleven times.
There’s no way I can make it.
Even if they weren’t out to kill me, they could incapacitate me and keep me pinned down.
Mirai wasn’t a machine, and there was no way for me to ignore the pain of being repeatedly shot, thus the prospect of crawling in agony to the tower was not a pleasant one.
Taking a deep breath that lasted for a long while since my mind was overclocked, I peeked through the building’s window behind me.
If I went through the building and emerged out of its west side, I would be almost directly in line with the foot of the tower. That would make it a straight run through the parkland due south, reducing the distance I would have to cover at a full-bore sprint. But no matter how fast Mirai was, I would never be able to outrun a bullet, and if I took the shooter by surprise that would only earn me a second or two, leaving me exposed for another five or six seconds.
And there’s that stream to cross, but I think I saw a bridge over it.
In summary, making a run for the tower wasn’t going to get me far.
Neither was shooting blindly up at the Promenade.
Therefore, what I needed was a plan.
And that plan involved getting myself a shield.
If you are new to the series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
Sometimes you need to backtrack in order to go forward.
That’s what I decided when I ran back to the building and the balcony where I’d left Miss Ponytail’s mechanical avatar for dead.
At sight of her broken body lying on the wrecked balcony, I briefly dropped to my knees and almost cried tears of joy mingled with relief.
Then I bounced back onto my feet, and I hurriedly pulled her body into the apartment.
In order to get to the balcony, I’d run back to the building, broken into it through a ground-floor entrance, then hurried up to the sixth floor where the apartment that was home to the scene of the crime was located.
Getting inside the apartment was easy.
Guided by the Argus System, I fired through the walls at the security bolts that locked the apartment’s entrance. This released the sliding door that I then pushed aside with ease. Venturing hastily through the spacious residence, I arrived at the smashed remains of the glass wall leading out onto the wrecked balcony. And there she was, just as I remembered her – a bloody mechanical mess with her head still attached to her neck. Nonetheless, regardless of the state she was in, finding her on the balcony was cause for celebration, and once I had her inside the living room, I studied her remains with a critical eye.
She’d taken a lot more of a pounding than I’d realized.
The Punishers ten-millimeter AP rounds had done a number on her clothes and skin, punching narrow craters into her skeleton that were between one and two inches deep. Her breastbone was pitted and cracked, and some of the heavy bullets had penetrated all the way through to the power core that served as her heart. I was surprised when I saw that, and then wondered if she had a second power core.
I decided to take a closer look at Miss Ponytail’s innards and asked the Argus System for its help.
When I’d fought the Gun Queen of Ar Telica, I’d failed to inspect her body.
As such, beyond Mirai’s imprinted memories, I knew very little of what a Gun Princess was like on the inside.
But it wasn’t curiosity that drove me to study Miss Ponytail’s internals.
I needed to know if her beaten remains to could serve me as a shield.
In other words, could she survive a dozen sniper rounds of the fourteen-millimeter variety?
The Argus System scanned her body and provided me with a clear picture of her internal structure.
Miss Ponytail’s avatar had no organs. Beneath her layers of artificial musculature was a flexible honeycomb structure surrounding a complex arrangement of gel packs filled with GER fluid. Several of those packs had been ruptured by AP bullets and showed signs of having resealed afterwards, indicating they had the ability to self-repair. There were no hydraulics inside of her, but she did possess dozens bio-electric motors operating numerous tiny pumps. Some of them were embedded within a network of arterial conduits that emerged from her power core and spread throughout her body. By tracing through her arteries, I was able to locate her second power core.
So she has two hearts. Good to know.
However, while that was all very fascinating, it didn’t interest me nearly as much as knowing whether she could stop the sniper rounds from penetrating her body.
The Argus System against scanned her body, and replied with an ambivalent—
[*Maybe….]
I grumbled in my throat.
*Come on! Give me a better answer.
[*Your plan may work.]
*What? That’s it?
[*It has an eighty-seven percent chance of success.]
“Eighty-seven percent, huh?” I straightened as I looked down at the dead machine. “Fine. I’ll take those numbers.”
I glanced at the countdown displayed on the apartment’s holo-vid system projected against a living room wall.
No matter where I went, there was no running away from that clock.
05:37…and counting.
My plan to use Miss Ponytail’s mechanical body as a shield had cost me eighty-three seconds thus far.
I couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
However, before I could venture forth, there were a few things I had to take care off.
After unholstering the damaged Punisher that was no useless as a weapon, I removed both of its battery packs and then slapped them onto a skirt flap. Then, I detached the Punisher’s magazine feeder and quickly attached it to the working rifle. Now, I had a Punisher that could source its bullets from two magazines rather than one. This made the rifle a little heavier, but nothing that would trouble Mirai or affect my aim.
Next, I queried the weapon for an ammo count.
There were sixty rounds in the right magazine, and thirty-two rounds in the left one.
For a second, I debated swapping out the half empty magazine, but ultimately chose not to because than the magazines fitted to the Punisher, I had two fresh magazines remaining, and both of those were stuck to my skirts.
In other words, I’d spent more than half the ammunition I’d started with.
Upon realizing that, I holstered the Punisher against my left shoulder blade, then hurriedly searched Miss Ponytail’s body for spare ammunition.
Turning her over, I found a slim ammo mag stuck to the back of her short skirt. I had to pull it free, just like I would with the magazines attached to my skirt. The Argus System scanned it, and I discovered it was loaded with twenty-four, .50 caliber explosive tipped, caseless rounds.
The magazine in my hand made me remember leaving behind Miss Ponytail’s two guns on the balcony, and so I hastily ran out to retrieve them.
Returning to the living room, I inspected both weapons.
Mirai’s wetware took a couple of seconds to link up with their A.I.’s. Apparently, the guns had no qualms about who they worked with, because they readily reported their status to me.
The heavy gun with dual ammo drums was worthless. During the firefight, I’d shot an AP round through both drums and destroyed the electric motors that drove them.
However, the second gun was undamaged.
The weapon resembled an oversized submachinegun and there were ten rounds left in the slim magazine. The bullets it fired were like anti-aircraft shells, exploding in close proximity to their target rather than on impact.
This was the gun that had brought me so much pain, but it was now working for me.
That didn’t stop me from giving it a sour look as I handed it over to the right holster arm.
Despite having a chunk bitten out of it by a sniper bullet, the armature continued to function properly. It took the gun from my hand, then fluidly swung back to its holstered positioned against my right shoulder blade.
As for the gun’s spare magazine, I slapped that to my left skirt.
Thus prepared, I fixed a grim look upon the mechanical corpse lying at my feet.
I wasn’t going to salvage anything else from Miss Ponytail.
It was time for her to become my shield.
Lugging Miss Ponytail on my back was rather uncomfortable because I had to drape her body over the mechanical holster arms.
Fortunately, she didn’t suffer from rigor mortis, though it had been only a few minutes since her death.
Thus burdened with her, I chose to avoid exiting out onto the street. Instead, I travelled from building to building by making use of the enclosed bridgeways.
I kicked and shot my way through the closed glass doors I encountered, expending twenty AP rounds in the process, before I finally arrived at my destination – a ground floor exit with a perfect view of the parkland, and the tower rising high about 150 meters away.
Like the other glass doors that I’d smashed my way through, the ones across the exit were locked shut.
I was going to have spend more bullets weakening the glass so that I could crash through them.
However, this time I chose to rely on Miss Ponytail’s super-sized handgun to do the honors.
That said, I decided to swap out its half empty magazine with the fresh magazine I’d appropriated from her back at the apartment.
Once the weapon was loaded and ready, I used Mirai’s preternatural strength to pick up the dead mechanical avatar.
Hefting Miss Ponytail off the ground with my left arm, I wielded her gun in my right hand as I took aim at the glass exit.
“…here we go…,” I muttered, then fired six shots into one of the two doors.
The explosive rounds blew fist sized holes into the glass.
Thus weakened, I would have no trouble crashing through it.
But no doubt, my shooting of the door had alerted the sniper to my location.
“…can’t be helped…,” I whispered as I holstered the oversized handgun, then grabbed onto Miss Ponytail with both hands.
Holding her aloft such that her feet dangled off the ground, I held Miss Ponytail out in front of me as I charged at the glass door.
The Argus System was projecting into my mind an image of the ground ahead of me.
This way I didn’t need to look around Miss Ponytail to see where I was going.
Since I’d already given myself away by shooting at the door, I decided to belt out a war cry.
It really served no purpose other than to psych me up.
Feeling my blood burning with both desperation and determination, I was stilling yelling loudly when I smashed into the glass door with big holes in it.
A heartbeat later, I crashed through it, and then out of the building.
I stumbled.
The impact, combined with Miss Ponytail’s hundred kilo weight, adversely affected my balance.
Her limp feet dragged on the pavement, almost pulling me down onto my knees, but I somehow managed to regain my balance.
In desperation, I hoisted Miss Ponytail before me like the shield I intended her to be.
I had to hold her high such that she would hide me from anyone standing on the dorsal hull of the Promenade.
That’s where the Argus System had determined the sniper was shooting from, and no sooner had I lifted Miss Ponytail up before me when I felt a tremendous blow strike her chest.
My arms buckled a few inches as the impact knocked her body into me.
The Argus System issued a harried report.
A sniper round had punched through Miss Ponytail’s armored sternum and lodged deep in her chest. Without her blocking the way, the bullet would have penetrated my exposed neck that wasn’t protected by the Princess Regalia.
I suddenly wondered if I was wrong about the sniper.
Was she trying to kill me after all?
That question sent a chill running through me and I willed my legs to run faster.
However, I was weighed down by Miss Ponytail’s body, and my running speed was compromised. Instead of an eleven second sprint to the finish line – the northside entrance into the tower – I was facing a fourteen or fifteen second dash. In addition, with Miss Ponytail shielding me, I was having to rely on the Argus System to be my eyes, and the view it provided wasn’t picture perfect. Thankfully, I had sense of the ground ahead of me because of the sensor-field the Argus System was manifesting, and the paved path I was following led directly to the tower.
All I had to do was keep Miss Ponytail’s body between me and the Promenade, and not trip over like some hapless damsel in distress.
A second round punched deep into the mechanical avatar’s chest.
The bullet lodged into the laminated armor that lay beneath the breastbone and ribcage.
The blow again buckled my arms, but I kept my footing and raised Miss Ponytail a little higher as I closed the distance to the tower.
In contrast, the sniper was having to aim lower with each shot.
My breathing sounded loud in my ears, as did my heart pounding away in my chest.
My footfalls felt heavy on the hard pavement.
I certainly didn’t feel like I had wings at my heels as I ran down the wide path.
A third round ripped through Miss Ponytail’s torso, tearing a path through the honeycomb structure that strengthened her abdominals without compromising her flexibility.
The armor-piercing bullet tore out of her lower back and slammed into the Princess Regalia protecting my midriff.
I gasped sharply at the sudden pain that flared across my gut, feeling as though I’d been knifed, and I struggled to regain my breathing’s rhythm.
Despite the pain I was enduring, I strongly believed the Regalia had kept the bullet from puncturing into me.
Then again, I was reluctant to look down and discover that Mirai had sprung a leak.
Leaving my well-being to the Regalia and the Angel Fibers, I concentrated on what I could see through the Argus System, doing my damnedest not to stumble and fall.
Then a fourth buried itself into Miss Ponytail’s left shoulder.
The impact twisted her body around in my hands, and I almost lost my grip on her.
Just as I succeeded in righting her above me, a fifth round struck her right shoulder, rocking her the other way.
Again, I struggled not to lose my hold on her.
As strong as Mirai was, she was much lighter than Miss Ponytail, so having to hold the avatar high overhead threatened to tip me over.
Widening my running stance helped a little, but it was uncomfortable and further compromised my speed.
However, I had no choice but to continue raising her higher the closer I ran to the tower.
That was because the angle of elevation between me and the sniper atop the Promenade continued to increase.
Groaning loudly through gritted teeth, I now held Miss Ponytail above me like an umbrella against a tremendous downpour.
On the plus side, I could now see ahead of me since I was carrying Miss Ponytail well overhead.
The sixth bullet struck her so hard I almost believed someone had dropped onto her.
The seventh bullet staggered me when it tunneled through Miss Ponytail’s belly and out of her lower back, striking my right shin in mid-stride.
The eighth bullet almost had my number on it.
It sailed through the tunnel in Miss Ponytail’s neck, and grazed the back of my head, taking some of Mirai’s hair with it.
Stunned by the near miss, I reflexively looked up through the opening in her neck, and straight at the sniper.
She had dropped her camouflage field and was aiming a huge anti-material rifle at me while standing on the leading edge of the Promenade.
I had but a heartbeat to duck my head as the ninth bullet centerpunched Miss Ponytail’s forehead with an awfully loud crack.
For a brief moment, I thought the heavy AP round would penetrate out the back of her head.
But Miss Ponytail had a thick skull, and the bullet failed to break through.
However, the impact knocked her head back, almost snapping it off the remains of her neck.
A split second later, I had run under the Promenade.
Now I was like the shark that had swum beneath the fishing boat.
Yet for another anxious moment, I feared the sniper would start shooting at me through the glass hull of the Promenade, but there was no tenth bullet.
Nonetheless, I was too wound up to relax.
With her legs and arms dangling around me, I continued to carry Miss Ponytail over me as I ran for the tower.
Ahead of me, the ground floor entrance was coming up fast, and I needed to do something about its closed glass doors.
The obvious solution was to shoot my way through them, but I had both hands busy with Miss Ponytail.
Then I remembered that the holster arms swung down under my arms, and right now my arms were raised high overhead.
With a thought pulse to the right holster, I instructed it to target Miss Ponytail’s oversized handgun at glass doors.
With gun in hand, the armature smoothly swung forward from below my right shoulder.
*Fire, I yelled at it in my head, and the gun belched fire as it pumped ten rounds across both glass doors.
Heavily fractured, they refused to shatter.
But I was out of time and distance, so I quickly commanded the holster back into its stored position against my right shoulder blade.
I may have been weighed down by Miss Ponytail, but Mirai was carrying a Hell of a lot momentum, and that momentum was going to help me get through the weakened glass doors.
Lowering Miss Ponytail so that I held her out in front of me, I used her like both a battering ram and shield.
The doors shattered almost immediately when I crashed into them.
However, I’d no sooner stepped into the tower when I tripped like a damsel on the run.
I dropped Miss Ponytail in an effort to lighten my load and recover my footing, but it was to no avail.
Landing on my belly, I yelped in pain as Mirai’s large breasts were crushed beneath me.
Then I was rolling uncontrollably across the smooth floor, eventually sliding to a stop on my back.
Staring up at a translucent glass ceiling, I breathed heavily with sudden exhaustion, then silently patted myself on the back…until I turned my head and caught sight of the countdown on display on holo-vid projection inside the tower’s ground floor foyer.
04:01…04:00…03:59….
Swallowing down the bittersweet taste of success, I used my elbows to push myself up off the floor.
Then I stood up on unsteady legs.
With a thought-pulse, I summoned the Punisher, and it was delivered smoothly to my waiting hand.
Holding the linear rifle at the ready, I gave my surroundings a closer look.
I honestly felt like the fly who’d driven an armored truck into the spider’s parlor.
The only problem was…where was the spider?
I would like to clarify something.
The new "Remnant Fiestas" series is intended to be a sequel to the Gun Princess Royale series, but only after GPR ends at book 9 (though I may write up to 12 novels depending on time, etc).
So it is not a story that picks up after Book 3.
I will make that clear when I post the next chapter of The Remnant Fiestas.
I finally started a Twitter thread for GPR.
Hope to post stuff at least once a week to start with.
If you are new to the GPR series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
Everything I’d seen of the habitat thus far projected a more peaceful, less utilitarian appeal to what I was accustomed to in Ar Telica. The city-state’s architectural style and influence was both broad and varied, but it was primarily focused on efficiency since it had to handle a population of thirty million people confined to an area of a few thousand square kilometers. In contrast, the Citadel’s habitat felt more wholesome and geared toward the comfort of the inhabitants. Again, that’s why I thought of it as a holiday town, a place where the inhabitants could relax and enjoy peaceful days.
And yet here I was tearing it apart with bullets fired at hypersonic speed.
The beauty of the place almost made me feel guilty for shooting it up.
Almost.
Turning in a slow circle while standing in the foyer, I quickly realized a number of things that kept me at a standstill for several seconds.
The first was that I was still overclocked.
When I first experienced the phenomenon back in the desert, I wasn’t able to remain in a prolonged hyper-accelerated mental state without experiencing a headache. This time was different. My consciousness had been transitioning between various degrees of overclocking so smoothly that I was hardly aware of it. When I spoke to someone my overclocking would slow down only to speed up when the conversation was over. Because of this, I had more time to dwell on the situation than a normal person could. With my consciousness moving at an accelerated rate, one second of real time translated to four or five seconds within my mind. That gave me ample time to think things through, leading me to my second realization.
I had less than four minutes remaining to save Erina, and though I was feeling the pressure, I wasn’t overwhelmed by it. Why? Again, because I was overclocked and could thereby afford to spend a few seconds looking about while spending thirty to forty seconds inside my head pondering my next move.
So what was my next move?
To address that, I needed to consider point number three: the tower.
To begin with, it was much larger than I’d thought.
From a distance, the tower looked tall, thin, and wrapped in spiraling wire mesh. But up close and personal it was easily more than sixty meters in diameter. The exterior was covered by a transparent glass façade, and latticework of smooth metal piping then gloved the tower from the base to the peak. Unlike the exterior, the interior was made of translucent glass. The only parts that weren’t made of glass were the seats, the holo-vision display boards, the information desks, and so forth.
Its construction reminded me of Telos Academy’s library – the girls’ lair where no male student dared to enter for fear of having himself arrested or his life destroyed through social media. The big difference between the two was that the library was transparent whereas the tower was translucent with some areas opaquer than others.
I realized this would have solved the problem with Telos Academy’s library where it was easy to look up a girl’s dress while standing on the floor below them.
Regardless, the tower’s glass construction presented me with a new problem.
Even if it was opaque, I could still see through the translucent floors and partitions of the tower. Undoubtedly, someone would also be able see me standing in the ground floor’s immense foyer.
I turned my gaze upwards and focused the Argus System in the direction I was looking, concentrating the sensor-field into the shape of a cone, like that of a flashlight, and thereby extending its range to thirty meters. But with the tower being so tall and wide, I couldn’t sense all the way to the opposite side, and I could only stretch the sensor-field as far as seven floors above me.
This led me to point number four: the Promenade.
When I squinted hard and peered through the floors, I could discern a very faint oblate shadow high overhead. Because it appeared to stick out from the northside of the tower, I assumed that this shadow was the Promenade’s silhouette. The problem was that it was docked to the tower outside of my sensor range, implying it was well above the seventh floor.
And finally point number five: how do I get up there?
Looking back down, I noticed that the middle of the tower was hollow and home to a pair of spiral staircases that wound around each other like a double helix with landings at every floor. Like the tower surrounding it, the staircases were translucent with an equally opaque guardrail.
Oddly, I could see no other way up or down the tower.
There were no elevators in sight.
Was everyone expected to use the stairs?
Where was the architect’s compassion for the disabled and the elderly?
What kind of modern civilization doesn’t have elevators?
Alas, there didn’t appear to be any other choice but to take the stairs.
However, I was troubled at the prospect of being caught in a gunfight while making my way up to the Promenade. If that happened I would have little choice but to fight while fleeing into one of the floors, but in a tower of this peculiar design was there anywhere to hide? Unless the translucent material was a mysterious, miraculous material that rivaled Krono-steel it was unlikely to stop bullets fired from an overpowered sniper rifle.
Climbing up the outside was a fool’s errand. The latticework was constructed out of smooth, rounded beams. Even if I didn’t slip and fall, it would be slow going, not to mention that I would be an easy target for someone shooting at me from inside the tower.
Up the stairs it would have to be.
After expelling a sigh of surrender, I walked over to where Miss Ponytail’s remains lay on the foyer’s smooth floor. After turning her over onto her back, I crouched beside her and studied where she’d been struck by large caliber AP rounds.
As tough as she was, I didn’t think she was going to be much good to me now.
She simply had too many holes in her.
“…bloody Hell…,” I muttered as I straightened, then stood up.
I gave the stairwell a grim look.
It was the bottom of the ninth, the bases were loaded, and my former sister’s life was at stake.
Now wasn’t the time to be procrastinating over my next move, and apparently someone else agreed.
A young woman’s voice blared loudly into the air from hidden speakers.
“How long are you going to keep me waiting?”
Startled, I quickly stared up at the very faint and distant shadow of the Promenade.
“You went through all that trouble to get here. What’s the hold up?”
She did have a point.
“Tick tock, little girl. In less than four minutes, your sister dies.”
The sense of finality in her words unsettled me.
Wasn’t Erina going to be reduced to a virtual existence? Or were they really planning to kill her?
Either way, the owner of that voice was right.
Overclocked or not, I was losing time.
I needed to get up there and fast.
I gave the helical staircase another wary look, then quickly strode up to it.
At the landing, I paused for a second to peer up through the hole running vertically through the middle of the tower. As far as I could tell, the staircase wound its way to a translucent ceiling that glowed bloodred because of the crimson sky-field above it. This cast the top floors of the tower in an unwelcome Hellish light that made me think of Dante’s Inferno.
However, instead of going down into Hell, I’d be going up.
Briefly clenching my jaw, I sucked down my misgivings, then ascended the stairs at a jog.
Carrying the Punisher at the ready in a two-handed grip, I concentrated on climbing without tripping since I wasn’t looking down at my feet. That said, the Argus System’s sensor-sphere was augmenting my spatial awareness. By always knowing where my feet were in relation to the steps, I was unlikely to take an unexpected tumble.
I glanced at the Promenade’s shadow faintly visible through the translucent floors. By my best guess, the craft was docked another ten or eleven floors above me, and thereby at one of the levels dyed in crimson light.
Inside my head, the wetware kept track of the countdown.
Yet even as it ticked down inexorably toward zero, I couldn’t bring myself to sprint up the stairs because I was afraid of being caught off guard.
The Argus System had reverted to a sensor sphere, and it was watching the floors around me with its own keen eyes. At sight of anything dangerous, it promised to warn me, yet it wasn’t enough to reassure me – not when my opponent employed thermoptic camouflage to hide herself. Therefore, I continued to climb at a jog, and with each deserted floor that I ascended, my uneasiness grew.
I honestly felt like I was in the lair of the final boss.
When I finally arrived at the Promenade’s floor, the urge to breathe a sigh of relief almost overwhelmed me, until the wetware reported that the countdown had crossed another threshold.
03:00…02:59….
My decision to ascend cautiously had cost me another minute.
Regardless of my mind being overclocked, I was now definitely feeling the pressure as I stood on the landing to the twelfth floor.
A quick glance upwards confirmed there were two floors above me, but this was where I was getting off.
Stepping out of the stairwell, I switched the Punisher to double-shot mode, then I turned in a full circle to sweep my gaze – and the linear rifle – over my surroundings.
The twelfth floor had the vibe of a waiting lounge where First-Class passengers could convene before their boarding call. The floorspace was littered with low tables, plush chairs, and broad sofas, with some areas partitioned from others with translucent panels. Despite the organized clutter, I expected that none of the furnishings would offer me protection if and when the bullets started to fly.
My attention soon settled on a doorway that resembled a boarding gate like those used at the spaceport by passengers embarking or disembarking from trans-atmospheric liners.
However, what really grabbed my attention was the Promenade visible beyond the gateway.
Like the tower, it was far larger than I’d imagined – as much as three floors high and twenty meters wide. Also, now that I could see its rear profile clearly, I realized that it was indeed shaped like turtle’s shell – minus the turtle – but that it wasn’t upside-down at all. Instead, the Promenade was more like the giant gondolas of the immense zeppelins of yesteryear.
Leaving the Argus System to watch my back, I swallowed quietly, then advanced upon the boarding gate.
The open doors seemed inviting, but I was wary of traps.
I honestly didn’t think my senses could grow any sharper, but I was wrong.
A short tunnel connected the boarding gate from the tower to the Promenade.
The moment I glimpsed movement at the far end of that tunnel, my entire awareness narrowed upon it.
At a sudden standstill, I watched a familiar figure shed her thermoptic camouflage.
She crossed the tunnel, then stopped a foot shy of the boarding gate’s threshold.
With a subtle movement, I shifted my aim from her chest to her head.
Miss Ponytail greeted me with an acerbic smile. “You finally made it. Took you long enough. Did you stop for lunch on the way up?”
With no holo-display in sight, and with the Promenade blocking my view of the habitat, the wetware in Mirai’s head reported the countdown.
02:45…02:44….
After all the pain I’d endured because of her, I wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat, nor did I have the time for it.
“Boom,” I whispered hoarsely as I squeezed the trigger.
I'm sorry that the links to previous and next are mixed up. I can't see the full reference to the previous chapter when I add the chapter to the chain. I may request help from admin.
If you are new to the GPR series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
Greetings, dear reader. I hope 2021 is finding you well.
Just a brief announcement.
Finally got my Twitter page off the ground. Search for Simkin Hart (i.e. @HartSimkin) to find me there.
I plan to use it more than Facebook.
It had bothered me since our first exchange of gunfire on the terrace courtyard.
It bothered me after I shot her up on the building’s balcony.
Why didn’t she dodge?
Why did she stand and take the bullet hits, one after the other?
The answer was simple: she didn’t need to.
As soon as I terminated her mechanical body, she would start up another one and resume the fight.
I’d already expected to run into her again, so it was something of relief to be proven right, but it wasn’t a cause for celebration.
Far from it.
Her reappearance confirmed that I was facing the prospect of fighting countless Miss Ponytails, and with the clock down to 02:43, I was definitely feeling the pressure like never before.
So I chose to stop wasting time.
Firing a double shot directly at her head, I started backing away as soon as I saw the air ripple in emerald waves in front of Miss Ponytail.
It confirmed what the Argus System had detected moments ago.
As soon as Miss Ponytail had come into view, a barrier-field had been cast across the boarding gate’s entrance. Not only did that barrier protect her from my bullets, but it prevented me from entering the tunnel connected to the Promenade.
“That’s really not frekking fair,” I lamented.
However, it was time for Plan-B, which was why I hastily retreated to the stairwell.
To cover my retreat, I switched the Punisher to single-shot mode, and fired at one second intervals directly at Miss Ponytail’s face.
It pained me to spend bullets this way, but I had no other means of keeping Miss Ponytail at by within the boarding gate, and thereby behind the barrier field.
And the longer I kept her there, the better.
Why?
Because Miss Ponytail had ditched the sniper rifle for a five-barrel Gatling gun.
The moment I stopped firing, she was certain to unleash a Hell storm with that minigun.
At the landing, I fired twice before sprinting up the helical staircase.
My destination was the top floor of the tower.
Miss Ponytail didn’t waste time either.
As I ran up the stairs, she stepped past the boarding gate and onto the twelfth floor.
I heard the whine of the minigun’s electric motors a moment before a stream of bullets ripped up the staircase around me.
Taking the steps four or five at a time, I leapt out of the stairwell and fled onto the fourteenth floor.
The minigun’s high velocity bullets chased me as I ran over and around the postmodernist furniture of the tower’s topmost level.
Though they were small – the Argus System judged them at 5.7 mm in diameter – the bullets’ tremendous momentum carried them through the intervening floors. As more of the glass was perforated, bigger holes were made, and scores of bullets sailed through the openings and struck the tower’s transparent ceiling above me.
I darted left and right, zigzagging wildly as I tried to keep one step ahead of the bullets.
When I wasn’t running a ragged course between the furniture, I was jumping about from one piece to the next.
All that training in the obstacle room had improved my agility.
I was noticeably nimbler, but I couldn’t avoid all of the torrential gunfire spewing out of the minigun.
Some of the bullets that were turning the fourteenth floor into Swiss cheese struck the Princess Regalia, fluttering her skirts and peppering my legs.
Surprisingly, the bullets failed to penetrate the material, but my legs felt like they were being devoured by a school of perpetually hungry piranhas.
The pain was enough to cause me to stumble.
I lost my footing and landed on my knees, but then rolled desperately to escape the worst of the gunfire that tore up the floor around me.
Scrambling to my feet, I succeeded in jumping onto a sofa set just as the glass beneath my feet was shattered into fragments by a burst from the minigun.
The sofa was next in line for demolition as it was caught between me and a stream of bullets.
As it was being destroyed, I leapt from the sofa to a table, then hurled myself some fifteen feet through the air, and over another set of sofa seats.
I landed beyond them somewhat awkwardly before regaining my balance.
Then I was running again, but I was quickly being cornered.
In a few seconds, I would have no place left to run to.
My plan of climbing to the fourteenth floor, breaking through the tower’s glass wall, and then jumping down onto the Promenade was a bust.
Miss Ponytail and her minigun had seen to that.
As the bullets crossed through its sensor-field, the Argus System had estimated they were being fired at 2,000 rounds per minute, at a speed of 900 m/s. That was enough for them to tear through the thirteenth and fourteenth floors, as well as strike the glass panels of the ceiling. The net effect was that I couldn’t approach the northside of the tower. Instead, I’d been pursued by bullets in a long semi-circle through the southside of the fourteenth floor. And now I was being corralled back to the northside.
If I stopped running, I’d be caught in a fusillade from the minigun.
If I ran the other way, there was no certainty the fourteenth floor would survive being sprayed again by the minigun. The glass floor was barely keeping together after the first pass. If I ran over it, I was likely to come crashing down into the thirteenth or twelfth floor. That would be bring me back to square one.
The second problem was the Princess Regalia.
The outfit that had protected me above and beyond expectations wasn’t able to cope with the minigun’s rate of fire. When struck by bullets, the material would harden then ripple as it worked to disperse the kinetic energy delivered by each small round. Unfortunately, the Regalia was being overwhelmed by the number of bullets landing hits on me, and this was despite my best efforts to outdo Br’er Rabbit in the Briar Patch. Thus, if I stopped making myself a hard target to hit, I was going to be feeling the pain of those minigun bullets several fold.
Miss Ponytail didn’t need to kill me with her minigun.
All she needed to do was incapacitate me with pain, and if I couldn’t move, I wouldn’t be able to save Erina.
In short, Game Over.
To avoid that bad end, I needed to keep moving, but as I mentioned earlier, I was running out of room to flee.
I had no choice but to bite the bullet and take the plunge.
In other words, I needed to stop running.
Coming to a stop hard stop that had my booted feet skidding along the glass, I then leapt backwards with all the sudden haste and strength I could muster.
I tucked myself into a ball as I flew briefly through the air.
The bullet stream chasing me struck my legs and skirts, but then passed me by a split second later.
Yet the pain was so intense that tears burst from my eyes, and I screamed hoarsely in agony.
Distracted, I failed to stretch out my legs beneath me, and thus landed off balance.
I fell onto my butt and had to quickly brace myself with my free hand to remain seated on the floor.
However, for a couple of seconds, I was now behind the bullets and stationary.
I didn’t waste time standing up.
Sitting on my butt, I aimed the Punisher held in my left hand down at Miss Ponytail.
Shooting back at her meant firing through the glass floor, but I didn’t believe that was going to matter.
That’s because I had a trump card up my sleeve.
“Overlord!” I yelled.
[*Engaged.] the Punisher replied.
I squeezed the trigger and held it down.
Up until now, whenever the Punisher fired in either single or double-shot mode, there was a soft boom and a tiny flicker of flame before the muzzle as the AP rounds superheated the air upon exit.
This time, a long tongue of flame belched from the rifle and a loud boom followed.
Fired in single-shot mode, the armor-piercing bullet scorched the air as it left the Punisher.
The kickback was too much for the anti-recoil system to handle, and my butt scraped along the floor as I was knocked back a few inches.
With my awareness hyper-accelerated, I watched the pointed slug burn a path toward Miss Ponytail.
Actually, I couldn’t see the bullet at all – it was moving too fast for Mirai’s eyes to register.
Rather, what I was seeing was a perfectly straight line of hot air that ended at Miss Ponytail’s chest.
This was the route the AP round had travelled after being fired at nine times the speed of sound.
And with my finger squeezing the trigger down, the Punisher again gushed hot flames as it fired another round a full second later.
A third shot, then a fourth, then a fifth AP round followed – I watched them all as they burned hot trails through the air.
The first bullet to strike Miss Ponytail barreled into her chest with enough force such that her right breast literally exploded.
I saw a red cloud burst into the air in front of her as artificial skin, musculature, and that crimson GER fluid sprayed out from the remains of her breast.
The second AP round followed a parallel path to her sternum, and more of her skin, flesh, musculature, and that red liquid erupted out of her body.
The third round tracked into her along another parallel trail and blew apart her left breast.
With each bullet hit, Miss Ponytail was punched back a full step, requiring that I adjust my aim.
Unfortunately, I was still sitting on the floor, braced with one hand, and the recoil was making it difficult to keep the Punisher on target.
Firing from this awkward position was only possible because of Mirai’s enormous physical strength, but executing precise shots at Miss Ponytail’s head was out of the question.
The best I could hope for was to continue aiming for her chest and torso.
With the armor-piercing rounds inflicting maximum damage in Overlord mode, I was certain to eventually penetrate the twin hearts powering her body. It was down to a question of which of the two would give out first: the Punisher or Miss Ponytail.
The linear rifle wasn’t meant to operate in Overlord mode for more than a dozen rounds. Then the auto-shutdown would kick in, forcing the Punisher into a cool-down interval that could last a minute.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a second rifle to switch over to.
Once the cool-down phase started, I’d be at Miss Ponytail’s mercy once again—
No—I have her gun!
How could I have forgotten?
I had Miss Ponytail’s oversized handgun holstered against my back by the right armature.
And it had ten explosive tipped rounds left in the magazine.
That was ten bullets I could use to keep Miss Ponytail preoccupied while the Punisher ran through its cool-down procedure.
Then there was Miss Ponytail herself.
The rifle’s bullets had blown fist sized holes into her torso, and she was no longer shooting the minigun. In fact, she appeared to have trouble remaining upright.
I watched her drop to her hands and knees just as the Punisher fired the twelfth round with a loud boom, and then the auto-shutdown engaged.
The rifle trembled in my hand as its field-emitters used effect-fields to blow air through the barrel and casing.
As the weapon began to cool, I struggled back up to my feet, wary of the state of the floor beneath me that was riddled with bullet holes.
However, I was also wary of Miss Ponytail who remained motionless on her hands and knees with her head bowed down.
Red GER fluid dripped down onto the floor, forming a crimson puddle beneath her.
Not knowing any better, it was easy to believe that she was bleeding to death. However, if this mechanical body was like the other one that I’d used as a shield, then that wasn’t far from the truth.
Miss Ponytail wasn’t hydraulically driven. Instead, she possessed thick artificial musculature that relied on the GER fluid to function. The packs containing the fluid had the ability to self-seal, but the Punisher’s rounds appeared to have ruptured them beyond repair. As she continued to bleed the precious liquid, her muscles weakened, making it harder for her to move.
However, while she was down, she wasn’t out for the count.
Through a supreme effort of mechanical will, Miss Ponytail pushed herself upright onto her knees, then reached out with a trembling arm for the minigun lying on the floor beside her.
I summoned the right holster, and the damaged armature delivered Miss Ponytail’s gun into right my hand. Mirai’s wetware took a half-second to pair up with its A.I., during which I pointed the massive gun at Miss Ponytail’s head.
The explosive tipped rounds had succeeded in damaging the Princess Regalia where other bullets – barring the sniper rounds – had failed.
Now we would find out how much damage ten of those bullets could inflict on her.
Gently depressing the trigger, I was briefly startled when the gun’s point-and-shoot system projected a targeting reticule into my vision, but I quickly centered it over Miss Ponytail’s forehead.
At that moment, a faint rumble ran through the tower’s weakened floors.
At first, I thought the glass was breaking apart, but in the corner of my eye, I saw someone standing at the boarding gate.
Arnval!
His appearance made me hesitate with my index finger on the trigger, thus handing back the advantage to Miss Ponytail who now had the minigun back in her hands. But she saw him too, and like me, she was distracted by the unexpected sight of Arnval waving her goodbye.
Yes, he was waving at her and not me!
Then the boarding gate’s doors closed, blocking him from view.
The tower rumbled once more, and from my vantage on the fourteenth floor, I looked through the transparent glass to see the tunnel connected to the Promenade begin to retract by compressing like an accordion.
Arnval jumped the gap as it continued to widen, and he landed gracefully inside the glass gondola.
Turning around, he resumed waving goodbye, only this time he was waving at me with a big grin on his face.
If I could have shot him and not wasted bullets in the process, I would have emptied the magazine into his face. Unfortunately, the bullets were explosive-tipped, not armor-piercing, and would have failed to penetrate the tower’s glass skin. Also, shooting Arnval was likely to earn me another penalty, and I couldn’t afford any more of those.
But sadly, I had unfinished business with Miss Ponytail.
Yet no sooner had I resumed targeting her with her own gun, when I was taken by surprise once more.
The Punisher piped up, reporting that it had complete its preliminary cooling phase.
It was ready to resume normal operations.
In other words, Overlord mode was out of the question, but firing bullets at Mach 6 was entirely possible.
However, I’d made my choice to use Miss Ponytail’s gun on her.
With the targeting reticule firmly squared on her forehead, I pressed the trigger.
The recoil was worse than what I’d experienced firing the Vipers back in the desert.
The gun kicked up in my hand, and the first explosive bullet detonated over an inch off target.
The blast knocked Miss Ponytail’s head down while simultaneously rocking her back on her knees.
Crap!
I quickly aimed again but braced my body better against the recoil as I waited for Miss Ponytail to stop swaying.
When she stopped for an instant, I fired again.
The second explosive round hit closer to the mark, though it was off center and above her right eye.
The third deeply cratered the space between her eyebrows.
The fourth was close by, the fifth was wasted above her hairline, forget about the sixth altogether, but it was the seventh shot that finally hit pay dirt.
Miss Ponytail’s remaining eye went wide, and her whole body grew abruptly rigid.
She remained on her knees but was motionless.
Surprisingly, she didn’t topple over despite the weight of the minigun held by her right hand.
So why was she still on her knees?
Goddamn it—just how tough are these machines?
Miss Ponytail’s head pivoted on her neck, and she looked up at me with her one eye.
Her face and head were a hideous mess, so it was like being stared at by gruesome cadaver that had been mauled to death.
You’d think that after playing so many Zombie games, I’d be inured to such a sight, but what made it hard to endure was that she smiled at me.
For the first time in a long while, at least since becoming Mirai, I felt a trickle of fear work its way down my back.
“You’re too late,” she said. “Just give up.”
A cold shiver was poised to rip through me, but it was quickly evaporated by a flash of anger.
Through clenched teeth, I growled back a reply. “I’m so sick of people telling me what to do!” Steadying the gun in my hand, I aimed it at the big hole in her skull. “Is that the last body you’ve got?”
It was strange to hear her laugh without moving, but that’s exactly what Miss Ponytail did. “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. You’ll just have to wait and see—”
I fired and the hole in her head grew bigger.
I continued to fire until the gun clicked empty two rounds later.
By then Miss Ponytail’s forehead was more or less non-existent, and she slumped back on her knees with her head bowed, yet once again she failed to fall over.
However, I knew she was quite dead.
The Argus System had scanned her body with its sensor-field and reported back.
Both her power cores had been smashed by the Punisher’s bullets, and her last moments had been powered by an auxiliary battery cell located within her cerebellum that lacked the power to drive the rest of her body. With the mechanism inside her skull wrecked by the explosive rounds, the link to her operator was broken.
Yes, she was indeed quite dead.
“Bitch…,” I whispered down at her, then directed my gaze at the Promenade drifting away from the tower.
Since undocking, it had travelled around a hundred feet in a northerly direction.
I queried the wetware for the countdown.
[*01:33….]
That’s just bloody great.
It wasn’t just anger and scorn that I was struggling to contain.
It was frustration as well.
When I realized that boarding the Promenade via the gate was a no-go, I’d decided to get onto it instead. The giant gondola had transparent panels along its dorsal hull, so my intention was to jump onto the craft and then shoot my way into it from on top. That’s why I’d climbed to the top floor of the tower, but I couldn’t get anywhere near the north side of the fourteenth floor.
My plan to leap dramatically onto the Promenade had been scuppered by Miss Ponytail and her minigun.
To make matters worse, she’d torn up the translucent staircase.
Going down was going to be a long jump to the twelfth floor.
But leaving that aside, I was stuck in the tower while the floating gondola continued to sail away.
How the Hell was I going to get aboard the Promenade now?
My gloves creaked when I tightened my grip on the gun and Punisher.
At the same time, I squeezed my eyes shut and fought down tears of despair and frustration.
What the Hell do I do now? What the Hell can I do? Sprout wings and fly after the Promenade?
Could I even do that? Those black wings that had saved my life had emerged on their own, so I had no idea how to summon them.
As I struggled to find an answer, a heard a loud cracking sound and felt the floor underfoot vibrate strongly.
I opened my eyes in time to see a large section of the floor on the northside of the stairwell collapse. It fell along with several pieces of furniture to the level below. However, since the thirteenth floor was caught in the middle of the furious gun battle it wasn’t in a good state either, and the falling furniture and glass debris crashed through into the twelfth floor.
I stepped back quickly toward the southern face of the tower, hoping that it would hold for a while longer.
I needed time to think things through, and it helped that I was overclocked, yet I suspected all the time in the world wouldn’t help me now.
In desperation, I looked up and implored the heavens.
Please, God, help me. Help me save my sister—uh!
The tower’s roof was a transparent glass dome supported by a web of metal beams.
I stared through it at the red sky overhead.
The Argus System followed my gaze and swept its sensor-field over the habitat’s ceiling, and then confirmed what I was seeing.
I closed my eyes as I bowed my head.
Thank you, God. Thank you….
I had one last option left open to me.
But it was going to take one helluva jump and one helluva fall for me to save Erina.
I've also decided to resurrect the story that is the distant ancestor to GPR:
The Pride X ReVamp Series.Book 1 - Pride X Familiar ReVamp is available on Amazon Kindle for a dollar.
It's poorly written as I was still trying to figure out my style, and getting a better grasp of how to write.
But it's still a fun read for the perverse minded. But as I mentioned earlier, there's no TG.
Book 2 - Pride X Valkyrie ReVamp is being posted on Wattpad. Slightly less perverse, darker, and much better written. A more fleshed out plot as well.
If you check my twitter page: Simkin Hart (@HartSimkin) you'll see it mentioned there with appropriate links.
As I wrote before, I'm sorry that the links to previous and next are mixed up. I can't see the full reference to the previous chapter when I add the chapter to the chain.
If you are new to the GPR series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
The penultimate posting of GPR 3 webversion.
When I first arrived at the habitat, I’d looked up at the sky and noticed the faint webbing running through it.
I hadn’t thought much of it since then.
I had other things on my mind such attempting to save my former sister while surviving one gun battle after another.
However, now that I was only a stone’s throw away from the habitat’s red sky, I looked up at that webbing and discovered that it wasn’t webbing at all. If the Argus System was to be believed – and I had no reason to doubt it – they were rafters that crisscrossed the habitat’s ceiling. The good news was that they were hollow because they were constructed out of thousands of trusses. That meant that I could look at those rafters as being incredibly long catwalks that traversed the entire length and breadth of the habitat.
Therefore, I could make use of them to chase after the Promenade.
The only problem was finding a way up to the habitat’s ceiling.
From a distance, the tower had reminded me of a thin tree with spindly branches. It so happened, that those branches stemmed from the tower’s roof and merged with a handful of the habitat’s rafters – one of which ran directly over the drifting Promenade.
Now I had a plan, but not knowing what to expect when I arrived at the Promenade, I had hasty preparations to make.
That’s when I discovered that my good fortune had a downside.
The Punisher’s right magazine had been depleted of AP rounds, and the left magazine had 44 bullets remaining. That wasn’t too bad, but neither was it too good, and since I didn’t know if there was another Miss Ponytail waiting for me aboard the Promenade, I chose to be prepared for that possibility. And so I reached for the two spare magazines attached to the Regalia’s skirts, only to learn they were useless to me.
I only needed a moment to understand why.
When I’d jumped backwards during the gunfight with Miss Ponytail, gunfire from the minigun had peppered me with bullets and punctured the ammo mags stuck to my skirts. They had also perforated the spare batteries I’d pulled from the wrecked linear rifle.
In short, I had no spare magazines or batteries to replace those fitted to the Punisher.
The only piece of good news was that the magazine I’d pulled out of the giant handgun back at the apartment had survived the bullet storm. With the gun out of ammo, I swapped the empty magazine with the spare one. It only had ten rounds left but that was way better than nothing.
Unfortunately, I now had to spend more bullets to climb up onto the tower’s domed roof.
Aiming the Punisher upwards, I switched the linear rifle to single-shot mode, then fired four rounds into a ceiling glass panel. It was the victim of an earlier fusillade from Miss Ponytail, thus it was already weakened.
Within seconds, the panel fractured wildly and then broke apart.
After the pieces fell, and crashed to the translucent floor, I holstered the rifle against my back, then bounced on my feet a few times to get some spring into Mirai’s legs, before executing a standing jump that launched me about eleven feet into the air. That was high enough for me to grab onto a support beam – one of many that formed a domed web that kept the glass panels aligned. The beam took Mirai’s weight without giving way, and I clung to it for a beat before using her exceptional strength to climb through the gap and onto the tower’s roof.
A strong wind gusted between the top of the tower and the underside of the habitat’s ceiling.
It reminded me of the time I crawled over a building rooftop while a sandstorm raged around me in the dead of night.
I had to brace myself a little against the wind, but it wasn’t enough to trouble me as I ran over the glass roofing. Truth be told, I avoided the glass panels because most of them had been pierced by dozens of bullets. Not trusting their integrity, I chose to run long the metal webbing that connected the panels.
About twenty meters ahead of me, one of the tower’s branches extended upwards from the rooftop to a ceiling rafter that happened to run directly over the Promenade sailing serenely away into the distance. At the base of the branch, I jumped into it through a gap between triangular trusses, then used it to climb up and into the ceiling rafter.
The tunnel-like interior was roughly a meter wide, and the floor comprised of metal rungs interspersed some twelve inches apart. Because of this, running first through the branch, and then the rafter, was akin to running along a horizontal ladder. Alternatively, think of it like running over the monkey bars instead of swinging from them. It took some practice to run without tripping, but after travelling a couple of dozen meters, I had grown in confidence and skill. No longer fearing that I would suffer a misstep, I was able to split my attention between what was outside the rafter and the rungs underfoot.
Through the gap between trusses, I could see the habitat stretching out below me in all directions, but my focus soon settled upon the Promenade. Because of its large size, the turtle shell glass gondola appeared to be drifting leisurely through the air, but its speed was deceptive. In the short time since undocking, the Promenade had travelled more than a hundred meters from the tower in a northerly direction.
I listened to the wetware softly counting down the remaining time, then concentrated on running faster through the rafter.
That was easier said than done.
A single foul step and I risked putting a foot through the gap between rungs.
Yet I had no choice but to hurry because I was running dangerously out of time.
00:45…00:44….
I caught up to the Promenade.
It was now some eighteen meters below me.
Yet I faltered.
Rather than climbing out of the rafter through the space between trusses, I continued running until I was directly over the Promenade’s bow – although both ends of the gondola were identical so there was no difference between the bow and the stern. However, I chose to think of it that way as I glanced down between the rungs I was running over.
From my point-of-view, it looked like a long fall from the rafter to the Promenade’s dorsal hull, and I was having serious second thoughts about this crazy ass idea that had inspired me to take the high road.
00:41…00:40….
With a loud gulp of air, I slowed quickly to a stop.
Grabbing onto a truss beam to support myself, I then climbed out onto the edge of the rafter that doubled as a catwalk beneath the habitat’s ceiling. The wind whipped Mirai’s hair about my head, obscuring my vision, but I could see the Promenade in my mind courtesy of the Argus System’s sensor-sphere.
The drop was indeed around eighteen meters.
It might seem strange that I was hesitating now. After all, not long ago I had jumped the gulf between two buildings, and sailed through the air some ten stories above a deserted street to land safely on a balcony.
So why was I so afraid of jumping now?
I guess it was because back then I’d been hoping to fall as little as possible.
This time, I was going to drop around six stories onto a moving object, and I had no parachute.
Then I remembered how the Princess Regalia’s skirts had acted like wings when I made the jump between the two habitat buildings. Maybe – just maybe – they could perform like mini-chutes this time and slow my descent such that I avoided splattering myself all over the top of the Promenade.
I will state for the record that I’m not a religious person, but I had asked God for His help once already, and as I stood on the edge of the rafter, I performed the sign of the cross, then prayed for a little help moments before leaping out into the open air.
I think I may have screamed as I fell.
Yes, I do recall a terrified girlish scream tearing loudly out of my throat as I plummeted down to the Promenade.
There was that roller-coaster weightless sensation as your innards rise up in your torso.
I fought that down by clenching my stomach muscles, but there was nothing I could do about Mirai’s large breasts. Fortunately, the Princess Regalia tightened around them, and kept her boobs from striking my chin.
The Regalia’s skirts had also flared outwards and hardened to act like drag chutes.
The Argus System assured me that by deploying my skirts I was indeed reducing my terminal velocity, but I continued to scream in cold terror as I stared through Mirai’s deep cleavage at the Promenade growing larger below me.
As I fell, I realized that the flying gondola was as large as an Olympic swimming pool.
With that much surface area, there was little chance I would fail to land on it.
The problem was the landing itself.
I fully expected it to hurt to like Hell.
A second before touchdown, I relaxed my body while tensing up my leg muscles.
Then I landed with a loud bang.
My booted feet struck the transparent glass of the dorsal hull, fracturing one of the panels on impact.
I had dropped at a steep angle so there was some forward momentum.
My body fell into a forward roll that quickly turned into a tumble over the gently sloped surface.
The Argus System warned me I was in danger of falling off the edge of the Promenade, so I hastily spread out my arms and legs – desperately hoping to stop before I careened over the side of the gondola.
I succeeded in flipping over onto my belly, then pressed my booted toes into the hull.
Spread-eagled, I slid over the Promenade like a starfish with large breasts.
A loud squealing emanated from between Mirai’s boobs and the smooth surface.
In the end, I don’t know if it was friction from her boots or her boobs that brought me to a stop.
Regardless, I was happy to still be alive…until the pain of my hard landing caught up to me.
I howled in agony and truly believed I’d broken my legs.
It was the same pain that I experienced when I woke up in the rubble, after Clarisol’s bomb had demolished most of Telos Academy’s replica in the desert.
Unable to move, I squeezed my eyes shut as tears welled up and then trickled down my cheeks, while my breaths came out in short, rasping gasps.
As for my legs, they hurt so much I thought they were aflame.
All the while, the wetware in Mirai’s head continued counting down the time I had left.
00:25…00:24…00:23….
Opening my eyes, it took several attempts to blink away the moisture before I could see clearly again. The burning sensation was slowly fading away, thanks to the concerted efforts of the Angel Fibers infesting Mirai’s body. But I was grateful to them as I swallowed twice with difficulty, and then peered through the glass beneath me into the Promenade’s upper deck.
“Huh?”
I looked straight into the eyes of my former sister.
Erina was sitting at a table with a stunned expression as she gazed up at me.
Seated perpendicular to her was Geharis Arnval, looking equally as flabbergasted at my appearance while holding a phone to his ear.
00:19….
My gaze fell on the large handgun resting on the table.
Arnval looked down at it as well.
00:18….
It wasn’t possible to ignore the pain torturing my body and addling my senses.
But it was possible for me to move again.
00:17.…
With some effort, I raised myself onto my arms, then pulled up my knees beneath me.
00:15….
Standing up on broken legs proved to be excruciating.
But the scream I bellowed carried my determination not to lose – not when I was this close to victory – such that it sounded more like a warcry.
00:12….
Swaying unsteadily in a pain induced feverish daze, I summoned the Punisher and supersized handgun.
The armatures swung down from against my back, then delivered both weapons to my waiting hands.
00:10….
Precious bullets be damned.
I aimed at the glass panel underfoot and squeezed both triggers simultaneously.
00:09….
Armor piercing rounds perforated the dorsal hull and tunneled through the Promenade’s upper deck.
Explosive rounds blew huge chunks of glass into the air.
And I traced a circle around me.
00:06….
Remaining standing was almost unbearable.
My legs screamed in pain so strong that it made my breath catch in my lungs.
00:05….
The glass underfoot creaked and fractures raced across its surface.
00:04….
Biting my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, I jumped high and then landed hard on the glass panel with a sharp scream.
00:03….
The glass crackled as it fractured but didn’t break.
00:02….
I squeezed my eyes shut, clenched my jaw, and jumped again.
00:01….
The glass broke apart and I fell through into the gondola.
I landed on the translucent deck, and immediately choked in agony as my legs screamed out in torment, then collapsed under me.
Falling onto my belly, my weight pressing down on heavily on Mirai’s breasts.
But I couldn’t move, and when I was able to breathe again – however many seconds later – I gasped and gulped air into my lungs while low, tortured moans escaped my lips.
Yet as it had before, once the weight was off my legs the pain slowly faded away.
After a short while, I gathered myself, and then slowly raised my body onto my elbows.
I looked up.
In my peripheral vision, the sky beyond the Promenade’s transparent ceiling remained bloodred, and the countdown was frozen across it.
00:00.
A few feet in front of me was the table with Arnval and Erina seated around it.
Arnval regarded me in silence for a while, then picked up the gun lying on the table.
My heart tightened into a little ball that beat painfully in my chest, and a strangled whisper broke free.
“…no….”
It couldn’t be.
I’d crashed through into the Promenade before the countdown reached zero.
I’d crashed through before it reached zero!
Arnval’s expression was unreadable as he studied the gun.
Then his eyes met mine.
“…don’t…,” I whispered.
I tried to swallow but my throat had closed up.
In truth, I could barely breathe, however, I could still move.
Holding myself up on one elbow, I lifted Miss Ponytail’s handgun and aimed it at Arnval.
Only then did I realize it was out of bullets.
Arnval snorted softly, then shook his head as he smiled down at me.
Grabbing his gun’s receiver, he slid it back and forth.
A single bullet was spat out of the ejection port.
It landed on the translucent deck and then rolled toward me, coming to a stop somewhere beneath me.
I looked up at Arnval as he placed the large handgun back on the table.
He folded his arms calmly across his chest, and then met my questioning look with a cocky smile.
“Congratulations…ma chérie.”
Seated perpendicular to him, Erina took a deep shuddering breath that she released raggedly.
Her body lost its strength and wilted on the chair.
Arnval gave her a thin look. “As per the terms of the agreement, your execution has been rescinded…for now.”
Erina closed her eyes but she nodded haltingly in acknowledgement.
Arnval exhaled loudly and heavily, then pushed his chair back.
Standing up, he retrieved his gun from the table, then holstered it within the folds of his trench coat.
Pausing for a moment, he looked down at me as I struggled to raise myself onto my knees.
“I’m sure the two of you have much to talk about.” He glanced out of the gondola’s windows. “You have until we land at the park.”
Seeing that he intended to leave, I hastily called out to him.
“Arnval, wait.”
He regarded me over a shoulder. “Yes?”
I settled onto my knees, winced sharply against the flash of pain that burned through my legs, then sucked air into my lungs. “What happens now?”
Erina looked up at Arnval with an anxious expression.
Arnval may have noticed, but he kept his attention on me as he slowly turned to face me.
“You need to recover from you injuries.”
“No”—I shook my head—“what happens to Erina?”
Pursing his lips for a long second, Arnval then took a deep breath. “I have orders to escort her to Ar Telica. That’s all I can tell you. However, rest assured that she won’t be executed, and she won’t be turned into a virtual existence.”
Erina’s eyes widened marginally but she also nodded ever so faintly in silence.
Did that mean she understood her fate?
Did she know what lay in wait for her back in the city-state?
Arnval shrugged his shoulders for no reason that I could understand, then turned away again. “You have a few minutes until we land. Make use of them.”
I watched him walk away, then descend to the deck below via a spiral staircase in the middle of the Promenade. Like the tower, the gondola’s deck was translucent, so I could faintly see Arnval indistinct shadow in the deck below.
“Isabel?”
I blinked and tore my focus away from Arnval’s blurred shadow.
My gaze met Erina’s and for a long while we simply stared at each other in silence.
After everything I’d endured to get here, I found myself at a loss for words.
I didn’t know what to say to her as she faced me.
Erina sat at the table, and I knelt on the translucent deck.
I ended up breaking eye contact with her, and my gaze fell on the oversized gun in my right hand.
It was out of bullets but tossing it away didn’t seem right.
It was Miss Ponytail’s gun, yet I had nothing against the weapon that I considered a smart tool, although I did find its turncoat mindset a little disturbing – like a sword that didn’t care who wielded it as long as it was able to draw blood.
With a faint shudder, I holstered the gun. Feeling the armature press gently against my back, I turned my attention back on Erina.
Her expression had grown guarded. “Isabel—?”
“What?” I harshly cut her off, surprising her.
When she recovered, her lips moved yet she appeared to be having trouble deciding on what to say. Eventually, she took a deep breath, then spoke with what sounded like genuine gratitude.
“Thank you.”
Those words were like a cold wind blowing through me.
I stared speechlessly at her, and it was my turn to struggle with a response.
At first anger blossomed in my chest, then it was pity, then regret, then self-reproach, before it finally filled with contempt.
“You know what gets in my throat…that fact that you sound like you mean that.”
Erina was quiet for a second before giving me a shallow nod. “I do.”
“Why?”
A penitent smile settled upon her lips. “Because I have no desire to live my life like Clarisol.”
I stood up on aching legs and ignored their protests. “Then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you do it?” I shouted. Erina flinched, but I pressed on. “Why did you betray House Novis?”
She blinked slowly. “You sound upset—”
“Of course I’m upset!” I took a long stride toward the table and glared thunderclouds at Erina. “Look at all the shit you put me through!”
My arms trembled while my hands repeatedly clenched and unclenched as though wanting to throttle the infuriating woman seated before me.
“Do you think this was easy?” I asked her. “Do you? Mirai may be preternatural but she’s not immortal. She’s not invincible. She’s not some frekking superhero. Do frekking get that? Do you Erina?”
Now it wasn’t just arms but my whole body that trembled in anger.
Erina sat back slowly with a contrite look on her face. “I’m sorry—”
“I don’t want your apology!”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“An answer!” I took a couple of quick, deep breaths as I tried to keep my anger lidded. “Tell me why you did it. Now!”
Erina was quiet again, then she dipped her head a little at me. “Isabel, why did you save me?”
I gaped at her. I couldn’t believe her temerity. “You’re frekking unbelievable….”
“Why did you save me?”
I swallowed and considered summoning the Punisher.
It still had about twenty bullets left in the magazine, and I only needed one on Erina – not to kill her, but to wound her.
I cleared my throat again before my boiling anger could clamp it shut.
“If you’re going to die,” I replied, “then it will be by my hand.”
“Then why don’t you shoot me now?”
I lowered my voice and spoke with calm the belied the fury I felt within. “Because now’s not the right time. I’m not a fool, Erina. I know that you have plans for Mirai that having nothing to do with the Gun Princess Royale. And I doubt they have anything to do with saving humanity. But I’m going to learn what they are, and just when those plans are on the verge of fruition…I’ll kill you. I’ll deny you the chance to witness your plans come true. That’s a promise.”
I finished that vow with a gentle nod toward her.
Erina inhaled deeply before exhaling slowly. “The truth is, I have no recollection of ever betraying House Novis to the Empress.”
My fury was swept aside by abject confusion. “What…?”
“I have no memory of betraying House Novis.”
Once again, I gaped at her. “What the Hell are you saying?”
“How many times to do I have to repeat myself?”
I clenched my jaw for a long moment as my anger returned, albeit not as strongly as before. “Then why is Sanreal accusing you of betraying him.”
“Just because I can’t remember doing it, doesn’t mean that I didn’t betray him.”
I half frowned, half grimaced in confusion. “…huh…?”
Erina crossed her arms calmly. “If I was going to betray the Sanreal Family, don’t you think I would have taken measures to wipe my memory clean?”
Was that even possible?
I guess the question was written on my face, because Erina smiled weakly. “The Empire developed the technology not long ago. And House Novis has it in their possession. Have you forgotten that we copied Ronin’s neural map into your brain? Targeting precise memory locations can be done with a little advance preparation.”
“You’re saying that you wiped your own memory?”
“I’m saying that it’s possible, but I have no recollection of having done so.”
“But doesn’t that mean that Sanreal could be wrong about you?”
“It does,” Erina shrugged as she agreed with me. “But unfortunately, I have no evidence with which to refute them and prove my innocence.”
I stared at my former sister, an Alpha, and wondered if Erina would be so foolish as to make herself the prime suspect.
No, that didn’t seem right to me.
This was Erina we were talking about.
The Alpha who always planned several moves ahead.
There was no chance in Hell that she hadn’t expected this turn of events to arise.
In other words, she knew that Sanreal would suspect her, but why didn’t she have the means to prove her innocence?
Something felt off about this situation.
However, should I question her? Should I reveal my suspicions? Should I tell her that I suspected she was bullshitting me?
Erina took advantage of my preoccupied silence. “You saved my life, but now that it’s clear he can’t trust me, Sanreal will undoubtedly have me reassigned.”
I struggled for a moment to jump my thoughts back on track. “What…?”
“I said, I’ll be reassigned…probably.” Erina pouted in displeasure. “Such a bother.”
Her reaction felt amiss to me, and it was distracting too.
I made a conscious effort not to dwell on it, but it wasn’t something I’d disregard either. It was something I’d come back to later when I wasn’t struggling to keep up with her. “You started Project Mirai. How can he finish it without you?”
“Finish it…?” Erina smiled wistfully. “I wasn’t the only one working on Project Mirai. I had help from a lot of talented people. Most of them Alphas. One of them will take over from me. Most probably it will be Umi who will take the reins.”
“Umi?”
“Doctor Pearson. You met her on the VTOL.”
I remembered the bespectacled young woman of Erina’s height, perhaps a little older, who rode with us aboard the VTOL on the short hop from the marina to the city.
Inwardly, I released a bitter laugh.
Though that had taken place only four days ago, it felt like a month had elapsed since then.
I yanked my thoughts back before I fell into a deep reverie, but in doing so, I remembered something else from recent days.
“You tried to warn me about this, didn’t you?” I asked Erina. “Back in the infirmary, when I paid you a visit. That’s what you were trying to tell me. That I would need to carry on without you someday.”
A long moment of silence went by before Erina said, “More or less.”
“Does that you mean you did betray House Novis? Did you tell the Empress about Mirai?”
I watched my former sister bite her lips, then exhale loudly as though expelling something unpleasant that had built up within her.
“You’d think I have a reason to,” she replied. “After all, you are precious to me.”
I remembered what I’d said earlier to her, about knowing that Erina had special plans for me.
“What am I to you?” I asked her.
Erina frowned slightly before breaking into a gentle smile. “You’re a daughter to me.”
I took a half step back from the table.
After all the suffering I’d experience because of her, her sentiment wasn’t something I could accept.
Erina pressed on. “Whether Sanreal is right or wrong about me, it doesn’t matter. Whether I betrayed House Novis or not, isn’t your concern. For the time being, I’m out of your life. You should rejoice.”
I blinked a few times, unable to agree with her, though I couldn’t tell you why.
The way things had turned out seemed off.
Ghost had warned me that Sanreal was planning to test me.
Had I passed or failed?
After a quiet breath, Erina nodded slowly as though to herself, then looked through the Promenade’s windows at the surrounding habitat. “We’ll be landing soon.”
The Promenade was indeed descending, and I watched the tall trees of a large park surround the gondola as it approached a sizeable clearing.
Erina released a soft sigh, and then stood up gracefully.
Not knowing any better, it was hard to believe that she’d survived a near death experience courtesy of my efforts.
“Take care of yourself,” she said softly, then turned on her heels and stepped into the aisle between tables.
It wasn’t until now that I noticed the deck was outlaid like a restaurant.
I watched Erina walk down the aisle toward the spiral staircase in the middle of the Promenade’s deck.
I didn’t know how I should feel as I stared at her back.
Happy? Relieved? Angry? Should I hate her more than I did before?
But why was asking myself that?
Because how I felt was tired, drained, and confused.
I’d achieved the goal of saving her, but now what?
Erina paused when she arrived at the spiral staircase, and then half turned to look back at me. “Isabel.”
I felt lethargic as I returned her gaze. “What…?”
“I’m proud of you,” Erina stated. “So very proud of you.”
I choked on my saliva, taken by surprise not by her words, but by the honest sentiment she expressed.
Erina’s radiant golden aura told me that this was how she truly felt toward me.
While I stared at her at a loss for words, Erina smiled wistfully, then descended the staircase to the lower deck.
“What…the Hell…was that?” I muttered under my breath.
Then I noticed the faint warmth that nestled against my heart, and it made me angry at Erina, and at myself.
“Damn you,” I whispered.
I focused my awareness on that warmth, then clamped a hand around it, but after hesitating for a long, long while…I let it go.
But I couldn’t bring myself to extinguish it.
“Damn you, Erina.”
In frustration, I kicked a chair out from under a table, and sat down heavily onto it, but when I leaned back the backrest collided with the holster arms attached to my Princess Regalia.
Growling in irritation, I considered dumping the holsters, but instead chose to scoot forward on the chair.
With my elbows planted on my thighs, I dropped my head into my hands.
Not long after, I listened to a melodious chime briefly sound through the Promenade, and the flying gondola trembled gently as it touched down in the clearing.
Raising my head, I looked through the gondola’s glass windows in time to see a flock of birds take flight from the nearby tree line – startled into the air by the Promenade’s landing – and remembered watching the seagulls during class from my window seat as they rode the thermals above the ocean waves.
That said, I am not giving up on GPR.
I plan to release 1 book a year on the series or quicker if possible.
But having a novel with a broader appeal and higher financial return, will allow me to continue GPR to its conclusion.
If you are new to the GPR series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.
Final chapter of the web version of Book 3.
This story went from 5,500 reads to a mere 300.
For those of you still following it, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
The eBook version will be released next month. I'm simply finishing the cleanup while getting the cover and a couple of illustrations sorted out.
Please note, the eBook version is a heavily revised and improved story, and Part I of II of the second arc in the Gun Princess Royale saga.
I sat on a bench beside a stone path that traversed through the middle of the garden that occupied the mansion’s central courtyard.
Resting back, I looked up at the false sky of the Estate and then listened to the burble of the nearby streams.
Surrounded by tranquility made me regret not bringing along a book to read.
I’m referring to a printed copy, not a digitized one that I could access on my phone.
This was the kind of environment where you needed to feel the paper under your fingertips, and to hear the rustling of the pages as you turned them over.
Reading a book here on a phone or tablet just felt wrong to me.
Or maybe I was just being stupid.
Yes, most probably the latter.
Regardless, I wasn’t going to change my mind, and I wasn’t going to fish out my phone from a skirt pocket and find something to read.
Thus, I chose to continue sitting with my arms thrown over the bench’s backrest, while I stared vacantly up at the blue sky with listless clouds floating beneath it.
It was Friday, midday, and I’d returned to the Estate a couple of hours ago.
I didn’t translocate back in.
Instead, I was picked up by Mirai’s Sarcophagus.
After sitting alone with my thoughts for a few minutes inside the Promenade, I realized that the gondola was deserted, and thus made my way outside.
While I was standing in the park, the Sarcophagus emerged out of its self-generated Pocket Space. It would have snuck up behind me again, but the Argus System noticed its presence, so I was a little more mentally prepared to be scooped up by its tentacles and then swallowed into its depths.
According to Mirai’s wetware, I spent an hour inside the artificial womb, but instead of having my consciousness transported into one of Ghost’s virtual environments, I ended up sleeping through the maintenance process. I don’t know what else to call it, because even as I dreamt, I could feel Mirai’s body being healed and nourished.
So what did I dream about?
Maybe I shouldn’t call it dreaming because on some level I was still conscious.
Perhaps I should describe the experience as lucid dreaming.
Very well. What did I lucid dream about?
I dreamt of being reunited with my parents…except that it was Ronin who met them at the orbital spaceport while I watched from a distance. I spent the rest of the dream wandering about like a ghost, unable to interact with the people around me who were oblivious to my presence, and so I was ignored by Ronin and his family.
However, what really sucker punched me was discovering that in the dream I was Isabel.
I wasn’t even a copy of Ronin, or another male person.
No. I was Isabel val Sanreal – a ghost walking amongst the living.
I was seriously relieved when I woke up, though I was still inside the womb. But a short while later, the Sarcophagus delivered me out into the Estate, dropping me off gently in the garden between the house and the lagoon sized pool.
But the dream stayed with me, as did the loneliness I felt.
I was greeted by Fatina and the maids who apologized to me for the way I was treated.
I was too distracted to be angry with them, so I forgave them with a few mumbled, disjointed, half-hearted words.
Once inside my suite, I chose to strip out of my clothes – the same clothes I’d been wearing when I entered the Sarcophagus in the morning – and then took a long hot shower. I didn’t need one, but I felt I had to have one. Dressing in a pair of black slacks and white blouse, I was met in the living area by Fatina, who wrapped me up in a warm hug.
Once more, she welcomed me back.
Fatina had a way of making me feel at home.
I felt my worries and troubles recede while I was held in her arms.
Not feeling hungry after being serviced by the Sarcophagus, I skipped breakfast and instead wandered aimlessly about the large house, eventually emerging out into the garden.
Plonking myself on a bench, I sat back, and spent the next half hour trying to process through the morning’s tribulations.
I felt like a fool.
Arnval, Sanreal, and maybe Erina as well, had played me like a fiddle.
“Princess.”
The sound of that familiar voice dragged my gaze away from the fake sky.
Ghost was standing a few feet away, dressed casually, with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, exposing muscular forearms.
Is this really what he looked like in real life?
I noticed I was biting my lower lip in thought, but I didn’t stop myself from doing so.
“What is it?” I asked softly.
“I am sorry for not being there to help.”
I held back a frown. “You had your hands full, right?”
Ghost smiled bitterly. “They gave me more trouble than I anticipated.”
I considered the odds he faced.
One Artificial Awareness against nine others.
Just how powerful is he? Or were they holding back like Miss Ponytail was with me?
I decided to openly frown this time. “You gave me that new Regalia.”
“Indeed.”
“And the Argus System?”
“Yes. It was system employed during the war by high-end combat Simulacra. It allowed them to fight more effectively.”
I nodded without realizing it, so I stopped quickly and then rubbed the back of my neck. “Freaked me out the first time it fired up inside my head.”
“Yes, I imagine so.”
Rather than continue slouching on the bench, I arranged myself more primly, then folded my arms against my chest. “By the way, if they see me talking to empty air, they’ll suspect something.”
Ghost gave me a sheepish grin. “Unfortunately, I had to reveal that I have been in contact with you for some time.”
“Oh…wonderful. Can’t keep a secret, can you….” I let my voice trail away in disappointment.
“Princess—”
“Forget it. Forget it.” I sighed heavily, then took a long, deep breath. “So what happens now?”
“Now?”
“To me. To Erina.” I gave him a gloomy look. “What do I do now?”
A troubled expression swam across Ghost’s face. “The Gun Princess Royale.”
My heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“As a member of Team Novis, you will be competing in the Gun Princess Royale.”
I stared at him for a very long, anxious moment before casting my gaze down at the path before my feet. “So the next time I’m shot at…it’ll be for real.”
In my peripheral vision, I caught the grim nod he gave me. “Indeed.”
My heart felt like it was being coldly squeezed, and my chest grew noticeably tight. “Wonderful…,” I whispered with my eyes downcast.
So playtime is over.
From now on, there would be no holding back.
In other words, my opponents would out for victory, and to them I was just another virtual participant. When they shot at me, they wouldn’t know that I was flesh and blood, and very much alive.
How did I feel about that? Nervous? Anxious?
No, it downright scared me.
In the back of my mind, during each exchange of fire with Miss Ponytail, I’d known that she wasn’t out to kill me. Even so, had it not been for the Princess Regalia and Mirai’s preternatural ability to heal, I would have been severely injured many times over.
However, Miss Ponytail had been holding back.
The girls competing in the Gun Princess Royale would not be so kind.
I looked down at my hands as a cold, faint shiver trickled through me.
“Am I good enough?” I whispered half to myself.
“Time will tell.”
I swallowed hard and swung my gaze up at Ghost standing a few feet away. “You mean when I’m dead.”
Ghost appeared ready to argue with me, but he reconsidered.
I watched his expression swing from pensive to calm and unreadable.
“Princess, do you know why Raine failed to dodge your bullets?”
Raine?
Why did I feel like I’d heard that name before?
Narrowing my eyes a little, I asked Ghost, “Do you mean Miss Ponytail?”
Perhaps I threw him off for a moment because Ghost met my question with silence before haltingly nodding.
I believed I’d already deduced the answer to his question.
“Because she didn’t have to,” I replied matter-of-factly. “To her it was like a game where she had multiple lives. She would just pick up where she left off in a new body.”
Ghost shook his head, apparently disappointed with my conclusion. “No, Princess. That is not the reason why.”
“Oh, yeah?” I pouted and sat back on the bench. “Fine. What’s the answer?”
“Because there was no opportunity for her to dodge.”
I crinkled my brow as I frowned up at him. “Huh?”
“When you shoot, Princess, you almost never miss.”
I closed my mouth quietly.
That’s right. My marksmanship is almost a hundred percent—almost.
I swallowed discreetly. “So…?”
“So her Gun Princess avatar was constructed to be high specification.” Ghost folded his arms and stepped closer to me. “She knew that she couldn’t avoid being hit by return fire. Thus, she chose to face you with a high spec avatar. One that could take a beating, as they say, and carry on.”
“A walking tank,” I muttered sourly.
“Correct. She was built to be tougher than most. She was built to be Major League.”
I wet my lips subconsciously. “Meaning what?”
“There are two leagues in the Gun Princess Royale. The Major League and the Minor League.”
“I know that,” I grumbled, feel a tad annoyed at his sudden lecturing tone.
“The Gun Princesses of the Major League are constructed to a higher design criterion than those of the Minor League. They are stronger, faster, more robust, and can survive greater punishment.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I groused, then paused before asking, “So she was built like a Major League Princess. What’s your point?”
“My point is that the opponents you face in the Minor League will not be as difficult.”
I frowned faintly puzzled. “So I have nothing to worry about?”
Ghost sighed heavily as though frustrated with me. “No, Princess. That is not what I meant at all.”
With palms up, I raised my hands to shoulder level. “Well, I don’t get what you’re saying.”
“I am saying that you have survived a brief introduction into what the Major League is like.”
I leaned toward him a few inches. “And?”
“And, you did remarkably well.”
I lowered my hands onto my lap. “I can tell there’s a but in there somewhere.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, spit it out then.”
“You did well, but you survived because of Mirai and the Princess Regalia.”
I twisted my lips into a sour grimace. “You think I don’t know that?”
Ghost ignored my retort. “In short, you need to improve.”
Now my face twisted into an expression of disbelief. “Are you kidding me? That’s your big point?”
I stood up and faced him – though he was clearly only projected into my mind so those observing me would be watching a crazy girl talking at an empty space.
I would have jabbed him in the chest too, but once again, Ghost wasn’t there.
It didn’t stop me from pointing harshly at him as my emotions simmered darkly.
“You think I’m treating this like a game?” I complained in a low voice.
“I do not. I have observed your progress and I know that you took your training seriously. However, you are once again missing the point. You need to improve if you are to survive. There is no other way.”
“You said my marksmanship is almost perfect.”
“It could be better.”
“How?” Actually, I knew how but I wasn’t going to answer the question myself. I wanted to hear it from him.
“Shall I delve into the finer points?”
I crossed my arms under Mirai’s bountiful chest. “Yes, please do.”
“Then we shall recommence your training after lunch under my tutelage.”
“Oh wonderful. I get to find out who’s the worse teacher—you or Arnval.”
Ghost stiffened then peered down his nose at me. “Princess, do not compare me to that fraud.”
The frost in his tone made my breath catch.
I blinked up at him, faintly cowed by the cold in his eyes.
Was there bad blood between him and Arnval?
I had to swallow twice to find my voice. “What do you mean…fraud?”
He swallowed silently, and I watched him smoothly regain his composure. “Arnval, does not possess the combat experience that I do.”
I bit my lower lip as I recalled what he’d told me in Clarisol’s cave. “You were the Captain of the Guard.”
Unexpectedly, he took a half step back. He seemed to hesitate for a long moment before nodding shallowly. “Aye, Princess. That I was.”
As I thought of Clarisol living in isolation, my emotions bled away.
The annoyance, the frustration, the irritation – all of it drained out of me, and I was left feeling cold and empty within. And yet my chest felt tight, as though the void was pushing against my heart and lungs, making it difficult to breathe.
I had saved Erina from suffering Clarisol’s fate.
Maybe I could have performed better against Miss Ponytail. Maybe I could have found another way. But though it had come down to the wire, I had nonetheless saved Erina’s life.
I had achieved what I’d set out to do.
Yet, I found myself asking the same questions I had before.
Why would Sanreal do it?
Knowing how much his daughter suffers in her virtual prison—why would he consign Erina into the same Hell?
I gasped silently.
What if it was true? What if Mirai had been intended for Clarisol all along?
However, that approach did not resolve the original problem.
While one copy of Clarisol escaped, it still left the original behind in that lonely cave.
“There has to be a better way,” I whispered.
What if Erina had created Mirai to trade for Clarisol’s life?
I sneered at how ludicrous that sounded within my head.
What reason would Erina have for doing that? Trade Mirai’s existence for another’s life? Hardly. Besides, she said she wanted to use the Angel Fibers to save me—I mean, Ronin.
I bit my lower lip gently.
That brings me back almost full circle. She also said she wanted to save humanity with the Angel Fibers, but what if Mirai was created for another reason?
“Princess?”
I cleared my throat quietly, then asked the question that I inevitably returned to.
“Ghost, do you know if Erina really betray House Novis? Did she tell the Empress about Mirai? And if so, why?”
I didn’t expect him to answer me right away, but the silence that followed stretched on for an uncomfortable length.
I stared at Ghost who stood with his arms folded against his chest.
He was visibly conflicted as he regarded me. “I cannot say.”
“Ghost, tell me the truth—”
“That is the truth, Princess. I cannot say because I do not know. Your sister is resourceful. She is also quite passionate about her work. And you are very precious to her. As such, it is within the realm of possibility that she would go to extreme lengths to remain in control of Project Mirai.”
My throat grew dry, yet I found it hard to swallow as I continued to meet his gaze.
Ghost nodded subtly. “That said, this is Doctor Kassius we are talking about. If I have learnt anything about her it is that she always plans ahead.”
I tried again and succeeded in wetting my throat.
Was it Erina’s idea that I fight for her? Had she somehow convinced Sanreal to place her fate in my hands?
Icy fingers traced a path down my back.
Had she used me to challenge him—to prove to him that her actions were justified?
My gaze grew distant as I pondered that possibility.
If that’s true, then Erina really does have something big planned for Mirai. And if Sanreal was able to scan her mind, then he knows what the plan was.
Or does he?
Erina had said she may have wiped her own memories, but what about…?
“Ghost, does the Empire have the technology to read someone’s mind?”
“Mind and memory are two different sides to the coin.”
I flinched in front of him as I realized Ghost understood what I was thinking.
What does Erina want with Mirai? That’s the real question.
“We will find out in due time,” he said softly.
I wrapped my arms around me to restrain myself from shivering. “But surely Sanreal has asked her what she has in store for Mirai. Surely, he’s faced the same questions I have and confronted her about them. Don’t you think so?”
“I am sure he has. The question is whether Erina told him the truth or not.”
“Wouldn’t he be able to tell? Doesn’t House Novis have a lie detector or two lying around that they could use on her?”
“And surely, Doctor Kassius is aware of that lie detector or two that’s lying around somewhere.”
I laughed sourly and shook my head slowly. “Point taken. She is an Alpha after all.”
“Do you regret saving her?”
Asked casually, the unexpected question caught me out of left field.
I had to search my feelings for a long moment before I could give him an honest answer. “No. No, I don’t regret saving her.”
In contrast, had I not saved her, I would have carried a very real regret in my heart.
Whether saving her was a mistake or not was something that only time would tell.
However, for now, I harbored no misgivings for having saved Erina’s corporeal existence.
Truthfully, I felt as though a burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and my heart beat a little easier—a little less aggrieved.
Yet, while that was true, there were other doubts and worries that clouded my heart.
“Will I be ready by then?” I murmured to myself, then noticed Ghost had arched his eyebrows faintly in question, so I added, “Will I be ready to face whatever she has in store for me?”
A pensive frown wrinkled his brow. He held it for a second or two, before gently declaring. “Whether or not you are ready will depend on you.” He stepped up to me while slipping his hands behind his back. “There will be time to deal with Erina later. Thus for now, focus on growing stronger, faster, and improving your survival skills for the Gun Princess Royale.”
I chose to cut right to the point. “In other words, learn to stay alive.”
“Correct.”
Playtime was truly over. As Ghost had said, whether I survived or not was now in my hands. I loathed my situation and circumstances, but if I failed to approach the Gun Princess Royale with the right attitude, I would die out there.
I wasn’t a machine.
I was flesh and blood and something else. As strong and resilient as Mirai was, a shot to the head or the heart would kill me. However, the viewers and competitors would not be aware of this. They weren’t even aware that the Gun Princess Royale was real and not virtual.
Someone once said that when technology reached a certain level it would be indistinguishable from magic, and such was the technological might of the Empire who could recreate entire cities as environments for the competition, and fool humanity into thinking it was all virtual.
I had seen the magic of the Fabricators first hand, and I was almost swallowed up by one.
Remembering that night, and what was at stake as I ran through the desert with my precious cargo, made my chest hurt a little.
“I’ll get stronger,” I whispered, “and I won’t make the same mistakes again.”
Ghost held my gaze. “That…is a wise decision, my Princess.”
Hearing him address me that way made my heart beat a tad quicker, and I quickly bowed my head so that I wouldn’t look up at him.
And that’s when I noticed them standing at the entrance to the garden.
A teenage boy and girl.
“Consider it a present from Celeste. She says you’ve earned it.”
Ghost faded from sight, yet his voice lingered in my ears.
“A take my leave, Princess….”
Hesitant at first, the fair haired teenage boy and the teenage girl with snow blond hair stepped out onto the stone path that would lead them to me.
With every step they took, with every yard the travelled, my heart steadily beat louder and the ache in my chest great.
By the time they stood before me, I could hardly see them.
Tears blurred my vision, and I heard myself sobbing softly as I dropped to my knees in heart wrenching despair.
I had promised her I would keep them safe – that I would protect them – and I failed in my promise. The only thing I could do for them was to save their bodies. And so I fled across the desert, carrying them with me as I ran from the Fabricator that swallowed up the replica of the school.
Clarisol had thanked me for saving them, and her words had felt like a knife plunged into my heart.
I believed I wasn’t worthy of her gratitude.
I still believed that now.
Even though they were standing before me, veiled behind my tears.
“…Mat…Anri….”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I clutched at my chest as I begged for their forgiveness.
“…I’m…I’m sorry…I’m so sorry….”
Then the dam broke and I wept like a broken child.
The hurt that tortured my chest wouldn’t end no matter how many tears I shed.
Clenching my heart and lungs, it made me hunch over as I knelt on the cold stones.
But then I felt someone’s arms wrap around me, pulling me into a tight embrace.
She felt soft, warm, and carried the scent of fresh flowers.
She didn’t say anything, she just held me as I continued to cry.
The girl that I was infatuated with – the girl who proclaimed to be madly in love with my best friend – rocked me gently as she knelt with me in her arms.
And I felt her forgiveness.
I felt it in her warmth, and in the beating of her heart, as she nestled my head against her soft, generous breasts.
Her voice was a broken whisper, but I heard her clearly enough as her tears landed on my cheeks, mingling with my own as she wept softly with her head bowed over mine.
“…thank you…for saving us….”
Only then was I able to reach out and return her embrace.
Only then did the hurt begin to ease, though I continued to weep and then sob for a while longer.
However, before the hurt faded into memory, it briefly caught onto the edge of my awareness, and tugged free a somber, sobering memory – the memory of a girl sentenced to a lonely existence in a place that didn’t physically exist.
Clarisol.
As I held onto Shirohime, and in her arms, I made a promise then and there to grow stronger, to survive, and to win.
And to find a way to save Clarisol from her prison.
Only then would I be free to accept her gratitude.
– Fin Web Version Book Three –
I pray that the eBook version of Book 3 will be satisfying to you in a way this version couldn't be.
In other words, I ask that you please give it a chance.
I've spent 3 years writing it, and I hope it doesn't disappoint.
If you are new to the GPR series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:
Book One - Awakening the Princess
Book Two - The Measure of a Princess
A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.
I wish you all well.
Please, stay safe.