Pride x Familiar (10 page)

“Haruka…you’re not fine. You’re very, very far
from fine.”

I nodded and gave up trying to stop my tears
altogether.

I didn’t bawl, but I came close.

Really, really close.

The Symbiote can be classified into eight
distinct strains.

These eight strains form the basis for the eight
Prides that Aventis fall into.

The known Prides are as follows.

The Avenir Pride, known for its prominence in
the domain of finance and business.

The Sora Pride, known for its prominence in the
domain of business and entertainment, recently dabbling here and
there in deep space mining.

The Sanreal Pride, known for its presence in the
world of shipbuilding, shipping, salvaging and surveying.

The Irulan Pride, known for its interests in
construction and deep-space colonization.

The Fenrir Pride, recognized for its interests
in research and development of new technologies – as well as very
old
ones.

The Lorian Pride, with deep widespread
connections to the learning institutions and academies across the
colonized systems.

The Raynar Pride, known for its ties to the
military and covert organizations.

And last, but not least, the Lanfear Pride –
known as the black sheep Pride.

Courtesy of my bonding to Arisa Imreh’s blood –
actually to the Symbiote inside her blood – I was bonded to the
Lanfears.

As such, my affiliation to them wasn’t viewed
with much pride by the Aventis of our academy. As mentioned before,
the Lanfears weren’t very well received. This stemmed from the fact
that the Lanfears had a habit of going against the flow. They would
frequently paddle upstream when everyone else paddled down. This
didn’t always work out in their favor, but on the occasions that it
did, the Lanfears would profit greatly.

Also, the Lanfears had their fingers in
everything
, whether legitimate or illegal.

Elements of the other Prides were guilty of
crimes as well.

However, it wasn’t nearly as much news as when
members of the Lanfear Pride got into trouble.

Personally, I felt the other Prides simply had a
grudge to bear against the Lanfears. After all, when it came to
Fragments, the pieces possessed by the Lanfear Pride were by far
the coolest, yet hardly the most dangerous of them all.

(Caelum)

First Semester, Week One.

Let me describe it.

After class, I would travel with Caprice to the
training center where both our performance and that of our
Fragments was studied and measured by Lanfear Pride
researchers.

Locations in Pharos were identified as follows:
by Island, by habitat, then by district grid.

Galatea Academy resided in Island Three, Habitat
One, District Four Alpha.

The training center where Caprice and I worked
out at was located in Island Three, Habitat Two, District Two Gee,
which happened to be an entertainment district.

I say ‘entertainment’ not ‘red-light’
district.

The region was full of clubs, gaming centers,
drinking establishments, and VR houses providing a plethora of
virtual experiences.

The training center was situated underground,
beneath a nightclub owned by Arisa Imreh that hosted a healthy
patronage even on school nights.

To arrive at the club, Caprice and I travelled
by mag-lev. Not only could the trains travel at high speed through
tunnels connecting the habitats, but they were pressurized and
designed to travel between the Islands. In other words, they could
handle the vacuum of space. Running on flexible mag-lev rails, the
trains were like rocket powered caterpillars running along vines
between trees. They would exit one asteroid island, run along the
mag-lev track and then enter a second asteroid island.

Even if they were pressurized, there was always
the uncomfortable sensation in a person’s ears upon exit and entry
of an Island. It was only a little less bothersome when exiting and
entering a habitat.

Caprice and I would enter the club through a
side alley. A big, metal door resembling a fire escape exit
intersected the permacrete wall of the club building. But it wasn’t
a fire escape and the only way to open it was to press one’s palm
against the metal.

A smart door.

Very smart door, indeed.

After recognizing either myself or Caprice, the
smart
door would unlock for us.

From there we walked down a stairwell to the
underground levels. The doors that greeted us at each level were
dumb
doors and were kept unlocked. Even if they were locked,
Caprice and I had a key for them.

The training center was much like a gymnasium or
fitness center, except built under Arisa’s nightclub. However, this
‘fitness center’ came complete with medical scanning equipment and
our very own researcher or medical technician. I felt like a lab
rat whenever I came here, which was to say almost every day for the
past seven months since my Awakening.

For two hours we would perform physical
training, then spend a good thirty minutes sparring with each
other. Most days we trained without the use of Fragments. Most
days, Caprice received training from a personal instructor or a
holovid program who put her through a regimen of hand-to-hand
combat training aimed at making the most use of her Fragment, the
Valkyrie Armor.

I had tried to follow along with her during
these sessions, but found myself many, many months behind her. As a
result, I didn’t benefit from them as much as she did.

To me, it felt like there wasn’t a fighting
style suited for using a shield-blade like my Gauntlet. I had the
suspicion I would have to develop my own fighting style; a style
that wasn’t found in the books. But was I good enough to do
that?

The last fifteen to twenty minutes of our
sessions were spent having a researcher or medical technician scan
our bodies and analyze the results before allowing us to venture
back into the outside world.

I felt our researcher had an appearance at odds
with the image presented by the other Lanfear researchers I had
encountered. Sure, he wore a white lab coat with the freshness of
having been dry-cleaned every day, but everything else about him
contrasted sharply with that coat.

Allow me to explain.

After I was
diagnosed
as a Familiar,
Arisa arranged new accommodations for me. I was allocated an
apartment in the same complex Caprice lived in. In fact, Arisa made
sure our apartments were next door to each other. A short while
after I moved in, Caprice began making it a habit to watch old
‘movies’ at my place rather than hers. These were recordings made
pre-Cataclysm.

At this point I will state for the record that
at no point in time did I
invite
her into my apartment. She
had key to my apartment given to her by Arisa, courtesy of building
management. As such, I was helpless to stop her.

One such recording I was forced to watch was a
fictitious account of a Terran vampire by the name of Count Dracula
who went to a land known as England in search of a worthy mate.

The point I’m trying to make is that the actor
who portrayed the Count bore an uncanny resemblance to our resident
researcher, from the long straight hair down to the round glasses
he wore. I had a sneaky suspicion he had modeled his look after
that actor from a bygone era.

As a side note, I should point out that
Caprice’s fascination with vampires and vampire movies was one of
the reasons I picked up on Simone’s name – Alucard spells Dracula
in reverse.

Dr. Van Deeman – whom I
affectionately
called Van Demon behind his back – supervised our training regimen.
By this I refer to the physical training, not the combat training,
but he also monitored our progress with our Fragments. Whatever
insights he gained into us Familiars he kept to himself. I wasn’t
privy to the data, except when he chose to comment on our
development.

That’s the part that worried me.

Our
development
, as he put it.

To me it felt like a word with hidden
connotations whenever he used it within the context of
Familiars.

However, every night he would nod approvingly
and successfully sidestep most of my questions.

Caprice rarely spoke to him. It seemed she’d
given up trying to get a straight answer from Van
Demon
.
Instead, she would confront Arisa whenever she needed an
answer.

Speaking of Arisa, I hadn’t seen her in weeks.
She attended the university in Island Three, Habitat One, and was
majoring in business. Needless to say, her absence troubled me a
little, but I did my best to shelve away my concern.

However, her recent absence or involvement in my
life as a Familiar had left me feeling somewhat abandoned.

In fact after each training session I was left
with lingering feelings of disillusionment.

Disillusionment not only toward myself, but
mostly toward the Lanfears.

For some time now I’d noticed the disparity in
emphasis they were placing on Caprice’s training and mine. For the
first few weeks while I bonded to the Fragment – the shield-blade –
the Lanfears had expressed genuine interest in my development as a
Special
. But then it all petered away and though I was still
training diligently and being regularly monitored by medical
technicians, I didn’t feel the Lanfears were all that
interested
in what I could do anymore.

My resolve to confront Arisa over this
inequality was growing steadily with each passing week.

#

(Caelum)

Lunch break.

First Semester, Week One. Day five – Friday.

I sat across from Caprice at a table in the
cafeteria on the second level.

First level was allocated to the first year
high-schoolers.

Second level to the second year students.

Third level to the white blazer wearing
seniors.

The good thing was the table was beside the
panoramic windows overlooking the sporting fields of Galatea
Academy to the south. I was munching on fries while admiring the
girls from the Track-and-Field team running laps during the
break.

I found their dedication admirable.

Their skin glistening with sweat.

Their running clothes moist and clinging tightly
to their young nubile bodies.

Their firm, bouncing breasts held securely by
the latest in sports bra design.

I reached out for my drink and found it
missing.

Unable to tear my gaze away from the sight of so
many well developed female bodies, my right hand was forced to fend
for itself, searching about blindly for the drink cup.

Then a sharp pain stabbed it.

“What the—?”

I cradled my hand with my left, studying the
puncture wounds that were quickly healing. I looked sharply at
Caprice.

The fork in her hand was tipped in red.

“What was that for?” I asked in
astonishment.

“Your hand was wandering over my tray,” she
replied flatly while wiping the fork clean.

“Oh…I’m sorry.”

Spotting my drink cup I reached for it and took
a long sip through the straw. I dare anyone to allege real men
don’t drink through a straw. Anyway, I turned back to the view out
the window. “I’m surprised they’re training so early into the year.
School started only this week.”

Caprice didn’t bother looking up from her tray.
“Most of them would have been first years that are now on the team
as second years. Galatea has won the Pharos Inter-Island
Championship four years running. They’re favorites to win this year
too.”

“You ever compete?”

“That’s a stupid question. The sports teams are
dominated by Aventis. The Regulars play too, but when it comes to
competition time there is simply no place for them. All they can do
is cheer and keep the benches warm.”

She sounded bitter.

I knew what she meant.

A Regular human teenager possessed far less than
half the physical prowess of a teenage Aventis. There was no point
in competing against one. As a result, the Regulars that joined
sporting clubs did so without any intention of competing in the
various championships. They played sports for the fun of it, and
more often than not teamed up with other Regular humans. You could
say there was no fun playing against a ‘superior’ species and
getting your ass handed to you in a ‘friendly’ match.

Everyone had a place in society as governed by
the Prides. For Regulars, that place was one long step below the
Aventis.

For Familiars like Caprice and I, our place was
somewhere in between the two benchmarks.

When compared to a Regular teenage male of my
height and body build, I was clearly stronger and faster by more
than half – perhaps as much as three quarters. This was courtesy of
the changes my body had undergone at a genetic level.

But in comparison to an Aventis of near age,
height and weight, Dr. Van
Demon
was prone to point out I
fell well shy of what the weakest male in that category could
achieve.

In other words, I was stronger than a Regular,
but weaker than an Aventis.

Looking at Caprice, a girl with exceptional
stamina, strength and co-ordination, I wondered how she would fair
against someone like Haruka whom I knew was a complete klutz. At
least, that was before she joined a Pride and left the lowly ranks
of being a Regular.

I had no idea if her co-ordination had
improved.

Thinking of Haruka made me sigh inwardly.

I had no idea how I was going to deal with her,
and my lack of a plan was killing me slowly.

Suppressing a second sigh, I rephrased my
question. “Sorry, I meant to ask, did you ever hope to
compete?”