Pride x Familiar (59 page)

The smile splitting her pretty face was ever so
steadily turning into a snarl.

Her four cannon vanes aimed my way in a
heartbeat, and we stood like two gunslingers with weapons
drawn.

Time—I needed to give
Induran
time to
pick up Gabrielle, Rylan, Capella and the others.

I used the Black Camellia’s
eyes
to watch
Induran
slow to a hover over the academy cafeteria.

A thought pulse distracted me.

The Avienda’s pilot was signaling me.

She wanted to talk?

I answered the call.

“So you’re the great Celica Desanto. I expected
more from you.”

“Any more from me and you’d be a smoking wreck,
you silly child.”

“You really think you’re challenging me? You
really think your Warlord is up to the task? It’s not even an
original.”

I blinked then frowned at her. “What do you
mean?”

“The fact you’re asking proves how little you
know, and it proves your Warlord is not one of the twelve that came
across into the realm.” She shook her head. “But still, it’s
impressive what they could achieve back then. A lost art. A lost
talent. The means to create inferior copies of the original
twelve.”

Unease crept into me.

Four Rho-Khans, eight Seer-Khans. I knew they
comprised the Warlords operated by the Original Twelve, those
Familiars that had chosen to fight for the Aventis.

So what did that say about the dozens upon
dozens of other Warlords that took part in the War of
Supremacy?

I narrowed my eyes at the girl. “What’s your
name?”

“Fallon. It’s Fallon Acacia afil Avenir.”

“Are you one of the Twelve?”

“I’m a descendant of the Original Twelve, just
like your brother.”

I frowned at her. “My brother? Aren’t you
forgetting about me?”

The girl, Fallon, smiled slowly; a truly
malicious smile that had no place on a face so young.

Then I heard her soft laughter. “You didn’t
know? Now that is truly a surprise. I thought Crimson Crescent
might have revealed the truth to you.”

“The truth about what?”

“The truth about you.”

I felt a frown flicker across my brow. “What
about me?”

Fallon’s smile contorted. “You’re not blood
related.”

For a moment, for a heartbeat, my mind blanked
out.

Fallon’s next words felt like a knife through my
mind. “You’re not family.”

I stared at her in disbelief, then my demeanor
hardened.

My voice sounded like steel even to me. “My
brother and I were born to House Desanto. Samuel and Chantal
Desanto are my parents.”

Even at a distance, I clearly saw Fallon
mockingly scratch her right cheek. “Well, by all appearances they
are your parents. But at the same time they’re not.”

Confusion ran through my blood.

I yelled at her, “What the Hell does that
mean?”

Fallon added with a voice that dripped cruelty.
“Well, it’s not surprising you didn’t know. After all, I doubt more
than a handful of people know the truth behind the two of you. Even
your parents were probably oblivious to your origins.”

What did she mean by that?

Caelum and I were most certainly not
adopted.

In his case, I was there at the hospital when my
mother gave birth to him, and my father was in the room with her at
the time.

And there was no evidence to suggest I was
adopted either.

When Falken revealed my parents lineage to me,
it was clear he believed Caelum and I were descendants of an
Original Twelve family.

“You’re lying.” I glared at her. “You’re
lying
!”

Fallon shook her head sadly. “I’m not lying at
all. The two of you are not blood related. That much I know for
sure.” Surprisingly, she raised her arms to indicate confusion.
“However, while I do know his origins, I have no idea where you
came from. But one thing is certain, you were rejected by the
Ravana, yet chosen by the Black Camellia. That alone proves you’re
not a descendant of the Original Twelve.”

I narrowed my eyes at the girl.

How did she know about that?

How did she know about
that
particular
incident almost six years ago?

With my heart trembling under an onslaught of
doubt and suspicion, I willed the eight quantum cannons fanning
around the Black Camellia to swing down.

The black mist surrounded the Warlord’s hands,
and heartbeats later they each held a ten foot long curved sword,
with shark-like fins acting like guards around the hand grips. The
Camellia’s hands tightened around the sword hilts as though they
were my own hands.

I cleared my throat forcefully. “How do you know
what happened to me in the Vault six years? Who told you?”

Fallon smiled. “That’s a secret.”

The swords quivered in my Warlord’s hands. Anger
was beginning to blossom in and around my heart, fueling it with an
unpleasant heat.

“Tell me!”

I screamed and instantly willed the Black
Camellia to channel its energy to its surroundings. The Warlord
crouched despite standing upside down on the ceiling. In the blink
of an eye the Camellia launched itself at the Avienda. I crossed
the two hundred foot distance in a millisecond.

But this time I didn’t use the reaction
cannons.

I used the two curved swords I’d summoned from
the Camellia’s Pocket Space.

If cannons weren’t going to work, it was time
for a different approach.

She actually looked surprised as I swung my
right blade down at her.

I had expected the warping to take effect, and
for my sword to slide around the Avienda. Instead, the blade
breached her barrier-field part way and slowed down to a crawl. I
willed the Black Camellia forward, its thruster fields pushing hard
against my back, while I applied more pressure against the
Avienda’s barrier-field. Feeling it give some more, I concentrated
on sharpening the piercer-field around the sword, and a heartbeat
later it broke through the last of the barrier-field. The blade
almost buried itself in the Warlord’s skeletal collar where the
armor was thin. At the last moment, the Avienda darted back and to
a side. The edge of my blade struck the domed shoulder armor
instead, gouging a deep line into it.

What the Hell had just happened?

Why hadn’t space distorted around the
Avienda?

Had the pilot become exhausted? Had the fight
just now depleted her concentration to the point she couldn’t
direct the inertial fields?

It wasn’t just a case of
willing
the
Warlord to move. You had to keep a mental image of the fields
surrounding it, including the inertial fields that gave a Warlord
the ability to pull sharp turns in empty space. Using them, a
Warlord reshaped a confined space around itself, allowing it to
change direction at angles and gee forces that would normally tear
it apart by cancelling out its resistance to change direction.

Using inertial fields was something I hadn’t
mastered.

Avienda’s pilot could use them well enough to
warp away my cannon fire. But it seemed she couldn’t use them
effectively against a direct physical attack.

I had no idea why.

Using an effect-field to kick off against the
ceiling, I chased after the Avienda.

“Come back here,” I screamed at her.

Part of me kept its focus. That part of me
considered the possibility the swords themselves had cancelled out
her inertial field. After all, the weapon had breached far into her
barrier-field with surprising ease.

I hadn’t considered it could be so
effective.

I had practiced with the weapons before, but I’d
never used them against a Warlord, so their combat value was
unknown to me.

Quantum reaction fire wouldn’t work against her,
but physical weapons like these might do the trick.

I had a troubling thought.

What if a Warlord’s physical weapons were for
the purpose of being used against another Warlord?

The analytical part of me shivered at the
thought. I shelved it for now, then focused on chasing down the
Avienda.

The other part of me burned with fury.

How dare she try to distract me with such a
lie.

How dare she claim Caelum and I weren’t
family.

I would cut my anger into her.

I would forever brand her with my blades.

The girl fell away from the ceiling, falling on
her back gently to the ground. I decided not to fire upon her, but
continued to chase her down, one sword aiming for her, the other
angled for defense. A dozen feet from the surface of the habitat, I
watched the air ripple around the Avienda, and the Warlord changed
its vector, soaring mere meters above a street packed with cars and
hundreds of people on the sidewalks.

Someone had ordered an evacuation of the
habitat, but it was proving difficult to execute.

Avienda’s flight over the populace terrified
them into a stampede.

Flying on her back, the girl aimed her four
reaction cannons at me and fired. Golden beams of light narrowly
missed me, cutting the air and striking the habitat ceiling above
and behind me.

At a sharp angle I darted away down a side
street, then turned to parallel her at the next intersection.

The Black Camellia couldn’t sense her. I was
aware of people, cars, buses and buildings, but the Avienda was
invisible to me when out of sight. I expected her to charge at me
down the next side street, or from over the district buildings.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

She charged through the buildings, tearing them
apart with her barrier-fields, and came at me swinging a double
ended spear with Saracen style swords at each end.

I guess she got tired of trying to shoot me
down.

On instinct I brought both swords up and blocked
her downward slash.

That malicious smile was back on her face, but
now it was tainted with glee as though she was finally enjoying
herself.

I glared at her, then snarled like a rabid
wolf.

Caelum was family.

Now and forever.

Nothing this bitch said would ever change
that.

Nothing at all.

#

(Haruka)

Most of the students on the top level of the
cafeteria, including Duncan, Siobhan, Alistair and I, had retreated
to the west side of the building, as far away as possible from the
Familiars of Crimson Crescent and the Familiars who attended our
school.

A large number had taken shelter inside the
corridors connecting the west wing to the cafeteria building. But
if they tried escaping further, they ran into the intense
artificial gravity that had crippled the student and administrative
body. Inside the corridors and the cafeteria the gravity almost
felt normal, so for now there was no choice but to remain put.

I sat against a cafeteria wall, just outside the
corridor entrance.

Duncan sat beside me, an arm over my shoulders,
holding me against him.

I felt him tremble, and looked up at him.

I saw anger being repressed by sheer will
power.

“Duncan?”

He swallowed tightly. “So weak. So damn
weak.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing we can do against them—against
Familiars. Once they bring out their Fragments, there’s nothing any
of us can do against them.”

“Duncan….”

“I feel so powerless, so helpless. If they’d
chosen to take you, I’d have been helpless to stop them. Just like
that guy whose girl they took.”

I felt his arm tighten around me, and I saw the
rage and frustration war across his face.

Then he lowered his head and I heard his words
quite clearly.

“We’re supposed to be better than them. That’s
what we’re told. So why can’t we do anything against them….”

The rage and frustration ebbed away, seeming to
settle into a cold, burning look in his eyes.

He whispered harshly, “It’s the Fragments. They
shouldn’t be carrying Fragments.”

The floor under me trembled violently. The wall
shook as well. Duncan pushed us both away from it, probably fearing
we’d injure our spines.

I looked up at the storm wracked sky visible
through the atrium’s transparent ceiling.

The black starship had returned, and was
hovering low over the cafeteria’s roof, blocking our view of the
sky.

A flash of violet light lit the atrium
ceiling.

As I turned away I heard a rumble and crash.

Opening my eyes I saw a large part of the
ceiling had vanished into a cloud of powdered rubble. It was blown
away quickly by the strong winds blowing over the rooftop. When it
cleared, I saw three people standing on the edge of the large
ragged hole, looking down into the cafeteria while unaffected by
the gale force winds around them.

The two members of Crimson Crescent – the man
Steiner had injured, and the woman who supported him – walked to a
point under the hole. Two of their companions on the roof stretched
a hand down to them, and moments later the man and woman floated up
into the air as though hoisted by invisible wires that were most
probably effect-fields.

As they flew up, I saw Caprice Steiner run to a
spot under the hole.

Her voice was clear as she plaintively cried
out, “Mother!”

Everyone who heard that cry stiffened in
shock.

Beside me, Duncan’s body tensed sharply. He
stared at Steiner in disbelief.

I tore my gaze away from him and back to the
girl.

Steiner was standing with arms outstretched,
head thrown back as she looked up at the gaping hole in the
ceiling.

“Why?” she screamed. “Why mother? Why betray the
Prides? Why did you leave me? Answer me!”

I didn’t hear an answer, and the five members of
Crimson Crescent on the cafeteria rooftop quickly moved out of
sight.

Not long afterwards, the starship began to
ascend and it swung away from above the academy buildings. Caprice
and the other girl – the Familiar with the large rifle – ran over
to the south-side windows to watch it.