Pride x Familiar (50 page)

“Don’t. We’ve lost enough time.”

“Maya, she’s my homeroom teacher.”

“We can’t delay any longer.”

Jaxon placed a hand on Maya’s shoulder. “A half
minute won’t hurt.”

Maya glared up at him, but I took the chance to
pull free and walked on rubbery legs that still burned hotly. I
dropped to my knees beside Clarisse Fauntine.

The young woman was under a lot strain, but her
eyes widened as soon as my effect-field barrier surrounded her. “A
barrier-field?”

I nodded a little woozily.

She straightened and ran her gaze over me. “I
see. Caprice, you serve the Lanfears as a Special?”

I nodded. “Yes. This is the Fragment I received
from my mother more than a year and a half ago. She was a Special
too.”

Fauntine pushed herself up into a seated
position. “Caprice, what’s happening to the school?”

“Crimson Crescent has attacked the academy. They
flew a starship into the habitat by using a trans-space breach to
tunnel between realms and emerge inside the island. We have a plan
to help evacuate the school, but we need to keep moving.”

I watched her scoot over to the wall at her
back, then rest against it.

Fauntine said, “When you walk away, the gravity
will come back.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “I place my trust in you.
Help our school, Caprice.” She smiled regretfully. “Show them how
special you and your friends are. Do what only Familiars can do.
Release the power of your Fragment.”

I blinked.

My friends? Do what only I can do? Use my
Fragment?

I regarded Clarisse Fauntine for a long moment.
Then I probed inside her using my Artifact’s senses. I stared at
her in disbelief. “You’re a Familiar….”

She smiled weakly. “All this time, and you never
noticed?”

I shook my head slowly. “I…I never used my
Fragment to probe inside you. I’m sorry for doing that now.”

Fauntine’s gaze wandered over my face. “It’s
alright. You were bound to find out sooner or later.”

“Why do you hide it? Is it because you’re a
teacher?”

Fauntine shook her head gently. “There are lots
of reasons. Too many for here and now.”

I saw a flicker of concern in her eyes.

I swallowed and said, “I won’t tell anyone. I
promise. Your secret is safe with me.” I glanced over my shoulder
at my fellow teammates. “Your secret is safe with all of us.”

Fauntine’s weak smile grew a little stronger.
“Thank you.” She reached out and touched my arm. “If I had my
Fragment, I’d join you. But I gave it up some eighteen months ago.
So now it’s up to you and your friends to protect our school.”

Giving her a nod, I stood up. “I promise. We’ll
protect this school and everyone inside it.”

Taking a deep breath I walked back to those
waiting for me. I heard Fauntine cry out in pain as the gravity
pressed upon her with a vengeance, and I heard her body slide down
as though lying supine on the floor.

I gave Maya a resolute look. “Let’s go.”

Maya didn’t move. “She’s not an Aventis.”

“I know.”

“The gravity may kill her.”

I clenched my hands. “I know that.”

Rina spoke up. “Maybe we should take her with
us?”

I gave Maya a hard look. “We’re short on time,
aren’t we?”

Maya looked as conflicted as I’d ever seen
her.

I suddenly understood why.

Maya cared for us Familiars. It was the one
thing that would make her hesitate and question herself.

She swallowed and trembled for a moment.

“
Damn it
.”

She turned on her heels and resumed leading the
way.

Jaxon fell in behind me. “Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” I whispered back. Then I lowered my
head a little. “Thank you.”

“Sure….”

I gave into the urge to clench my fists. “I’ll
make Crescent pay for this. I promise!”

#

(Caelum)

The circular vertical shaft had rungs fitted to
the rock wall, forming a ladder.

It was dark all the way down, so I gripped my
palm-slate in my teeth, using it for a flashlight.

Below me, Melanie continued climbing down the
rungs. She didn’t need a light because her Artifact was acting like
night-vision, giving her complete spatial awareness of her
immediate surroundings. She could have navigated down the rungs
with her eyes closed because the Artifact was doing all the
seeing
for her.

However, Simone and I didn’t have a Fragment or
Artifact, so we had to make do with our palm-slates acting like
flashlights.

I could hear Simone climbing down slowly above
me. She was barefoot, having removed her high heels in order to
climb down the ladder. I didn’t know what she’d done with her
shoes, because she didn’t appear to have them with her.

When I looked up, I didn’t get to see her
underwear clearly.

I felt I was being denied a precious vision.

However, I wasn’t able to stop and continued to
descend one rung at a time.

Small lights had flickered to life at the bottom
of the shaft. A great many were dead, but the few that worked
offered enough illumination to see the trapdoor in the middle of
the circular floor. It seemed no one had come down here in years,
and both floor and trapdoor were covered in a thick layer of
dust.

I turned off the flashlight function on my
palm-slate and pocketed the device.

Melanie opened the trapdoor with ease. She
peeked down through the opening, then dropped through it heartbeats
later.

Simone paused on the ladder rungs above me.
“Caelum?”

“Hold on.” I carefully ducked my head down
through the opening.

There was a tunnel below us. A very large and
wide tunnel, with strip lighting breaking the darkness both ways. I
guessed it was a good twenty foot drop to the ground.

Damn, that was going to hurt.

Thankfully, gravity around us was normal. I
guessed it was because we were under the effect-field generators
that provided artificial gravity for the academy above us. I had
counted fifty five rungs on the way down, and since they were
roughly a foot apart meant we’d descended roughly fifty five feet.
This was in addition to the twelve or thirteen flights of stairs
we’d walked down not long ago.

We were definitely well below the academy and
its effect-field generators.

I looked down at the tunnel floor.

Melanie was looking up. “Caelum, hurry up.
They’re coming.”

Despite the urgency in her voice, I hesitated. I
could make the drop, but I’d have to catch Simone. Even if she was
an Aventis, she was still a girl, and I felt it was only right that
I help her down.

Simone climbed down the rest of the way. The
base of the shaft was around five or six feet in diameter so there
was room for the two of us, but it still felt a little cramped.

I looked at Simone. “I’ll go down first, then
you jump down after me. I’ll catch you.”

Without waiting for her reply I lowered my body
through the square opening, hung onto the edge of the trap door for
a few heartbeats, then dropped to the tunnel floor below.

It really was a good twenty foot drop and I
winced when I landed.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I took a
couple of breaths before looking around.

The tunnel had an oval shaped cross-section
though the floor was flat. It was wide enough for three large
trucks to drive down side-by-side. There was good lighting as well,
with score upon score of strip lights casting pale white light down
its length.

I realized the tunnel was slightly slanted. In
one direction it led down, while in the other it led up. Melanie
had walked off some fifty meters into the distance in the uphill
direction. She was looking away from us.

“Caelum?”

I looked at the hole in the ceiling. I could see
Simone’s bare foot wading in the air, looking for something to step
onto.

It was clear we could get down, but not back
up.

Melanie had said my sister was waiting for us. I
didn’t think Celica had entered the tunnel the way we did. That
meant there was clearly more than a couple of ways in.

Nonetheless, it was starting to feel like a one
way trip, and that made me uneasy.

Turning my attention back on Simone, I watched
her shapely body descend through the opening. Then she lost her
grip on the edge of the trapdoor and I had to rush to catch
her.

I thought my knees were going to break as my
legs bent sharply under the weight of her landing. But I’d broken
her awkward fall by catching her in my arms.

In fact, I now held her Princess style.

The terror on her face faded slowly. She
swallowed and said, “Thank you.”

I tried to sound cool, but my voice came out
strained. “Don’t—don’t mention it.”

“You…you really did catch me.”

I gave her a shallow nod. “I told you I would.”
I put her down gently and spared her bare feet a look. “Your
shoes?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t carry them with
me. Besides, I don’t think they’d do me much good here.” She looked
around at the tunnel we were standing in. “Which way?”

I pointed in the direction where the tunnel
slanted downward. “That way feels like it goes down. My guess is
this Vault thing is buried deep, so I’d say we should try going
deeper.”

The Countess gave me an odd look. “And how do we
get out?”

I pointed the other way, in the direction
Melanie was standing. “Uphill sounds as good as any.”

“You think we’ll get the chance to go that
way?”

I inhaled slowly. I sounded more confident than
I felt. “Yeah. I am.”

At sight of Melanie jogging back toward us, I
took hold of Simone’s right hand in my left and gently pulled her
along. “Let’s keep going.”

She pulled me to a stop with that Aventis
strength of hers. “Caelum, wait.”

I faced her. “What is it—?”

Whap!

Her left hand delivered a slap that could only
be described as brain jarring.

I almost landed on my backside, but the Countess
grabbed my arm and kept me upright.

Clutching at my wounded face – I was certain I
could taste blood – I gave her an incredulous look.

Then I noticed she was beet red.

She inhaled loudly and declared, “That’s—that’s
for grabbing
them
without permission.”

She sounded angry and embarrassed.

My thoughts began to process with some degree of
clarity. Then I squared my shoulders and growled, “What the Hell
was I expected to do?”

“Huh?”

“I had to protect them. There was no other way
for me to do that.”

“But you grabbed them!”

“Of course I grabbed them. And I was fully
prepared to put my strength into keeping them on your chest and not
your knees.”

She looked caught between gratitude, shame, and
feeling violated.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why are you so
angry? Weren’t you the one playing around with me in the storage
room?”

“That was innocent fun.”

“Innocent? Do you have any idea the strain you
put me under? I thought my heart was going to give out on me. Doing
up the buttons of your blouse was like running through a mine
field.”

I saw the hint of a grin on her lips. When I
narrowed my eyes further, she quickly wiped it off her face.

She averted her eyes, and complained, “You—you
looked like you enjoyed holding them.”

“Actually, I didn’t have the luxury to enjoy
them.”

She inhaled a lungful of air. “Still, I can’t
forgive you for grabbing them.”

“Nonetheless I’d do it again if it meant saving
them.”

She gave me a distraught look. “You would go
that far…for my breasts?”

I nodded resolutely. “Yes.”

Now she began to despair. “So that’s…that’s all
I am to you? A pair of large breasts?”

“Don’t be stupid, Simone.”

My harsh tone made her blink and her eyes
widen.

I pressed on firmly, but eased up on my tone.
“Saving them is one thing. Saving you is another. Don’t ever
confuse the two.”

Her eyes widened a little more. “Wh—what do you
mean?”

I stared at her for a long moment. Then used the
strength gained from months of training.

I pulled her close and before she could react, I
softly kissed her lips.

After a moment she responded, and I kissed her
for a few seconds more before drawing back.

I looked into her eyes and said, “That’s what I
mean.”

Ah—what the Hell did I just do?

I must be losing my mind. This is so going to
mess up my relationship with Caprice and Haruka.

Thinking of Haruka brought an ache to my
chest.

To Hell with Haruka. She made her choice. Now I
was making mine.

But now I was stuck between my feelings for
Caprice and the realization that I liked Simone, and not just her
enormous, perfectly shaped bosom.

I liked Simone Alucard Raynar, the beautiful,
willful girl standing before me.

My heart was pounding so hard I was certain she
could hear it as clearly as I could.

Nonetheless, I didn’t have the time to indulge
in the moment.

Melanie arrived at a run and pushed the both of
us down the tunnel. “Quit the lover’s spat and start moving. We’ve
got company and you need to get to your sister ASAP!”

I looked behind Melanie in the direction where
the tunnel inclined a few degrees. A heartbeat later I felt a vague
vibration under my feet, then heard a deep rumble that grew louder
by the moment. Blue-white pinpricks of light shone brightly in the
distance. They were tiny but growing swiftly.

Melanie was right – vehicles were on their way,
probably heavily armored personnel carriers.

I cursed softly under my breath and Melanie
began hurrying us along in earnest.

“Come on, come on,” she repeated as she pushed
at us.