Gun Princess Royale - Book Two - The Measure of a Princess

Chapter 1 - Part I

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The sound of the ocean waves, the wet chill in the air, and the storm enveloping it all was absent, replaced by a quiet stillness and dry warmth.

It didn’t take much reasoning to understand this wasn’t the island of the Proving Grounds.

A golden-brown desert stretched out before us in all directions, replacing the grey wet scenery of the island. The ground underfoot wasn’t permacrete but a hard yellow-orange rock, and the sky was blanketed by cast iron clouds that looked ready to deliver a deluge, yet the air was as dry as the thin layer of sand canvassing the terrain. In the distance, thirty degrees or so above the horizon, burned the red orb of the sun, but whether it was sunrise or sunset was difficult to tell until I realized I was facing west. This was because I could sense a faint pulling sensation in one particular direction, and quickly realized it was magnetic north.

Two hundred feet to the east stood an enormous building – actually two buildings – that towered over the rocky terrain. They were buildings I recognized and felt I knew quite well since they resembled the school I had attended these past three years. Now that school, undoubtedly a copy, rose before me amidst an arid, desolate setting.

Perhaps because of the surreal portrait it and its surrounding painted, I found myself descending into an incongruous state of tranquil introspection.

There is an order to the world.

Even chaos viewed from a distance can appear beautiful and regular.

As the warm breeze blew strands of blonde hair across my face, I chose to face the chaos surrounding me and bring it into a semblance of order by seeking to understand it. To do so I needed answers and the source of those answers sat on the desert ground at my feet.

Unfortunately, I found the first of those answers confusing.

The gusting wind blew particles of sand into my eyes that I squinted and blinked against, hampering my efforts to frown down at Clarisol, befuddled as I was by her reply.

“This…is a game?”

The wind waned for a few seconds, and the girl sitting on the desert ground brushed aside the locks of dark blonde hair that had strayed across her face. “Yes, to her this is a game. But to us it’s an opportunity to see what you are capable of. In other words, it’s very much a trial.”

My frown deepened. “How can you not know this body’s abilities?”

“Because until now, Mirai has been sleeping her days away both in and out of a maturation tank.”

“But you created this body. Didn’t you design it to meet certain specifications.”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” Clarisol questioned. “Let me ask you something. Do you know how tall or large a child will grow up to be just by looking at it? Do you know if it will be smart or stupid? Do you know if it will be healthy or diseased?”

“No. But you can make an educated guess by taking its parents into account.”

“Mirai doesn’t have parents. Although her body shares its genetics with a human donor, we can only guesstimate her physical abilities. We don’t know how strong, fast, agile, healthy, or resilient Mirai will be. We have rough estimates on your abilities, but you are essentially an unknown quantity.”

She made an attempt to rise to her feet but stopped when I shook my head at her. Sitting back down, she exhaled a heavy sigh.

“My family spent years working to create better Simulacra, but it took someone from this side, from your reality, to achieve what we couldn’t. Of course, there were dozens of failures before we eventually succeeded with you. However, you are untested. We have no idea whether you will survive or die prematurely like the other failed attempts. That said, you could very well exceed all my family’s expectations.”

Die prematurely?

“That isn’t entirely reassuring,” I told her.

“No, I imagine it’s not.” She sighed and reached up to tie her hair into a taut ponytail. “But if it’s any consolation, Mirai’s body has shown no signs of abnormal cellular degradation. That is, she regenerates normally and the cellular protoplasm is stable.”

“But you don’t know if I’ll die unexpectedly.”

Clarisol shook her head weakly, and her shoulders slumped. “No, I don’t.” She studied me quickly from head to toes. “But I highly doubt it.”

“So what happens to me if this body dies?”

A look of disappointment settled upon Clarisol’s attractive face. “Then we’re back to square one.”

I pointed at my head. “What about me?”

She finished tying up her hair into the ponytail. “We have to make another copy of you to imprint into the next incarnation of Mirai. Hopefully, the next version won’t be so difficult to wake up.”

Without the need to turn and look at them, I sensed my travelling companions stir as they roused from the forced slumber. When I reached up with my right hand over my shoulder, the mechanical holster attached to my jacket over my right shoulder blade hummed ever so faintly and extended upwards. It swung the railgun over my shoulder, delivering the weapon to my waiting hand. I didn’t know how the mechanical holster responded to my conscious desire for the firearm, but I found it handy as this made it easier for me to grab the railgun that I recognized as a Viper Vanquish. While I lacked intimate knowledge of the railgun’s design, I knew of its capabilities and how to operate it, and assumed that this information had been imprinted into Mirai’s mind as I’d never seen or used such a weapon in my previous life.

Flicking down the safety switch situated on the curved stock of the firearm, I listened to a voice in my head – undoubtedly from the railgun’s Assisting Intelligence – report it was ready, and then I aimed the Viper down at Clarisol.

The young woman grew rigid, her attention on the weapon pointed at her.

I cleared my throat quickly. “So if this body dies, then my consciousness dies with it.”

Clarisol’s gazed flickered upwards and met mine. “Correct.”

For a while, possessing Mirai’s abnormally strong body had imbued me with a sense of confidence and power that helped me adjust to my present predicament. Yes, I was now a girl, but I wasn’t just any girl. I was a very strong girl, and knowing this had allowed me to face Clarisol with poise that was uncharacteristic of me. But the more I listened to the young woman, the more my confidence eroded away as I understood that very little had changed and I was still dancing on someone’s palm.

Clarisol’s attention alternated between my face and the railgun’s muzzle. “Are you planning to shoot?”

“Honestly, I haven’t decided. You put me through Hell, but oddly I’m feeling generous.”

She rearranged herself on the ground, tucking in her knees and wrapping her arms around them. “Does that mean you’re willing to listen?”

I nodded faintly down at her while in my peripheral vision I watched Tobias, and the three girls slowly sit up. I could faintly see the surprise on their faces as they realized they weren’t on the island anymore. The sight of the school buildings rising up from the desert like a derelict ship run aground caused them to panic and scramble to their feet. But it wasn’t long before they noticed me holding a gun on Clarisol, and quite abruptly their attention was now on me.

Reaching up with my left hand I waited no more than a couple of heartbeats for the left mechanical holster to swung the second railgun over my shoulder, and I took hold of the weapon’s grip. Thumbing down the safety, I heard the railgun report its ready status, yet I kept the firearm at my side and pointed down. For now, I wanted Tobias and the girls to see that I was armed, but I refrained from aiming the second Viper Vanquish at any of them.

“I’m listening,” I told Clarisol. “From what you’ve told me this is a trial for me. But you said it was a game for her.” I paused as Clarisol nodded shallowly. “So who is she?”

The young woman squinted as the wind blew sand across her face. I had to narrow my eyes as well, but it didn’t distract me from maintaining the railgun aimed at her.

“Has my brother told you about what my universe is like?” she asked.

“He told me a little. About the Noble Houses and the Empire. He said humanity on your side is ruled by an Empress from the House Aventisse.”

Again, Clarisol nodded shallowly. “My family kept Project Mirai a secret. It was what people on your side call a super black project. Yet somehow the Empress learnt of Mirai and our success at creating a Simulacrum like none other. We’re still trying to determine how that happened, but the fallout was that she demanded we hand Mirai and all the data on her development over to the Imperial Family.”

“And your family refused?”

“Naturally. My family threatened to destroy it all rather than hand it over. She then threatened us with banishment from the Imperial Court. However, despite losing our long standing ranking of Alus and being demoted to Elsis, House Novis is not without its supporters and they would have demanded an explanation—a reason for our exile—that could have undermined her fragile grip on the Empire, thereby complicating matters for her at a time when she needs all the support she can muster in order to keep the Empire at peace.”

“So what happened?” I asked, beginning to feel genuinely intrigued. Hearing about life in other universe from Tobias and Clarisol was like reading about a fantasy world become real, though unfortunately it seemed my participation was of key importance.

Clarisol brushed a hand over her eyes to clear away the sand that was bothering her. “The Empress proposed a compromise.”

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“And that was?”

“An assurance that we would not employ Mirai or any of the Simulacra that we produced against her rule.”

I inhaled softly in surprise.

“In exchange,” Clarisol continued, “House Novis would refrain from mass production, limiting the numbers produced to individual situations and circumstances as approved by House Aventisse.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that Simulacra like Mirai can only be produced to cater for very specific needs. And those needs cannot run counter to the Imperial Family’s decrees. In other words, you as Mirai cannot raise your hand against House Aventisse and the Empress’s rule. For that matter, House Novis is prohibited from employing you against the Empress.”

By her own account, Clarisol was painting an unexpected picture of the circumstances surrounding Mirai’s existence, one that I was able to follow though I found it unsettling and surprising, and the implication was so clear that it elicited a deep shiver that made the railgun tremble slightly in my hand.

“Why am I so important that an Empress would take an interest in me?”

“Because you possess the Angel Fibers,” Clarisol replied with the merest hesitation. “And that is what makes you an unknown quantity.”

“The Angel Fibers?”

“Let’s just say that they are something we don’t fully understand, but have already seen the benefit of.” She raised a hand smoothly. “Before you ask what they are, I can’t tell you because I don’t know. If you want an answer you’ll need to speak to the head of House Novis here in this universe, or ask the one who created you.”

“And who would that be?”

Clarisol’s lips curled into a smile that was both enigmatic and menacing. “Your sister, Doctor Erina Kassius.”

I almost dropped the railguns as shock ran through me. Time seemed to suspend around me as my mind simply stopped thinking. I only recovered when I realized that I needed to breathe and that must have been a while later as I noticed that Clarisol was on her feet, peering at me intently, and Tobias and the girls were staring at me with mixed expressions.

I swallowed, finding my throat had dried, and returned the looks I was receiving.

“What…?”

Clarisol’s eyebrows furrowed and a look of unease crossed her face before she asked, “Are you all right?”

“Of course I am.”

“Well, you stopped responding to us…and I have to admit that was rather worrying.”

Frowning back at her, I asked, “For how long?”

“A couple of minutes. At least.”

I glanced at Tobias who nodded subtly in agreement.

Feeling I was losing my grip on the situation, and unhappy with the familiarity she was expressing toward me, I kicked out at Clarisol with my left foot, striking her midriff and knocking her back a dozen feet. She landed on her back, and the next moment she clutched her belly as though she’d been shot.

“What—what is wrong with you?” she grated out between sharp gasps for air.

Ignoring the shocked reactions of Tobias and the girls, I strode up to her and aimed the right railgun at Clarisol’s forehead as she sat on the ground. “I didn’t tell you to get up.”

“Mirai?”

Tobias sounded wary and for heartbeat it pained me a little, but I refused to be distracted. However, I did shift my position and then target the left railgun in the general direction of Anri Shirohime, Felicia Anjeur, and Angela Letrois. “On your knees—all of you.”

Foolishly they refused to move, even going so far to glance at each other first. A flash of anger burned through me, and I depressed the railgun’s trigger.

A soft boom emanated from the weapon’s barrel when it fired, sending a shot rocketing between Shirohime and Felicia’s heads. From my vantage point the gap was less than two feet, so while I wasn’t threading the needle so to speak, there wasn’t that much margin for error. There was also the fact that I had never fired these railguns before, so I wasn’t prepared for the recoil that twisted my body, knocking it back a couple of inches. Both girls spun toward each other as though their heads had been pulled along behind the passage of the bullet. I realized later it was because the hypersonic round had created a vacuum behind it, and thereby tugged at the flesh on their faces as it raced by.

Having turned fully away from me, I had to wait for them to turn back before reading their shocked reactions, but it wasn’t long before they dropped to their knees and that included a very worried Angela.

“Hands on your heads. Now!”

I didn’t have to tell them twice or fire another warning shot. They complied wordlessly.

I aimed the weapon at Shirohime. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did to me.”

The beauty with snow white hair remained silent though she met my eyes with a calm that annoyed me.

Tobias had been watching me with convoluted emotions contorting his face as though he was enduring great pressure from within. “Cass?”

I threw him a taut glance. “That’s right, Mat. I’m Cass stuck inside Mirai’s body. Surprise, surprise. Ha ha ha. Everybody clap and pat yourselves on the shoulder for a job well frekking done!” Turning in the blink of an eye, I pushed Clarisol back down to the ground by stepping on her midriff with my left foot and resumed aiming the railgun in my right hand at her head.

“And I haven’t forgotten what you did to me,” I told her. “Not a single frekking thing, you degenerate bitch.”

With my foot planted on her, Clarisol struggled to breathe. She took a risk by grabbing onto my left foot, but her efforts to remove it from atop her were laughable. Mirai’s strength was a dozen times more than what I was accustomed to, so I guessed she was at least six or seven times stronger than the young woman beneath me.

“Stop. Please.” She gasped loudly and her face began to darken and it wasn’t due to the sun descending past late afternoon in the overhead sky. “Please. We had to—!”

“Oh really? You had to torture me. You had to abuse me. You had to turn me into a girl. And you had to steal my first kiss.”

“You had to want the dream to end!” Clarisol expended the last of the air in her lungs to get the words out.

I grunted in anger, and removed my foot from her chest. “Why?”

I didn’t get an immediate answer as the young woman gulped large quantities of air for a long while before she recovered sufficiently to be able to reply.

“You wouldn’t…wake up…shock therapy didn’t work.” Clarisol rolled over on her side and coughed loudly for a handful of seconds. “So…she decided…to wake you up from the inside…had to get into your head—your mind.” Again she coughed, then rubbed her aching midriff. “Needed to make you…wake from the dream…or whatever it was you were experiencing.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “By she, I assume you mean my sister.”

The young woman nodded as she propped herself up an arm and looked up at me. “Yes. She was desperate to wake you up. It was her idea to subject you to psychological torture. She knew about your conscious and subconscious fear of turning into a girl. She had us use that against you. You were put into a Master Grade Simulacrum that was designed to reconfigure from male to female. The process was rushed, but it only had to last a day or so.”

“Why? Did she think I couldn’t handle it for longer?”

“Exactly.”

I turned my head and glared at Tobias. “Were you in on this?”

He shook his head firmly. “No. Never. I didn’t know, Cass. If I had known, I would never have gone along with it.”

I studied his reaction for a little while, trying to find the lie. I wanted to believe him, but I was unwilling to lower my guard. “If I ever learn you were lying to me—”

“I’m not lying to you. I may have held things back from you, but I have never lied to you.”

He met my hard glare with a strong confidence that had my guard waver, and I looked back down at Clarisol. “Fine. So now that I’m awake, what happens now? You said this was a trial for you to see what I can do. But you called it a game for her. Who did you mean by that—?”

I stopped and straightened quickly.

For a moment, just a heartbeat, Mirai’s ears had caught something in the wind – something distant and so familiar that it set her heart – now my heart – into a brisk pace as I held my breath and listened carefully at our surroundings.

I heard it again, and this time my stomach clenched.

Quickly I stepped back from Clarisol and swept my gaze over the surroundings and that included the desert to the west and the tall school buildings to east.

“Cass, what’s wrong—?”

“Quiet!” I snapped. “Everybody, shut up.”

For a long while I heard nothing but the sound of the wind whooshed past us, coming and going like ocean waves, and my stomach began to relax…until I heard it again.

I faced Clarisol in a hurry. “You said this was a game.”

Clarisol was watching me with a look that convinced me she knew exactly the kind of mess we were in. “Yes. It’s a game for her. To test herself against you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a new Simulacrum. The Empress held back from kicking House Novis out of the Imperial Court, but like I said, there were conditions. One of them was to have you inhabit Mirai’s body. To have you operate her.”

“Operate her? Why?”

“Because she took umbrage at your sister. You see, it was actually your sister who threatened to destroy all her research and to vanish deep into this universe where the Empress would never find her. She was willing to sacrifice everything in order to keep everything.” Clarisol smirked. “I guess it takes a woman to face off against another woman”—her expression darkened—“but she took a monumental risk with both her work, your life, and my family on the line.”

“My life?”

“That’s right. The Empress may have relented and compromised, but your sister pissed her off and so she had to pay compensation by putting her own brother’s life on the line. That meant sticking your consciousness into Mirai after the Empress forced her hand by having you translocated into Limbo where your body broke down and you almost died.”

I swallowed hard, feeling my chest constrict sharply at Clarisol’s revelation. But I had little time to ponder or ruminate over what she’d told me. What I heard in the wind was beginning to send shivers down my body. “Tell me about this game.”

Clarisol looked faintly surprised that I wasn’t asking more about my sister challenging the Empress. However, she recovered smoothly and sat up on the desert rock beneath her. “I don’t know all the details, but I know it’s a survival game. And it’s one more condition for allowing House Novis to keep Mirai and all the research data. To give her an entertaining show.”

“This is in addition to my competing in the Gun Princess Royale?”

She hesitated before nodding just once. “That’s right.”

I had my answer. Though it was what I’d expected, it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. But life is full of disappointments, and some are more dangerous than others.

“Get up,” I told her and when she refrained from moving, I growled at her, “I said get up.”

“You’re not going to kick me back down—?”

“Get up now, bitch.”

Clarisol swallowed visibly and I suspected she was nervous though she kept her expression remarkably composed. When she rose to her feet, I pointed at the Humvee lying on its rooftop about a hundred feet away. “Are there weapons inside?”

“That was the intention.”

I snorted loudly. “Then that means you know what this game involves. Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought them along”—I indicated Felicia and Angela—“or the extra guns.”

Clarisol regarded me silently for a short while. “I suspected it would be something along the lines of what you faced.” She threw the overturned Humvee a glance. “But I didn’t know if all of us would be translocated to this location. I certainly didn’t expect the Hummer to be dropped along with us. Honestly, I thought it would just be you and I who were tossed into the game.”

I refrained from looking about us, though my gaze did flicker to the school buildings a couple of hundred feet behind Clarisol. “Are we in my universe or yours?”

“Yours. Most definitely yours. Translocation can get us outside of the universe and into the Sea of Limbo, but the system cannot transport us between universes. In order to do that we need to use either a Sarcophagus or the Conduit that is anchored to my universe and yours. My guess, we’re on the other side of Teloria. Probably on the east coast of the second continent.”

I gave the sky a glance, noting the sun had yet to fall below the western horizon, lending credence to her assumption. It had been nightfall at the island of the Proving Grounds, yet here it was late afternoon on the cusp of early evening. That meant we were several hours to the west of Ar Telica.

Suddenly, the unnerving moaning I’d been hearing faintly carried by the wind was now heard by all. Clarisol stiffened without turning, but in the corner of my eyes, I saw the others look about anxiously.

Tobias practically gulped before worriedly asking, “Did you hear that?”

Clenching the handgrips of both railguns, I nodded almost to myself. “You’d better get ready because they’re coming.”

“Who’s coming?” Tobias asked hastily, startled when Felicia and Angela ran over to the fallen Humvee. “What’s going on here? Why are we here? Clarisol, what the frek is happening?”

The young woman sighed and gave him a contemptuous look. “Haven’t you been paying attention, brother dear?”

I rolled my shoulders and neck to limber them up as well, hoping to grow a little more comfortable in this new, stronger, and larger body. “Mat, you know that game I like to play?”

He faced me with visible fright. “Necropolis? The zombie game?”

I nodded at him. “Well, this is somebody’s idea of a live version of that game.”

He gulped again. “And we’re in it?”

“Bingo. Rich boy. We’re in it. Welcome to our very own zombie survival apocalypse.” I smiled and it came out grimmer than I’d intended to the effect that Tobias paled. “I think you and your sister need to have a little chat. I’ll give you two some alone time.”

I then started walking northeast toward the northern face of the circular school building.

“Cass, where are you going?” Tobias called out to me, sounding even more anxious than before.

“To find out where they’re coming from,” I replied over my right shoulder. “And I suggest you find yourself a gun. You’re going to need it. But don’t shoot Clarisol before I do.”

“Cass, I can’t shoot a gun. I suck at first person shooters.”

“In that case, Mat, it was nice knowing you. Don’t forget to thank Clarisol for the mess you’re in now.”

I picked up my pace, and it was a while before Tobias and Clarisol fell out of earshot. As a consequence, I got to listen to them argue quietly then loudly – and stupidly since it drew attention to them – before Tobias lost his temper and commenced strangling his sister until the girls hastily separated the two siblings.