Pride x Familiar Read Free Page B

my head and squeezed my eyes shut.
    “Why…why did it have to be her? Why Haruka?”
    Why the Hell was she chosen? Why was her body
compatible with the Symbiote? Why did the Prides take everything
and everyone that was dear to me?
    I hated them.
    I blamed them for my parents’ deaths.
    I blamed them for my sister’s death.
    Why did we Regulars have to be so subservient to
them?
    My fingers bent the wire fencing into an
unrecognizable tangle.
    I held onto it, and hung against it for a long
time. Even after the school bell sounded signaling the end to the
lunch break, I still hung onto the fence and refused to move.
    I had no intention of walking back to class.
    I would accept the detention this would garner
me, but I wasn’t in any state to sit through afternoon lessons.
    Around me, the school grounds quickly grew
quiet. I could hear the sounds of the habitat city, and I lost
myself in them.
    I wasn’t thinking anything at all when I heard
something land on the rooftop a few yards away. I turned in fright
and saw a bundle of limbs roll across the rooftop and come to a
crashing halt against the wall of the rooftop hut behind me.
    It took a moment for me to realize I was looking
at a girl, bloodied and beaten to a blue pulp. I could tell she was
a girl by her figure alone, though her face was covered by the
visor of the helmet she wore. She was dressed in the remains of a
bike suit, torn in places too numerous to quickly count. A weird
black mist surrounded her right arm and the long pole she held in
her hand. The mist faded and the pole vanished with it, leaving a
sudden chill in the air that I felt all the way to my bones.
    My heart jumped then began to beat loudly as my
mind questioned what I’d just witnessed.
    Was that a Fragment I’d seen fading back into
that other space? What did they call it, Pocket Space?
    I stared at the girl.
    If that was a Fragment, then she must be a—
    A second bundle of limbs crashed to the rooftop.
This bundle landed much better than the first, and I watched it
resolve itself into the slender body of a girl probably no older
than I was.
    She was wearing a uniform I didn’t
recognize.
    Actually, she was wearing the remains of a
uniform. I had a clear view of a lacy white bra showing through the
rents in her white blouse, and her skirt was sporting several
non-regulation slits that revealed smoothly toned thighs and—black
underwear?
    She stood up smoothly on legs that resembled
those of a mythical Valkyrie.
    Her hands and forearms were sheathed in black
gauntlets, each with a two foot long blade that ran over the top of
her hands.
    She wasn’t looking in my direction but at the
girl lying against the wall. When she took a step toward the girl,
the newcomer faltered and fell onto her hands and knees.
    “Damn—pushed past my limit.”
    Cold permeated the air, spreading thick and fast
over the rooftop. I shivered as that strange black mist enveloped
the girl’s arms and legs. When it faded, I saw she was wearing
school shoes and black stockings.
    Now I was certain I’d just seen a Fragment
disappear.
    What the Hell was going on here?
    Who the Hell are these girls?
    The girl wearing the remnants of a uniform
gained her feet and quickly walked over to the other girl by the
wall.
    She spoke in a flat, emotionless voice. “Now to
find out who you are….”
    She nudged the girl harshly, then reached for
the latter’s neck and chin, and removed the helmet. The girl in the
bike suit was clearly unconscious. Her eyes were open and heavily
lidded, but she wasn’t home .
    The uniformed girl stared at the comatose one
for a long while. I watched her press her lips into a thin line,
then reach into her skirt for something.
    I was surprised her skirt’s pockets were still
intact, which was more than could be said for the remains of the
palm-slate she pulled out. After staring at it for a moment she put
it back into her skirt’s pocket, then fished around the other
remaining pocket.
    I