Alaric IV

So this was true augmented reality? I touched one of the windows, feeling nothing but air, and it opened. The best way I could describe it was like a holo HUD, displayed in my vision. Dozens of apps were laid out for me, ranging from bank and credit union accounts to messaging services, to entertainment. It was like I had a portable computer with me, better and more flexible than any laptop.

"Linkers are connected to the Oracle System," Mireille explained. "You could say Oracle is the system that runs our society. Or the backbone of our it. That's why they're so hard to procure. Counterfeiting a linker and having it link to the Oracle System is nearly impossible. The few talented criminals that can do it charge top dollar."

"What, are you rich?"

"Yes, we are. Richer than you can imagine. Our holdings and revenue sources are extremely diverse. They have to be, given our nature as strixes."

"What does that mean?"

"According to the Leviathan Charter, we strixes aren't allowed to exist. We're a danger to humans and the other infected. Part of Sword's mission is to exterminate us. Money and influence are our best weapon against them."

"What do you mean by other strains?"

"We strixes are the very first mutation caused by the Leviathan. I told you, Leviathan has made contact with humanity four times since we first arrived on Artemis. We are the Alpha Strain. Celestials are the Beta Strain. Lycans are the Gamma Strain and Titans are the Delta strain. Though Titans are the newest, their mutation has been around for over three hundred years."

I wanted to know about the other strains, and more about what I was, a strix, but there was a more important question. Touching my thumb and pointer finger to my linker at once, it disconnected from Oracle and shut off.

"I still don't understand. You claim I'm a progenitor, and I've been alive for seven hundred years, two hundred of which was spent out of cryo, but I don't remember any of that." It was a lot easier to believe I had been isekaied than believing I had just forgotten most of my life.

"You were ambushed by another progenitor and their knights. We're not sure who yet, but we'll figure that out," Mireille promised. There was an intensity in that vow that made me think she would. "They brought a titan with them. Unlike the other strains, titans are a wild mutation. Strixes, celestials, and lycans are similar to humans in that vein. They are predictable, all born or created with the same biology, so to speak. The delta strain is constantly in flux, and two different leviathans could end up wildly different.

"If we strixes get our fangs into a victim's neck, we can influence their mind. Depending on how strong the strix is in comparison to the victim, we can even read their mind. The titan they brought with them had a similar power, only a lot stronger. While Damien was fighting, the titan ambushed him. That titan had the power to suppress memories. From the last thing you can remember, to when you woke up, all those memories have been suppressed. You're the same person you were before you left Earth."

So that was it? Whoever I had been was just suppressed. Their memories were locked away, leaving the person they were before. "You called me Damien. My name is Alaric."

"You haven't been Alaric since you were human. Genivra did not like the name Alaric, so she renamed you Julius. You choose the name Damien after you became a progenitor."

"Genivra renamed me?" I repeated, the indignity of those words burning hot through me. "I'm perfectly happy with the name Alaric."

"That may be, but as a knight, you would have done whatever it took to please her."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Mireille sighed. "It might be better to let someone else explain. I could call one of the researchers-"

"No, you explain."

"When a human transitions into a strix, they undergo a series of changes. First is the pain. It feels like fire is ripping through your body as if you're being burned alive. Mercifully, that part is short. Humans fall into a coma shortly after the process begins. In this coma, our bodies are psychically being altered. They are changed and rebuilt until the body is no longer human. And then the new knight awakens.

"That's what happens physically, but the change isn't limited to the body. The process alters the brain as well. It changes the chemistry of the brain, it rewrites it. Humans with brain damage or brain chemical imbalance are often cured as a result, but they don't remain the same person. Their brain chemistry is rewritten to make them fall in love with their progenitor."

"... Wait. So then you love me?"

Mireille nodded firmly. "I love you more than you can comprehend, Alaric. I love you more than anything else in the world. I would do anything you asked of me, no matter what it was."

Her eyes told me everything I needed to hear: she wasn't kidding. She was completely serious. There was a manic look in her eyes, a kind of insanity lurking below the surface. An all-consuming devotion that just wasn't natural. Mireille might call it love, but I likened it to a cult leader and his followers.

The intensity disappeared and Mireille smiled. I could almost believe I had imagined it.

"So... What. You were biologically reprogrammed to love me?"

"To love you. To serve and protect you. You are the center of our existence, Alaric. The single most important thing."

"That's crazy."

"Not at all."

Was she insane? "Think about what you're saying. How am I more important than you? You should be the most important thing in your life."

"I could never be that selfish."

Selfish? Is that what she called common sense?

"What about your own hopes and dreams? You were a human before I changed you, weren't you?"

Mireille nodded. "Yes. I was an accountant for one of the biggest corporations of the twenty-fifth century. It was called Martel Holdings and it is still around today, but it is no longer the Juggernaut it once was. When I was human, only one other corporation rivaled it, but now dozens rival it. Some have surpassed it, though it is still very large and influential.

"When I was human, the only thing I was concerned about was making money. Though I was a lowly accountant, I had aspirations of raising to the position of CEO. I wanted the wealth and power such a position would bring me."

"You don't want that anymore?"

"No. Why would I? I have everything I want in front of me."

"Are you listening to yourself? Can't you understand what you're saying?"

"Alaric, before I met you, my life was hollow. A moonless, starless night with not even the smallest of lights. I abandoned my parents and my siblings and I ignored them when they came to speak with me. I was focused on making many and climbing the ladder. I was born into poverty and I wanted nothing make than to make sure I would never be poor again."

That part sounded reasonable, at least. I couldn't imagine pushing my family out of my life like that, but the desperate need to escape poverty? I was never poor, but I understood the burning need. I would have done anything to cure my disease. Maybe I would even go so far as to push my family out of my life.

"Then you appeared in my life. I admit, at first, I hated you. I saw you as a playboy, born into the same privilege that I hated. Then you turned me and my world changed forever. You're the moon in my night sky. You've even given me stars, other points of beauty and light, but you remain at the center of my gravity."

That sounded corny, but the way she said it, with absolute sincerity... That was frightening. She admitted that she used to hate me, yet when I turned her that hatred turned to love. How could she not see anything wrong with that?

"How did we meet?" I asked, fishing for more information.

"You had been freed of Genivra, and you inherited a large piece of her accumulated fortune. I worked at a bank that Martel Holdings owned. You can in to move your credits into new accounts. My manager picked me to work with you, because of my beauty. He wanted to wow you, so he sent me."

She seemed like she was perfectly content with the way her life was going. Maybe she described it as a starless sky, but that was the Mireille of now, the Mireille who had her mind rewritten to become a knight. Would the old Mireille think of her life the same way? Could she be trusted to objectively assess her situation?

"How did I change you?"

"You saved my life," Mireille said softly. "I had been attacked by a lycan. At the time, we lived on West Artemis and I was on a part of the freeway that was isolated in the wilderness. They overturned my car and almost killed me. Not all lycans are so violent, but this pack was. I would have died of my wounds if it wasn't for you. Your blood repaired my broken body."

And altered your mind I thought. Was there any point in speaking to her like this when she was so... Gone? I didn't even know if that was the right word.

"Can we come in yet, Mireille?" an impatient voice asked from the other side of the wall.

My knight sighed. "Alaric?"

"Uh... Yeah?"

"Can they come in? They're your knights."

I had made more people like Mireille? I wondered how many of them I had turned. "Sure."

The door was flung open and a girl with copper-colored skin walked through. She was wearing a blue hoodie and blue jeans, and she was more muscled than any other girl I had ever seen. Outside of women bodybuilders, that was. She leaned against the door frame. She was every bit as attractive as Mireille, though she was in her late teens.

She was smiling at me. She appeared to completely ignore Mireille in favor of me as if I was the most important person in the room. If what Mireille told me applied to all of them, I suppose I WAS the most important person to her. "Damien! You're awake. Thank God."

"Alaric," Mireille corrected her in a whisper.

"Right. Alaric. I'm Kaya, your newest knight and you're most important."

Nanase pushed Kaya out of the way as she came in. "Don't go telling him lies." Now that she was in the same room as Kaya and Mireille, I noticed that she was also extremely attractive.

"Please be quiet. I'm still healing," a new voice said. She was Asian like Nanase, but she was older. Maybe her mid-twenties? She had long legs, her hair was darker than Nanase's, and she was carrying a guitar on her back. She looked like she was a female rock star that had just come off the stage. She was every bit as good-looking as the three girls that stood next to her.

"What? No guys?"

"You only have female knights, Alaric."

"Only girls? All my knights are girls?"

"Yes."

"I don't have any boy knights at all? Is there any reason for that?"

Maybe Damien wanted to surround himself with beautiful women. His own personal, little harem who had their brain chemistry rewritten to love him. Had I turned into that kind of a scumbag?

"Progenitors can only change humans of the opposite sex to themselves. You were born male, with XY chromosomes. You can only turn females, with XX chromosomes. We don't understand why, but our researchers believe it might have something to do with mating and offspring, though since we do not age unless we want to, this would seem out of place."

Or it was biology. Maybe I shouldn't judge Damien too harshly. Even if he did turn these four girls into his personal worshipers.

"No need to be so clinical about it," Nanase said. "Maybe we still have the baby-making instinct, even if two strixes can't make a baby. Right, Yayoi?"

She elbowed the older Asian girl. Yayoi didn't say anything.

"Oh, right. You wouldn't know that. She likes it when you take a female shape. Yayoi was a lesbian when you changed her. It's not like you aren't attracted to her when you're a man like this, but she prefers the female form."

Yayoi didn't say anything, but she blushed. Then she hit Nanase on the back of the head. "Rude."

"Hey. It's the truth."

Kaya laughed. Mireille pinched her nose.

"What do you mean by taking female shape exactly."

Nanase rubbed the back of her head. "Oh. Right. I guess you wouldn't remember? How much about us do you know?"

"Not... Much," I admitted. Only what Mireille just told me.

"Well, we strixes don't age. Or I should say, we don't have to age if we don't want to. I could stop my aging right now and look like this for the next two hundred years. Any of us could. If we want to blend into human society, however, not aging would be a dead giveaway. Time won't kill us, only decapitation can do that for us knights. We can age like normal humans, or we can increase or decrease how fast we age. We can even age backward, all the way to a baby if we wanted to. Our bodies are pretty moldable in that regard.

"As a progenitor, your body is even more moldable. All you need to do is suck enough blood of a human and you can take their shape. Male, female, and everything in between. Yayoi loves you as much as the rest of us, so she won't deny you no matter what shape you're in, but she prefers the feminine kind."

"Oh. I see." What else was there to say? What else could I say?

"I think we should get back on topic," Mireille said, directing the conversation toward her. I was thankful for it. "We were coming back to have a meeting, but when Nanase said you woke up, we postponed it. I'd like to get back to it, if you don't mind, Alaric?"

I shook my head. Mind? What could I mind?

"We found the titan that suppressed your memories and subdued him. He's a soldier for hire, so to speak, but he was paid so well that he refused to undo what he has done do you, Alaric."

"So what? We going to make him undo it?" Kaya asked, thrusting her fist into her open palm.

"How would you do that?" I asked.

"Torture."

Torture? Did she just say torture?

"No, Kaya. Right now we put him in cryo. He's down below in the cryo chamber, being hocked up. We will take him out, but there are still some things I want to investigate before we risk his life under your torture."

Kaya rolled her eyes but let it go.

Was she a torturer? She didn't look like one. Then again, what did a torturer look like?

"And we still have Venus Academy to think about. Yayoi and I have enrolled as professors, and you three have still been enrolled as students. Perhaps it would be best if Alaric remains here."

"Wait, hold on, what? School? You're going to a school?"

"Yes. That's why Nanase and Kaya have aged themselves down to teenagers. So that they may attend Venus Academy as students."

"I want to go," I said suddenly. My whole life was spent in and out of that bloody hospital. How many times had I wished to be cured? How many times did I wish I could go back in time and do it all over again? I wished to be isekaied so many times I couldn't hope to count them all. A second chance at having a real life was all I wanted for so long.

Now a golden opportunity landed in my lap. I had a strong body, and to top it all off I was wealthy. Maybe even more wealthy than my family had been the first time around.

Could I ignore everything I learned about knights? What did another version of myself do to Mireille, Nanase, Kaya, and Yayoi? No, not entirely, but what could I do about it? I didn't even know if what had been done to them was reversible.

Yet this was still a second chance to do it all over again. A second chance to have a real life. No, I wasn't going to waste it.

Mireille hesitated. "Are you... Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. What kind of school is Venus Academy?"

"It's a private school. The best school in Neptune. It's a middle school and a high school."

"So like a British secondary school?"

"Yes. That is an apt comparison. You will be attending as a Sixth Former, or a high school junior. We have transcripts and everything else prepared... But I'm not sure if it's a good idea, Alaric?"

"Why not?"

"You are in a state of flux. We don't know how this titans power might affect you. You might snap back to normal tomorrow. Or the next day. It's a gamble-"

"That I'm willing to take," I cut in. I looked around the room, meeting each of their eyes. I was the one stuck in this situation, not them, so it was up to me to make the most of it. "I'm going to go. That's fine."

Kaya laughed and threw her arm over my should. "My real name is Kaya Ansong, but I'm going to be attending as Kaya Lightwood. Your adopted sister. The same goes for Nanase over there. This is pretty exciting. I've always wanted to know what you were like when you were human."

***

If you would like to support me, you can do so on pa tre on. It would mean a lot, but no pressure.

https://www. pa tre on .com/RWForsyth

If you'd like to keep up with my random thoughts or writings, it would be twitter. I'll try to be more active and post.

twitter.com/R_W_Forsyth