Read PHANTASIA for Free Online Page B

after she had finished. “Well… this field test, to be honest I’m not a hundred percent sure about how I’ll perform, and if I don’t make it to WEAPON, I still won’t give up, I’ll find my own way, but I think we all know how you’re going to do, and how your overall profile looks anyways…and… ”  
    “No, Red —”  
    “I haven’t finished yet.”  
      “I already gave you my answer. If you go to WEAPON, I’ll go to WEAPON. If you join the Echidna Guard, I’ll join the Echidna Guard. I’m going wherever you’re going.”  
    “Raven, we can’t stick around each other forever.”  
    “You fight recklessly, you’re not as experienced as you think, and your optimism will change the moment you see a Xenosite up front. Without me, you’re as good as dead, and I’m not letting you die, at least not by yourself.” She slowly got up to leave, refusing to argue any further. “If you dig yourself an early grave, I’ll dig myself an early grave. You need 475 points to qualify, I already checked. Let’s go downstairs and fuel the bikes, we should have as smooth of a start as possible. Solstice is in four hours,” she added after checking her microAI.    
    Red sighed in exasperation, unsure of what else to say. They had this conversation before, and he was always frustrated at the thought of holding her back. But unlike him, she seemed to have no true ambition for combat, or getting into something like WEAPON for that matter. It was just something she was gifted with. “We’re grown up you know,” he yelled after her. “We’re not poor little orphans anymore Raven.”  
    The comment caught her by surprise, and she turned to look back at him, then looked down hesitantly, contemplating something in her head. She stepped forward, as if she wanted to walk back to him, then changed her mind and began to walk away again. The paradox in gestures made Red feel as though a lifetime’s worth of debate had just occurred in her head.
    “Look at your gear Red, and look at mine. We’re still poor, and we’ll always be orphans. We’re just not little anymore.”  
    Her response left him with an odd feeling of longing for the past, but not one he could remember happily. Maybe it wasn’t even the past that he longed for he thought to himself, but of the vague impression it had of a limitless future. There was no doubt that he liked where he was better than where he had been — but time had robbed his imagination of its wonder.  
      He got up to follow her to their bikes all the way at the ground floor. The elevator ride alone took several minutes. They made a list of last-minute preparations to be done, which he gladly took his time finishing. The routine acts of cleaning, refueling, and checking their equipment cooled him to a steady excitement. His favorite part of preparation was always getting the hover bikes ready. Their curve-linear shapes made them look like glowing bullets from afar — human projectiles capable of relentless velocities with their elliptical, friction resistant designs. He always imagined that speed was a symbol of humanity’s conquest over time, a way for people to breach the limits that nature had set for accomplishing things in space. In a few hours, they would be blasting across the desert with a mix of Cron and adrenaline. All his worries would become subordinate to that instinctual need to survive during combat, to the rush of energy that overcame his senses when he cast fire, and to the discipline he would have to exercise to outlive seven nights in a punishing environment.      
    By the time Magnus, S, and Butz were on the ground floor to meet them, Red and Raven were both asleep on top of their bikes. Magnus shoved him gently until he awoke, but he was startled nonetheless. Looking around, he saw the determined looks on Butz’s and Magnus’s faces, the disillusioned look on Raven’s as she awoke, the serious look on S’, and the apprehensive look on