The Venerate Order

by Troy Dukart

  “You will be talking with Dr. Swan. She is a psychologist and war professor. She will record what you saw and assist you with your stay here in Dhenfen’Ce until our investigation is over,” Captain Ghennon instructed; he put on sunglasses, turned around and left.

  As I turned around, I heard a woman say, “I felt the same way the first time I saw this view. You should see the sunset.”

  “Hmm, you must be the best at what you do to land an office like this,” I observed.

  “My name is Dr. Claire Swan. It’s nice to meet you Strafe,” she said as she shook my hand, “I try to work hard every day, but unfortunately this isn’t my office. The SkyGuard Commander requested we take you here, for protection.”

  Dr. Swan sat down on a couch, motioning me to do so as well.

  “Well, are you here to hear my story? Learn about where I’m from? Let me vent?” I estimated as I ran my fingers through my hair.

  She was wearing a bright white office shirt and skirt with a blue lining running down the left side of her outfit. She was young, in her mid-twenties and wore glasses with tied back green hair. Everyone has crazy colored eyes or hair here.

  With a smile on her face, she blinked once, and then looked in my eyes and said, “I guess our outfits don’t disguise us do they.”

  “If you would’ve worn something more macabre, that would’ve had me guessing.” I snapped my fingers.

  “Captain Ghennon wanted to make sure that to make sure you were in a secure location in order for us to gather the intelligence into what happened in this recent attack. Your name has also popped up on enemy communications as a person of interest, so we’re taking all the precautions we can,” Dr. Swan assured me as she touched my shoulder.

  “Well, why isn’t your military being deployed there? You all think that they had an electrical outage?” I remarked.

  She shook her head, “Strafe, we have no accounts of what happened, only a distress signal the town went dark. We need your help to identify who was behind this.”

  I told her my side of the story while it was digitally recorded. After I finished we decided to take a break. She left the room to discuss the findings and told me to stay put. I was exhausted, so I laid down on the couch with Brutus next to me. I fell fast asleep to the safety of my dreams.

  The funny thing about dreams is how they are manifestations of our mind. In a dream our mind is working and resting at the same time by creating experiences we vividly experience and then forget almost immediately. To me it always felt like the mind was clearing out the junk like a computer defragmenting itself.

  There was never a clear-cut distinction from what is real and what is not in a dream. Most importantly, nothing was forbidden and sometimes dreams aren’t just figments of our imagination. They can be a vessel for others to enter.

  Chapter 11/

  Roya

  Strafe

  I ‘awoke’ in my dream on an island, with rainbow colored water and green mountains.

  I was lying on a hill, facing the ocean. At first I thought it might’ve been home. The sun was setting, and it was beautiful. I could even smell roses in the wind. I blinked and I was transported onto the blue-sanded beach, almost a mile away from where I was before.

  I looked in the sky and back down and saw a boy standing in the water knee-deep. He was facing the sun and had something pink and shiny in his hand. He had a black shirt and shorts on. He reminded me of that person I saw on that battlefield before I slipped back to my reality. He seemed to notice me and turned around. His face was darkened by a hood and I couldn’t see him clearly.

  This place also looked a lot like the island my mom used to take me to when I was younger. The boy held up the shiny ball and looked into it, “Strafe, what do you think this is?”

  As I looked into the ball I noticed I was suddenly standing right next to him.

  “I don’t know, but it looks cool! Let’s show them!” I shouted, strangely in my kid voice.

  “I don’t want to, it’s mine! You’re just jealous!” the boy shrieked as he ran deeper into the ocean.

  “Wait for me! You’re not supposed to go that far!” I tried to stop him.

  Right before his head went under the water, he looked deep into my eyes, “The Senti are coming! Run Strafe!”

  He went under and I could see a large, blinding light underneath the water. It started to cover my entire view and then there was an explosion of pink light. A giant wave shot into the air and I started to fall backwards as I braced myself. I looked through my hands to see the inevitable blue crush and I saw the boy’s face. He looked like me when I was a kid. Time started to slow, and right before I was submerged, he whispered in my ear, “I’m scared Strafe. I don’t like this!”

  I woke out of my dream right as the water hit me, but I was soaked in sweat. Maybe that wave did hit me.

  +++

  I looked around, as I ran my hands down my face trying to take in my dream. Most of the time I don’t remember such vivid details, but this really stood out to me. That person in the hood, they were trying to tell me something. Brutus licked my cheek to comfort me.

  “Bad dream? Your doggie was pretty worried,” Dr. Swan asked.

  “I’m a wolf, not a doggie. That’s like calling a lion a kitty-cat,” Brutus mentioned.

  “Whoa! He talks?!” Dr. Swan stuttered as she almost fell out of her chair.

  “You’ve never seen a talking wolf before?” I joked as I petted Brutus, “Uhhh, so what’s new?”

  “We were able to confirm your story as a true account. What the Senti have done has been branded an act of war by the president as well as our allies. General Taleri Ganser has been sentenced to jail on account of her war crimes and should give us huge leverage for negotiations,” Dr. Swan explained.

  “Were you able to find out anything about this sword or where my friends are?” I asked.

  “I looked into it and found out some things. According to ancient lore, the sword you hold is called The God Blade, like your professor told you. It is over 10,000 years old! It has the potential to be the most powerful weapon in Eternia, but it can only be wielded by a person who doesn’t desire its power. This makes you a pretty big target. As for your friends, we have no idea. I’m sorry Strafe,” Dr. Swan told me.

  As she was talking to me, I couldn’t help but notice dark clouds approaching the city. I turned toward the window and walked toward it. I tapped the glass with my finger and said, “Do y’all have a pollution problem?”

  “That isn’t what you think it is,” Dr. Swan said, she got up and walked up next to me, “We need to get everyone out of here!”

  He told me to run, they’re coming. On cue, the clouds had started to dissipate. It was hard to make out what it was. I could see flashes of lightning around the clouds, and a hulking sky-ship pushing through the mist.

  As the sky-ship got closer, I could see the crystal dome tighten around the city. It was made as a missile deterrent and was as strong as diamonds. I could see the hexagon platelets emerge and stack on top of each other until the entire city was covered. The platelets were see-through on our side but were solid blue on the outside.

  “You know something I don’t here Doc?” I asked as she was gathering her materials.

  “No, what I don’t understand is how that got through our radar,” Dr. Swan replied.

  “They must have somebody on the inside!” I urged.

  “Or they developed new technology,” Dr. Swan pointed out.

  There were many smaller aircraft flying accompanying it. Dr. Swan ran to the sofa and grabbed a case. She unpacked it and opened her hand to me.

  “A gift from Captain Ghennon, a new telecrom,” she said; it was military grade.

  “Why are you giving this to me? I’m not a soldier, I’m just a pilot,” I asked her.

  She looked out the windows and folded her arms,

  “If the legends are true, you are much more than just a pilot. The God Blade you carry is what they are dr
awn to. They desire to bring out its full potential. It has the ability to find more Guardian Keys, which is what they are after,” Dr. Swan motioned me to follow her.

  We looked back at the warship and saw it was opening its undercarriage door beneath the fuselage. There was a huge laser emerging. It charged up and shot out a bright white laser that hit the dome around the city. A huge crack formed and there was also a violent aftershock that shot across the Metropolis that shook the buildings. The glass windows surrounding the room started to crack until they shattered. We braced ourselves but couldn’t hang on, as the high-winds surrounding the building dragged us out into free-fall. Dr. Swan was screaming and reaching her hand out to me. We were falling so fast.

  I was trying desperately to grab Dr. Swan’s hand. Brutus chased after us. She was screaming as we flew story after story closer to the ground. Brutus had caught up to me and I climbed on his back. I leaned Brutus forward to make him more aerodynamic. When we got in reach, Brutus grabbed onto her coat with his teeth. Just as he did though, we looked to our left and saw a Sorian fighter-ship flying straight at us. I tried to pull us out of the way, but it hit Brutus in the shoulder and sent us flying in a downward tumble.

  Dr.Swan and I fell down together onto the street from about two stories up. I held her near my sides and curled up before landing on a Mag-car. I fell through and landed in the backseat and shattered the windows. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt that much. After grumbling and getting to my feet, I looked around for Brutus and Dr.Swan. When I turned my head left, I saw her lying on the ground and she was holding onto her left shoulder.

  “Doc! How bad is it?” I yelled as I ran to her side.

  “I don’t know, but I think my shoulder is shattered,” she muttered in pain, “I can’t move it at all.”

  “Doc, it’s too dangerous to lay here in the street! I’ve gotta move you somewhere safe!” I told her.

  “No Strafe, you need to help Dhenfen’Ce. I’ll be fine. . .” Dr. Swan said as she passed out.

  I placed her behind a Mag-truck and looked around. Brutus was fine; he found me.

  “Didn’t think we would’ve survived that,” Brutus noted.

  “It’s gonna take a lot more than that to kill us!” I stated.

  There were fighter planes all around the sky and people running in all directions. I could see I was beneath an air-track that had a cracked hole in it.

  “Brutus, can you get us up there?” I asked him.

  “Giving me all the easy tasks huh Strafe?” Brutus ribbed me.

  “Alright then, let’s see what you got!” I joked back.

  The air-track was about thirty feet above us. Somehow fighters had already reached the city and were clashing with Sorian forces. I could see that most of the fighting was happening in the city center near the peace garden, and the air-track was the fastest way there. I hopped on Brutus before he made a running start towards the hole. He ran as fast as he could and jumped from the ground to a rooftop, then to another rooftop before jumping on a light post below the hole. Brutus jumped as high as he could and the air-flow from the track pulled us in.

  In this world, as a Whitecloud, Brutus could easily glide in the air-flow. We were basically flying through the city. I could see all the military beginning to engage the Senti. There were scraps of metal debris shooting through the track we had to dodge. I learned that the hard way when a metal chunk smacked me in the side of my head.

  The airflow made it difficult to keep my eyes open, as my hair and Brutus’ were flying all around in my face. I kept my eyes on the prize though, and stayed focused on reaching the peace garden. I could hear something crashing into the glass behind us, something big. I spun around to take a look, and to my horror, I saw an Air-tram heading straight towards us like a rogue rocket.

  Flying through the track was difficult enough, let alone having to worry about shrapnel and a berserk train. It was gaining speed, and it wasn’t a question of if but when we would have to dodge it. The train was about half the circumference of the tube and was pure white with shiny blue windows. It looked like a bullet train from Japan. I saw it was infested with beasts like the one I fought back in the cave, climbing all over it, trying to break in.

  “Time to catch the train Brutus!” I said to him.

  I figured it to be like riding a bull. Brutus turned around and reached toward the top of the train. He extended his arms and dug his claws into the roof near the cockpit. As I was hanging on, the orb started glowing a golden color. I reached down to touch the smooth glass, and when I did it glowed white with blue particles floating around inside of it. The blue particles from the orb fell onto my hand and sparkled bright. What the hell? You broken or something?

  I wiped the dust off on my pants, but as I did I slipped off Brutus and fell onto the train’s hull. The dust on my pant leg acted like super-glue, it kept me attached to the train.

  “Alright, I gotcha!” I smiled.

  I took more of the dust and rubbed it on the bottom of my shoes and hands, and on Brutus’ as feet. One foot at a time, I attached myself to the train. Soon as we got comfortable, I saw some beasts starting to approach us. Their menacing claws punching in and out of the hull as they crawled toward me.

  “Damnit!” I yelled as I pull out my sword.

  I could hear their hissing and screams even through the wind and clashing of the train. They were a mix of all colors and a lot smaller than the one I meet back in the cave. They had spikes and jagged edges all over them and a mouthful of daggered teeth. I had the sword out in front of me as it assembled itself. One of them hissed, braced itself and jumped at me. I raised the sword up over my head and down as hard as I could. I merely deflected the beast’s attack, but it still managed to slash my chest a bit, which made me stumble back and grasp my wound. Are the Senti controlling these things?

  Now there were three of them, and they were getting ready to attack as a pack. Brutus walked next to me and began to growl and bark at them. I held the sword out and pointed it downward in a defensive position, but in reality I had no idea what I was doing. I flew airplanes, I wasn’t a master swordsman.

  They hissed, jumped, and I took a swing at them. “AHHHHHHH!!!!!” I screamed. Seconds before I would have been torn to pieces, I saw a silver glimmer cross from left to right. The only thing I felt were the crystal remains fly past me. I looked back and felt a feeling of extreme familiarity and intrigue. The feeling you get when you see someone you were meant to talk to.

  Standing there was a woman with the biggest weapon I had ever seen. It must’ve been 25 feet long but when I looked her in the eyes, it shrank down to less than a meter. I knew this wasn’t just a coincidence. All over her body she had similar tattoos, only they were bright yellow. It was the same woman from the battlefield.

  Her hair was bleach blonde, with her left side shaved down which was brown. I could see the aura around her, and when I looked into her bright yellow eyes, I knew this was destiny. She had caramel skin, and beautiful crystal earrings in her left ear. Her clothes were different than a Sorian’s. She had islander sandals on with shorts that were different lengths. She wore a parka that was mixed colors. It draped down like a ‘v’ but had sleeves that were decorated with an assortment of islander colors. She had a black glove on one hand and a white one on the other.

  I stood there in awe. She crouched down and then stood back up. She looked past my shoulder and pointed. I turned around and saw huge hole in the airflow and looked back at her. She motioned for me to jump. She wanted us to escape the airflow.

  I got on Brutus and helped her on too. A gust of wind blasted us in the face as we exited. We were about 100 feet in the air, to my luck, right above the peace garden. Brutus spread his arms and legs and glided through the air with ease.

  We found a clearing in the garden, where a bunch of soldiers were fighting. As we got closer to the ground, Brutus slowed down his decent and landed gracefully. I looked around to see a grand battle of vehicular, aerial and gro
und combat unfolding right in front of us.

  ”You alright?” the woman asked me. She had an interesting accent, it sounded Egyptian.

  “Roya???” I said as I touched her shoulder.

  “How do you know my name?” she asked.

  “I told you I would never forget it, remember?” I responded.

  “What?” she looked confused, “We need to find the others! Let’s go!” Roya told me.

  “Others!?” I asked her.

  “Yes. We need them.” she paused and crouched down, “There is something over there I feel. Let’s go!”

  Brutus galloped us across the battlefield of the garden. We would’ve clashed with the Senti soldiers, but Brutus just ran them over. Roya stood up on Brutus’ back and would take swings at the Senti. As I watched her fight, I noticed that she wasn’t using the sharp side of her sword. Roya was hitting them with the dull side. It didn’t matter to me, the enemy soldiers went down, and that’s all that mattered.

  She still had the yellow aura around her, but I couldn’t figure out how to unleash mine. We made it about half way through the park when a Mag-Sled crash landed in front of us. Mag-Sleds were like the Mag-Cycles, only they could fly and had engines in the back for the throttle. This one looked serviceable.

  An enemy Mag-Sled followed suite, and noticed us on the ground. I could see it starting to turn and we were soon being barraged with laser fire. Roya pointed her weapon outward and it expanded, like an umbrella, to provide us with a shield.

  “I can’t stop the fire all day! Throw me up there!” she told me.

  “Throw you? What if I miss and you fall down?!” I pointed out.

  “You can do it. I will be fine!” Roya cheered.

  We got knocked off Brutus. I could see her struggling to keep her sword up. I stood behind her and tried to turn on the power, but it wasn’t working. The Dhenfen’Ce military members around us were being hit by the fire and falling to the ground. One Aeroman that was hit from the laser fire reached their hand out toward me but they were too far away. I tried to pull them under our cover, but they were shot before we could get close enough. In the heat of the moment, time felt like it slowed down, and I could feel a warm jolt flash through my body. My arms and legs tensed up and I could feel something spreading across my skin. I looked down and I saw the same tattoos as I had back in the cave. I could hardly move and my body hurt all over.