Airith- the Kentilan War Read online

  Airith

  The Kentilan War

  BRYAN BUTVIDAS

  Copyright © 2019 Bryan Butvidas

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781726677950

  15 percent of the profits from this book will be donated to St. Jude’s. We also encourage you to spread the word about this amazing charity.

  CONTENTS

  1

  Slumber

  2

  2

  The Three

  11

  3

  Awake

  25

  4

  Mother

  36

  5

  The Springs

  56

  6

  Sierra Ave

  81

  7

  Life Pool Assault

  118

  8

  The Glitch

  153

  9

  Epilogue

  172

  10

  Illustrations

  173

  Sometimes a love is so powerful that it

  curses the two who dare try to tame it.

  52-143

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Cover art by Andrei Gaspar

  Illustrations by Luka Dudic

  Follow Airith online

  Airith.com

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  Instagram.com/airithsaga

  Twitter.com/airithsaga

  SLUMBER

  M other’s slumber chamber pierced the sky, blocking out the sun, and before it stood the four of them: Airith, Rapha, Isabel Rae, and the ‘Fellas.’ Three dark figures, and two small hovering robots, belittled by a towering gate that led into an extreme pitch black. Just miles from where they stood and out in the dusty horizon, monstrous silhouettes of ancient remains told a tale of desertion and weathering. It was the only landmark that shared the Northern District of Sector One with Mother’s Slumber Chamber. The chamber was built directly into the firmament walls, and just to the west of it, on the other side of the barrier, was the Emperor’s Kentilan Palace.

  “Didn’t think it’d look like this and seriously, were all those steps necessary?” Rapha’s arrogant tone echoed into the darkness, and he stared after it as if expecting some reply.

  “You’re mostly cyborganic, Rapha, and it isn’t like your legs would have given out. And what the hell did you think it would look like?” Airith replied with an eye roll. The sassy lilt in her tone only made Rapha smile.

  The walls of the chamber were strings of alphanumeric lines of code fused in Eagle Mountain metal, tailing upwards to the sky and into the blinding sun. Rapha took knowing steps to the nearest wall. The eyes of his companions followed him. Using a finger, he scraped at a wall. Small particles of the alphanumeric flaked off and dissipated in minute bursts of luminous green.

  “First of all, I technically only have one good leg, and I don’t know what I was expecting it to look like, but the style is quite boring. It's just blocks of old Cymaga and gnarly Eagle Mountain steel surrounded by sand, a butt ton of it. And look at all those distant and pointless remains and Indigo scripture. Do you know something? The architecture is rude actually.”

  “Ay Dios mio, Rapha, can we worry more about how we get into the bottom chambers without waking Her instead of critiquing a thousand-year-old sandbox?” Airith sighed as she adjusted her bodysuit and leather shoulder guard.

  “Of course, but I’m just curious why there aren’t any alarms going off or why there isn’t a storm of Valdovas running up to guard Mother against people like us. She is completely vulnerable while in slumber.” Rapha shrugged as he stooped, brushing off dirt from the bottom of his cape.

  “Mother? What kind of ‘mother’ uses her children to test her death machines’ efficiencies? What kind of a ‘mother’ creates children only to be killers for her lust of war? What ‘mother’ kills her own if they don’t follow her idea of family? ‘Mother’? Ha, more like ‘monster.’” The pain etched her face. Airith looked away to hide the rage but she already knew they had seen it. “The greatest thing the Emperor ever did was force the Creator to ban her ability to abort any one of us on command. She’s more of a killer queen than a ‘mother.’ Let’s just hurry in, so I drive my blade right through her mostly organic brain!” She raged. She pauses and then added in a darker tone, “And when I do, I want her glossy, black, dead eyes locked with mine, knowing it was I who killed her, I, her custom-made death guard. I want the betrayal to gush through her while she succumbs to death,” Airith swore with clenched fists. Her trembling was clear as day.

  “Holy Kurt Russell, that was dark. You may want to arrange some counseling for that.” Rapha smirked uncomfortably.

  The awkward silence was cut by a girl’s giggle. They all turned in Isabel Rae’s direction. The horn on her forehead had begun to glow, illuminating her mask in an eerie blue. She giggled again, taking timid steps away from them.

  “Where French toast is she going?” Rapha snapped.

  The girl was drawn to a distant glowing they had failed to notice; an old scripture of ancient Indigo origin. Lines of vivid electric hummed about it, sweltering with a static that the rest could feel as they neared it. Isabel Rae stopped short of her destination and began jumping excitedly, clapping and giggling like a child, each jump syncing and pulsing with the glowing from her horn.

  “The lines. They are pretty like blood. It makes me giggle inside my tummy.”

  A monotone cyber voice quipped; it was one of her companions, one of the Fellas, a levitating fish named Floop, whose voice was only a reflection of her thoughts.

  “And I like it very much.” Isabel Rae twirled about the relic, with her other pet, Ploop; a hovering robot that resembled a metal egg with disembodied rabbit ears. Ploop’s neon blue, 8-bit digital expressions were telepathically linked to Isabel’s emotions. It was a baffling connection that the others could not explain; no one except the Creator, who gifted this child these robots to help her communicate with others.

  Airith watched her in silence, disinterested in the old glowing relic; there were lots of left-behind old scriptures all over Homecity, written in an unreadable language. It was boring to think about and difficult to try and crack. But Isabel Rae was strange. Rumors trailed after the strange child. Rumors about her bleeding facial sores that were ghastly to look at, and perhaps that was why the Creator gave her the smooth, matte, white unicorn mask with its rainbow crystal horn and two floppy, fuzzy, mud-stained ears on each side.

  Rapha motioned to the others with a hand signal and drew closer to the old relic. The writing was illegible. He squinted at it. Like radars, his ears twitched, reacting to an ambient wave picked by his sonar system. His systems analyzed its form. It was heated signatures. Mechanical heat. He glared in that direction as his optical scanners tried to give the waves form and origin. They failed; he had no visualization of the threat.

  With a shrug, he threw back a hand signal, which met with Airith’s confused facial expression and with Isabel Rae pointing to Ploop, whose digital screen was displaying a laughing face.

  “Are you having a stroke?” Airith questioned sarcastically as she threw her hands up with her head cocked to the side. “Do you need me to call someone for you?”

  “I seriously need to teach you guys sign language. Someone or a mass of people are here. I can detect a form of bodies approximately thirty feet behind us and on each side of the passage. I'm just unable to see them,” Rapha whispered.

  Peeewwww!

  A blast of fiery laser sizzled past Rapha’s head, and the wall behind him erupted in a fiery dust. Rapha’s shock was quickly replaced by rage, as he turned to find six full Valdovan strike squads morph from thi
n air, shielded by their cloaking systems in black cyborganic matte suits. They quickly circled Rapha, Airith, and Isabel Rae. An ambush that had been patiently waiting for them...

  “So, I see you’ve upgraded with cloaking. Cute, but I would like to know who in the blessed name of Freddie Mercury fired that shot?” Rapha threw up his arms, exhibiting colorful language with his two middle fingers. “Was it you? I swear, bro, you fired a laughable shot. You completely missed me, and I wasn’t even moving.” He chuckled, pointing at one of them, taking majestic strides toward them.

  “I think that was a warning shot!” Airith yanked him back by the shoulder.

  Rapha stopped to gently push her hand away, stepping in front of both her and Isabel Rae. “Just go, I got this. Get Isabel Rae out of here and meet me at ‘the place’ and we can try this again tomorrow. Mother can’t wake as long as Phara is hidden in COCOON.”

  “But there are only like sixty of them, and just yesterday I killed like eighty by myself running from the Three.” Her expression was confused, and her grasp tightened around the hilt of her blade.

  “Damnit Airith, I’m trying to be chivalrous and whatnot,” Rapha sighed with a smirk.

  “Bite me! Chivalry died when eighty tried to kill me yesterday.”

  “Okay, damn. You have a point. Let’s just do this my way this time, please. You tend to go full juiced in battle. Save that shit for later.” Rapha’s tone was serious. “Hey crazy giggles, you too, just stand back and don’t do that thing you do,” he said, pointing at Isabel Rae.

  The little girl shrugged haplessly.

  “Rapha, mind getting your hand off my ass?” Airith flinched as she grabbed his hand, lifting it from her purple leopard-printed backside.

  “Uh, I’m very sorry about that. I was just hoping to comfort you in this current stressful situation,” Rapha mumbled with a heated gaze. Airith scoffed.

  Rapha cleared his throat and turned to the assembly of Valdovas. “Who here is ready to be baptized with death by insanely awesome Skyfire upgrades?"

  The Valdovas look at each other anxiously.

  "That’s right, boys, fully configured with the last of that beautifully engineered ancient technology.”

  Rapha took two steps toward the lead Valdovas soldier and the butt of a gun flashed before it slammed hard into his face. His toes twinkled and his head rocked backward before his knees touched down. He groaned, cradling his face, probing with a finger to check if his nose was broken. A small trail of blood trickled from his left nostril.

  The soldiers roared in mocking laughter and in the background, he could hear Airith’s small sigh.

  Dazed, Rapha tapped a button on his right forearm. ‘Max Turbo Bash Fury’, a playlist of upbeat retro wave music, filled his ears, drowning out everything else, pulsing a fury through him. Slowly, he began to bop his head and pump his shoulders, syncing with the music.

  His eyes blazed with bright white intensity, a spinning blaze that seeped from his eyes in cracked lines and pulsed through him in red-hot heat, glowing in the crevices of his metal arms. There was a simmering as he casually got back up; his cape had melted into his skin, forming a luscious black liquid that flowed over and enveloped his exposed skin, hardening into a matte armor. The Valdovas took tentative steps back as they beheld a technology older than time. One that should no longer exist.

  The air around Rapha began to swelter and ripple, sucking on the features around him, building into a honeycomb of lightning energy. The field rippled with electricity, lashing out in cracked lines. The soldiers screamed but their voices did little to breach the inferno that Rapha had become. The wild music enveloped him, and he pranced on both feet, warming up like an athlete.

  “I suggest you all step back. This party is about to get demented, and I mean ozone to the max factor style.” Rapha swiped at his nose.

  Behind him, Airith initiated her sword with the flick of a finger, revealing a beautiful two-toned blade. An alloy of precious Eagle Mountain steel and arianite. One half was burning neon pink with excited electrons bouncing off the blade and the other half was as black and dappled as space’s void. A blackness seeped from her eyes and raced over her skin, swallowing her clothing and forming a hardened mask, her purple and pink ombre hair changed to a pitch black. Her lavender eyes radiated with an intensity.

  Suddenly Rapha zapped like lightning, his clenched fist a deadly arch that bludgeoned through a soldier’s head. His helmet cracked like an egg and the force knocked four other soldiers back like bowling pins. The Valdovan commandant screamed an order and a steady stream of bright blasts hailed Rapha. He cackled wildly at the attempt, dancing just within reach and racing in circles around them on nimble feet, leaving a trail of dust and explosions behind him. Another batch of soldiers focused their fire on Airith, who was a flash of neon pink and death. Two disembodied heads momentarily hung in the air before rolling bumpily away. The moment horrified the men in front of her, but she landed in a fury within their midst before they could move. The closest soldier screamed and swept wildly for her head. He missed and lost an arm. He screamed as his life spurted up from him in a fountain. The others tried to react quickly, but Airith’s blade arched wickedly, and instantly, dropping the soldiers around her.

  Far off from the madding crowd, Isabel Rae stood safely at the entrance to Mother’s Slumber. She pranced on her two feet, hopping like a grasshopper while trying to mimic the fighting moves of Airith and Rapha. Both her Fellas hovered about her, buzzing in excitement.

  “More blood, more blood!” Floop wagged his tail, while Ploop cycled through different happy facial expressions.

  “Ugh, random thought, but I need to talk about it, or it will bug me if I forget to bring it up later!” Airith yelled over the screams as she grabbed a rifle from the shaky grip of one soldier, spun on her heel, and ran it through another’s body. “And I know we are in the middle of something, but do you remember that after-school TV show I did? Where I played a girl, who got pregnant by her gang member boyfriend, and I had to find a way to keep it from my alcoholic mother?”

  Rapha grabbed two Valdovan heads and with a twist, snapped their necks. “Ah, trying to think.” He ducked and a sizzling blast volleyed by. “Was it pre-pop-star attempt or after?”

  “Was for sure after.” Airith minced through two more Valdovas. They dropped in heaps of cybernetic parts and organic fluids.

  “Oh yeah, the one where you had to shave your head and dye your eyebrows to look like a confused adolescent who liked to rebel against any type of real parental authority? What about it?” Rapha sent another Valdovan flying with an uppercut.

  “Nothing, I just remembered that the shoes I wore were schweet as f and I wish I still had them.” Airith cut another Valdovan in half.

  “Are you serious?” Rapha sighed as he dropped on one knee to repeatedly bash in a Valdovan face.

  “Dude. L-I-M-I-T-E-D edition!” Airith smirked at him, as she drove the heel of her boot into the face of a fallen Valdovan soldier. “Dead serious!”

  Both Airith and Rapha finished off the last of the Valdovan foot soldiers and casually strolled back to the main entrance where Isabel Rae and her bots were patiently waiting. A distant whirring sound caught Airith’s attention. She held a hand up as she squinted in the horizon. She could see an approaching aerial mass. Her high-tech contacts zoomed in. SL2 Saturn-class transport ships were incoming.

  “Hey Rapha, it looks like your brothers are coming to join the party!” Airith yelled to Rapha.

  “First off, we are more like step-brothers than anything. I was rejected from Mother’s personal birth cycle chamber, just like you, but I was dumped half-built and died out in the wastelands just like all the other rotting cadavers rejected from Mother’s birth pods. I always thought she kept alive the ones she made from her attached birth cycle. But that was when the Creator found me and brought me back to life. It’s the same place I found Isabel Rae two years ago, but alive. I think it would have been better if I
found her dead instead of the suffering state she was in.”

  A rage roiled in Airith’s chest, but she knew soon it would be over. Once she had driven her sword through Mother. The whirring sound was gaining in volume. She looked out to the horizon again. She knew the three ships would come fully outfitted for a strike, with at least one hundred Valdovas in each drop bay.

  They were Mother’s ships. Even without seeing Mother’s mark on the side of the cockpit fuselage, she could tell from the red trimmings that ran along the sides of the craft. Mother’s favorite color. How fitting, considering all the lives she had so easily discarded. Airith’s grip tightened on her sword.

  The vessels were now closing in and they could tell the trio were a threat. Panels slid from the sides of the ships, revealing an array of hover landers, strapped in and ready to deploy. Airith smiled, anticipating more action. The landers detached and set down on vantage points overhead. Snipers. The landing platforms from each ship opened and a steady stream of Valdovan soldiers dropped to the ground, pouring out in the hundreds and systematically forming battle groups, braced for attack. They circled the trio at the entrance, blocking escape.