The People Of Avenir (The Avenirian Series)

Chapter 5: The Emergency

      The next day Alex and I were once again training, but this time in the NEATT facility. Lysandre and Irina were there too, also training, when somebody we hadn’t seen before entered the part of the facility we were in. It was a guy about the age of Irina with blonde hair, which reached his neck, and here was where his hair was curled. He also had brown eyes and wore a light-looking black armor, with golden and purple detailing in some parts. One of his shoulder pads stood out more than the other one, the left shoulder pad. He had a silver sword on his hand and it had a black handle. The moment he entered his eyes moved directly towards Irina and he blushed as he saw her standing there. He noticed her skills with a katana and came towards us saying kindly: “Um… lady, care for a duel?” Irina turned around with the katana on her right hand. “Are you talking to me?” she said while seeming a bit confident. He nodded and said challenging: “Shall we begin?” They both prepared and nodded at each other.
The boy began the match by swinging a mighty blow at Irina who quickly blocked with her katana and pushed him back. He quickly came forward trying to slash her again, but she moved a bit to the side and slashed at him to counter his attack, and then she used her foot to make him trip. Irina then pointed, with her katana, at the guy who was now on the floor and his sword was a fair distance from him. “I win. Oh, and my name is Irina and please don’t call me lady, it makes me feel old.” said Irina smiling and proud of her skill with katanas. He was there on the floor blushing and seemingly impressed by her skill during the duel. Irina helped him up and he said: “M-my name is Sawyer. Thank you for our duel.” said Sawyer nervously while blushing noticeably. I was impressed by both their skills, they both looked like they really knew what they were doing, but Sawyer clearly underestimated Irina. Alex was standing beside me and said: “You must be the experienced swordsman sent from NEAM. You really have skills, but you can’t let your guard down like that in the battlefield.” Sawyer quickly nodded in response and Lysandre turned to me and Irina. “Sawyer will be helping us tomorrow with the “Razia” situation. He’ll train with tomorrow early in the morning. He was especially assigned by Cpt. Fray to work with us as he is also the one in charge of NEAM.” said Lysandre a bit serious. “My name is Donovan, and these are Lysandre and Alex” I said pointing at each of them as I said their names. All of a sudden, every NEC device in the area shined and showed a life hologram message from the man in charge of our city here on Avenir, President Aravalli himself. “Citizens of the Neo Earth Colony, Avaris, I have a very important message to all of you. There has been increasing a number of hostile wildlife activities around city borders. Everyone near the borders is to leave immediately and to go directly to the residential area, Sectors Z-11 to Z-14. I repeat. Everyone near the borders is to leave immediately and to go directly to the residential areas, Sectors Z-11 to Z-14. NEATT and NEAM members trained for battle are to go immediately to the city borders of the Sectors Z-1 to Z-3, head to the north gate. This is an emergency alarm, Code Yellow, and all the gates of the city will be closed for everyone, except the north gate, but only for trained members of NEATT and NEAM. Deploy immediately!” The message ended and Lysandre said: “Take your weapons and let’s go along with Sawyer.” Lysandre took a naginata and a katana, Alex took a bow and a sword, Irina only took a katana, I only took a bow, and Sawyer already had his own, seemingly personalized, weapons, a shield and a sword. Alex said seriously: “If you’re ready, let’s go, now!”
     We all left following Alex and Lysandre who were running ahead of us, heading north of the facility and east of our houses, and towards the north gate of Avaris. We spent about thirty minutes running towards the north gate, until we finally arrived. I had almost forgotten that Avaris was surrounded by huge walls and 4 gates, to defend ourselves from the outside, but as some of workers were supposed to go outside, the gates were mostly open all the time except for now. As we were tired, we took some water bottles, which had been on a backpack Sawyer brought with him, and drank from them. After we were refreshed, and caught our breath, we identified ourselves with the man at the gate, and we were let through. The massive gate opened and we ran outside. There was a vast plain up ahead and a small forest close of us at the right. We spotted many people across the plains fighting Razias, so Lysandre suggested to go to the small forest were Razias might be hiding. We entered the forest and walked until we found ourselves facing two Razias.
Alex was a bit worried and said: “Lysandre and I will face the Razia on the left. Donovan, Irina, and Sawyer, you fight the other one.” We obeyed and started fighting the Razia. The Razia was standing on two legs and slashed at Sawyer and Irina with its long claws. As I was using a bow, I maintained myself at a distance. Irina moved a bit to the left, separating herself from Sawyer. Sawyer tried to gain the Razia’s full attention by banging his sword against his shield, which he held on his right arm. I fired an arrow at the Razia and it hit his body, it growled and slashed more at Sawyer, who blocked with his shield. Irina stabbed the Razia’s back with her katana, that got stuck in its body and green blood came out of it. It growled even louder and it turned to her and it pushed her to the ground and was about to stab her with its claws, when Sawyer got in the way and blocked the slash with his shield bravely, and told her: “I won’t let it hurt you.” Irina blushed from his action of bravery. I fired an arrow and this time I hit its head, making it stunned, but it was still alive. Sawyer stabbed the Razia’s chest with his sword, more green blood came out, and then finally kicked the Razia, who fell backwards dead. Lysandre and Alex had also finished the other Razia and came to reunite with us. Irina got her katana out of the Razia’s body, and it was full of its blood. I rushed towards them, to see if everyone was all right.
“Irina, Alex, Lysandre, Sawyer. Are you all alright?” I said worried. Irina said happily: “If it wasn’t for Sawyer, well I wouldn’t be alive at all, but thanks to him, I am.” Sawyer smiled and nodded. “Thank you Sawyer.” I said while putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re pretty strong after all, even if she won the duel against you.” Alex said while smirking. Lysandre nodded at what Alex said and smiled at Sawyer. “I hope we can all work with you again.” said Lysandre while smiling. Sawyer blushed from embarrassment and said: “Guys don’t embarrass me, you’re making me blush.” He smiled and laughed after saying this, along with all of us, including Alex. Irina walked up to Sawyer and said smiling: “How can I repay you? Um, well since I saw your blush when I won, well, when you let me win. I assume you could want a date. How about we do that?” Sawyer blushed and nervously said: “Oh, um… y-yes, that would be great.” I was glad that she would stop looking at Lysandre, Alex, and I. After all, Lysandre and I consider her like a sister to us, and Alex obviously has no interest in her.
We were walking in a direction out of the forest when suddenly a humanoid figure stood between some trees in front of us and said in an unnatural and girl-like voice: “You, you creatures have invaded our planet and kill native creatures like they were the ones invading you. You will pay today for all the dead creatures you and your species murdered.” The humanoid creature let out a scream and transformed into a dragon-like creature with 4 wings, two on each side, making the shape of an x. It started flapping its wings and flew quickly away after letting a roar out at us, before we could even try to even talk to it.” We were all shocked to have met a creature, who could speak our language and was another species, the first ever other intelligent lifeform met by humans and we had been the first to see it. The bad thing was that it had threatened us, and it clearly said we would “pay” for our invasion on Avenir and killing of native creatures of this planet.