Preface

For me, “Faery Knight” is quite simply an attempt at something new.

It began as an idea back in 2013 while I was writing “Maiden of the Line”.

At the time, I learnt of Danny Choo’s Mirai Millennium project. I found the concept to be atypical of anime. However, as I continued to write “Maiden of the Line”, I began toying with the notion of taking his creation of Mirai Suenaga, and putting her into something that was anime-ish, while being a little different. I was also surprised to learn that doujinshi work could be monetized and Danny Choo wasn’t going to came after you.

With all this in mind, I decided to blend the world I had created for Ekarynne Sangreal, the heroine of “Maiden of the Line”, with the concept of Mirai Millennium, and drop Mirai Suenaga into it. After ruminating over a title for weeks, I settled on something simple: “Faery Knight”.

However, it wasn’t until 2015 that I began to fully flesh out the story. The reason was that I was waiting to see what would happen with Mirai Millennium. Would the anime eventually be produced? When nothing eventuated, I decided to start putting fingers to keyboard, and write a brief outline.

With my entrance into Amazon Kindle, and the discovery of Royal Road Legend, my resolution to write the story progressed to a full fifty page outline. While working on the ongoing “Pride X ReVamp” series and “Princess Royale” saga, I began working on the concept design for Faery Knight. The building of models was next, and the cementing of what the Battle Faery was going to look like, in particular, Mirai’s Rhoswen (meaning White Rose). I wanted it simple, skeletal, yet not oversized. I based on it the designs I’d already completed of the Warlords from “The Seals of Arcala”.

With this and other concepts now in place, the next step was to write the first draft and post it on Royal Road Legend.

With any luck it will eventually get Danny Choo’s attention…in a positive way.

More information regarding the series will be posted intermittently on my blog page, http://www.pridesfamiliarsmaidens.com

With these words, I present to you the first draft of Volume One in the “Faery Knight” series.

I truly hope you enjoy it.

Simkin Hart

April, 2016

Prologue

The rubble finally grew still but a thick mist of dust and pulverized permacrete wafted through the air.

She pulled herself upright after crawling out from beneath the fallen blocks.

When she stood up, much of her body caked in a thin, powdery layer of ruin, she looked back and saw that the wall she, her sister, her parents, and scores of people had been huddling against was gone.

The interior of the evacuated shopping complex lay devastated before her eyes.

There hadn’t been enough space in the shelter for her and her family, and countless others. So the people had broken into the mall, and sought refuge from the fierce fighting taking place throughout the city-state. Her father had said the alert was issued too late, and when it finally came, the people didn’t have enough time to reach the shelters. But the truth was there weren’t enough shelters, and so the people had looked for safety where they could find it.

The mall was a mess. It was devastated by the battle that was taking place – a battle between something that resembled a fast moving tank on legs, and a giant clad in ornate armor wielding a glowing emerald sword that was longer than a man was tall.

Even at her age of seven, she knew what that giant was, and she knew it was something to fear.

A Genjitsu.

An illusionary creature.

Something that moved like it was alive and yet wasn’t.

Something that came from the Seeds that travelled between worlds connected by the Galactic Ley Lines.

An enemy of humanity.

The armored giant swung the immense curved sword in a downward arc. The weapon came down upon the tank, slicing its armor, turning it green and brittle. The tank fired its last shots, its specialized rounds loaded with anti-Etherite blowing chunks out of the giant’s armored torso, then fell silent and still as the glowing emerald sword sliced through its body, turning the composite armor into soft Etherite that would crumble and decay within days.

With the tank defeated, the giant turned and began searching for new quarry.

Its helmeted head turned about, searching its surroundings, and using the Ether flowing through the mall to seek out signs of life like a dog senses smells.

Mirai could sense the Ether as well, and she could use it too.

In a hurry, she used her Empath Weaver talent to ward the flows away from her body, and away from the collapsed wall. If she could hide the people’s feelings flowing out of the rubble and carried along by the Ether, she could hide them from the Genjitsu.

However, she didn’t notice there were people elsewhere in the large department store – people that were on their feet and running away, their emotions saturating the Ether.

Try as she might, she couldn’t stop their feelings from reaching the giant.

It turned…and saw her.

No…it saw the survivors fleeing in every direction.

And Mirai understood then and there that if she didn’t run, she would die.

But she couldn’t run.

Her sister, and her family were somewhere in the rubble.

She couldn’t run and leave them behind, so motivated by her heart, she crawled back under the blocks and reached out for her sister and parents.

Using the Ether, Mirai was guided to Haruka and grabbed a hold of her younger sister’s small hand. She crawled out of the rubble, dragging Haruka with her. Peeking over the blocks, she saw the giant chasing a group of people down the length of the shopping arcade.

She didn’t wait to see what would happen, because she knew those people would die. So she ducked back under the rubble and again used the Ether to search for her parents in the darkness.

But there was no sign of them in the Ether.

The flows had other emotions imprinted on them, but they did not belong to her parents.

She searched again, pushing her Empath talent to its limit, sniffing out the emotions and feelings texturing the flowing Ether.

But the imprint she was looking for wasn’t there.

The life that her parents exuded out into the Ether wasn’t there.

An invisible fist closed around her heart, and tears welled up in her eyes.

At the age of seven, Mirai Suenaga understood a horrible truth.

Her parents were dead, and she and her sister were alone in the world.

A loud scream tore at her emotions and fear rushed through her. It wasn’t her fear. It was her sister’s fear, stamped into the flowing Ether.

Mirai crawled out from under the immense broken slabs that was once a large wall, and saw Haruka staring into the shopping complex. She turned and looked behind her, and saw the glowing ghostly Genjitsu, striding toward her.

The fifteen foot tall giant appeared larger, thicker, less translucent than before, and Mirai remembered her studies.

Second Incarnation.

The Genjitsu’s body was made of Ether. It started as a Seed, an almond shaped metal capsule that wove the Ether around itself, forming a body and armor that was at first faint and ghostly yet hard as wood. The longer the Seed survived before being destroyed, more time it had to weave the Ether, turning that ghostly body even harder while assuming a new shape.

The Seed that formed the core of this Genjitsu had been here long enough to reach Second Incarnation, and the giant now had four arms at its disposal, a curved sword and a long spear.

It was now stronger, and harder to defeat.

Mirai turned, grabbed Haruka’s hand, and ran away from the giant.

She ran deep into the immense department store.

She could hear the thundering steps as the giant Genjitsu pursued her, and she could hear the sound of its destructive passage through the store.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the giant’s head tearing a wide gash through the ceiling, ripping fixtures, lights, air conditioning conduits, and cabling along the way.

Haruka stumbled and almost fell, nearly pulling Mirai down with her, but the two girls ran on.

Having shopped here many times with her mother, Mirai was familiar with the store's layout, and knew there was an exit at the back end. If she could reach the exit, if she could get out of the giant’s sight, then she could use the Ether to hide herself from its senses.

She knew the Genjitsu wasn’t alive. There were no feeling emanating from it. It was something created by the alien Seed inside the giant’s body. But it could read the Ether, just like women of Empathic talent – just like Mirai and her mother before her.

Haruka was breathing heavily, unaccustomed to running so hard. Mirai knew that if she fell, they would have to hide, since she wasn’t strong enough to carry her sister. How could she be? She was just a child, and Haruka was a year younger.

But they were all they had, and she was determined to keep her sister safe.

Then she remembered they were not alone.

There was one more Suenaga, and that was her adopted big sister, Marisol.

Marisol was strong, and beautiful, and she was gifted in a way Mirai wasn’t.

Marisol could fight the Genjitsu because she was gifted with an armor called a Diva.

Marisol Suenaga was a Dea, and the Dea were goddesses that ruled the battlefield.

The exit was up ahead.

Pulling Haruka along with her, Mirai arrived at the door, turned the handle, and felt a wave of relief when she realized it was unlocked.

Then she pulled the door open, and saw the city-state before her.

The outer wall of the complex was gone. It was blown away by the battle between a group of legged tanks, and another Genjitsu. The tank lay in pieces, and the Genjitsu Seed was perforated with a half dozen holes. Emerald embers floated out of the Seed, and green sparks flashed through the holes in its body.

With the wall gone, there were no emergency stairs to run down.

However, that didn’t stop her.

Desperation fueled her recklessness.

“Jump,” she yelled at Haruka, and holding tightly onto her sister’s hand, Mirai leapt onto the collapsed wall below her.

The wall had come down at an angle, forming a slide that she and Haruka now descended. She could feel her dress tearing as her backside slid down the hard permacrete. Haruka screamed in both fear and pain, as the friction burned her rump.

Sometimes wearing a dress wasn’t the best idea, but there hadn’t been time to change, and she had fled with her family with the clothes she was already wearing.

They landed on an outcropping formed by more rubble.

Ignoring the pain in her body, Mirai pulled Haruka to her feet, and jumped recklessly from one piece of debris to the other, until they landed on the broken street.

She didn’t need to turn to know the Genjitsu had emerged from the shopping complex.

She could hear it crash through the exterior, and she could feel the maelstrom of Ether surrounding it.

She ran with Haruka gasping for breath at her side.

Eventually her sister’s legs gave out, and Haruka collapsed, pulling Mirai down with her.

Rising to her knees, her legs scraped and bloody, Mirai tried pulling Haruka to her feet, but it was futile. Her sister had been pushed beyond exhaustion.

There was nothing she could do, and nowhere to run.

The Genjitsu strode toward her, one thundering step after the other, and Mirai chose to meet it on her feet.

There was one last thing she could try.

She could use the Ether against it.

Concentrating her talent – a talent that had frightened her mother – Mirai willed the Ether to form a dome around her and her sister. With each passing second she added a new layer, turing the dome into something ghostly green as the dense Ether was now visible to the naked eye.

The Genjitsu halted as though re-evaluating the situation, giving Mirai more time to condense the Ether into a thicker dome. After a few seconds, the Genjitsu resumed advancing, and hefted both the Etheric sword and spear it carried.

Then it began to run.

Its footfalls grew heavier and the ground trembled so much Mirai fell to her knees.

It ran at full force covering the remaining distance in a heartbeat, and stabbed at the dome of Ether with the bladed spear tip.

Mirai’s Etheric dome held.

Arms stretched before her, she pushed at the dome from the inside, willing the Ether to remain hard.

The Genjitsu stabbed at the dome again and again, then slashed at it with the glowing emerald sword.

Mirai felt the outer layers of the dome begin to fade away, as she lost her grip on the Ether that formed it.

Little by little the dome was growing thinner, and the spear and sword penetrated deeper.

She was bleeding now. She could feel the blood trickle from her nose, and down her cheeks as it welled up in her eyes.

She was pushing herself beyond the limit of what her body was capable of, finding new limits, and pushing beyond them yet again.

But the Genjitsu wasn’t a First Incarnation.

As a Second Incarnation, it was now strong enough to blow away the tanks of the city-state’s Self Defense Force.

It was strong enough to trouble a Battle Faery.

It was determined to crush Mirai.

The dome broke apart and the Ether forming it swirled away like a green mist, dissipating into the air.

Her body bereft of strength, Mirai collapsed to the ground, falling onto her chest. Unable to catch herself, her forehead banged hard onto the street.

And so it was that lying face down she didn’t see the Genjitsu raise its sword.

She didn’t see the spear held high, its bladed tip aimed at her back.

The Genjitsu Seed that controlled the giant made of hardened Ether had recognized her as a threat greater than any physical weapon of destruction humanity had yet thrown against it.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Mirai understood this.

Yes she also understood that this was the end for her, and for her sister, Haruka.

She closed her eyes, and sent a prayer to the gods above to protect the souls of her sister, her family. And then she prayed that Marisol was still safe, somewhere out there, fighting the Genjitsu – fighting to save people’s lives.

Mirai took a deep breath, and waited for the end, sensing through the Ether as the sword and spear came down.

Then the Ether vanished as though it had never existed, and Mirai felt a gust of wind so strong it picked up her limp body and tossed her down the street. She glimpsed Haruka flying through the air, landing in a heap beside her.

It wasn’t just the wind that had launched her into the air.

The ground had shaken as something incredibly heavy had landed upon the street.

Because she was lying on her back, Mirai could see down the street, and witnessed an incredible sight.

The Genjitsu had been split in half.

The Ether that comprised its body was fading away, like smoke in the wind.

In heartbeats its armor was unrecognizable.

In seconds nothing remained of its body but the silver Seed, the meter long almond shaped core, floating a few feet above the ground. But the Seed had been cleaved in half down the middle, and it fell to the ground with a heavy metallic thud. A moment later, it exploded in a green cloud, as the pent up Ether within its small body burst free. The cloud vanished quickly as though swept aside by a gale force wind.

Mirai understood why the Ether had vanished, and why the Ether inside the Seed had been swept away.

It was caused by a void-field more powerful than anything she had ever felt before.

The field completely cut her off from the Ether, and Mirai guessed it must have been hundreds of feet in radius, since she was lying on the ground quite some distance from the destroyed Genjitsu Seed.

Her gaze settled on the black skeletal machine with six flat wings emerging from its back, fluttering gently while haloed in rings of blue-white light. It stood fifteen feet tall, and was more powerful than any machine humanity had built in its image. The Battle Faeries used by talented women with strong Empath Weaver talent were nothing more than cheap copies compared to the real deal.

What stood in the middle of the street wasn’t a copy.

It wasn’t a Battle Faery.

It was a Diva.

A gift to humanity from the alien Arcology that orbited the planet Pantheon’s sole moon.

The Diva was a black, skeletal, armored goddess of battle, and the person piloting it was a young teenage girl with long flowing black hair.

Mirai recognized the girl, and whispered her name.

“…Marisol….”

Then she closed her eyes as fatigue overwhelmed her body.

She had one last faint recollection of her name being called out, before slipping into cool, blessed darkness.