Chapter 1 - The World
Prologue
The sun rose over the beautiful planet of Terra which existed timelessly in space. The sun's beams penetrated through the clouds through the apartment block of the main city on Terra called New Chentrilla.
New Chentrilla was a beautiful modern city which boasted huge buildings and exciting new constructions on the outskirts of this city. The city was originally constructed almost 200 years previous in the aftermath of the Asgard War which left most of Terra a poisoned wastelands however after a committed two hundred years of peace and rebuilding the citizens of Terra had relocated Chentrilla to an island in the south of the planet and now the city had spanned the entire mass of the island.
Over the years since Terra's bombardment by the Asgardian Spirits which eventually led to their defeat and withdrawal from space, the Terran technology had not developed much and in some places had reverted back to a simpler existence.
Terra had paid the price for trying to meddle in the affairs of the Altia Galaxy and its entire Empire which spanned to thousands of worlds had been lost along with all references to the numerous worlds discovered, since that time the Terrans had forgotten about the others that existed.
Date: 31st Augsta 2256
Location: Horizon Apartment Block â€" New Chentrilla City Terra
An alarm with the radio went off letting out an almighty blare of music into the small apartment room. A head poked up from the bed, a brilliant white horses head with large cerulean blue eyes and a deep purple main sticking out. The horse looked tired and looked down at the floor as he got out of bed hitting the alarm to get up and knocking it clear to the ground where it smacked into two.
"Damn!" said the horse to himself as he climbed out of bed naked, picking up the pieces in a sleepy way and placing them on the side.
As he got up, his whole body was presented a beautiful white short fur all around him and a long silver tails, his legs were long and dramatic which made him tall and slightly imposing if did not have such a feminine look on his face. The horse had virtually no muscles and quite a petite frame which came from the fact that he was very thin. However the best feature of his body was his large white, angel like wings which kept folded on his back otherwise they would have interfered with his balance.
The horse wondered over to a laptop computer which was sat on a desk in a small room, without bothering to dress he sat down at the computer and tapped a password into it. The sounds from the cars driving around outside on the streets below the sun creeping through the semi-closed curtains annoyed him slightly so he took a cigarette out of the packet closest to the table and lit it, putting his hand through his hair slightly.
He sat there for a second; sucking gently on the cigarette and blowing the smoke back out.
His room was a slight mess, with papers all over the floor with different numbers on them and news-paper clippings. The horse nearly jumped out of his chair when the phone rang beside him, he quickly tapped his computer which was connected to his phone to begin a conversation.
"Uh.... Hello" he said, trying to snap out of his tired state and not sound so drained.
The voice on the other end of the conversation was a lot gruffer than his, the contrast of the horses voice showed just how feminine he sounded. "Hey! Diamond! How is my fave fag?"
"Remmy...? You know I do not like it when you call me that..." said Diamond back with an annoyed tone. "Now... what do you want...? I was just about to jump in the shower."
Remmy made a strange noise down the phone at him before answering him. "Always to the point.... Well guess what!?... We found it! And she's on it! We logged it in Everonth..."
Diamond's ears twitched as he listened with climbing curiosity.
"She seems to be inside... something... but that text you found at Chentrilla Ruins seems to be correct... we have found a match and it is "The Valkyrie" but the strange thing is... it seems to be Terran in design.... Um... Hello... Dia?... you there?
Diamond had already grabbed his clothes and left the room in a hurry.
Diamond grabbed his clothes as he scuffled them on, he wore a black military jacket which he was fond of and tight black leather trousers. Diamond slipped on his boots and ran out the door of his apartment stopping only to lock the door. A fox old woman poked her head out of another apartment to look at him frantically trying to lock the door and make it out quickly and quietly.
"MR DUST!" she shouted at him from across the flight of stairs, Diamond's ears drooped immediately, sighing he turned round and looked at her. The fox woman was a large woman with thick brown fur, nothing unremarkable, she stood in the doorway with an apron around her.
Diamond shuffled slightly and contemplated running past her, before she gave him the look that could kill an army.
Too late...
The foxes eyes narrowed and her lips pursed together.
"Oh no!" thought Diamond. "I am in for it now!"
"MR DUST!" she said, her voice booming. "I will be reminding you that today is the 31st and therefore it is rent collection day today!" She spoke with such cold precision that
Diamond had predicted that she used to be a teacher before she was his land-lady.
"You have not paid me for two months straight now!"
"Well how can I? " said Diamond to himself. "Work has cut my wages... again!" Diamond had to think of some excuse so that she did not lynch him.
"Um....." he said "I am afraid that work has been a little slow this week so I may need to go out to get a lone to pay you with, Mrs Carmichael"
"Oooooo...not too shabby " Diamond thought to himself. Mrs Carmichael relaxed her face and suddenly became calmer.
"Well Mr Dust, I'd be having my rent by six o'clock tonight"
"Very well" said Diamond as he raced down the stairs of the high apartment block to get away from her. He raced out of the run-down apartment block into the busy street which had any number of words and occasional cursing that were flying about by the drivers of the cars.
All the races of Terra were different, mostly humanoid and all animal with different evolutionary chains, occasionally a bird or hawk would fly by, shadowing the street below.
Diamond looked at the mass of cars on the road, he was decided if he should have got a taxi or not.
"Oh... Fuck this " he said to himself seeing all the hustle and bustle of the cities regular morning flow of traffic. He stood back, took off his jacket and with one push into his back, his magnificent angel-like wings unfolded... two of them.
Diamond had always wondered why he was different than other "Horsia", a Terran term for the race of anthropomorphic horses that came mainly from Equstia, a continent in the north of Terra. Most Horcia came in all different colours, sizes and shapes like most of the species on Terra however the only two species that could fly naturally were Dragonia and Avienne so Diamond was always confused about his origins and why he had been granted not just a normal horse position but... Not that he really cared... his wings gave him greater control in the air and he was always marvelled at by Terran Evolutionary Scientists who put his uniqueness down to a genetic mutation.
Diamond walked quickly into a back ally around the back of the apartment block, he usually liked to keep quiet about his wings as some of the other Terrans or "Terrilsei" as the originally Terran pronunciation way considered them to be freakish. This resulted in
Diamond being self-conscious as he was shunned as a child by his parents and the community around him that considered him unnatural.
Ignoring the many questions he had placed in his mind, he took off the ground, hovering slightly and then flapping the two of his wings to gain altitude off the floor, he took off into the sky and headed north of the city, flying gently around the buildings hoping that he would not be seen.
This was not going to be an ordinary day for him... he could feel it.
Date: 31st Augsta
Location: Everonth Mountains â€" 500km North of New Chentrilla Island
Remmy fidgeted in his chair inside a brown tent which was just large enough to sit down in. He looked up in annoyance as he tried to put all of his effort into fixing an old piece of technology that he had no idea what it was.
"Arschliner!" he shouted as he flung a spanner into the side of tent causing the a curious looking brown fox scientist in a green coat to walk into the tent, hearing him swearing.
"No luck?" asked the fox smiling uncertainly as Remmy had a really bad temper and could explode at any minute. However luckily for the fox, Remmy sat back down and sighed, taking a swig from a cup sat on the table.
"No" he grunted.
Remmy was a "Tiggersil", a tiger-like race who were renowned for bad tempers and huge appetites. Remmy was no exception to this, he was powerful looking and was mainly orange with several black stripes around his body and patch of pure white fur on his chest.
His race had also become fewer since the Asgard War as many of his people were used simply as cannon-fodder by the Terran United Government at the time before it fell, leaving so few Tiggersil on the planet.
"I just do not understand it!" he shouted, booming his voice out. He had worked as an engineer for Phoenix Grace for many years and he had never met something that he could not fix. "It seems...like ‘em.... some sort of access key... I think it'll allow us to get inside the shrine but for some reason it... just... WON'T WORK!" shouted Remmy again making the fox shiver.
"Well... maybe if you... wait till Diamond gets here... he can help you?"
Remmy looked up, obviously the last statement had annoyed him, why did everyone automatically assume that Diamond was a better engineer than him just because he could do maths or speak more eloquently.
"Dunno if Dia is coming!" he shouted at the fox. "Now... will you just fuck off and leave me alone...!"
The fox bowed slightly and decided it wise to leave. Walking outside, the fox was greeted by beautiful pure mountain air untouched by technology and the beautiful sight of the mountains. He looked directly ahead of him from where the excavation teams had been digging and had also revealed some... sort of machine that looked like it had impacted into the mountains. What could it be? All that could be seen were massive circular entranceway however nobody had explored into it as nobody could get in that way without falling down a tremendous shaft.
The fox pondered for a second... blocking out Remmy's continual swearing. What was this thing... could it have been a ship... Impossible! Terrans had never developed space technology and the markings on it were definitely Terran. All he had was a single word to ponder on.
"Valkyrie"