Star Fantasy: Stairway to the Abyss - Prologue

All of the Galaxy seemed calm, for the Auras Knight watched over it with valiant efforts. Regardless of the fact that evil never rests, it was never was without a threat as long as the Auras Order stood its way.1

MAXimum Xtreme, known as the "Terror of Solaria", the one who was taught by Erik Lester and practically raised under the eyes of the Auras Order, was only eighteen years old and a renowned warrior in the Galaxy. He was made a Star Guardian, the youngest ever, at age seventeen. 2

He now stood before the Council where he had recently taken a place – or rather, a seat on. He was being sent on another mission, something he had become quite used to. A Tyras Knight was roaming about Twilight Planet, killing people at random.3

He came to stand before the Council, to be briefed on his mission. He came to a round room, where seats were placed in a circle, each for a Star Guardian. The larger seat was the one in which the leader sat. 4

“Master Ataron,” Max said standing before the seated Star Knight, the leader of the Auras Order, “I have heard that I was called here for a mission to Twilight Planet. May I ask for the briefing, sir?” 5

“Certainly, Max.” The Star Knight replied. “There is said to be a Tyras Knight on Twilight Planet, terrorizing the people. We wish you to go and dispatch him. There is no request to bring him alive, for the fact is known that he will escape and kill more, nor will he repent. In the Name of Soa, set free the chains of fear this Tyras brings to the peaceful planet.” 6

Max bowed his head respectfully. “Very well, Master. I will do as ordered, and take leave for Twilight Planet immediately.” As Star Knight Ataron bowed his head in return, Max left the Council Chamber. Master Ataron had left the room and followed Max down the hall and called his name. Max turned around to face him. 7

“Yes, Master?” Max answered. 8

“Well, you might want to talk to Erik when you come back. I heard his company’s fate is being decided today, and in case the worst happens with the economy and all, perhaps you could help him with the shock of it…” 9

“Master, we both know Erik’s company is a great asset to the government. It would be very unethical of them to actually close it down; especially with all the inventions and cures they have produced. Their work is in the best interest of the public.” 10

“Max…” said Master Ataron, pausing for a moment. “The government does not act in the best interest of the public. You know this. It has become corrupt, trying to control the people into doing their bidding. The only thing stopping them from taking over is us. The only way to truly turn the government on the right track is if Soa Himself sends another Galactic War to open up their eyes. Politics have never been perfect under a government and a Senate. The only true way to have assured and lasting order is to have a good monarch ruling over the Republic, and we both know Solaria has not had a monarchy since the time of the early Soans.” 11

“Yes, I know. But we are going to have to do something about this. We have our own influence with the people. We can overrun the government if we have to. No matter what, we have to keep order in the Galaxy as we swore to do so long ago… even if it means taking over to do so.” 12

“Exactly, Max. Well, you had better be on your way, my friend. I hope the best of luck to you.” 13

“Thanks. I will back soon to talk to you and Erik.” He nodded his head at the Star Knight and went on his way. 14

Max passed through the halls and the pillars, glancing at some Star Guardians, Auras Knights and apprentices, teaching and training. He felt a strange urge to nod at each of them, as if saying goodbye for the last time. He went walking in a fast pace, until he came the docking bay doors. They slid open for him, and he ran towards his small ship. Every moment spent away from Twilight Planet was another moment the Tyras could be killing another civilian. 15

He jumped in after opening the cockpit. He closed it the hood and strapped himself in. After enclosing the landing gear and slowly ascending, he manually steered out of the bay through the wide opening meant for departures. As he exited the atmosphere of Solaria, he set in a course for Twilight Planet – indeed, very familiar coordinates for Max. He engaged warp, and his ship went off into space at the speed of light. 16

Some five hours later, after Max came out of warp, the computer announced his arrival. “Now approaching Twilight Planet.” Max’s right arm came past his left and hit a switch, and turned off the auto-pilot. 17

He entered the atmosphere, and piloted towards the Quantum Docking Bay. Max opened the cockpit and jumped out, and then sealed entrance to it with an encoding sequence. His arrival had caused a sudden murmur of the people in the surrounding area. 18

Max tried to eavesdrop on their whispers, trying to get an idea of what was happening, and where the Tyras might be. What he heard was not much, and nothing at all of importance.19

Max walked out of the landing bay as fast as he could, using his Kelmari sense to help him find the Tyras Knight, wherever he could be. He walked along the streets, trying to find any disturbance that could be a Tyras’ presence. His hand was hanging at his side, ready to snatch his starsaber from its magical absence at the first sign of a Tyras mage. 20

It was very dark above, black clouds filling the twilight sky. It looked like it was about to storm heavily, but Max knew that it could simply be the magic of a Tyras, and not truly nature. He came to a long brick road, which led to the gates of the Twilight Castle. Lightning made one quick flash above Max, cloud-to-cloud. Max turned around, and saw a Tyras standing there before him. 21

The Tyras Mage was holding a starsaber, fashioned in katana-style. Its orange energy encasing suddenly began to glow. Behind him, purple, orange, and red blades magically ignited, all having differently fashioned swords. Max quickly realized that not just one, but four Tyras were now here. It seemed logical to him why the clouds were so overcast and dark – because four Tyras Mages were creating it, instead of just one. 22

It seemed Max would have a worthy challenge. Max summoned his silver-bladed, red-handled medieval-styled starsaber, and through its magical properties, split it in two. He focused his powers on the blades, bringing them alive magically. They were glowing red, for they had a magical affinity of fire.23

Max made a soaring, magic-assisted leap into the middle of the four Tyras Knights. With his right hand blade held horizontally left in front of him, and his left hand sword just behind his head and above his shoulders, pointing right. The Tyras moved in on him, the red and orange coming from the right, yellow and purple, lurking to his left. 24

“Do you really think you can take four of us?” said a voice from the darkness. “Do you think you will live to see the light again?” 25

“Well, you won’t,” said Max with a smirk. “I can promise you that.” 26

The next move was one they made in unison, a saber spinning technique where both couples on each side whirled their blades toward each other like buzz saws. Max moved his blades into between the paths, locking their blades still in place against each other. 27

He leapt clean over the heads of the red and orange bladed Tyras and stabbed at them both. They parried with a vertical burst upwards. Max’s right hand saber was at the red Tyras’ blade, and he kept it there as he removed his other saber from the orange one, spun around and horizontally parried a vertical outward slash to his face with his left blade. 28

The purple Tyras moved in for an attack from his right side, but he quickly blocked the stab and stepped back and sidestepped an attack from the yellow Tyras. Four were enough to keep him moving, but he could stay on his toes and fight the Tyras strategically, moving from one couple to the other, hopefully striking one down, one-by-one until there was only him and the last Tyras. 29

His job would be short if he was smart enough to plan out the battle intelligently. He felt that these Tyras were not very experienced if they had not already beaten him into submition, or at least made him run. 30

Now all four enemies were in front of him, sure to be back on his trail without a moment’s stop. They came forward as one, blades outward and rushing in for a critical blow. Max walked forward in an elegant stride, his blades catching the two blades on the outer sides and pushing them in towards the inner two, trapping them against each other and driving them into the ground. 31

Max’s right starsaber went for an outward vertical slash from above at the yellow Tyras, but he met the riposte quickly. Max kept his blade locked on the other, and he quickly sidestepped to the right, away from the reach of the other Tyras and moved his left blade in to stab the yellow-bladed Tyras Mage. 32

He groaned as the starsaber met its mark, and fell to the ground dead. The others seemed to have worry in their eyes now. They knew they should not have lost a single man in a four-on-one fight. Now they would pay for their carelessness and would quickly lose their advantage. The other quickly became desperate and started to rush at Max recklessly. The orange Tyras came forward first with an outward sword, yelling like a madman. 33

The other two were a few feet behind, and could not aid their comrade in the instant. Max’s left blade came forward in an outward vertical slash down, locking the orange blade in the ground. With his right blade, Max sent a surge of magical lightning to stun the Tyras. The villain fell to the ground, stinging from electrical burns. The Auras Guardian’s blade went to impale the sinister mage, and no parry came to stop it, for the evil mage was still stunned from the last attack. He fell over on his back, completely lifeless. Max glared at the other two Tyras as they came just a few feet from in front of him. 34

“That was a very pitiful display from a quartet of Tyras.” He said with a serious disposition. 35

With only two Tyras left, he would not really need his second blade anymore. The remaining two had their blades go straight for Max’s own two, to make sure they were not going anywhere for a critical attack. 36

Max jumped back and held his sabers vertically upwards, and then slashed outwards. Max’s magic produced six ice spears, three on each side of him. The blades indicated his command. Three spears went for each Tyras, one for their heads, two for each leg. 37

The red Tyras simply made a shield of fire to melt the ice, but the purple villain deflected the two to his thighs with his blade held horizontally by his legs and moved his head to dodge the ice spear. 38

Max de-ignited his left blade and fused it back together with the other, so he could focus style and precision with his full-powered starsaber. 39

The purple and red came as one, their blades outward in a fencing position. Max copied their stance and parried their horizontal slashes for his hips with simple but elegant horizontal parries. He moved his right hand to aim his slash at the purple mage’s shoulder, but it was blocked by the defender. 40

The red mage slashed for Max’s shoulder, and then with a slight movement of the wrist and a step backwards, Max moved away from the attack, and the two Tyras sabers were forced together. Max threw his left hand back, brought it back in front and emitted a current of lightning from his palm at the red libertine. He was shocked and fell back in pain, stunned for a moment. 41

The purple moved back in motion, and Max stood there waiting for his forward thrust. Max’s blade came from his right side and took the purple blade into a circle around from right to left. Max’s hands kept a firm grip in the circle, until it was complete, when Max’s right hand broke away from the left one and summoned an ice spear right through the Tyras’ chest. The red Tyras Mage hopped up to his feet as his last comrade fell dead. 42

Max finally noticed - that which he did not notice before due to his concentrating on the fight - that with each defeated Tyras, the dark overcast was becoming lighter and lighter. Now all that was left was a light grayish overcast. He turned back to the red evil mage, and noticed his dark and hate-filled face. 43

He was filled with unimaginable rage, and such a burning desire to kill the Auras that he had so little chance of defeating. His hand gestured for a summoning of dark energy, one called “Chaotic Burst.” Small balls of darkness appeared around him, magic filled with hate and fear, one of the most evil types of magic. He threw the orbs at the Star Guardian with an outstretched arm; Max proceeded by batting each orb into the sky with hard, magic-powered swings. 44

The Auras stood with his left side facing the Tyras, his right blade upward and outward, ready to reflect any magic or saber. His right hand went up, and a small fiery comet, known as Star of Fury, began forming over his hand. 45

He sent it flying at the Tyras, who was prepared for the attack. The red blade came up, and with a hard slash backed by a moderate amount of magic, the Tyras batted the small star back at Max. Max used some wind magic to help him leap high over the star. Max rushed the Tyras as he landed, bashing his saber vertically into a saber lock. 46

He managed to slide his right arm through the Tyras left arm with a quick maneuver from below, keeping the two in an elbow lock. Max swiftly went around the Tyras’ left side with his blade sliding across the red Tyras saber to keep it from any attack, and then brought around to face straight up, his arms parallel at their own sides. 47

The Star Guardian jammed his right heel into the back of the Tyras mage’s left knee, causing him pain and taking away his chance to attack Max. The Auras reversed his grip on the blade handle in a half-circle hand twist and plunged the sword into the Tyras’ back. He made a slight groan, and fell dead a few seconds later. Max de-ignited his starsaber, and it vanished magically into an unknown realm until it was beckoned once more.48

He looked away with a sorrowful glance, knowing their souls did not go to any good place. It had become rather repetitive, killing Tyras, but it was always sad knowing their souls were to suffer eternally, and that they had died by his hand. Although he knew it was justice, his respect for life made his duty hurt somewhat. 49

If he could only imprison every evil person and convert them. Although he had caught and converted common criminals, he had yet to convert a Tyras – which barely ever happened at all. He then looked up to see a clear and beautiful night sky, the sun just breaking on the horizon, revealing a gorgeous twilight orange aura over the city. 50

Suddenly, the civilians started to gather around Max, murmuring among themselves. After a fairly large crowd gathered, they started applauding - so loud he could not hear himself speak. He raised his hands in a gesture of silence so he could manage a few words, but unfortunately the audience only clapped louder, probably thinking he was raising his arms in victory. 51

The crowd started coming over to him, thanking and congratulating him from what he could tell by the lip movement, shaking his hand and patting him on the shoulder or back. Finally, the people became quiet enough for Max’s voice to be heard through the endless chatter. He breathed in for a loud announcement, the loudest his lungs could manage. 52

“Everyone, please contact the police and have them take care of the Tyras,” he said loud and clear. Some woman came out from the people, tugging his arm. 53

“Oh, Master Auras, would you please sign an autograph for my son?” 54

“Miss… I came here to save the people from terrorists, not to be a celebrity.” 55

“Oh, please. My son wants to be an Auras Knight too, and he looks up to you. I know it would mean the world to him…” 56

“Very well… but only this once.” Max said with a neutral expression. The lady smiled and gave him a pen to sign the paper she provided. He lowered himself to the ground so he could write on it. After giving the lady the autograph, everyone started to demand one. 57

“I said I would only do one. I am not here for publicity…” he said aloud. But the crowd did not let up. Suddenly, he stood on his toes, pretending to see something. “The police are here.” Everyone turned their heads to look the way he was looking. Within that split second, his used his magic to lift himself into the air, high above the people and landed near a streetlamp by the sidewalk just past the building the crowd was near. 58

He quickly dashed to the building’s cover, the hood over the door blocking the streetlamp’s light. Max leaned back against the wall, rubbing his face with his right hand and sighing. The crowd again began murmuring about Max’s surprise disappearance. 59

Suddenly, a teenage girl of age 15-16, with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, tapped on Max’s shoulder. He turned with a surprised look on his face, a bit annoyed by the consistency of the crowd. 60

“Look, I did not come to sign autographs…” Max said with his hands out in a negative gesture. 61

“I know,” she interrupted, “I came to ask you a question.” 62

“Okay, then. Go ahead.” 63

“Well, um… you see, I’ve never dated or been kissed before, and I’ve always wanted to date and kiss a really nice and handsome guy, like, one I could seriously marry..." The girl batted her eyes in a flirty gesture, and she continued rambling. Max looked as weirded out as ever, and his face was turning red.64

“Look, I would love to stick around and date you, but I have duties as a Star Guardian, and I have a Council I have to inform right about the defeat of the Tyras. I probably have other missions to do, and I’m probably booked for the rest of the month, so I don’t think I can get to it…” 65

“Ooohhh… That’s too bad…” the girl said with a downcast glance. 66

“Well, I’ll see you later. Bye!” Max suddenly took off running with the wind at his heels, heading for the docking bay. Max stopped running when he reached his destination. 67

“Man, first I get people asking for my autograph, and then I have teenage girls hitting on me.” Max thought, walking to his Knight-Wing. “What do I have to do, get some devil horns and a devil mask? Nah, that wouldn’t work… maybe a really ugly mask… no, that would limit my vision with the thickness of it... What else do I have to do to not get so much popularity? I already became a stoic trying to avoid personal attachments. I will go talk to Erik as Master Ataron said; he always has good advice for me.” 68

Max hit the code to open the cockpit to his ship. He jumped inside, strapped himself in and shut it tight. The Auras hit a few buttons and slowly levitated the ship and closed up the landing gear. The ship black gave it excellent stealth in the dark sky. Max had an excellent view of the twilight sky for a few seconds before exiting orbit. He put in the coordinates for Solaria, and engaged warp. He sat back in his seat and relaxed a bit. 69

“It will be five hours before I reach home. I may as well have some sleep until then. And then I can talk to Erik about all of this, and everything will work out. He never has failed me before.” 70

But Max was very wrong – for in fact, across the Galaxy at that very moment, his Master, Erik Lester, was planning a revolution from within Solaria, a battle which would cost thousands of lives, and the near-extinction of the entire Auras Order… and Max would be left alone to face the coming crisis of a Galactic War. 71

September 24, 2008