Velvet: Covet • Conquer • Combat

By J. Jay

A story of the phenomenal of human beings, living in different world set apart by two countries – Velvet and Monad. Jade Onyx, a graduate student of Green Sand Military School, like many others, enjoyed the game of SOAR (famous sport in Velvet) played by her two brothers, Judah and Gerome. The cronies planned to spend a night at the city of Seven for another victory celebration. No one expected Monad to launch an attack that night, with mysterious, impenetrable gigantic birds. Velvet managed to threaten Monad to retreat the birds, but they knew Monad is going to launch another attack soon. Gerome (Jade’s non-biological brother) never made it to the city of Seven. He went missing after his plane crashed into Mount Beruang. They set out to Mount Beruang to search for him, and for another person whom they think could help them to win the battle against Monad.


Discover more exciting adventure and love story throughout the saga of the first trilogy of Velvet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jun 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543758757

J. Jay

J. Jay, the author of Velvet – Covet.Conquer.Combat currently an active associate in the Early Childhood field. With creativity and imagination, she is inspired to share her story with people of all ages. She is an avid supporter of children’s rights, and multiculturalism.

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Copyright © 2020 by J. Jay.

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CONTENTS

Epilogue

Chapter 1    The undiscovered village

Chapter 2    Jade Onyx

Chapter 3    Introducing Aisha

Chapter 4    Onyx Family and Friends

Chapter 5    Stargazing

Chapter 6    Velvet (Green Sand) Air Force

Chapter 7    Jade’s Little Secret

Chapter 8    Head of Monad

Chapter 9    A Crush on Judah

Chapter 10    SOAR National Tournament - Finals

Chapter 11    Victory Celebration

Chapter 12    The treehouse

Chapter 13    Green Sand Air Force Training Week

Chapter 14    City of Seven

Chapter 15    Rescuing Seven

Chapter 16    The Philomons

Chapter 17    Finding Gerome

Chapter 18    Limma

Chapter 19    Harpra

Chapter 20    Unforgettable feast at Harpra

Chapter 21    Pench Hound Town

Chapter 22    The wild chase

Chapter 23    The search continues

Chapter 24    Preparing for battle

Chapter 25    Returning home

Chapter 26    Battle

Chapter 27    Post war events

Chapter 28    The wedding

Chapter 29    Ending

EPILOGUE

T his is a story of another world.

In those days, humans were of diverse kinds. They were faster, stronger, and more capable of exerting physical force. Most of the humans were born with high magnetism in their blood; and they were born with different strength, speed, stamina, intelligence etc that could be measured. These different levels of gifted physical capabilities are called aminas. Each amina allowed the humans to be classified into different sectors, which enabled them to utilize their superlative skills in various professions.

There were once many regions and small countries. For peace or supremacies, they fought great battles for many years. The land and all its nature inhabitants suffered along with the humans, they were never at rest. The acrid smell of smoke released by explosives became their bedfellow. Children were trained to protect themselves and their families, to fight in order to preserve their lives.

One child, who also, like others, suffered the loss of his loved ones. Seeing his people lived in destitution and despair, he aspired to put an end to all these destructive living conditions. He wanted everything that had breath to be able to live in love, hope and peace. A radical pluralist, who believed it is possible for different groups of people to live together without conflict and enmity despite their ethnicity and colours. And so, he fought great battles, made allies and truces. It was an inner unquenchable fire of indomitable spirit that made it happened for him. Sir Hans Fawn, the man who unified twenty four regions and made them into a great nation. A nation that abolishes slavery and child labour, a new political system based on the notions of liberty and equality. That great nation was called Velvet, named after the Velvet tree which symbolizes healing.

The Gua family had been conquering few other territories. Ivanne Gua disdained at the idea of submitting his power under someone. To retain his sovereignty, he trained his army harder, brainwashing their minds with his exceptional charismatic leadership capabilities. His allegiances were faithful, although some had no choice but to submit themselves to serve the country. Gua fought several battles with Sir Hans Fawn, and managed to salvage thirteen regions under his sway. He named the country Monad, meaning one, unity, cannot be divided. The discords between Monad and Velvet had implicated into a long war saga. After Gua’s death, numbers of battles dwindled down, and the citizens began to focus more on rebuilding their cities and ventured into technologies during the post-war era. Nevertheless, there were still some minor conflicts between the two countries that led to several unnecessary battles. The armies played a very important part to keep the countries protected. The old men used to say, as long as no one tries to take anyone’s territory, everyone was able to enjoy peace.

Greed makes an impossible fulfillment of peace.

CHAPTER 1

THE UNDISCOVERED VILLAGE

A happy young lady was rafting along the cave. She was happy because she would be turning eighteen soon, and that means something special is going to happen soon – like a celebration. Her simple bamboo-made raft was small in size, but it was just enough to carry her and her lantern.

The cave was dark, but it didn’t need any light from her small lantern to give sufficient illumination for her short voyage. The green lights on the walls of the cave looked like little diffused Christmas lights. Not only the lights made it bright and clear enough to see the interior of the cave, it was a spectacular view of nature. The Christmas lights were not really man-made lights, they were called the glowing worms. The worms were fat and green, very much like caterpillars but shorter, and slimier. The rear part of their tails glowed in the dark, making the cave inexpressible beautiful and engrossing.

Having only a lantern and an oar with her, and no weapon, the young lady planned for a short trip, just a spin, and not to go too far from the village. Her village was secluded and secured, never been seen or visited by anyone apart from its own native. It was located in between of Velvet and Monad, unknown, and hidden for many centuries.

A flying insect with a long sparkly tail swished past by her, hovered around her awhile and flew away, disappeared before she could reach out for it.

Wow… she gasped. Amazed and astounded by what she had just seen.

It was beautiful, and it was all by itself. It might be the diamond brush, if she is right enough. She had never seen one before, but she had heard it from her mother. Carefully, she manoeuvred and propelled her raft back to the village with her oar.

Mother! Mother!

What is so important? Her mother had just come out of the house to pick some spices for the lunch.

I saw… the diamond brush, in the cave, she puffed heavily from the running.

Her mother was silent for awhile, looking a bit doubtful. Really? You are serious, aren’t you?

Yes! It was a flying bug, and it has a long tail. I saw it, really. The tail was sparkly and glowing and it swished past me, she tried to explain in detail but failed to do so because she was still dazed by the thrill of being the luckiest person to see that rare flying creature. People had talked the diamond brush, but nobody in the village had seen one before.

Well they say if you see a diamond brush, it means it has come to tell you that someone important will come to you very soon, her mother said.

Someone important sounded important, but not very exciting when you live in a closed village and know basically everyone in the village.

We’ll see about that. Her eyes twinkled with anticipation.

CHAPTER 2

JADE ONYX

O rdinary school days didn’t feel so ordinary today. For it was the last day of school for Jade Onyx. She was finally going to graduate and leave school, and having a little trouble suppressing the indescribable complicated feeling inside her. She loved her times as a student in the military school, but still looking forward for a new chapter of life – to step into the threshold of an adult’s life. Working for Velvet Military had been her dream. It is never going to be anything like the summer jobs she had, although she did enjoy being a relief teacher at the summer camps full of adorable children, which happened to be the best one.

Jade always thought that the coolest thing working for the Velvet Military was that they provide really nice garbs with different designs for every department. They also had the best cafeteria (or the mess hall) filled with scrumptious nutritious food everyday - extremely nutritious because they were very stringent when it comes to their military personnel health, a hospital of their very own situated in their camp, and the most important thing: great pay.

It’s no doubt that Velvet’s military personnel get paid pretty well, because they have the best people working in the camp; and they were not just the best people, they were people born with outstanding abilities (best aminas). That was what made Velvet military special - not everyone could get into the military school, only those who meet the standard requirements of the fundamental physical and intellectual test.

Amina is the important yardstick of a school’s performance, more like an entry requirement. Jade was lucky enough to have the strength amina of 153/200, and a middling intellect test result she had taken at the age of ten. She blamed the language subject for pulling down the average marks, partly blaming the language teacher for being awfully boring. Strength amina of at least 160 for men and 130 for women are standard requirements to be eligible as battlefield soldier. Highest anima of strength is 200, only a few very special people could have reached that anima. That also means, Jade was also eligible to become a battlefield soldier with that amina level. Nevertheless, she could choose to work for Velvet Military base too, with qualified intellectual tests.

The third floor took endless walking than usual, probably because it was where all staff room and boring labs located. She caught herself in the reflection of the glass windows as she walked passed through the corridor. I actually look good in this uniform, she thought, and then let out a doleful sighed when she realized she was going to miss that so-darn-good-looking uniform. The purple and gold seams of the sleeves made it looked ostensibly smart and attractive, nothing near what you would call lurid. Even until now, she still finds it a little unreal to have to accept the fact that today will be the last day, after all the years spent in the Military School of Green Sand. Good years without a single regret.

Talking about good years, Jade considered school was a great place to grow besides really enjoying her time there. She loves everything about the school - friends, teachers, sports, and the amenities; and she was kind of hoping she could be back here again.

Unless you want to apply for the position of psychology lecturer. A voice in her head tells her.

She shrugged. Nah. The whole thing about being a teacher did not intrigue her, well, not for a long term career. Teacher is… such a respective job, she wasn’t sure if she is great enough to be one. Besides, what happens if your students give you hard time with mind cracking questions? She daunts at the thought of that. She wandered down the stairs, running her fingers down the banister, pensively. The perpetual reminiscent of the good old times she had in school sluicing in and out her mind like a stream of water.

Jade was a final year student in Land, Major in Psychology. It was compulsory for students to choose one of the fields of study – Land, Air Force or Navy. The students usually graduate at the age of sixteen if they do not take any major courses, thus, they will be serving in the combat troops for Land, Air Force or Navy. As for Jade, her course in Psychology took her another fourteen months. She had to admit the fact that she was not the studious type, a rather mediocre student, but really into psychology. Other than cramming for exams, the students were given training class with various choices of weapons. Jade took up martial arts and archery class. She was extra alert for not being cavalier in her studies either, especially in the final years. It was an intense course and she wanted to make sure she wouldn’t have to retake any of the module tests (if she fails), and graduate before her eighteenth birthday.

Besides Psychology, Jade had chosen the Aqua Bow as her main weapon for her Fighting and Defense Class. It was compulsory for every student to master in at least one weapon. Now that was something she would have never been tired of. Anything to do with physical exercise and sport is so much preferable than sitting in the auditorium, straining your eyes to keep them opened throughout the class.

The Aqua Bow was a newer evolution of crossbow pistol. It had a V shaped limb with a shorter bowstring, affixed to the wrist along with the quiver case just underneath the bow. All the procedures of selecting and loosening arrows into certain directions with different velocity were controlled by using a sensory glove, with a connected transmission to the bow. The luminescence of Aqua light at the limb will become distinctively brighter, and a bow sight window will be projected to show that an arrow is about to be dispensed. The best part of the Aqua Bow is that there were many cool arrows with different functions respectively, and the user could shoot three continuous arrows at a time - without having to pull the string. Just in case the Aqua Bow ran out of power, then only you will need to use the string. The arrows came in miniature sizes, about the length of an index finger, like darts, to allow more storage. They don’t stay in these miniature sizes for all the time – they developed into lethal 70 centimeters (max) bolt through air friction as they were dispensed out of the bow. Her brothers, however, thought that Aqua Bows are too feminine for combat battles. They had a tang with heavier weapons, like massive blades and swords.

The bigger, the cooler, Judah once said.

Jade’s brothers

Judah Onyx, Jade’s older brother, was eight years older than her. He was twenty-six. He too, was mainly goaded by their father to work for the Military Mechanical Department. Judah graduated in Land, Major in Machinery eight years ago with a superb result for his final year project - he invented a kind of cell that accumulates power to keep a Richo bike (a bigger, heavy duty version of motorbike) operates for 120 hours after a full charge of only 3 hours, which is pretty impressive for a student. Judah had always loves fiddling with machines. He could spend the whole day altering his vehicles, his weapons, and sometimes the sibling’s bikes. It wasn’t Jade’s intend to flaunt her extreme souped-up bike at school, but she would say it was rather awesome that people were induced to admire her cool looking, aqua blue bike. Well it was a good thing having Judah, because she could really use his help to fixing things.

Judah was lean and toned, a normal six foot tall young man with a pale skin, probably because he had been spending too much time in the lab, lack of sun exposure. Jade had always loved his signature look – brown hair with top knot sometimes. What made him attractive the most were his beautiful jade green eyes, just like hers. Both Jade and Judah inherited their mother’s lovely green eyes and beautiful skin, with hardly any freckles. She was sure her parents would have named him Jade if he was a girl, because that was the reason why she was named Jade – after her beautiful emerald-green eyes.

Jade had another older brother, Gerome Ryder. Gerome was sort of taken in to home by Jade’s father. Gerome’s father, Sergeant Arbone Ryder passed away in a sudden invasion by Monad when he was eight years old. Arbone Ryder and Jade’s father, Rhu Onyx were close friends. They used to serve in the same district as sergeants until Ryder was transferred to Weatherspoon (one of the twenty-four states in Velvet). Ryder’s wife too, unfortunately, died during the attack. Rhu Onyx found young Gerome in the basement of the Ryders’ house, not knowing that his parents were dead at that time. He was hiding, and waiting for his parents to return with a hopeful heart. Rhu took him home and he had been living with them since. Both Rhu and Marteena Onyx treated Gerome just like their own child. They’ve loved him as much as Judah and Jade.

Gerome had always been the taciturn type - never really show much of his thoughts, and always present himself with minimal expressions. His parents’ death was probably the main reason he became so close up. It took him a long time to assimilate himself with the new family. Despite being quiet and inscrutable, Gerome enjoyed the country’s most popular game called SOAR. He was gifted with the innate ability to jump twelve feet high, which gave him a big advantage during the game. Twelve feet is incredible to jump with bare feet, without relying on any jumping paraphernalia. It is unreachable. Most of the normal people could jump about seven feet, trained armies could jump up to eight to nine feet high if they try hard enough. For Gerome, it was an extremely precious gift, something extra that you get besides those soldier-calibre aminas he already had. People tell him that he is the luckiest person ever to have that kind of rare, special gift, and he had always been proud of it. Gerome currently serves in the Air Force as Master Sergeant at the moment. It was a remarkable rank for someone who has got into the military service for only five years.

Green Sand Military School

Purple epitomises royalty, nobility, and power; a colour that was chosen to represent Velvet. The Green Sand Military School buildings were mainly purple with black slate tiled roofing, and whites at some parts. Glancing at the buildings with her head up, Jade was sure that she was going to miss that pleasant-looking purple building too. Green Sand had the best and most prestigious military school ever. The school itself was almost a hundred years old, the oldest yet elite military school in Velvet. The chancellor of the school was a veteran commander of the Green Sand Land Force, before Jade’s father took over his place after his retirement. General Orris was a very experienced army, respectful among the generals and the armies he had worked with. He was a rotund man with chummy character and always in ebullient mood, especially during speeches. It was evident that many of his works had clearly preceded the previous chancellors. He was undeniable the best chancellor of Military School of Green Sand had ever had.

There was too much to be reminisced about Velvet Military School, too much memories of herself, her brothers and her friends. Too much about the trainings and fun competitions they had, and how her brothers cheered for her in every archery competition she had been in. And of course, the trophies. Those trophies she had gathered from competitions made her father proud. Her mom, however, was somewhat proud, but had never shown as much excitement as her dad. Jade guessed her mom fancied a more feminine daughter. She would like, never get tired of giving ending praise and oodles of compliment to her friend’s daughter, Ira whenever she could. Mommy’s little precious Ira did the same course as Jade, and a top student, and a musician, and a great chef… God knows if she can even do a summersault and land on her feet. The girl looks so delicate she could break in pieces with a touch. Nothing against girls with brains but weak aminas, but it irks Jade every time when Ira and her mom stop by their house to promote the new delicacies Ira had made. Jade had the feeling that Ira has her eyes on Gerome. Pathetic. She thought, with a spasm of detest in her heart. My brother will never like you, Ira. Don’t even dream about it.

It never snows in Green Sand, but the temperature turned colder during winter times. Early springtime in Green Sand tend to be windy, and could be tempestuous at times. The soft yet constant blowing of cool dry wind made Jade’s lips dry, almost parched. She delved in her sling bag, ferreting for her lip balm to salvage her lips from cracking. Lip balm was an essential item that could always be found in her bag to retain the moisture of her lips, because she gets ratty when she sees parched wrinkly lips of hers. Her long auburn hair, with a little wave at the edge, streamed behind her as she strode across the field to the stable for her Mymmur – they were creatures which people used to use them in battles and transportation long before vehicles were invented. Their appearances were quite similar to lions, except they don’t have any manes, and they have strong legs and paws like bears with heights varied based on the classification of their breeds. Their bodies were covered with shiny, downy fur usually in maroon or mocha brown. With their extensive feathered wings, they could fly fifteen to twenty hundred feet in the air.

Mymmur could be ferocious, especially those trained for battles. But they were usually tame and loyal to their owners, and only military personnel or students could keep Mymmurs. The owners would need to get licenses to keep them, and make sure they stay out of the street. For an additional remark, Mymmur wasn’t the only strange