by Jesse Wilson
“Hey, at least he didn't bite me I guess. I didn't want to be a vampire. I enjoy life a little too much for a strictly liquid diet,” Drask replied and for a minute it was as if nothing had happened at all in their lives to get them here, but reality set back in a hurry. “It doesn't work that way but, never mind,” Tayne said and decided to not get into the details of it.
“So, they tracked the, whatever it was, making a very straight line straight to Calex island and that is where we will be going next,” Rex informed them all. “We have a ship on its way to meet us, it's not the Voltarice but it will do so I suggest you get some rest and make sure that you're up to the challenge because it will be one. We have about four hours to kill and make sure to pick up a working Aquarian Star, too,” Rex said to them all.
“Alright, what did I miss?” Nymie asked as she woke up and then she saw Drask. “Hey, you're alive, great,” she added with a sleepy smile and a yawn. “Yeah, just let us know when the ship gets here. I am going to get some rest,” Drask said and walked out, and the rest of them slowly stood up and started to walk out. The robot remained there.
“Come on metal girl, you don't need to sit here by yourself,” Tayne said to her. The machine looked at him, stood up and followed him out of the room. “You can stay up with me, I guess,” he finished and laughed a little bit.
Four hours passed by and soon enough another, lesser ship had met up with the rescue vessel.
Rex was already on the bridge and getting used to the second-rate transport, but it was better than nothing. “Is everyone aboard that needs to be aboard?” he asked into the intercom. Not interested at all in protocol.
“I guess the Commander has had it,” Evie said to herself, reached over and flipped her signal switch to the bridge to indicate she was on board. Rex watched one by one as the lights flipped from red to green. If anyone wasn't on board that needed to be he would deal with that problem later, but according to this everyone was here.
“Good, we are leaving, it'll just be us. I'll be driving the ship to Calex island. We will be there just before the sun comes up. Be ready for anything,” he said. Through the viewing screen he could see that the black tear in the sky had disappeared. Whatever its purpose was, had been finished.
Chapter 18
The trip to Calex Island was surprisingly, uneventful.
Soon enough, he island loomed in the darkness before the ship. In the night, black ocean and with stars behind it, it was hard to see.
“We should wait until the sun comes up before we go venturing on to the island,” Drask said as they all stood on the upper deck, looking towards the place. “That's the best thing I've heard all night,” Nymie added but Tayne shook his head.
“What if whatever is on that island is doing some stupid ritual and by the time we get there it will be too late,” he said to them. Evie stared at the island.
“You know, are we really sure it didn't just sail on past here? I'm not sensing anything out here besides a couple of weak auras, but nothing seriously horrible,” she said and shrugged.
“I agree. I do not detect anything,” Unie said and she gazed into the dark.
“Well outside of here it could have gone anywhere. We have to at least give it a look to make sure. Wouldn't it be funny if we decided to not go look and we doomed the world because it was hiding here? Yeah, that's exactly what I want to be remembered for, the guy who said to not check,” Rex said and looked to the stars in the sky.
“It'll be lighter in an hour, get ready to go. Take only what you need,” he said and walked away from them.
“I hope it's a nice place. I hear good things about it, hardly anyone ever comes back,” Nymie said and laughed. “How is that good?” Drask asked her quickly. “Well, it means that people come back, so there is a chance that we won't just disappear here, not without a fight at least,” she replied and Boz nodded.
“Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you,” Boz said to her without really thinking about it. “Oh, you're going to protect me, well, great,” she said and put her hand on the top of his head and rubbed his golden hair. Drask laughed and Tayne just rolled his red eyes.
“Boz and Nymie, a couple, I'll believe that when I see it, but be careful, Boz. I heard that Trolls like to eat Elves,” he said with a laugh. Nymie immediately reached over and hit the vampire in the back of the head so hard that he fell off the side of the ship. “And that's for abandoning me back on the Voltarice,” she said mostly to herself.
“We don't eat elves, at least not anymore,” she said as she looked over the edge. “You should have hit him harder,” Drask commented as Boz got closer to Nymie.
“He's a vampire, he'll be fine. We've talked long enough, let's get ready to go,” she replied, turned around to go back inside the ship. “Enjoy the climb back up, you snozbucket,” Boz said over the edge, feeling confident Nymie at least was going to be there for him.
The others followed Nymie back inside.
Tayne was already clawing his way back up the side of the ship when a hand appeared to help him up. It was the robot. “I will help you,” she said to him. Tayne took her hand and was pulled up with ease. “Thanks,” he said to her, the robot only smiled in response. “You are a vampire, how come you didn't just fly back up?” Unie asked him. “Well, flight takes a lot of energy, and I managed to catch the metal before I needed to fly. Scratched the paint job up pretty good but I think they'll understand,” he replied.
“Good, let's prepare for the expedition,” Unie said. Tayne looked at her. “You don't need to come with us if you don't want to,” he replied.
“The suspect controlled me, made my actions responsible for killing everyone I was supposed to help. It is my duty to, as you would call it, get some payback,” she replied to him. Tayne wondered just how advanced Unie really was. “I understand, let's go,” he replied and the two of them walked inside.
“Is everyone ready to go?” Rex asked and they were all in their individual transport speeders in the docking bay of the ship, floating on the water. “Let's get this over with already so I can go home, I want to know how the trial turns out,” Drask said and Rex had completely forgotten about that. The others were as ready as they were ever going to be.
“Let's go,” he said and his shield activated along with the rest of theirs. Rex activated his speeder and sank under the water with the rest of them.
Together they quietly made their way to Calex Island through the dark water with nothing but their computers to guide them and allowing them to see through the black.
There wasn't anything to see however, all of the normal life in the sea around this place appeared to be long gone, as if some predator was stalking the sea that was invisible to everything and everyone. Despite the weirdness of the situation, nothing attacked them.
They broke the surface of the sea and pulled on to the beach, digging into the wet sand. The only sound around them was the crashing waves. They all got out and Evie looked around.
“Strange,” she said and walked over to a tree. There was a symbol carved into it, she scraped an extra line into the bottom of it and it began to glow bright green, then it faded away.
“No wonder this place didn't have anything coming off of it, it was warded,” she said to them and turned around. With one of the wards broken the others on the trees began to glow green as well, the ward circle had been broken. “I hate wards, who would take the time to protect a whole island?” Drask asked.
“Someone who really didn't want to be found, obviously,” Boz replied to her.
“Well, great, now we know we are on to something, let's keep going,” Tayne said to them and unattached his shotgun from its holster at his side. “Yeah, get your weapons out, we don't know what is in here,” Rex said to them and they all followed the vampire's lead.
They began walking through the trees but being unfamiliar with the place and it still being dark out it was hard to see anything before it became a problem. Tayne and Boz were having
the easiest time navigating the thick jungle with the strange plants so they were leading the charge into the interior of the island. Suddenly the faint smell of smoke and glow of fire could be seen in the distance through the trees ahead of them.
The group moved to the edge of the trees and saw a clearing before them and they all became nervous. There was a large fire burning in the middle of a circle of various, low level unicorns, bowing their heads to a man in bright red and black robes. He was screaming something in a language they didn't understand and looking up at something. Rex and the others looked up at the sky and there were no stars above them.
It was a swirling black mass of silent energy.
“Why didn't we see that from the boat? That looks like something that would be kind of hard to miss,” Boz said almost too loud. “I don't know but look at all the horns, they are acting very strange. Do you think it's the Black Unicorn?” Nymie asked them and Rex, nor anyone else knew. “I would assume yes,” Tayne replied.
“We need to do something, what's the plan?” Tayne asked them and it was clear that no one had an actual plan. “I can hit the mage from here, maybe the shock will knock the unicorns out of their trance and they'll tear him apart,” Drask suggested and continued, “then we can take the unicorns out like we normally do,” she finished.
“There is a seventy five percent chance that the mage will be unaffected by the blast and our position will be revealed by this action resulting in a one hundred percent death rate,” Unie said to them and Rex rolled his eyes.
“I still don't know why we brought the pessimistic robot along,” Rex whispered to himself.
“Do we have any other ideas or is this the only one we have to try?” Rex asked them and no one seemed to have any better plan then to go in guns blazing and hope for the best. “Okay then, let's do it,” Rex said to them and they began to spread out to surround the strange ritual that was going on in front of them.
Drask took careful aim at the mage's head and waited until the others were where they needed to be for the best chance to take out the monsters surrounding the red mage. Rex nodded to Drask from a distance and she fired. A bright green bolt of energy fired from the weapon. The person in the red robes was struck in the back of the head, and fell to the ground.
The unicorns, however, didn't even move.
“Well that's new,” she said and was at a loss as to what do next, all the others were too. Whatever was above them had a hold on the monsters unlike anything they had ever seen before, it was clearly not the mage in red who was doing this.
“That really hurt you know,” the mage said out loud and began to stand back up. “You can come out now. I knew you were coming. I saw that ship hours ago so you really need to work on your stealth skills,” the person said but didn't turn around. One by one the hunters began to come out of the woods. “Okay, you got us, but what is all of this. Why are these monsters just waiting?” Rex asked, blaster in hand as he did. The mage took the hood down and it turned out to be a woman, not who they were expecting.
“Monsters, no, these are the children of the Abyss, you see, this world Is actually theirs and people like you keep sending them away, but all that is about to change,” she said and smiled. “Abyss, I don't even know what that means but nothing is going to change. These monsters are going back to where they came from,” Nymie said and raised her axe to cut the horn off of a Geo horn she was close to.
“They came from here, this is their world, not ours. I am bringing them home and the greatest one of them all, the Black Unicorn, he will arrive and go into the chosen vessel to bring in a great new age. Or, I guess back to the way things used to be before the Gods showed up and ruined everything,” she said and pushed the black hair out of her purple eyes.
“Well, true or not we have to keep things the way they are,” Boz said as Nymie brought the axe down and cut off the stone horn of the Geo horn. The beast screamed, and as expected its body collapsed into the dirt, crumbling away into nothing. None of the others reacted, but seconds later a thin beam of white energy came down from the black mass to where the pile of dirt lay and entered it. The monster quickly reformed into the monster it was and Nymie jumped back.
“What in the hell is this,” she said and the mage just laughed. “See, I allowed you to be here because there is nothing you can do. You know that unicorns can only be banished, but they always return. What do you think is above us now? Just some odd cloud that I decided to summon, really?” she asked her and laughed again. “So that is where they come from, the other side of that energy,” Tayne looked up and figured this mage was telling the truth, maybe about everything.
“So, Rex, yes, I know your name, all of us do, what do you intend to do now?” she asked him and Rex thought about it for a minute. “Well, I suppose I am just going to arrest you and bring you back to the capital for questioning. I have a feeling these unicorns aren't here for you and have no reason to protect you. Whatever is coming down has their attention. That seems like a plan to me,” he replied to her and her eyes narrowed.
“You can't do that, I am the conduit, none of you can touch me,” she replied and clapped her hands. Immediately a wave of deep purple fire spread out in all directions from them and everyone dived back into the trees to get out then the mage started to run.
“Don't let her get away,” Rex said and Evie pointed her staff at the mage's feet, the earth itself rose up and surrounded the mage's feet at once, bringing her to the ground. Boz just looked at him. “Did you really just say that?” he asked in disbelief. “Yeah, sorry,” Rex replied and smiled.
“Maybe you should do that first before the crazy one gets a chance to fry all of us,” Boz said as he picked himself off the ground as the others did. “Sorry, I was too busy trying to figure out why we aren't dead yet,” she said and couldn't take her eyes off of the swirling mass above them.
“You can't take me away, the ritual isn't done, and we'll all be destroyed if it's not completed, don't you understand, we are all going to die,” the mage was screaming, trying to get away. Tayne walked up to her and with ease put her hands behind her back to cuff her with special anti-magic metal cuffs. As soon as he did that he pulled her out of the ground and to her feet.
“We can't leave these monsters here like this, they won't stay here like this forever,” Nymie said as she looked, still amazed by the circle of horror that surrounded her and fighting every urge to start trying to banish them as fast as she could.
“For now, there isn't anything we can do, you saw what happened, but I think we should get out of here just in case the trance breaks and we end up getting eaten,” Rex said and started to walk away. The rest of them started to follow him. “I am telling you people, if I don't finish there will be no controlling what happens next. We will all die. I had a plan you know. We knew what we were doing. Why are you messing everything up?” she started to scream and fight to get away when Tayne just punched her and knocked her out.
“It's what we do,” he said and threw the mage over his shoulder.
“Let's get out of here,” Evie said not approving of how he chose to take care of the situation but now wasn't the time to argue about it. With the rising sun it was much easier to get through the twisted jungle, luckily, they didn't see any hostile lifeforms, likely due to the strange magic that was taking place there. The speeders were just where they left them.
“Let the mage go with the robot so in case she wakes up she can't take any of us hostage or something stupid like that,” Rex said and Tayne gave him a funny look for a second but quickly handed the unconscious woman off to the machine, who easily carried her to the transport and set her inside.
“Is it just me or is that thing in the sky getting bigger?” Drask asked and looked up at the black thing above them. “No, it is. I don't know why but we need to get away from it, you do remember what it did last time, right?” Rex reminded them and that was more than enough encouragement for them to get in their transports and make their
way back to the ship.
Chapter 19
The mage woke up in a bleak, small metal room sitting in a chair and her wrists chained to a table. Across from her Rex was sitting there. “Hey, welcome back. Sorry for that but you were getting hysterical so we had to take care of it,” he said and she shook her head, trying to get rid of the pain.
“You have to let me go or else you're all going to die, me too, all of us,” she said to him in a hurry and Rex smiled. “Now explain to me why we are all going to die, I mean, details?” he asked her and she laughed at him.
“Fine, what do I care. When the blades were released in the north it started a chain of events. Prophecies you know? Albert and I, we dabbled in Unicorn mythology and legends, but he caught onto a story. Once the blades are opened, the unicorn shall return and the black veil will cover the whole of the world,” she said and laughed, but continued, “Unicorn scholars always talked about the idea of a black unicorn and how it was able to control all the others,” she said and Rex shook his head.
“I know about the theories, but I've faced these things for a long time. They've never even shown the slightest interest in working together, in fact they are so driven by keeping what's theirs they will banish their own kind most of the time, they are very anti-social,” Rex responded to her and the mage just smiled.
“I know, but you saw it, there wasn't much killing going on in that circle. They were in communication with their leader, their, for all intense and purposes, God,” she replied to him and continued. “Albert and I, we discovered how to potentially control the black unicorn. The ritual, the spell, we found it all. We hacked into the deepest magical vaults of information kept by the orders to find it. Albert was a genius like that and we found out that the power of the god needed a vessel to give up their own life,” she said, that smile never left and those black eyes never blinked.
