Commander Rex And The Black Unicorn (Kingdom Chronicles Book 2)

by Jesse Wilson

  “Oh yeah, this was a great idea, I can't see anything,” Evie said, covering her eyes but it had no effect. “Well I can't but I can smell something, it's smoke. That has to be the way out,” Calibri said, took Evie's hand and the two of them started to run towards the source. The closer they got the stronger the smell became.

  They ran until suddenly they could feel the moving air around them, the heat of the fire. Evie opened her eyes and adjusted to the much darker surroundings slowly.

  “We made it, we're out,” she said, turned and looked at the portal behind them, light still flying out of the hole in the air. “The portal will close once the light fades, it shouldn't take very long,” Calibri said seconds before two black tendrils shot out and grabbed her ankles to begin pulling her back towards the portal.

  Evie considered, only for a second to let her be dragged back in, but she thought better of it.

  She lunged forward and grabbed onto her wrists and stopped her.

  “I got you, you're going to be just fine,” Evie said between straining breaths. “It's going to tear my legs off, do something else besides,” she was cut off as the portal closed. The tendrils were cut off at the source and the two of them fell backwards. Evie pushed her off at once.

  “See, I told you that you'd be okay,” Evie said and Calibri lay on the cement. “You know I would have just let you be lunch to that thing right,” she replied to her. “I doubt it, you seem like a better person than that,” Evie replied and started to stand up. “I am just a very good actress,” Calibri replied and stood up. “Woah, do you feel that,” Evie said and looked towards the left.

  “Yeah, a big kind of magic made its way to town. Not just the unicorns either. Something bigger,” she replied and the two of them knew what they needed to do. Rex isn't far away. I can feel his energy and they are gathering. You can join me if you want to, but if not, I understand,” Evie said to Calibri who in turn looked to the ground.

  “I might as well see it out to the end, this feels bad,” she replied and the two of them began to walk to where Rex and the others were meeting.

  Chapter 24

  It wasn't long before the others started to file in one by one to Rex's location. Drask appeared, still afraid that the monsters were following her even this far. “Holy, what happened to you?” Rex asked her, she was covered in blood and this alarmed him. “Had an encounter with a War and Flesh horn at once. Not something I wish to repeat if I can help it,” she said weakly.

  “Damn, you lived through an encounter with both of them, that's something to write down in the school books, killing them must have been a good feeling,” Tayne said as he and Unie came walking through the smoke.

  “I didn't kill them. I ran away. I'm no match for those things and you know it, one of them, maybe but not both,” she replied to him still trying to calm down. “Don't blame you, you got unlucky and that seems to be a common theme with you so far,” Nymie said as she appeared.

  “It is, what happened to you?” Drask asked her. “Razor horn encounter. It won't be bothering anyone for a long time with any luck,” she said, rubbing her arm. Boz came out of the smoke and he seemed to be just fine. “Nothing bad happened to me, I guess it is my lucky day, at least for now,” he said and was worried that saying something might change things, but there was some positivity that was needed so he tried to bring it. “Where's your sword?” Nymie asked. Boz just shrugged. “Lost it in a card game,” he replied.

  “Well we got stuck in the shadow realm because someone didn't focus well enough in teleportation class,” Evie looked at Calibri, but let it go, “But we're fine now so what did we miss and what's the plan?” she asked, everyone was surprised to see that the necromancer was still here but no one wanted to mention it.

  “No real plan, I just felt weird is all and I felt like we should regroup,” Rex replied to them and Evie still felt the energy.

  “You're not wrong. Tayne should feel it too. Something has come into this city and it's very bad, I mean that's not a good explanation but it is bad so we should find out what it is,” Evie said to them and they all agreed that was the best thing that should be done, but this energy was so pervasive that It felt like it was coming from all directions at once.

  There was no way to know what way to go from here and try to find the source.

  “North, west, the energy is coming from that direction,” Unie said as she scanned the area.

  “What, you can just know that. That's hardly fair, but very useful,” Rex said with a smile and they all agreed. “Alright, so let's go find us a source of ultimate evil so we can go die. Did anyone think to call Mystic Force, or the army, or you know, anyone else on this job or is it just us today?” Boz asked and Rex shook his head.

  “The force is too busy trying to keep order and the army isn't allowed into the city without royal order. As far as I know this is all on us also I don't think anyone knows how bad this is going to get, we'll be fine though. There can't be anything that horrible out there that we can't handle,” Rex replied to him. “Is this the Black Unicorn?” Drask asked. “I don't know, no one knows until we see it for ourselves,” Rex replied, but he was beginning to believe that the Black Unicorn was real.

  The team moved northwest through the wrecked streets, the fire and the clear signs that unicorns had been here at some point. They have all since moved on, actually, there was no sign of life anywhere.

  “This is a city, it shouldn't ever look like this no matter what time of the day it is,” Boz said quietly as he looked around. “Yeah, but it's night, it's hard to see anything and the smoke is, oh shut up, why am I even talking about any of this,” Drask said, catching herself from getting drawn into the conversation and making noise, nearly forgetting her brush with death earlier.

  Boz rolled his eyes, not bothering to respond to that. “I have detected energy at least four blocks away. It is moving away, it is surrounded by multiple life forms. I do not believe we should go any further,” Unie said, stopping in her tracks.

  “You're right, there is something out there, something big,” Evie agreed, sensing something that was giving her chills. “Well, let's see if we can take this thing back to where it belongs, we have to try,” Rex said and started walking again in that direction, fearless as ever. Fear was an ally that was really hard to work with. As much as it wanted to let you know there was danger ahead, it was often way too good at its job.

  Each of them did their best to keep it under control.

  Grayson walked down a wide street with tall buildings on both sides of him. He was followed by unicorns of all kinds, ten in two rows behind him. Vicious things that would, on their friendliest day if such a thing existed, kill one another on sight were now passive.

  “You've been destroying one another way too long. Blaming one another for the loss of your world. Each believing the other to be the enemy, the reason. You've all been tricked, it was the new gods that came and screwed it all up,” he said to them and smiled.

  “No matter, the time is right, the barrier has been broken, we will reclaim what is ours,” Grayson said in an increasingly distorted voice.

  “I get that, you've been screwed by the system. Someone stronger than you made your life miserable and everyone has to pay for it, all powerful god or a street vendor, the situation is the same,” Rex said as he pushed himself off of a wall of a red building. Grayson stopped, the unicorns did as well. “Who are you, and how did you avoid detection?” he asked the man who was clearly looking to die.

  “My name is, Rex and I am a Unicorn hunter. I've sent so many of those monsters back to whatever hell they came from and I did it with a smile. As for the detection thing, a cloaking spell, I wasn't sure it was going to work,” he said and Grayson frowned.

  “Hell is the word you used but you don't know how correct you are. It takes so much energy to escape that prison and I was buried deepest of all. The gods feared me the most so they put me where no one would ever find me, at least they hoped so, a
nd look how that turned out,” he said with a smile.

  “Well I don't know what happened or why but I am going to make sure you go back, one way or another,” Rex said, sighed and pulled his blaster out of his holster. Grayson started to laugh.

  “You are alone, you are mortal and you should know that if I am here there is no way to, as you put it, send us back. We are home. All we need to do now is clean the world of all the pests that have invaded it,” he said to Rex and the commander had to consider the possibility that this world was finished if it was true that there was no way to send the unicorns away for good.

  It wouldn't stop him from attempting to try to do it anyway.

  “Are you the Black Unicorn, because you really don't look like a unicorn to me. You look like a man, show yourself,” Rex demanded of the creature. “You expect me to bow to your whims, you expect me to listen to someone who was created to die?” as Grayson said this he was immediately inches away from Rex's face. The commander didn't even see him move, nor did he see his hand move up to grab his throat and lift him off the ground.

  “I don't think so,” he said and with a flick of his hand tossed the commander through the air and into the pavement, rolling away. Despite this Rex managed to hold on to his weapon, but both of his legs were broken on impact and he was in more pain than he could remember for a long time. The others didn't need any kind of signal to attack, that was more than enough.

  Drask fired her green plasma from the window she was aiming from at Grayson and the blast struck him in the side of the head, he stumbled to the right a few steps. His skin sizzled a little bit.

  Tayne had his shotgun and wasted no time in getting up close and personal. He put the barrel of the enchanted shotgun against his enemy's chest and pulled the trigger. Grayson was taken off his feet but the red energy bolts fell away from him as if they were ash. Grayson landed on his feet, pushed a few inches back.

  “Ouch, you guys and your toys are amusing but I do have some work to do,” he said to him, smiled and with one fluid motion knocked the vampire to the side with his left hand smashing him through the air and into a third story window on the left side.

  “Pests, all of you. Anyone else want to try to take a piece or are you all done now. I'd really like to know,” Grayson shouted out to anyone who might listen. The unicorns were getting even more restless behind him.

  “I hear you, we will go now and bring all the rest of us to this world. Patience is all you need,” Grayson said to them and started to walk forward again.

  Nymie leapt from the alleyway and used her axe in a surprise attack. The razor horn never saw it coming. The brittle horn shattered off of the things head and Grayson paused, winced at the sound and turned to look. The razor horn screamed in pain as its attacker backed off in a hurry. Instead of what was supposed to happen after this point, the sword blade for a horn immediately reformed on its head seconds later.

  “Oh, you've got to be kidding me,” she said with surprise.

  “We are home. There is no place to send us back to anymore,” Grayson said to her with a smile and looked up at her. “I'm going to enjoy eating you, leave her for me later, kids, we have work to do,” he said and she got out of the street in a hurry.

  Boz was already at Rex's side and injected him with a nano shot.

  “Listen, this maniac obviously thinks he's won but he is going somewhere. We need to back off and find out where,” Boz said to him and Rex, as much as he hated the idea he agreed with it. “Okay, this time we'll see what happens,” he said to Boz and struggled to stand up, Boz helped him.

  “Team, retreat for now,” Rex said into his intercom. Grayson could only laugh as he watched Rex and the elf run out of sight in front of him. “Ignore the mortals for now, we have bigger plans to do. Don't worry however, you will get more than your fill of revenge,” Grayson said to the things following him with a smile and continued walking down the road.

  “Where in the hell is he going?” Evie asked the group after they found one another.

  “I bet he's going to a center of magical energy to try and open some kind of rift,” Calibri said and it made sense to the others.

  “That thing is so impossibly strong we couldn't even touch it, so does anyone have any ideas on what to do next or do we just find a local bar and wait until the end of the world?” Drask said and she was really hoping for someone to agree, right now she could use a drink, or a whole bottle of something.

  Nymie smiled at the thought, she too could use a couple of bottles of anything right about now. “As fun as a party would be we need to just follow the thing until it is getting to where it needs to be,” Rex said and the others waited for the second part of the plan, it quickly became apparent that there was no second part of the plan.

  “So that's it, just follow it?” Tayne said and was disappointed with this idea. “Well we don't know anything about this thing. For right now I will assume that this is the best we can do so when an opportunity presents itself we will take it,” Rex replied to him.

  “And if it turns out that there is none and we wasted all of our chances just following, then what,” Tayne replied. Rex looked down and sighed.

  “Then we all die, and none of this will matter anymore,” Rex said with a smile that didn't make anyone comfortable. “Well we better go because mister supervillain is getting away,” Evie said to them. The group realized they had wasted too much time talking about nothing and decided to depart. “Unie, can you still track him?” Tayne asked.

  “Yes,” she replied and continued. “Follow me,” she finished and started to walk down the street.

  Chapter 25

  Evie took two steps, then everything froze. “You've been neglecting yourself,” a strong voice said to her and she looked around. “What do you mean?” she asked in response and was a little bit nervous. “I mean your Aquarian star is corrupted, your skin is drying out, you're dying and you won't be any use to your team dead. This is why your energy is failing you and why you ended up in the shadow realm,” the voice said to her and a hand came down on her shoulder.

  “Let me help you again,” he said and walked around her. It was Elrox. He snapped his fingers and her Aquarian star pendant began to glow, immediately she did feel better. With everything that was going on she didn't even realize how weak she was.

  “Thank you, we need your help,” Evie said to the God and he just smiled.

  “The black unicorn is a plague on our land. There are many things that are plagues and vast secrets that would, for now, be better left unsaid. But I will tell you this. We did not imprison the unicorns. Mortals did. Thousands of years ago you worked together and you managed to do it. The unicorn believes we helped, but all we did was provide guidance, as I will do for you now,” Elrox said and crossed his arms.

  “The unicorn's body is still trapped. Its mind and power is free. It will need to unite and in order to do that a portal will be opened, you will know your chance when you see it presented to you,” Elrox said with a smile then time restarted once again.

  “Hey, Evie, are you okay?” Drask said waving her hand in front of her eyes. “Yeah, I mean, I'm fine,” Evie said, shaking her head. “So, what would I tell you if I was just visited by a God and he seemed pretty sure we could win this,” she said and started walking again.

  “Did they give you any super powers or plans on how to win or did they just say good luck,” Drask asked her. “Basically, said good luck and sent me on my way,” Evie replied and smiled for the first time in a while, despite everything she was finally feeling closer to her old self again.

  “Well the next time you talk to a god, make sure to ask for some holy rocket launchers or something,” Drask said and walked to catch up with the rest of them. “Yeah, I'll do that,” she replied.

  Rex and the others followed their prey, but made sure to keep their distance. Rex was sure that Grayson knew where they were, or at least that they weren't going to give up so easily. Evie made her way up to Rex, av
oiding the others.

  “Elrox said that Gods didn't trap the unicorns, people did. Said that the body is still trapped. They have to unite and he said that we'd know our chance when we saw it,” she said to him and he nodded.

  “Information that could have been useful before I got both of my legs broken for nothing, but alright. Did he happen to mention what this chance would look like or anything else that could be useful,” he asked her and Evie just shook her head.

  “You know how the gods get, they don't like to be too direct in their affairs. They like to be weird,” she replied and Rex rolled his eyes. “Useless as always. Listen. We're all tired and worn out. Do you think you could cast a regeneration spell on us so, when we get to where ever we are going we will be ready to fight at least,” Rex asked her and Evie nodded.

  “Yeah, I can do that. No problem,” she said and walked away.

  Evie lifted her staff up and held it in both hands. Unexpectedly, a bright blue, and warm light washed over all of them. “What in the hell,” Drask said shielded her eyes as the rest of them did the same. In seconds, however, they all began to feel better despite their drained physically and emotional state.

  “A regen spell, really. We aren't that far gone you know,” Nymie complained about it. “Don't worry about it, think of it as a safety net,” Evie replied to her, set her staff down and keep walking in the same direction. “I don't feel any different,” Tayne said, disappointed.

  “That's because you're a vampire and the only thing that keeps you moving is blood, speaking of do you need some,” Caibri said, walking beside him. “Are you offering or what?” Tayne didn't like necromancers but he'd settle for eating one right now.

  “Bite the troll, she's got plenty of blood and Troll blood makes the undead things stronger,” she said to him and Tayne was reminded of how he felt the last time. “Nymie, I have a question,” Tayne said to her and she turned and looked at him.