Zardien – Lightning’s Fire, Light’s Roar Ch. 5
Summary: Kilivirain meets his unicorn MistBolt
Archival Note from The Jewel Riders Archive: This story is presented as it was originally published on Stormy’s “Avalon” fan site in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It is presented for archival purposes and for the enjoyment of the Jewel Riders fandom. If you are the author of this story and wish to have it removed from the Jewel Riders Archive (or wish to share more!) please email us at archivist@jewelridersarchive.com. Happy Reading!
Chapter Five: Sadistic Destiny
By Zardien
Kilivirain peered over his forest-surrounded castle in Western Crevonia with Arguss beside him; watching…planning. His dark eyes look around as he stood in a tower, watching all he could see. This is indeed was good…SO good…now he had a stable grounds for the base of operations. Now…it was all set. With this new jewel…this Counter Lightning Stone, as it was called…this new power he had…he himself had been given a new glint of dark power…if HE could find such power, then there must had been something to it…yes, for the first time, he realized he could challenge fate…he could go against destiny…now, he could seek his revenge against destiny for all it was worth…now there was hope.
Arguss…he was a soldier who had under with Kilivirain ever since he had gained his own castle…he was about Kilivirain’s age…perhaps a few years older…he had streamed-brown black hair…he had risen in the ranks so much…he was Kilivirain’s trusted side-man and the only one Kilivirain trusted as a friend…Arguss did not have Kilivirain’s plotting mind, but he was wise beyond his years. This information is not logical to this certain chapter…in fact, Arguss shall not be mentioned again until a few more chapters, but he is someone you need to remember, dear reader.
“So what if I am a baronet in a pathetic country?”, he thought. “It will only make me stronger to rise up.” He was being a bit high in
aspirations, though. First thing was first. One, a plan…an idea to ascend to the barony of Western Crevonia. Two, the means to do
it…Kilivirain’s funds were sufficiently low at the time; though the way he managed to stretch a gold piece to its upmost amount was amazing. But even with this ability…he would need money…he would need soldiers. But how? No one around THIS wasteland would help him. He would need an ally from afar…but WHO?
A noble, perhaps…a high noble of secret malicious intent…Kilivirain knew as well as anyone there was bound to be a few in Avalon. But the noble HE would need would have to be unique…someone of unusually high rank and plenty of resources…someone who would welcome the opportunity to help Kilivirain in exchange for Kilivirain’s support for them when he became baron of Western Crevonia.
And so, after a few months of spy searchings, and Kilivirain did have well-trained spies; he knew because he trained them himself based on his brilliant tactics and wilderness survival skills, a certain noble was found…with the “unique” factor Kilivirain was looking for…a high position and devious intent. That noble was in the form of a count…Count Mancion VI of Manchester. Manchester was a secondary primary region (in other words; REALLY important) in Avalon, headed by a duke. The duke had many nobles under him in Manchester…though he actually regulated the land with six counts; each count holding a certain well-spaced castle that they owned along the area of Manchester…equally dividing the land controlled by each count into sixth sectors, and the duke and his castle
being in the center of it all. Count Mancion VI was one of these six counts, and as you might have imagined he was a very high-position and wealthy nobleman with incredible power and resources. Mancion was, as he name infers, the sixth Mancion to rule Castle Mancion, his domain. The Mancion dynasty, ever since Manchester was established, had always held one of the count positions in Manchester.
Indeed this was the SAP…erm…TOOL, yes, that’s it, TOOL…Kilivirain needed to succeed to his next stage of brilliance. Though when Kilivirain decided to pay Mancion VI a personal visit, he would find MUCH more than he bargained for…for he was traveling on foot…alone…in disguise…and on the back road he was taking, where almost no traveler treads…what the…what the heck is that? Kilivirain quickly ducked behind a tree…my gosh, could it be…standing with two obviously brainless buffoons of traveling raiders against his will as they held him by reigns, stood a unicorn…a jet black unicorn…with wings…his eyes seem to be glowing green
as a new-found emerald… his magnificence seeming to overturn the mists in the dense, foggy area…a radiant creature of nightfall that had no sense of fear whatsoever…a lightning bolt in the mists, yes…a mist bolt…this creature was truly awesome and beautiful.
Kilivirain watched the two morons taking the steed, listening to their words…
“So, what do wez do with da ‘corn now, Jake?”
“Wez get him to da boss, of coise. Da boss will be vewy pweased wid us.”
“Yeah. Lucky we caught da guy when he was dwinkin’ from a stream…”
“Kinda strange, ya know? A unicorn in da middle of nowhere…”
“Who cares? We get ‘im to da boss, we get da doh!”
Kilivirain could stand this bumbling idiocy any longer. He leaped out, and yelled instictively, “WHO TAUGHT YOU NUMSKULLS GRAMMAR? A DWEASLE?” Kilivirain just realized that was a VERY dumb move, let alone a really STUPD catch phrase…
Kilivirain raised his mace, knowing he was in for a fight…he WAS a good fighter and WAAAAY more intelligent, but these WERE barbarians… it’s not like they actually THINK before fighting…I mean, their entire motto is: “CHARGE!!!!!!!” Kilivirain would have to think fast…wait a sec, that JEWEL…
“Dang it, what DID that voice tell me to say…hmm…ah yes!” he thought. “BY THE MAGIC OF THE COUNTER LIGHTNING STONE, I AM HE-MAN!…erm, KILIVIRAIN!”
Kilivirain’s dark gray armor morphed around his entire body, helmet and all…DUDE, this was cool…mace with glowing purple aura…insignia of a BLEEDING lightning bolt…bracelet…gaunt…BRACELET?
Kilivirain stared at his arm…Kera’s bracelet…she had given it to him long ago…he never took it off…the armor…even when he DONNED the armor, the bracelet was not morphed away…it stayed, over the armored gauntlet…visions of Kera came back to Kilivirain…those flames…that burning house…
“KERA!!!!” he yelled in tears and deep in thought, totally oblivious and therefore getting a war hammer in the gut…sending him reeling
back…fortunately, the well-armored chestplate kept Kilivirain from feeling anything except the wind blown out of him…
Suddenly, out of nowhere….”YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”A barbarian goes flying over Kilivirain’s head as he sees the black
unicorn kicking him with his rear two feet.
“Quick! Take out the other one!” he heard a voice say…from the UNICORN?
“You can TALK?”
The other barbarian looked at him questioningly; obviously he couldn’t hear the voice…
“To you I can.”
“But…WHY?”
“I…I really don’t know…I just know.”
Kilivirain, in total confusion but this time on guard, yells as the other guard came charging “COUNTER LIGHTNING BLAST!” A stream of purple lightning came out of his lightning bolt-shaped jewel, and fried the barbarian to death.
Kilivirain then turned, focusing on the OTHER barbarian…”Oh no you DON’T!”
With a second war cry, Kilivirain with two COLD eyes raised his glowing mace, made a leap, and well….utterly crushed the other barbarian’s skull into stuff I won’t describe because there are children in the audience.
With that, he turned to the black unicorn.
“Kilivirain, right?”
“What…how did you know my name?”
“I read your thoughts…”
“You can READ my thoughts.”
“Of course. So can you.”
“What?”
“Your jewel has some unusual properties being a counterstone…it gives you the ability to read thoughts and emotions in Celtic language, which I know you know…”
“What…what are you talking about…COUNTERSTONE?”
“You’ll learn in time. For now, let’s make formal introductions…I am MistBolt.”
“How odd…that’s exactly how my mind described you…”
“I know. You named me.”
“What?”
“I read your thoughts on your description of me. I liked it. And since I’ve never had a name, it’s a good as time as any to pick one.”
“So why…why are you staying here with ME? I mean, don’t unicorns hang around in places WITHOUT humans?”
“Silly. I’m your jewel animal. The same voice that you heard from the jewel guided me to you.”
“Jewel animal?”
“What, you thought it was a freak of nature that I was brought to you? Of course not! This was pre-planned…by the same voice that guided you to the jewel, I was guided to you…I would have thought with YOUR exceptional brilliance you would have figured that out, Kilivirain.”
“But why me?
“Because you were chosen. Now, come, we must get to New Camelot?”
“Huh?”
“To bond you to me. It’s the routine thing with jewel riders.”
Kilivirain, out of all the shock of this, finally begins to understand…and a devious smile begins to come over his face… “And they will initiate me as a Jewel Rider…”
“Of course…they will think you are with THEM…”
“And meanwhile I can concoct my plan to assassinate my brother…”
“Of course. I am to understand it that Mancion VI is VISTING New Camelot right now.”
“Excellent…”
Kilivirain smiles.
“I think I like you already. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Strange, though…as MistBolt said this, it almost seemed that green glow in his eyes…that he was being forced to say thing against his
will…Kilivirain noticed, but in his moment of triumph would NEVER admit it…
“Mancion VI will be there…EXCELLENT…”
Kilivirain then suddenly remembered something…one of Mancion’s knights, yes…a female…brown hair, very vigilant and VERY beautiful…Krystal, her name was…man, she was beautiful…or so most would think…to Kilivirain she could be a possible tool…for what, he didn’t know…but a female knight…that would be VERY useful… He shook his head, and smiled at MistBolt.
“So what are we standing around for? It is off to New Camelot.
They walked off…their meeting a VERY quick and strange one at that…but heck, with Kilivirain, you can NEVER expect the norm…as they walked towards New Camelot, THIS time by way of flying unicorn…