Reality Falling (The Book Wielder Saga 2) (2 page)

Alexander and Brooke stalked through the thick forests of northern Imperia on the continent of Rura. Even though it was daytime, the dense foliage and strange vein of purple clouds above them reaching from the Capital, Imperia City, made it seem like it was late in the evening.

They both wore green and brown camouflage fatigues which suited the ex Imperian sniper, Brooke. Although her outfit was not flattering at all, the Werewolf Shaman still looked like a feline beauty with her dark brown skin, narrow feral yellow eyes, and smooth bald scalp with black tribal tattoos on the sides of her head. In lieu of her trademark sniper rifle she had brought an assault rifle to the mission.

Alexander, who was a short and slender white haired Mage with kind purple eyes and geeky spectacles, did not suit the uniform one bit. He handled the undergrowth well however, since he too was a veteran of the humans’ Great War. He was only armed with a pistol, as he preferred dealing damage with his magic rather than bullets.

“Where is he?” Brooke whispered as they continued creeping north.

“I’m not sure,” Alexander replied quietly. “They were just behind us.”

“This better not be dud lead, we’re going to miss the wedding.”

“We’re only a few hours away from the Capital so we’ll be back in time either way,” he reassured his lover.

“But I want to have plenty of time to get ready. I’ve never been a bridesmaid before,” she complained. “Where the hell is
he
anyway?”

“He can’t be that far behind. Maybe we should wait for them to catch up?”

“Screw that. I’d rather do this without him and those things, they give me the creeps.”

“What, the Alternatives or Lewis?” Alexander asked warily.

“Both. He was always a bit weird, but he’s definitely been getting worse since this Archmage popped up. Veronica senses it too.”

“We should have a private talk with Winston when we get back,” Alexander suggested sadly. “Lewis might have spent too much time in the Gloom or around its inhabitants.”

Brooke nodded. She was quite good with healing spells, so perhaps between her and Veronica they would be able to fix whatever was wrong with the Blonde Book Wielder, if he allowed them to.

They came to a clearing in the trees, where an old Great War concrete bunker stood with three vehicles parked outside it. Two were normal looking off-road jeeps and the third was a high-tech silver and white Inquisition truck, although luckily for Alexander and Brooke it was an unarmed variant. They had found what they were looking for.

Lewis had come to them asking for help a few hours ago. The Alternatives, the creepy puppet people of the Gloom, had informed him of a minor rebel force looting a Great War bunker. The three of them, along with a small group of Alts, had gone in a big jeep of their own to investigate.

Unwelcome activity and small acts of sabotage were becoming far more common on Imperia. The forces of the Trinity, the Inquisition, civilians, and even some rogue Military Peace Keepers had banded together to fight against the Shadow Circle, Winston and the Archmage, and their allies.

Archmage Omniosis had referred to all those who opposed them and the prospect of recombining reality with the Gloom as ‘rebels’, and to the alliance between all those on his side as ‘the Omni’, and the two terms had stuck.

Now that they had arrived there was a surprising lack of activity at the site. Crates of weapons and ammo were stacked neatly beside one of the jeeps, and only two rebels in black, grey and red war uniforms were standing beside them. Drivers were sitting in the vehicles, but they were extremely still. The whole scene was very wrong considering that it was supposed to be a quick covert looting of an old half-forgotten cache.

“I think they’re all dead!” Brooke gasped.

“This feels like a trap,” Alexander murmured quietly.

“I’m not sensing anyone else. Let’s have a quick look and then get the hell out of here,” Brooke said.

Alexander nodded, and they left the tree line and approached the two rebels by the crates. One was a man and the other was a women, both looking to be in their late forties or fifties. They appeared to have been dead for few hours and propped up to make it less apparent. Brooke quickly checked on the drivers and found them in a similar state.

“They’re all dead,” Brooke confirmed. “We should get out of here ASAP.”

Alexander had removed the dog tags of the two rebels and was studying them closely. “Reynolds...”

“What’s up?” Brooke asked, moving towards him.

“Winston’s last name is Reynolds – you don’t think these are his parents, do you? He said they were war veterans.”

“Fuck...” Brooke didn’t know what to say.

At that moment, humanoids in white and silver armour burst into the clearing. They opened fire with bolts of blue plasma energy and charged towards the couple with shimmering blue blades.

Alexander shielded them both with magic and sent a barrage of fiery flares into the Autons charging at them. Some were torn to shreds and set ablaze, but others deftly leapt or dodged out of the way and continued firing with the lasers built into their gauntlets.

Brooke used her Werewolf Shaman magic to rapidly grow vines and thorns that whipped, lashed, tangled and tore the assailing machines. With a massive degree of effort she managed to call down some lightning strikes too, but the Autons kept coming.

Suddenly, Alexander and Brooke’s powers were gone, and no matter how hard they struggled they were unable to use their spells. Brooke tried to shape-change into a jaguar, then a wildcat, and then a wolf, but to no avail. She quickly switched to her assault rifle and tried aiming for possible weak spots and Alexander did the same, but his pistol was relatively ineffective against the robots’ armour.

One of the more agile Autons got behind them and slammed its iron fists into the back of their heads, knocking them to the floor.

Lewis sat on a branch and watched the machines close in on the downed couple. Some human Inquisitors also walked onto the scene in their thick white power armour, so Lewis decided to make a move. He leapt gracefully to the floor below and re-joined the pack of Alts he’d brought along with him.

“That’s two off the list,” he said, slapping his puppet comrades on the back. “Right, let’s hurry mates or we might miss the pre-wedding party!”

- - -

Winston checked himself out in his big bedroom mirror. He was dressed smartly in his white and red wedding suit, and he’d gotten his typical haircut of short back and sides. Winston practised sweeping his brown hair in a perfectly straight comb over style, getting close to the mirror to check his complexion. His average features were clear of any blemishes or spots, but his face looked quite cool with the black-ringed white irises.

Lewis and some others had chosen to accept the Archmage Omniosis’ invitation to live in his tower at the centre of the Capital, but Winston was still in his room in the Hotel Noir. The Archmage’s magic had made the ‘U’ shaped building even classier than it was before. Winston’s room had been merged into another, making it enormous and allowing Veronica to move in without making much of an impact.

A lot had changed in the three weeks that followed the merger. After the massive city-wide celebration that had spread from the late Xavier’s send off, the true realisation of what had happened sunk in with the population. Many humans locked themselves in their houses or apartments to avoid the Alternatives, the other denizens of the Gloom, and the Supernaturals who now lived brazenly out in the open.

To help put a positive spin on things for the terrified humans, Winston and Lucius had called on the help of Albert Tiberius and his organisation named the Concealed Council, who were mainly comprised of former members of the government throughout recent history. Once they had arrived from Industria they set to work controlling the media of the Capital and Imperia as a whole, and along with the Governor and his chirpy new attitude, they made a start on generating lots of pro-Archmage and Pro-Supernatural propaganda. They also created a lot of anti-Inquisition news for good measure too. It was especially useful as the Military Peace Keepers in Tropica and Industria, who had no real allegiance to the Governor of Imperia, were torn between fighting for either the Inquisition and the good of humanity, or the Supernaturals and a lot of wealth and power.

During the ongoing PR campaign, Winston had been reluctantly dragged into the limelight. They had chosen to make him the human face of the Omni because a regular human wouldn’t be able to see his power-imbued white Book Wielder eyes, but would merely view him as one of them, living side-by-side in harmony with the Supernaturals, the Archmage, and the forces of the Gloom. It also worked well that he was getting married to Veronica. The human-Vampire relationship was played on a lot and their wedding was going to be a massive televised event. Veronica was happy to have a short engagement, but slightly resentful about having Omniosis conduct the ceremony.

The campaign had been relatively successful, with most of the human population now living normally within the Capital and MPK support rising slightly on the other two continents. Some had kicked up a fuss, but after seeing what the Archmage had done to the Trinity’s last attempt to enter the city through a Catacomb portal, any dissenting forces had been scared into submission. ‘Obey or end up skinned alive and fed to murderous puppets’ sent a clear message. Although the PR team had expected to work twice as hard to undo that damage, the people took the display surprisingly well. Winston had noticed a subtle difference in both the humans and the Alts recently. The humans seemed to be slightly moodier and more aggressive, whereas the Alts were becoming increasingly more polite and well spoken. He assumed the merger was affecting both species’ mind sets, and hoped that everything would balance out when he brought the magic back to the world.

Patience was definitely not one of the Archmage’s strongest virtues. Either by nature or from being so close to his goals, he was determined to take Industria City and Tropica City as soon as possible, regardless of the situation on the continent of Rura. Although the rebels had given up the futile attacks on the Capital they were continually pestering the other towns and cities, raiding military depots, vandalising equipment and causing disruptions where possible. Regardless of their loose hold on the continent, Omniosis was adamant that all that mattered was getting as much manpower over to the Industrian front lines, where Kaine’s Dogs of War and Kat’s Anarchy’s Ascendants were battling over territory with the rebels and rival gangs who had joined them. His order to send more Shadow Circle forces, including Lynette and Kavarne, had not been well received by Lucius, but Omniosis had tried to make amends by offering to perform the wedding ceremony.

The pre-wedding party was being held in the outside dining section of the Hotel Noir. Winston and Veronica had chosen to do a joint party rather than separate ones, because Veronica had claimed she ‘didn’t want to miss out on the strippers’. Most of the attendees would be members of the Shadow Circle, but the Governor and some MPK Officers, along with the Mayor, DVAF, Mortissa, and several other Alternatives, would also be there. Omniosis had been invited, but he had declined as he wished to monitor the situation on Industria before the wedding ceremony in the morning.

Winston was still thinking of ways to get into Tropica, seeing as the Omni had little presence there. If Industria was merged soon then they would still struggle to get a foothold on the tropical and jungle covered continent. He checked the time, saw that he was running late, and pushed the thoughts of tactics out of his mind. He began changing into some smart casual clothing, delicately folding his wedding suit for the morning. The night would be about enjoyment, unwinding, relaxing and having a wild time, just like he had done with Veronica before the Archmage had summoned him.

- - -

It was a pleasant evening in the Capital of Imperia, although it was hard to tell what time of the day it was with the plate of dark purple and black clouds curdling above the city and its outskirts. The eerily hazy white column of light that emanated from the top of Omniosis’ stone and glass tower at the heart of the city gave some illumination, but even with that it always seemed like the middle of the night. It was only from the horizon that the true weather and time of day could been seen, but within the city’s vast white and grey stone walls, marked consistently with Omniosis’ banner of a plain white masquerade mask on a plain black rectangle, it was difficult to see the normal sky over them. Light purple clouds spread from the plate in strange vein patterns and reached all across Imperia.

Veronica was waiting by the bar in the hotel’s gardens, casually sipping a glass of blood and vodka. She had chosen to curl her jet black hair slightly so that it dropped in alluring waves down to her bare shoulders, and she had used red glossy lipstick and heavy mascara which contrasted with her pale snow white skin. For the party she had chosen to wear a tiny strapless dark red dress that was tight enough to leave nothing to the imagination, and she was wearing nothing underneath except for a black G-string that looked non-existent against her big shapely ass. Her giant breasts, that were almost the size of her face, were more than firm enough to support themselves. Her large nipples poked through the thin red dress shamelessly. Her intentions were to knock Winston senseless and leave him dying for the wedding night, because their love life had suffered quite badly with all of his distractions as of late. Even her Blood Magic arousal spells were rendered ineffective, as he seemed to be subconsciously blocking them.