Guardians 1: Ashes

Chapter 59: Control

Shelby's POV

We walked in silence, not daring to speak.
Jin walked grabbing at the cut in his arm, and Uni walked staring at the blade of his sword which had Tommy's blood on it.

None of us could fully grasp what had happened.
We fought Nick and Tommy, Cory and Ashlie. Then they were gone. Then back? Then fought Ashlie, Jason, Ghetto,and Tommy.
Then skeletons? And... Cory k-killed Ghetto...he almost k-killed Jason, but Uni stopped him for some reason.

I was confused. I didn't understand why Uni stopped Cory. Don't we want to stop them...

We decided to make camp and we built a fire. Jin set up the tents and we sat quietly but I broke the silence and asked Uni a question.

"Uni...why did you stop Cory."
Silence.
"Uni?" I said again.
He sniffled and mumble something.
"Uni?" I asked this time more solemnly.

"H-he he passed the second trial. I should have stopped him." He said softly.

"What is the second trial?" I asked.

"You kill one of the head guards... Cory killed Ghetto, I-I didn't think he would, then he went after Jason...I knew I had to draw the line." Uni said.

"What is the first trial?" I asked.

"Kill some person you are locked in a cell with...Could have been different, seeing we saw Nick still alive." Uni spoke looking at the ground.

"What happens sense he passed the second trial?" I questioned.

"He is officially part of their military, he will be assigned a position, and from that move on to all sorts of test. He will be trusted more, manipulated into doing their killing just like... today." Uni said wiping his face.

"How do we stop it?" Jin said listening to our conversation." Can't we bring him back, bring Nick back?"

"Nothing is stopping him...he doesn't want to come back. He can shadow jump and easily come back at any given moment, but...h-hasnt." Uni said crying now.

"Uni, that isn't true, he stopped them the first time. And remeber, he left because he knew they still had Nick. What if Nick is in a separate area from him?" I said trying to reassure him.

"That is highly likely, he may also be trying to gather information, he already told us not to trust Ghetto, then he dealt with that problem himslef, he could be an asset inside the kingdom." Jin said with a nod.

"I don't like this plan...Nick is manipulated easily, and Cory just doesn't seem right...he couldn't control his powers. Remeber?" Uni said concerened.

I remembered the horrifying feeling of the life being slowly sucked out of me and I shuddered.

"It's because the environment. There he is exposed to a lot of 'dark enegy' causing more 'dark energy' to fuel or build up in his necklace and in him. So it will be harder to control that amount of darkness on any level... It makes me wonder what would happen if it all is let loose. I suspect you noticed that lingering entity from the necklace following Cory as he killed Ghetto and attacked Jason." Jin said.

Uni and I both nodded.

"I've seen it before. And that is why I don't like this. It told me some weird stuff." Uni said terrified.

"It spoke!?" Jin said curiously.

"Yea...It wasn't very nice though. It tried to throw me off a roof. Remember Shelby?"

I vividly recalled the image of me, Cory, Uni, and Rex on the roof, and that weird dark blob returning to the necklace Cory wore after Uni had fell off the roof when we climbed back up.