#tabbycorn

"The Unikingdom is what it is to today because of Unicat's hope. Hope was Unicat's secret weapon." - Queen Caticorn

It is that time again, so welcome back to Unikingdom History 101! This section focuses on Queen Unicat the Wise and her handling of the Doom Lords that ultimately lead to the founding of the Unikingdom, and how it lead up to the battle of the Brightest Uplands. This particular battle is one every student in the Unikingdom learns about in their school days.

Background

When Unicat was a kitten, she lived with her mother, Mayor Unitabby, in a small mountain town called Glittering Ridges, named for the cliffs it was built near. Around this time, Master Doom was sending her recruits to destroy the mountain towns as she had let the thrill of hurting the weak to feel powerful get to her head, stripping them of every last shred of hope. Glittering Ridges was unfortunately caught up in these invasions by the Doom Lords, ultimately leading to the Unicat, her mother, and an orphan from another town being lost in the mountains. However, Unicat, unbeknownst to Master Doom, knew that hope was what was strongest, and was able to survive the mountains. She quickly befriended the Action Fighters training in the nearby lush forest who helped evacuate other survivors, and with all of this help, as well as from, managed to build a safe home in the hills for the survivors. 

Master Doom, in all her confusion over finding no one to make miserable, sent her oldest recruits, Master Fear and Master Malignance, to scout the area near Golden-Beam Falls. In the winter of 1904, with Doom Lord activity suspected by the gorge, several Action Fighters were sent to guard it. Unicat had sent them, having full control of the hills after Unitabby’s death. While spying on the Action Fighters, the Doom Lords overheard discussions of the foothills, which were supposedly past the gorge. However, Master Malignance, the Doom Lord with the best navigation skills, after days of searching, found an easier way into the hills – they were directly across the Dusty Stretch. Believing she had outsmarted Unicat, Master Doom devised a plan to use the direct route over the Stretch to ambush the pink cat leader of the Uplands, and kill her. No one in the Uplands knew about this route, as nearly everyone, except for the Action Fighters, were either from the mountains, or descended from them. Master Fear also reported Unicat’s plans to formally declare the founding of a kingdom from all the rising infrastructure. This gave Master Doom even more of a reason to attack.

February 6th, 1904 - Main Battle

On the late night of February 6th, Master Doom and her allies were able to cross the Dusty Stretch into the Brightest Uplands, and knew that Unicat’s log home (which Felicorn’s parents had built) was near the hill surrounded by a massive freshwater ditch that had formed as the result of tectonic plate movement and thousands of years worth of rainfall. Unicat and Felicorn were fast asleep together in their home, and the two had also just had a daughter named Tabbycorn a day before. Seeing their slumber as a weak point, Master Doom sent her lowest-ranked, Master Spite, to break into the house through a window, only to wake Unicat’s Action Fighter friend Waspena, who attacked him and pinned him down. Master Doom sent in reinforcements, and it was all of this that woke the cats. With the eyes of her minions locked on her target, Master Doom immediately followed and ordered them to attack. However, Felicorn sprang into battle while Unicat fled with Tabbycorn in her mouth. The house was destroyed in their clash, and it wasn’t long before Felicorn was caught in the river of Doom Lords, who thrust him into the ditch to drown him. Just before he was held underwater, he screeched as loud as a cat physically could to raise the alarm.

Unicat was horrified at her lover’s death, and sprang at the Doom Lords in retaliation for what they had done. As Unicat was locked in her fight, several residents of the hills had heard Felicorn’s screech, and began surrounding the ruthless Doom Lords to stop them from trying to maim Unicat. Others ran to alert more reinforcements of their own, such as when Waspena ordered two residents to alert the Action Fighters in case they were too far to hear the initial call. Zoomer, a stubby capybara, and Mantotter, praying mantis/river otter hybrid, ran to alert the Action Fighters, several of whom had already sprung from their sleep to rush into battle. They included fully-trained fighters (such as Caibuzzard and Kestrelecko), and advanced fighters in-training. When Unicat was freed by Waspena, she also ordered the messengers to alert Dr. Willow Fox, Flufftail, and Pinebadger. The three served as medics in the battle, with Willow as the lead medic. Unicat’s biggest order was for everyone in the hills to work together to protect each other, whether that would be acting as a messenger, treating the wounded, guarding the weakest, or fighting alongside her.

With reinforcements and a hastily-made plan, Unicat’s allies formed a crowded ring surrounding the Doom Lords who had killed Felicorn, and the rest of the Doom Lords who attacked from the outside of the crowd. Unicat’s swarm of allies broke apart when Master Doom fired at them with a beam, striking Waspena and another Action Fighter with enough force to hurl them into one of the bridges, and into a bush. Kestrelecko was unable to continue fighting, as the force of striking the bridge had broken his wing, but Waspena persevered and continued to fight, even though her head had struck the ground so hard she was concussed. Spencer was tasked to hide wherever he could to protect Tabbycorn, so neither of them were found or harmed in the battle.

Unicat and Bluepatch, another cat-unicorn hybrid, chased after two Doom Lords and leapt at them, sinking their claws deep into them and only letting go when they stopped retaliating and instead fled the hills. Unicat and some more of her allies were ready to chase after more Doom Lords, but as she and a resident named Wolfolotl prepared to charge, Master Doom managed to find Unicat in the torrent of combatants, and aimed at her with another one of her powerful beams. Unicat just so happened to be flying when she was struck, and was flung into the ground, injuring her. Master Doom was ecstatic to see Unicat in a seemingly weak spot and was about to come in for the kill, but Unicat only attacked her in retaliation. Though Master Doom almost threw her into the ditch, she just barely missed, and just as Unicat reoriented herself, she surprised everyone with a strength boost. She flung herself at Master Doom, biting her by the neck, unleashing a shockwave, and throwing her back to Frowntown. With their leader defeated, the Doom Lords had no other choice but to retreat, allowing Unicat to declare the battle over.

Aftermath

The Struggle Against the Doom Lords

“There’s an ancient feud older than the Unikingdom itself. A feud between life and death!” - Queen Tabbycorn

Welcome to Unikingdom History 101! This is an overview of the Unikingdom’s struggle against the Doom Lords, from the group’s emergence all the way to their downfall. The Doom Lords sought control by terrorizing anyone they could, the only intent being to bring out people’s weaknesses and spread fear and pain, no matter how far they had to go to ensure someone was weakened enough.

1880 - 1940: The Struggle Emerges

About a decade prior to the destruction of Unicat’s first home in the Dawn Peaks, there was a power-hungry creature in Frowntown who took pride in controlling anyone she deemed weak, and bringing out their weakness by ensuring it caused them pain. When she and her little group of allies overthrew the government of Frowntown and placed themselves into power, the creature’s thirst for control was still not satisfied. This creature would became known as Master Doom, leader of the Doom Lords, her allies.

In her desperation for the thrill of spreading pain, she discovered several mountain towns in the Dawn Peak range on the other side of the Dusty Stretch, and began to send her recruits to terrorize them. When the inhabitants of the mountains fought back, she called for their destruction, and amongst the survivors was Unicat, a young unicorn-horned kitten. After she, her mother, and Spencer, an orphaned survivor found the foothills, Unicat made it her life goal to rid the world of the Doom Lords for the safety of future generations. The Doom Lords eventually discovered the foothills and would terrorize Unicat and her allies, before and after she founded the Unikingdom. But Unicat fought back each time. And she ensured that every ruler of the Unikingdom after her would uphold the promise of protecting the kingdom with hope and happiness. Hope and happiness was the sworn enemy of the Doom Lords, which Master Doom would hunt down for sport. Once she could strip someone of their happiness, she was in control.

1940 - 1965: First Opportunities for Revenge

Master Doom knew the promise would be upheld by Unicat’s successors, and with each new ruler coming along, she saw another opportunity for revenge. But the Unikingdom would fight back. In 1940, she saw Queen Tabbycorn was in a weak spot grieving her mother, but the rest of the Doom Lords were taken aback by Tabbycorn’s sharpness and quick wits, as well as the fierceness of her recruited bodyguard. Tabbycorn was determined to honor her mother by upholding the promise, and had learned excellent persuasion skills from her mother’s wisdom. Knowing how easily Tabbycorn could outsmart them, most Doom Lords refused to go near her. This lead to Tabbycorn heading into Frowntown in 1965, to try to help the citizens organize a resistance, but this was foiled by the Disaster of Frowntown, a flash flood resulting in Tabbycorn’s death. And the Doom Lords did not care — as long as there was pain, there was control.

1965 - 2007: Fearing the Queens

Around the time Queen Unikitten rose to power, the Doom Lords nearly gave up trying to terrorize the Unikingdom and focused on Frowntown. Though Unikitten seemed to the Doom Lords like the embodiment of their prey (happiness) and therefore an easy target, she wasn’t. Unikitten had recruited Tigermoth, a well-known Action Fighter with an excellent sense of smell and a knack for stealth, which meant even a low-ranked Doom Lord would be sniffed out and sent back to Frowntown.

This continued well into the reign of Unikitten’s daughter Caticorn (who became queen in 1992), the biggest cat in the royal bloodline. Not only did they fear the bodyguard, but the also feared the queen herself. Queen Caticorn was a massive cat with a muscular build and huge paws, and she appeared as though just one swipe of her claws would necessitate dozens of stitches. As the Doom Lords decided to shift their focus to controlling Frowntown’s every move until Unikitten and Caticorn were gone, the Unikingdom flourished.

Caticorn did particularly well in upholding the promise to protect with hope and happiness, using her pacifist nature to her advantage. The Doom Lords still feared her and most refused to set foot in the Unikingdom. This also led to conflicts within the Doom Lords, and King Unicanine, who’d sometimes spy on Frowntown, could see that upholding the promise to the extent that Caticorn was could cause the Doom Lords to crack from within. And every time Unicanine spied, it only seemed more true.

This was until shortly after a flash flood in 2007, when a low-ranked Doom Lord known as Master Malice was tasked with posing as a criminal and mugging citizens. He discovered Caticorn alone and terrified, and that revealed to him that the Queen of the Unikingdom was not a fierce fighter like the Doom Lords thought. Malice broke her paw, and nearly robbed her before Unicanine intervened and bit him. When Master Doom heard about this, she was ecstatic, and selected Caticorn as her prey. The terrified queen refused to ever enter Frowntown again, and it became was much harder for Unicanine to spy on the Doom Lords. Master Doom later sent out one of her newer recruits, Master Pain, to lure Unicanine into a dangerous trap for no other purpose but to make Caticorn miserable. When the plan worked and it lead to a fight in which he was killed, they knew that they could indeed terrorize the Unikingdom.

2007 - 2018: The Disbandment

The Unikingdom’s struggle continued after Caticorn died, and the Doom Lords felt even more confident entering the Unikingdom. Though they would be fought off by Hawkodile, the young bodyguard, they still refused to give up, as Caticorn’s heiress Princess Unikitty was still too young to reign. But the Doom Lords started to crack from within again after an incident between Unikitty and Master Doom’s newest recruit, Master Frown. She withheld any respect from him, making it clear that she didn’t even care about her allies — she only cared about herself. But Master Frown, desperate to regain control, obeyed her, with false hope that he’d eventually gain her respect. Meanwhile, the high-ranked Doom Lords started to go after Unikitty, Master Pain being particularly fond of the idea of straight-up killing her. Master Hazard nearly killed her by setting fire to the castle in the middle of the night, and while it seemed Unikitty was weakened, she bounced back. However, seeing how the fire scarred her, the high-ranked Doom Lords felt as though their job of hurting her was done.

Unicat is the one who carries the most with her. She never leaves home without a photo of Unitabby that she carries around as a memory of her and as a lucky charm. She also will usually carry a note pad and fountain pen, and in case of emergency, she also sometimes carries a signal whistle and compass she found in Some Other Place (left behind by explorers who perished in that gorge). In case she feels stressed enough, she also carries fidgets in the form of a worry stone to rub and a catnip pouch to bite.

Spencer never leaves home without his eyeglass case and cleaning cloth. He also always carries a pocket watch with him because he does not have the best sense of time. He also carries a clipboard and fountain pen as reminders for himself.

Waspena's weapon of choice is brass knuckles, due to her preferred fighting style being hand-to-hand. She also carries a first aid kit with her in case she or someone else is injured in battle.

I wasn't exactly sure how to answer this question, so I just went ahead and sketched 'em in modern Unikingdom formal wear, basing it off of what the Unigang wears in The Unikingdom Awards. This is because they're typically not wearing anything aside from their usual accessories unless the situation calls for it. Spencer also has contact lenses instead of glasses due to them being more comfortable

The Royal Household of Unicat’s Era.

Queen Unicat the Wise - Founder and Queen of the Unikingdom. Maine Coon cat/unicorn hybrid.

Princess (later Queen) Tabbycorn - Daughter and Heiress of Queen Unicat the Wise and Felicorn. Maine Coon cat/unicorn hybrid.

Spencer - Royal Advisor. British Shorthair cat.