Twisted Fate

Chapters

Introduction - A Series of Unfortunate Events
Chapter 1 - A Journey
Chapter 2 - A Destination
Chapter 3 - Faith
Chapter 4 - The Grand Library
Chapter 5 - Roaring Riptides and Sandy Shores
Chapter 6 - Good Things for Bad Reasons
Chapter 7 - The City that Never Sleeps
Chapter 8 - Midnight's Shadow
Chapter 9 - North for the Winter
Chapter 10 - The Kingdom of Asgard
Chapter 11 - Shadows of Tramplevania - Unfinished
Foreword and Prologue

Introduction - A Series of Unfortunate Events

Intro – A Series of Unfortunate Events

“Oh come on!”

Running.

This part of my life, this one right here, is called running. Why was I running anyway, I’m a pegasus. Not just a pegasus, part of the most elite class of Vaporian fliers, the gods damned Archangels, yet my mind wouldn’t communicate with my wings. It was like being around my old mare friend, they had a mind of their own at the worst, and occasionally most awkward, times.

“Destiny Fate,” A loud pegasus clad in the traditional armor of the Aurora guard called out from above, damn it sucks to be on foot when there’s a number of angry guards chasing you, “Surrender yourself now to the guard.”

I did the only rational thing that came to mind when running from the authorities, shout obscenities at them, “Buck you!” What? I can’t fly; swearing is all I’ve got. While I’m running for my freedom, and probably, my life, we should review how I got stuck in this predicament.

It was a normal day just like any other really; I had just gotten off of working at my job guarding the armory in the lovely cloud kingdom city of Aurora. In retrospect that job was boring anyway, but I digress; the events happening today would make fighting a dragon look boring. The sun was setting in the west, and as it happens after every shift I have I go to grab a drink over at the local bar, which also happened to be a filly-foolers bar. Aurora was a pretty progressive city after all, but there was some sort of discrimination against ponies like me. It was a bit more prevalent in the military, but most ponies and gryphons were accepting none the less.

So I arrive at the bar, just like I do every day, and take a good long look at the local stock. I’d been single for a few months now, and maybe every now and then I wanted to try and find somepony else.

“Hey there, Destiny, what can I get ya’ today?” The bartender, who I knew personally as Notch, asked me. She was a nice mare really, and I was considered a regular here.

“Usual, Notch,” I replied with a small smile. No matter how bad spending 10 hours guarding a door is, I know I can always relax here. Well, most days.

The door opened with a loud bang as two hooded Ponies walked in, both mares, I could tell from their build, so I guess that doesn’t violate the rules of the whole ‘Mare Only’ bar, but still, those outfits just weren’t right. They casually strolled up to the bar and looked up at Notch. I did my best to get a glimpse at their faces, at least see what color coat they were but damn were those robes thick and concealing.

“Can I help you two? Need a drink?” Notch asked politely, she did love new customers.

“We would like to have a word with you privately,” One of them said, glancing at me, but still thoroughly concealed under the hood of the robe, “Perhaps in the back, alone.”

“Ladies, this is a bar, I’m sure you can say anything out loud here, half the patrons are too drunk to hear or remember what they heard anyway.

“Please, just come with us now, before we have to make a scene,” The second one replied.

“Make a scene, eh? I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave this place, I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, and that includes you two,” Notch then went back to cleaning a glass with a rag she held in her hooves.

Just then, one of the hooded mares lashed out and grabbed Notch at the throat, causing her to drop the glass and shatter it on the floor, gaining some looks from the other occupants of the bar. “You’re coming with us!”

“Let go of me!” Notch shouted back, struggling to break free of the grasp.

“Not a chance,” replied the second.

“She said, let go!” I yelled as I grabbed a hold of one of the mares and yanked her violently to the ground. This stirred panic amongst the occupants of the bar, and several ran out to grab the attention of the guard.

“Stay out of this, you whelp!” The second one turned on me. Okay, whelp? Oh, it, is, on.

Now, I’m normally a mare that avoids conflict, but I make exceptions when seeing friends of mine get pushed around by some strange ponies in hoods. I didn’t pull any punches that day, and went straight in to smacking down the robed harassers. The second one jumped me immediately after I lacked signs of backing down after throwing her friend down.

It turned out that the second hooded pony was a unicorn, as she drew a knife covered in a powder blue magical aura and slashed at me. Quick thinking and years of training allowed me to dodge to the side and land a devastating hoof strike to the attackers’ horn, severing her magical grasp on the stiletto. It clattered to the floor as I swept out the mares front legs, sending her onto the floor and allowing me to introduce the rest of her face to the bottom of my hoof.

By the time I had contended with one of the aggressors, her friend had recovered from my little knock down earlier and dove at me. I noticed the opening as she dove and sidestepped, rotating my body and landing a devastating buck to the mares’ side. I took the momentary lull in combat to turn to Notch and quickly check her over for serious injury.

“Feeling alright?” I asked her.

“I’ll manage, thanks,” She grabbed the hoof I extended to her as I helped her to her hooves. I felt a sudden pressure as the mare I had bucked in the side rose from her knock down and grabbed my back in an attempt to shake me to the ground. I quickly shook the attacker off of my flank and promptly slammed another hoof down on her face as well. The mare stopped moving after that.

“Who were they?” I asked as I turned to Notch.

“No idea, they seemed like they were after something though,” She replied, dusting herself off before glancing at me to see if I was injured. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if it weren’t for you Destiny, the guard can be really slow at times.”

“I try,” I smirked, thankful for the praise of saving somepony else.

“You did just beat up two ponies though, isn’t this like your third strike with the guard?” A concerned face looked to me. Shit, she was right. I had had previous run-ins with the law before, and three strikes and you’re out, like literally you’re out of the country. Seeing my blank expression, Notch spoke up. “You could go out the back,” the bartender suggested.

Oh, right. The back, of the bar, that’ll make for the perfect escape. “You better hurry,” she suggested; and so I ran. Halfway out the door I turned around back to the bartender pony.

“Thanks for covering for me, Notch,” I smiled.

“No problem, dear. Now go, get out before you’re put before the tribunal.”

I kept running for a while, the guards chasing me as I furiously tried to get my wings to work. Maybe I was just so nervous, and as much as I hate to admit it, scared at being imprisoned, or worse, exiled.

“Stop now or we will be forced to use lethal force!” One of the stallions overhead shouted down, a sharp wing blade extending from his left wing. I knew from experience I’d never escape getting cut down by one of those things on foot; and a quick survey of my surroundings showed I didn’t have much options for cover from a diving pegasus.

“Ah, to Tartarus with you!” I screamed back, deciding it best to give up and keep my life, despite knowing the consequences suffered by repeat offenders of Vaporian laws. I slowed to a stop, begrudgingly waiting to be taken into custody by ponies considered to be my co-workers. No one was above the law, I knew that, but it didn’t make it any less annoying.

Repeat offenders were always tried before a tribunal of the pegasus leaders that presided over the city of Aurora. There was no court system for them. The same seven pegasi were judge, jury, and rarely, executioner.

“Do you know why you are here, Miss Fate?” One of the stallions on the stand spoke to me, snapping my attention up to him and away from my thoughts.

“Yeah, I beat the crap out of two ponies harassing my friend and the owner of Cloud Nine, because the guard on the night shift are ridiculously slow,” I replied, a hint of both annoyance and anger in my voice.

“You, decided to take matters into your own hoof and become a so-called ‘vigilante’ instead of doing what the other responsible Aurora citizens did and quickly contact the guard,” He replied back.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” I said, the anger in my voice rising, “But the guard on the night shift is piss poor slow, and by the time they would have gotten there there’s no telling what those two hooded creeps would have done to her!”

A mare in the council spoke up, “I realize that your heart was in the right place, Miss Fate-”

“Call me Destiny,” I interrupted, tired of hearing myself referred to as ‘Miss Fate.’ What am I, 80?

“Miss Destiny,” The mare continued, “But laws are laws, and consequences must be enforced in order to see to it that those laws are upheld and respected by the general public. You as a member of the Archangels would surely know of these laws as well, as we cannot exempt anyone from their punishment for violating them. As such, for repeatedly breaking Vaporian law three times over, I motion the tribunal for the excommunication and exile of one Miss Destiny Fate.”

The ultimatum was spoken, and now I knew the council had to immediately reach a decision. 5 votes and I’m done, 4 gets me life in prison, a nice alternative, 3 and I could be pending further investigation, and if I managed to be charismatic enough to only land two votes, I could be let off Scott-free; so to speak. The mare spoke up again, “All in favor?” She asked and turned to the other council members, quickly five other hooves and the speaker’s own hoof shot up; so much for charismatic.

“The I’s have it, and so, Miss Destiny, you shall be excommunicated and thoroughly removed from all Vaporian affairs. Your membership of the Archangels shall be revoked, and your citizenship shall be rendered void. Guards, seize her.”

Wait, what? This time I had no time to react, being grabbed and cuffed on my fore hooves. They wrapped my wings to, for good measure, and forcefully escorted me to my house to pack just two saddle bags, forbidding me to take any of my weapons with me. Then they gently tossed me into the back of a chariot and blindfolded me. This day just keeps getting better.

We had been flying for what felt like hours, the air getting noticeable drier. My guess is they were dropping me off in Heliopolis. I had read about this place back when I was just a filly, but never actually visited the nation myself. I really wished to have seen this place under different circumstances.

“Drop her off here,” One of the chariot drivers spoke to the other. I felt myself being lifted up and dropped onto the sand. Somewhere on the way down my head hit a rock jutting out from the sand. That’s the last thing I remember before blacking out. What I wouldn’t give for a better destiny.

Chapter 1 - A Journey

Chapter One – A Journey

“Sounds like someone has got destination fever!”

I groggily woke up sometime in the late afternoon from what I could tell. I quickly took a hazy observation of my surroundings, deciding it best to not force my body to get up at the moment after the rough ride. The sun was setting as I awoke, forcing me to squint my eyes in an attempt to garner a vague concept of my current location. I was lying in a pile of light yellow sand, the heat being just low enough to avoid any serious injury to the side of me that was face down in the burning sand. I really didn’t need to look around more to know I was in the middle of the Helio desert, it’s the only semblance of anything sandy and dry this side of the known world. The sun would be going down soon I hope, as the desert would finally cool down. Despite packing ‘light,’ as the occasion might be that I had to fit the rest of my life on the run in two bags, I managed to be able to fit a small tarp in one of them, knowing that my first few nights would be rough.

When you were banished from Vaporia, they usually tried to tie up loose ends by dropping you somewhere they didn’t expect you to return from. Deserts were always a nice option for this sort of task. I don’t know why they just don’t kill ponies outright, must be public relations or something like that; government always had ulterior motives.

“At least they untied my wings,” I grumbled to myself, forcing my body up from its uncomfortable nap in the sand. I stretched my wings as a sudden urge hit me. I was thirsty. It had occurred to me that seeing the sun set probably meant I was knocked out all night and most of the next day. I was stuck in the desert and my last thought when packing was to pack a bottle of water. “Shit,” was all I muttered, before a sound over one of the nearby dunes snapped me out of me about to slap myself for forgetting to bring water when I knew that the tribunal loved to drop off exiles in the middle of the desert. Whatever, what was important now was surviving whatever was over that dune, be it bandit or predator.

A quick survey of any immediate cover yielded a rather large shrub. Moderate at best, but the darkening sky should make it easier to blend in with my black coat. I did a quick roll and dash to hide inside before the sound crested over the hill.

“We should set up camp here, on top of this dune,” the unmistakable voice of a stallion revealed to me that he was not alone, as a young mare with a pale red coat and bright yellow mane with a signature sunburst cutie mark came over the hill with a light brown coated and white mane colored stallion sporting a pickaxe and brush styled in an X cutie mark.

“How long until we reach Alexmanedria?” The young mare asked her companion.

“We should be there in a few days, we’ll make a quick stop in Gazelle and move on from there,” The stallion replied. Well at least I know where I am now, relatively speaking. The unicorn mare’s horn glowed with a bright orange hue as she lifted a tarp out of one of her saddle bags and began to set up a tent.

My hooves slid in the sand, causing me to stumble and let out an audible ‘Eep!’ from my hiding spot. The two travelers quickly whipped there head around to the bush where I was, my dark coat continuing to shield me from their gaze, but I was found out and I knew it.

“Who’s there?” The stallion quickly took a defensive stance as he turned to face the brush, ready to face whatever lay in there, be it friend or foe. Of course, I wanted to be friend; the last thing I needed was more enemies as soon as I was booted out of my home country. After a few rather tense seconds where I was debating my next course of action, the stallion spoke again. “I said, who’s there? Come out!”

I sighed, and decided now was a good of time as ever to come out and show these ponies I meant them no ill will; I just hoped they felt the same. I stepped out of the brush, coming face to face with the two mysterious desert wanderers. We stared blankly at one another for a few seconds. Finally, I managed to utter a few words.

“Um, hi?” Hi, yep, good going me. Those two ponies are completely convinced you’re the friendliest pony they’ve ever met. I quickly told my brain to shut up and looked back to the two travelers, hoping that they would respond with words and not swords. I knew better than any pony to assume that because you couldn’t see a weapon on a creature at first glance, they were unarmed. Not only was one of them a unicorn, but concealed weapons were more than common in the outlying nations of the Outer Kingdoms. My body unconsciously tensed up, ready to burst into flight at the first sign of hostility.

“Hi?” The confused stallion asked back. Okay, I told myself, they don’t seem to want any trouble as much as I wanted to avoid conflict. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the desert?”

“It’s a long story,” I replied, not wanting to explain how I ended up in my current predicament, “But I’m a bit lost,” I admitted.

“Well,” the stallion paused, as if pondering whether to help me or not. The young mare interrupted.

“Dusty! We can’t just leave her out here by herself in the desert!” The young mare proceeded to give a scolding to the older stallion as he was seriously considering leaving me to die to hypothermia in the desert.

“Sun Spark, listen. We barley have enough supplies as is to reach Alexmanedria in two days. If we take her we’d end up either dead halfway there or having to make a stop in Gazelle; and you know what the headmaster will say if we’re late returning to the library.”

“She would understand if we’re a day late to help somepony! Contrary to your belief she’s not as much of a hardflank as you make her out to be,” The mare I now knew as Sun Spark was fighting for me in an attempt to make sure I wouldn’t die tonight in the desert, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I managed a smile at the mares’ attempt to convince her friend. Dusty thought for a few seconds on the subject, wary of my attempt to give him my best pleading puppy dog eyes. It must’ve worked, for Dusty let out a heavy sigh and looked back to me.

“Fine, you can stay in Sun Spark’s tent,” Dusty said, “I’ll look at our map and reroute our course to get us to Gazelle sometime around midday tomorrow. Now please, get some sleep both of you. If I have to drag one complaining mare through the desert, Gods know what I’ll do with two.”

Sun Spark’s horn glowed again as we quickly went to work setting up camp. I silently sent a prayer up to the Gods, thanking them for not killing me on the first day of exile. It wasn’t long before the tent was set up, and everypony signed off. My new acquaintance Sun Spark seemed too tired to do any talking, and both of us quickly fell asleep, back to back. My last conscious thoughts were of the things I wish I could be doing alone with this mare. Damn my aching muscles.

I awoke suddenly, my dark surroundings telling me it was still night time; but something didn’t feel right. I quickly moved a hoof to my side, finding the space where Sun Spark should be empty. Okay, weird. Maybe I’m dreaming? I’ve heard of lucid dreaming before, but have never experienced one myself. Even so, if I know I’m dreaming, that means I can control this right, because a pitch black room totally doesn’t fly with me in my dreams. How do you control dreams anyway? I attempted to focus my mind into changing my surroundings into something more pleasant. My old room at the Archangels tower, Cloud Nine, anything other than a pitch black room.

To no avail the room remained static. Was this even a room? I wondered as to whether or not this was not a room in my dream but an endless void of pure emptiness and blackness. My mind shuddered at the thought of spending an indefinite amount of dream-time, which according to my wacky logic is different from real time, locked up in this void.

Those thoughts were pushed away when suddenly the void was opened up and engulfed in a blindingly white light. I looked in awe at the light as it continued to grow, eventually manifesting itself into something one might consider a portal. It showed within it a beautiful city perched high in the mountains, the majority of it being built out of white brick and boasting cascading waterfalls that fell into the lakes below. It was sunset, and from the dusk a dark pony figure sporting both wings and a generously long horn rose above the city, raising with it the moon. As the mysterious pony flew rose above even the tallest towers of the cities huge castle, a shot rang out. I recognized it immediately as a gryphon firearm, the work of bandits. Snapped out of my thoughts, I looked back into the gaping portal to see the winged unicorn fall to the ground, a general sense of panic beginning to spread amongst the city wherever the shot was heard.

I woke up in a cold sweat. Panting hard, my first instinct was once again to survey my surroundings. Thankfully, I could make out in the darkness and low light provided by the moon and stars that I was once again, still stuck in the desert. Oh well, still got to sleep next to a rather cute mare.

Deciding that going back to sleep would be an impossibility, I ended up trotting outside to get a better perspective of my current surroundings. The sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon, when it dawned on me. Again. I was still thirsty. Was I that concerned with sleep that I could have forgotten that I haven’t had anything to drink in two days. I didn’t have to wait for long, as almost immediately after I noticed my need for liquid, Sun Spark walked out of tent behind me.

“Morning!” She said in an overly cheery voice. It must be 6 AM, how can anypony be that cheery this early for God’s sake.

“Sleep well?” She asked.

Of course I hadn’t. I had some weird vision of a winged unicorn getting shot by bandits over a city, which caused me to wake up in a cold sweat. But I couldn’t bother her with malefic dreams, so I did the next best thing. Lie.

“Of course, it was very restful. Thanks for letting me accompany you guys, again. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you guys hadn’t found me when you did,” I said, humbling myself before the ponies nice enough to not let me cook in the desert.

“Oh, it was really no issue at all, despite protests from Dusty. We don’t really have to go back to Alexmanedria anytime soon. We were just finishing up some research here in the northern Helio Desert. Technically speaking we had a whole week to do the research, but Dusty is so concerned to make it back before a week is up to please the headmaster of the institute. I hope you were at least slightly comfortable sharing a tent with me,” She finished.

“Oh, it was quite comfortable. Especially next to such a cute mare like you,” I replied, trying to curry favor with my traveling partners.

“O-O-Oh,” She stumbled, blushing. “I, umm, thanks, I guess?”

Score.

“But, umm, I’m not really into mares,” she said, lowering her head dejectedly, refusing to make eye contact with me. She was still blushing intently through her pale red coat. “But,” she looked back to me, “thanks.”

Shut Down.

An awkward silence existed between the two of us for a little while. You could cut it with a butter knife.

“So…” I attempted to break the awkwardness, “What was that about an institute?”

“Oh,” she looked noticeably brighter at the opportunity to discuss her studies. “Well, Dusty is my mentor at the Alexmanedria Archeological Institute over at the Grand Library in the city. I’ve been studying there for about two years now and I’m really liking it! There’s a grand seer in the city that told me it’s my destiny to unearth the rumored temple of the sun king. He says it has to do with my cutie mark,” she finished matter-of-factly. I looked at her flatly. I would know what destiny is all about, and it usually doesn’t involve weird prophecies foretold by seer’s probably looking to con you out of your hard earned bits.

Still, I thought, if this seer is the real deal he might be able to tell me something about that weird dream.

“I just realized!” Sun Spark suddenly spoke in an outburst, “We never asked you for your name! Granted, we were all extremely tired, but that still doesn’t excuse our rudeness.”

Huh, go figure, spend a night with a mare, and she asks for your name the next morning. Reminded me of my Saturday nights; might as well formally introduce myself to her at least.

“My names Destiny, actually; Destiny Fate to be exact. Ironic, isn’t it?” I smirked at the unbridled coincidence of the situation of talking about a seer predicting ponies’ destiny when it was basically my name.

Now, I didn’t get my cutie mark predicting the fortune of others. To tell the truth, I got my cutie mark by making a huge gamble in a poker game one night after I got off duty. One of the fellow players just told me to ‘Trust in the fate of the deck,’ when in truth she was just trying to get her friend all of my bits. Well, it kind of sucked for both of them when I drew a royal flush. Guess that trusting in fate works, for me at least. Most of the time. When it feels like it.

Sun Spark’s only response was a small chuckle at my name, “You don’t say, do you? Well then it’s very nice to meet you, Destiny.” Sun Spark extended a hoof at me, which I pounded right back in a bro-hoof manner.

The tent next to ours rustled abruptly, causing me to turn my head to the source that disturbed our conversation. Dusty trotted out of his tent, a groggy look on his face as if he had a massive hang over.

“Morning,” was all he muttered as he attempted to shake his face to wake him up. To be honest it looked more like he was slowly saying no than vigorously waking himself up.

“Sleep well?” Sun Spark asked in her overly cheery tone.

“What I wouldn’t give for my bed back at the institute,” was Dusty’s only response. “So comfy…” he murmured.

“He’s always a little out of it in the morning,” Sun Spark turned and commented to me. “Hey Dusty!” She called over to the earth pony “What’s our next course of action anyway?”

Dusty seemed to lighten up at the prospect of finally being able to move on again.

We had been trotting for a few hours now, the hot desert giving way to rolling savanna planes and promises of the Nile River in the distance as shown by large palm trees on the horizon.

“Not long now and we’ll be in the town of Gazelle, we can pick up more supplies and spend the night there. Then, we travel upriver to get back home,” Dusty said.

Home. That concept was foreign to me now. The more I thought about it the more I missed my cloud bed, spending days training with friends. I was a little bit of an outcast, but I still had plenty to miss of my once home.

I decided to distract myself by surveying my surroundings. The rather lush yet still dry savanna stretched in all directions, tall green and brown grass covered many areas, and occasionally the miniature grass canopy was broken by a lone tree. I sighed heavily; the observing of my new setting doing nothing to alleviate myself of my homesickness.

“Something on your mind?” Sun Spark turned and asked me, a genuinely concerned look on her face. I briefly wondered why somepony I just met should give the smallest iota of how I feel. I was just a tag along anyway. “Hello?” She asked again, snapping me out of my curiosity with her concern.

“Oh, umm, nothing’s on my mind. I mean, there’s stuff on my mind. I mean, I’m fine; yeah.” Oh yeah, I’m so convincing.

“Alright,” was her reply in a disbelieving tone, “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sorry,” I sighed again, “Just a lot on my mind is all.”

A sudden rustling in the tall grass nearby drew our attention as the three of us turned abruptly towards it. Before we knew it, we were surrounded by a group of ponies and gryphons. Bandits by the look of it.

“That’s her! That’s the pegasus from the bar! She’s the reason we lost the time piece!” A voice rang out from the group that surrounded us. I recognized it immediately as one of the two mares that attacked Notch at Cloud Nine. Also, what the hell was ‘the time piece’?

“This isn’t good,” I muttered as I took a defensive stance. A quick look around told us that there were five of them. Five of them, and three of us; and as far as I knew I was the only one of use with any combat experience. Oh, did I forget to mention we were all unarmed?

One of the gryphon bandits unmistakably reach down in a holster for what I knew must be a gun; looks like he was priority number one. A quick tumble forward helped close the gap between the armed assailant and myself. Archangels underwent extensive combat training, so I was well versed in even non ideal situations. Still, I’d never have taken a life before, but I’m fairly certain that they wouldn’t hesitate to take ours. It was now or never.

When unarmed and outnumbered, it’s important to take the initiative in the fight. Tumbling in to the gryphon, a swift hoof strike rendered his trigger talon unusable and a quick follow up strike to the head rendered him unconscious. One down, four to go.

The unicorn from the bar lunged at me with a magically controlled knife. Despite my attempts to roll to the side and avoid getting hit, she managed to land a shallow but long cut along my shoulder. Damn, I thought, that hurt a lot. When she went in again to go for another cut I jumped back onto my hind legs to avoid getting hit, then jumped from my current position to land a hoof to her horn and neck, dragging her to the ground.

While I was occupied with the knife wielding unicorn, the other three bandits moved in on Sun Spark and Dusty. They were completely surrounded by the three bandits, forcing themselves to be back to back to one another to make sure that they couldn’t be flanked. For ponies with no combat training, they at least knew how to not get stabbed in the back. One of the earth ponies broke the circle surrounding them and lunged forward. Dusty sidestepped and assisted in tossing the attacker to the ground.

“There’s our opening, Sun. Let’s go!” Dusty grabbed ahold of Sun Spark and ran towards the opening left by the impatient assaulter.

Meanwhile, I was continuing to dodge blows from the unicorn that seemed to have at least the basics of fighting under her belt. I was still bleeding profusely from the open wound on my shoulder, and it was starting to take its toll. If this fight went on for a few more minutes the pain might be too difficult for me to bear.

The unicorn picked up the knife again in her magical aura, going once again straight in and attempting to slash my throat open. Deciding now was a good of a time as any to take control of the fight, I seized the knife in my mouth, snapping it out of the magical grasp of the unicorn.

“Oh buff ‘bis,” I said through a mouthful of steel as I went in close to get in a lethal blow. The unicorn attempted to launch some magical bolt at me, but it sailed over my head as I went in close and landed a swift slash to the neck of my foe. She fell down, bleeding out from the gash in her neck. I knew she was down for the count. A quick glance also showed that the gryphon from earlier remained unconscious, and the one of the other three ‘bandits’ was knocked down on the ground from a blow landed by Dusty.

The two other attackers moved on me after they saw I had killed their comrade. One was an unarmed pegasus, but had light armor that covered most of his body’s vulnerable points. The other was another gryphon, sporting light barding, a gryphon talon claw, and a single left wing blade.

I frowned at my current predicament, the odds of me outmaneuvering and beating two fliers armed to the teeth was looking more and more impossible. I had to try at least, they were after me, and it was my fault I got the others into this.

Taking a defensive stance once again, I readied myself for them to make a move, hoping to make a counter at the same time. The gryphon tensed his hind talons, a sure sign of a creature wanting to hop into the air. I realized my opening would be the split second he was ascending. I’d have to take out the pegasus who at the moment had no intention of flying, all of his weight put forth on his forehooves as if he was readying himself for me to launch forward and strike.

The gryphon took to the skies, and with it I took my opportunity. Dashing forward with speed I didn’t know I had, I attempted to close the gap, my vision beginning to blur from the open knife wound. The pegasus rotated his body as he readied to land a solid buck to my skull. I tumbled to the side, narrowing avoiding a skull fracture and went down in with the knife to deliver a devastating blow to the pegasus’ side, puncturing a lung. The dark blue coated enemy fell to the side, his coat now stained with his own blood.

“I’ll end you!” The gryphon from the skies yelled and dived at me, his left wing extended, the bone bearing a set of interlocking metal blades meant to move with the wing but extend into a sharp and deadly razor.

“Try me!” I had no idea why I was being cocky at the moment. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or my subconscious realizing I had just incapacitated or killed four other enemies single handedly.

I took to the skies; it was my only way to avoid getting cut down by the wing blade. Thankfully, this gryphon lacked a firearm as well, or I’d really be in trouble. Doing a barrel roll to my right, the gryphon swooped past me and continued on his run before slowing to a hover and readying another go at me. I noticed that he was only concerned with what was in front of him, completely tunnel visioning him from his surroundings, or he would have grabbed the pistol from his fallen gryphon friend.

Using that to my advantage would be simple; I waited until he went in again for another run to cut me down. I flew overhead and did a flip, causing me to land behind him. I picked up speed, eager and tireless to catch up to the flying enemy. I came up behind and landed my hooves on his wing, twisting them until an audible Snap was heard.

The gryphon fell and crashed into the ground, his body receiving long but shallow gashes as he fell on his left wing, his right snapped from my hooves. I slowed down to a hover and landed on the ground in a clearing free of tall grass nearby, finally able to take a break and catch my breath.

Once the dust settled and I could breathe steady, I looked to my shoulder. The majority of the wound had already crusted up with a scab, but it was still painful and tender to move it. I just sat there for a few minutes, taking my surroundings in and attempting to recover my energy. When I noticed something; Dusty and Sun Spark were gone.

I was alone.

New Perk: Blood on your Hooves: You’ve taken your first life. You gain a base 5% increased damage plus 0.1% increased damage per kill permanatley.

Chapter 2 - A Destination

Chapter Two – A Destination

“It’s not very far! It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump!”

The sun was beginning to set in the distance, the savanna beginning to cool as the sky darkened. I scavenged what I could from my enemies, including the bloody wing blade, light barding and the knife with a sheath.

I flew over to the river and washed my coat of any caked blood on my shoulder, leaving only a thin, clean scar. It should heal in a few days, hopefully. I sighed heavily, looking back on what just happened a part of me regretted that I hadn’t even given them a proper burial. No time to dwell on that now, though. I was miles away, having reached the river and began following it to the east, towards the city of Alexmanedria.

The vegetation became noticeably lusher as I neared the grand Nile River. Currently the longest river in the world, it housed over 90% of Heliopolis’ population. I thought, how hard could it be to find a town? I decided to trot through the night to find out, hopefully it wouldn’t be long.

I had been walking for hours in pure darkness, my only guide was the moonlight and the soft sound of the rather calm river moving against its’ banks. The walk along the river was noticeable more peaceful, but I didn’t dare attempt flying; that might cause more unwanted attention. It slowly became noticeably brighter, and as I looked up in this sudden change in light, I noticed the sun rising over the horizon. Had I really been walking for the entire night? After a few hours my hooves had simply gone numb and I kept walking through the night, hoping to hit something.

“Oh, for the love of-” I mean, how hard can it be to find the smallest hint of society next to a river. Not just a river, the world’s longest river out of all of them. How I wanted to take the risk of getting shot just to fly a little bit and maybe save myself a bit of trouble looking for a city.

As I continued to trot along the bank, something sparked my interest in the distance. Not more than a few miles away, a gargantuan pillar dominated the skyline, and upon it laid a huge burning flame that could signal ships from a few miles away. Something in the back of my mind remembered that. Something inside me knew what that was. The Lighthouse at Alexmanedria. Thanks, history.

It didn’t take long to reach the gates of the city, its huge traditional lighthouse guiding me as it has thousands of others over the years. The sun was still low in the sky, yet high enough to make the sky a vibrant blue. The city was just beginning to stir, and even along the edge of the settlement large crowds roamed the streets and markets. Much of the outer city had simple houses, made mostly of wood and straw thatched roofs, but through them I could see slightly taller buildings made of mud bricks, dawning exotic tapestries and large awnings.

Perhaps there weren’t as many bandits in the surrounding area as I had previously assumed, as the city lacked a wall, simply allowing for the expanse of new houses and shops along the riverbank; as well as a general lack of guards, there were sparsely any. It was likely that the most serious crime to really ever happen in this city was petty thievery.

The city as a whole was huge, home to not only a number of ponies but gryphons and jackals as well. Barking between stalls and their customers filled my ears. I could make out a few of the stalls, advertising everything from medicine to weapons. I glanced at my left wing, the gryphon’s wing blade clasped firmly on it. I knew I couldn’t rely on it as my only weapon, but there was the issue of money. All outer kingdom nations used a standardized currency called the Vaporian bit, and I was sincerely lacking in it as per those that are forcefully tossed out of their own country.

The pony in the back of my mind was still wondering what happened to Sun Spark and Dusty. The last thing I could recall was them making an escape from three bandits. They didn’t stick around to find out how I was going to defend myself from being cut down by multiple armed assailants. A small poster was tacked to a house on the corner of two streets clearly displayed a basic map of the city, including major landmarks and districts. While it was tempting to go ahead and hit up the library immediately and check on my two former traveling companions, I had priorities; most of them involving getting some money to actually do something in this city.

“Well hey there young lady!” A voice caught my attention, causing me to look around for the source of the noise. It turned out to be a stallion managing a stand, apparently selling some item, and apparently talking to me.

“Hello?” I asked back, unsure of his motives.

“Now,” he began, “I know lost when I see it, correct me if I’m wrong but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you’re new to this fine city aren’t you?”

“Yes, you are correct,” I replied, still apprehensive on the whole traveling salespony thing. “Are you trying to sell me something?”

“Sell you something? Oh, I wouldn’t dream about it little lady-”

“And stop calling me that,” I interrupted disgruntledly. I may hate being called ‘Miss Destiny’ like I’m 80 but I equally hate getting called ‘young lady’ like I’m 16.

“Of course,” he smiled. Definitely trying to sell me something. “Now, don’t think of this as me trying to sell you something, but more like me offering you the opportunity of a lifetime!”

Opportunity of a lifetime, hmm? I carefully examined the pony I was talking to. He was a colt, with a light brown coat and a darker brown mane; his cutie mark was a gold ingot. I decided that whatever his convoluted offer was, I could as least hear him out. I mean, how bad could it be anyway?

“Alright I’ll bite,” I said begrudgingly.

“Excellent!” He smirked, the kind of smirk the regular con man gets when he ropes in a sucker. “Now, here’s the offer,” he looked around, as if making sure that no other pony was listening in on our conversation. “Now I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” he leaned in uncomfortably close to my face. “I work for the Ka, you know, head honcho of this city and the country; and he’s entrusted me with a little task for him. I find able bodied ponies and gryphons for him, and I get the big bucks! All you have to do is show up here,” he hoofed me a pamphlet with a map of the city, a large square circled with a red pen, “at noon, and you can win thousands of bits for virtually no work, what do you say, miss?”

I looked at him with scrutinizing eyes, my brain processing the words that he spat out. The interest offered me sure, but I wanted details. “I want details.” I stated.

He looked noticeable brighter at my interest. “Of course, of course. I wouldn’t be trying to sell you short, so to speak. At this square, the Ka is looking for a pony to take on a certain, ‘challenge’ for him. He’s having a bit of an issue, and it’s my job to point some fighters his way. Details are all hush-hush, you know. But, if you get there and it turns out the jobs not for you, go ahead and decline, I’m sure somepony else will step in there.”

I looked back to the map, it clearly indicated the location of the square as well as several other important landmarks, including the library and the lighthouse. I looked back to him; it seemed like I had nothing to lose by going to this meeting, save a few hours. But since I was out on the street anyway, I might as well go for it. “Alright,” I replied, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

He only smirked.

Noon rolled around, and I found myself standing on the edge of the square, a small gathering of ponies, gryphons, and other creatures flocked to the center. On a raised platform, a stark black coated jackal, crowned in a rather eccentric golden crown that covered three sides of his head stood between two nasty looking pony guards. Both were earth ponies, but I still felt I would lose to them in a fight.

“Citizens of Alexmanedria!” The jackal spoke with a sense of leadership and power, commanding the attention of everyone in the square. I beseech to you my subjects of a matter most urgent. I request one soul, to travel into the depths of the lighthouse catacombs, and recover an ancient treasure. One lost for centuries, is needed now more than ever.” He paused to survey the crowd. Instantly some of those that had showed up lost their confidence, attempting to inch away from the group unnoticed. What was so bad about the lighthouse catacombs anyway?

“I only ask for one brave soul to tackle this task, and you will be rewarded greatly. I know as well as many of you the dangers that place contains’, but I would not ask this of anyone unless it was a matter of the utmost importance.” More creatures began backing away from the crowd, losing their nerve as he went on about the catacombs. I felt nothing of the sort, only growing suspicion about two things. One, what was so important to be retrieved, and two, why was it in a place seemingly so dangerous the Ka’s royal guard couldn’t go and fetch it themselves.

“Also,” he looked around again, the pool of volunteers slowly deteriorating, “The reward is twenty-thousand bits, paid in advance.”

“I’ll do it,” I heard myself call from the group, those remaining in the crowd eyed me with suspicion. It was more of a subconscious thing to accept such a large prize for a seemingly small mission. I mean the lighthouse was only about 20 feet wide at its base, how large could these catacombs be anyway?

“So be it,” the Ka spoke, never once taking his eyes off me. “Report to my palace in a bit to collect on the money and receive further details, the nation of Heliopolis thanks you, brave pony.” As the Ka rose, the crowd began to disperse, murmuring among themselves. I could catch a few of them about me, mostly that I was either insane or new. I shrugged it off, earlier today I had beaten five attackers on my own, I could handle whatever this crypt threw at me.

I left the square, the words of the Ka echoing in my skull. I knew I needed money, and it seemed like the opportunity had presented itself, but still. I mean, the whole nation thanks me? Something was up, but whatever, no time to worry about that now.

I walked through the streets, a certain aura seeming to persist around me. For wherever I went, the occasional stare followed suit. News spreads fast in this city, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad thing. I grabbed the map out of my saddle bags, looking for the palace in the expansive city. After I found it, I quickly changed directions towards my new destination.

Oh. My. Gods.

Before my eyes lay the largest expanse of land dedicated to a single building I have ever seen. Even the grand councils grand chamber building pales in comparison to the sheer magnitude of the Ka’s palace. A grand courtyard greeted me as I entered the grounds, the garden dotted with numerous small ponds that kept full despite the arid heat of the nearby savanna and desert. A number of large trees and bushes along a stone path guided me to the front door of the palace.

Two guards guarded the large door made of thick timber and crested with gold and various other precious metals arranged in ornate designs most likely meant to represent the various gods. Upon arrival one of the guards recognized me from earlier at the square and moved to open the door, another accompanying me as I strode down the hallway, taking in all the sights of the royal lifestyle, from the beautiful works of art including several paintings of both Heliopolis landscape and depictions of several deities as well as many works of physical art such as a vase made of pure jade and trimmed with a golden pattern.

At the end of the hallway, a large throne made of clay and covered in a thick and colorful rug. Sitting upon it in a fashion that gave him an air of dominance over his surroundings, the Ka sat.

“My little pony,” The Ka said to me as I approached the throne, “You volunteered for a matter most urgent, and for that, I thank you.”

“It was no trouble at all, sire,” I added in an attempt to be respectful, “I did need the bits pretty badly though.”

“Of course,” The Ka raised a paw and motioned to a guard pony, who reached into a saddle bag he had on him and pulled out a rather hefty sack of bits. I grabbed it in my mouth and tossed it back into my bags. “There you are; a few hundred coin bits, lots of twenties. I hope you find everything to your liking.”

“This’ll do just fine,” I bowed. First thing’s first is to find up what I’m up against and gather information on this crypt. I guess I would get to visit the library eventually anyway. Next step would to use a large chunk of the pay to get some gear. I had noticed some weapon shops along the way, armor too. Maybe get a few magical weapons, might get two for all the bits I’ve got.

“If you’ll excuse me,” I turned back to the Ka, “I’ve got to find out exactly what I’m up against, hit the library. Then the shops; get some gear. I should be able to leave in the morning. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, you are allowed to take your time. But get the job done, I don’t want that money going to waste,” He waved his paw, signaling I was free to go. I casually bowed once again and took my leave, following the guard back out to the palace courtyard. They followed me to the gate and left me once I walked out.

I glanced quickly once again at the map, taking note of my current situation and then at the library. From the position it held at the map, it must be a huge building, taking up almost as much space as the palace. There were legends told about that building. That it held every book ever written, and then some. That it held magical secrets not meant for mortals eyes, all locked away in what most passed off as a large library.

Maybe it was just a large library, but it still probably held the answers I was looking for, and I needed information on these catacombs in the city.

I arrived at the library shortly after; with no complications to further hinder me from my destination. The building was almost as grandiose as the palace, but it contained some distinct differences. These were mainly huge towers that dominated the sides of the building, containing a small balcony with a room on the top for an interesting study location. A sign at the entrance to the library clearly stated it was more than appeared.

The Grand Library at Alexmanedria

Home to the Alexmanedria Archeological institute.

Here was the place that (hopefully) Sun Spark and Dusty ended up back at; and where Sun Spark had mentioned a rather hard flank of a headmare. Hopefully getting information wouldn’t be that difficult. I pushed open the door with my hoof and walked into the hall, the first room being an opening to the rest of the library, with a white coated unicorn mare managed the front desk, casually reading a book I could make out as ‘A brief history of the grand conjurer Starswirl the Bearded.’ An interesting choice, I mused to myself.

I walked up to the desk to grab her attention, I took note of her auburn mane and tail and her cutie mark of an open flame on the edge of some wick. She seemed cute, and in the back of my mind I was cursing myself for even comparing her to Sun Spark, knowing one of them for a day and the other I’ve yet to say a word to.

“Hello,” I began. She looked up from her book, her vibrant sky blue eyes looking up towards my dull grey ones.

“Hi there,” She said in a cheery tone. “Welcome to the grand library, and, of course, the institute of archeology. I’m the headmare, Faith. Can I help you?”

“You’re the headmare of the institute of archeology?”

“You sound surprised,” She looked back to me, I couldn’t get myself to stop staring at her blue eyes, they were entrancing.

“You must be new in the city.”

“Actually, I am,” I admitted. I decided my conscious wouldn’t rest until I had settled the issue of what happened to my two former companions. “So if you’re the headmare of the institute, then that means you know all of the students who attend, right?”

“Of course,” Faith replied curtly.

“Then you know Sun Spark, and Dusty,” I added. Maybe I was a bit more biased towards the cute mare then the stallion that almost let me die of thirst in the desert.

“Of course, they just arrived late last night, screaming something about a bandit attack and them barley escaping. Poor things, there hasn’t been any bandit activity this side of the country in years. Don’t know why they started popping up again after all this down time. I had Nurse Gauze check on them, they ran all the way here for several miles,” she sighed as she finished.

“Did they mention anything about traveling with somepony?” I was curious to know if I even had an impact on them. Call it living for the spotlight, but I did single hoofedly take down five armed enemies by myself, though they did serve as a good temporary distraction for three of them. I like to think I at least made them thankful for that.

“Now that you bring it up, I think when they were telling Nurse Gauze the whole story they spat out something about meeting a pony traveling the desert alone and them deciding to help her.”

“Miss Faith,” A voice came out of nowhere and caused both Faith and I to turn to the source. A white coated earth pony with a brown mane and a cutie mark of a strip of gauze walked in. Ten bits says this was the nurse that looked into treating my two companions for exhaustion. “Sun Spark is up and active, she keeps asking questions if we have heard anything on a pony showing up new in town.”

“Ring any bells?” Faith turned to me, a sly and knowing look on her face. It was virtually obvious I accompanied them anyway.

“I’ll go talk to her,” I offered. Anything to calm her down; and maybe just to sneak peeks at her again.

“Thank you,” Faith replied. “Oh, I don’t believe I caught your name, they were too exhausted from what I heard to even mention it.”

“Destiny Fate, but call me Destiny,” I smiled back. As I trotted to follow the nurse to the area of the library where members of the institute stayed I turned back to Faith. “This conversation isn’t over, Faith. I’m on a mission for the Ka, and I need some information.”

“Then you came to the right place,” Faith replied. “Go see Sun Spark, we’ll talk later.”

It was always business it seemed. But I’d like to get to know this Faith a little more. Maybe she just didn’t like Dusty. I could sympathize. Sure he was just looking out for himself and his friend. But come on, a little kindness goes a long way. It was my hour of need, and he almost abandoned me. I wouldn’t have done the same, I knew.

I followed the nurse down a hall littered with numbered doors. The residential section of the institute, I guessed. We stopped around door number 12, the nurse reaching into a small satchel and picking out a key in her mouth and unlocking the door. When I followed her in, I noticed Sun Spark lying on the bed under the covers, some medical equipment made to monitor vital life signs lay inactive as most of them had been detached from their patient. I looked back to Sun Spark, she instantly lit up upon seeing my face again.

“Destiny!” She screamed, but as she moved to get up she fell short, managing only to stretch her forelegs trying to reach me.

“Rest, honey,” Nurse Gauze spoke. “You ran non-stop for 22 miles, it’s a miracle your leg muscles still exist.”

Sun Spark ignored her, turning back to me. “Nurse Gauze says I should be able to walk again in a few days if I rest enough. I’m really sorry for leaving you back there,” she moved her head down, downtrodden thinking she left me to die. Technically she did, but I wasn’t mad at her. I couldn’t bring myself to be mad at the mare.

“It’s fine,” was my only response to it. “How’s Dusty holding up?”

It was the Nurse who replied, having seen to him in another room. “He’s doing just fine, he ran just as far as Miss Sun Spark here, he’ll be up and going in no time though.”

“What happened to the bandits?” Sun Spark asked with a questioning look. I knew I’d have to tell her the truth, I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her what befell her attackers fate.

“Gone,” I stated simply, hoping to not have to go into detail about what ‘gone’ really meant.

“Oh,” she said solemnly. “Your shoulder!” She almost screamed at noticing the wound I had sustained from the fight. It was much better than it was still fresh, having scabbed over and begun the healing process, but I knew that it still looked bad, despite me feeling virtually nothing when walking on it.

“Oh it’s fine,” I replied in hopes of dropping my injury there.

“Let me take a look at it,” The nurse said, not giving me a chance to object to it by instantly studying and scrutinizing the wound. After going through the basic procedure of prodding and poking at the wound to force a reaction, the nurse concluded that time was the only thing needed to heal the wound, which made me relieved that it was neither infected nor poisoned.

“Come on now, Miss,” The nurse ushered me along and out of the room to allow Sun Spark get her rest. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, those bandits were after me, and it was my fault they showed up when they did. A part of me was relieved that Sun Spark was only concerned with my well-being.

I walked back down the hall and towards the main room, eagers to finally get some answers to my questions. The nurse and I parted ways as I spotted Faith again, once more entranced by her book. I pondered what was so interesting about a unicorn that lived several hundred years ago, but was cut off from my thoughts when I noticed that Faith had looked up from her studies and was now looking at me intently.

“Back so soon from visiting your friend?” She asked.

“She’ll be fine, the Nurse said so at least. Energetic as when I met her yesterday,” I replied.

“Yeah, she’s a good kid. Studies hard, she’ll go places,” Faith paused. “Now, this information you want, what are you looking for?”

“Information regarding the Lighthouse Catacombs,” I stated flatly. No sense about attempting to tip toe around the issue. Faith seemed like a smart mare anyway. She could probably see through any guise I put on.

“The catacombs? Did I miss something in the last 12 hours or what? No one travels down there. It’s nothing but floors of dead and undead; traps too. What make you want to head there?” Faith was suspicious to say the least about my intentions.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Faith. I’m sent from the Ka, he said he’s looking for something on the lower levels of the crypt, an artifact of power,” I finished.

“Artifact of power, hmm?” Faith looked around the library quickly, “I may have something on that, come, and follow me.” Faith rose from her seat and tomes and ushered me to follow her around the library as we embarked on the rather un-epic quest for knowledge.

“So tell me about yourself, Destiny,” Faith asked.

“What do you want to know?” I asked.

“Mostly how a pegasus like you ends up here. Most of the time pegasus like you end up living in Vaporia or something like that,” Faith knew pegasi like me all too well. Maybe it was the toned physique or the fact I knew nothing of the local legends that told her I wasn’t native to this country.

“It’s a long story,” I explained. “I’d rather not go into detail about how I ended up here, but I’m pretty much here for good.”

“Sounds like quite an interesting story, I’d love to hear it someday,” Faith mused. “Ah, here we are; ancient Alexmanedrian history.” Faith floated the tome down to her, letting it rest on a nearby table and began flipping through the pages, looking for information regarding the catacombs. I leaned into her to get a look at what the books was saying, its texts giving vivid descriptions of the catacombs below the lighthouse.

“So what are we up against?” I asked her.

She turned to me, “We?” Oh; I accidentally subconsciously included her in my little adventure.

“Sorry, I guess I just did it out of habit,” I responded sheepishly.

“Don’t apologize, I was going to ask to tag along anyway,” She smirked. Wait, what? She wants to go down to this place half the city is scared of? “I can tell by that look on your face that you’re surprised I’d want to go down there. But whatever the Ka wants from the depths of that crypt it’s big. As a scholar, I simply must investigate. I’m no stranger to a little danger and excitement you know.”

“Fine, so if you are actually tagging along, then what are we up against?” I asked again.

“The usual, some traps, few monsters, maybe a tomb raider or two. He made that announcement of needing someone to go into the catacomb rather public, I’d expect somepony thought it would be a good time to go check out what all the fuss is about,” she finished.

“We’re going to need some gear,” I stated. “I’m lacking in just about everything since leaving, well, umm, Vaporia by choice.”

“Choice. Sure, you’ll tell me in time,” Faith glanced at me. “I’m lacking in gear too. I assume the Ka paid generously?”

“In advance,” I responded. “I can cover both of us, basic armor and weapons from some shops around here.”

“I’ll pass on the weapons, I’m not much of a fighter, just need some protection is all,” Faith closed the book back and used her magic to lift it back up onto the shelf.

“Fair enough,” I said back, “Shall we?” I motioned my hoof out of the library. “Let’s get down to business.”

New Party Member: Faith: Faith brings a wealth of knowledge to your party, including a repertoire of utility spells.

Chapter 3 - Faith

Chapter Three – Faith

“Trust me on this!”

Faith and I walked through the streets of Alexmanedria, a bustling metropolis full of colorful vendors and assorted goods. My newfound traveling partner seemed to be focused intently on our goal of retrieving the mysterious artifact from the depths of the Lighthouse catacombs. The first thing we did was stop off at a nearby armor shop to get fitted with some protection. From the tome Faith had found, we had a vague idea of what to expect. Not much in terms of live enemies, but numerous traps and an abundance of necromantic magic was rumored to be housed in the crypt.

“Stand still, Miss,” The armorer said as he took measurements of me. How was I supposed to stand still for this long, it was way too boring for me. “Almost finished now,” The armorer spoke. The armor was fairly straight forward, reinforced light leather for both of us, studded in certain parts such as the shoulder to help in deflecting weapon blows, not likely we would need it now, but it might come in handy if I get in any trouble later.

“We’re so hitting the weapon shop after this,” I said to Faith, who seemed to be having a laugh at my expense of being annoyed by standing still for so long. I glared daggers at her for her chuckles. Her only response was a roll of the eyes.

“Honestly, Destiny,” here we go again, I thought, “what use is a weapon if you are too injured to use it. Let the stallion do his job, he knows what he’s doing.”

“I never said he didn’t,” glancing at the stallion now outfitting the armor around my wing so I could still fly with it on, the weapon adorned on my left wing missing in action as I was forced to remove it so I wouldn’t poke the armorer’s eye out. “I’m just saying I’ve never been fitted for custom armor, it’s always been standard issue for me. Now I know why they didn’t do it. Way too time consuming.”

“Hush now, there’s plenty of time to get all the supplies we need before noon and get over to the lighthouse,” Faith placated me. I quieted down and let the armorer finish outfitting me with the leather.

After we were both fitted with a suitable amount of defense, I took a look at our remaining funds. Full suits of light armor like that came out to 2500 a pony, leaving us with a good 15,000 bits left.

“Alright,” I spoke up, “Let’s go get the fun stuff, where to first?” I turned to Faith, knowing she knew the city far better than I did.

“Why don’t we hit ‘The Gilded Sword’ first?” Faith asked, “It sounds like a good store,” she reasoned.

“Oh, yeah! They had one of those back in Aurora. I got some awesome stuff there once,” I replied.

“I’d love to go there someday,” Faith mused.

“So would I,” I mumbled.

“What was that?” Faith asked, not quite hearing exactly what I mumbled.

“Nothing,” I said back. We walked down the street for another short time, finally arriving at the rather ornate weapons emporium. I was having a field day in there, all kinds of weapons, maces, axes, swords, flails, all kinds of specialized weapons for any situation one might find themselves in. Faith could only scoff and I went from stand to stand, examining each and every detail of the ornate and deadly designs. I decided my needs would be simple. I wasn’t a unicorn, so traditional weapons like swords were out of the question. I opted for two honed wing blades, perfectly balanced to seem virtually weightless on my wing. As well as a single hoof blade magically enchanted to retract and extend at the flex of a muscle, great for hoof to hoof combat. I decided to forgo ranged weapons, assuming any foe I met at a distance I could close the gap easily enough to not be hindered by the lack of ranged damage. After all of it, I still walked out of the store with over 10,000 bits, sure to come in handy later.

“Now that you’re done arming yourself for a world war,” Faith said, “We can get a move on. I want to find out what’s so peculiar about the depths of this place that’s got the Ka so itching to find out. What do you think?” Faith turned to me, as if expecting me to have some kind of actually intellectual answer.

“As far as I know,” I began, “The Ka knows that whatever is in the catacombs is a pretty powerful artifact, considering he was willing to pay me in advance to get his paws on it. Twenty thousand bits isn’t exactly pocket change, even for royalty like him. I’m almost a little suspicious. What do you know of any artifacts of extreme power near here? Real or legend?”

“Well first and most obvious is the giant stone obelisks around the entire nation, and in the center the bottomless abyss that is nothing more than a giant crack in the world. As far as artifacts known to be in Alexmanedria are concerned, I can only think of a few. I don’t know what they do, but I can give a list of them at least,” Faith finished.

“Go for it,” I replied, “Any and all information is helpful.”

“You like to learn,” Faith mused, “I can respect that. Alright, there are two that come to mind. A golden scarab, never found, unknown purpose; and what some tomes in the library refer to as an ‘Infinite Hourglass,’ though I don’t know exactly what it does, one can only guess what a magical hourglass controls.” I looked surprisingly at Faith; she sure knew more than she originally let on. I took a closer look at her face, she held her eyes dead center to my own, but this time I wasn’t gawking at their blueness but rather attempting to sense if she was hiding something from me. I can understand not knowing what the rumored pieces of power do, but being able to spout off the legends at the drop of a hat and to have not told me before hinted to me that this was a mare of many faces. A small part of me admitted that I liked each and every one.

“Well,” I paused, “This is it.”

“Yep,” was the only response I got out of her.

Faith and I stood outside the base of the lighthouse, the nearby area being virtually devoid of any other creatures. For good reasons I assumed. If the Ka was publically announcing that he was sending someone to investigate the lighthouse catacombs, it was likely that others would know to steer clear of the area in order to avoid even the slightest glimpse of the inside of the building at the base of the lighthouse.

The lighthouse itself was nothing more than a tall tower that stood near the edge of the river, a tall flame adorning the top of it, never seeming to go out. I surmised that some pegasus that lived in the city tended to it, though as far as I knew I might be the only pegasus in this entire country. I know it’s mostly a canine and earth pony nation, but I’d still seen a few unicorns, including Faith. The area was devoid of any pegasi however. Maybe the flame just never went out, magically enhanced to burn for all eternity.

“Look here, Destiny,” Faith called me attention to where she was looking, something peculiar at the base of the building. “Look, this stone is old. I mean, really, really old. I’ve never examined the lighthouse up close, but it looks to be as if this lighthouse not only predates the founding of this nation, but predates the earliest buildings in the city itself. A bit of a contradiction to what is spat out in textbooks.”

Upon closer inspection, I saw that she was indeed correct. The stone at the base of the lighthouse looked positively ancient, showing signs of intense aging and wear as it sat there for possible thousands of years at the edge of a river. For all I knew, this could have existed before the river was formed.

“Is the door unlocked?” I asked.

“Should be,” Faith responded, “Legend alone keeps this place empty of most of the sane citizens, the guards never found a reason to put a lock on this.” To test her theory, Faith pressed a hoof to the equally as ancient looking wooden door that sealed off the entrance rather insecurely. The door creaked open with an audible squeak, revealing to the two mares a small circular room lit my torches. I looked around the room, seeing multiple cob webs and signs of intense aging. I was beginning to believe Faith’s story about this building possible being older than the city itself. Was it possible that the city was built around the lighthouse? As I pondered this mystery, I spotted a wooden trap door in the center of the room, most likely the entrance to the lower levels of the catacombs, filled with all of the dangers we read about. The back of my mind was sending a prayer to whoever was listening that they were all false. The rational part of my mind told the back to shut up and get ready. This was going to be interesting.

Faith and I stepped off the last step down the small flight of stairs, ending up roughly 30 or so feet below the surface of the city. I took a moment to allow my eyes to adjust to the change in light, from a bright and arid desert day to a dark and rather depressing low light crypt. I could make out on the edges of the room we were just in a couple of mummified pony and jackal corpses that had been embalmed for some time now. I even saw a gryphon, despite how uncommon they were in this country. Even less so than any pegasus.

“This place isn’t so bad,” I said, walking through the room. I tried to help lift our spirits in this aura of depression. “Once you get past the mummified corpses and the low light that looks like it could be hiding something that wants to kill you, I could definitely warm up to this place.” Just then, I felt a depression in the ground as my hoof stepped on a loose floor stone. No, scratch that; it was a pressure plate. The whirling sound of gears turning and a brief glance to my side showed holes where poison darts would shoot out of. I instinctively ducked, causing Faith to stop in her tracks behind me as three darts shot overhead and embedded themselves into the wall on the opposite side of the room.

“Not so bad, hmm?” Faith said back with a smirk on her face.

“Shut up,” I replied flatly.

“At least you’re still alive,” Faith said matter-of-factly. I knew she was right, but it didn’t make it any less annoying to have the universe toss my words right back in my fact in the form of traps.

“And,” I added, “At least we know there are some pressure plate traps now, I’ll keep an eye out for them now, as long as the room is well lit enough we should be able to spot them without triggering any of them. Think there are any others?” I turned back to Faith.

“Tripwires?” She asked, pointing a hoof over at the door at the end of the long hallway like room, revealing a long thin rope laid just low enough to the ground to avoid being seen unless you’re looking for it, but just high enough that a passerby wouldn’t step directly over it. I quickly glanced around and noticed a small spike protruding from the edge of the wall, cleverly concealed by what seemed like a mini architectural arch. Maybe it really did provide support, but I was almost positive that the arch’s main purpose was to hide this devilish trap.

I motioned for Faith to stay back with my hoof. I leaned down close to the floor near the tripwire, carefully extending my hoof blade out with a flex of my muscle and lowered the sharpened blade towards the wire, sawing through it with ease. I jumped a little as the spike shot out over my head abruptly. It then retracted itself, the trap assuming it had killed the intruder in a manner most grueling. I winced at the thought that it could have been me and not air the spike impaled.

“Close one,” I said and turned to Faith, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she replied. “Let’s keep moving.” We moved in towards the door stationed at the end of the hallway like room, this one slightly more ornate and made out of metal. A small lock held the two doors together and prevented someone from opening it.

“A lock?” I said, “That’s the best they can do?” I extended my blade again, carefully inserting the thin, sharp metal in between the tumblers of the lock and poking them into place before giving a final tug on the lock and opening it. “Piece of cake,” I said.

“Quite,” was Faith’s only reply. We both entered the next room, the setting seeming to change abruptly from a desolate catacomb littered with a few traps to a vast, expansive chamber filled with doors branching off to different sections. A brief look over the railing on the opposite side of the hallway showed the chamber to continue downwards for several levels, a stone statue taking place in the center of the bottom of the chamber room. “Oh, how interesting,” Faith perked up at the new setting, “Oh and what’s this?” Faith looked over the railing and towards the statue, “We should get a closer look, but how…” Faith paused and turned to me.

“Uh, Faith,” I flexed my wings for emphasis.

“Oh right, not used to pegasi still,” she blushed in embarrassment; I guess missing obvious things like that wasn’t very scholarly like. I floated up behind my new companion and grabbed her sides as she yelped in surprise. I wasn’t used to carrying the extra weight of another pony, but I did the task without too much complication. Definitely not an activity I would do in my spare time though, it was quite taxing.

We neared the floor at a slow pace, as I was doing my best to make sure Faith had a soft landing. Eventually her hooves touched the ground and I dropped her off, letting go of her sides and letting out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. She turned back to me as I landed my hooves on the ground and folded in my wings, content with my flight.

“Not bad,” she commented, “You’re stronger than you look, you know.”

“Thanks,” I blushed slightly at the praise. “Let’s go see that statue though.”

Both of us turned towards the center of the floor, a large statue almost as tall as two gryphons stood on top of each other dominated the chamber. It was a statue of a great owl, its wings folded neatly to its side and its gaze unwavering as it stared straight forward towards a grand door. I followed its gaze towards the spot in the center, a seal of three triangles surrounding a fourth.

“Check this out,” I grabbed Faith’s attention as I walked slowly towards the door locked with a seal. “What is it?” I asked hoping to get an explanation.

“I’ve seen this somewhere before!” Faith gasped. She floated out a book from her saddlebags as I gave her a flat look.

“What? I thought it might come in handy. Ok, let’s see here. Ah, here we go. This is a seal of wisdom. There are several noted around the world, but it never mentions one in Alexmanedria.”

“Okay, so how do we open it?” I inquired.

“Ah, right, opening it,” Faith paused. “To open a seal of wisdom, you must have a piece of wisdom. It is said that a piece of wisdom will reveal itself to a creature only when it has solved the riddle of the seal.”

“And this riddle is where exactly,” I asked. I took a brief glance around the room, noting several doors along the walls. I strode up to the owl statue, taking in all of its details, from how it preened it wings to position of its feet. I took a quick glance at the owl’s tail, noting its peculiar position to its side as it pointed toward one door in particular.

“I’m not sure,” Faith replied.

“I think I might know,” I said, turning towards the door the tail pointed at. “Come on, follow me,” I motioned Faith over.

“Why would it be over there? No offense Destiny, but there is over a hundred doors in this chamber, it could be any one of them,” Faith reasoned.

“No, no I’m sure it’s this one. If it doesn’t have the piece of wisdom it probably has the riddle to obtain it at least,” I reasoned. I was completely going out on a limb here with this idea that the way to open the door was located where the tail was pointing, but hey, it wasn’t like that tail was pointing directly behind the statue. It was oddly skewed to the side, like the sculptor of the piece had been secretly pointing to the door.

“Any logical reasoning behind that conclusion?” Faith asked.

“Trust me on this, okay. Have some, pff, faith,” I nearly burst out laughing from that line.

“You’ve been holding that in since you’ve met me haven’t you,” Faith asked flatly.

“Maybe,” I smirked. “Now come on, follow me.” I started off towards the marked door. As we approached I took note of the subtle differences between this door and the surrounding chamber exits. A worn carving would usually have made it a lot more obvious what was behind this room was different, but both a low light setting and aging have taken its toll, reducing the wood to looking virtually the same as the others.

I pushed open the door with my hoof, placing it down inside the doorway on the cold stone floor that greeted me. I looked around cautiously, the room turning out to be a long hallway just as low lit as the rest of the crypt. However, it was surprisingly devoid of any mummified corpses.

“Looks empty to me,” Faith commented, “We should still keep an eye out for traps, though. Shall we?” Faith took the lead in front of me, either spurred on by the curiosity of the ever expanding mystery surrounding this catacomb or driven by the desire to prove herself as an intellectual superior by showing that I was incorrect in my assumption that the tail of the owl statue held some sort of significance.

I carefully surveyed the hallway as the two of us walked down it, keeping a sharp eye out for anything that might want to kill us. I looked to Faith, shooting her a questionable glance at the sudden lack of hostility that lay beyond the original entrance to the crypt.

“Wait,” I held out my hoof to stop her as we approached a part of the hallway. Two pairs of gemstones stood embedded inside the wall, one on each side of the hallway. “It might be a trap?” I virtually asked to nopony in particular. I mean it did look like a trap, but it also looked like someone just stuck some garnets into a wall and called it a day.

“Might be?” Faith asked back. We both began treading with the utmost caution as we approached the small studded gems, glancing at every wall and every stone in the floor for some sort of trap, be it pressure plate, trip wire or the likes. I looked over to the gems in the opposite side of the wall, bright red garnets instead being replaced with equally as stunning clear blue chalcedonies embedded into small holes in the wall.

I wanted to rush up and take a closer look, wondering if the two types of gems had any sort of significance to how the seal of wisdom works. It might even be some crazy metaphor on how to obtain the piece of wisdom so we could unlock the door.

“It doesn’t look like they do anything,” I commented, “Even so; I’ll pass on looting them. It might be linked to a trap if removed.”

“Good choice,” Faith said back, “Keep cautious though, I still don’t trust this place.”

We moved at a snails’ pace past the gems, my gaze shifting back and forth between my left and my right as I readied myself to spring into action if anything were to suddenly come to life. As we passed by the gems, I let out a sigh of relief, glad that they weren’t linked to some sort of trap.

I could see the end of the hallway in the distance, some sort of shrine marking the end of the passage. Faith and I approached the area with caution, unsure if there was still anything looking to kill us. I turned my attention towards the shrine itself, taking in the details.

It was like something out of a Daring Do novel, an ancient looking shrine covered in a bit of overgrown yet long dead plants, and some candles that I can only guess were somehow magically enchanted to never burn out. A book lay open to a particular page, and as I read it, a chill ran down my spine.

As one acquires wisdom, the mind and body shall be tested, and from the ruins of the remaining, new wisdom is born.

Faith and I stopped reading it at the same time, glancing up to each other with a worried expression worn plainly across our faces.

“Take the book,” Faith spoke abruptly.

“What?” I asked back, “Why? I don’t want to steal anything from a haunted and creepy crypt like this!”

“Don’t you see, Destiny,” Faith replied, “That’s the riddle! If we take the book it triggers some sort of trap. If we beat it, we get the piece of wisdom. It’s how we unlock the door.”

I looked back and forth, from Faith to the book. On one hoof, if it was true and I did pick up the book, I can leave here without an angry Ka breathing down my neck about robbing him of twenty-thousand bits. On the other hand, leaving without having to kill anything is a lovely alternative. I thought briefly for a moment, weighing my options before coming to a decision on how to act.

“Oh, screw it,” and with that, I snagged the book off of the pedestal it resided on in the shrine, a weight sensitive pressure pad lifting as I did so. The hall shook violently, and as I glanced back down it I saw the area where the two sets of gemstones had been before were now coming to life as a pair of creatures made of stone and resembling minotaur’s, walking with two legs and two bulbous arms, began walking down the hall.

“You wanted a fight,” I said back to Faith, “Well here’s our chance.” I sprang into action, unsure of how to first tackle my newfound adversaries. How does a pony fight a minotaur of stone anyway? I decided to play it safe, taking up a defensive stance as I waited for the two stone golems to make a move. It was best to size up opponents and see what they’re working with first before hitting them with something that might not be very effective against them. The garnet eyed stone beast was first to make a move, stomping forward in an attempt to land a devastating ground pound and fracture my little pony skull.

I tumbled to the side, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the fists of a seemingly invincible enemy. I called out to my adventuring companion, wanting to quickly fish her mind for any ideas.

“Any ideas Faith?” She looked quickly to me then back to our big problem.

“Give me a second,” Faith said back. “Just keep doing, whatever it is you’re doing.”

Great. So I was fighting two rock hard minotaur golems and had no idea on how to scratch them. Obviously hitting them with a blade wouldn’t do anything, hitting rock with refined rock doesn’t accomplish much. Guess I just keep dodging and hope that Faith has some crazy unicorn magic to knock out or obliterate the moving statues. Hopefully she came up with the solution before I ran out of energy.

I managed to sneak a glance at whatever Faith was up to between hopping between angry fists and the occasional magical laser beam of death from my enemies. I saw Faith’s horn glowing, becoming enveloped in a blue magical aura as she readied a spell from her repertoire of deadly casts.

I dodged another shot from the blue eyed laser minotaur golem as the entire hallway was suddenly enveloped in an incredible bright flash of white light. I opened my eyes, my pupils slowly adjusting to the new setting as I took stock of the situation. I looked to where the golems were previously; in their place was instead a rather large pile of dust topped with four gemstones, two garnets and two chalcedonies.

“W-What did you do?” I asked, turning to look for Faith, who was currently sweating profusely and panting heavily.

“I dispelled the come to life spell on the golems,” Faith said between breaths. “It takes a lot of energy to revert to spells at once, especially those of such power as a come to life spell. I need a moment.”

I went back to the piles of dust, sifting through them as I attempted to look for what the book mentioned should be the piece of wisdom we needed to unlock the door. I decided to pick up the gems from the golems and stash them in my bags, earning a questionable look from Faith. I ignored and continued looking for the key to the door.

Eventually, lying at the bottom of the pile, I found the piece of wisdom and scooped it up in my hoof, carefully placing it at the top of my bags.

“Come on Faith,” I said to my exploring companion once she had caught her breath. “Let’s go find out what’s behind that door.”

“Well,” I paused, “This is it.” Faith and I stood outside the door, the owl statue still dominating the floor of the multi-story chamber. I took the piece of wisdom in my hand and moved it into the seal, pressing it in firmly with my hoof. I heard an audible click and some tumblers moving around to open the lock on the door. The door creaked open on its own, revealing a surprisingly well lit room. At the end of the room lay another shrine, and our goal lay at the end of it.

The Golden Scarab.

We both rushed forward at the sight of the artifact, Faith leaning in particularly close to the golden bug, when she spoke up.

“Wait! I’ve seen this somewhere before!”

New Perk: Wisdom of the Ancients: You react quicker to situations under stress.

New Artifact: Golden Scarab: This Artifact's purpose is currently unknown.

New Perk: Fleet Foot: You no longer unintentionally trigger pressure plate traps.

Chapter 4 - The Grand Library

Chapter Four – The Grand Library

“In this building there is the world’s largest secrets”

“What do you mean you’ve seen this before?” I turned and asked Faith. She levitated the golden bug into her saddle bags, closing the buckle of the bags with an audible click; she finally turned to face me.

“Listen to me on this Destiny,” Faith paused, as if telling me what she was about to was weighing heavily on her mind.

“There’s a door, sealed and unable to be opened on the lower levels of the library. It contained some sort of ornate carvings, and no pony has been able to decipher them or knock the door down. Even the walls seem to be harder than what the library was made out of. The library itself has existed for over a thousand years, so I guess it just became engraved in the minds of ponies visiting down there that it’s just always been like that. But it hasn’t. I know that bug, it’s shaped exactly like the seal on the door in the library.”

Okay, let me go over that again in my head. So the Ka sent us down into the catacombs to find the golden scarab, got that. But, he really wanted whatever was behind the door in the library? What could be so important in basement of the library? Then it hit me.

“Faith,” I said, “You said you remembered there being two artifacts you could name off of the top of your head that Alexmanedria legends spoke of. What was the second one?”

“The Infinite Hourglass, why?” She asked, clearly not seeing the metaphorical gears whirling inside my head as I pieced the puzzle together.

“Because,” I replied, “because that’s what the Ka really wants, he wants the Hourglass. Gods only know what he wants it for.”

Faith and I peeked our heads past the doorway at the base of the lighthouse, suddenly wary to watch for any of the Ka’s guards to be patrolling the area. I checked left and right, scanning even the rooftops of nearby clay buildings for someone tracking our position. When I was satisfied that we weren’t being watched, I signaled to Faith to follow me as we went towards the library, slipping in between crowds.

I tried my hard to avoid bumping sides with anypony in the crowd, the last thing we need is a random civilian to get a cut from my wing and suddenly all eyes are on us. Thankfully the crowds were thin today as we moved through the streets and towards the library. Along the way I could still make out conversations about how the Ka asked some random pony to enter the catacombs, completely unaware of who was walking beside them.

We finally arrived at the library after a few minute trot, the sun setting in the background. We had been in the lighthouse catacomb for an entire day, but at the sudden revelation that we might be handing over something incredibly powerful and dangerous to the leader of a nation without knowing why he wanted it banished any thoughts for sleep. We moved into the library, Faith opening the door with her magic. Instantly we were greeted by an overly joyous and active mare at the front desk.

“Headmare!” Sun Spark called out, “and, Destiny? Where have you guys been all day?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, not wanting to go into details about almost dying to traps and stone minotaurs.

“I’m glad to see that you’re out of bed though,” Faith commented, clearly putting on a disguise of happiness in an attempt to not worry her student.

“I’ve been up all day, studying for the next expedition! When can we go?” Sun Spark asked.

“Soon,” was Faith’s only reply, “I promise.”

I continued to follow Faith, assuming we were heading down into the depths of the library, unsure of what to make of her mood. I waited until we were out of earshot of Sun Spark to finally speak up.

“Something on your mind?” I inquired to my newfound companion.

“Just this whole thing,” she sighed before continuing, “I don’t know what to make of it. Earlier today if you told me the legend of a ridiculously strong magical artifact was buried underneath Alexmanedria I’d look at you funny; if you told me it was under my library I’d toss you out. All I wanted was a little excitement, some adventure by exploring a new crypt, maybe discover some cool fossils, instead I end up on the wrong end of a treasure hunt.”

I could sympathize with her. I mean, I was basically thrown out of my home and country for sticking up for a friend, and suddenly found myself on the wrong side of something, only looking for a little excitement. Still, a part of me was a little miffed that she was making a big deal out of all of this, not knowing exactly what the Ka’s intentions are.

“You know you don’t have to come with me on this,” I said to Faith, causing her to look up from the floor. “As far as the Ka knows you have nothing to do with my mission into the crypt. You leave this now and you get off free.”

“Oh, well I couldn’t do that now,” she perked up a bit, “I want to see this through. It may throw my entire lifes work away up to this point to get on the wrong side of the Ka, but all of it for a chance to have my name immortalized in history as the mare who discovered one of the most sought after magical artifacts of all time, how could I resist.”

She forced a smile back at me. I knew internally Faith was conflicted, making such a huge decision that could affect the rest of her life was weighing heavily in her mind, but I had no idea on how to comfort her on it. Okay, I had a few ideas, but we’re trying to keep it clean here. I guess our best bet was to push on and do exactly what she wanted to do, see it through.

“Fine then,” I smiled back, little gestures to help lift her spirit and remind her she wasn’t alone, that I was on her side. “Show me to this door, let’s see this thing through.”

We continued moving down a row of bookshelves lined with tomes from throughout the ages. I read a few of them as we trotted onwards, some of the titles catching my eye. ‘Places of Power: Legend or Fact?’ was a peculiar one I might want to take a crack at some day. If everything worked out, maybe Faith and I could even get our names in the next edition as discovering an artifact of magical power, who knows?

Eventually we were met with a staircase, and a quick peek over the wooden railing showed three lower floors, all seemingly teeming with books. Add this to the two additional floors above the ground one, and the library easily held over a million pieces of knowledge; it could be understandable why Faith was apprehensive on giving it all up for a name in a textbook.

We descended quickly, silence falling between us as thoughts bounced around both of our heads. Faith’s of her impending decision regarding tossing her life away and mine of what life lay ahead of me. If Faith was right, and the Ka’s intentions were malicious and bent on abusing the artifact to his own benefit, there’s no way I’d let him have it. But then, that would alienate me from this country too. Heliopolis and Vaporia were extremely close together, the nearest nation being another canine ruled island called Hosstralia, the Ka still having influence there. That only leaves the nations in the Celestine Empire, sworn enemies to the outer kingdoms. Could I really live the rest of my days in enemy territory?

Sooner or later we came up to the door, a large circular stone door covered in ornate carvings, only some of which I could actually make out. One of them looked to be a jackal using the Infinite Hourglass to stop an invading army; it took prominence over the others due to being the centerpiece, directly above a hole in the door.

The impression in the center was shaped exactly like the Golden Scarab artifact we had recovered earlier that day.

“So, ready to do this?” I broke the silence and asked Faith, the back of my mind worrying about her mental stability. She replied in a calm and collected manner.

“Out of the frying pan, and into the oven, as the saying goes,” she smirked as she turned her head to reply to me, “Let’s do this, again.” Again. I realized then that this was the second time I had descended into the unknown with Faith, and we were becoming an increasingly skilled duo team. I realized that I could really count on her to be there to help me through the challenges that lay ahead.

I realized I had made a friend.

Faith moved towards the door, unlocking her saddle bag with her magic and levitating out the Golden Scarab with her blue magical aura. She pressed it into the depression in the door, moving it until an audible click was heard. She quickly released the bug from her grasp, the artifact continuing to stick into the depression as the door moved slightly, rolling away just a few inches to the right.

The bug dropped to the ground, a loud clang rang throughout the room as the gold smacked the stone floor. The door rolled abruptly to the right, completely opening up the lower section of the library to us. An area that had been sealed for millennia, and we were going in head first.

“Get down!” I screamed and ducked as an arrow came shooting out of a hole lighting fast, aiming straight for my head. I didn’t even hear anything trigger that trap, no trip wire being broken, no stone being moved from being stepped on. Things were getting deadlier, and that only spurred me on.

We had been exploring the upper section of the secret library for the better part of an hour, taking in all of the unknown tomes and information at our disposal. I took the time to grab a copy of the secret libraries ‘Atlas of Artifacts’ from the shelves and stuff it into my saddle bag, deciding that it could come in handy later.

The library itself was as you would expect it to be, long bookshelves with a moderate amount of space in between them made many small halls for ponies and the like to peruse through the collection when the ancient wonder was open to the public thousands of years ago. Thankfully this area was devoid of skeletons, making me think the traps were put in as the library was being sealed up, to make sure that no one would ever come to steal the knowledge held within. That didn’t stop me from taking a book, though.

In between the two sides of the room, a sort of four way walkway allowed those without wings to cross the gap that lie in the middle of the floor, showing how deep the library really extended. Pillars supported the underground structure here, and each of the round pillars was adorned with a glowing crystal that bathed the entire floor in a surprisingly bright light. It didn’t compare to the desert sun but it was certainly brighter than the previous catacomb we had been in.

Faith and I were really exploring the floor looking for some sort of clue pointing to the location of the hourglass, unsure of where to look in the enormous building. We checked up and down through the various shelves of books, looking for something out of place. That was until we ran into one of our first traps.

“You alright there, Destiny?” Faith asked me.

“I’ll hang in there,” I replied. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything up here, we need to head down.”

“I see that it’s not an issue with you,” Faith shot back, finally getting used to the idea that I’m a pegasus, “But how do you plan to fly me down to the lower levels? There could be more traps in the air; I doubt your maneuverability is the same carrying a passenger.”

“I’ll scout ahead, see if there is anything trying to kill me,” I replied, “Once everything that wants to spray my guts over the wall is taken care of I’ll grab you.”

“Fair enough,” Faith continued looking through the shelves, occasionally gushing over a tome or two that was once considered lost to time. I took off, flying down to the floor below, a nearly identical copy of the top floor greeting me, all the way down to the same walkway between the gaps in the floor.

I landed on the walkway, turning my head around to check for any traps. It seemed like everything was safe, or at least nothing in the air wanted to kill me.

“We’re good!” I called back to Faith, “I’m going to grab you and bring you down.” I took back off, flying back up and grabbing Faith at the waist, eliciting an ‘Eep’ from her as I dragged her down to the lower floors with me.

Wow.

What. Was. This?

Faith and I stood before a giant three dimensional holographic globe, the various countries labeled with extremely accurate borders. How the globe managed to stay up to date with the rise and fall of nations throughout however long it has been here was a mystery, but I had no time to ponder that as Faith grabbed me by the hoof and dragged me in to get a closer look at the globe.

“This is amazing!” Faith gasped, “Oh if only I had a way to move this, what a wonderful centerpiece for the entrance to the library this would make! The knowledge it could hold…” Faith trailed off. I chuckled a bit, thinking of how cute it was that she could lose herself in some new way to learn new things.

Faith stepped forward until she was right in front of the globe, jumping as all of a sudden the light from the hologram flared out in a bright burst. We both stared for a minute at the brighter globe, unable to move as we were captivated by it.

I took a closer look at the globe, noting how it visibly showed major ley lines throughout the entire world, including unmarked land beyond the ley gates, a massive square of ley lines cutting of the known world from the rest of the planet, the rest of it only being known as the lost world and the echo. I could visible see the shapes of continents, but detailed information like that provided by the globe on other known nations like Vaporia and Equestria. The globe contained detailed information on government officials, leaders, cities and more, all the way down to patrol schedules for personal security agencies, all at the touch of a hoof.

“This has information on everything,” I breathed, still unsure of how to react on the current situation unfolding before my eyes. “I mean, there are all kinds of things in here, it flashed through my mind, Faith. It spoke to me, showed me just enough to entice me, but fleeting enough to lack any real information. We have to access this Faith, we could find out where the artifact is. Hell, we could even find out what the Ka wants with it.”

“Amazing,” was the only response I got out of Faith, her eyes still staring at the globe, possibly the world’s largest informational database, containing the information of a thousand grand libraries, always up to date, on demand.

‘Hello,’ a robotic voice said in time with the pulsing of light from the globe. ‘I am the Geographical Location and Indexing System, or G.L.I.S., what information would you like to access at this time?’

“Oh,” I commented, “It talks, sweet. Alright, Faith,” I said as I turned towards her, “What do we ask it?”

Faith floated out a map of the world and a pencil towards me, “Take notes,” she said. “Hello, Glis. You can show me virtually anything, yes?”

‘Yes,’ the machine responded, the voice continuing to sound alien and foreign to my ears.

“Then tell me the legend of the library.”

“The legend of the library?” I asked.

“There’s a rumor about this library, the details were lost a long time ago. I want to see how much this thing knows.”

‘The legend of the Alexmanedria library says that in this building lie the world’s largest secrets, and from these secrets the truth will set you free.’

What was that supposed to mean? I had no idea what this system thing was talking about, spouting off rumors and legends, with little evidence of hard fact. I needed to get a definite answer. I needed to ask it a direct question, demand with a direct statement.

“Show me all rumored artifacts of power related to the Infinite Hourglass.”

A series of lights and blips popped up on the slowly rotating globe, several catching my eye. One in Alexmanedria, labeled as the hourglass, among others. ‘The Time Piece’ was in Aurora, ‘The Frozen Heart’ in the middle of nowhere on the continent of Frigus, a seed of life in Concordia, a Solar and Lunar soul in Canterlot, the list went on. Every artifact had a purpose, and they all had a designated user passed down through blood. Most of the blood lines were lost, even to the seemingly endless wealth of information this piece of technology held. I marked them all down.

“This is really, really helpful,” I commented to Faith.

“We still don’t know where in the library the hourglass is though,” Faith retorted.

‘The Infinite Hourglass is located on the first floor, guarded by the spirit of knowledge,’ G.L.I.S. replied.

“The spirit of knowledge?” I asked.

“A guardian owl,” Faith answered for the globe.

“So we just hit the bottom of this library and take care of the spirit to get the hourglass? Sounds easy enough,” I stated.

‘Access to the maneframe is being shut down. Reason: Time allotted used up.’ The globe died down its glow, once again becoming the stagnant, slowly rotating hologram of the world it was when we first dropped down here.

I picked up the map in my mouth and stashed it in my saddle bags, securing all of the locations of artifacts of power. I grabbed Faith by the waist once again and dragged her down, determined to get to the bottom of this, figuratively and literally.

“This is it huh?” I asked out loud. “I don’t know; I just expected more, or something, anything.”

“You really just can’t be satisfied with non-decrepitly getting anything can you?” Faith said flatly.

“What can I say, I live for the excitement.” I smirked at her stoic expression. We had landed on the bottom floor a few minutes ago, doing a brief scouting trip as we tried to locate any threat we could see. Once we determined that the area was clear, I proceeded to examine what was in front of my face.

It was a stone owl statue, virtually identical to the one found in the lighthouse catacombs, only with a few minor differences. This one had its wings out, one folded to hold a small glass hourglass on it, the other flared out to its side as if the owl was attempting to ward off enemies. The room we were in scared me a little bit, small holes in the walls poured a seemingly endless supply of sand into grates that probably recycled the sand; consistently flowing for entirety, much like time itself. It was a chilling metaphor to say the least. I followed the gaze of the giant owl, looking to the wall where a prophecy seemed to be depicted through hieroglyphics. The first was a group of ponies, followed by a sun, an hourglass, a full moon, a crown, a stake, a symbol of fire, a symbol of air, one of water, a giant tree, a castle, and finally finishing it up with a cloud and what looked to be the moon crossing in front of the sun, a solar eclipse.

“What do you think this means?” I asked Faith. If anyone were to know something about mysterious hieroglyphic prophecies like this, it would probably be the head of the Alexmanedria archeological institute.

“I have no idea; it looks to be depicting something meaningful, as if it’s trying to tell a story long since passed, or a story that hasn’t been told yet,” Faith said mysteriously.

It was definitely a chilling prophecy to say the least, even if I didn’t know what it meant. I took another quick glance around the room, the calming sounds of consistently falling sand helping to quell any nervous tensions I may have.

“We should take the hourglass,” I said suddenly.

“Really?” Faith asked back, “Don’t you think that would set off some kind of, I don’t know, trap?”

“So what? We didn’t die to the last trap, we need to get this hourglass, and if push comes to shove I can snag you and fly us out of here.”

“That plan sounds riddled with holes, Destiny,” Faith chided.

“Trust me on this, okay? It worked with the owl last time, I just go with these feelings and they seem to usually work out. The only time we’ve been attacked was when you told me to grab that book,” I shot back.

“Yes, well I-” Faith sighed, defeated. “Fine,” she said, “But if we die it’s on your head.”

“Fine, my conscious will be weeping over your dead body if we both die, now get ready,” I replied.

I carefully inched towards the hourglass, sweat beading on my forehead as I nervously nudged my hoof towards the hourglass. I swiped it off with a swift wave of my forehoof and clenched my eyes in anticipation as I waited for something to happen. I opened them and stared at the artifact in my hooves, feeling a sense of pride as nothing bad happened.

“See Faith,” I turned back to her, “Nothing went wrong.” I stopped in my tracks as I saw the color drain from her face as she stared directly at me. “Uhh, Faith? What’s up?”

She gulped before speaking, “That,” she said, not taking her eyes off of me.

I turned around slowly, attempting to mentally prepare myself for whatever ended up behind me. In retrospect it was a dumb idea, I knew nothing would prepare me for the creature behind me, but I turned around anyways to get a glimpse at it.

“Hello,” it said. Where there was once a statue now stood a gigantic owl, full of life all the way down to its razor sharp beak and claw like talons. “May I ask what you are doing here?”

“This looks bad doesn’t it?” I asked to no one in particular.

“It does indeed, little pony. For you see, I am Wong Shei Tuong, and this is my library; my domain. And you, little pony, are stealing from it. Do you know what I do to thieves?”

“Look,” I had to think on my hooves, “I know this looks bad, but I wasn’t stealing anything from your library, I was just, um, borrowing it?”

“If you’re going to lie to ancient spirit,” the owl chided, “you should at least put some effort into it.”

“I’m not lying! My good friend Faith here will back me up,” I grabbed Faith and pulled her closer to me, “She’s the head of the Alexmanedria Archeological Institue!”

“Faith,” I nudged her as I whispered, “Back me up here.”

“Oh, Great Spirit,” Faith started, “We really need this hourglass, because, well. We need it for the prophecy!”

The owl turned his head at that statement, “You know of the prophecy? Perhaps you are more learned then you look. Tell me then, unicorn, if you got into my library you must already own one of the artifacts of power, the Golden Scarab. Show me.”

Faith perked up, suddenly confident at the prospect of convincing the spirit to part with the hourglass. Her horn glowed as she floated out the golden bug recovered from deep beneath the lighthouse.

“Here,” she said, “I have the scarab here, as proof that we entered your library legitimately.”

“I see,” the owl replied. “Well I suppose it’s only fair then you know the details of the prophecy before I kill you for thievery.” The owl glared daggers at me, still holding the hourglass. I knew I would never escape and outfly an ancient spirit of knowledge. It probably was as up to date as that globe on all the latest flying moves.

“The prophecy speaks of three ponies, one scholar, one loner, one exile, who are united against a common foe. Together they seek out the elements of destruction, counterparts to the elements of harmony and long since sealed away from mortal grasp,” the spirit paused before continuing, “An ancient group of delinquents known officially as the ‘Elemental Hammer’ have been seeking out the elements and the long term direct descendants of the original wielders who are able to use the pieces of power. They are the only ones, besides the chosen three. I’m sure you two are already fully aware of the locations of these artifacts.” Again with the glaring daggers; I honestly didn’t expect the effect of an ancient spirits malefic gaze to wear off that quickly, but honestly this Wong Shei Tuong just seemed like the angriest owl to have ever lived.

“Wait did you say the Elemental Hammer?” Faith interrupted the spirit. “I overheard some guards saying that the royal advisor for the Ka is part of some group called the Elemental Hammer, maybe that’s why the Ka wants us to get the artifact.”

“The Elemental Hammer is in the city above?” The spirit turned his head again in curiosity, “How, interesting. If only the chosen three were here, they would crush them.”

“If you let us take the hourglass I’m sure we could see what we could do,” I reasoned. Bartering our way out of here was our best bet at the moment. Mainly because I was skeptical Faith and I could kill an immortal spirit whom I guessed was a couple thousand years old. “I’m fairly armed, and Faith has more than a number of spells to help take them down. We’ll find out if the Ka is involved and dish out justice accordingly, but we need the hourglass.”

“You wish to take the hourglass? Fine, but know that I will be watching, and if it is found you betray me, I will kill you,” the owl said flatly. “Now go, fly away little pony, and take your friend with you. Put a stop to the deeds of the Elemental Hammer. Good luck.”

I flew upwards with Faith safely in tow. She was musing over our next course of action to take. Obviously we didn’t want to upset a powerful and ancient spirit of knowledge and intellect, but taking down a corrupt organization embedded deep within the governmental infrastructure of a country, possible going all the way up to the Ka himself, was no easy task either.

“What exactly is priority number one?” I asked, snapping Faith out of her trance and causing her to blink in confusion.

“What? Oh, right. I guess priority number one is play along, hand over the hourglass then strike,” she replied.

“Easier said than done. I guess we could play it like that, know any invisibility spells to get you in the palace?”

“Just one, though it only lasts for about a minute. How do you want to play this, Destiny?” Faith asked back.

“You’re better at coming up with tactical plans then I expected. I’d play it the same way, get you into the throne room and charge up some knock out spells. Personally, if this doesn’t have anything to do with the Ka and the advisor is pulling all the strings I want to avoid a blood bath,” I stated.

“Good point, let’s get out of the library though,” she paused. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” I said back lazily, “Just never expected you to say that is all.”

She only giggled.

“Easy, easy,” I said annoyed as a guard frisked me down for any concealed weapons. “You can see anything I’m carrying, I’m not a unicorn.” The earth pony guard kept patting random parts of my body as if I could conceal an invisible pistol and somehow fire it despite my lack of talons or magic. His hooves kept moving lower and lower and Hello! Okay I’m done with this weapons check. He’s lucky I don’t knock out his teeth.

I pushed past the guards and walked slowly through the courtyard, checking rooftops of the buildings of the palace, possible escape routes. I was a bit nervous on the whole issue, even more so not knowing if Faith was going to be there to back me up or bail me out. I trusted that mare, she proved that she could face the flames and walk away without a burn but the going was getting tough now and some ponies couldn’t take the pressure.

I pushed past the thoughts of abandonment and decided to trust in my friend. I walked silently down the main hall and towards the throne room, the small trickling beads of sweat beginning to form as I readied myself for a much tougher opponent.

No amount of preparation can prepare you for battle, and the calm before the storm puts a lump in your throat. I might not have taken my first life until not more than two days before but I learned quickly that attempting to mentally prepare yourself to take out a room of hostile enemies by walking straight into them with your only backup being a book worm unicorn is not exactly the easiest task. I pushed the doors open with a hoof, and walked straight into the middle of the throne room, the hourglass stuffed safely in my saddle bag.

“Hello again.”

New Item: Infinite Hourglass: This artifact has the ability to slow, speed up, and stop time temporarily.

Chapter 5 - Roaring Riptides and Sandy Shores

Chapter Five – Roaring Riptides and Sandy Shores

“On the road again…”

I took my time with this mission, wanting to give Faith as much time to get inside and into position as possible. I counted four guards in the immediate vicinity, two guarding the door, two on the roof, and likely about four in other parts of the palace, plus the Ka and advisor. It was definitely not looking good for me, but I decided to play along with it for as long as I could anyway.

The Ka asked me to detail my exploits in the lighthouse catacombs, still unaware I had gone and taken the hourglass from the secret library. I detailed it all, deciding to stop at the point where we got the scarab and stopping before I said too much that got not only Faith in trouble but me killed. I glanced at the advisor occasionally, watching as he perked up at the mention of ancient dusty tomes rigged to traps and large gigantic owl statues. He definitely knew about the hourglass, and the lack of reaction on these particular details from the Ka gave me the idea that he had been completely duped, convinced that the scarab was all powerful, more than a heavy key.

The best way to get a person to drop their cover while keeping his pawn unsuspicious is to create inconsistencies in a story that you never mentioned; and dropping off the part of my adventure where the golems came to life and replacing it with a small arrow trap on a pressure pad would lure him out of his hiding.

“Did you say arrow trap?” The advisor spoke up, “You’re sure it was arrows? Nothing magical in the slightest?”

“Not at all,” I replied, sensing him tense as I changed key details in information the owl had told me was common knowledge to Elemental Hammer members. The spirit said members knew all the locations inside and out, but lacked the resources and skills to penetrate them. Their lack of ability is the only thing holding them back from seizing the pieces and power in major nations in the world. Well, that and either the bearers of the artifacts or the ponies in the prophecy. I reached into the back of my saddlebags, the guard suddenly turning to me in reaction.

“Easy guys,” I said, slowly moving my hoof out of the bag, “It’s just the scarab that the Ka wanted.” I laid the bug on the ground and slid it across the floor to the nearest guard. “I did right by you, now do me a little favor.”

“What favor?” The Ka asked.

“Tell me what this does,” I said. I already knew it unlocked the library, but who knows, maybe there is more than one use for it.

“Fair enough,” The Ka responded, “I don’t know the details well enough, but my advisor is more than aware of the golden insect’s power.” Power, okay so either his advisor fed this jackal another load of bull or I shouldn’t have just handed that over to him.

“Bring it here,” The advisor spoke up, “Let me see the scarab up close.” He took the bug from the guard and squinted at it, gathering in the small details as if he was trying to see if I had swapped them with a duplicate. An identical copy of the bug cast in solid gold would cost more than the Ka gave me, so I don’t know why he was bothering to check anyway. “Yes well, it looks as if everything checks out just fine,” he paused. “This little golden insect is the reason why Heliopolis shall emerge as a world power.”

“A world power?” I played along with it, “What do you mean by that?”

“Guards, seize the pegasus,” was the only response I got from the advisor. I was immediately hounded (no pun intended) by two burly earth ponies on either side of me that locked me down in no time. I struggled to move when I noticed a small distortion of light near one of the adjacent hallways coming into the main throne room. I did a small shake of my head to wave Faith off, I just hope she got the message.

“What are you doing?” The Ka gasped, “I did not tell you to take her, she is free to ask questions and to leave, release her at once!”

“You are no longer fit to rule this nation, beloved Ka, with the scarab in my control I can take this city with the power of the hourglass,” The jackal advisor chuckled at his victory. “Guards, take the Ka as well, bring them both before me.” The guards grabbed the monarch as he struggled to gain free of his aggressively large captors. I was dragged next to the Ka and forced to kneel before the royal advisor. I took another glance at the hallway and waved Faith off again; I was able to see the pony shaped light distortion tense up at the unfolding situation.

“Now, now,” the advisor mused, “It seems that I’ve fooled you all, and now you’ve laid the last piece of the puzzle I need to rule this nation for eternity. It’s funny how that works out, huh?” He sneered again. I glared back at him, my anger against him continuing to grow the longer he kept up his monologue and making me wish the moment to strike came sooner. “Any last words before I have your throats slit?”

“Just a couple,” It was my turn to smirk, causing him to widen his eye in suspicion. “Before you kill us, I just wanted to ask you. Do you believe in the Gods?”

“Of course not child,” he replied, “The Gods are nothing more than myths, stories made to guide ignorant minds like you. I need no faith.”

“Oh, that’s kind of funny; for you see, you can say I have a lot of Faith.” Cut me down, exile me from my country, give me no resources, no friends, send an assassin or two after me and bury me in the middle of the Muudi Desert with no water and I’ll find a way, oh yes I will find a way to make a pun out of it.

Faith took the hint and came out of stealth, immediately launching two knock out spells at the two earth ponies holding me down. I extended my hoof blade that they had been too lazy to disarm and slashed at one of the guards holding down the Ka. He overpowered and contended with the other earth pony that suppressed him as I turned my attention towards the royal advisor.

“Why you insolent little whelp!” He yelled. I lost it there.

“Okay that is IT! I have had it with all of these Elementalists calling me whelp! I’m not some dragon kid; I’m a pegasus, and expect to be insulted as such!” I lunged at the advisor, causing him to roll to the side and drop down in a low crouch, growling and bearing his teeth at me. We ended up standing to each other face to face, not more than a couple of feet apart from each other.

“Faith,” I called back to the unicorn mare recovering from casting a multi target spell, “Help the Ka, this guy’s mine.”

“I’m on it,” Faith dashed over to help the Ka, who was locked in a struggle with the earth pony guard from earlier.

“Now where were we?” I asked as I turned back my attention to the biggest problem at hand, the combat trained jackal that outmatched me physically.

“We were just getting to the part where I end you,” He smirked, allowing me to see his huge canines. He lunged forward, his jaw aiming for my throat.

When fighting an opponent who physically outmatches you, it’s always important to play to your advantages while downplaying your opponent. This goes all the way up to the mouse fighting the lion, if you’re smaller than your opponent, like I was compared to a royal breed jackal, your best bet is to play to the fact that you’re more agile than your opponent. Whenever the royal advisor went in for a bit or a vicious claw strike, I simply tumbled to the side to avoid the blow. The light leather armor was finally coming in handy, blocking select key blows from claw strikes I was narrowly hit by.

He seemed tireless, but like all opponents he was slowly yet gradually being worn down to where I should be able to land a blow soon and do some damage. If the strike was debilitating enough I could snowball it into a killing blow.

Basic fighting classes teach us that giving your all into a single blow leaves you vulnerable against a very defensive opponent, who can simply just outlast you in a fight. While the advisor has the basic idea of attacking and dodging, his anger at Faith and I for ruining his plans to seize an entire country in a coup made him reckless, and he was paying for it. On his next lunge in which he crouched low and leaped for my throat I decided to strike.

I landed my hooves on the top and bottom of his neck, sidestepping as I went with his momentum to throw him behind me and to the ground. He hit the ground headfirst, tumbling and sliding across the stone floor. He recovered quicker than I expected, leaping back up in two seconds flat and taking up a defensive stance, if a bit of a woozy one.

I was shocked as suddenly a bolt of magical energy shot from across the room and hit the advisor square in the side, knocking him down to the ground with a rather loud thud. I approached him cautiously unsure if an anesthetic spell from Faith could really keep a raging hound like him down. He struggled to move a paw, still attempting to claw me in vain.

“Not bad, too bad that unlike you, my friends are actually good at backing me up,” I grinned. “Those weren’t exactly the most talented pony guards I’ve ever seen, I thought advisors like you oversaw training them. Guess that explains it.”

Out of nowhere a rather large battalion of earth pony guards broke through the door of the locked room, running up to the Ka. I hoped sincerely hoped they were on our side. I was good, but I wasn’t that good to where I could take down a small army of armed and armored.

“Sir,” One of them began, “We caught word of what was going on, and came right away with as many guards as we could muster and-”

The guard was silenced with the raising of a paw, “Thank you, Colonel. But, as you can see, our new pegasus friend has it all taken care of.” The lavish praise earned a slightly dirty look from the leader of the guard.

“Still,” I added, “Your help will be much appreciated in securing these ponies.”

“Of course,” The Ka added, “There is a matter of dealing with the traitors. Tell me, little pony, what do you know of my once advisor?”

“I know he was part of a cult like group called the Elemental Hammer, bent on obtaining powerful magical artifacts throughout the world,” I replied.

“And why, pray tell, was he so interested in the Golden Scarab, it didn’t look so powerful to me,” The Ka said.

“Excuse me sir,” Faith interrupted.

“Ah Miss Faith, your help of this pegasus was of much help, what can you tell me of the golden bug?”

“The bug itself has no power, but we did discover it to be a key to unlocking greater secrets held beneath the library. The true artifact your advisor was after was the Infinite Hourglass.”

“And I assume you and the pegasus retrieved this device?” The Ka asked.

“You’d be correct to assume that,” I answered, “Deep within the library we encountered an ancient spirit of knowledge who gave us the hourglass in exchange for our promise to put a stop to the Elemental Hammer society.”

“So you made a deal with an all knowing and ancient spirit of knowledge in order to take a powerful magical artifact and defeat an evil power hungry cult looking to overthrow my authority over this land?”

“Yep!” I said matter-of-factly.

“Well then, a reward is in order I presume, though you may want to change out of that torn leather scrap you once called armor,” The Ka commented.

Faith and I walked down an aisle, a chorus of guards and other palace personnel flanking us on each side of the room. The Ka had said he wanted to personally thank us for our efforts in preserving his rule. It was time for us to get some details though.

The Ka agreed to make a deal with the spirit to allow him to rule over the library as the new headmaster in place of Faith, who was kind enough to accompany me when I announced I was going after the rest of the artifacts.

We had defeated the cultists in Heliopolis, the only casualty being my armor which I ditched shortly after the fight, and came out with an hourglass that can control time. Not a bad day.

“Where are you two off too next?” The Ka turned to us and looked intently at an attempt to know our attentions.

“Plan is to hit Manehattan, something about a Lunar Pendant being held there,” I replied.

“Equestria? I thought that we were not on the friendliest of terms with the Celestine Empire.” The Ka raised a valid point, Equestria was no friend to Vaporia, and though they were not at war, it didn’t mean a stark contrast in ideals and beliefs.

“Gah!” I nearly screamed in frustration, “I completely forgot that every Equestrian hates the outer kingdoms guts!”

“Calm down, Destiny,” Faith tried in vain to soothe me. “We basically have diplomatic immunity when you consider it.”

I looked at her in confusion, clearly not understanding what she was getting at. Noticing my lost look, she took the liberty to explain.

“I mean,” She said, “You’re an exiled pegasus, I’m a scholar. It’s virtual diplomatic immunity from guards, as long as we don’t actually cause any issues.”

The two of us were standing in a room in the palace, the Ka offering to allow us to spend the night before we sent off for Equestria. He must have been really grateful considering the stops he pulled out for us. He reimbursed the ten thousand bits spent on armor and weapons, saying how they should have been free for what they were used for. In addition, he chartered a ship to sail down the Nile and out in the Antlertic Ocean towards the Bay of Manehattan. The ship was only supposed to take a week to sail all the way to Manehattan, not far at all by sailing standards.

“Go to bed Destiny,” Faith calmed me, “Everything will be better in the morning when we set sail.”

I awoke to another seemingly endless black void.

“Not again,” I muttered. This was another lucid dream, I could tell. But like my previous dreams where I knew I was dreaming, I still lacked the ability to control it. The last thing I needed was another one of those weird visions of some pony dying.

I went back to the other dream, vividly remembering seeing the winged unicorn fly overhead the mountain top city and get cut down by a gun ringing out in the distance. I pondered the possibility that this might not have been the work of bandits attacking a large settlement, but rather the work of a carefully planned assassination done by the cultists as part of the Elemental Hammer’s plot to overthrow various governments throughout the world. Any pony containing wings and a horn was sure to lead something.

The room around me suddenly changed from a black void to a bustling metropolis filled with narrow and perfectly straight roads filled with what were mostly taxi cab carriages. What seemed like a couple of hundred ponies lined the sidewalks on the street, being as out and about as any pony would during the day time, despite the moon rising high into the sky.

I was floating above them, able to get an omnipresent view on the entire city block as ponies as energetic as they were high class communed with one another, exchanging goods and services in the shops open way too late. I looked into the side street alleys, noticing how they were particularly lackluster compared to extravagant look of the buildings facing the street. I noticed a particular pony hiding within the shadows of the alley, watching with malicious intent on the ponies in the street.

The creeper waited in silence until he saw his opening, a young lone filly unicorn skipping down the street without a care in the world, happy to be a part of this bustling nightlife, or just happy to be awake past her bedtime. The pony took a quick survey of his surroundings and deemed it clear enough, crouching down as the filly passed by the ally.

In a swift movement the shady pony grabbed the filly by the chest and mouth in his fore hooves, dragging her back into the darkness of the ally and away from prying eyes. I cried in vain for someone to help, but no one in my dream could hear me call to the aid of the young foal.

In a sudden turn of events, however, a unicorn stallion pushed himself out of the shadows deeper within the ally and confronted the criminal pony concealed by a hood, quickly incapacitating him with a glow of his horn and quick rope work.

“Go now,” I heard the unicorn call to the filly as she ran out of the ally, still no pony paying attention to the unfolding event within the shadowy ally.

The tied up criminal looked back to the unicorn in anger, his expression changing to fear as he recognized who it was.

“You!” The pony hissed.

“Me,” was all the unicorn replied with.

I shot up in a cold sweat, the cold desert air mixing with the moist mist from the nearby river that wafted over the city of Alexmanedria greeting me.

“Destiny?” A voice called out in the darkness, causing me to turn my head towards the source. “Are you okay? You were mumbling something fierce in your sleep about a cry for help.” I was reluctant to tell her of my dream, my vision. I quickly changed my thoughts from the events occurring to the filly to the unicorn who saved her.

“I’m fine,” I said back, “Just a bad dream is all; I’ll be fine.” Without another word I lay back down in my bed and tried to fall asleep.

I barfed again over the railing of the ship we were on. My bowels disagreeing for the past few days with our new found setting.

“Keep that up Destiny and you’ll be in shape for bikini season!” Faith called from the other side of the ship.

“We don’t normally wear clothes to the beach, Faith,” I grumbled. I was a pegasus, I usually fly across water, you can’t blame me for not liking the roaring rapids of the Antlertic Ocean.

We had been on the ship for three days now, and it might have been the most miserable three days of my life. The fog was so unpredictable that I couldn’t fly around or I might lose the ship. I was also currently lacking armor, not having time to grab a replacement set after my old one had gotten cut up by the teeth of that jackal. Faith had stashed her armor in a chest on the ship, saying how she would grab it before we left the boat.

The trip overall had been rather dull, and while the rocking of the ship did nothing to alleviate my sea sickness, thankfully we had avoided any freak storms or insane tidal waves looking to kill us. I sighed contently, hopefully this would be our best time for some rest and relaxation as we prepared ourselves to scour the most populous city in Equestria for a small necklace.

I awoke during the night to more rocking, this time more violent and sudden as I was nearly thrown out of my bed.

“Dafuq,” I muttered, still groggy from being awoken from some of the soundest sleep I’ve gotten on this ship. “Faith?” I called out to my companion, wondering if she was awoken by the sudden movements of the ship. I had the utmost of confidence in the crew of the ship that everything was fine, but it didn’t make me any less nervous about the fact I was nearly thrown a couple of feet. “Faith!” I called out again after not receiving a response. I cringed at the thought of her injured somewhere on the ship, the possibility of being tossed overboard by a large wave in the night suddenly flashing into my mind.

“Destiny!” A call quickly assuaged my fears and caused me to turn towards the source, a silhouette at the door that led to the main deck of the ship. “Get out here! We need your help!” I got up and quickly made my way to follow Faith outside, becoming greeted by a torrential downpour as my coat and feathers became soaked instantly. “There was a freak lightning storm that came out of nowhere!” Faith was struggling to get her voice heard above the sound of waves crashing on the hull of the wooden ship as well as the thunder. “We need your help to secure everything and fold in the sails!” A gust of wind was unleashed directly after she ushered that statement, shutting down any hopes of being to secure the sails through flying lest I lose the ship by getting tossed a large distance in the air.

I tucked in my wings securely to emphasize to Faith that I couldn’t fly, “I can’t fly in this weather, but I’ll see what I can do. Where’s the captain?”

Faith only responded by pointing to the wheel of the ship, the captain doing his best to hold it steady and prevent being knocked off course.

“Oi! Knew I shouldn’t have taken that shortcut through the ley line!” He yelled to no one in particular.

“You did what!” I screamed back, “Why in the name of the Gods would you do that! That is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard! Traveling through a major ley line, ugh!”

“Ley lines tend to have the worst weather,” Faith commented, “No time for that though, we’re in the eye of the storm and we need your help to get through this.” Faith ran to the main mast of the ship and began using her magic to tie down various ropes to secure assorted items on the ship. I took to the netting on the side of the ship, digging in tightly with my teeth as I moved to climb up to the main sail and roll it up. Fierce winds batted me at every opportunity, my coat becoming so soaked I hardly noticed the rain anymore.

Bright lightning flashed multiple times across the sky, not long after my eardrums were assaulted by the sound of thunder. Even through the most miserable of settings I attempted to persevere and ignore them in my attempts to get to the top.

Despite the impeding obstacles I made it to the top in a short amount of time, relatively speaking compared to if it had been sunny. I began pulling on various wires and ropes that held the system of sails for the ship, attempting to fold them up before they were seriously damaged. If we did manage to somehow survive the storm, lacking sails would leave us stranded in the middle of the ocean for who knows how long, we’d be dead either way.

Not that I expected to really survive this, I mean my life finally seemed to be turning around after being banished, why in the world would it stay that way? The universe has a tendency to throw a lot of shit my way, after all. It likes to give me breaks too, when it’s feeling generous, but I’m guessing now wasn’t the time to pray to the forces of the universe for a pass.

I managed to pull the sails back up and began climbing down, my ears still ringing and pupils dilated from the consistent barrage of thunder and lightning. I looked to the wheel of the ship, a lantern and soaked map accompanying Faith and the captain of the ship was we moved forward through the storm. They both looked up from their mid-hurricane navigation to look towards the front of the ship, their eyes widening as my ears were once again assaulted this time by a consistent roaring sound. I turned my head to where they were looking, my pupils shrinking in fear at what I saw.

It was the biggest wave I’ve ever seen.

Chapter 6 - Good Things for Bad Reasons

Chapter Six – Bad Things for Good Reasons

“For I am no hero, I can’t answer your prayers.”

I coughed violently, my lungs full of water. I blinked, my vision nothing more than a blur of yellow, green and blue. I vomited a small amount, my body rejecting the lack of space in my lungs where air should be. My sight began to focus slightly, turning the blue of colors in a sunny sky, the yellows into the sand and the greens into some trees along the shore line. I tried to crane my neck to look around but my muscles ached with every twitch and small movement I made. I just lay there, staring endlessly at my peaceful surroundings, attempting to force myself up.

Eventually I managed to get up on my hooves without any convulsions or shaky legs, my head instantly swimming from the change in blood flow. I tried to call out for my companions, but all I could manage was a raspy hiss that sounded more like a broken flute than actual speech. I sighed despondently, deciding my best bet was to scour the beach and hope I wasn’t the only one who lived.

I took a quick note of my surroundings, the entirety of them being mostly water from the ocean to the left, sand in front of me, and a forest to the right. I doubted that if I landed on the beach that any of the survivors would have landed in the forest. I trotted along the beach a short distance, my hooves aching from my journey over here, but I refused to give up.

Debris was common place, scraps of wood and occasionally a piece of cargo from the ship lay strewn about on the beach. I realized I had no idea where I even was, the nearest land from the central ley line we passed through on the ship being hundreds of miles from the nearest island.

I attempted to force another breeze through my vocal chords to call out for any survivors, my body responding with a raspy cough before I got results.

“Hello?” I called out, “Anypony there?”

A moaning came out from a bush on the edge of the beach and bush in response to my calling. I turned my head abruptly at the sound, forcing my legs to move a little faster as I moved towards the location. I pushed the leaves out of the way and nearly fainted at the sight.

“Stay with me, okay?” I nearly yelled at the captain of the ship. He was cut badly with multiple shards of debris from the wrecked ship, and I could feel a couple of broken ribs as I checked his vital signs.

First aid was a common skill taught to the Archangels of Vaporia. We were supposed to be elite fliers, adept in more than just speed. Combat and medical aid were important skills to have, though they were almost never used in a nation at peace for over several hundred years. Nevertheless, I tried to remember all I could from basic first aid training to help the captain of the ship from dying in my hooves.

I tore at the vest he wore with my teeth, taking the scrap cloth and binding it around his leg, helping stop the bleeding he had on his hind leg. A lack of medical supplies worried me; I was no doctor by any means but being without any supplies I couldn’t do anything but try to keep him from falling asleep.

“Come on now, don’t fall asleep,” I lightly tapped his face with my hoof in a fruitless attempt to keep him awake. The captain of the ship was currently propped up against a tree, continuing to lightly moan and murmur as I lost him deeper into unconsciousness. I knew in his current physical state that there would be no coming back from falling asleep.

“So, tired,” he murmured.

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” I tried to keep my voice from rising in worry. “No, you’re not tired! Okay you’re, umm, wide awake! Running through some fields, okay?”

“Fields…” The captain blinked slowly. He continued to blink for several seconds, each one slower than the last. I could see the life slipping out of his eyes, and I would never forget it.

“That’s it?” I struggled to keep my voice rising as I watched the captain dying in my hooves, “After all this, that’s it? That’s how it ends!? You leave me stranded in who knows where, alone! You’re going to leave me!” I began sobbing uncontrollably, unable to hold in my sadness and frustration anymore. I had no idea why I was so angry that he died, but it felt like I was truly alone again. I cried for the loss of the captain. I cried for the loss of the crew.

I cried for the loss of Faith.

“Stupid beach,” I mumbled. I had been trotting for a few hours along the shore, looking for any other semblance of survivors or civilization, all to no avail. I sighed heavily. I missed Faith; she had been my first friend, my first real friend, not just since exile, but ever.

I crested a curve, my eyes looking up from their fixation on the sand of the beach towards a new sight. A city lay across a delta, on the corner of the ocean and river a rather large settlement lay on the cliff. I never thought I would be so happy to see civilization in my entire life, more so than when I found Alexmanedria.

A sudden wave of exhaustion and starvation hit me. My consistent emptying of my stomach contents left my ever hungry on the ship, and the crash shook me to my core. I was tired and hungry, and just a few minute walk and a small flight away was a town. I rushed into a sprint I didn’t know I had the energy for, the prospect of an inn lifting my spirits. I had taken the liberty to count my current financial standing into consideration, a soaked pouch of 5,000 bits the only thing remaining of the 20,000 Faith and I had. It was more than enough to rent a room for a few nights and try to set myself up with some income. I could make my next move to move towards Manehattan once I found out where I even was.

I launched into the air and began the short fly towards my destination, my wings glad to be in the air again. They were the only part of my body that wasn’t insanely sore. For the first time that day I smiled.

I landed on a rooftop on the edge of the city, tucking my wings in as I took note of my new surroundings. The city itself wasn’t too large, but seemed to be split up into three distinct districts. The area where I was most likely was the residential district, the area being filled with multiple two and three story houses and apartment buildings. In the distance I could make out a large market filled with stalls containing various goods and produce, a rather tall multi story building sporting a large red cross, and in the distance a large official looking building dawned an unrecognizable flag. So much for finding out where I was.

I had 5,000 bits, I could easily set myself up with a room and food, but for some reason I felt drawn to the hospital. The small glimmering chance that there might be somepony from the ship still occupied my mind. If I couldn’t find anypony there that I knew I might be able to at least get some information on the area. There was no time for grieving for lost friends, the Elemental Hammer were still out there. I needed to recover quickly and get moving to secure the piece in Equestria.

I landed on the ground, gliding gracefully down from the rooftops and planting my hooves firmly in a paved alleyway. Navigation in new cities is critical, even as a creature of flight. It looks weird as a pegasus that no one has seen before to fly around the city rooftops as if you’ve lived there your whole life, gets ponies nervous and the like. I had to walk to the other side of the city and get to the hospital.

I pushed through the doors of the hospital, my nose instantly greeted by the smell of various disinfectants and my eyes meeting the sight of a nurse managing the front desk. She was a small mare, with a pink coat and a light blue mane, her cutie mark hidden from view by the desk she sat behind.

“Welcome to the Hoovegorod care center,” The nurse spoke to me. At least I knew where I was now, Hoovegorod was a city on the edge of the Archback River, the same river that led past the coast of the nation Gildedale and into the Bay of Manehattan at the edge of Equestria. I was a week’s trot from that place, three days by boat, though I was a bit apprehensive to hop in one again. “How can I help you?”

“I’m checking for some patients that might have arrived recently, found on the beach?” I asked.

“Let me check real quick, for you,” The nurse turned on her rotating chair and checked some files in a small locked filing cabinet. “Okay, I have one earth pony stallion found on the beach with minor injuries including a pretty bad case of poison ivy, poor kid, he’s lived here for a few years.” Few years didn’t help me, I needed someone who they didn’t recognize.

“Anypony else?” I questioned again.

“And one unicorn mare, some colt found her lying on the beach. Minor pneumonia, a bruised rib and a lot of cuts and scrapes, she’s recovering at the moment, will that be all?” The nurse was definitely becoming wary of my sudden influx of questions about new patients.

“I need to see that mare,” I replied, “Preferably now.”

“Friend of yours?”

“I sure hope so,” I mumbled.

“You can head on up, there should be another nurse watching on her room. Tell her Nurse Hope said you could go right in,” she motioned with her hoof towards the stairs.

“Thanks,” I said with a smile. I trotted towards the stairs and hoped that I would find my lost companion in the room, and that she would be okay.

“You’re alive!” I was nearly tackled to the ground from a unicorn who was supposed to be resting in a hospital bed. I could see it in her eyes that she had been crying recently, and I could guess why.

“Just barely,” I smiled, attempting to cheer up my saddened friend, but it was to no avail. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought you had died,” she said solemnly. “They found you on the beach,” she paused between sniffles, “They said you didn’t show any vitals, they left you.”

“Well, um,” I placed my hoof behind my head rather awkwardly, unsure of how to respond to Faith’s sudden sadness at my assumed death. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again either.”

She smiled slightly at this comment; it felt good to see her smile again. I suddenly scolded myself for thinking of moving on so quickly to Manehattan after this. Even so, time was of the essence, and I had to cut to the chase.

“When do you think you’ll be out?” I asked.

“The doctor says I can leave tomorrow,” Faith responded, “But I need plenty of rest.”

“Awesome,” I said back. “That lets me explore the city and plan our next move.”

“Next move?” Faith inquired. “What next move?”

“Manehattan,” I replied, “Plan still holds, crashing doesn’t change anything.”

I was suddenly shunned out of the room by a nurse insisting that Faith do as the doctor ordered and rest instead of planning ‘nefarious deeds’ with me.

“We’ll talk soon,” I called back to Faith, “I promise.”

I was walking casually down the road of one of the side streets, perusing the stalls of the market in search of more goods. I had (miraculously) retained all of my weapons from the crash, and recovered another 7,000 bits Faith had on her from the ruins of the ship, putting out down about 8,000 bits. It was a small price to pay, however, for our lives.

I passed by a produce stall, the seller offering what they claimed to be as ‘100% genuine Sweet Apple Acres Apples.’ I had never heard of the place, but for a market to sport such a sign probably meant they were famous. I had nothing better to do, so I decided to strike up a conversation with them.

“Hey there,” I greeted.

“Well howdy doo miss,” The brown earth pony shook my hoof, violently shaking it up and down as I tried to pry it away before she dislocated it. “Mah names Apple Fritter, what can I do you for today?”

“Just looking for some information is all,” I stated, “And I guess I’ll take an apple while I’m at it.”

“Information? You new in town or something?” She asked back, tossing me an apple from her stand.

“Yeah, just passing through is all,” I replied. “How much do I owe you?”

“On the house, ‘specially since ya won’t be here long n’ all,” she put on her best salespony smile, it seeming like she truly wanted to give me it for free, not out of common courtesy. I couldn’t help but cheer up at her friendliness. “What do ya want to know?”

“Can you give me any background information on this town?” I asked. I decided it best if I kept it impersonal before jumping into questions like ‘What was Sweet Apple Acres?’ You can never tell if asking will upset them that you weren’t aware their farm existed.

“Well, I don’t know too much ‘bout this town, I’m just here on business,” she stated. I drooped noticeably at the lack of knowledge she held, but then she surprised me suddenly. “I do know that it was started about 1,500 years ago as a port of Equestria, but was captured by a guild of thieves sometime after its founding and claimed its independence.”

“Thieves guild?” I asked, “What now? It isn’t still ruled by the thieves guild is it?”

“Well, sort of,” Apple Fritter replied. At my confused look she elaborated. “Trust me; at the taxes this town charges to set up shop, they might as well still be a Thieves Guild.” The joke served to lighten my spirits and even raise a chuckle out of me.

“Well thank you very much miss Apple Fritter, you’ve been a great help,” I thanked her before turning to walk off down the street. Suddenly she called me back.

“Wait!” I turned towards Apple Fritter again, wondering at why she was calling to me. “I never got your name partner,” she announced, “Just thought it mighty rude of me to never have asked is all.”

“You can call me Destiny,” I answered. “I’ll see you around, Apple Fritter.”

“Count on it, partner.”

“Thieves guild? Are you sure?”

“Totally,” I responded to Faith, “You could tell from her stance, she was ready to bolt if I got suspicious. She also had a dagger sheathed around her foreleg, the handle and sheath were the same color as her coat so as to camouflage it unless you look at it from the right angle.”

“You really think she’s part of the guild? That could just have been special defense,” Faith countered.

“It doesn’t excuse the stance she took, that kind of body language is the shady type. She’s definitely had some training in this. Probably one of the higher up’s, though I doubt she is the leader,” I replied.

“Well,” Faith asked, “What do you want to do about it? Turn them into the guard? We don’t have any actual evidence she’s a thief, you know.”

“You’re right,” I said, “Why don’t we look into this?” I turned to Faith only to see conflicted feelings about it in her eyes. “What’s up?”

“I want to help,” she sighed. “But,” she paused, “we are supposed to get moving to Manehattan soon I thought. I really do want to help Destiny but there are bigger enemies out there than a group of thieves.”

I stopped for a moment. I knew that she was right, that there were bigger fish to fry out there, and we needed to put a stop to the Elemental Hammer before they seized power in any other nations. Even so, the little pony in the back of my head was begging me to look into this guild thing.

“I really want to do this,” I answered back to Faith. “I know we have a job to do about stopping those cultists, but for all we know this thieves guild could turn out to actually be the Elemental Hammer in disguise.”

“I can see you feel very strongly about this,” Faith mused, “Otherwise you wouldn’t be making up ridiculous notions like common thieves are part of an elaborate cult. At least the advisor had brains.”

I looked to her, waiting for a final answer. My eyes growing wide and watery and my lower lip quivering in the best pouting face I could manage.

“Oh, alright; we’ll look into it, as long as we don’t get into any real trouble.”

I grabbed her out of the hospital bed and hugged her, earning an angry glare from the nurse.

I woke up in a daze, my mind fiercely trying to recall the events from yesterday. I remember waking up on the beach, getting to some city named Hoovegorod, finding Faith, something about thieves, then passing out in a room I rented in an inn. I looked around the room I was in, my body deciding to be uncooperative as I sat in the bed. Sure enough, I was in the bedroom on the second floor of an inn.

A quaint little room with wooden walls and floor, dotted with various pieces of furniture including a small side table and an empty dresser adorned with a mirror. I look absolutely disheveled after a restless night’s sleep, the sunlight pouring through the windows telling me I had slept in considerably. My muscles still ached, my wings were sore. But I was alive and that’s what matters. I decided that my first move was to check on Faith, then to move in and confront Apple Fritter at her stall in the market. A small part of me hoped it was all a misunderstanding, but a large part hoped I didn’t get stabbed by the would be thief.

I opened the door and stepped out of my room, taking note of details I had missed in my exhaustion. The second floor of the inn was where all of the rooms were held, a grand total of three. It was nothing more than a small balcony, the opposite side of the hallway open to the lower floor, revealing a small bar managed by a young stallion, a warm fire pit surrounded by stones was to assist in cooking meals for the tired and wary of the inn. My stomach growled, alerting me to how tantalizing the food being made for breakfast.

I trotted down the stairs, giving a warm smile to the mare cooking up some food.

“Morning, sugar,” she spoke in a rather rustic accent that made her seem like the friendliest pony to have ever lived.

“Good morning,” I replied, “What is that I smell, exactly? It smells wonderful.”

“Just some hay browns and potato soup, warm and hearty,” she smiled again. The kind of warm smile that just makes you think that they were a carefree neighbor. “You turned up here last night, correct?”

“Yes, that’s right. Why?”

“I’ve just never seen you’re face around here is all, missy. The name’s Free Bird, and I’ve owned this inn for twenty-five years now. I’d know if I’d seen you before.”

“My name’s Destiny,” I reached off and took the hoof of the elder mare and gave her a warm smile, despite my stomach protesting to drop formalities and go straight for the food sitting in front of my face. “It’s nice to meet you Free Bird.”

“Good to hear of you, Destiny,” the mare commented. “Say, I think you’ve already met a friend of mine, Apple Fritter?”

“Yes,” I replied warily, suddenly curious at the mare’s relationship with the possible thieves guild member. “What do you know of her?”

“She and I go back for a while,” Free Bird commented. “A member of the Apple Family, you know.” At my confused look she elaborated. “The Apple Family is a large family of farmers that farm, guess what, Apples. Most of them live in Equestria, but a few have branched out to various countries in the Celestin Empire, and even a few beyond. Apple Fritter moved here a couple of years ago looking to open up shop. She stayed here on her first night in the city.”

Taking a bowl of the soup Free Bird offered me, I blew on it in an attempt to cool it down before deciding to do a little prying and pick the mare’s brain for any personal information on Apple Fritter, hoping to finally put my suspicions to rest. “Do you know anything of her personal life? Outside of her apple selling buisness?”

The mare paused noticeably before beginning. “No,” she said, “Can’t say I do. That mare doesn’t talk much, you know.” Okay, so I knew that was a lie. That mare was an open book, it may have been some kind of sham to be so friendly and formal, but she was definitely conversational and talkative. I held back on calling her out on that for now.

I hastily finished my breakfast and thanked Free Bird for her company, seeing as I was the only patron at the in for the time being. I paid my dues of 15 bits for a night and headed out the front door, catching a comment made to the bar colt on the way out.

“That mare is asking too many questions, Sham. I’ll tell Apple Fritter to keep an eye out.”

“You want to what?!”

“Faith roll with me on this,” I attempted to calm my companion. She had checked out of the hospital with a clean bill of health just a couple hours ago. “If we wait till sunset tonight and tail Apple Fritter to her house, we might be able to get some answers without direct confrontation.”

“Let me get this straight,” Faith started, “You want to spy on an apple merchant as she sells apples for several hours, and then follow her to her house where she likely enjoys a nice meal of apples. I know you think something is up, but tailing her seems a bit like overkill.”

“Yeah but-“

“No buts,” Faith interrupted me, “You seem to be able to tell if she is lying by the way she responds to questions, this just seems like unnecessary risk and action is all.”

“I saw a knife on the mare!” I countered. “I am not confronting her directly by accusing her of being a thief!”

I knew arguing with Faith was going to get me nowhere. The scholar was far more skilled in the art of countering any proposition I threw at her, but I knew one fool proof way to get her in on this, and now was the time to play the card, so to speak.

“If you don’t go with me, Faith,” I spoke in a stern manner to prove a point, “I’m going to do this; with or without you.”

“Ugh,” a look of disinterest and resentment filled Faith’s face, making me momentarily guilty at playing such a hand as this. “Fine, you win.” Faith hanged her head in defeat. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’ll help you tail this pony.”

“Thanks,” I sighed in relief, glad to have my first true friend ready to back me up on this. “Here’s the plan.

“I’ve got her, twenty meters to the front.”

“Copy that,” I replied. Faith had recently perfected an effective yet brief long distance communication spell that allowed us to speak with each other for distances over several hundred meters. It only lasted for an hour but you could walk across the entire district in that time, the entire residential district not exceeding a little over three miles.

I walked along the rooftops, scanning them for any ponies patrolling them and attempting to avoid getting spotted from the ground while still keeping an eye on the yellow-green coated mare moving through the crowd. Faith was trailing behind on the ground, using my vantage point on the roof to keep track of Apple Fritter in the dense crowds.

“She just took a turn down an alley,” Faith’s voice rang in my head as she spoke softly to herself in the street, her voice translating perfectly as if she was right next to me, speaking in a normal volume.

“Probably using it to check for a tail; she’s definitely careful. Trained like a professional, my old drill instructor would be damn proud of her,” I commented.

“Now’s not the time to compliment the pony you roped me into spying on, Destiny,” Faith chided. I hopped the rooftops swiftly, landing my hooves softly on the roof opposite the street and towards the alley.

“The alley crosses over into a side street,” I commented. “Take the next right into the main road and another right directly after, you’ll hit the other end of the alley, I’ll try to watch for her coming out on the other side.”

“Alright, I’m on it.” Faith moved through the crowd, passing through them slightly faster to catch up to Apple Fritter through the around route.

“This alley is covered from the top,” I said. “I don’t like this.”

“Keep calm, Destiny,” Faith soothed, “I’m sure it’s nothing special.” I took a glance over the edge of the rooftops and down onto the street level, eyeing Faith as she rounded the second corner to where Apple Fritter should have come out. Only one problem, she didn’t.

“Faith,” I began to panic, “Faith I don’t see her. Where is she?”

“No visual,” Faith responded, “I’ve got nothing at the moment.”

“We couldn’t have lost her,” my voice began to quiver with uncertainty. “I checked a map of the city, that alley has no other openings, just the two.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Faith commented. “But, we should take each side and see if we can’t take her from both ends. Find out what truly is in that alleyway.”

“Alright, yeah that’ll work. I’ll take the opposite end, you take that one, go in on three?”

“Whatever works,” Faith responded. I trotted to the other side of the rooftop, jumping off the building and landing deftly on my hooves, earning a few questionable glances from a couple of ponies in the streets.

“Okay, on my go,” I paused, the covered alley being dark and mysterious. If it was an ambush it was certainly a good spot. I knew that even if I expected an ambush I could still be caught off guard. I hoped for the best. “Go.”

“Moving now,” Faith said back. We both moved in on opposite sides of the alleyway, checking corners and behind trash cans in the low light for any sign of the missing mares.

“Where is she?” I grumbled as Faith and I turned up no results, meeting each other in the center of the covered alley.

“No idea,” Faith responded. “We checked all the nooks in this alley right?” A sudden sound came from behind us, causing Faith and I to turn around towards its source. Two shadowy ponies moved in on us, one unicorn and one earth pony. They took us by complete surprise, my guard getting dropped after Faith and I had come up with nothing after searching the alley. The earth pony instantly swept out Faith’s legs from her, causing the unicorn scholar to tumble to the ground and get bound at the legs by the rope wielding unicorn assailant. Faith managed to squeeze out an audible sound before getting gagged by the unicorn. The enemy unicorn drew a dagger, ready to silence Faith permanently.

I broke free of my ambush trance and leaped into action, but a southern drawl from the earth pony stopped me.

“No!” She said, “We need ‘em alive!”

“What?” I said, confused at the sudden change of pace in the course of the fight. I instantly received a blow to the head from behind, the unicorn smacking me with a blunt object. I fell to the ground with a thud. I heard one last thing before blacking out.

“What in the hay did ya do that fer?”

“Hey! Alive doesn’t necessarily mean conscious.”

I awoke to pure darkness, a feeling on my face telling me I was blind folded. I could feel my body bound to another, probably Faith. I struggled to move, grunting as I realized my mouth hadn’t been gagged like my companion. In a room nearby I could hear a few voices arguing.

“Ya didn’t need ta hit her over the head, you know,” A southern accented voice I identified as Apple Fritter broke my thoughts.

“That pegasus had training, Fritz,” A male voice responded. “I couldn’t risk it, we could be found out.”

“We’re in the business of helping the common folk,” A third female voice joined the conversation. “That means not hitting ponies over the head that we don’t even know.”

“She could be working for Green Back you know,” the male voice interrupted. “I’m not going to take that risk.

“We haven’t gathered any intel on her!” The proper spoken mare replied. “You can’t go around kidnapping ponies we don’t even know are working for that bastard Green Back.”

If there was ever a time to use my unlimited charisma and charm to talk my way out of this, now was it.

“Don’t worry,” I whispered to Faith, causing her body to relax a little when she heard my voice. “I’m going to talk our way out of this.” It instantly tensed up again at that.

“Hey,” I called out, “You guys know I can hear everything you’re saying right?”

I heard hoofsteps on the stone floor we were on as the three ponies entered the room. I breathed heavily, unsure of what my next course of action should be in order to get out of our current predicament.

“Hello, darling,” A voice rang clear through my ears I recalled as Free Bird. “My you were snooping around weren’t you? Sorry about the rather violent response by Night Shade, he’s still learning.”

“Hey!” The stallion Night Shade protested.

“Free Bird,” I commented.

“You remember me,” I could almost feel her smile. “Good to see your memory is fine. Also so sorry about gagging your friend, but that was protocol. I don’t believe we’ve met miss Faith.”

“How do you know her name?” I asked.

“I have sources,” Free Bird replied. “Now you’re going to answer some questions, Miss Destiny and if everything goes right you can go on your merry way.”

“Not so fast,” I bargained, “If you’re going to make me answer some questions I want some answers of my own.”

“You’re in no position to bargain, Destiny,” Free Bird replied. “Demands like that get ponies killed.”

“If you were going to kill us you would have already slit our throats and be working on dumping our bodies in the ocean. No, the way I see it you’re just as in the dark about me as I am you,” I decided to even be a little coy. “Why don’t we even take some turns asking questions to each other? That sounds like a brilliant idea to me.”

“Cute,” Free Bird said. “Fritz, give her some sight.” I felt a hoof move over and behind my head, Apple Fritter slipping a hoof under my blindfold and untying it. I let my eyes adjust to the now well lit room. I noted seeing Free Bird with Apple Fritter joining her and a lavender coated stallion joining them.

“New accent?” I asked, deciding to take the first question.

“One learns to blend in to a crowd, that accent was simple enough to pull off. But I won’t deny, I’m a Hoofington pony at heart.”

“Now were getting somewhere,” I commented. “Okay, so-”

“Uh, uh, uh,” Free Bird interrupted. “I thought we were taking turns, hon. Now, why don’t you tell me what you and your friend we’re up to in the city, hmm?”

“Apple Fritter over here was carrying a rather concealed weapon,” I replied, “I investigated what an apple merchant needs a dagger for.”

“Okay, sug’,” Apple Fritter spoke up, “That seems like jus’ too likely an excuse.”

“Yeah, not really in the position to lie right now,” I answered annoyed. “Fair enough, you got your answer, so it’s my turn. Who do you guys work for? And no lying,” I added.

Apple Fritter and Night Shade glanced to one another, before Free Bird spoke up. “We’re part of the thieves’ guild.” I could tell from her voice she wasn’t lying to me, even the most experienced liars couldn’t really hide something from me. “A bit of elaboration?” She asked, I noted that that counted as a question. “Very well then.”

“The modern day thieves guild was founded 200 years ago by a pony named White Noise, who wanted to help the poor of the city but lacked the resources to do it,” Free Bird paused. “He founded a guild of ponies who wanted to help others when the rich and well off of the city would do nothing to help them. Thus, the modern day guild was form, filled with ponies that steal from the rich and give to the poor.”

“Like a regular Robin Hood,” I commented.

“Exactly. We don’t think of ourselves as thieves necessarily; more like ponies who do bad things for good reasons. We’re only helping those rich folks with what they should have been doing all along.”

“And the whole inn thing was just a sham? A cover story?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” Free Bird replied, “I have worked that inn for twenty five years, but I’ve also been a part of this guild for twenty four.”

“In any event,” Apple Fritter entered the conversation, “We need to know what y’all plan to do now that’n you know what we’re all about.”

“I can respect charity,” I said, “And I certainly don’t like greedy ponies like this Green Back fellow.”

“We have something in common then,” Free Bird commented. “What do you plan to do now?”

“Maybe look into this if I can, but my gagged friend here and I need to get to Manehattan fast.”

Free Bird and Apple Fritter looked to each other for a second, a knowing look in their eyes. “We have a branch in Manehattan, cosmopolitan town filled with big business like that. You help us, Destiny, you and your friend Faith, and we’ll get you in touch and set up for when you get there.”

I paused for a moment, not sure whether to agree or not. I mean, of course I would agree to get out of being tied up, but whether or not I would follow through was another matter entirely. I decided it in my best interest to at least look into it.

“Well,” Free Bird turned to me as I glanced at Faith, her face saying to roll with it at least to get us out of here. “What will it be, Miss Destiny?”

“I’ll see what I can do."

Chapter 7 - The City that Never Sleeps

Chapter Seven – The City that Never Sleeps

“Start spreading the news. I’m leaving today…”

“I can’t believe you signed us up for this,” Faith complained.

“What did you expect me to do? I told them I’ll look into it,” I replied.

“I expected you to just, I don’t know, lie your way out of kidnapping?”

I glared at Faith; I was currently in no mood for this kind of crap. True, I didn’t want to get roped into helping the thieves guild, but if this Green Back turned out to be some kind monster that the guild was making him out to be, I definitely wanted to put a stop to it.

“Faith, you know I want to help this city, and since it turns out that the thieves’ guild aren’t robbing the helpless and really just doing some forceful charity-“

“Forceful is right,” Faith interrupted.

“Really just doing some forceful charity,” I continued, “We should support them, besides,” I added, “from the way they made it sound like this Green Back was connected, way too much for some corporate kingpin. It’s suspicious to say the least.”

“Well then what’s our first move?” Faith asked. She had a valid point, I had no idea on how to take down this guy. I barely even had an idea on where to start.

“More recon,” I guessed. “Green Back lives on the other side of town in the financial district. It’s our best bet to find him there.”

“And how do you plan to go about finding him in that section of town?” Faith asked back.

“Simple,” I replied. “We just grease a few hooves is all.”

“Oh,” Faith commented, “That’s all we’re doing? Bribing ponies to give up the location of one of the most important ponies in the city and you don’t think that we’re going to run into any complications whatsoever?”

“We’ve got to start somewhere,” I pointed out.

“Whatever,” Faith said defeated, “Let’s just get going and put your suspicions that this guy is anything more than a savvy business pony.”

“How much is it for a Sparkle Cola!?”

“10 bits, take it or leave it lady,” The barcolt repeated to me in annoyance. It turns out in the ‘rich’ part of town a soda is the same as a night in the inn back in the residential district.

“I’ll leave it,” I replied flatly. I turned to walk over to Faith, who was patiently waiting on me at a table.

“Did you get me a soda?” She asked.

“Pff, no, guy wanted ten bits for one, there’s no way I’m paying for that.”

“You’re dragging me into surveillance and you won’t even get me something to drink to help pass the time?” Faith asked in a rhetorical tone. “Some friend you are.”

“Can we just focus?” I asked, exasperated from watching for any pony that looked well connected, the few they did walk up to having fallen through. “I know this is boring but sometimes that’s just part of it.”

“I still don’t even know who were looking for, you know.”

“Some stallion named Diamond Brass,” I responded, “Free Bird says he’s Green Back’s second in command. Pearl coated unicorn, shouldn’t be hard to locate.”

“Is that him?” Faith shifted her gaze slightly towards the door, and sure enough, a pearl coated unicorn wearing a rather fancy blazer had just walked into the bar. It seemed like a simple snatch and grab, if it weren’t for one thing.

“Damn it,” I huffed under my breath, trying to keep my voice down with our target so close. “He’s carrying a flintlock pistol.”

“Pistol?” Faith asked back.

“Gryphon firearm technology,” I replied, “Unicorns can use them too, but they’re virtually useless to creatures with hooves and paws.”

“Great,” Faith sighed, “Our guy has a gun, this is going swimmingly.”

“Hey it just means we’ve got to take him quietly is all,” I reasoned. “Let’s just wait until he leaves alright? I’ll even buy you a drink.” That raised a smile out of the mare, and she shifted slightly in the seat she was in as I left the table to grab a drink.

“On second thought,” I said as I came up to the barcolt, “I’ll take that sparkle cola, and a vodka sour as well.” I tossed some bits onto the bar.

“The vodka’s for you or your date over there?” The barcolt smirked, “She’s a looker ain’t she?”

“Yeah,” I suddenly forgot what I was doing as I took a quick look at Faith, her white beige coat complimenting her auburn mane and sapphire blue eyes. A whistle broke me out of my trance as Diamond Brass approached the bar.

“If she’s yours,” he commented, “You are one lucky mare.”

“You could say that.” It took a second for my mind to process the fact that I was having a conversation with my target, but decided to play along and roll with it for a while and see where it led. “Name’s Fate,” I said as I decided to go with the second part of my name, hoping that the difference in names given to the guild and Brass ended up not colliding.

“Nice to meet you, Fate,” Brass raised his glass, a martini done straight up, using his magic. “A toast, of sorts, to good relationships, what say you?”

“To good relationships,” I said back, then added, “And to forming new ones with friends.” I raised my vodka sour in my mouth and toasted it against his martini glass, an audible clank sounding between us as we each took a sip of our drink. “Sorry to cut this encounter short, but I must be getting back to my rather fine mare.”

Diamond Brass reached out a hoof and put it on my shoulder, causing me to turn around. “I’m having a little get together tonight,” he stated, “with some friends. A business associate of mine will be attending; I would love it if you and your marefriend were to drop on by.”

I thought of it to be a great attempt for me to get close to Green Back. “I’m sure she’d love to. We’ll both be there.”

“Ah, excellent,” he said contentedly, “Well here’s the address,” he handed me a business card containing information about his fortune 500 company with an address scribbled on the back. “I look forward to seeing you there, Miss Fate.”

I turned and walked back over to the table, both the half full glass of vodka sour and a glass of Sparkle Cola in my mouth. I set them down on the table before Faith spoke.

“What took so long?”

“I was having a little conversation with our target over there,” I responded.

“Oh?” Faith became suddenly intrigued by my recent actions, “And what did you tell him?”

“We’re going to a party tonight, at this address,” I slid the card across the table to her. “Green Back will be there.”

“You made friends,” Faith commented. “That’s good, set us up with some badass cover stories to go with?”

“Yeah!” I said a little more excitedly than intended, “You’re going as my marefriend.”

“I think I hate you.”

“A party you say?” Free Bird was stunned by my success and ease of getting close to Green Back’s right hand stallion. “Well this is certainly interesting. You’ve done the guild a fine deed, Miss Destiny, how did you manage to convince that hardflank Brass to invite you to a private business party?”

“I told him Faith and I are dating,” I said.

Free Bird chuckled, “Oh how the truth can sometimes work wonders.”

“What do you mean?”

“Faith and you aren’t...oh,” Free Bird stopped talking momentarily.

“I don’t think she swings that way,” I commented, trying to turn an awkward situation into a joke, even one at Faith’s expense.

“Shame, she’s cute, you two would make a great couple.”

“A mare can dream, Bird,” I sighed, “A mare can dream.”

“Let’s get you ready for this soirée,” Free Bird tossed over a sack of bits, only to be surprised as I tossed it back.

“I’m more than capable of covering my own mission expenses, you give enough to the poor, most of you still work full time cover jobs,” I pointed out. “I’m carrying a hefty sack from a job I did back in Alexmanedria, I can spring a bit on some formal wear to help blend in.”

“Thank you, Destiny,” Free Bird replied. She opened the door from the hidden room that led out into the alley, “You and Faith had best get ready.”

“These are awesome!” Faith squee’d in delight as I showed her the dress she was set to wear for Diamond Brass’ party. A lovely white gown trimmed with light blue silk matched her figure perfectly. I caught myself staring more than I intended to at her. “Like what you see?” She teased, striking a seductive pose that almost made me melt.

“Don’t tease me like that,” I chided.

“Put yours’ on, I want to see my date for tonight in full costume,” Faith gave me a look I couldn’t refuse and I went to go fit my dress on. I picked out a midnight blue dress with slightly lighter yet still dark navy blue trims that the dressmaker said accented my black coat and brought out my white mane. Better than attracting attention to my dull grey eyes. It wasn’t hard to fit the dress on, using my teeth to pull my head through and slip it on, I wiggled slightly in it, adjusting myself till the cloth sat comfortably on my coat.

“Sexy,” Faith commented, causing a blush to turn my black cheeks pink with blood. “Oh, this is so exciting! I’ve never been to a soirée before, the only dance I’ve ever been to was my high school prom back in Alexmanedria; and even then my dress wasn’t near as beautiful as this. Nor did I end up with such a beautiful date.”

“Who did you end up going to prom with anyway?” I figured now was as good a time as any to find out whether it was harmless teasing or if there could be something deeper with Faith.

“Some colt an old friend set me up with,” Faith scoffed. I dropped slightly at the mention of a stallion. “Then again, that was before I really found out colts are overrated.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I asked, my voice quivering ever so lightly with anticipation.

“I’m saying anything you want your imagination to make me say,” she smirked.

“You’re the biggest tease I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, you know.”

“Glad to fill your thoughts,” was the only reply I got.

“Remember,” I reminded Faith, “We still have a job to do.”

“Oh, relax, I’m sure we can get away with mixing a little business and pleasure.”

Faith and I had made our way down the streets of the extremely wealthy financial district of Hoovegorod, the sea towns buildings continuing to get more and more lavish as we went deeper in. I had picked my weapons back up from the inn and moved it into the thieves’ guild, though I wanted to keep the hoof blade on me in case of emergencies, but Free Bird managed to convince me otherwise, saying how if I was found out carrying a weapon to a party there would be no talking my way out of it. It would quickly escalate to a blood bath, most of it being mine.

“So I’m sure we need a deeper cover story than just two mares randomly hanging out at a bar,” I mentioned, “Any ideas?”

“How about wealthy overseas merchant and her scholar marefriend?” Faith suggested

“At least you can play the part of scholar perfectly,” I said back. “Well then what would I be a merchant of? I don’t want to mess this up, it’s gone almost questionably perfect up to now, and we could really make a difference here if we play our cards right.”

“Then let’s just play our cards, Destiny. I’m sure fate will come through, if you have a little faith.”

“Hey! I’m the one supposed to be making the puns,” I pouted.

“Oh hush now,” Faith replied.

“So I said to the stallion, you going to buy something or get lost because I’ve got money to make from saps like you.”

The story sent uproars of laughter amongst several business type ponies at the party. I set myself up as an arms dealer of sorts, working in Heliopolis to finance some private military corporation by selling them what I called the ‘best blades around.’ The story went that I had met my lovely marefriend Faith when I spotted her as I made a deal. Being the smooth and savvy business mare I was, it was easy to ‘sweet talk’ her into going on a date with me.

The cover story worked wonders, Diamond Brass introducing me to all kinds of named associates of his, from produce marketing kingpins to rather shady ponies like his coworker who basically acted as a right hoof pony for the right hoof pony of the whole Green Back enterprises. There seemed to be something deeper but I decided against pressing the issue, lest I tread somewhere I’m not welcome.

“Come now Miss Fate,” Brass motioned me over, “Mr. Green Back will arrive shortly, grab your date and take a seat, and I’ll propose a toast of sorts.”

I went over to Faith to tell her the news of Green Back’s arrival, knowing that we’d have two choices when he arrived: snatch and grab or lie in wait and get deeper in our cover stories.

“It’s up to you, Destiny,” Faith said. “What should we do?”

“Play it by ear?” I suggested, “We can wait it out and see where it goes from there.”

“Alright, I’ll trust your judgment on this.” Faith and I made our way to a large banquet table located outside in the garden of the party we were in. We took seats next to each other, making small talk with the ponies around us until a very green coated unicorn stepped up to the head of the table, Diamond Brass sitting right at his right hand, and the shady business associate at his left.

“Greeting friends,” Green Back announced, “Friends, business partners, guests, and more, I thank you for coming to this little get together.”

“Destiny, heads up, nine o’ clock, shady business pony is doing something,” Faith whispered, causing me to turn towards the unicorn at the left hand of Green Back, his horn glowing in a sinister red aura, though the object he was holding was hidden from sight.

“I think I can see a knife handle,” I whispered back.

“I want to personally thank my right hand stallion, Mr. Diamond Brass for his invaluable effort in securing another location of which for us to mine for valuable gems and reap the profits,” Green Back continued his speech in the background as Faith and I whispered our next course of action.

“Can you charge a knock out spell without your horn glowing?” I asked under my breath.

“I can cast it in an instant’s notice, don’t worry,” Faith replied. “Why? What are you planning?”

“Just wait for my signal, I’ll cause a distraction and you hit Mr. Shady with the spell and I’ll go for Diamond Brass.”

“What’s the signal?” Faith asked.

“You’ll know,” I replied cryptically.

“I propose a toast,” Diamond Brass announced, “To a bright future, and a long life of Mr. Green Back.”

“I’ll drink to that!”

“Here, here!”

Multiple unicorns and earth ponies raised glasses of assorted alcohol in celebration. I noticed Mr. Shady tense up, looking as if he was ready to jump.

“Get ready,” I whispered to Faith.

Diamond Brass nodded to his partner, the sinister pony raising the knife slightly, looking to slash at his neck, I had to act now.

“Get down!” I yelled, tossing my glass at Green Back’s head as Mr. Shady pony slashed at his neck. Thankfully, Green Back reacted to my shouting and flying glass, ducking just as the would-be murderer’s weapon would have slashed across a major artery on his neck.

“What are you doing?” Green Back recovered from the thrown drink and was now looking at me with everypony else. Well, everypony save Diamond Brass and the assassin. I dashed across the table as Faith unleashed her knock out spell on the knife wielding assassin. I attempted to tackle Diamond Brass as he rolled to the side, drawing out the pistol he kept concealed in his suit.

“You annoying little whelp, I advise you to not be a thorn in my side,” Brass snarled. Okay, he called me a whelp, probably Elemental Hammer. I regretted not taking any weapons, even bringing a knife to a gun fight would be better than coming unarmed. He aimed the gun at me and fired, a loud bang filling my ears. I ducked on instinct, hearing the bullet whiz over my head as he looked in surprise at my unscathed body. I took a quick glance behind me to notice that the bullet had

actually passed through Faith’s dress. Luckily it had still missed her, but left a noticeable hole in the cloth.

“You ruined my dress,” Faith breathed, almost as if in shock. “I loved this dress!” Whoa, note to self, never, ever piss off Faith. Also, more dresses, Faith loves dresses. I recoiled in shock as Faith dove forward, her horn glowing as she cast another knock out spell, firing it and hitting Diamond Brass square in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground with an ‘oomph.’

Guards arrived on the scene soon after, quickly attempting to arrest me and Faith, until Green Back stopped them.

“Guards! Release them at once!” Green Back shouted at them, causing the guards to both cower in fear and look in confusion. He continued, “These two mares just saved my life and disabled the assailants, they are not at fault of any crime as far as I’m aware of.” The guards begrudgingly dropped me and Faith, rather roughly if I may add, and went about interviewing other ponies at the scene as Green Back walked up to us.

“I don’t know how to thank you two; if you hadn’t been here I’d be a corpse on the grass by now. How can I repay either of you?”

“It was nothing really,” I replied modestly, “Just trying to keep everypony alive.”

“As far as repayment goes,” Faith added, “You could help us out by donating a generous portion of your profits to several named charities, it would mean a lot.”

“You’re with the guild, aren’t you?” Green Back replied flatly.

“Not exactly,” I replied, “We promised them we’d look into it.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, Free Bird always like to recruit civilians for the weirdest jobs,” Green Back mused.

“You talk as if you know her really well,” Faith mentioned.

“She was my right hoof mare, a while back,” Green stated.

“Wait,” I paused, “You led the thieves guild?”

“Ironic isn’t it?”

“You could say that,” I mentioned back. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Set up a meeting with Free Bird,” Green Back said, “She can handle distribution, but I have some demands of my own, I won’t have my contributions go towards guild weapons.”

“Fair enough,” Faith said, “Thank you, sir.”

“You should be free to go,” Green Back stated, “I’ll handle any issues with the guard, check in with Free Bird, she’ll want to know your mission status.”

“I’ll be damned,” Free Bird said, “You’re good Destiny, you and your little friend Faith.”

“I held up my end of the bargain, now I ask for a favor in return,” I replied.

“Okay, you get one,” Free Bird stated, “What can I do you for?”

“Can you get in contact with any, err, associates you have in Manehattan, Faith and I will need a headquarters and we don’t have the funds to stay long term in a hotel in that city.”

“Done,” Free Bird responded. “I’ll get you in touch with someone who can smuggle you past customs at the port and get you into the city, you want to talk to Frostbite, the local assassin’s guild leader.”

“Assassins?” Faith inquired.

“Not the kind that tried to take a slash at Green Back, think of them as us, only more violent. They’re just out to help the

common folk and stop injustice, yadda yadda yadda, you know the deal.”

“Right,” I sighed, “More violent good guys.”

“Don’t look so glum, Destiny,” Free Bird spoke, “I’ve heard from my sources you used to do the same thing back in Vaporia.”

I blushed at the lavish praise, then remembered that I was no longer an archangel, and was more powerless to help everypony. “Thanks,” was all I managed. “Your help means a lot.”

“Get moving to the docks,” Free Bird said, “You’ve got a boat to catch, I’ll get Apple Fritter to inform him.”

“Wake up ladies!” A burly voice stirred me from my slumber. Apple Fritter had informed a contact of theirs, some sailor named Salty Seas that we needed secret transport into Equestria. It was a simple enough job, Salty just needed to distract the guards long enough for Faith and I to make our way onto the docks and into the city. “Welcome to the beautiful and cosmopolitan city of Manehattan. It’s big, it’s bad and it’s full of scam artists, but Fritz said you needed to get here and I don’t question that mare.”

We had been on the boat for two days, living off your average sea farers diet, which was basically dried herbs since fresh produce usually didn’t cut it on longer journeys. Our surroundings were dark, but they could have been worse. Faith and I had been stashed in the cargo hold, sleeping back to back in a rather small hammock. Now don’t get me wrong, after I found out Faith was like that, I was seriously tempted to try something under our current circumstances, but decided that by some twist of fate it worked out, it wouldn’t be the most comfortable thing on a hammock anyway.

Despite my dry spell and wild imagination, the two days past relatively easy with no complications, Faith and I passing the time telling stories of our childhood. I had found out Faith had once gotten in trouble for stealing books from the library that were restricted for age, tainting her innocent foal mind. In turn, I spilled to her the full nature of my situation, including my suspicions that the two ponies that attacked Notch and the ones that took on me, Sun Spark and Dusty were all part of the Elemental Hammer. This cult went deeper than either of us could imagine.

Even with some covert multinational cult embedded into both the government and financial sides of not only countries but independent city states like Hoovegorod, Faith and I managed to keep our spirits high, especially with the prospect of help from a guild of highly trained warriors ready to combat the Hammer in Manehattan on a large scale.

Faith and I made our way onto the docks while Salty was talking with an equestrian guard, characterized by their golden armor and white coats. We managed to slip by unnoticed and walk along the docks, making sure to give a nod to Salty as we passed by.

“Alright, Manehattan,” I said. “The city that never sleeps.”

“Let’s get to work,” Faith said.

Faith and I walked down the street, for once in our life blending in to our surroundings perfectly. Non earth ponies look out of place in Alexmanedria, and the same could be said for pegasi in Hoovegorod. Here in the big apple though, there were all kinds of ponies, rich and poor. Unicorn, pegasi and earth ponies were all living together in the most mixed city ever. I even saw a few donkeys and gryphons.

“Okay so we are, where?” I turned to Faith, currently having her head buried in a map of the city.

“Ninety Seventh East and Madison,” Faith replied. “Ad Street, second in income only to Wall Street, big business goes down there.”

“Think any cultists taking refuge in the piles of cash down on Wall Street?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t surprise me; do you know where were supposed to head to meet up with Frostbite?” Faith looked up from her map as we approached an intersection, the entire street being filled with taxi carriages. “This city is huge.”

“Bucking huge,” I replied. “Free Bird mentioned Frostbite to be some unicorn prodigy; I think his cover id is a scholar at the grand Manehattan archives.”

“We have something in common then, at least,” Faith commented.

“Yeah,” I said, “That’s the only thing.”

“What do you mean?” Faith asked intrigued.

“I mean you don’t kill others for a living, I think,” I replied. She giggled at the comment before pointing us in the right direction to hit the archives.

I whistled.

“Damn, nice place,” I remarked. The library was huge, at the corner of two major streets stood the grand Manehattan archives, home to all sorts of records that documented most of the stuff in Equestrian history. I almost had to hold Faith back from running into the doors, earning some snide remark from a passerby that I made out as roughly ‘Pff, tourists.’

“Whoa there, girl,” I said as I held back the scholarly mare. “Guild contact first, perusing tomes later, ok?”

“Promise me we get time to browse this place,” she said. “Pretty, pretty please?” She pouted with her best puppy dog expression, a look I couldn’t refuse, especially after those, rather disturbing yet arousing, thoughts about her. I really just wanted to make her happy.

“Fine,” I said in defeat, “After we talk to Frostbite you can run all around the archives and check out a hundred books.”

She squee’d in delight as she grabbed me and pulled me towards the front door, using her magic to open it up and shove me inside. I slid across the door with the momentum of being tossed in delight. As I came to a stop near the front desk, a blue coated stallion with a slightly lighter shade of blue as his mane greeting my eyes.

“Welcome to the Manehattan archives, can I help you?” He sounded almost annoyed at being disturbed; obviously busy reading whatever tome he read to keep up his cover id.

“Are you Frostbite?” I asked.

He tensed ever so slightly at this, lowering his hoof down below the desk. “Easy,” I said as I raised my hoof with the hoof blade on it, “We have a mutual friend of sorts, we don’t want any trouble.”

“Listen to me,” he said, “I’m a business stallion, and I don’t have friends. I’ve got associates, rivals, even a few enemies, but not friends, I think your mistaking me with somepony else.”

“Free Bird sends her regards,” I rebutted with.

“I see,” Frostbite said as he got up from his seat and flipped the sign on the front of the archived to closed, locking the door in the process. “Her and I go back a while, if she sent you two you must be of some value to her, what did you manage to do anyway?”

“Convince her mortal enemy to finance the guild while disabling an assassin and his conspirator and turning them over to the guard,” I stated with a rather smug expression.

“Very nice,” Frostbite commented, “You managed to convince Green Back to finance the guild and allow them to distribute more wealth, and you stopped a murder, all in one day? That’s almost too good to be true.”

“Too good to be true is my specialty,” I responded. “Were looking for some help though, and your resources would be invaluable in our search.”

“For what?” Frostbite seemed to be at least interested in our quest for the item, “And more importantly, what can you do for me? If I’m going to devote assassins to a treasure hunt you better be damn ready to get blood on your hooves in return.”

“It’s called the Lunar Pendant,” Faith interjected, “It can control the light in an area around the user, we’re looking to add it to our collection.”

“I see,” Frostbite took a look behind him towards the desk, floating out a folder and flipping through a few pages, “Grand Manehattan Museum, under lock and key, bullet proof glass, even a few infrared lasers for good measure. I can give you an address and maybe dedicate one assassin to help you get in. That’s all I can spare right now.”

“Spare? Something going down?” I asked.

“We’ve got wind of some violent group sinking its teeth into the heart of Manehattan, lying in wait until they can seize power in both the government and finances of the city simultaneously. We want to stop it in its infancy.”

“Sound like the Elemental Hammer,” Faith commented.

“You’ve encountered the like before?” Frostbite seemed to lighten up at the idea that we might actually be useful.

“You could say that we’re kind of enemies of them, and they’re after the Lunar Pendant as well,” Faith answered for me.

“Excellent, then we already have a known area to scout, what else can you tell me about them?” Frostbite turned back to me for an answer.

“Only that if I know them, they’re probably already sunk deep undercover already.”

Frostbite grunted, “Very well then, it’s time you met the team at least.”

Chapter 8 - Midnight's Shadow

Chapter Eight – Midnight’s Shadow

“There is darkness in us all, little one.”

“You want us to what?” I asked, exasperated. “How the hay are we supposed to do that?”

“I don’t care,” Celerity said, “Get it done.”

“Ugh, these assassins,” I mumbled under my breath, just quiet enough to avoid the grand master assassin Celerity from overhearing. Frostbite had been kind enough to introduce us to the guild, an assortment of ponies, plus one former gryphon spy named Gilda, made up the ranks. Celerity was Frostbite’s second in command, and after Frostbite made it clear that we were to help out the guild until he could gather enough intel on the pendant heist, Celerity jumped on us getting some non-lethal wet work done.

I looked back to the mare as I walked away. If you took a pass at her on the street there’s no way you’d guess she was a trained killer with over a hundred kills done throughout Equestria. A normal salmon colored mare with a red mane and cutie mark of an arrow pointing forward clearly indicated this was a pony on the move, and she wanted work done.

Faith and I were set to do some scouting, thankfully on the guilds budget, on a possible organized crime ring that enjoyed hanging out at a quaint little bistro down near central park. Simple enough job, just sit, act casual, order some food and snap some photos discreetly with a camera resting on the table.

The assassin headquarters was actually under the cover name of ‘Quick Fix Security,’ a private security firm run by Celerity, and no one got to see the upper floors of the buildings. The windows were blacked out one way so you couldn’t see inside them, but you could still see out. Several security measures that would scare away even the hardest veteran of breaking and entering accompanied the secret hiding windows, including burn safes, laser alarm grids rigged to sear as well as trip an annoying noise guarded the main guild armory. A large wooden table surrounded by chairs with various whiteboards, chalkboards and corkboards sprawled with various maps, mug shots and statistics made up the planning room.

Those of the assassins who didn’t live a cover id and simply stayed off the grid lived in the floors above, which also included the guest room for Faith and I. One room. With one bed. As if there wasn’t enough awkward sexual tension between me and that mare, the universe throws more crap in my face. Still, it was nice enough for them to give us a warm welcome. For a group of killers, even killers of criminals, they seemed like genuinely friendly ponies. Well, except Frostbite, that dude was just cold. Ha, more puns, I knew I would fit one in eventually, can’t have Faith upstaging me now, can we?

“Hey Destiny,” Faith said with a friendly wave. She was enjoying coffee in the lounge of the building, casually watching various banking executives talk to Celerity about getting increased security as a certain product came in or toning down increased measures to lower their cost. “What did Celerity want us to do for our first assignment while Frostbite gets the details on the museum specifications?”

“You’re not going to like this, or you might,” I said back.

“Oh come now,” Faith waved off my fears with a wave of her hoof, “I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”

“We’re staking out and doing surveillance on an organized crime leader named Crimine Capo.”

“Bleh, spying? What’s up with that, they couldn’t give us something entertaining?”

“He likes to hang out at a bistro on Grand and Centre, guild is picking up expense for the mission, that means lunch,” I mentioned.

“Oh why didn’t you say so? I’d love to go to lunch with you!”

“We’re going on a mission, not a date,” I pointed out.

“We’re going on whatever you want us to be doing,” Faith said, “Besides, date makes a great cover story, it worked back in Hoovegorod.”

“Point taken,” I responded. “It’s nearly noon, want to head out now?”

“I’d love too.”

We casually sat down at a table that sat outside of the bistro, Faith casually placing the camera on the table and pointed it towards Capo, the two of us playing ignorant tourists. It was an easy enough guise to put on; playing dumb is a lot harder than playing smart.

“What can I get for you two fine ladies today?” A waiter came up to our table and politely asked.

“I’ll just have a glass of water,” I said.

“Iced tea, please.”

“Very well, I’ll be right back with those,” The waiter said as he walked off to go fetch our drinks.

“Act casual,” I turned to Faith, “Take turns casually glancing around the restaurant, and do anything to alleviate suspicion.”

“I think I can handle it,” Faith replied. “In the meantime, what do you think is going to happen with Frostbite? How does this heist go down, and more importantly what then? If we’re successful and get away clean what’s our next move for getting towards the next artifact.”

“From the notes we used to have,” I replied. “I can remember several locations, the nearest being one of the gryphon kingdom capital cities, Asgard.”

“Yay,” Faith replied melodramatically, “How I adore gryphons.”

The waiter approached shortly after with our drink orders and set us them down on the table. We ordered our meals after, a nice daisy sandwich for me and Faith ordered a salad. Casual customers that just put a camera on the table, even the most careful bastard won’t interrupt two mares eating a salad dressed to look like tourists that just so happened to dine at a rather famous bistro down in little Italy.

“What’s Capo doing?” I asked without breaking eye contact with Faith. I saw her casually glance behind me and towards the table where the crime boss was sitting.

“Drinking some espresso, talking with another pony, looks like some kind of business meeting,” Faith noted.

“Any muscle?” I asked.

“Two stallions casually sitting at the table over and giving shady glances at everyone in the bistro, I think I can hear one of them if I lean a little closer-”

“Don’t,” I interrupted, “Hold my hooves, quick.” I grabbed her hooves in mine and held them on the table, making sure she never broke eye contact with me. “You were leaning to close, I have to do this to alleviate any growing concern over the two tourists sitting here. Play it cool, Faith.”

“Cool, got it,” Faith let go of my hooves, although with noted reluctance, and went back about her salad. I casually moved my hoof over the camera, acting as if I was reaching in for Faith’s hoof again and snapped a couple of shots at the crime ring leader. We finished our meals with relatively little complications, dropping a few bits for the tab plus tip, Faith once again floating the camera over to her and putting it over her neck in typical tourist sightseer fashion.

“Shall we go back to base?” Faith asked.

“Mmm, nah,” I said back, “Let’s go check out those archives.”

She nearly broke on of my ribs in a hug.

We walked up to the doors of the archives, Faith almost bouncing along at the prospect of all of the knowledge held within. I considered it a good time to catch up with Frostbite on our progress with the artifact, and maybe look into possible other locations that we lost with the crashed ship.

At the sound of the door opening, Frostbite looked up from some files he was looking through, his expression leaving something to be desired.

“I thought you two were supposed to be helping Celerity on her assignment with Crimine Capo, what happened?”

“We got the surveillance done, but I promised Faith we’d check out the archives. You can take the mare out of the library, but you can’t take the library out of the mare.”

“Very well,” Frostbite replied flatly, “As long as you get those photos to Celerity by the end of the day so we can develop them, you are free to explore the city, it’s quite a sight.”

“She’s just excited about learning,” I remarked as Faith went about browsing the many different tomes and sheer wealth of information contained in the archives, “Meanwhile I was wondering how the information on the museum security is coming along.” It’s not that I didn’t like Manehattan, but we did have several more artifacts to recover and doing favors for a guild of murderers for good wasn’t on the time table for us.

“It’s coming,” was all Frostbite said, “I’ve found an assassin to accompany you on retrieving the artifact, his name is Midnight, Midnight Shadow.”

“Interesting name,” I remarked, “When do I meet him?”

“He does night patrols, I was thinking that you could observe him in action tonight, he likes second avenue, find him after dark. I hope you make friends with him, he is not exactly the most sociable pony.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing I can’t handle,” I reassured him. “I’ve dealt with worse than an anti-social pony.”

“And he’s dealt with much worse as well,” Frostbite pointed out. “Get those pictures to Celerity, and tell Faith there’s a strict limit of two books per person to be checked out at one time.”

“I’ll break the bad news to her.” I chuckled before giving my best to Frostbite, going off deeper into the archives to find the lost scholar that had buried herself within the confines of near limitless knowledge. I know she had missed her chance to browse the grand library at Alexmanedria, the glowing holographic globe and ancient owl spirit being a more prevalent matter for the time being. I hoped that one day she would get to browse all the lost tomes in there someday.

“Destiny!” A voice called out from amongst the shelves, helping me locate the mare buried in the volumes of history from all over the Celestine Empire. “Check this out,” she said as she tossed a book my way with her magic. I grabbed the book in my mouth and laid it down on the ground, taking a careful look at what passage she had passed to me.

It was gryphon history, specifically about the Kingdom of Asgard and the rumored magical artifact held there, the golden feather. The passage mentions how the golden feather can give the ability of flight to creatures not native to such a feat, such as canines and earth ponies, as well as giving flight creatures like gryphons, pegasi and dragons the ability to pass through clouds when held. It was said to be activated from a spiritual bond with the item only possessed by a number of gryphons in recorded history, probably the direct descendants of the feathers original user, just as Wong Shei Tuong said.

“Interesting,” I mused, “Does this book say where the feather is now?”

“It mentions it being lost to gryphons with the fall of the old City of Asgard, on the upper cliff faces overlooking the newer city.”

“Strange,” I wondered, “You usually don’t rebuild a city of creatures of flight closer to the ground, was the old city at the peak of the mountain?”

“As far as I know the ruins of the old palace occupied the peak, the new city is nestled within a valley between two mountains, allows for more farming than on the Peak of Asgard Mountain.”

“Agriculture is important,” I said. “Well then we have our next target, infiltrate the ruins of Asgard before the gryphons or the Hammer kills us, seems simple enough.”

“I’d love to check these out to do more research while we’re back at the assassin’s base while were waiting on Frost to get the specs on the robbery.”

“Slow down there, bookworm,” I said, “He told me to mention to you a strict two book limit when checking out from the archives, choose our best two resources on both the Golden Feather and the Lunar Pendant. We’ve got to get this camera to Celerity though before she misses us, it’s already late afternoon.”

She pouted, “I suppose your right; I’ll just take these two.” Faith levitated two large textbooks, one titled ‘The Egghead’s guide to Magical Artifacts’ and the other being ‘Wonders of the Ancient World.’ Both I assumed were suitable choices when looking for powerful pieces that dates back thousands of years.

“Come on,” I motioned with my hoof, “We should get back to base.”

“Excellent work you two, these photos will certainly help us in tracking down Capo’s base, we can tail the guy he was meeting with fairly easily,” Celerity was busy giving us lavish praise on a near perfect assignment, without any serious complications to mention.

“It was nothing really, don’t mention it,” I replied. “What’s next?”

“We’ll get Gilda’s team working on tailing him to their hideout, you can meet up with her tomorrow for debriefing, got anything planned for tonight?”

“Frostbite wants Faith and I to meet with Midnight Shadow on Second Avenue tonight, he’s supposed to be our partner on the heist to retrieve the Lunar Pendant,” I responded.

“Frost assigned Midnight to you guys?” Celerity asked in disbelief, “You two are in for a pleasant evening; a lot of shit goes down on Second at night, all kinds of the lowlife crawl from their shadows and prey on passerby’s. I’d keep your weapons on you when going down to meet him.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said goodbye to Celerity and decided to check out the assassin training grounds, two floors contained underground dedicated solely to honing a pony or gryphons ability with any weapon. I stepped into the elevator and hit a button with my hoof, an audible ding responding to my input at the elevator door closed and I descended into the training rooms.

The first sight to greet me was your standard gym on the first underground floor, from treadmills containing a few very fit mares and stallions running on them to others lifting weights with both their forelegs and magic, straining to strengthen both of them. None of them really seemed to take notice of me stopping onto the floor, either that or they assumed I wasn’t a threat to them and they could simply leave me alone without needing to worry about me doing anything nefarious. I left quickly and descended down some stairs, the elevator not going any deeper than the bottom first floor. I trotted down a few until I reached the bottom second floor, my eyes greeted not by your average gym but instead of a rather expansive training ground filled with exotic and deadly weapons, a full size shooting range and multiple training dummies allowed any member of the guild to hone their skills on a new move or keep at the peak of their performance in whatever school of combat they had mastered.

A lone gryphon was working the firing range, a sound proof glass separating the range from the rest of the expansive training ground. She was standing up on her hind talons, a regular flintlock pistol gripped in her forward talons and aimed downrange as pony shaped targets popped up in rapid succession.

I tapped on the glass as the gryphon has just finished a round of five targets, reloading twin pistols with more speed than I have ever seen any pony do before, even unicorns with their magic couldn’t top this gryphon on her speed and accuracy. She turned to me as I tapped on the glass, looking up from her still smoking firearms. She turned and opened the door before speaking.

“Sup? Like what you see?” The gryphon asked.

“Your amazing with those, I wouldn’t want to get on your bad side,” I complimented.

“You murder any civilians recently?” She asked.

“Umm, no,” I answered apprehensively at the strange question.

“Then we’re fine,” she replied. “The name’s Gilda, and I used to be a gryphon spy.”

“Used to?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t prying.

“Let’s just say when you get retired as a spy they don’t give you a golden watch and a card.”

“You were burned?” I asked back.

“A little toasty,” she responded. “I met Frostbite to help keep me on ice, been working assassin missions for a little over a year now, even got my own squad.”

“Oh yeah,” I remembered, “Celerity said you were supposed to track down Capo tomorrow for the mission Faith and I are working on.”

“Oh so you’re the walk in’s Frost decided to help, why?”

“I guess he owed Free Bird,” I fathomed. “He’s gathering intel on a heist Faith and I have to pull to retrieve a powerful artifact to keep it out of a mysterious and multinational cult.”

“Sounds harsh,” Gilda commented, “You at least rolling with assassin support?”

“Midnight Shadow,” I said. “Does that mean anything?”

“Only that you’re going to have a hard time convincing him to follow your plan, he’s more vigilante than assassin. Still, he gets the job done, so I can’t really complain.”

“Thanks for the advice, Gilda.”

“Don’t mention it, but if you want some real advice, try to keep your life in order, don’t end up like me.”

“Your life can’t be that bad,” I reasoned, “I mean you’re helping a lot of ponies with this work.”

“Yeah, I hold a rating in any weapon that fires a bullet or holds an edge, but I can’t rekindle an old relationship with an old mare of mine.”

“You miss her don’t you?” I asked. Now was usually not the time to give relationship advice, but if my love life couldn’t be simple and straightforward, you could bet your flank I’d do my best to help simplify it for somepony, or some gryphon else.

“It wouldn’t work out, anyway,” Gilda said. “I feathered up something bad with the way I acted towards her friends when I last saw her.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“Over a year ago, right before I took one way train ticket here and met Frostbite.”

“Go tell her how you feel, if I can’t have a simple and happy love life maybe at least you can.”

“Got a special stallion somewhere? Or mare maybe?”

“Only my first real friend that I can’t really tell her how I feel,” I replied sheepishly.

“Pff, been there, done that. Come out and say it, I’m sure even if she doesn’t feel the same way, you won’t spend the

rest of your life wondering ‘What if.’”

“I don’t know…” I began before Gilda interrupted me.

“Tell you what, come to dinner with me and my partner Trixie, we’re grabbing dinner while doing some scouting on another one of Capo’s higher up’s at a sweet Italian place. I hear they’ve got great pasta. Bring your mare, the more the better our cover. I’ve never seen somepony question a group of three mares and a gryphon as a bunch of assassins.”

“You know what, that doesn’t sound bad, I can meet Midnight right after.”

“Perfect,” Gilda said as she extended a talon and shook my hoof. While a bit rough around the edges, Gilda seemed like a genuinely friendly gryphon.

I can’t believe I just said that.

“You want to take me to dinner?” Faith was giddy with excitement when I told her the plan, completely ignoring the whole Gilda and Trixie thing, the double date cover or the fact we were doing more surveillance on Capo’s mafia; nope, she only focused on me, taking her to dinner.

Maybe Gilda was right about just coming out and telling her that maybe I didn’t just want her as a traveling companion; that I cared for her more than I let on. Still I thought it could complicate things more than I need at the moment with the whole Elemental Hammer thing.

Our plan was simple enough; a small restaurant called La Tavolozza D’oro frequently serviced one of Capo’s chief mobsters, a burly grey pegasus stallion by the name of Grigio Nuvola. Trixie was to meet up with us at the corner where the restaurant was located and pose as Gilda’s date for the night, with Faith posing as mine.

Gilda advised we avoid using a camera and instead just try to recall as many events from the surveillance as we could. Nuvola was supposedly a very careful stallion, and sometimes took measures even more strict than Capo, even asking the owner of the restaurant to scour the location for anypony with a camera and politely ask them to put it away.

We weren’t taking any chances on this one, Gilda concealing a micro talon on the very ends of her own talons, small enough to not be noticed yet still sharp enough to rend flesh. Trixie, as Gilda had described it, brought a repertoire of lethal and non-lethal spells to the table that paired well with Faith’s disabling spell. I would be taking my hoof blade, leaving the wing blades behind and concealing the hidden knife underneath a formal slipper worn with a dress. Only Gilda would forgo formal wear, it being extremely difficult to tailor an extravagant dress over feathers, down and thick chest fur.

“Of course I want to take you to dinner,” I responded to Faith’s earlier inquisition about my intentions. “I’m not going to lie to you that there may be ulterior motives here like surveillance, but I really do want to do something nice for you after all we’ve been through. I mean, when’s the next time we’re going to get to be in a big city, most of these artifacts are in the farthest reaches of the known world. Now’s our chance to do something fun, before we meet this Midnight and get right back into the thick of it with the museum heist.”

“You really mean that?” Faith asked in near disbelief. “Thank you, Destiny. It- It really means a lot to me to hear you say that.”

“Anything for my best friend, Faith,” I said back.

“Best friend…” Faith repeated quietly.

“So I said to the little dweeb, buzz off kid I don’t need your kind dorking up the sky,” Gilda finished her story with a sip of her drink, the other three of us chuckling at it. Gilda was telling the story of her arch rival back in junior speedsters’ flight camp, another gryphon named Talon.

“Trixie thinks that that gryphon should have taken the hint and flown away to a less intense training camp, he obviously couldn’t handle you, Gilda,” Trixie smirked. It took a bit of getting used to her always talking in the third person, but I have to admit it’s both a little comical and gave insight into her egotistical nature. Still, it was nice to have another unicorn on backup in case things went sour. “It’s a good thing I can,” Trixie added.

It was certainly awkward watching another couple flirt with one another, seeing as how Faith teased me all the time as I cracked jokes back to her. Yet it was also cute at the same time as they bantered back and forth like and old married couple.

I was still extremely new to the whole undercover gig, my first and only previous experience being the on the fly attempt to get close to Diamond Brass. Even then, we never lost sight of our objective, each of us casually taking strolls to the restroom, never taking the same route twice yet always catching glances as Nuvola went about his business, meeting with several sketchy characters. Gilda casually glancing over my shoulder as waiters brought various imported wines from throughout the Celestine Empire.

“1,220 AC chardonnay,” Gilda commented.

“That’s over a hundred year old wine,” Faith exclaimed. “He must be meeting with someone important now.”

“From the southern Trottingham vineyards,” Trixie added, “You recognize the blue stallion he’s meeting with now?”

“Yeah,” Gilda replied flatly. “It’s Midnight.”

“Faith get ears in on the situation,” I virtually ordered Faith to cast a long range communication spell to allow us to eavesdrop in.

“What the buck is Midnight doing working deep cover off the books?” Gilda hissed under her breath. I could hear her blood pressure rising as the words flowed through the ley energy in the air and into our four ears.

“Ombra,” Nuvola spoke, “Glad to see you again.”

“Save the formalities, signore,” Midnight responded. “Ah, a twelve twenty chardonnay, you know me to well, i miei ringraziamenti.”

“You’ve got to admit,” I commented, “He can pull of Italian really well.”

“You come here for a favor, yes?” Nuvola asked Midnight. “You are a good friend of Don Capo. I am sure I can help you with some lovely crime spree you wish to pull. That last snatch and grab on the child predator, il magnifico.”

I suddenly recalled the dream in which I envisioned a busy citing street adjacent to a dark alley. I recalled the filly happily skipping along on her way home, the shady pony coming to take her away, the heroic rescue by the vigilante. Could my visions really be true?

“Grazie, I come to you for information, Don Nuvola,” Midnight picked up Nuvola’s hoof and gave it a light kiss, a cultural sign of respect Gilda told me. “It’s about this,” Midnight said as he slid over a newspaper with a picture concealed underneath.

“Either of you get eyes on?” I asked to Trixie and Gilda, Faith and my backs still turned against the meeting.

“Trixie thinks she sees some sort of jewelry photo.”

“What was that?” I asked, unsure if I had heard her right. I was interrupted before I could receive a response when the conversation between the deep cover assassin and the mobster continued.

“It’s a nice necklace, I can tell you that,” Nuvola said. “I don’t see how a picture can help me get you any information. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I only see one, inutile, useless.”

“It’s being held at the Grand Manehattan Museum, and I’m looking to ‘acquire’ it,” Midnight spoke.

“Acquisitions are my speciality, Ombra. But you know my work doesn’t come without knowledge of who this is going too and more importantly, why they want it,” Nuvola spat his demands.

“Two mares, one black coated and one beige, named Yin and Flame. They’re looking to snag the museum piece before it leaves display to be auctioned in Canterlot, so they called the best, and I came to you for help. I know you love heists like this with big payouts,” Midnight smirked.

“How big are we talking here, amico?”

“These mares have very, very deep pockets, and even larger banking accounts.”

“Did he just set us up with cover stories?” I broke the eavesdropping to toss a question into the open. My question was answered with another.

“Flame? What a boring name, when we get done with this dinner I’m going to give him a piece of my mind,” Faith scowled.

“You think Frostbite had Midnight working this deep cover without telling anypony?” I turned and asked Gilda.

“Doubt it, not even Celerity was giving an inkling that she knew we’d run into him.”

“I will see what I can do about your, acquisition, signore,” Nuvola interrupted our conversation with more information.

“Grazie, and grazie for the wine,” Midnight cordially responded. “If you’ll excuse me Don, I do have another appointment to attend to, give my regards to your boss if you can.”

“I think he’s talking about our meeting,” Faith pointed out.

“Sounds like it,” I replied as I turned back towards Gilda and Trixie. “Thanks for dinner, ladies. Faith and I will wait until Nuvola isn’t looking and head out. I assume dinner was covered under assassin expenses, but I’ll drop a few tens anyway. It was more than worth it for the meal.”

“I got to head back to base, Trix. Tell Twi’ I said hey, alright?” Gilda decided to depart with us to avoid suspicion.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is not a messenger pony! But I shall send her your regards none of the less.”

“Keep your eyes peeled, Faith,” I said to my companion. We had left dinner and headed down to Second Avenue for our schedules meeting with the vigilante.

“What do you think that whole deal with Nuvola was about?” Faith asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, “We can ask him when we find him, in the meantime lets worry about getting mugged down here at night, I don’t trust this part of town.”

“What’s so bad about this part of town?” A voice broke our conversation. Its source being unknown yet coming from an alley; Faith and I turning towards it to ready ourselves in case the speaker displayed hostility. “I personally like this part of town.”

“Midnight,” I guessed. “Glad to see you.”

“So you two are the ones I’m supposed to help,” Midnight stated flatly, “I trust that both of you enjoyed my little meeting with Nuvola.”

“Gilda looked like she was about to bust a blood vessel,” I replied.

“Frostbite wanted it done quietly, in a swift two birds, one stone movement,” Midnight punctuated his sentence with a wave of his hoof. “Use them to get the necklace, then bust them with the guards for robbery and make a clean escape. Your cover stories are already set up as two wealthy business mares looking to-”

“Looking to snatch it before it hits auction in Canterlot, we heard,” I interrupted. “What’s the plan?” I asked.

“The plan,” Midnight said, “So to speak is let Nuvola do most of the work while we scout out the Elemental Hammer in the city. He’s getting the security specs and giving us two of his guys to pull the heist, it should be easy enough to trick them in a quick snatch and grab.”

“Still,” he stopped, “Frostbite was vague on the details, what exactly is this necklace for and why are we helping you two with stealing it?”

“The Elemental Hammer cult,” I stated simply, “I don’t know what Frost has told you about them or the artifacts but the Hammer is after them and Faith and I are tracking them all down to keep them out of their hands.”

“So I assume you already have a few if you’re here in Manehattan looking for one.”

“Well, just one,” Faith admitted, “An hourglass rumored to control time.”

“Rumored?” Midnight asked.

“We haven’t actually used it,” I acknowledged. “If it controls time and we have no idea exactly how it works I don’t want to be responsible for permanently freezing time for all eternity.”

“Fair enough,” Midnight said.

“Still,” Faith added, “What are you going to tell Gilda? Or Celerity for that matter?”

“Pass it off as internal guild affairs, which it is. Frostbite doesn’t always share everything with his number two.”

“And what are we supposed to do?” I turned to him.

“Get some rest, and meet me here,” Midnight said as he levitated a card over with an address sprawled over the back, “tomorrow morning; nine sharp. Don’t be late.”

“So…” I said rather awkwardly.

“You’re sure they had no rooms with, I don’t know, two beds?” Faith asked.

“Celerity said this was the best they could do, they don’t have any other spare rooms.”

“Well I suppose if I had to share a bed with anypony, I’d rather it be you I guess.” Without another word Faith moved over to the bed and hopped on, sliding across to make room for me on the full size mattress. “Come on, we need to get some sleep. Sounds like Midnight is going to work us to the bone tomorrow morning.”

“Alright,” I replied absently, hopping into bed without much thought.

“Good night, Destiny,” Faith said as she flicked off the switch with her magic.

“Good night, Faith,” I responded in the darkness. I was apprehensive to fall asleep at first, afraid the malicious visions turned future predictions would return, but eventually I let sleep encapsulate me.

The only dream I could recall was getting to sleep next to Faith.

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” A voice followed by a pillow to the face woke me up rather abruptly. “We’ve got to meet Midnight in an hour, we should grab breakfast.”

“Five more minutes,” I mumbled.

“Not five more minutes,” Faith said as she poked at my side with a hoof, “Now, Destiny. I want to eat before we’re scouting out cultists all day.”

I grumbled as I forced myself up and onto my hooves, my vision blacking out for a second due to the sudden change in blood flow. “Sleep well?” Faith asked.

“Like a rock,” I told her. She still had no idea about my visions, but I couldn’t worry her about them now, especially after they were noticeably absent last night. “Any idea for breakfast?”

“I heard Celerity sent somepony to grab donuts and coffee, it’s downstairs,” Faith turned towards the door and opened it with her magic. “Coming?”

“Free donuts? You know it,” I replied as I followed suit. “So,” I decided to stir up conversation, “What do you think Celerity is doing about Frostbite running Midnight in deep cover without telling anypony else?”

“If I had to guess in one word,” Faith responded, “It’d be seething. She’s waiting until she gets Frostbite alone to chew him out on it.”

“I almost feel bad for the stallion,” I mused.

“Me too.” I noticed Faith sneaking glances at me, turning away with a blush when she noticed I saw her.

“Something on your mind?” I asked her.

“I’m fine,” she replied hastily, “Just hungry is all.”

“Then let’s get a move on, slowpony. I’m just as hungry as you are.” I gave Faith a light hearted half punch, half tap on the shoulder as I picked up my pace slightly as we came up to the elevator and descended down towards the lobby. I shared my past with her, I thought, she’ll tell me what’s on her mind eventually.

We stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby, the familiar sight of the salmon colored mare Celerity sitting at the front desk, perusing through several files greeted us.

“Morning you two,” she said. “I was beginning to wonder if you had both died in your sleep or something. If you’re looking for the free food it’s over there.” She motioned over to a table where Trixie and Gilda were casually sipping Star Buck’s coffee with several of ‘Pony Joe’s Famous Donuts’ lying in a box.

“Good to see you guys again,” I greeted as I trotted over the table. “I thought you had to leave town Trixie.”

“Trixie has decided to stay another night to help Gilda with her assignment,” The powder blue mare replied.

“More on the mafia?” I asked.

“Nah,” Gilda waved it off with a hoof. “Frostbite had me reassigned, I’m working undercover at the Gryphon Kingdoms embassy here for a while, Trixie’s my backup.”

“Sounds like fun,” Faith said as she levitated over a donut and took a dainty bite out of it.

“Is it ever?” Gilda responded sarcastically, “A bunch of pencil pushing gryphons that are all part of the organization that authorized my toasting and banishment. Hay, I might even run into Talon working there, the head of security at these embassies are always undercover spies.”

“That old rival from flight camp went into espionage like you?” I asked.

“We were pretty close once, him and I,” was the only response I got. “In any case, how did the meet up with Midnight go after his little meeting with Nuvola?”

“He told us Frost wanted the two of us to help him scout out some possible suspects as Elemental Hammer members.”

“I heard about those guys,” Gilda said, “They sound like a nasty bunch.”

“And they hate us pretty badly,” Faith added.

“Either way,” I broke off the conversation, “We have to head out to do the scouting, good luck running security for a bunch of bureaucratic gryphons.”

Gilda only grunted in response.

“Glad you could make it,” Midnight said. “Ready to get down to business?”

We had met Midnight at a corner store, the three of us departing quickly and casually strolling down the street while discussing our next course of action. The city was bustling with activity even in the early morning, far rivaling that of the industrial city state Hoovegorod and even that of slightly larger cities like Alexmanedria and Vaporia had nothing on the business that went down in an average Manehattan day. Frank Sinotetra, a famous earth pony once sang that if you could make it here you could make it anywhere. It was the song heard around the world, and only now it made sense.

We had discussed several ponies of notable suspicion, namely the secretary of the mayor of Manehattan as well as locally famous Wall Street executive Money Hooves. All of them were exhibiting odd and rather shady behavior usually exhibited by trains operatives, like never taking the same route to work or always exiting a room from a different door.

“When is our mobster friend going to get you the access to the museum?” I asked Midnight.

“He wanted to meet with us tonight.”

“Us?” Faith asked. “He wants us there too?”

“He likes to meet the clientele before big jobs like this. He’ll probably tail you two so I set up a hotel room for him to track you back to, can’t have you leading him to some private military corporation slash security firm. He might think you’re trying to rob him or something crazy like that.”

“He sounds careful,” I noted. “I don’t like that.”

“It certainly makes it more difficult to get him and Capo taken down, but I think Celerity assigned a new team to watch Capo’s until we can get Nuvola busted.”

“It’s all teamwork,” Faith commented. “Like one big family of trained killers.”

“Exactly,” Midnight smirked.

“Give me good news, Destiny,” a voice came into my ear. Apparently long range communication spells are standard for the guild, Midnight able to keep in contact with both Faith and I as we browsed downtown Manehattan for a single executive in a suit.

They all looked the same to me, all of them wearing a brown or black blazer with a red tie and white shirt with some cutie mark related to money or business in some way. It made it a little difficult to locate somepony in a crowd.

“I have absolutely nothing,” I hissed back. It kind of looks weird talking to yourself in a crowd of ponies. Frostbite was running point around the block, Faith across the street.

“Do we even have a description of this stallion Money Hooves?” Faith’s voice rang in my head.

“Brown colored coat, triple silver coins cutie mark, have fun,” Midnight said. “This trading firm is cleared. Also,” he added, “Sparkle Cola stalks are up, I’m rich.”

“Very funny,” I replied.

“Destiny,” Faith spoke up, “I think I’ve got something, brown coat, black mane, I can’t see his cutie mark, I’m going in for a closer look.”

“Wait for backup,” I said, “Midnight we need you, now.”

“Already rounding the corner,” Midnight replied, “I got you covered Faith, go in and identify the target if you can.”

“On it.” I could catch glimpses of Faith through the crowd of traders as she approached a stallion with a light brown coat. “Silver coins,” the voice came through.

“Snatch and grab?” Midnight suggested.

“In broad daylight? Perfect way to get ourselves in deep trouble,” I replied back.

“Any suggestions, then?”

“Let’s try tailing and approaching him when he’s secluded,” I tried.

“I’ll roll with it,” Midnight said. “Faith?”

“Keeping it rolling I got it, you two owe me for this, you know.”

“He could be Elemental Hammer, you know,” I pointed out. “Technically they’re your enemies too, but I’m sure they hate me more.”

“Thanks for the reassurance,” Faith responded sarcastically.

I looked for when the street was mostly clear of taxi carriages before crossing, ending up slightly behind Faith as we both attempted to blend into the crowd and tail Money back to his little nefarious hiding hole that he lived out in.

“Pass off surveillance at random intervals,” Midnight recommended, “it helps keep them unaware.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Faith give up the lead, I got this.” I picked up the pace slightly, passing Faith in the crowd without even a glance at her. I knew these Hammer cultists were devoted and in the loop. While I doubted one could pick either Faith or I from a crowd, it doesn’t mean they couldn’t identify a single pony tailing them for a long distance.

I took note to always look preoccupied, gaping at the various sites around Wall Street. Whenever I did steal a glance at the possible cultist, he seemed to be suffering from extreme paranoia. I guess that comes with being part of society looking to simultaneously take every major city and country in the world in one fell swoop, only to have two of the plans fall apart due to, well, me.

“I’m intercepting him at the corner,” Midnight said, “Cross it, Destiny, to lose him.”

“Got it,” I said. I turned right and cross the street at a crosswalk, Midnight coming from my left to follow Money straight across the road. “Keep me up to date, Midnight. I’m taking the long way around.”

“Faith you’ll take the lead soon, come around again,” Midnight’s voice resonated out again in my eardrums. “Gah, there’s too many ponies, I’m losing him. Faith I need you to step in.”

“I’m one block over, give me time,” Faith bartered.

“We don’t have time, Faith. Destiny, back me up.”

“I’m on my way but there’s traffic, I’m not getting across this street unless I’m flying.”

“Then fly,” Midnight commanded.

“To the skies, I go.” I took off and jumped across the street, earning stares. I guessed it wasn’t common courtesy for pegasi to fly randomly through the buildings in Manehattan. I had to land and continue following Money Hooves before he became wary of my intentions.

“Destiny, where are you?” Midnight asked.

“I don’t see him,” I said. “He’s gone.”

“You lost him!?” Celerity yelled, causing everypony else in the room to look at her. She ignored their stares and continued being furious at us. “One job Midnight! One bucking job to tail a business pony, that was it. We even gave you two backups, a Vaporian Archangel, their Wonderbolts, and the smartest mare in Heliopolis and you can’t tail one business pony!”

“If I rushed through the crowd to keep up with him our cover would be blown,” Midnight argued. “There’s no telling what trouble that would have caused if he was part of the Hammer.”

“Well now we won’t know!” Celerity screamed again, “That stock broker, Midnight, he went underground! We can’t find him anymore. Gone, completely off the grid.”

“What were we supposed to do?” Midnight countered, “A snatch and grab in broad daylight doesn’t usually work, you know.”

“Will you two shut up already?” Faith broke up the argument with an exasperated shout. “By Celestia, you two bicker like an old married couple.”

“When did you start saying by Celestia?” I asked Faith.

“Were in Equestria, Destiny; blending in is everything,” she stated matter-of-factly. “In any event, Midnight has to go get the specs for retrieving the pendant from the museum, and not to be rude after such generous hospitality, but we must be going as soon as possible. I’d like to get this artifact and leave.”

Damn, I thought, my mare can shut an argument down.

Wait, my mare?

“Still,” Celerity continued. “Now we’re dealing with two major issues at the moment at the same time. Go to this meeting with Nuvola, I want this crime ring stopped so we can focus on the cultists.”

“My mare…” I mumbled subconsciously.

“What was that Destiny?” Faith having calmed down now turned to me.

“Oh, nothing, just saying how we should get ready for the meet.”

“Easy buddy,” I said. I hated get pat down. I know criminals and guards do it for safety, but having a big hunk of stallion meat pat you down when you prefer mares is well, awkward and annoying to say the least.

“They’re clean,” the mobster said.

“Ombra,” Nuvola said, “You weren’t kidding when you said these mares had deep pockets.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Nuvola,” Midnight replied. It was hard to not laugh at the irony of that line, but I held it in in exchange for not getting killed. “I trust you did some digging?”

“A friend of mine works at a local bank, he ran the banking account numbers by to check the mares balances,” Nuvola paused. “I didn’t know you could have so many zeros in one account; all with a nice one, in front of it.”

“So are we in business?” Midnight asked.

“We are,” Nuvola responded with. “You’ll find all of the specs in here.” Nuvola slid a folder across the table and towards Midnight. It was hard to make anything out in the room we were in, the low light making it difficult to identify anything other than silhouettes and the outlines of a few pieces of furniture.

“Unfortunately, I will have to back out of the other part of the deal,” Nuvola added. “I can’t spare any of my men at the moment to heist the Manehattan Museum, despite how valuable that necklace seems to be. In any event, I’m sure you are aware of my usual consultation fee, signore.”

“You’ll have the money wired to your account within 24 hours,” Midnight replied, going over the specs in dark light. I’m sure having a name like Midnight Shadow gives you better vision at night as one of your special talents. “Grazie for this, I’ll get right on your payment, but I must go and find another suitable assistant for the heist.”

“Of course, amico. Go, we will talk soon, I trust?”

“Absolutely,” Midnight said as he levitated the folder and stashed in a saddle bag he brought with him.

“What are we supposed to do about him backing out of the deal?” I asked to Midnight as we trotted back down the street towards the hotel where Faith and I were supposed to wait out as Nuvola’s guys tailed us.

“Act natural, it just means we can’t set him up after the heist is all, we have to make our own, clean, getaway,” Midnight spoke in a cool and calm demeanor that showed no signs of nervousness at the change in plans, yet I could sense a bit of worry. “Perhaps he got wind of that the guild was after him and wants to consolidate his forces incase Frost decides to move in soon. In any event, wait here until tonight. Destiny, I trust you can fly Faith down from the balcony tonight.”

“Well of course,” I said back. “But, are we really pulling the heist tonight, I mean we just got the specs.”

“I’ll have a plan by tonight,” Midnight responded. “I’ll tell you on the way to the museum, just be on the street by midnight, but don’t take the elevator, fly your way down.”

“Why?” Faith spoke up.

“No doubt Nuvola is going to stash surveillance in the lobby to track your movement, he doesn’t trust you. I could sense it,” Midnight spoke in response. “Rest up girls, if this goes well you’ll be on your way by sunrise.”

“These beds are sooooooo comfortable,” Faith mused as she rolled in the sheets of the deluxe queen size bed that far beat out the accommodations at the private security firm. “Are you sure we can’t stay just another night? I want to get a night’s sleep on here.”

“Easy there, sleeping beauty,” I replied. “Even if we could spend another night, which by the way I don’t think Frost will cover, there’s only one bed, and I’d rather be on the move then on the couch.”

“Who ever said you had to sleep on the couch?” Faith asked back, laying half covered in sheets looked back up at me.

“Again with the teasing?”

“It’s fun and funny, really,” Faith smirked.

“I really don’t know if I can do this Faith,” I said suddenly, causing Faith to dawn a worried expression.

“What do you mean?”

“This whole teasing thing, I don’t know if I can take that.”

“Destiny,” Faith paused, looking downtrodden at possibly hurting me. “I didn’t know, to be honest I really-”

An alarm interrupted her, alerting us that it was midnight. “Come on,” I spoke up. “Midnight will be waiting for us on the ground, down we go.”

“Whoa, Destiny, wait!” Faith tried to protest as I scooped her up by the waist in my fore hooves and flew out the open balcony door and slowly descending down to the ground.

“What took you so long?” Midnight said as I dropped Faith on the ground.

“Umm, relationship issues?” I said apprehensively.

“Forget it,” Midnight replied. “I don’t want to know details.”

“We are not done talking about this,” Faith muttered to me. “We do this heist, then we talk.”

“Count on it,” I replied.

“When you two ladies are done discussing pillow talk,” Midnight interrupted, “we can get down to details.”

“Fine,” I said defeated, “What are we up against?”

“Nuvola found the room where the pendant was located. The museum is holding it separate from the other exhibits in its own room with its own security system on a separate wiring from the main one.” Midnight pulled a map out with his magic from his bag and laid it on the sidewalk, the light from the streetlamps just barely bright enough to illuminate the floor plan. “We enter here, Faith cuts the wires here,” Midnight moved his hoof across the floor plan of the museum grounds, illustrating our movements and entrance plans. “Cutting the wires to the transformer should disable most of the electrical security countermeasures, we deal with the magical ones as we come across them.”

“And those include?” I asked.

“Several arcane powered motion sensors meant to shock anyone with a powerful electric bolt if tripped, we can disable them as we find them,” Midnight said.

“Okay, it seems simple enough,” Faith spoke up, “What else are we looking for?”

“That hoof blade Destiny has is going to come in handy in cutting the bullet proof glass display case that the locket is in, I’ll dispel the magical enchantment on it and Destiny here will slice right into it.”

“That’s reinforced glass,” I pointed out, “It’ll take a few minutes for me to cut into it.”

“We’ve got time if we do this right, no alarms will get tripped and the guards watching the front gate will be unaware we’re even inside.”

“Did you say guards? At the front gate?” Faith asked.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “If there’s guards what’s our point of entry?”

“You’re going to fly us onto the roof,” Midnight said expectantly.

“Seems easy enough, can we get this done?” I turned to both Faith and Midnight. I noticed Faith’s worried expression fading into one of determination, better resembling the mare I knew back in Alexmanedria when things were a bit simpler. We were just doing a job for the Ka back then, now we’re pulling a museum heist to keep a powerful artifact out of the wrong hands. I finally understood what Free Bird meant by bad things for good reasons.

I silently cursed her for it.

“Alright we’re going one at a time,” I said. We were sitting in an alley on the side of the building, managing to slip by into it after avoiding a set of two security guards staying at the front gate. “Faith, you’re up first to get to work on cutting the wiring while I carry Midnight over to the other end of the roof and begin the entry point process.”

“Agreed,” Midnight said, “I’ll guard down here then take point inside, all good?”

“Sounds fine by me,” Faith replied almost cheerily. It was a weird mood shift from flirty to downtrodden to determination and optimism.

“Alright Faith,” I took off and hovered in the air a small distance above the ground, “Up we go.” I lifted Faith in my hooves up onto the roof, a rim on the roof of the one story museum would give us cover from anypony looking on the ground, lack of light was supposed to protect us from prying eyes above.

I ascended to the roof and dropped Faith off, her hooves landing squarely on the building as she made a quick dash to the electrical building controls jutting out. Midnight had been nice enough to give us another three way mental communication spell while we made our entrance.

The roof was barely visible in the moonlight, but I could make out several pipes that allowed the air from the ventilation to get in and out, as well as two power boxes, easily labeled as ‘Main’ and ‘Show room.’

“I see the show room box,” Faith’s voice came through my ears as I descended down the alleyway to pick up Midnight.

“Just cut the blue wire,” Midnight said as I scooped him up. “Destiny, get me to the main ventilation entrance on the other side of the roof, we make our entrance there.”

“On it,” I replied as I ascended once more onto the roof. I flew over where Faith was working a pair of wire cutters on the circuitry and set Midnight down near a ventilation shaft large enough to sneak a gryphon inside. Midnight used his magic to unhinge the bolts that held the grate in place and place it lightly on the ground, taking extra precaution not to make a noise by dropping it.

“You’re in first Destiny, I’ll set up plan B.”

“What’s plan B?” Faith asked.

“Just an envelope of gun powder and small pieces of aluminum foil taped to the edge of the roof above the guards’ heads.”

“And that does?” I asked questionably, hoping to not have to kill anypony tonight.

“Don’t worry,” Midnight attempted to assuage my fears, “Assassins don’t kill civilians, it’s just a flash grenade meant to temporarily blind and deafen the guards in case things go south.”

“Alright, plant it and let’s get going,” I responded, my fears put to rest in the assurance that nopony that didn’t need to get hurt wasn’t going to get hurt. “Faith, how is disabling the security measures coming along?”

“Almost done, you can get going down the vents, I’ll tell you when you can drop in,” Faith’s voice replied to mine. I could make our a glowing pair of wire cutters still making a few cuts at the electrical box next to a silhouette of a unicorn.

“Down we go,” Midnight said as I took the lead, dropping down lightly onto the bottom of the vent, Midnight dropping in behind me with a slightly louder thud. “You’re on point, Destiny.”

“Got it,” I said as I took the lead. I crept along the shaft until Faith’s voice came out again.

“Alarm systems are disabled, dropping down now,” Faith said, a light thud accompanying her statement.

“Okay, Destiny,” Midnight spoke up. I craned my neck in the cramped vent to try and look at him face to face. “Next grate is the show room, drop on in.” I moved forward towards the next grate, peering through it in the low light as I saw a lone display case with a small object inside. I tapped on the grate a few times, allowing it to swing open so I could make my descent. I dropped onto the ground, gracefully gliding as my eyes darted around in the night light, attempting to make out the shock sensors Midnight had mentioned.

“On the ground,” I spoke up, “Either of you two want to join me?”

“Coming,” Midnight said, dropping down right behind me. “Now just to disable the counter measures around the room so we could make an escape; Faith, stay up in the vent and drop the rope we brought when I tell you.”

“You tell me when,” was Faith’s only response. “But please, hurry, it’s quite cramped in here.”

“We’ll make it snappy,” Midnight said back, using his hoof to reach into a small saddle pack and take out a dark purple crystal. He tossed it at the glass, the room suddenly lighting up in a purple hue before dying down. My heartbeat quickened as I waited for any alarms to go off, but everything remained silent.

“What the hay was that?” I asked as I turned to face Midnight.

“Null Crystal,” Midnight remarked simply, “It dispels the magic on an object it touches, which unfortunately means I can’t pick it up with magic.”

“Remind me to pick up some of those,” I breathed in surprise that such an item exsists.

“Right so, get to cutting,” Midnight said. “I’ll guard the entrance to the room.” I extended the hoof blade on my wrist and began to trace a circle on the now non-magical glass. I felt sweat bead on my forehead as I continually traced the same shape multiple times on the glass, each time the cut getting deeper in the reinforced glass. It seemed to be going smoothly with no complications aside from my tiring hoof.

“Destiny,” Midnight spoke up, causing me to silently curse myself at saying everything was going good just a moment before. “I hear voices.”

“More guards?” I asked.

“Not by those accents,” he responded, “Sounds like after getting the specs on this place Nuvola went to Capo for a heist.”

“Do you think they tripped anything?” I asked.

Unfortunately I was answered by a loud alarm going off, a red light flashing in rapid succession as I quickly scrambled to finish cutting the glass.

“Damn amateurs,” Midnight muttered, floating out his own dagger. “Destiny, fly up the vent and make your escape, I’ll meet up with you and Faith once I have the necklace.”

“What?” I basically yelled above the alarm, “Are you insane?”

“Just go! Trust me, I got this!”

“I’m not leaving you behind!” I yelled right back at Midnight for being so stubborn.

“If you don’t get out of here now we all go down! At least give me the chance for a snatch and grab! I can elude the guards and the mob, I know it!”

“You better make it out of here then! Promise me?” I wanted to make sure everypony got out safely, and I wasn’t about to let that plan shatter into pieces.

“Promise, now go,” Midnight began working with his magic and blade on the glass, starting off where I left it and began to make the cut deeper. I took off and flew up in the vent, Faith shutting it behind her with her magic as we began frantically crawling through the tunnel, our bodies cramped together as we raced to escape the museum. Faith grabbed hold of the escape rope put at the entrance to the vent, using her mouth and hooves to shimmy up the rope and out of the vent.

I followed suit as we moved out of the building, scooping up Faith and dashing away.

Author's Note: Holy Chapter Length Batman that was a doozey, Hope you all enjoy!

Chapter 9 - North for the Winter

Chapter Nine – North for the Winter

“Is it just me, or is it getting colder?”

“I hope he’s alright,” Faith broke the silence that sat between us. “He should be here by now.”

“Did we get the rally point right?” I asked in between nervous sips of coffee, the caffeine doing more harm than good in terms of calming my nerves. “We were supposed to meet at Joe’s Donuts if things went south.”

“Things did kind of go south,” Faith replied. “Hey,” Faith moved a hoof under my chin and lifted my head from staring down a mug of coffee, “It wasn’t your fault what happened. There’s no way we could have known Capo wanted to pull a heist of his own.”

“I know,” I sighed, “What happens to an assassin if they’re captured by the guard?”

“Bad things,” A voice nearly scared me hard enough to turn my coat as white as my mane.

“Who’s there? Joe?” I spoke up, looking for the source of the voice. It seemed like Faith and I were the only ones in the store.

“Joe? Who’s Joe? I’m Midnight, have we met?” The voice came out again, but surely our long range communication spell should have worn off by now.

“We can’t see you,” Faith said.

“Oh is this thing still on?” The source of the voice became revealed in the coffee shop as Midnight seemed to fade into existence, a necklace around his neck revealing the heist as a success. I barely had time to react before Faith launched herself in a hug around Midnight, causing me to get up from my seat and walk over to him.

“We thought something horrible had happened to you!” Faith nearly screamed in relief.

“Yeah well- ow!” Midnight was caught off guard from a rather hard punch I threw at his shoulder. “Destiny, what the hay was that for?”

“For making me leave you behind, now come here,” I said, giving Midnight a hug to let him know I was really glad he was safe.

“Hey wait a minute…” Faith paused, “We’re you using that necklace!?”

“Umm, yeah, why? I thought anypony with magic could use this.”

“Only Luna can use this pendant!” Faith was shocked to say the least. “Luna and one of the ponies of the prophecy, that is.”

“Prophecy? What prophecy?” Midnight asked. “Now I’m confused.”

“I’ll explain everything,” I spoke up, “Let’s get you a coffee first, though.”

“So, I’m some kind of special pony capable on controlling these insanely powerful artifacts?” Midnight’s reaction to my explanation went better than expected, gradually changing from surprise to understanding.

“Pretty much,” I replied. “I know it seems like a shock, but we were told by a couple thousand year old spirit about how these artifacts work, I wouldn’t dismiss it immediately.”

“So what do I tell Frostbite? You can’t just leave the assassins.”

“Leave? Why would you leave?” Faith asked.

“If I’m one of the ponies in this prophecy shouldn’t I go with you guys to help fight these cultists and gather up the artifacts?”

Faith and I looked to each other for a moment. “Team meeting!” I called as I grabbed Faith into a huddle.

“What do you think we should do, Destiny?” Faith whispered. “I mean I like him, but what about Frostbite?”

“I’ve got an idea,” I responded, breaking the huddle with Faith.

“That’s exactly what you’re going to tell Frostbite!”

“That’s your plan?” Faith looked at me flatly.

“I do what now?” Midnight asked.

“You tell Frostbite that you need to leave to save the world and protect the innocent, isn’t that what assassins do?” I asked him.

“I guess, but you really want me to tag along with you two?” Midnight suddenly seemed unsure at embarking on our epic journey across the world. I was about to speak when Faith answered for me,

“Are you kidding? After all we’ve been through and the fact that you are one of the three most unique ponies in the world you would think we would just drop you like that?”

“Yeah,” I added on, “As long as no more of that vigilante stuff happens, you’re alright in my book. Now come on, it’s five in the morning, I’d like to get back to base and sleep the day away.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Midnight replied. We all shared a laugh before waving bye to Pony Joe and heading out into the sunrise, the city being surprisingly active for five A.M.

“You want to what?” Celerity screamed again, causing the few ponies that were in the lobby at seven in the morning to again turn to her.

“Is all you do shout?” Faith asked, obviously tired at all the loud noises disturbing her after a night of no sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Celerity replied sarcastically, “But somepony does not simply leave or join the assassins, there is protocol to follow.”

“What kind of protocol?” I inquired, eager to get on the road again with our new traveling companion.

“Papers to fill out, tests to run; it can take months for someone to legitimately leave the guild, and that’s without complication.”

“Months?” I replied in shock. “We don’t have that kind of time, if we don’t get on the move by tonight there’s no telling what kind of devastation those bastards in the Hammer could wreak.”

“Look,” Celerity responded, calmed down and talking with a tone of understanding, “I don’t like these guys any more than you guys do, but I just can’t bend the rules like that, it’s not how things are done.”

“Can’t you talk to Frostbite?” Midnight asked the salmon colored mare. “I’m sure if we explain to him the brunt of the situation he would understand.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” was the only response we got.

Faith and I moved sluggishly into our room. The single bed with the overly firm mattress sound more appealing than thinking about sleeping in the same bed with Faith while our ‘relationship’ was on the fritz, the two of us never getting to finish our chat about her constant teasing.

I crawled into bed next to Faith, subconsciously snuggling up to her for additional comfort, neither of us saying a word as we drifted off to sleep. As I blinked my eyes slowly, Faith murmured something in her slumber.

“Destiny…” she mumbled. Was she dreaming about me? I couldn’t be bothered to think too much about it. I contented myself in rolling over, Faith’s head resting under my chin as I blacked out in exhaustion.

A black void. I thought to myself that I knew what was going to come next, a chilling vision of an event in the past or yet to come. This time it was a city along the coast of a nation, bamboo roofed houses making up the majority of the city. I could see the citizens, ibex by the look of it. Their trademark horns and symbol tattoos in the same location as cutie marks being their main identifying factors.

The city was abuzz with activity, large market places with multiple stalls servicing ponies and ibex, floating river shops sailed along canals that cut the city into sections. It seemed like a sunny day, but I knew that like my previous visions it was likely to end up in some cryptic event that I would later have to interpret.

My invisible view point shifted, looking to a hill overlooking scattered huts near the edge of the city. I noticed something was not right as I squinted my sight to see what was wrong. I noticed a large elemental; a living embodiment of fire dominated the horizon at the peak of the hill. The elemental raised its infernal arms to the sky, darkening the blue sky into a tinted red as flaming rocks befell on the city.

The rocks were stopped however, as a powerful shield blocked the rocks as they impacted it, briefly bringing the invisible energy shield into sight. The city began to panic at the attack, the citizens fleeing into their huts and houses at the elemental fought to punch through the shield with his unrelenting assault of fire and brimstone.

I could see the shadow of a pegasus overhead as a beam shot out from a necklace hanging around its neck, causing the elemental to wail in pain as it recoiled at the damage done by the magical energy beam. The sky returned blue as my vision faded into darkness.

I awoke, the time on the nearby clock reading three in the afternoon. I looked to my surroundings, noticing the beige coated mare lying in front of me. Faith had not moved from her original position when I fell asleep, still nestled between my hooves and resting her head on my chest.

I sighed contentedly. I enjoyed the position I was in at the moment, but knew it would be complicated to explain my current posture if she woke up. I decided to wiggle my hooves out from under her body and moved her head lightly from its resting position under my own.

I hopped off the bed and gave myself a quick shake, waking me up from my tiredness. I knew it would take forever to get my body clock on schedule but the midmorning and early afternoon nap next to that mare was worth it. I walked over to the door and pushed it open, walking down the stairs and into the main lobby of the security firm.

Celerity was still working the desk, glancing up at me but not uttering a single word as she simple went back about her business looking at a couple of files for the cover company. I decided to pass up on asking her about the status on Midnight’s release, assuming that she would speak to me when she had information, and hopefully it would be soon.

I walked passed her and decided to check the training grounds for Gilda, hoping an interesting conversation with her will help kill time as I waited for Frost to get in from his cover job at the Manehattan archives. My search was rewarded when I found the gryphon on the target range again, practicing sharp shooting on her signature dual pistols as she popped off targets that stuck their heads out.

When she had successfully picked off six targets she set down her smoking pistols for a small brake, once again noticing me out of the corner of her yellow eyes. She took a talon to the handle of the doorway, opening up to allow us to talk as she picked up her pistols and packed them away safely.

“Sup, Destiny,” Gilda said. “What brings you down to the ol’ range?”

“Just looking to talk,” I said. “I’m not a good shot,” I admitted.

“You’re a blade mare, no shame in that. What’s on your mind?”

“You were working in gryphon intelligence before you got burned right?” I asked, knowing I was treading on thin ice talking about her banishment.

“Yeah, why?” she asked in a suspicious tone.

“Do you have any contacts you kept in the gryphon kingdoms?” I asked flatly, not bothering to beat around the bush with her.

“I kept a few,” Gilda replied apprehensively, “What part you heading out to?”

“There’s an artifact in the ruins of Old Asgard,” I responded. “Know anyone nearby?”

“Envy, an old gal pal back when I ran some ops for the kingdom of Talos during the resulting civil conflict after High King Guntram kicked it. The jarl of Talos enlisted me to do some wet work on a few traitors selling secrets in the Hall of Asgard. She was my inside contact.”

“And you’re sure she’s still friendly after the banishment?” I asked.

“As friendly as they come to exiled warriors, everypony has someone on the inside when their out, even you.”

“Wait,” I paused, “How did you know-”

“What? You don’t think everypony in the guild got the debrief on the walk in’s? We have your history down, and it’s quite an interesting one, I’ll say that.”

“The whole reason I was exiled was because of those cultists, I defended a friend of mine from them.”

“Alright then, I’ll help. Envy works at a bar in Asgard called the Grand Mead Hall; it’s the most popular bar in the city. She works the counter, and all kinds of ponies and gryphons alike visit there, so it should be easy enough to blend in. When she asks for your order, ask for a branded bird, she’ll know I sent you.”

“Sounds cryptic,” I commented. “That all?”

“Hey, I never said this spook thing was straight forward. Working with Frostbite is so much better, not as much red tape, and for a noble cause as opposed to furthering a cities goal for usurping power in the kingdoms.”

“Thanks, Gilda,” I put my hoof forward, offering her a friendly handshake, “It’s been a real pleasure getting to work with someone like you, you’re quite a character.”

“Ya’ think? Glad you see it that way, because I’m not sure Celerity does.”

“What did she do now?” I asked.

“She had to quote, ‘begrudgingly give me time off to sort out my personal life.’ Like what the hay does that mean?”

“A sign of fate that you should use the time off to go talk to that old marefriend of yours?” I added my input.

Gilda brought her talon to her forehead in an audible slap before muttering, “Frost always knows, doesn’t he?”

A voice came over a speaker system built into the building, “I do! Also, Destiny, could I speak to you upstairs, Faith is with me currently, thanks.” The unmistakable voice of Frost came and went in that one sentence, causing me to look to Gilda with a tad bit of uncertainty.

“Oh well, have fun,” was her only response. I sighed and thanked her once again for her help in setting Faith and I (and hopefully Midnight) up in Asgard without much hassle before heading back up the stairs to get talk to Frost.

“I’ve been considering your proposal,” Frost spoke in a controlled manner. It was unnerving to say the least compared to his rather cold, passive-aggressive attitude before changing into a stoic expressionless merchant of death. “Do you have anypony that can back up your story on this prophecy? It is not as if I am ungrateful for the work you put forward in helping put a stop to Capo and his organized crime ring, allowing us to focus our resources mostly on the Hammer present in Manehattan and the rest of Equestria, but I don’t want to simple lose a stallion on a story.”

“Do you have time to send anypony to Alexmanedria to speak to the ancient spirit of knowledge Wong Shei Tuong? Because we don’t if we want to make it to Asgard within the next few days, it’ll take a while on foot, a week and a half at least.”

“I’m sure I could arrange a chariot to get you to Pisa, on the edge of the Gryphon Kingdom borders. I’ll allow you to borrow him for the time being, but I ask you meet back with the guild elsewhere in Equestria when I get my answers. I will be in touch, Destiny.”

“So that means he can go?” Faith asked, a gleam present in her eyes at the prospect of a new traveling companion.

“Yes,” Frost confirmed, “You have my permission for Midnight to be on temporary leave from the guild to assist you two in fighting the Hammer over the entire world. I wish you the best of luck in your quest for the next element or artifact, the chariot will pick you up from here tonight, be prepared to move.”

“Weapons?”

“Check.”

“Food?”

“Check.”

“Midnight?”

“Che- wait,” I paused. “I thought he was here, the chariot is supposed to be arriving in a couple of minutes.” I looked around the lobby of the private security firm, searching for the dark blue coat that represented our newest addition to the team. “Midnight?”

“Hey girls,” Midnight said as he rounded a corner, floating some cardboard cup holders that held a few plastic cups. “Sorry about cutting it close, just thought we’d like some coffee for the road. It’s a five hour flight to Pisa.”

Faith gasped, “I thought I’d never be so happy in my life to see caffeine! I’m starting to like you more than Destiny already.”

“Hey!” I protested. “Not funny, Faith.”

“Well you have to make up your mind,” Faith replied.

“On what?” I retorted.

“On whether you want friendly banter teasing or sexual teasing; honestly, you are such an indecisive mare.”

Midnight took a sip of his Stars Buck coffee before speaking, “Is this sort of bickering common between you two?”

“Fairly,” I admitted.

Before Midnight could continue a chariot descended from the Manehattan sky, drawn by pegasi dawned in golden colored royal armor. The guards lacked any sort of expression whatsoever, their stone faced expression unnerving me ever so slightly.

“Frost called in a royal chariot for us?” Faith asked.

“Must’ve asked Shining for a favor,” Midnight stated. “I heard back when Frost was in the royal guard those two were very close, practically brothers.”

“Sir,” one of the guards spoke up, “and madams, we are to take you to Pisa on the edge of the Gryphon Kingdoms, please climb aboard so we may depart.”

The three of us climbed aboard, and the chariot nearly immediately ascended into the sky. I had never flown above the tallest buildings that dominated the Manehattan skyline, but now I was getting a sense of want just looking at the bright expanse of urban land below me.

“Hey you guys,” I broke the silence and quiet sipping of coffee as I spoke. “I’m going to go stretch my wings; it feels like forever since I’ve gotten a real flight.”

“Okay,” Faith replied, “Just stay close so you don’t lose us, the last thing we need is for you to get lost halfway through the flight.”

“Relax,” I responded, “The sun just set, there’s enough light left for me to make out you two. I’ll just be a bit to get some flips in.”

I took to the sky with a powerful leap off of the chariot platform, the air below me revealing specs moving along the streets as they browsed the city at night. The chariot had been a couple of hundred feet up to clear any of the taller Manehattan buildings as well as any mountains we were likely to encounter along the way, specifically the Grand Dragon Mountain where according to Midnight, a dragon from the Scorched Lands had recently decided to take a nap and pollute nearby Ponyville and Cloudsdale with a thick veil of smoke. Had it not been for the Elements of Harmony, the entire country would most likely be covered in a choking smog for a hundred years or so until the dragon decided to wake up.

I decided to practice an old Archangel routine as I flew around the sky, using some of my personal signature moves like the cloud spinner extreme and the hypersonic blast wave. They were somewhat flashy, but I decided it was the best way to make sure I didn’t forget how to fly while we were in a country of gryphons.

I landed after finishing the short routine, looking to Faith and Midnight who had been half engrossed in a discussion while watching my performance.

“So,” I asked, “What did you guys think?”

“That was pretty awesome, I have to admit,” Midnight responded. “I knew you were good, but that was a little unexpected.”

“Though a bit flashy,” Faith added. “Still, that last trick, what was it?”

“The hypersonic blast wave?”

“Ah, yes that’s it; well the blast wave looked very powerful indeed. Maybe one day your prowess in the air will come in handy or save our lives, who knows.”

I became mildly flushed at the praise from Faith, quickly disguising it and composing myself when I realize I was blushing, hoping the fading light hid it from the others.

“Well now that your wings are stretched,” Midnight said, “we can get down to business.”

“Okay,” I replied slowly, “What kind of business?”

“Well, mainly I have no idea where we’re going in the kingdoms, what we’re looking for or what our first course of action is when landing in Pisa. I was hoping you could explain a little, Destiny.”

“Me?” I asked, “What’s wrong with Faith explaining the plans while I was flying?”

“I just assumed since you were the leader you would be the one coming up with the next moves to take.” Whoa, wait a minute. Did he just say I was the leader?

“I’m not the leader,” I protested, “This has always been a team thing and Faith knows it. I don’t order anything in this group; any and all suggestions are open onto the table.”

“In other words,” Faith said, “We have no plan.”

“Now that’s not true,” I disagreed. “In truth I got Gilda to give me the name of an old contact of hers in Asgard. Gilda said she would help us out with a couple of supplies while we searched the upper ruins or Old Asgard for the golden feather.”

“And as far as getting from Pisa to Asgard?” Midnight raised a valid point, my response being a pathetic response.

“We make it up as we go,” I responded simple, raising a face hoof out of Faith. “Like I said if either of you two have a better idea I’d love to hear it.”

“Fine,” Faith said, almost as expressionless as the guards flying the chariot. “We play it by ear then.”

“Thanks for the ride!” I called as I waved a hoof to the two pegasi that had flown us to the edge of the town of Pisa, a joint gryphon and pony settlement in the foothills of a mountain range near the edge of the territory held by the kingdoms.

The guards simple bowed and left without another word, their expressionless faces never wavering as they rode off into the late night. It had just been after midnight when we landed, Faith yawning in exhaustion at being awake at the late hour, Midnight seeming to be unaffected.

“Those two were cold,” Faith managed to comment between sighs and yawns.

“Colder than Frostbite,” I added. “Come on, we need to look for an inn to spend the night before Faith passes out.”

“I concur,” Faith managed to mumble. The three of us took off into the streets of town. I could feel the roads paved with cobblestone underneath my hooves and many of the houses containing thatched roofs and simple brick and wooden structures. I could still make our simple electrical appliances in many of the lit houses as we passed, alerting to me that this place was deceptively modern, though I had no idea where they got the generators to power the town.

As we walked along a main road, the emptiness was a stark contrast to the vibrant nightlife of Manehattan, the main street being virtually devoid of any life. A few houses still boasted lights this late into the night, including a building showing a sign that read ‘The Sleeping Dragon Inn.’ I motioned to my companions that there would be our best bet at a good nights’ sleep. They hastily agreed as I moved over and pushed open the door with a hoof.

My eyes were greeted with the sight of a lone bartender, a male gryphon, idly washing glasses. He was probably working the night shift, I concluded. It was likely this was a 24 hour inn and we would be able to check in even this late at night. The bartender sat behind a counter of ancient looking wood, several bar stools accompanying the old counter top. Behind him, several bottles of brand name alcohols, including several I had never heard of before greeted by eyes. My nose was assaulted with the smell of mixed drinks, several of the scents seeming increasingly alluring the longer I lingered near the area.

I gave a small shake of the head to clear my thoughts, my brain moving sleep to a higher priority than enjoying a drink at the moment. I walked up to the bartender, causing him to look up from his cleaning.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a friendly tone. I guess if you lived in a town founded by both ponies and gryphons, every one of them was fairly friendly for there to not have been civil war amongst the citizens.

“Can I rent a couple of rooms?” I asked. “And what are the rates for doing so?”

“10 bits a night per room, we have three open at the moment,” the gryphon responded.

“I’ll take all three,” I replied, not wanting to have to deal sharing a bed with Faith just to avoid paying ten extra bits. I was too tired for that kind of mental work to process the consequences of intentionally making Faith sleep with me.

“I can tell you three are tired,” the gryphon commented, “Well except your stallion friend over there, he looks more wide awake then Celestia in the morning. Either way, just pay for your rooms tomorrow, I won’t hassle you now.”

“Thanks,” I managed to get out. “We’ll pay in the morning when everypony’s up,” I replied. I half carried Faith up the stairs that led onto the second floor of the inn, Midnight following in hoof as we made our way to the three free rooms. I opened the door to Faith’s room and supported her as she moved over to the bed at a rather sluggish pace, eventually plopping herself down in the soft gryphon down before murmuring.

“Thanks Destiny,” Faith managed to say as she blinked slowly, fighting to keep consciousness as sleep began to overtake her.

“Sleep tight, book worm,” I teased back, “We’ll get a fresh start in the morning.” I left her as I trotted out of the room, shutting the door behind me before coming face to face with a smirking Midnight.

“What?” I asked him, unsure why he was smiling, or why he was so close to my face.

“You need to stop hiding this from her,” Midnight scolded.

“What do you mean?” I said, not quite catching what he was hinting at.

“This whole thing,” Midnight said back as if it was as plain as the color of my coat. “It’s painfully obvious you two like each other, so just get it over with and tell you how you feel because it’s really annoying to watch her tease you waiting for a response and you too awkward or nervous to do anything about her.”

“I’m way too tired for this,” I stated. “Can we discuss my love life tomorrow morning over breakfast?”

“Fine,” Midnight huffed, “But you will tell her, and soon.”

“Deal,” I replied before I moved into my room, slightly thankful for once to have a bed to myself. Despite Midnight’s expert assassin observations on the relationship tension between me and my well-read companion, I noticed a lack of longing as I slept alone. Perhaps it was a subconscious conclusion, either of one that stated Faith and I were nothing more than friends and there should be no reason for me to long her missing from my immediate side, or that my mind drew the conclusion she was literally three feet away on the other side of the wall, and that I wasn’t truly alone.

I still silently thanked Midnight for basically pushing me to confess my feelings to Faith. I knew I couldn’t keep it bottled up but my mind kept rationalizing it as there being more important and world altering matters to attend to than my personal love life.

I climbed into bed, for the first time in a while my wings sore from a flight, and my mind racing with the possibilities that the next day held.

I awoke from a dreamless sleep, the windowless and clock void room hiding what the current time was. A soft light emanating from the night life guided my hoof until it could grab and pull on a string to turn on a lamp, the room becoming flooded with artificial light.

The inn room itself was non-descript as far as rooms go; a bed, a side table with the lamp and a small desk filled the room. Like most inns I had stayed in on my journey, food was served downstairs, and the smell easily wafted up from between the cracks in the door. My wing muscles still ached from the array of tricks I performed over Manehattan, but I forced myself out of the extremely comfortable gryphon down bed anyway. I still longed for a cloud bed, having not felt one since I was tossed out of my home just over two weeks ago, but had decided that such luxuries could be afforded after the world was saved.

I opened the door with a light push, my eyes adjusting to the natural light flowing in from the windows on the lower floor of the inn. I noticed Faith and Midnight already enjoying breakfast as I came down the stairs.

“You slept in,” Faith commented. “Glad to see you’re finally up.”

“And you passed out,” I teased back. “What time is it?”

“Just after ten,” Midnight replied, “Don’t worry about paying for the room, I got it covered.”

“Oh,” I replied with mild surprise, “Thanks, but you didn’t have to do that.”

“I know but if I’m going to be part of the team I should help out where I can,” Midnight gave a small smile. “Now come, get some food before it gets cold.” I didn’t argue to that as I moved over hungrily to the food prepared by the bartender still working from the night before.

“How long do you work?” I decided to strike up a conversation with the gryphon between bites of eggs and hay browns, deciding now was a good time to get information on the town of Pisa and what was the easiest way to get from here to Asgard.

Trotting was our last resort, deciding that spending a week crossing valleys and mountain tops was an unnecessary risk compared to paying a chariot fair. Gryphons still flew non flying passengers in between the Halls, as Gilda told me. Trade had been up recently between certain gryphon settlements and Pisa, home to a number of unicorn and earth ponies, meaning that their needed to be a simpler means of transportation than traversing the ancient dirt and cobblestone pathways between the Halls and the gryphons lacked an intricate rail system unlike Equestria.

“I work between midnight and noon, and then my brother takes over bartending and taking care of patrons while I get some much needed shut eye,” the bartender responded. “The name’s Hroth, and my brother, who is still sleeping at our home across the street is Hirschgard. We’ve been working at this inn for over ten years now after our parents retired.”

I had my suspicions about inn owners after my experience with Free Bird, but I had no reason or grounds to suspect anything was amiss with Hroth other than previous experiences.

“That’s a while, so you must know a lot of the locals here,” I commented back.

“Well of course,” Hroth replied, “Anypony or gryphon in particular you’re trying to track down?”

“Someone who can secure my companions and I a chariot to Asgard, we have,” I gave an ever so brief pause as I searched for an appropriately vague term that still got my message across, “business,” I went with, “and need a faster way to get there then walking the paths on the ground.”

“Well there are the Braveheart brothers,” Hroth said, “but I heard from a pegasus in the market place they’re in a bit of a bind at the moment and can’t service anypony anywhere for the time being.”

“Do you know what the problem is?” Faith asked, having finished her meal and jumping into the conversation.

“No clue, the merchant didn’t say specifically, but I can only guess such a thing is serious for those two to close up shop. That taxi service is their whole life, like Hirsch’s and my inn.”

“Then we know where to hit first,” I said back.

The three of us walked along the street, a chilling breeze blowing lightly. The marketplace was abuzz with activity, from ponies and gryphons trading goods and services to the various other activities taking place in the street such as foals playing with one another.

“What’s the name of this place?” Midnight turned and asked me. The three of us had decided that our best course of action was to talk to the gryphons ourselves and see what we could do to resolve their problem. The way I had reasoned it, we not only could help a couple of gryphons in need, but it was likely that solving the issue would take a shorter amount of time then walking.

“Braveheart Transportation,” I replied. “We go in, ask them what the problem is, solve it, and get on our way to Asgard.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Faith remarked.

“That sounded easy?” Midnight said, “We don’t even know what their problem is.”

“Oh hush, you two,” I replied. “I just want to get this over with. There,” I pointed with a hoof, “That’s where they are.”

We opened the door to a shop sporting the sign ‘Braveheart Transportation: Getting you where you need to go no matter the risk!’ A design of an eagle in flight and a lion growling flanked the slogan on either side. A sign on the door said they were closed, but through the window I could see the two brothers idly attempting to decide what to do next.

I rapped my hoof a couple of times on the door, causing the two gryphons to look up in surprise. I moved away from the doors and windows and waited as they answered the door, their yellow eagle eyes staring through a slit in the door before they opened it.

“Hello,” the gryphon spoke, “I’m sorry to inform you but we are closed until further notice, please come back again some other time.” As he moved the door closed I stuck a hoof in the way to stop it.

“Hroth said you’re having a little issue,” I told him. “I said to him that I would look into your issue and see if we can’t get you and your brothers business up and running again.”

“You don’t get it,” the gryphon said, “There’s nothing anyone can do. The guard won’t look into it at all.”

“It’s a good thing we’re not guard then,” Faith spoke up. “Why don’t you let us in and at least explain what your issue is. I’m sure we can do what we can to put a stop to it.”

The gryphon paused a bit, as if contemplating letting us in. Finally he gave up on trying to keep us out, opening the door before speaking.

“Fine,” he said. “Brother,” the gryphon turned and spoke to his brother, currently nervously sipping on a cup of coffee, “We have guests.”

“Guests?” the brother gryphon replied as he eyed the three of us, paying special attention to me, probably because I was a pegasus. “Lion, why do we have guests when we are closed?”

“They thought they might be able to help,” the gryphon I assume was named Lion replied. “Please, Eagle, they could be our last hope.”

“It would help,” Midnight said, “If we knew what to help with, could either of you explain what’s so bad to make you close up shop?”

Lion started off, sighing before speaking, “A few days ago, a pegasus came by our shop. He had an, associate of sorts he said, in Asgard, which would harm our mother who was living there unless we shut down our taxi service for the next week. He threatened to ruin the store and break our chariots if we went to the guard, so we have forgone their help. We don’t know what to do anymore, other than comply and let him shut us down for a week.”

“Destiny,” Faith tapped me on the shoulder, “A random pegasus walks in, threatens to harm their mother if they don’t shut down for just a week, and has associates in Asgard. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but they sound like-”

“Hammer,” I finished for her. “They want to move in on Golden Feather without anyone from Equestria flying in, no doubt that banker we lost on Wall Street tipped them off.”

“Do you have a description of this pegasus?” Midnight asked.

“Teal coat, silver mane, cutie mark was, oh I can’t remember,” Lion trailed off.

“A cutie mark of a tornado I believe,” Eagle answered for him. I saw Midnight tense up noticeably. “But this town has over two thousand residents, there’s no way you’ll be able to find him.”

“I already know where to start looking,” Midnight said.

“You know this pegasus?” I turned to my new traveling companion in surprise.

“His name is Zephyr, and he used to be part of the Manehattan weather team.”

“I guess after we wrapped up the pendant heist the Hammer focused their efforts in the Gryphon Kingdoms, relocating cultists and such,” Faith reasoned. “Well if we know him, what’s our first course of action?”

“Well we have a description,” I replied. “It shouldn’t be hard to set up watch at a few points around the town and see if we can’t snag him at one.”

“There’s too many common gathering points in the city for just the three of you to cover,” Lion spoke up. “Allow me and my brother to help, anything to help put a stop to that bastard pegasus.”

“Deal,” I said back.

“Did I mention I hate surveillance?” Faith spoke up again in my ear.

“There are worse jobs out there, trust me,” Midnight replied. The three ponies that were us and the two gryphon brothers passed the time by talking back and forth through the long range communication spell set up by Midnight, with a little help from Faith to maintain it on five creatures at once. “You could be on coffee detail,” Midnight sneered.

“Very funny you two,” I spoke as I watched several groups of ponies and gryphons pass by, saddle bags full of whatever they had purchased at the nearby market I was stationed at. I was staking out on a roof top, attempting to stay out of sight while still maintaining a good vantage point of the streets below. Tailing a pegasus called for a different approach, and Eagle and I took rooftops on opposite sides of the town, with enough clear skies to see any flying creature enter or leave the area.

My area overlooked a local market; Faith took the area near the library, it being a major intersection of town roads. Midnight was stationed near the mayor’s office, keeping an eye out for any suspicious looking individuals. Eagle took the rooftops around a busy residential area, Lion taking a patrol route in between the areas, hoping to catch the pegasus on the move.

My new vantage point allowed me to get a better view of the town, the area turning out to be more than the cobblestone paths and thatched roofs that I noticed late last night. I realized the expanse this town covered, and the wide variety of life found here. Pisa was world famous for being a joint settlement between ponies and gryphons, the only one ever known to exist. While Vaporia was technically a cloud continent consisting of dragons, gryphons and ponies, they each had their separate forms of government and capitals, from the trio of dragons to the tribunal of pegasi to the prime minister of the gryphons of Aer. The point is that a pony-gryphon society had never worked before, yet I saw a day in the life of the town that was never supposed to work unfolding before my eyes.

It gave a small glimmer of hope for the future, and helped verify the part of me that doubted my efforts against the Hammer really made any sort of difference. Faith’s voice broke my thoughts as I had to control myself from bursting into action.

“I’ve got him” Faith’s voice came through loud and clear. “I can’t tail him though, he’s walking rooftops now.”

“Lion you got him?” I asked to the gryphon patrolling the areas between our stake out points.

“Heading towards the mayor’s office,” Lion replied.

“Seems like he’s in a hurry,” Eagle added.

“Midnight, get ready to take him down, but we need him alive,” I added, not sure if the former assassin would take the word ‘takedown’ as a synonym for kill.

“Yeah, yeah,” Midnight replied, “No permanent damage, I got it. Might be some temporary for knocking him off a roof top though.”

“You can do that,” I replied, not caring if the pegasus suffered a couple of bruises for his part in the acquisition of the artifacts. Threating family should always be off limits, and it made me sick.

“I see him,” Midnight said back. “Alright going in three, two, one.” A brief pause accompanied the count down, signaling Midnight was in the middle of a take down. I strained me eyes to try and make out the mayor’s office from my rooftop, as I could see a figure fall after being struck by a small bolt of light shot from the ground.

“I’m good you guys,” Midnight spoke up, “Anytime you want to bag him is fine with me.”

Author Note: After August 31st the story will go on hiatus for Noble Cause to tally the final word counts, chapter ten should be out by then and chapter eleven will most likely be partially on the way and posted to receive the most accurate word count. I will be finishing the planned twenty five chapters of the story, but will take a week break for the contest.

Chapter 10 - The Kingdom of Asgard

Chapter Ten – The Kingdom of Asgard

“Watch yourself, little pony.”

“I told you I don’t know anything!” Zephyr was shouting like a broken record, and it was starting to get on my nerves.

“Some random stallion in Asgard wires 20,000 bits to an offshore account in Haven and you didn’t ask for his name?” I yelled back. “You just roll with the whole threaten a gryphons family and take the money?”

“Look,” Zephyr responded, “I was approached by some banker pony in Manehattan, alright. He told me to take a trip up to Pisa. Told me to threaten a pair of gryphons with their own family while he took care of some business; look I don’t have anything personal against gryphons but come on 20k, are you kidding me?”

I pulled a hoof back as I prepared to slug the bastard in the face, “Tell me why I shouldn’t slit your throat then?”

Zephyr’s eyes widened in fear, “Because I’m the only one giving the okay that everything is fine!”

I lowered my hoof ever so slightly so that it was just above the ropes tied around his chest. “Okay, you bought yourself time to explain.”

“This stallion, he had a brown coat, and a black mane,” I tensed up at the description, “He approached me at a bar I like to hang out at after work, offered me a thousand bits just to hear him out. When he told me I get another 19 just to spin a story to a gryphon and stay in town for a week I jumped at it. I mean, I’m sure nothing’s actually wrong, right?”

“Wrong,” I replied. “That stallion, did you catch a cutie mark?”

“No, he was wearing a trench coat and had a black fedora.”

“And what did you mean you’re the only one giving the okay here?” Midnight growled.

“Look, the guy sends a gryphon messenger everyday around 5, and I meet him at a local bar, give him the okay. He flies off to Talos to give the message to another gryphon who takes it to the guy in Asgard. If anything in the chain gets interrupted something bad goes down, he said.”

“Yet, this whole time you thought the thing a bluff?” Faith spoke up, “That there wouldn’t be any actual consequences?”

“Look,” Zephyr tried to defend himself, “I’m just on the Manehattan weather team, alright. I’m not even team leader; I make minimum wage and this offer comes out of the blue I don’t ask many questions.”

“And anyway-” Zephyr tried to speak before I shoved a hoof in his mouth.

“Listen to me,” I snarled, “You’re going to do everything I say, okay?”

“Mmkay,” Zephyr said, being muffled by my hoof.

“We’re going to let you go, and I’m going to follow you to the bar where you meet this gryphon. You’re going to give the okay, and leave. Got it?”

I removed my hoof before he said anything, “I can do that.”

“Good, then once that’s done, you’re going to stay here until the end of the week, and keep giving the okay to the messenger, then you’re going to go back to Manehatten, go to Quick Fix Security downtown, and ask for the owner, Celerity.”

“Destiny,” Faith spoke up, “What are you planning-”

“You’re going to tell her of your encounter with this trench coated pony,” I cut Faith off. “If everything goes well she won’t report you to the guard, you tell her Destiny says that she investigating the trench coat pony, okay?”

“Okay,” Zephyr replied with a slight shiver.

“Lion, do you have the time?” I turned to asked the gryphon in the room.

“3:30, Destiny,” he responded.

“Alright then,” I replied. “Looks like you’re going to wait here for another hour, Zephyr.”

“Oh come on, can’t you let me out now?” He protested.

“Can’t do,” I said back. “I’ve got things to discuss.”

I moved out of the dark room, keeping the bright interrogation lamp on and pointed at Zephyr. I motioned my companions and Lion to follow, Eagle guarding the door. We had been using the back room of Braveheart Transportation, once used as an office but easily converted into a dark terror chamber.

“You’ve got a plan?” Midnight asked once we were finally out of the back room.

“Simple,” I said as if it were plainly that. “We take the fight to Mr. Money Hooves in Asgard.”

“And what about Zephyr?” Faith argued, “We can’t simple leave him and hope that he doesn’t tell the gryphon messenger that one, everything is not okay, and two, to kill their mother.”

“Where does your mother live?” I asked, turning to Lion and completely ignoring Faith’s concern.

“Near the Grand Mead Hall, she works there as a bartender,” Lion replied.

“And her name is?” I continued.

“Aniv,” Lion responded.

I let out a sigh I didn’t realize I was holding, “Well at least it’s not Gilda’s contact, so we can stay out of sight while keeping tabs on her.”

“It still means two subjects,” Midnight pointed out.

“I’m lost,” Faith said.

“Yeah, me too,” Eagle spoke up.

“You want to explain or should I?” Midnight asked as he turned to me. It was obvious to the two of us, both having military training, how to deal with this situation, but to the untrained like Faith, who’s military experience came from history books, and Lion and Eagle, who ran a taxi service throughout the Kingdoms, they had no idea what either of us were formulating in our heads.

“I’ll go,” I offered. “The basic plan is this. We have Zephyr continue giving the okay while Eagle and Lion fly you two overnight into Asgard. We find Envy and Aniv, keeping watch on Aniv to make sure Mr. trench coat doesn’t get any ideas. We establish contact with Envy, get the artifact and get Money Hooves to follow our trail to our next destination. Simple.”

“And our next destination is, where exactly?” Faith asked.

“Working on it,” I responded, earning an annoyed look from Faith. “Let’s just focus on the task at hand, alright?” In truth, I had somewhat of an idea of where to go. Though I had never left the Outer Kingdoms, thanks to textbooks I had recognized the location in my vision as Foal Chi Minh City, located in Ib’Xian, the land of the Ibex.

While commonly mistaken for goats, the ibex contained several key differences, both physical and mental. Ib’Xian had a warrior society, priding itself on over a hundred different unique mixed martial arts. They also had symbols on their flank, similar to cutie marks only fake and tattooed. They had a special meaning in the old ibex language, but I couldn’t read that stuff for the life of me.

“Fine,” Faith sighed, “We should tell Zephyr what to do then.”

“But how are we supposed to convince him to keep his mouth shut if you three are in Asgard?” Lion asked.

“You’re gryphons,” I stated, “Intimidate him.”

“Ow! Watch where you’re going,” Midnight said.

“Sorry I don’t have built in night vision like you,” Faith snapped back.

“Will the two of you shut up and get on the chariot while I take point,” I broke up their argument. I offered to take up the front while Eagle and Lion towed the two bickering unicorns halfway across the Kingdoms. Unlike Manehattan, Pisa did not include a bustling night life, and street lights were not as common, meaning plenty of dark spots for Faith to stumble around in.

I’ll admit it was cute watching her bump into things, and occasionally painful, but with Midnight’s built in night vision, he helped her along onto the roof of Braveheart Transportation so that we could take off.

“Alright, we’re just heading North-North-West until I see a giant mountain city, right?” I asked Lion, who was currently hitching himself up to the chariot.

“That’s the most accurate description of Asgard I’ve ever heard,” Lion replied sarcastically. “Yeah, you shouldn’t be too far ahead so if you get off course we’ll yell up to you.”

“And you know the way, how?” Faith asked, obviously unsure of the accuracy of midnight transportation.

“We know the stars,” Eagle assured. “We’ve done mid nighttime trips multiple times.”

“How do you even see in this dark though?” Faith was still arguing a moot point.

“We’re half eagle,” Eagle responded. “Don’t worry about it, get some shut eye on the flight over.”

Faith sighed in defeat, “Fine, I trust you two will get us there safely.”

“Trust us,” Lion added, “We need you guys to keep our mother safe.”

“So,” I spoke up. “Any late check in possibilities at the Grand Mead Hall?”

“We’ll be there before 3,” Eagle replied as he flared his wings, ready for takeoff.

“Up we go then,” I said as we ascended into the night.

“There it is,” Lion called from behind as I crested a small mountain. “We can drop you off in a courtyard near the inn, hoof it from there.”

“Sounds good!” I called back, picking up speed in determination. Despite the three hour flight, I had felt more alive and active then I had in a while, the cool mountain air and wind rushing through my mane giving me a spur of energy.

“I realize helping out gryphons is all well and good,” Midnight called from the back of the chariot. “But Faith is passed out; we’re carrying her to the inn and dumping her there. How are you holding up, Destiny?”

“Not too tired,” I replied, slowing a bit of speed to fall back next to the chariot and talk with Midnight as we made our descent towards the central city. “Figure we could grab a drink at the inn?”

“Are you asking me out?” Midnight asked; I could make out a smirk in the starlight.

“You wish,” I huffed back, “Like I’d get caught dead with a colt like you.”

“Ah, stallions aren’t so bad,” Midnight shot back, causing me to chuckle lightly. “Mares, can’t live with ‘em or without ‘em.”

“Let’s just get Faith here to a room,” I said. “I’ll even carry her for you.”

“Pff,” Midnight scoffed, “You just want to hold her.”

“I guess we owe you guys one,” I said to Lion and Eagle as Midnight hopped off the chariot, floating Faith over onto my back.

“Think nothing of it,” Lion replied.

“Just, keep an eye out on our mother, please,” Eagle added.

“Of course,” I replied. “Come on, Midnight.” I motioned Midnight with my hoof to follow, taking in as much of the city as I could for three in the morning. There were noticeably more street lights lining the streets at regular intervals, alleviating the pain of stumbling in a mountain city in the dead of night.

The city was almost how I expected it to be; cold, stone buildings a couple of stories tall lined the various terraces on varied levels of the city, the tallest terrace containing a grand building that I’m guessing housed whoever rules the House of Asgard.

The gryphons had been at war with one another ever since their king had died a few years ago, the three main political factions: Asgard, Talos and Eagleland all vying for power in the gryphon capital Gryphus. As such, over the past few years gryphons became colder and more suspicious then they normally were, adding to the risk of a mission as three ponies in a gryphon capital. It definitely made for some hazardous working conditions.

Lion had pointed out what direction to head to hit the Grand Mead Hall. Being one of the largest bars this side of Eternity’s Crossing, it was located on the third highest terrace in the city, right below the city-states’ leader’s terrace and that of the gryphon nobles. The large courtyard that made up the fourth and central terrace was only two levels below, a short twenty foot trot up a flight of stairs brought us to a main road on the upper terrace.

“I think I see it,” I guessed, squinting in the dark as I strained my eyes to make out the words.

“Yep,” Midnight replied, “That’s it, and I can read it clear as day.”

“You really do have built in night vision don’t you?” I asked.

“Why do you think my name is Midnight?” He chuckled. “Let’s get moving before your back gives out carrying bookworm here.”

“Hey!” I protested, “That’s my cute nickname for her, get your own.”

“Well then what do I call you?” Midnight asked as we walked along the road, our voices being the only sounds in the late night. “Bright eyes?” he asked, making an attempt to ironically name me on my dull eyes.

“Don’t talk about my eyes,” I grumbled.

“Alright,” Midnight said apprehensively, sensing he was walking on thin ice at the moment. “Anything wrong?”

“Just a bad history with them is all,” I replied, hoping to not elaborate.

“Alright, I guess,” Midnight replied, “We’re here,” Midnight announced as we strolled up to the front door, a lantern hanging outside signaling the building was still open.

I pushed the door open with a hoof and took a look inside, various empty tables and about three occupied ones greeted my eyes under low lantern light. I guess this place must’ve been old, or it was hard to get electricity all the way up the mountains for the room to be lit solely on fire.

A gryphon was watching the bar, casually washing it and tossing out drinks to the late night crowd of three tables. The bar had a somewhat low ceiling, due to it being made of rafters with netting in between, holding crates and barrels of foods and liquor. The lanterns hung from the netting such that the entire floor was well lit despite the lack of modern technology.

“What can I do for you?” The male gryphon spoke as I came up to the bar.

“How many rooms do you have free?” I asked, “And how much for a couple of nights?”

“I’ve only got one room with two beds available, cost is 15 bits a night,” the male gryphon’s somewhat raspy voice spoke.

“I’ll take it,” I replied. “Midnight, grab me a drink while I drop off Faith.”

“Got it,” Midnight replied.

“You three have room 15, sleep well,” The gryphon said as he began mixing a few drinks for Midnight. I moved up the stairs with Faith still resting on my back. I could feel her breathing softly as I opened the door and set her down on the far bed, leaving the one closer to the door open for Midnight.

When I turned around to leave, I noticed a card tacked to the door. A greeting guard that simple said ‘Missing you’ with a graphic adorned on the front. I removed it and opened it, unsure of what to find. It turned out to be a message that read:

Got wind you found a mysterious individual in Pisa, thought you might need these. –Frost

Attached to the card was a small bag with a couple of dark blue crystals. I snatched it off the card and tossed the message on the side table, hiding the bag in a small area underneath my primaries as I set my saddlebag down. I trotted back down the stairs, my eyes greeted with the wonderful sight of two mixed drinks, Midnight casually sipping on one.

“Drop off ocean eyes?” Midnight asked.

“Ocean eyes,” I paused, “I like it, fits her. Anyway, yeah I did, and I found a nice message tacked to the door, as well.”

“Let’s talk over there, then,” Midnight motioned with a nod of his head over to a table in the corner of the bar. I followed him and took a seat before he continued. “What kind of message are we talking, Destiny?”

“A greeting card,” I said simple. At Midnight’s confused expression I elaborated on it a bit. “It said ‘missing you,’ and inside was a little hoof written message from Frostbite.”

“What did he say?” Midnight leaned in curiously as I continued.

“He gave me these,” I said as I slid the small baggy out of my feathers and onto the table, raising a chuckle out of him. “What are they?” I asked.

“Permafrost Crystals,” Midnight asked, leaning in to check the crystals closer. “With an arcane infused core, heavy duty, and freshly made.”

“Made?” I asked, not sure what he meant.

“Frost cooks these up himself, but only on special occasions, think our message from Zephyr got through?”

“Must’ve,” I said, taking a swig of my drink. “So, just want to lay low and keep track of Aniv for the time being? We can contact Envy in the meantime tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Midnight replied, gulping down the rest of his drink followed by an audible burp. “We should get some rest then.”

“Sleep sounds amazing right now.”

“Gah!”

“It’s eight in the morning, shut up already!” Midnight yelled, quickly shutting up Faith and I’s startled awakening.

“Why were you yelling?” I asked Faith.

“I just, wasn’t expecting to wake up next to you is all, it startled me.” I noticed a certain hesitation in her voice, but didn’t have time to dwell on it.

“Great,” Midnight said flatly, “Now that that little event is out of the way, kiss and make up so we can get some work done. Locate Aniv first, establish contact with Gilda’s contact second.”

“I like that plan,” I said, only to be interrupted as my stomach grumbled loudly. “Does it include breakfast, though?”

“Fine,” Midnight sighed, “Breakfast, then Aniv, then Envy.”

The three of us walked down the stairs into the semi crowded bar, an array of gryphons and occasionally a few ponies were seen conducting business at tables. I noticed a gryphon walking between several tables, taking orders and bringing them to another gryphon, this one female, mixing drinks for everyone in the bar.

“Ten bits says the waitress is Aniv and the bar gryphon is Envy,” Midnight whispered to me as we set foot on the main floor. “Plan?”

“Get some food, casually approach Aniv about her current situation,” I replied.

“Do we really want to tell the civilian she may be currently be hunted by a cult of trained killers at the moment?”

“Do you want to tell her she’s being protected by a group of trained killers at the moment?” I shot back.

“Touché,” Midnight said back. We sat at a table and waited patiently as the female gryphon came over to take our orders.

“Hey, hon,” The gryphon spoke with an accent that reminded me of a city I couldn’t quite put a hoof on. “My name’s Aniv, I’ll be you’re server for the day, any drinks to start?”

“Tell the bartender I’ll have a branded bird,” I stated. “What do you guys want?”

“Water,” Midnight replied.

“I’ll have water too,” Faith added.

“Never heard of that drink, miss, but I’ll ask none the less.” Aniv turned and walked away, giving me a good look at her tail feathers as she strolled away. I mean, sure she was a little bit older, and I had a thing for Faith, but it can’t hurt for a mare to keep her options open. I saw her put in the orders to the bar tender, the alcohol dealing gryphon giving an ever so brief glance at our table before going about mixing a drink and filling two glasses with water, placing them all on some paper napkins and sending them back with Aniv.

“You’re in luck miss,” Aniv said as she came back up to the table. “Turns out a branded bird is vodka sour with a cherry twist, I had no idea.” The gryphon waitress dropped off the three drinks and went about taking the orders from other tables.

“That can’t be right,” I said. “Gilda said a branded bird would get Envy’s attention.”

“Check the napkin,” Midnight said, taking a sip of his water. “Common spook trick to write down meeting times and locations on disposable trash like that.”

I flipped over the napkin the drink had been resting on, and sure enough a message was scrawled across the paper, reading plainly:

Out back, 1 PM.

“We’ve got four hours to kill,” I said plainly. “Any ideas on how to pass it?”

“I guess our best bet would to see about supplies,” Midnight said, “We have two hoof blades between us. You have your wing blades, Destiny, and Faith and I have our magic. Plus three Permafrost Crystals-”

“I’m sorry, what?” Faith spoke up.

“Frostbite left us a present,” I replied, getting an eyebrow raise as a response. “They’re Permafrost Crystal; Midnight says they were made with an arcane core which boosts it power, allowing it to freeze anything within a ten yard vicinity.”

“Sounds powerful,” Faith commented, “Do you really think we will need to use something like that here though?”

“I hope not,” I added. “Okay so inventory is complete, and that passed a good ten minutes, anything else?”

“Isn’t there anyway to get a little more information on the old city without talking to Gilda’s contact?” Faith asked, “Like an archive or something?”

“Maybe,” I said, “We’ll ask Aniv when she gets back about a spot like that around town. If there is one, you and Midnight go check it out and I’ll take first shift on watching Aniv.”

“Deal,” Faith said and shook my hoof, obviously eager at getting to spend more time in a library, as if the Manehattan archives weren’t enough.

“Can I get you three anything else?” Aniv spoke as she strolled back up to the table.

“No thank you,” Midnight said, “But we do have one question, is there any place in Asgard that would keep records of its history?”

“The Grand Archives on the top terrace might have the answers you seek, but you must ask for a council with the Jarl.”

“Alright you two,” I spoke up, “Get it done, talk to the Jarl and find out what information we need, I’ll have another round of that special drink the bartender made me.”

“I’ll get her right on it,” Aniv said as she went back to check on a few other tables before talking to Envy working the bar.

“Long range communication spell?” I suggested.

“It should be strong enough to work across the two terraces, but it might strain it,” Midnight replied.

“We could lose you temporarily in the shelves,” Faith added.

“I know I’ll lose you in those books, Faith,” I teased. “I was talking to Midnight more.”

Faith blushed in embarrassment before lighting up her horn, casting the spell with ease on the three of us. I waved goodbye to them as they wandered out the door and I sat back down to enjoy another delicious branded bird.

“Anything?” I asked, having switched from alcohol to water before I became too inebriated to do surveillance.

“You’re not going to like it,” Faith answered.

“No matter how bad the circumstances, we can handle it,” I assured. “Give it to me straight.”

“The golden feather is located in the tomb of Torygg the Great, on the western side of the ruins. It’s under lock and key, armed with several very discouraging traps, and to top it off gryphon bandits love to roam and pillage the ruins,” Midnight listed off the impeding obstacles that sought to stop us from reaching our goal the artifact.

“Not to mention,” Faith spoke up, “That it is likely that the Elemental Hammer has agents in the city already, searching for the feather.”

“This day gets better and better,” I mumbled to myself, the spell allowing Faith and Midnight to hear in on my despair. “It’s one,” I announced, “Going to head out back and talk to Envy, you guys should be able to hear my side of the conversation.”

“We’ll keep an ear open,” Midnight assured.

I stood up from my table and walked towards the back door, slipping out without anypony or gryphon noticing, Envy nowhere to be seen. I walked along a small alley that made the back of the bar, the wall that held the upper terrace on one side, the building on the other. The alley itself was dark and dank, a stark difference between the cold, dry mountain air. I trotted along, almost expecting Envy to pop out of nowhere and do something like hold me at knifepoint to make sure I wasn’t hostile.

“Envy!” I called out, no one outside around to hear my call except the target gryphon laying in hiding. “I’ve just come to talk.”

“Then talk,” a female voice replied, a shadowy gryphon figure striding down the alley in the opposite direction. “I’m really dumb for doing this, but I’ve come unarmed, unlike you.”

“I am not trying to hide my weapons,” I stated, “But my armament isn’t the issue at hoof here, it’s about our mutual friend.”

“Our ‘mutual’ friend as you call it isn’t technically a gryphon citizen anymore, of any of the halls,” Envy argued. “Think about it, what happens if I’m caught helping a friend of a burned spy? Bad things, that’s what.”

“Faith, Midnight,” I said, causing Envy to suddenly turn around, searching for the additional ponies. “Long range communication spell,” I explained. “Can you two give me some background on how you convinced the Jarl to let you into the royal archives?”

“We told him of Gilda, he took a real liking to her apparently,” Midnight replied.

“Ah,” I paused before talking back to Envy, “They told the Jarl, he’s a friend of Gilda, and she told us you were too. We need your help to infiltrate the old city defenses, specifically the gryphon specific ones guarding Torygg’s tomb, like the claw key mechanism.” I recited the information relayed to me in real time as Faith went over step by step of our plan to get the feather.

“I’m supposed to go out on a limb here and believe that you convinced the Jarl to help the friends of a burnt gryphon spy in raiding an ancient tomb in an abandoned city a thousand feet up on the mountain? Good luck with that,” she scoffed.

“Fine,” I rebutted with, “Go ask him yourself, but we need to get this done, and soon. Innocent lives are at stake Envy.”

Envy thought for a long moment before speaking again, “Fine, I’ll look into it and get you your answer tonight. But if this story doesn’t check out, consider my answer to be my talons at your throat.”

“Deal,” I said as I put on my best bluffing smirk, not ready to trust this gryphon if she was the element of honesty.

“So that’s it?” I asked my two friends. “That’s the best plan we’ve got?”

“Roll with it, Destiny,” Midnight responded, “It’s our best bet at the moment. We have to trust the Jarl to support us and for Envy to not stab us in the back.”

“You’re an assassin!” I said exasperated, “Don’t you have some kind of protocol when working with assets?”

“You mean what you and Faith were when you were working the case on Capo?” Midnight rebutted, “We do our research, but when it comes time we just trust that they hold up to our standards.”

“Shut it, night eyes,” I grumbled. The three of us had regrouped inside the bar, Envy’s shift getting over at two just as we ended our conversation. Aniv was still working tables, so we continued to keep watch over the bar goers, checking each one for suspicious individuals.

“You two see anything?” Faith asked, breaking up Midnight and I’s mini argument.

“There might be potential trouble,” Midnight replied. “Over there,” he motioned with a very subtle move of the hoof towards a table where two gryphons were enjoying a tall mug full of mead.

“I don’t see it,” Faith trailed off.

“Oh please,” I huffed, “Drinking local drinks only, one’s always checking the exit, the other always watching between the bar and Aniv, they’re making it so obvious they want to blend in completely. Either they are two lions on the prowl from out of town, or our cultist got tipped off.”

“Well excuse me for not having any special operations training,” Faith moaned.

“You make up for it with that big brain of yours,” Midnight spoke back with a smirk.

“Those flanks don’t hurt either,” I said underneath my breath, just loud enough for Faith to catch it and blush. “They are definitely waiting for it to clear out,” I added.

“Do we wait for them to make a move?” Faith asked, “Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, be ready to spring into action before they stick a knife in her gizzard?”

“Midnight,” I said as I slid the necklace from Manehattan across to him. “You’re up, hide in the bar, hop out when ready. Faith,” I continued, turning to the mare at the table, “How long does that invisibility spell you used back in Alexmanedria last?”

“About 30 seconds before it needs refreshing,” Faith said back. “I can’t maintain constant refresh on it for more than a few minutes, though.”

“That leaves out full blown stealth attack,” I sighed, “Plan B?”

“Which is…?” Midnight trailed off.

“Our typical cover story,” I said back flatly, a completely serious look on my face.

“You could at least ask me out first, you know,” Faith complained. “These dates are getting so impersonal, especially when you’ve known me for less than two months.”

“Just a convenient story,” I reasoned, “Maybe once we save the world and have all the world leaders fawning over us for exposing some quasi-governmental force like this we could go anywhere in the world you wanted to, and for free!”

“You’re too optimistic sometimes, Destiny,” Faith replied as she chuckled softly. Midnight slipped into perfect invisibility, not even the minor distortion that accompanied unicorn induced invisibility was visible with the Lunar Pendant. Midnight kept his hoof steps silent as he weaved in between ponies and gryphons walking through and sitting at the tables, knowing immediately his cover was gone if he even brushed someone slightly on his way to his position.

“Now that he’s out of the way,” I reasoned, “And securing Aniv with a defensive spell, ready to stop the gryphons if they make a move, we take the offensive.” Before waiting for a response I slipped the bag of Permafrost Crystals out from under my feathers and squeezed one between my forward most feathers on my wing, ready to fling it out with a quick flick of my right wing if I needed to stop the assailants in their tracks.

I got up out of the seat, mixing into the crowd of ponies and gryphons as I got closer to the two possible hired assassins. I caught tidbits of their conversation as I closed in, most of it being, guess what? Local talk. However, I did catch something on Aniv, a comment on the lines of:

“When everyone leaves, we snatch the waitress and take her out the back, show her what it means to mess with the Hammer.” Okay, not waiting anymore. I casually trotted back and popped open my wing halfway, dropping the crystal onto the ground, the sound being masked by the various conversations happening around the bar.

“Oh, sorry,” I casually waved off myself as I brushed the two gryphons with my half popped wing, making sure I didn’t cut them with the concealed mini wing blade. I walked over to the bar and simply said out loud: “If you want to trigger the crystal, now is the time.”

“Any proof?” A voice responded back.

“Heard them talking about a snatch and grab on Aniv when everypony is gone, they mentioned the Hammer. Can we just get this show on the road?”

“Clear the table next to them, buy mead, stumble over there and spill it,” Midnight stated. I ordered a glass of mead from the bartender, the same male gryphon from late last night and balanced the glass on my wing. Acting drunk wasn’t hard, my body still feeling some of the effects from the surveillance two hours earlier. As I approached the table of a pegasi and a gryphon, I pretended to trip and cause my glass to shatter on the table top.

“Hey!”

“Watch it!”

“Oh, sorry you guish,” I slurred slightly for emphasis, “I guessh I’ve had a little to mush to drink.” The two occupants of the table got up, but the two gryphons simply gawked at the unfolding scene, staying completely in place. I continued to stumble towards the bar until the two gryphons eyes left me, walking over to where Midnight was standing before speaking again.

“Anytime you want to magically detonate that Permafrost Crystal,” I whispered in a hushed tone to the invisible unicorn.

“Yeah, yeah, just hold on to your hooves, these do have Arcano-Accelerant cores.” I paused for a second, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, a burst of cold air made me jump from my position and shut my eyes momentarily. I opened them back up to find that the two gryphons had been completely encased in ice, even the table and drinks becoming encased in a thick blanket of it.

Several gasps and concerned looks from the bar goers broke the silence as they looked to the frozen gryphons. A curious bar goer walked up to the statue-like once living frozen creatures and tapped one with his talon, the ice instantly shattering and falling to the floor, causing even more gasps to rise up from the crowd.

“We should go,” I whispered to Midnight, making my way over to Faith and grabbing her as I dashed out the back door, the invisible Midnight’s hooves sounding behind me.

“That was some trouble you caused, kid,” Envy said. The three of us had met up with the gryphon behind the bar about an hour after the crystal went off, “Freezing two gryphons solid, this has to do with this group Gilda told me about, doesn’t it?”

“We overheard them planning a snatch and grab on Aniv,” Faith spoke up.

“On her? Why? She’s a waitress,” Envy pointed out.

“Her two sons run a taxi service in Pisa and the Hammer wanted to shut down traveling to here to secure the artifact in the old city,” I replied, “And we didn’t exactly let their business stay closed.”

“You used them to get your unicorn friends here and set up a watch on Aniv to see if anyone came looking, clever,” Envy complimented. “So I did a little digging on what I’ve got before my eyes, and I must say when I asked Gilda through magical parchment to send the files over I wasn’t expecting to find what I did.”

“And that was…?” Faith asked.

“A former Archangel from Aurora, one of Frostbite’s finest Assassins and the headmare of the Grand Library of Alexmanedria, you three make quite a team.”

“So are you in?” I went straight to the point.

“Yeah,” Envy said, “I guess I owe G one after she saved my life that one time in Manehattan. Destiny,” Envy paused and turned to me directly and Faith and Midnight made their way out of the alley. “Take this.” Envy shoved a small metal barrel into my hoof, along with a small sack of metal ball bearings. “Saw your hoof blade the last time we met, after I checked out your story I figured I should do something for ya’. So there’s a pistol attachment for your weapon, can be operated with your other hoof, and some free bullets and black powder packets. I’ll help you attach it.”

“Hitch yourself up,” Envy said as she tossed me a saddle, “We’re carrying your unicorn friends up the cliff, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied simple as I began to slip on the chariot saddle and tighten a few belts with my teeth and Faith and Midnight hopped on. The Jarl had loaned us a chariot to use to get to the old city that was closer to the mountain peak. In exchange, the three of us were to ensure that the Hammer left Asgard for good, and as he put it, ‘chasing us with the artifact in hoof.’ Still, it was generous of him, I wasn’t about to ask Envy to carry Midnight up a thousand feet, nor was I in the mood to deal with the awkwardness of spending the better part of the ascent with my hooves wrapped around her core, snuggled up tighter than when we were crammed in the cargo hold of the ship that took us into Manehattan.

“Hop on, you two,” I turned and spoke back to Faith and Midnight. They quickly obliged and stepped onto the platform on the chariot, Envy and I taking off as we ascended into the sky and towards the abandoned city. The chariot was surprisingly light, a magical enchantment making itself and the ponies riding it virtually weightless, the drag feeling like nothing more than a saddlebag filled with a couple of supplies. The ascent went rather quickly, the powerful beating of Envy and my wings creating an ever so subtle roar of wind that buffeted Faith and Midnight’s faces and manes on the steep ascent upwards.

“Well I’ll be,” breathed Faith.

“Eh, I’ve seen better,” commented Midnight.

“It does get better though,” Envy retorted.

The four of us had ended up at the gates to the old city, a steep road that fell off a cliff lay behind us, and the rotting two foot thick wooden doors lay in front of us. Faith and Midnight used their magic to open up the doors, revealing an open courtyard of crumbling stone buildings and petrified and frozen wood.

“Old,” I commented plainly.

“This city has been abandoned for over a thousand years, and even before that has existed for three K,” Envy replied, “Of course it looks old.”

“Are you familiar with the old city?” Asked Faith, unsure of how to proceed.

“Somewhat,” Envy responded, “I did a few fly-by’s back in the day with G, we actually camped out near here at the entrance to the city when we had to stage an assassination on some diplomat selling secrets.”

“So you know where the tomb of Torygg is then?” I inquired.

“I think,” Envy paused, “I think, it’s this way.” Envy pointed a talon in a direction that led down one of the pathways and into a deeper section of the city. We followed in suit as we passed building after building that looked ready to turn into dust if any of us were to so much blow on them.

“So Envy,” I spoke up as we strolled down the road, “Is it cool if I pick your brain a bit?”

“Depends on what, but go ahead if you want to get to know the girl behind the talons.”

“Gilda told me how you met,” I started, “But why keep her as a friend after she was ousted?”

“You know before the ol’ King bit it, the gryphons ran ops in Equestria to keep tabs on the inner workings of Celestia and her top generals. We had a job to do back in Manehattan monitoring the Equestrian ambassador who was about to meet with an unnamed contact from Prance, Gilda and I got assigned to watch and track who the new ambassador was and who she was meeting with.”

“And what happened?” Midnight spoke up, eager to learn a bit more about spook ops between his home country and a nearby neighbor.

“It was Celerity,” Envy said flatly, judging our reactions, “Yeah, that Celerity. Frost had the mission put out to drop spies from any other countries, and even drop Equestria’s own during the no espionage ruling that he put out, we had three assassins chasing us.”

“And she saved your life?” I continued, egging the gryphon onward.

“I got clipped in the wing running off the Celestine Empire State Building,” Envy replied, “I would been bird splatter on the ground below if Gilda hadn’t carried me over a half mile out of the city with some angry ponies in tow.”

“So Gilda almost got killed by Frost and she still works for him now?” Faith said suspiciously.

“Don’t know why, but she does. Still holds quite the grudge with Celerity though, I hear.”

Our conversation was cut short as we approached a large, ornate looking building at the end of the road that rivaled some of the more modern buildings in Manehattan in stature. Though not nearly as tall, the clean looking building displayed colorful depictions of old gryphon tales and legends. On the front door, a set of four holes, three on top and one on the bottom of a seal in the center, just far enough to fit into the talons of the average gryphon.

“The tomb of Jarl Torygg,” Envy breathed, “Never seen it up close, but the lock looks easy enough to open, shall we?”

“Do they just let any gryphon open that seal?” Faith questioned, “That doesn’t seem very secure for a former Jarl of Asgard.”

“It was just meant to keep any non-gryphon raiders out; the designers hadn’t considered that the ever proud gryphons might turn to banditry one day,” Envy pointed out.

“True,” I commented, “So let’s pop open this tomb and grab the artifact before any Hammer show up.”

As if on cue, a shot rang out from a distant building on one of the upper terraces, the round rifle shot skimming the side of Faith and dropping her to the ground, the only sound elicited from her as she fainted being a rather quiet outburst of sound.

“Faith!” I screamed as I bent down to check the immediate damage, not calming down any as I noticed the superficial and short. “Midnight, get a shield up now!” I was done messing around as I subconsciously took on the leader role I was so reluctant to take on earlier as we left Manehattan. “Envy, door, now! I’ll cover us,” I said before I grabbed Faith by her mane and began dragging her closer to the door as more gunshots rained down upon us from the gryphon cultists perch on the distant building.

Midnight’s shield was wide enough for me to knock over a crumbling stone pillar and create a makeshift bunker just outside the shield so I could fire out as I took aim with my new hoof pistol and fired a shot down range, noting its lack of accuracy at such an audacious distance, but the loud noise had the same suppression effect none the less.

“Where did you get that?” Midnight yelled as he worked to examine Faith’s wound.

“A present from Envy,” I yelled back over a couple of more shots. I ducked as one came right over my head and embedded itself into the paved road right behind me. “Speaking of which,” I paused to fire off another shot after reloading, “How’s that seal coming, Envy?”

“Working on it,” Envy replied, fiddling with her talons as she adjusted them to fit perfectly in the holes of the seal, turning it until a soft click was heard over the occasional ringing shot.

“Destiny,” Midnight called out as he readied to grab Faith again and drag her inside the tomb, “Let’s move!”

I fired another shot off without even aiming it, hoping the sound would be enough suppression as I grabbed the bag of now only a few bullets and black powder packets and dashed to my hooves as I followed Envy and Midnight into the tomb, the dark coated unicorn shutting the door with his magic and moving some debris inside to block entrance.

“Cultists?” He asked between breaths, a little exhausted at maintaining a shield against a pounding assault from a gryphon sharpshooter.

“No bandit carries such a long range rifle like that and is that good a shot to hit at that distance, he’s had training,” Envy commented, “That was a Bloodwing Sniper, hard to come by, I think our guy has got deep pockets.”

“Or good connections,” I reasoned, “Midnight, status report on Faith?”

“Wound is scabbed up, I cleaned it with what little supplies we had and bandaged it, but we’re in no position to move her.”

“Any farther in the tomb is flight only,” Envy said, “Once we get the artifact we’ll come back for you two.”

“See what you can do to wake her so we can move once we have the feather, guard the door,” I commanded before turning back to Envy, “You’re my guide here, let’s get moving.”

“Right then,” Envy walked off down the dimly torch lit hallway without another word, causing me to follow as I took one final look back at Midnight propped up Faith against the wall and began attempting to wake her.

I picked up the pace a little bit to catch up with Envy as she moved down the main hall of the tomb and down a small ramp, bringing us just below ground level.

“Hey what gives?” I asked as I caught up, “What’s with just walking off? Faith is injured you know.”

I was shocked by the outburst of Envy as she turned around, yellow eagle eyes glaring at me, “You know Destiny,” she started, “When I was shot in the wing back in Manehattan, it came out of nowhere like Faith; there was nothing I could do, and if it we didn’t get out of there I was going to bleed out so bad from that wing that I’d never fly again. So yeah, I’m in a bit of a hurry to get her out of here. It may be scabbed up now but this tomb is no place for the injured, so if you would cut the questions so we can get to the artifact, it would be much appreciated.”

“Alright,” I said blankly, unsure of how to respond to the reply I received. Envy and I came up to a gap in the floor not that long after, a sharp drop into a black pit lay below us, and even the walls on the side of the hall had been extended a couple feet out to the side to prevent somepony from climbing the wall, meaning the only way across was to fly. “They seem to really want to keep the flightless out,” I commented.

“This artifact must be pretty important then,” Envy said before flaring her wings out and taking off in a swift glide across the large gap. I followed slowly after her and touched my hooved down on the other end, noticing quickly a pressure plate I had accidently stepped on, ducking in instinct as I waited for something to shoot out. As I ducked, however, nothing responded to my hoof stepping on the pad. I cautiously raised my head and stepped off the pad, my mind half expecting the trap to trigger on it coming up. I kept moving along the trapped hallway, listening intently for any more sounds of gunfire from outside. Either we were too far away underground from the shots to hear them anymore, or our gryphon sniper friend was attempting to find another way into the tomb.

I mentally facehoofed when I realized I forgot to ask Midnight for the long range communication spell to keep in touch with Faith’s predicament. I knew that Faith wasn’t some combat hardened spec-ops pony, it was no wonder just a grazing shot caused her to faint. Maybe she was squeamish around blood, I thought. I was interrupted from my thoughts when I bumped into the tail feathers of Envy, who had stopped walking to tell me we had found the main chamber room.

A secondary talon seal blocked entrance to the tomb of Jarl Torygg, easily defeated by Envy as she inserted her claws into the seal and twisting it until the click that signaled that the door was open was heard. I pushed open the stone door with my hoof and gazed upon the room, the area lit with the same magically enchanted crystals, this time shining in a deep blue hue, that was present at the underground library, forever ensuring the room would be well lit without the use of torches.

Unsurprisingly, the tomb contained a rather grandiose sculpture of a phoenix flaring its wings, forever guarding the mummified remains of the long gone Jarl. The sculpture was made of pure marble, a stunning contrast to the plain stone that made up the majority of the city, but a part of it stuck out to the eye, a rather golden piece lodged within the wing of the statue showed to me the artifact that was in the statue itself. I silently motioned to Envy with my hoof towards the lodged feather located high on the wing underneath what would be the pinions should this phoenix be alive.

Since I had seen a statue turn into a bird before, I wasn’t going to take any chances when I pulled the feather. I had no idea what this artifact did, all of our information regarding the location of the artifacts having been lost in the ship crash near Hoovegorod, but decided that anything shaped in a feather would have something to do with flight.

I quickly plucked the feather and waited something to occur, my fears becoming assuaged as no rumbling sound or noise that signaled a trap greeted me ears.

“That was a bit anti-climactic,” I noted.

“I’ll say,” Envy replied, “Let’s get back to your friends so we can plan our escape.”

I followed Envy, the golden feather held safely in my mouth as we quickly found the bottomless gap once again. I took flight again, attempting to notice any differences but not feeling any with the artifact in my mouth. I then remembered that only a pony of the prophecy or one of the descendants could utilize the effects of the power magical items. I landed deftly on my hooves and continued running after Envy, desperately wanting to check on how Faith was holding up after the bullet grazing her side.

It didn’t take long for us to come up upon the entrance again, my eyes immediately being drawn to the now standing mare, her beige coat being covered in a bandage wrap around her midsection.

“Glad you’re back,” Midnight commented. “I finally got bookworm up.”

“Hey!” Faith protested, “Sorry I’m not used to getting shot.” She paused briefly before speaking to me again, “Glad to see you two made it out alive, and I see you got the feather.”

“Less talking,” I mumbled through a mouthful of precious metal, “You need to rest, we still have to escape, and that sniper is likely still out there.”

“So then do we have a plan?” Faith asked, attempting to catch up as much as she could for being out for the better part of an hour.

“Well,” I started, “Midnight can move the debris and open the door, popping open the shield as we make headway on the field.”

“That’s the best we’ve got?” Envy spoke up, “A plan to get us out there but not a single idea how to break out of being pinned down by gunfire right after that?”

We were cut off as a blast rocketed through the doorway, throwing all four of us back down the hallway as the loud explosion sounded through the tomb. The halls began to rock violently as a hoarse voice came over the clearing dust.

“Find the ponies! We need them alive; kill the gryphon on sight!” That didn’t sound like good news. I forced myself up to my hooves, noticing the feather had slid across the small amounts of rubble that had found its way this deep into the tomb and had landed near the head of Faith, who had somehow remained conscious though dazed from the loud bang. I grabbed Faith by the hooves and forced her to her hooves, Midnight recovering rather quickly with Envy already making her way down the hallway and towards the wide open gap.

“Do we have an idea?” I asked as I caught up to Envy, Faith and Midnight running behind us.

“Get over the gap, make a final stand,” Envy stated, “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Six,” I replied, “You?”

“Eight,” Envy responded, “Fourteen shots should be enough to make a final stand. Wait,” Envy paused, “Do you have any more of those crystals you used back in the bar?”

I instantly felt around with a couple of feathers searching for the small plastic bag that held the assortment of deadly and rapidly expanding freezing crystals, but it was to no avail. “The explosion must’ve knocked the bag out of my wing, it’s gone.”

“Damn it,” Envy replied, “Grab Faith, I’ll take Midnight across the gap.” The two of us took off as we came up to the gap, we fell back to pick up Faith and Midnight, the former of the two currently holding the magical golden feather in her magical aura. We grabbed them around the waist and carried them across the gap.

“Midnight, toss up a shield with a couple of small holes,” I ordered.

“I can do it,” Midnight said back as we landed on the other side of the bottomless pit, “Just give me a minute to form it.”

“We don’t have more than a few seconds,” Envy said, “We need it now!”

Midnight’s horn glowed, Faith setting down the feather and lending her own weakening magic to the shield, her energy still low from her earlier gunshot wound. Sure enough, a glowing shield dotted by two small opening that allowed bullets to fly in and out formed across the hallway, protecting the four of us on the other side of the shield from any assailants looking to pick us off with ranged weapons.

A gryphon and a unicorn walked through the clearing smoke, each wielding a flintlock pistol, and each reloading a shot with a packet of black powder.

“You can’t hide behind there forever!” The dry, raspy voice of the gun wielding gryphon spoke, “Blast ‘em to bits!” The gryphon aimed a shot at the shield, pulling the trigger as his unicorn companion followed suit soon after.

The shots rang out as they impacted the shield, making a noise similar to as if it had collided with solid metal. I stuck my hoof pistol through one of the holes and fired, the shot narrowly missing the unicorn who was desperately trying to fill his pistol with another packet of black powder to fire another shot.

“Think you’re so clever, eh?” The unicorn smirked as he finished loading his gun with the explosive powder, “Then try this on for size!” He slipped out a small plastic baggy with his magic, loading its contents that I immediately recognized as the powerful freezing crystals.

“Get back!” I yelled as I dashed for cover, Envy and Midnight quickly following suit. Faith’s reaction had been a little slower, turning around with a confused look on her face, her horn still glowing as she struggled to maintain the shield alone now in her weakened state.

The gun went off, the blue crystal launching out of the barrel and impacting the shield at high velocity, instantly exploding in a flurry of pure ice magic and cold air. The shield has dissipated, but through the fog I could make out that Faith had survived the initial blast, but was now standing on a platform of pure ice that was once solid stone. I looked across the gap to notice the two cultists had been hit by the back blast of the crystal, turning completely into ice as well. As Faith moved to get off the now pure ice ledge, it began to crumble beneath her hooves. I launched into the air in a desperate attempt to save her, my grasping hooves just barely missing her as she and the artifact fell into the abyss. I clearly hear the last words I would ever heard from her again.

“Destiny!”

Author's Note: I did zero proof reading on this chapter in an attempt to pump out words before midnight on Friday when the writing event ends, hopefully a decent chunk of chapter 11 will be available then. Stay tuned for a partial sneak peek at Chapter 11 - Shadows of Tramlpevania

Chapter 11 - Shadows of Tramplevania - Unfinished

Chapter Eleven – Shadows of Tramplevania

“Some secrets are better left buried.”

“Destiny.” That voice, it haunted me even in my dreams.

“Destiny!” It wouldn’t leave me alone; no matter what I did the voice of Faith haunted me.

“Destiny, wake up!” Midnight jolted me awake from my uncomfortable sleep. The room was brightly lit, and I could only guess the time was somewhere in the late afternoon. I glanced at the mirror in the room, noticing my blood shot eyes that showed I had been crying recently.

“You were yelling in your sleep,” Midnight said. “You need to calm down, you know. There’s nothing we can do.” It took both Midnight and Envy to drag me away from the cliff, my body frozen in a position where my hoof was reaching down hopelessly in an attempt to try and catch the falling Mare. I knew I couldn’t do anything, but my mind kept coming up with the most convoluted attempts at saving Faith that I kept shooting down.

“How can I calm down?” I complained. “Faith’s dead, and it’s my fault.”

“Don’t say that!” Midnight protested, softening his expression when he realized his outburst. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. You know I miss her too, even though I’ve only known her for a little while. But we can’t just quit now because she’s gone. Do you think Faith would have wanted us to abandon saving the entire world because of her?”

“No…” I trailed off.

“Exactly,” Midnight said back, “You need to give her more credit, she was a good pony at heart, and she would have wanted us to keep saving the common folk, it’s what we do.”

“But, it just won’t be the same without her,” I objected, “I think I just need some time, is all.”

“What was it you told Celerity back in Manehattan? That we don’t have time,” Midnight pointed out, walking over to the bed I was moping in and placing a hoof on my shoulder, “Please, Destiny; for Faith.”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. The hinge to the door creaked open, causing me to turn around towards the source. A large portion of me wanted to see Faith, but a familiar beak poked inside the door, with no signs of the mare.

“I just got off work,” Envy said. “How are you two holding up?”

“She’s had better days,” Midnight answered for me, making me glare at him slightly.

“I can answer on my own, thanks,” I growled.

“Oh good,” Envy said, “She’s moved on from depression to anger, only two more stages of grief until acceptance.”

“Shut it, bird brain,” I shot back.

“Pff, whatever,” Envy shook it off before turning to Midnight. “You seem to be taking this rather well, though.”

“Training,” Midnight responded solemnly, “I only knew her for a little bit, but she meant a lot to me, I’ll move on though.”

“That’s the spirit,” Envy paused before continuing, “So you guys want the good news or the great news?”

“If it’s not Faith’s okay, you can shove it,” I said before rolling back over on the bed and faced away from the two.

“She’ll come around,” Midnight reasoned, “What do you have for us?”

“Just got a message via magical scroll from G, she wants us to meet her in Northern Equestria for some debrief about your current predicament, thought she didn’t say exactly what your predicament was.”

“And the great news?” Midnight continued.

“Gilda asked us to run an op,” Envy smirked.

“Us?” Midnight asked, “As in you too? It’s okay for you to leave the Gryphon Kingdom’s to help an ousted asset?”

“What the Jarl doesn’t know won’t hurt ‘em,” was the only thing Envy responded with. “I’m securing transport for us to head out tomorrow morning, make sure Destiny is okay to go, alright? I know she’s grieving, but if we want to have a chance at snatching the bastard who led to this and is leading all of those cultists, then we have to move soon.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Midnight steal a look at me before responding, “I’ll make sure she’s up to the task.”

“I’m not moving,” I protested as Midnight prodded me with his horn.

“Fine then,” Midnight said before lifting me up with his magic and dragging me off the bed and onto the floor with an audible thud.

“No fair,” I pouted. I had been sleeping for over twelve hours, waking up somewhere around six in the morning, yet refusing to move from my current position.

“We need to get going soon, I’ll meet you downstairs in the main bar room once you’re ready. Don’t take long.” Midnight left without another word, leaving me alone in the room with what remained of our supplies. Faith’s saddlebags were left behind by her when we went up to the old ruins, forever reminding me of the only mare that I perhaps truly fancied.

I let out an audible sigh before heaving myself off the floor and onto my hooves, quickly snatching up both Faith and my own saddlebags and tossing them onto my back, checking to make sure I had all of my weapons before trudging down the stairs and into the main room of the bar.

I pushed open the front door with my hoof and took a step out, breathing in the refreshing, cold mountain air. It did nothing to alleviate my sorrow as I trotted down the street to meet Envy at the Jarl’s terrace. The city seemed so lively for what was such a sorrowful afternoon for me. I moved up to the staircase before being bumped into from above my a diving gryphon.

“Ow,” he mumbled as he landed. “I’m sorry miss, my sincerest apologies about running into you.

“It’s fine,” I mumbled, “Why are you in such a hurry anyway?”

“Oh, yes,” the gryphon started, “Well I was sent from Gryphus with news for one Miss Destiny Fate. Now, I know that there is only a slim chance that you know her in this large city, but any help would be much appreciated and-“

“Wait,” I cut him off, “What do you want with me?”

“Ah, so you are her!” The gryphon smiled at his luck, “Well then, here you are,” The gryphon messenger quickly reached a talon into a bag he had strapped across his chest and pulled out a letter, “from the Gryphus Saint Hospital, Miss Fate.”

“Hold up there,” I stopped him as I took the letter in my mouth, setting it on the ground and cutting open the envelope with my hoof blade before taking out the message and reading this. “What’s this?”

“A bill,” the messenger said. “A pony who ended up there told us to bill you, and that we could find you here in Asgard. If you have an issue, you’ll have to take it up with the hospital itself in Gryphus, have a nice day.” Without another word the gryphon messenger flew off into the sky, leaving me with a hospital bill that I did not rack up. I scrutinized it intently, records for treatments of severe exhaustion and magical burnout did not bring to mind anypony I would let reference me to be billed by a hospital on the other side of the Kingdoms. I flipped over the bill to see if there were any more to add to the 3000 bit expenses that were digging a metaphorical hole in my bag of bits.

I was shocked though to find that there was a small hoof written note on the back of the bill that read:

I thought this would be the best way to tell you the good news, but I’m kind of stuck in a hospital bed (again), this time in Gryphus. Give Midnight the good news, because when you two get here I’ve got a surprise for you. –Faith

I completely forgot my original intention and ran to the top of the terrace to meet up with Midnight and Envy, unsure of what to make of the note. Obviously I wanted to believe it, but even if it was true, how did Faith manage to end up halfway across the country? I decided it best to take it to the trained assassin for further information on the mysterious note.

Cresting the top of the flight of stairs that led between the multiple terraces, I spotted Envy hitching herself up to a chariot while Midnight went over the supplies he had brought with him.

“Destiny!” Midnight called me over with a wave of his hoof when he noticed me arrive. “Glad to see you are recovering a bit.”

“You could say that,” I managed a smirk, “I need to show you something first though.” I pulled out the bill I had stashed in my saddle bag and slid it across the ground towards Midnight.

“What is this?” Midnight was perplexed, “It looks to be some kind of hospital bill from Gryphus, where did you get this and why are you showing it to me?”

“Flip it over,” I said excitedly, barley able to contain my happiness at the prospect that Faith had somehow made it out alive.

I could see Midnight’s eyes scanning over the note as he read each word carefully. “This is interesting,” he mused.

“What do you make of it?” I asked, desperately wanting an answer.

“It looks to be her hoof writing, but I have no idea how she could have made it out of that pit alive.”

“The hospital was treating her for exhaustion and magical burnout,” I pointed out, “Maybe she mustered the strength to teleport herself mid fall and didn’t really have time to aim it?”

“Maybe,” Midnight said silently, “Envy!” Midnight called out to the gryphon ready to head out and meet up with Gilda once again in Equestria. “We’re making a detour.”

“To where?” Envy argued, “We don’t have time for detours, if it’s not an artifact we’re going to Tramplevania to meet up with Gilda.”

“Faith is in Gryphus,” I stated. Envy froze up momentarily before speaking.

“Well that changes everything,” she finally mustered. “Strap on, Destiny, we’ve got a unicorn to find.”

“So, how do we know this isn’t some kind of trap?” Envy had raised a valid point. The three of us had been flying for the better part of two hours, the capital of the Gryphon Kingdoms just a mere hour away if we maintained our current course. “I mean Faith drops down a seemingly bottomless pit and a note comes in from the other side of the country that she’s just a little banged up? Sounds fishy to me.”

“We have to try,” Midnight spoke up from the chariot. “The only gryphon who knew we were checking up the old ruins was the Jarl, and he didn’t seem to be in league with the Hammer, especially openly proclaiming friendship with a burned spy.”

“True,” I said, “Also, unless it was someone from Heliopolis, no one knows Faith’s hoof writing, so that would be quite a trip to forge a note and send it on a gryphon messenger.”

“So we’re treating this as it really being Faith?” Envy asked, her wings continuing to beat with determination in reaching our destination.

“If not her, then who else?” I asked, “Besides, I doubt those cultists would set up a trap in a hospital, the body count would just be a bit too high.”

“You sure about that?” Midnight spoke up, leaning over the edge of the chariot to get his voice heard above the roaring wind, “We don’t know what lengths they’ll go to shut down what remains of the group that took away their chance at two artifacts.”

“Stop putting doubts in my head,” I called back, “No one else I know had that hoof writing, or even came remotely close to being that fluid in copying somepony’s signature.”

“Just making sure we’re covering all the bases is all,” Midnight sighed in defeat, going back down in the chariot and tending to some maps we still needed to be chartered.

“And I thought Manehattan was impressive,” I breathed in the new sights that greeted my eyes, the capital of the Gryphon Kingdoms. A stunning city carved into not just one, but two mountain tops, the area in between spanned with a number of bridges, small dots that I could only guess as gryphons flying from one side of the city to the other was a common sight in the sky. A couple of chariot taxis joined the inflight gryphons, giving the wingless an easier way to cross the districts of the city.

“Welcome to the bustling mountaintop metropolis of Gryphus,” Envy said, “Home to over 50,000 inhabitants, hopefully including our unicorn friend.”

Envy and I made the descent down towards the city with Midnight safely in tow. It had a look similar to Asgard in its mix of wooden and pure stone houses, still lit with electricity despite this mountain being much taller than the one that Asgard resided on. We touched down on the roof of a tall building sporting a cross carved into its stone frame, clearly labeling the area as a hospital.

I unhitched myself from the chariot and ran towards the door on the roof that led to the staircase, not waiting for Envy and Midnight to catch up. I slammed the door open and began sprinting down the staircase, racing to hit the bottom floor and the front desk to check for records of the injured. It was about ten floors before I hit the bottom of the stairs, pushing open the door and running down the main hallway towards the lobby.

“Hi,” I managed to talk between shallow breaths as my lungs begged for air. “I’m, looking for, a unicorn, named Faith.”

The gryphon at the front desk raised an eyebrow at my predicament, “Do you have a name?”

“Destiny,” I answered, still breathing heavily. “Please, tell me she’s alright.”

“She’s fine,” The gryphon at the desk replied, “And since she’s fine, I’d like you to pay your dues on her bills before you go see her, see the mare over there,” The receptionist pointed a talon to a pegasus writing down some figures on paper.

“Fine,” I replied, my breath finally catching up with me. Envy and Midnight had made it to the bottom of the stairs as I was giving the pegasus at the desk a large sack of bits. The mare then gave me the information on where Faith was.

“So?” Midnight asked as he approached me, “What’s the final verdict?”

“She’s recovering here,” I announced, “I just paid the bill, she’s on the second floor, room 212.” I went to move past Midnight and go back to the stairs to head up.

“Not so fast,” Midnight said, “Envy, go check out the room’s window.”

“What are you doing?” My tone was hot and angry as Midnight stopped me from going up.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” Midnight replied, “This is just a precaution that the room isn’t wired to a bomb on a trip wire at the door.

“What are you talking about? The receptionist just told me she was up there.”

“And how do you know she isn’t in on the Hammer?” Midnight shot back, “You know they get the most unlikely people.”

A shattering of glass could be heard from the second floor, causing me to forget the restrictions Midnight put on my movement and push past him and towards the front door, eager to fly up to see what happened. Midnight didn’t object as he ran for the stairs, also curious as to the source of the disturbance.

When I dashed outside, I had noticed that one of the windows had been shattered in, no glass being present on the street. I flew up to the window to see Envy in hoof-to-talon combat with a knife wielding pegasus, the gryphon adeptly weaving between strikes from the pegasus and delivering shallow scratches from her own sharpened claws. A unicorn mare with a familiar beige coat lay fainted underneath the covers of the hospital bed.

I quickly landed inside the room and extended my hoof blade, looking to only parry blows and disable the knife wielding pony, knowing that I was in no position to get away with murder.

As the pegasus went in for a stab at my neck, I parried the blow, knocking the knife out of his mouth and landing two swift yet shallow strikes to the pegasus’ fore hooves, causing him to fall to his knees on his forelegs. Hospital staff poured in immediately after it was over, guards following suit.

They were asking questions immediately, but I didn’t answer any of them until I had checked on the fainted mare. I moved the covers out of the way, spotting the familiar flame cutie mark and auburn mane and tail that identified the mare I considered my best friend. Despite her being passed out, I wasted no time lifting her up in my hooves and squeezing her tightly, wishing to never let go.

“Miss,” a deep voice broke my from my one sided reunion, “I need to ask you some questions, if you would please.”

I broke off from my hug, setting down the still asleep mare back on the bed and turning around to face the gryphon guards. I noticed some staff from the hospital tending to the cuts on the pegasus as multiple gryphon guards detained him with chains and cuffs. Envy and Midnight were explaining themselves to another armored gryphon before my attention was snapped right back to the one in front of me.

“Excuse miss, please pay attention.” The gryphon was armored to the teeth, for some reason covering up much more than the others. The voice, I noticed, also seemed extremely hoarse, almost forced. It was almost as if this guard wasn’t who they pretended to be. I pushed the thought aside as the heavily armored guard spoke again. “Can you explain what you were doing here?”

“Saving my friend from a knife wielding assassin.” I stated, “I kept him alive, didn’t I?”

“That you did,” The hoarse voice responded, “Much to the chagrin of a certain group of individuals, do you know what he was after?”

“Surely not the gryphon assassin that shouldn’t even be in this country, trying to make herself sound like a male, not at all.”

“Touché, Destiny,” The gryphon guard dropped the act, suddenly turning to the unmistakable female voice of Gilda. “Meet me downstairs when E and Midnight are free, we should talk, and let Faith rest.”

Author's Note: This chapter is NOT FINISHED. I will be releasing the full chapter after Noble Cause has released the final results of National Pony Writing Month. Thanks for all of your support! Make sure to check back soon for the full chapter eleven and future chapters through 25. Also check out soon for my upcoming story 'Out in the Cold' a side story following Gilda and her adventures with the Assassins.

Foreword and Prologue

Twisted Fate – An entrance for the August National Pony Writing Month for 2012

Written by Omgitsapally

Proof Read by Jaysnotreal

Inspiration from H. Lissner, Kkat, and many others in the Brony Community

Foreword:

The following is a work of fiction for Equestria Daily’s National Pony Writing Month. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is owned solely by Hasbro with show characters being copyright of Lauren Faust. Thanks to Hlissner for the map, all Original Characters are, indeed, original. Enjoy reading, and watch for the strong language at times! Written in first person RPG Style.

Word count starts after the colon:

Prologue – Destiny’s a bitch, ain’t it?

Well, here I am, about to do something I thought I never would. It’s funny how that works isn’t it? Some would call it fate, some would call it destiny. Funny thing how that works out huh? They say that your Cutie Mark is supposed to represent your calling in life, and I have a Yin-Yang symbol. Some crazy seer once told me if meant that I was supposed to keep the balanced of fate or something crazy like that; I mean the seer was crazy, right? Oh, right, a bit about me too, I suppose. Well if you’re going to read this I guess it’s best I explain a few things, probably my name. I’m Destiny, Destiny Fate to be exact, and I guess you can say this is my destiny . . . I’d rather it be a rock.