Twisted Fate

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.