A Long Way to Fall

by Cinders of War

Chapter 108: Not Without Incident

Frigid Night put down his binoculars and slid down off the hood of the jeep.

“Hey,” he said sharply to the rest of his company. “I just saw something over there.”

The rest of the Assassins’ eyes followed his finger. High Noon tossed his unlit cigarette to the ground and raised an eyebrow. “What do you see?”

Frigid Night grimaced as he got back into the back of the car. “I don’t know. Drive us closer.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea-”

“Just do it.”

High Noon jumped at Frigid Night’s abrasiveness, but nodded and started the engine.

As the jeep picked up speed, he looked at the rest of his passengers. Morning Blade and the Mentor were seated at the back, the former cradling the latter in her lap and trying to keep up a brave face.

Beside the cowboy, Dewdrop gazed out the window, her expression inscrutable behind her blue hair.

As for High Noon himself, he kept his eyes on the road and his mind on the act of driving. The Mentor would be able to come up with a plan to bounce back from this. She had to.

For a while there was nothing but the roar of the engine as they drove on in silence through where, just hours before, had stood the expansive city of Masyaf. The sands around it were already reclaiming what little was left, as the dunes swept back over the last crumbling bits of stone.

“There,” Frigid Night said.

In the distance something came into view. A dark smudge on the golden ocean of sand.

Without warning, Frigid Night hopped out of the jeep and hit the ground running, leaving High Noon to slam on the brakes.

“Hey! Wait up!”

Turning a deaf ear to High Noon’s protests, Frigid Night sprinted to the obstruction, face grim with determination. By the time the driver had safely stopped the jeep, Frigid was already on the ground, his hands throwing aside handful after handful of bloodstained sand.

“Here, give me a hand with this.”

It wasn’t long before the two of them unearthed a bloody arm, then its owner, a dirty, bleeding female with short black hair. She looked vaguely familiar; it was impossible to tell under the patina of cuts and burns that covered her body, but as they pulled her legs free, she coughed, spitting sand and blood down her front. Frigid and High Noon looked Keila right in the eyes as she struggled to break free.

High Noon held her down after she tried to sit up. “Whoa, slow down,” he said gently. “You’re hurt. Badly. We’re trying to help.”

“H-High Noon… Fr-Frigid N-Night...” the woman gasped in a voice of sandpaper. Her mouth tried to form words, but exhaustion claimed her and she went slack in the cowboy’s grip. More blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

Dewdrop joined them, sliding out of the jeep gracefully. “Is that Keila?” she asked quietly, almost unable to recognize the Saddle Arabian Assassin from all her burns.

“Yes. It is,” High Noon replied. He looked restless as the sun slipped behind the horizon. The sunset dyed them all orange and purple, transforming the sands into an abstract work of art. At the far end of their vision, a swarm of green and red dots rapidly approached from the sky, accompanied by the sound of rotors.

“We can’t stay here. People are coming to investigate already; you know as well as I that we should be gone by the time they get here.” Dewdrop jerked a thumb back to the jeep. “We should go. Now.”

No one moved.

“Hey,” Dewdrop said, tapping Frigid Night on the back. “You heard me, right? We need to clear out.”

“Wait,” he said. “If she survived the blast, there might be more-”

“Does it look like anyone else survived?” Dewdrop snapped. She swept her arms wide at the rest of the crater. “Everyone’s dead, Frigid, and if we don’t get out of here right now so are we.”

Frigid Night rose to his feet, his fists clenched and his face snarling.

High Noon stepped between him and Dewdrop and fidgeted nervously with his belt. “You kn-know, Frigid, Dew’s r-right. We need to go.”

“And what if it was your friends you were out there? What if it was Windy?” he asked hotly. “You’d just leave her here to die?”

“Frigid... You saw the explosion. There’s no way anyone could have-”

“She did!” Frigid bellowed, pointing at the unconscious woman. “And if she lived, maybe Rose Petal or Trueshot did too. We can’t just abandon them!”

“F-Frigid, be reasonable-”

The senior Assassin took a step at High Noon, raising his fist. “I’ll show you reasonable,” he snarled, punching as hard as he could.

His blow never reached High Noon’s face, even though he made no attempt to dodge it. Someone had taken hold of his upper arm, immobilizing his limb completely.

“Frigid Night,” the Mentor’s voice came from directly behind him. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” She released his arm and stared him in the eyes until he was unable to look at her any longer.

“I’m sorry, Mentor. It’s just that I thought-”

“You’re letting your emotions get the better of you. Attacking your brother, compromising the Brotherhood… is this how Rose Petal and Trueshot would have wanted you to uphold their legacy? Is this what Dust Fencer would want? By defying the Creed that they lived and died for?”

Frigid Night blinked away tears, hating how final it sounded. But in the end, he could shake his head for no.

The Mentor turned away in disgust and motioned for them to follow. “Bring the girl,” she ordered. “She needs medical attention; take us to Maredina. We’ll regroup there.”

High Noon followed after the Mentor with one last sympathetic look at his friend before getting back behind the wheel. Dewdrop followed suit, gently carrying the unconscious woman after wrapping her in her coat. After a few more seconds, Frigid Night followed, defeated.

No one spoke during the whole two hour drive to Maredina. But that suited everyone just fine; in a way, there was nothing else that needed to be said.

---

Wreckhouse sat by Tangent’s bed in the medic wing, holding one of her hands as he finally took his eyes off his phone’s screen. Mentor Steel Shine had messaged back the outcome, and it wasn’t something Wreckhouse was able to imagine.

An entire city wiped out in a huge blast? That took some serious imagination to process.

He wished Tangent was awake to talk to. He wasn’t sure how to take this news. Dr. Patch had said Tangent was going to be fine, suffering just fractures and broken bones, and a little head trauma. Speaking of Patch, he hadn’t seen the doctor in the last hour.

Shaking his head, Wreckhouse brought his attention back to his partner. “Please wake up, Tangent… I miss you. You mean a lot to me.”

He looked up to the ceiling and sighed. Without their numbers, things were going to be very much different. All these years Wreckhouse had thought the Assassins would have no trouble in ridding the world of Templars. He should’ve understood it wasn’t true when he went after Mahogany Wood.

Assassins were still human.

They could be wounded, killed, and taken away just like that. Maybe falling in love wasn’t such a good idea in this line of work, but Wreckhouse had done it. Now, here was the woman he loved, unconscious and broken in a bed.

“Maybe this was meant to be…” he said to himself. “Perhaps you’ll forget our times together, Tangent. Maybe I deserve this…”

He had come to Trottingham all those years ago to start life anew after being released from prison. In the end, he had been recruited to do what he had wanted to avoid doing again: taking lives. After years being with the Assassins, however, he knew the good they did by eliminating the Templars. By taking a life, many more could be saved, but now, he felt as if he hadn't gotten anywhere. He felt as though everything he had worked to accomplish for the Brotherhood had been erased and he was back at the beginning of it. Did being an Assassin really make a difference?

No one knew what the future might hold, but Wreckhouse felt like he had an idea. Life wasn’t a simple straight path. It is bumpy, and there were going to be plenty more bumps along the way. He just hoped none of them were going to throw him and Tangent off the road too soon.

---

Patch sat in her room with the lights off, hugging her pillow to her chest.

Gone. The others were all gone. Only Mentor Steel Shine and a few had survived the blast.

As a medic, she had no interest in losing a life. She felt she was supposed to be saving them, and if she failed, then what good was she as a doctor? Growing up, she had gone to Fillydelphia University to become a surgeon, but a different path had opened for her when the Assassins recruited her.

She had saved countless lives over the years as the head medic at the Trottingham Bureau. Ice Flake, Fire Frenzy, Sparkplug, Dust Fencer, Rose Petal, Trueshot, even Frigid Night, and many more, but now, most of them were gone. Taken away by means above her own skill. Even as a doctor, there was nothing she could’ve done to save them.

She pressed her face into her pillow and gritted her teeth. “Come on, Patch. You should be able to do better than that! You went to college! You know how to save a life! Why can’t you?! Why…”

The doctor sat in silence, wondering if there was anymore reason to go on. But in the end, she knew what she had to do. She had to find a cure for Mirror Match’s poison. If she could do that, then perhaps she could renew her determination to continue fighting. From here on, Patch knew she was going to have many sleepless nights, but she held onto the thought that they would all be worth it in the end.

---

Mahogany Wood had been playing on his piano when one of his guards entered the room, breaking his concentration.

“Chairman, the-”

The man’s words were cut off when the chairman had thrown a tomahawk at him, lodging the weapon in his chest, spreading red across his clean white uniform.

“I said no one was to disturb me!” he yelled at the lifeless body. The chairman grumbled, but couldn’t return to his peaceful instrument. Instead, he stood up and smoothed back his hair. “Crescent Wing, remove him, please.”

“Yes, chairman.”

Mahogany Wood walked to his window and stared out blankly. He had already heard about Saddle Arabia, and how Masyaf was gone, destroyed in a devastating explosion, removing the city off the map. His brother had been there. Lumberjack had been the last of his family, and now, they were all gone. Taken away from him by his enemies.

Everyone, with the exception of Sombra and Mirror Match, had been thrown by this sudden event. Grand Master Sombra was furious when he had found out that neither the staff nor the shield had survived the blast, and Mirror Match just seemed her usual self, if a bit stiff in her mannerisms.

Only Talon and Wolfgang had survived, pulled out of the blast by the Grand Master when things had gone wrong.

“I’m all that is left of the once great Wood family, Crescent,” Mahogany sighed.

“I’m sorry about that, sir,” his bodyguard said as he dragged the dead body up. “If there’s anything you would like me to do, just say the word. I’ll get it done.”

Mahogany mused about it, but decided there was nothing to do at the moment. The Assassins were either all dead or weakened, seeing as almost all of them had left for Saddle Arabia to get the artifacts. There was nothing they could do now.

“It’s fine, Crescent. I think our enemies are having it worse off. Grand Master Sombra still lives, as does Mirror Match. If their precious Mentor is still alive, she is the only one that has a chance at winning this.”

“Of course, sir,” Crescent bowed and opened the door, draping the body over one shoulder. “If you’ll excuse me, chairman...”

Mahogany returned to his piano and positioned himself nicely on the bench. Just before he could place even one finger on the keys, something shadowy began forming just to the right of the piano, by his chair. The chairman sighed and dropped his hands to his side as Grand Master Sombra rose from the floor.

“This instrument. I have never seen its kind in my world before…” he muttered as the darkness around him swirled to a stop.

“This is a piano, Grand Master,” Mahogany answered. “Though, you mentioned you were lost for a thousand years? I’m not sure if your world had something like this such a long time ago. But enough of that, Grand Master. I doubt that’s why you’re here?”

“You are right, Mahogany Wood. In fact, this is why I’m here.” Sombra lifted the Apple in front of the chairman’s face. “I had made modifications to your machine at the labs. The one you call the Eye.”

“Modifications?” Mahogany raised his eyebrows. He didn’t think they needed the machine anymore. Especially after Timber was gone. “What for, Grand Master?”

“Because,” Sombra growled. “If this Mentor is capable of using the artifacts, then there may be others. I will not tolerate competition to my rule. We must find them, and either turn or kill them.”

“Alright, but what were the modifications for, Grand Master?”

“I have tuned it to search your world for others of my kind: Equestrians.”

“Your kind…” Mahogany put a hand to his chin. “Fascinating. So there are more of your kind out there? Is the Eye ready for use?”

Sombra turned his head to the window. “The Eye is still in its early phases, chairman. I would not expect results so soon. As of now, my frequency is the strongest, blocking out any other possible candidates. Your brother, the one that betrayed me, was the only one capable of building it. It’s just a matter of time to find someone else to replace him.”

“What do you think we’ll find, Grand Master?” Mahogany couldn’t help but ask. The machine had never worked for them, but perhaps this time, it was going to get results.

“Threats. But I’m not worried. I am King Sombra, and all those who stand against me will perish. It is just a matter of finding these threats before the Assassins do.”

Comments

[Jaxxon Markus Citadel]

So that's how they found Sunset in Leap of Faith, with the Eye. Of course, if the Templars were just looking out for magic, it wouldn't be too hard for them to trace it back to CHS. They weren't exactly discreet about it in Equestria Girls or Rainbow Rocks, and there were hundreds of witnesses. One of those is bound to get back to the Board of Education.

[MoonlightRift]

😔