Adventures of Ise

by Ise no Kami

Under the Blood Moon

Ise shivered hard, the harsh blizzard chilling him to the bone. He had thought the ice caverns of Equestria’s northern mountains were cold, but now that he had left what he could only hope was the right exit, and ventured out into a storm so fierce and powerful that even the Green Lightning was brought to a crawl, only now did he know what true cold was. For the first time, Ise wished he brought more to wear than his trademark purple jacket.

Still, the cat came up to this remote region with a mission. He trudged on, the harsh snow stinging his eyes on top of obscuring his sight, the frost gluing itself to his fur until the two became indistinguishable. Before long, he thought his whiskers would become so cold and ice-laden that they would break off entirely.

However, after what seemed like an eternity of trudging through the white wasteland, he saw a vague silhouette among the howling winds. As he approached, he found the figure to be a rare sight in these regions: a dragon, seemingly adult, yet still well behind the growth spurts that make most dragons titans. Her scales were a dark, unforgiving purple, with a menacing shade of magenta stretching from just under her jaw down her belly and to the tip of her tail. Her midnight blue spikes did little to make her appearance any friendlier, especially with the ones on her head bending to cover her right eye. Resting on her shoulder, she carried a shotgun in her right arm, an invention made necessary in Klugetown due to the cutthroat nature of its residents, and a weapon one could tell at a glance that this dragon knew her way around. Her left arm hung limp at her side, the midnight blue-practically black-nails on its claw noticeably longer than the nails of the other. Overall, this dragon carried an aura of dead seriousness and danger that most other dragons seemed to lack.

And Ise wouldn’t have her any other way.

“Couldn’t you have at least brought a coat?” The dragon inquired disdainfully.

Ise gave her a cocky snicker. “Like you’re one to talk. How long have you been freezing your scales off?”

The dragon turned her head in annoyance, then shivered. For all their massive strength, the fiery reptilian dragons took to cold like children to vegetables. “Let’s just say you took your sweet time getting here,” she snapped.

“Hey, you’re the flier; maybe next time you’ll give me a ride,” Ise shot back, before relaxing his sneer into something more genuine. “Seriously though, good to see you, Ash.”

Rather than take the friendly remark, Ash just shook her head. Whether this was due to putting up with Ise or with the sheer cold, even she wasn’t quite sure, just that she could handle both easily. “Guess, we’d better go through the front door, give any spooks that are left a visit.”

Front door? Ise tried as hard as he could looking past Ash, but all he could see was a sea of white. Was the storm really that bad? So much that his destination was still completely obscured when it was no more than ten feet in front of him? He took a few cautious steps forward...and then his view turned dark, as a great castle suddenly hit the point where he could see it through the blinding snow.

“Spooks, huh?” Ise wondered. “Well, getting haunted might not be so bad. Maybe I could get the ghosts to get me a drink every now and then.”

Yes, he thought, time to find out if ghosts exist. For if they do, and if spirits still lingered in this lonely fortress...there was no way they’d be happy with the unlikely duo after what they were sent there to do.

---

It had been an average day for Ise. Klugetown was bustling; well, as bustling as a town built on crime could be. Certainly enough for the local bar to be lively, which was where Ise had spent his day, enjoying the local tavern music while drinking a glass of milk. On the rocks. Because it tastes better so long as you have it immediately. Not that anyone ever dared question that little quirk of his anymore; didn’t take long before the knives came out and whatever creature gave him grief found out where he got the name Green Lightning.

Or he’d just threaten to throw Ash’s favorite drink in their face: lava on actual rocks. Not that he’d ever do it, but it shuts creatures up quick.

It was then that he came through the door, a mysterious figure shrouded in a cloak, who seemed to make a beeline for Ise’s booth. Not that the green cat paid him that much mind: “mysterious figures” were all too common in a place like Klugetown, mostly thieves and marauders that Ise knew full well he could take on. And as for the guy making himself comfortable on the other side of the booth, well, that was just how Ise did business. Which brings up what mind he did pay this creature: at the very least, he knew he had a job on his paws.

“You’re the Green Lightning, yes?” the creature asked. Though very little of his face could be seen under the cloak hood, Ise could tell he was a fellow Abyssinian, with an off white coat that had subtle stripes of gold.

“How do you figure that?” Ise asked back, toying with his client a bit.

“There are many cats in this city, but only one of them is green,” the other cat pointed out jovially, picking up on what Ise was doing. “I’ll get straight to the point: you’re a well known mercenary around these parts, and not just as hired muscle like most. I hear you’re specialty is...acquiring items, whether they be relics long forgotten in some ruin, or priceless treasures held under the tightest lock and key. Or both...as was the case when the Sapphire Statue suddenly disappeared from its display case in the Canterlot Museum.”

“Yeah, what of it?” Ise replied with a smirk, leaning back. Though impatient to hear what job this cat had in store for him, he wasn’t exactly subtle about just how well his client had stroked his ego.

“Well, there’s something that I need procured, and I’m afraid the job is much too dangerous for most.” The client pulled out a map of Equestria, with a prominent red dot marking a spot just northeast of Starlight’s village. “In this remote region of Equestria, far from the prying eyes of any civilization, there is an ancient castle of unknown origin. Protected by mountains on all sides, and further still by a harsh blizzard that hasn’t stopped in centuries, few creatures have ever set foot inside...and none have returned.”

“And let me guess,” Ise responded, “there’s some priceless treasure that’s supposed to be in there, and you want to send me to fetch it. Or at least be the canary in the spooky castle.” The green cat was slightly annoyed that he was basically being asked to throw his life away, but hey, that’s the job. He’d heard similar stories about many an ancient ruin, and for every place where “none had returned”, he had been the first. Ultimately, he looked forward to the challenge this odd castle posed.

“Well yes, there’s almost certainly treasure in there,” the client began, “but I’m not after any normal treasure. In fact, on top of my payment-2,000 bits, by the way-you’re free to keep anything you pocket in there. All I ask for is one object, one of great power and importance...”

“The Orb of the Blood Moon.”

---

“Are. You. Insane!?” Ash pressed the green mercenary, both verbally and physically as she slammed him against the wall of his own home. With one claw pinning him in place, she held a nail of the other right under his muzzle. Though that irritating cocky attitude hadn’t left the cat, a flicker of fear flashed in his bright blue eyes; he knew full well that those claws were deadlier than they already seemed.

“Relax, we’ve been through way worse,” Ise replied, trying to calm her down.

“You haven’t been through ME,” Ash snapped back, pressing even harder on his shoulder as noxious smoke passed though her snarling teeth. “All of that ‘worse’ is just the crap I didn’t feel like keeping your sorry plot out of! You really think you can handle this!?”

“What, you think you can’t?” Ise snarked back. “Besides, that’s why I’m asking you to come along. I know you’ll have my back.”

Ash paused, his words ringing true yet filling her with rage. She suddenly pulled her claws away, leaving Ise to drop to the floor, and crossed her arms as she turned her back to him. “My answer is no. This death wish is your bed, you’ve made it, now lie in it.”

“I’ll take the pay, you keep all the treasure.”

Ash’s mood softened...barely. “Oh yeah? What if we find buck all in there?”

“If there’s no treasure, we’ll split the pay 50/50.”

“75/25. You owe me for even considering this.”

“Deal.” A major loss for Ise should there be no treasure, sure...but then again, he was never in it for the money.

Even with the favorable deal made, Ash was still stewing. To make matters worse, now that Ise wasn’t struck with the fear of Luna, he was back at full cockiness. He made his way from the lonely corner where he had been pinned to a beaten up couch on the other side of the room, casually sitting down next to a round rabbit plush that he seemed to care quite a bit for. Some days Ash wondered why she ever partnered up with this loser.

“Come on, Ash, you know you wanna come along. I mean, a sinister castle possibly filled with frightfully dangerous monsters? You know you wanna find out which ones can take a blast to the face.”

“Need I remind you,” Ash shot back, “that most of the times I’ve had to shoot temple guardians to bits was because YOU threw caution to the wind!”

“It was still fun for you, right?”

“Is that really the argument you’re-“ She stopped herself, not really being able to argue with the cat. Besides, even if she could, she knew full well that Ise would keep shilling the adrenaline rush until she ran out of steam. Ash’s rage slowly subsided, and she went back into aloof mode. Grabbing her shotgun from where she propped it up, she asked...

“So, where was this stupid castle again?”

---

As casually as he could in the sub-zero storm, Ise walked forward and opened the great doors of the castle. No point wasting time to steel himself or muster up the courage, that wasn’t his style anyway when he’d rather just get on with it. Ash followed in after him, the doors slamming shut behind them. They were left in a dull entryway, surrounded by oppressive gray stone, a dark purple carpet at their feet guiding the way to a large foyer they hadn’t quite reached. The interior of the castle was far calmer than the snowy landscape around it, simply due to shielding its occupants from the howling blizzard, but the cold was not held at bay in the least. On the contrary, the imposing atmosphere seemed to warp the chill, coating their very souls with frost. Every fiber of the mercenaries’ beings told them they really, REALLY shouldn’t be here.

That feeling was confirmed as they took a few steps into the foyer. And yes, the large empty space, pressing down on them with darkness as only what little light made it through the storm and heavily tinted stained glass allowed them to see. The details didn’t help either, the large room empty save for two large staircases up to a balcony far above them, and a great chandelier hanging tenuously above their heads, lacking in splendor without light to grace it. However, the oppressive atmosphere threatening to crack them wasn’t what suddenly had their fur and scales standing on end.

No, that was the faint presence of a monster far out of their league, a monster that soon made itself known.

“Well well, seems I have visitors. Welcome to my...humble home.”

A pony teleported onto the high balcony, not with the flash of light that accompanied most spells, but with a cloud of darkness, blending into the poorly lit surroundings so as to make her sudden arrival imperceptible. Yet Ise, his feline eyes able to make out more than most in the darkness, got a good look at the mistress of the castle as she walked her way down the stairs to greet them.

Every bit of her body was covered in differing shades of crimson, from the dark blood red of her short-cut mane and tail, to her bright yet sinister eyes. Her horn was gnarled, less like a spike and more like a piece of root. And, oddly enough, she had wings, bat wings like the thestrals in Luna’s night guard, clasped together under her chin to form a sort of cloak. However, even in this regal stance, Ise could tell these wings were twisted like her horn, the joints where they met her back especially gnarled and deformed. He could tell just from looking at them: this pony was not born an alicorn, nor did she earn that status, but instead gained the extra limbs through some twisted and horrible process. And yet only her horn and wings were gnarled; otherwise, she looked very much in her prime.

Behind the clasped wings, Ise could see a necklace with an ominous dark red orb hanging from it, and he knew immediately that this was what he was sent to collect.

“My name is Carmine,” the pony introduced herself, a wicked, fang-bearing smile on her face. “How nice of you to come all this way in the bitter cold to visit me. Don’t worry...I’ll make sure the cold never bothers you again.”

“Not today, thank you!” Ise shot back, jumping back while reaching out his paw to shoot lightning at someone clearly hostile. The lightning...that was a trick that, for all Ise knew, he was always able to do; how he came to have it, he didn’t quite know. Nor did he care much: he didn’t really feel like looking into why a non-pony had magic when he could just have fun with it. Carmine flicked her head, her horn glowing ever so slightly as she effortlessly stopped the bolt inches from her face. Ise expected this, considering just how powerful her mere presence was...but the real point of the attack was to illuminate the room, letting his dragon comrade see and directing her toward something to shoot. Ash took the opportunity and blasted Carmine with her shotgun, just before the room went dark again…

...and in the darkness, Ise was left stunned. The pellets actually landed, yet Carmine didn’t even flinch. In fact, the wounds not only didn’t bleed, but soon began a slow but sure regeneration process. This pony wasn’t just a powerful dark mage or something like that; she was something far more dangerous and terrifying.

Carmine simply laughed. “It’s been a while since I’ve felt cold steel,” she mocked. “Shame it doesn’t really do much to true children of the night. Still, you have no idea how entertaining it is to have prey that fights back for once. Maybe I’ll turn you instead of simply draining you; depends on how good a time you show me from here.”

“Not interested,” Ash flatly refused, firing once more at the vampire now that she knew where Carmine was. However, pain soon shot through her arm, the pellets having been sent right back at her. Luckily, in falling to her knees from the shock, she managed to avoid all but the one pellet that grazed her right arm. As this was happening, Ise leaped around the foyer, bouncing off walls and railings at breakneck speeds, coming to rest atop the chandelier. From there, he pulled out one of his trusty knives, and casually dropped it from atop the chandelier, letting it fall blade first into Carmine’s back.

The vampire didn’t even register the blade, simply walking toward the wounded dragon...but that wasn’t the point. Using his lightning powers, Ise electrified both the fallen knife and the chandelier, giving just enough of a spark for Ash to see what was happening and roll out of the way. And with his friend safe, Ise used his other knife to cut the chandelier down, magnetized and falling toward the blade stuck in Carmine’s back. The vampire was utterly crushed, Ise jumping off right before impact, but she simply teleported once more to get out from under the shattered remains of her unused light fixture. However, as she rematerialized, Ash rushed toward her, close enough to see, and stabbed her left claw squarely into Carmine’s side.

The vampire started laughing again, cracking even, not from insanity, but enjoyment. The claw stab, like everything else the two had thrown at her, did nothing of any significance, yet she could tell as the nails touched her dormant blood that this was more than just a simple impaling. “I don’t think you quite get it,” Carmine taunted. “The undead don’t exactly care about most forms of harm, not steel, and certainly not poison.”

Carmine shifted her body, taking advantage of the claw stuck in her side to pull the dragon attached to it closer. Conveniently for her, Ash was dragged along so that her neck was just below Carmine’s face. “Yes, you’d certainly make an interesting...compatriot,” she mused. “Welcome, my friend, to the life of a vampire.” She raised her head, winding up to clamp her fangs down…

Suddenly, a green bolt shot past her, a blade slicing her face as Ise made off with his partner. With Ash safe from a neck munching, he made another pass on Carmine, taking a mere second to grab the knife left behind from his chandelier stunt. He hadn’t earned the title Green Lightning for his electricity powers: it referred to his agility and acrobatics, to how he could bounce around at blinding speeds, before rushing in for the kill when a Target was disoriented. And so a momentarily stunned Carmine was disoriented just long enough to get another slash across the face, one that only widened her resulting smile.

“You’re pretty amusing as well, cat,” Carmine complimented the rogue. “Very well. End this futile charade of a battle, and I’ll make sure you and your friend survive this night as vampires, free to stalk the night to your heart’s content.”

“Gee, that’s a tempting offer,” Ise replied...before holding up his paw with the dark orb inside it, ripped right off the vampire’s neck in the confusion. “Thing is, I like actually living, so we’ll go now, thank you very much.”

And so he barged through the door, leaving Carmine stunned, then outraged. She rushed forward to try and retrieve her precious orb, but the storm outside finally began to settle, allowing the sun’s light through to the castle and the front gates. And so the angry vampire was forced to let the burglars go, vowing to seek out the orb once night covered the land.

---

A good ways back down the mountain, Ise let Ash walk on her own; she wasn’t unconscious or handicapped, but Ise’s speedy jumps were better for putting distance between them and the castle so they weren’t hunted down. And once she was walking for herself again, Ash was more than happy to slap the cat across the face for her trouble, her nails scratching his cheek...and puffing it up due to her poison, an odd toxin unique to her that seemed to cause adverse effects at random once in the bloodstream.

“Yhep, Ah desherve that,” Ise slurred.

The two continued to make their way down the mountain, soon reaching the ice cave that led them to this remote corner of Equestria to begin with. At the entrance, their mysterious client stood waiting for them, standing stoic as part of the mystique, yet shivering as his robes were hardly enough to help stand the freezing cold.

“Ah, I’m glad you made it out in one piece!” The client rejoiced. “I knew I hired the right creatures for the job. Now, hand the orb over.”

“I should really slap you too, but you’re not my client directly,” Ash grumbled. Ise walked over, dropping the Orb of the Blood Moon into the client’s paw, then turning his own over in a request for payment. The client handed over a bag of bits, all 2,000 promised, and Ise threw it all to Ash, changing the pay split to 100/0 to make up for the crapshow.

“Okay, I’ve gotta ask,” Ise queried, his swollen cheek subsiding enough for proper speech thanks to having gotten a minimal dose of Ash’s poison, “what the hell is this orb? Why did you want it, and why did Miss Vampire up there seem to treasure it?”

The client paused, then acquiesced. “The Orb of the Blood Moon is an artifact of immense dark magic, possibly chaotic in nature. The master of that castle is a living example of the power this thing has, at least according to what information I could find on her: it seems she was turned not by another vampire, but by the Orb itself, taking its power and making it her own for longer than Celestia has ruled Equestria. Such a dangerous artifact shouldn’t remain in the world; that’s why I asked for its retrieval, to seal it away and make sure it will never again see the light of day. Or night for that matter.”

“Riiiiiiiiight…” Ash replied, completely skeptical. Still, she just shrugged her shoulders; she was far too done with this whole ordeal to let the fate of this stupid ball be her problem.

“One last thing,” Ise called, as the client began to walk away. “Mind telling us your name?” The client paused, then slowly turned his head, his feline eye glaring at the mercenaries from under his hood.

“My name is Cyphus Clay.”

Comments

[Dark Rose 777]

Nice! I'm really liking what you've got so far.