//------------------------------// // 34. Lost Empire: Illuminate // Story: Locksmith // by QuartzScale //------------------------------// We sat in the impromptu medical station for an hour while Dr. Sweet looked over us. Since Redheart was mostly uninjured she assisted with the procedures. I had cast cure before we met back up with Sweet but it was only enough to stop the most serious of conditions. The worse was Fresh Coat who was still partially dazed but thanks to Redheart she was back on her hooves within a few minutes. It seemed she bought some potions back in Yen Sid’s tower before we left from another moogle by the name of Kumop. I was suddenly having flashbacks of the moogles from Final Fantasy IX for some reason. Regardless Fresh Coat was out of danger which surprised Sweet but he didn’t say anything about it. Spitfire and Vinyl were partially frostbitten and luckily we had enough warm clothing to stop them from feeling the chill though they quietly complained that it was too hot even though all they had were scarves on to keep them warm through the illusion they were seen for. Their bruises had disappeared during the cure spell I had cast earlier. Octavia had much more serious injuries though only comparable to the fact she was bruised along her side from the fight. She was forced to stay in the medical station in the back of one of the trucks for the remainder of the day if Sweet’s diagnosis was followed. She seemed fine with this and looked at me for support for some reason I wasn’t sure of. I think she was looking at me with some sort of guilt which she had no reason to have at all. My wounds, on the other hand, were slightly more serious. There were a few gashes along my sides which the cure spell merely took down to red lines instead of dripping with blood. They needed to be… sanitized, which meant something I always hated when I was a kid. I may have become apathetic to it as an adult but I had a different body and I didn’t know how it would react. It sucked as I thought it would as the rag soaked in medical alcohol was dabbed against the cuts. The stinging sensation made me grit my teeth from the uncomfortable nature. It was something I really should have just had someone cast another cure spell but what was done was done. “Take it easy for a while otherwise they could get worse.” Sweet called out as we all headed back for our positions. Octavia ignored the doc’s orders and trotted after us making sure not to miss a beat. I didn’t say much about it until we got out of earshot. When we did I motioned Octavia to trot next to me. She complied though a bit reluctantly. “You still good to keep going or do you want to rest?” “I want to keep going. I won’t let you down.” Octavia answered me which made me stop trotting all at once. It was… sobering to hear those words for some reason. I never expected any of them to actually treat me as some commanding officer while we off on other worlds, but… I understood why in a sense. I was the only one who had dealt with other worlds even though my only experience was the Mysterious Tower world. In all sense of the word I was their master even though at best I was still a novice with a mark of mastery test ongoing through my bonds with these mares, my students, my potential lovers. ‘Was I already considering them as family?’ Once again I tried to shut that thought down… at least for now. There was too much uncertainty at this point and I needed to make sure they were absolutely sure of their decision. We were in this together but this was a path of combat, of treachery, of sorrow, of a multitude of horrible consequences that would affect their lives for the rest of time. Keyblade wielders, regardless of strength, were always seen as either warriors of salvation, or bringers of ruin. They were always hunted down as the most enticing game for heartless and this was something I stressed on them from the moment they found me out. I didn’t want this for them but they decided for themselves to follow it. Something outside of my control… and it frightened me. This fight alone showed me that we are still very much untrained as a unit. Spitfire is a loose cannon most likely due to being a captain. She already knows what to do but had only worked with other pegasi on missions. Sunshower and Fresh Coat have no combat experience at all aside from the time we spent with Merlin. They aren’t liabilities but they haven’t reached their full potentials. Vinyl and Octavia are reckless with Vinyl being trigger happy while Octavia’s fighting style lands her too many wounds. One is already too much. Redheart… actually she is the most competent of the bunch surprisingly. Yet she only fights defensively. I needed to put my hoof down already. “Listen to me right now Octavia. All of you in fact. You will never let me down. Got it?” I looked each mare in the eye and thought I almost saw tears in them. They each nodded and their resolve instantly caused them to smirk confidently. I hope that was a good call motivation wise. I’d rather they do nothing reckless for me. We also needed to plan ahead for this problem. Rourke was scowling at us after we left. I only noticed because I looked that way when Octavia was frowning. “We need to plan something out for later… but in private.” I kept my voice low and brought everypony in for a huddle to hear those words. I knew this world would be getting a rude awakening when it came to friendship and these mares would be the first to see what it meant to this people. “What’s going on?” Vinyl whispered back to everypony which I knew I had to answer. “You know the commander?” I got nods from everypony before I continued. “We all don’t trust him but I feel like somethings wrong on the side. He’s been losing men and they aren’t from heartless from what I can tell. We had over a hundred men still on this trip and after a quick count we’re down to eighty. Something is wrong and we need a plan for when it goes wrong but… we need it to be private so the first moment we get we find a way to be alone for a while and we’ll hash out a plan.” “Do you think this is wise?” Octavia brought up. “What do you mean?” Redheart asked, quirking an eyebrow at Octavia. “If this guy is as bad as you say he is then he probably already has plans for us in mind. We are an outlier. An enigma that he only knows a cursory glance about. We need to be better than that whenever he makes his move. There is something dangerous around here and he knows more than he should or is planning something. All these people here aside from Milo are mercenary. My father once told me that all mercenaries care about is money.” Octavia explained to all of us. It was something I already knew but the startled gasps from everypony made me realize how much they needed this lesson. The other problem was that Octavia’s father apparently knew about mercenaries… Not suspicious at all. I may need to figure out some security measures later in case he doesn’t like me at all. “We should keep moving. Don’t want to look too suspicious. Surprisingly, I do see some more… morale people in the bunch. The problem here is how this will go down. Keep your heads low for now. We’ll plan out something soon.” Everypony nodded before trotting on towards warmer climates as we left behind the snowy areas. Luckily, we were finally out of the freezing cold and back to waiting for Milo to figure out the right path. Every couple hundreds of yards we would be ambushed by more Ballasts. They had become more prevalent during our trek though they had begun pairing with Aquatanks as well attempting to overwhelm us with power tactics. I would handle the Ballasts alongside Redheart and Vinyl making sure to take them down before they decided to switch to their auto cannon arm. It was always a moment of trepidation whenever I did decide to use a reaction attack. The others handled the Aquatanks easily enough Fresh Coat and Sunshower fire off lightning startling and dissipating the heartless away. “This seems to be getting easier now that we have a better idea on how to deal with these monsters.” Vinyl groused. “A little mad that it’s getting easier?” “Well… Yeah just a bit. I mean these are supposed to be monsters from the darkness that prey upon the weak of heart and we’re cutting through them like butter. I mean… A little bit more of a challenge wouldn’t hurt would it?” Vinyl sighed. “To be fair this is probably for the best. We’ve been trotting for a while now and we’ve been ambushed every single time.” I pulled Vinyl in closer to the shock of the other mares. There was a few looks of confusion until they noticed Vinyl looking serious. “We’re missing more people already. At least five more are gone. I need two of you to keep an eye on them before we lose anymore. So I’m asking you and whomever you ask to do that.” Vinyl merely nodded and grabbed Spitfire immediately. After whispering my concerns to her she saluted and began walking with Vinyl back with the rest of the people keeping an eye out for anymore ambushes. “Is it bad?” Octavia brought up only to receive a nod from me. I was certain that Rourke was doing something after I sent Vinyl back with Spitfire. We weren’t ambushed again and we finally came to the next obstacle we had seen since the heartless hiding in the ice. A large wall stood before us which left me to find out what we were actually going to do about it. Rourke was up front with Vinny at this point. “So do we have a plan to continue?” “Vinny, you have anything that can take care of this?” Rourke looked at Vinny completely ignoring me. Vinny seemed to notice and took the tact to answer both of us. “I probably could do something about this if I had over two hundred of these.” Vinny held out a couple sticks of dynamite. “I mean I have like ten of these. A couple of my own. Some cherry bombs. A road flare. Hey too bad we don’t have some nitroglycerin. Eh, Milo?” Mole started laughing like a fool while Milo merely looked pissed off. I really feel we should spend more time with him but the constant ambushes put everypony on edge at this point. Redheart, especially, was on a short fuse at this point. I needed to take care of a lot of things. “It looks like we’re going to need to dig.” Rourke off handedly mentioned gathering Mole’s attention. “It would be my pleasure! Mon ami Red please to be joining me!” Mole cried out. “I’m good here!” Redheart screamed out grimacing at being called out. Mole, slightly dejected, started his machine forcing the drill into the wall. The process was slow and slightly deafening. Everypony folded their ears down trying to shut out the noise up until the machine started to smoke and slow. Mole bashed his head against the wheel trying desperately to keep the machine going. Audrey sighed before heading to the boiler. “Milo… psst… Milo. Go help her out. You know boilers.” Luckily, my whispers weren’t too quiet as Milo nodded and ran over to Audrey’s side. It wasn’t much but he finally interacted with someone else aside from Rourke and Helga. I cringed when he was punched in the shoulder but it was actually slightly playful. “That seemed rude.” Redheart bluntly stated. Her eyes seemed to be smouldering and I was getting a bit worried. “It’s a human thing. That’s how tougher people bond. Y’know. Keep their emotions close to the vest in most cases.” “Are all human concepts confusing like this?” Redheart slightly sneered though I could tell it was forced. She seemed more uncomfortable by the second. “Yeah. Yeah they are.” I pulled Redheart close and made sure she stayed by me until she calmed down. I really didn’t know what was wrong and we still had many more miles to go. She seemed to smile when I gave her a wing hug but the illusion made it seem more casual than that. Still we followed the group through the newly forming tunnel keeping close together at this point. I could smell darkness emanating from most of the group with a few exceptions. These people seemed closer and closer to either despair or anger. Rourke, himself, was seething every couple of minutes. It was obvious that he was getting annoyed but he kept a level head like a leader should. The problem came whenever I was near him. His inner darkness was overwhelming and I could smell it grow stronger every time we stood near each other. The next cavern we reached was vast and grand adorned with a large fixture of light above a stone carved bridge. Milo looked through the journal and seemed to tell the group how this was the last stop before we reached the city proper. “We’ll make camp for the night here!” Rourke called out to all his men. “That thing is going to keep me up all night.” Vinny mumbled as the groups split up to ready their sleeping arrangements. I motioned for everypony to join me as we trekked a bit farther away for the moment. We reached a small copse on the rock wall and set up around there building a small fire and readying our sleeping areas. Most of us only had sleeping mats since a tent would be too cumbersome for all of us to share… though I’m sure most of the mares wouldn’t have minded if I was at the bottom. “Ok… here’s what we need to do.” It took a while to explain everything. In that time Milo actually grew closer with the others of the group. A small prank did get him mad but he managed to keep his cool and everyone else managed to keep civil and actually happy with him. “Well I’ll be. Looks like he’ll be fine after all.” “He will?” Redheart asked. I still had kept Redheart underneath one of my hooves. I had been nipping at her ear from time to time to calm her down. As it turned out when I asked her what was wrong she was actually a little worried when I did nothing more to stop Mole from hitting on her. When I answered that I trusted her she seemed to go wide eyed and almost start blubbering. I didn’t know if she was insecure or just worried that I wasn’t showing enough affection to her but I spent most of my conversation with everypony switching between every mare and nipping at their ears until I knew that they knew that I cared deeply for them. As it turned out the illusions showed the others that I was twiddling with their ears scratching behind them calmly and tenderly. Helga apparently saw it as weird and was lost in a conversation with Sunshower that I didn’t overhear. Really need to speak with her about that later. “Yeah he will. While it might not seem like it, he’s doing great by interacting with the others. Eventually we’ll see them be friends… but for now we just have to encourage them as best we can without seeming too obvious. Subtlety is key here.” “I thought keyblades were the key.” Redheart rolled her eyes. The sarcasm was heavy in this one. “Don’t worry… I have plenty of ways to unlock what I want.” I dipped my head down and nipped at her neck nearly eliciting a small whinny which she covered her mouth with her hooves. It nearly got everyone’s attention though all the ponies noticed. I had done a few different things with each of them. All of them were blushing profusely looking away while Redheart playfully tapped at my muzzle to get me to stop. “Stop~” Redheart sang out softly. I complied just as the lantern above the bridge finally sputtered out. We all turned in for the night… except for me and apparently Sunshower. She stood next to me while I watched over the camp. “So what have you been so excited to talk about with Helga?” “She seemed a bit sad to be down here. I don’t know why but she’s been getting nervous ever since we fought the heartless in the snow. She kept saying that their men have been disappearing slowly and she has no idea where they are going. Everypony over there has noticed making them closer to the edge.” Sunshower explained keeping her voice down. “Most likely it’s the fault of Rourke. Everytime I get near him I can smell darkness spreading out from him.” “You can smell darkness!? How do you smell that?” Sunshower puzzled out scrunching her face in concentration trying to figure out how that would even work. “It’s something I was given when I came to Equestria. Didn’t I explain it before? Or did I forget that?” She merely shook her head causing me to think back. I tried to remember if I told any of them that I could sense darkness. I couldn’t remember one instance of me explaining this… unless my memory was just that shoddy. “Ok… Well I can sense darkness from others through scent. It’s useful whenever I’m dealing with others since it tells me whether or not I should be wary of them or not. And before you ask it smells like something fouler than anything you could imagine.” Sunshower closed her mouth and thought for a moment. She raised her hoof then lowered it again while her mouth kind of opened and closed like a fish. I didn’t think she expected me to figure out what she wanted to ask but she quickly broke out of the stupor and smiled. “That’s not what I wanted to ask. I wanted to know if we smelled like darkness.” Sunshower smirked with a smug like grin coating her muzzle. Clever mare… “Everypony does. You smell more like fresh dew after a rainshower for some reason with the darkness being nearly non existent within you just like the other mares that are here.” “I smell good to you…” Sunshower blushed and I think she might have missed everything else I said… Still she was smiling at least. “Yes. But like I said I can smell darkness.” “Gray?” “Yes?” “Why do you seem more… I don’t know. Professional now?” Sunshower quirked an eyebrow at me. Was I being too distant? I tried to think about what to do. Instead I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “What do you mean?” “Well it seems like until now you were very much in work mode. You focused heavily on making sure we were prepared though you did so a bit more sternly than any of us have seen.” Sunshower reasoned flailing her hooves around as if to make a point. I was still trying to think of a reason. “That might be because of my police training… I’ve always made sure to be as professional as I possibly could be while on the job. That might be the reason that I suck at relationships… heh heh… Look… I’m sorry about that. I’m just… I don’t want any of you to get hurt more than you have to. You’re all still new to this and I’m making it my responsibility that you all make it back to Equestria as unharmed as possible. Even if we have magic to heal each other I still don’t like watching you all get hurt.” “We know what we signed up for Gray. All of us did before we took up a keyblade. I’m glad you’re not like other stallions at least. Most would immediately shelter us and treat us like damsels in distress or something. We stumble, yes, but we are not weak little flowers that would falter without the big stallion around to protect us.” Sunshower smirked as she summoned her keyblade. Luckily, the bright flash of light didn’t wake anyone up. “I know. It’s probably the only reason I didn’t completely freak out when that heartless managed to knock out Fresh Coat. Still… It was a scary moment, y’know. I already have lived enough scary moments in my lifetime.” “Is everything ok? You seem to get this way when family is involved. We’re not officially a herd yet, but you have treated us as family.” Sunshower frowned before placing her head against my shoulder. “You can tell us.” “I know… Where to begin…? I’ll admit that my childhood was good. No real problems at all. Supportive parents and all that. When the panic of the whole end of the world came around… well my sister-in-law wasn’t the most spirited of people. She ended her life from despair leaving behind my brother and their daughter. My brother, well he... he broke down. He made me the sole person responsible for their daughter. My niece became my child and he followed his wife in a way I’m still unsure of how he did. I never wanted to know what he did.” “That’s awful…” Sunshower began to cry. I really didn’t want her to cry. Before I could continue I felt every other mare awake and huddling on top of me holding on to me and hugging me tightly. “Should I continue?” My groaning was stopped by a few head nodding into me. They wanted to know… maybe even needed to. I didn’t go into detailed description and only mentioned that my family was gone. Opening up… the worst feeling in the world. To be reminded that you lost. Made me sick but I sucked it up. They deserved to know. “Well… After another year we started to run out of money to buy food. My mother was already losing her sanity from the loss of one child. My father being someone who told me that family came first confided in me about taking out life insurance policies on the two of them. Enough to give me and my niece a chance to live somewhat comfortably as could be during an apocalyptic situation. They drove off and I never saw either of them ever again. All I know is that the insurance policy actually kicked in. For another year it was me and her… I had to trust one of my neighbors to look after her while I worked. I trusted that…” My words died off. I had nearly broken through the rock floor beneath me during the entire conversation. Octavia had managed to get me to stop by squeezing my sides hard enough to get my attention. Apparently I was very light, yet I hit like a falling boulder. I shook my head and noticed a few tears falling. I was at peace with the death of my parents and my brother and his wife. There was literally nothing I could’ve done to stop them from going through with it. My niece… I held no illusions that I could have done something to prevent that. I reasoned that I had no idea that it would happen but… that twinge in my heart called that voice a liar. “I see everypony is awake already. All of you slept fine?” “For the most part…” Vinyl growled out. Her stomach was empty. “No nightmares… though I don’t think Luna would be able to find us if we did have any.” Octavia shrugged her shoulders. “Need more sleep…” Fresh Coat muttered out but kept her eyes open. “I think we’ve slept for long enough. We should keep an eye out for anything that’s coming after us.” Redheart whispered out. There were still no other people awake just yet. “Someone is moving…” Spitfire motioned to someone moving in the distance. “Milo. Must be using the bathroom or something… “ Everypony turned away returning back to their camp site storing away the equipment. Before we could fully get ready Milo began to scream and the entire cavern started to light up. “FIRE!” Milo screamed out. “Crap… Whoever knows blizzard get down there and put out the fires.” All of us rushed off shooting off blizzard spells at any blazes that started because of the large cloud of fireflies. Within those clouds were small heartless that resembled the Blue Rhapsodies. The Red Nocturnes surrounded the entire collection of people forcing us to charge ahead and meet them in battle. “Why are they here…?” “Grr… This isn’t what I wanted.” Rourke growled down at the Snapagator curled around its body. It merely growled as it raised another one of his soldiers and shoved its tail through its chest infesting its body with darkness. The heart was taken away before being given to a shadow and turning into a Ballast. “Fine… We are getting close. Are they getting too close?” Rourke questioned the heartless who merely smiled as it coughed out more darkness. The soldiers immediately got their gear together and attempted to get across the bridge. Rourke stood near the back and waited till his men got ahead. “Let’s get ready for what’s to come.” Rourke grinned as he got in his van and drove off across the bridge to get away from the flames.