//------------------------------// // 35. Lost Empire: Kingdom // Story: Locksmith // by QuartzScale //------------------------------// Ancient Cistern- Caldera Cavern The flames charred away a few of the tents before we managed to get on scene. Blizzard spells flocked through the entirety of the camp as the fireflies and Red Nocturnes made sure to reignite the flames forcing us into battle while the other members of the group ran off. The Nocturnes focused especially on us once we set hoof on stage. The fire bolts they fired off set more of the area in a sea of flames because we dodged. The few shots I blocked were sent back only healing the targets. “I really hate elemental enemies…” My mutterings couldn’t be heard over the roaring inferno which had managed to get all the other people away and starting over the bridge. Then something exploded as another one of the serpents that lived in the snow appeared. This one looked almost similar only this time being made of fire. While it did set it’s eyes on us it decided to run away for the moment disappearing into a cloud of darkness. “Gray was that another of those heartless like the other serpent. We barely managed the ice one. A lava one might be a bit much…” Octavia lightly tapped her hooves together in a worried fashion. “Don’t worry about that now. We all have ice magic which should help us out for this. Plus I think I have something special to deal with it.” While the others were dealing with the heartless I slowly shifted my keyblade to one of my other weapons. I was certain I had unlocked a new one. In a flash of light a giant tomahawk appeared in my hooves. It was heavy as all hell… I didn’t think I would be able to handle this in prolonged combat. Still it would help out for later. “That… That is impressive but it seems unwieldy. Does it do anything else?” Octavia muttered unsure if she offended me or not from what I could tell from her eyes. “It controls the earth around me and is elementally charged with earth magic. Sort of like the quake spells we all know.” “Oh. That is much more useful than just another whacking stick.” Octavia chuckled. While I did chuckle it was drowned out by the screams of the other people when the bridge actually exploded and the vehicles started to fall into the darkness. Before either of us could get into position the heartless all flew off and the serpent reappeared slamming into me and dragging me away from the now broken bridge and past the other girls. “Gray! Gray! You get back here we weren’t done saving those people!” Octavia screamed out which got everypony’s attention. “Wait… Where is he at?” Vinyl perked up when she looked around for Gray. Octavia merely pointed at the large serpent that was going back through the hole that the driller machine had created. “He’s what!?” Sunshower screamed out before zooming off in her pony form to help Gray out. The others reconvened joining together a bit confused that Sunshower was flying off without them. Before Sunshower could get any further the serpent was knocked back into the cavern where everypony was looking slightly dazed and part of the armor around the nose was fully caved in. Everypony looked on confused that this happened in the first place. “Octavia! I told you it would be useful!” I flew back out of the tunnel slightly burnt. The head of the serpent was actually nearly white and I couldn’t feel anything on my right side. Also my wing seemed to droop slightly looking as though it was melted… but then again I couldn’t feel anything at this point. I felt a quick cure spell as Redheart galloped over to me checking me over. Her mouth was aghast and I think I nearly fell over only with my right hooves managing to keep me standing. “We’re lucky this healing spell is actually good enough to heal these kinds of injuries. Are you alright?” Redheart fussed over me touching those spots which had just been burnt. I winced whenever she did. They felt tender… as if I had regrown flesh and fur just from a spell. The rest of the group began to pummel the creature with blizzard spells creating a steam cloud which both Sunshower and Spitfire controlled so it wouldn’t get out of hand. All the humans were below in the abyss after the bridge exploded and we had no way to contact them just yet. The flames from the trucks were still sputtering leaving a few of us worried. “Yeah. I’m good. Just… sore. We need to get rid of that thing before it gets back up. How is everypony else?” “They’re fine. After that serpent appeared the rest of the heartless seemed to be absorbed into the creature.” Redheart speculated. “Would explain why it’s so damn hot at this point…” Redheart led me towards the rest of the group as we looked over our wounded. Luckily the only other wounds were a few burn marks on Octavia and Sunshower. A quick cure spell healed them up though they did wince whenever they touched where their wounds had been. I immediately flew up in order to see what else the serpent was doing. Surprisingly it was no longer glowing white from the heat and merely had a red scaled hide. It was almost as long as the Arc Serpent but it had more spikes adorning its sides and back. Before long it began to stir awake once again. “Shit… Hey! Ladies we need to get ready. It’s getting up.” Everypony immediately took cover with Vinyl supporting Octavia into cover and Fresh Coat leading Sunshower to cover leaving me with Spitfire and Redheart as my backup. I immediately flew back down and picked Redheart up, to both her chagrin and embarrassment, lifting her off the ground as a tail swept over the makeshift battlefield. Vinyl and Fresh Coat entered the battlefield only for an invisible wall to appear around us locking out Octavia and Sunshower. “Well… this is very unfortunate…” Milo groaned from the sudden explosion that had knocked him from the car sending him flying off on the other side of the bridge. He felt woozy and nearly passed out from the pain. The small trickle of blood from his shoulder managed to shock him back awake but he was still in excruciating pain. Rourke looked around the ruins of his group. The bulk of his soldiers had been traded for heartless but there were still enough to keep things from getting out of hand. Lifting his flashlight he positioned the Snapagator off to observe the fight with the new heartless that had appeared. The trip to Iceland had given him a good understanding of how these creatures acted. “Sound off. Say something if you’re dead!” Rourke commanded receiving a load of platitudes and confirmations that most of his crew had survived. The roar from the monster that had attacked however woke everyone from their stupor. “Double time people! I don’t want that thing to get us.” “We’re missing Milo!” Audrey called out though Rourke felt it would be fine. “We’re also missing those lovely mademoiselles and their unbearable leader. Y cet imbecile massif…” Mole muttered out the last part. “Would not allow me to woo that nightengale maiden.” “They’re fine. Get the lead out and get everyone ready to move!” Rourke explained as many of the soldiers began to salvage whatever they found. “Monsieur. We have a problem. The presence of this type of rock means we are in caldera.” Mole claimed. “English Mole.” Rourke stated. “We’re in a volcano.” Audrey bluntly said. “We in trouble?” Rourke looked down at the diminutive man waiting for his answer. “No. Cet impossible. You would need a powerful explosion to activate the flow of magma once again.” Mole waved off the possibility before everyone looked over at Vinny. He was working on a timebomb fixing the clock mechanism. “Right… I’ll just work on this later…” Vinny mumbled before placing the timebomb away. I threw the tomahawk at the serpent knocking it off from its charge making it slam against the invisible walls that were surrounding us. Spitfire had taken Vinyl into the air allowing her to pepper blizzard spells over the creature. The small target they made was at the very least capable of keeping away from the heartless. Redheart and Fresh Coat stuck close to me providing cover for each other while I charged in switching between the keyblade and the tomahawk depending on the situation. As it reared back it nearly released a torrent of flames. Spitfire flew down low making the flames harmless flow over them. While it was distracted I charged in with the tomahawk and slammed it entirely into the serpent’s upper body. There was a sickening crack as the flames that were billowing from it’s mouth soon snuffed out replaced by acrid black smoke. While it was stunned Fresh Coat fired off magnet spells pulling the head down to our level allowing Redheart to get some hits in. When she finished her combo of swings I swooped in continuing the trend causing it to fall flat on it’s back again. “We’re doing much better than the last heartless we fought.” Vinyl muttered worriedly. It was true. It had been dealt with much easier but there were too many mitigating factors that pushed themselves as the reason. We had grown stronger and my new weapon was specifically made to increase power during every swing. I was about to finally plant the tomahawk in the heartless’ head when it shot out a blast of heated air. It turned completely white zooming around the area melting the stone on the outskirts. Panicking, I tossed Fresh Coat on my back and picked up Redheart in my hooves. Neither looked embarrassed as we flew up meeting with Spitfire and Vinyl once again. Octavia and Sunshower immediately backed away from the arena as the whole floor immediately melted into a pool of magma with several pillars still managing to stay standing. “What the absolute fuck!” “Gray! Language!” Fresh Coat scolded me. I wanted to point out that we were in a bad situation but her eyes told me that she got the picture. Slowly I went back down on the largest pillar dropping off the two mares while Spitfire also cautiously joined me. The heartless was still in the molten rock hiding away somewhere beneath the waves. It took all my self control not race towards one of the edges to allow these mares a chance to freeze our target in ice. “Get ready. Moment it surfaces we freeze it in place.” “You think that would work?” Spitfire raised a brow at this dubious plan. It gave me enough time to pull out my tomahawk. “Maybe. The other plan involves me physically smashing it against the invisible wall tanking it blow for blow while it melts me body. You girls keep healing me while that happens.” “Let’s stick with the ice plan.” Fresh Coat chided Spitfire as I pulled out my keyblade once more. As if on cue the serpent rose from the molten rock covered in magma as it stared down at us. It immediately charged down at us only to be stopped by a barrage of ice causing it falter to the side before falling off into the magma. The world remained silent as I watched Octavia and Sunshower race along the edge of the new arena created. They stopped west of my position and frantically waved their hooves around. “Get ready!” Spitfire yelled out as the serpent rose again from the magma charging for us. Another blast of ice sent it tumbling back into the magma. “This is getting us nowhere. Get ready.” I pulled out my tomahawk and hefted it on my back using my wing to keep it steady. While the others seemed a bit worried they readied themselves as Octavia and Sunshower waved their hooves south of my position. We all turned just in time as the heartless charged in meeting the same barrage as it tried to falter back into the magma pit I slammed the tomahawk down on its head stopping it from regaining its heat shield. I returned back to the keyblade striking the heartless down before knocking it towards the girls. Taking some initiative Redheart stepped up managing to toss it further into the air while Vinyl and Fresh Coat fired off blizzard spells at the serpent. At the apex of being hit by Redheart, Spitfire came flying down slamming her training blade into the serpent knocking it back down to the platform. The triangle button in my head came back up and I immediately thought about it. With a quick hop I stood below where the creature would fall and readied my keyblade with a quick slash the entire serpent was slit down the center and dissipated back into darkness releasing the crystalline heart emblem back into the aether. Before any of us could celebrate the platform began to crumble. Spitfire, once again, picked up Vinyl while I tossed Fresh Coat on my back and lifted Redheart into my hooves. “Too close…” I was tired. The invisible wall disappeared allowing us to flap back to the other two. Sunshower looked over our wounds when we did. There were no visible ones thanks to Redheart healing us with cure spells but we were all sore. Maybe if one of us could learn Cura it would do more than just heal wounds. Maybe it would also cure fatigue. Wishful thinking, maybe, but it would be worth it to have that be a side effect. “My word… That creature looked as though it were made for us. You don’t suppose that they wanted us out of the way?” Octavia fussed over Vinyl and me. “Probably Tavi. You saw that it went after Gray first. Gray, are keyblade wielders always considered high priority targets?” Vinyl wheezed out. The heat didn’t agree well with her. “Keyblades are the only thing that can seal the heart of a world from being overrun by darkness. If someone was being evil it would be in their best interests to kill the keyblade wielder. Though heartless will just use them to get closer until they can take the heart of a world and devour it sending those worlds into their realm.” “It would explain why so many of the soldiers are missing…” Fresh Coat commented. “Hey ponies! I think the rest of the group is still stuck at the bottom of the abyss. We should probably go rejoin them.” Sunshower brought up flapping around as she pointed to the beams of light that were coming from below. “Right… big question comes up now. How do we get down there without them noticing that we’re ponies…?” It took a few minutes of discussion before we decided to fly over them and get ahead of them. While my herd discussed something private amongst themselves I looked into the Lexicon to figure out what we actually fought. Obtained the power of flames. Fire now available. Ash Serpent A large serpentine heartless that appeared beneath the caves that lead to Atlantis. Made of molten rock is can burrow through earth by releasing heat from it’s head. When coated by magma it is able to generate higher speeds and grow nearly untouchable armor. In this state it is affecting by ice spells more potently. I kept that info stored away for now. These new heartless were turning out to be more dangerous than the heartless I saw while I played the games. Also nearly melting to death was something I never expected happening to me. Before I could process anything more about the heartless I was tapped on the shoulder by Sunshower. “We figured out how we can travel. You’ll have to carry Octavia and Fresh Coat.” Sunshower explained. I merely nodded and got ready to lift one of them onto my back. “You don’t want to know why?” Octavia immediately interjected getting up into my muzzle. “Nope. We need to catch up with the main group and then overtake them so they don’t see us flying. Mercenaries shouldn’t be trusted for the most part. There are exceptions but those are rare enough as is.” Octavia seemed a little… dismayed or confused… I didn’t know. Instead of dwelling on it I tossed Octavia on my back and trotted over to Fresh Coat before lifting her up in my arm. After taking off I realized why they were worried. Both mares were very… curvy and unfortunately also much heavier. Sunshower stuck to picking up Vinyl who was the most svelte of us all and the lightest. Spitfire picked up Redheart with no problem. My flight pattern was a bit slower than usual but nopony said anything about it and I correctly made sure to not say anything about it later regardless of what they try to do to get me to talk. It took nearly five minutes just to find a place where we could set down and readjust our illusions. Both Octavia and Fresh Coat looked as though they wanted to say something to me but they stopped themselves from voicing anything. I was never going to ask them what was wrong because if it was a weight thing I was never going to survive no matter. “Let’s get going then. We still have to meet up with the rest of the group.” We quickly traveled towards the group that was left in the abyss. Both Octavia and Fresh Coat were following me closely… crap. The entire crew finally reorganized their equipment and the driller was ready to move. “Ah there you are. Good to see you’re all alive. Have you seen Mr. Thatch?” Rourke hollered out over the roar of the digger. “What…? No we haven’t. We were dealing with that monster and I haven’t seen him…” Milo groaned as he felt a hand against his still wounded shoulder. He tried to crawl away but the pain was too much for him. Before he could negotiate for his safety the figure took off her mask and used the crystal she had energizing her hand and placing it against the wound. In seconds the wound sealed up to his amazement. “Milo!” Audrey screamed out. “Mr. Thatch!” Rourke bellowed out. The group of warriors immediately raced off to Milo’s dismay. He got up waving his hands as he chased after the warriors. “Wait come back here. Wait up!” Milo raced after the group past several rock pillars. My group raced ahead after hearing Milo scream out. Thankfully pony ears are more sensitive to sounds… especially pegasus ears apparently. Milo led us over to a large hole where light seemed to be shining from. Milo ran through first and stopped at the edge of a cliff. We followed as well stopping right behind him. Out in the distance was a large plateau with a city built into the water surrounded by a large sea of lava. The only connection point was a long wooden bridge that spanned the entire width of the sea of lava. Soon the rest of the mercenaries joined us and stood shocked by the sight before them. Before we could fully come to grasp with the sight before us a group of warriors surrounded us keeping us trapped between their spears and the sea of lava below us. “Well… This was unexpected.” “Who are they?” Sunshower whispered in my ear. “Atlanteans. The people who live down here.” “But how!?” Sunshower hissed out. “Let’s find out later. Right now we’re surrounded with our backs to a cliff edge.” Milo stepped forward to converse with the warriors though I had no idea what they were saying. It sounded like gibberish to me and the other mares agreed. For the most part things while tense managed to proceed smoothly enough that the two groups actually managed to speak well to each other. Finally the main leader of the group a young woman took center stage and walked to the edge of the cliff and waved her arm towards the city. “Welcome to Atlantis.”