//------------------------------// // 69. Prydain: Disturbance // Story: Locksmith // by QuartzScale //------------------------------// “You remember when we were in the forest and we were nearly crushed all those times?” “Yes… I had many panic attacks about it and wanted to cry the entire time.” Octavia shivered at the thought. “Why bring it up?” “It was exciting at the very least, right?” “I suppose so… oh yes I get what you mean now.” Octavia sighed. For the past ten minutes guards stormed through the hall I had taken. Luckily, the candlelight was far too shoddy to handle illuminating the ceiling. It still didn't mean I didn't get tired. I may have had the ability to hang from the ceiling because of magic but the blood still rushed to my head albeit slowly. The long time we had been hanging around had taken its toll on my brain forcing me to focus on movement and transportation. “I think I see an opening. Ready?” Octavia pointed in a general direction which I slunk across the ceiling towards. “Mind the divider. You need to make a large step.” “Got it.” I had nearly run into one on the way down the staircase due to how shoddily it was made. The ceiling was irregularly shaped. My hoof had caught it before my head did though so for my sake it was no harm no foul. Octavia had to point them out after that incident though. While the guards hadn't found us… heartless were aware of us. The only reason an alarm hadn't sounded out was because the human guards were far less aware thinking that they were just acting up. Our search for Vinyl had taken us to the courtyard which made sneaking almost impossible. There was no ceiling to use to bypass the guards and the lack of shadows was disconcerting. We could hide in them thanks to my dark coat and her grey coat and brown mane. We blended into shadows much easier. At this point I was more worried about the lack of telepathic communication due in no small part to how it was accomplished. The only beings who could do so were the Horned King and Pete. The former only knew of one of us while the latter fought us making him the most likely of suspects. “Hey Gray? Did you ever do something like this before? You always seem so sneaky though I can tell you hide more than you should.” Octavia brought up out of the blue. “What brought this up? I mean I don't mind answering, I'm just curious why.” “I'm just curious. Also as the Alpha mare I should know the most about you. It only seems natural.” Octavia shrugged against me. “Oh… ok. Well I was mostly a detective working on cases with my mentor. I never actually participated in any raids or infiltrations. Those weren't exactly in my job description. I was more trained as a homicide detective. It was also why I've been forced to deal with more than my share of killers over the few years I worked there. I've only had to infiltrate somewhere once though… it went bad quickly. While it turned out fine in the end I was still reprimanded for jumping the gun so soon even if a would be victim was saved. Still it was a learning lesson.” “What lesson did it teach you?” Octavia seemed a bit startled that I was a homicide detective… or she was worried that I had dealt with death so much before based on my blase approach. I couldn't tell at this point mostly due to the blood finally stoppings its rush into my head. “Be aware of your surroundings… “ I dove into the shadows and reappeared at another section of the courtyard beneath one of the darkened stairwells that littered the area. We were still trying to find Vinyl. I just hated how slow it went. “This sucks, this sucks, this sucks… “ Vinyl continued ad nauseum, her little mantra being heard by her two companions. “So you've said for the fiftieth time.” Taran muttered as he kept the sword he had taken hidden on his back for the moment. The others didn't need to know. “She's right though. We haven't found the exit out of her and I keep hearing screams from somewhere. Should we go help whomever it is that's screaming?” Eilonwy mentioned as her bauble started leading them towards the sound. “Beats going nowhere. Lead on.” Vinyl announced glad to find something better to do. She had reached her threshold of boredom minutes ago and had settled into finding someway to keep herself entertained. The heartless hadn't been a problem for the most part with nothing but the lack of light being the only obstacle they faced. A door suddenly started creaking as Vinyl grabbed Eilonwy in her magic dragging her back and around the corner. The three looked on as a large cart was rolled into the now open door. Before it fully entered a hand fell out of the tarp that covered it. It was a mottled grey with dedicated fingers barely holding onto the arm it was attached to. Each gulped as they dealt with their anxiety, Taran, their disgust, Eilonwy, and their fear, Vinyl. “Gross… what are they doing with… with that.” Eilonwy shuddered at the thought. She honestly didn't want to know. “Must be something with the Black Cauldron. It does make the dead rise once again.” Taran mentioned as his fingers gripped the rock wall a bit harder. “Don't care. As soon as the door closes we rush by and try climbing up higher. We should find the way out sooner rather than later.” Vinyl stopped the discussion and as soon as the door closed the three rushed by leaving their thoughts to the wind. As they passed the area they entered a staircase finally heading up… towards a door with an eerie glow behind it. Instead of taking to caution the three charged through… where an old man was strung up to a large wheel. “Help! Please help me!” The old man screamed out not realizing the three were in the room. The guard did which Vinyl quickly slung a stop spell at and knocked him upside his head. As soon as the spell ran out the guard hit the floor unconscious. “Keep it down! We’ll get you out you just need to stop screaming.” Vinyl hissed out as Eilonwy got to work untying the man while Taran dragged the unconscious guard to a more inconspicuous section of the room. “Oh thank you. Thank you. I just was serenading my way through the forest when these brutes captured me. I am merely a humble bard, you may call me Fflewddur Fflam.” Fflam announced up until the harp near his side had the string snap strangely without any physics intervention. He scowled at the instrument but held his tongue as it magically came back together. “Though forgive me for speaking out of turn but why would you all be here in this… dreadful place.” “Captured.” The three answered while Vinyl checked outside the door. There were patrols but luckily no one had heard the commotion. “Okay I think we might have a chance to get out of here. We just need to play our cards right and everything will be right as rain.” Vinyl chuckled as she could see a light outside. Even with everything looking to have a red tint that not even her glasses could created she could she light through one of the doors off in the distance. There were heartless and she had two non combatants but with her skills and the princess being capable of magic they just might get out of there mostly unharmed which was the best she could hope for. “Why is there a talking unicorn?” Fflam seemed stunned now that his life wasn't in danger. “No time just get ready.” Vinyl growled out forcing the bard back on his guard. Spitfire was glad she only needed a light nap. It had been a long day already with the infiltration and constant threat of being discovered which had taken a toll on her stress. At the same time it was exhilarating. The Wonderbolt routines had started getting monotonous and for some reason felt as though they were blending in together. Though that modicum of peace and serenity was broken as the four woke up to the laughter of a familiar threat. One that wasn't too bad to deal with but still required a bit of care when fighting. “Gwahaha! So this is where you mugs were hiding! Now that I got ya where Ol’ Pete wants ya, you'll be coming with me.” Pete commanded… up until a keyblade flew out of the tent from a very angry Sunshower sending him sprawling on the dirt. “Yeowch! My jaw was sent a spinning.” “You big jerk! I was trying to try before things get out of hoof again!” Sunshower cried out as the heartless he summoned charged forward. Several of them were the Bone Knights each wielding their scimitars menacingly while several wyvern heartless circled around ready to dive at the group. “I thought we'd get a bit more rest before things go down.” Redheart stumbled out of the tent followed by Fresh Coat and Spitfire. “This seems more fun. I guess Sun and I got the sky and you and Red got the ground then?” Spitfire looked over their opposition. “Seems like it. I've been wanting to try out that gravity spell. Now I got the chance.” Fresh gushed as she did a little happy dance on the spot. “Please calm down and get ready.” Redheart sighed as she summoned her keyblade in tandem with everypony else. “Ooh… you pastel glue bottles are gonna regret messing with Pete! I'll show ya what for!” Pete roared out as he got back to his feet and thrust out his hand ordering the heartless to charge. Spitfire and Sunshower immediately took off keyblades raised as they clashed with the wyvern in the air. Thanks to how they were made the wyvern couldn't bank easily through the air. Spitfire took advantage by using her size to curve through the air slicing the wings off any of the heartless before they could figure what was going on. Sunshower alternates between magnet spells and thunder spells literally showering the skies with magic. While thunder hit multiple foes it was still on the weakest level merely stunning the wyvern. The two coordinated through the air making certain to keep at each other's pace while surfing the skies. The wyvern charged too easily leaving them open after their corkscrew dive left them kicking at the air to break. When Spitfire got up close first she would plunge her keyblade into its body and using her momentum would toss them groundward. Sunshower preferred magic using several chain spells to immolate, freeze, or crush her opponents back into darkness mist. “Think we can do it?” Spitfire called out to her wingmare as they circled each other. “Right now? I guess so.” Sunshower seemed unsure until the two connected their keyblades. The two glowed their respective colors of orange and green. Spitfire immediately caught fire while latched onto Sunshower’s keyblade as she was lead around like a blazing comet. When the fire burnt out Spitfire came close and charged her magic into Sunshower. With a blast of energy she released several ice crystals which exploded into a cascade of ice shards leaving few wyverns behind from the emergence of their limit attack. On the ground Redheart became the vanguard of their side using her keyblade she waited for the foe to get close. When they attacked she would block and immediately parry the heartless up where Fresh Coat fired a barrage of spells knocking the Bone Knights down to the ground. Redheart wasn't the aggressive type. Her whole life had been for the betterment of others and while the fight against heartless was stress relieving she still wanted a good nap every once in a while. She had catered her fighting style to counters after the fight with Kuro and her immeasurable strength had nearly speared her through the torso several times. Fresh was still learning forced to work a bit harder than the other experienced mares. She shot out several gravity spells knocking the Bone Knights into the ground. The ones that got knocked down had Red charge up and plant her keyblade into their squished face. It was funny and left her smiling as she got better at magic, at the very least this magic system. It was strange that throughout her time on Equestria she hadn't even tried to do more with her magic. At the most she had mastered levitation of several objects and even some color illusion spells for customers but the range of attack magic she had learn had awoken something inside her. She wanted to know more. “They're getting flashy up there, aren't they?” Fresh Coat called out as another Bone Knight got crushed in her gravity spell. “And? You want to do it too?” Redheart grimaced as she knocked another heartless to the side. Pete summoned up some more looking highly disturbed with how easily those pastel ponies were pummeling his powerful heartless crew. He backpedaled slightly ready to escape through a door to darkness before things got any worse than possible. “Can we?” Fresh Coat pleaded as soon as Red was next to her. “Fine…” Redheart groaned since they had never tried any maneuver like the others had done before. Fresh Coat and Redheart charged up their magic and released together. Fresh took charge sending out several gravity spells which pulled in the heartless… sometimes even tearing them in half. As they got smaller and smaller Redheart sent out several spark spells letting the light magic zoom around the arena and destroy the last of the heartless that had been pulled into the gravity wells. As the magic pooled back into the two they each burst with a pulse of gravity and light magic sending waves out that destroyed the remaining ground heartless while Spitfire and Sunshower wiped out the aerial threats. That left Pete all alone. “The heck is with you lot. You're all prissy ponies meant for the little girls around the world. How are you this strong? I'm getting outta here… “ Pete growled out as he rushed through the door to darkness leaving the four still up and raring to go. They needed another fight. “Woo! What in Tartarus did we just do?” Fresh Coat looked around at her fellow herdmates completely confused at what they had accomplished. “No clue… but it was powerful.” Spitfire called out doing a few aerial loops before she landed once again. “We should move spots now. I doubt we haven't been spotted after all that.” Redheart chuckled mirthlessly since they had defeated the heartless… but gave away their position. “Right… I'll get our stuff.” Sunshower zipped off into the tent and started to pack up whatever they still needed while the others watched the skies for any eventual assaults from the wyvern heartless still patrolling the skies. “I'm a bit disheartened… “ Octavia admitted after we had searched the courtyard for anyway down to the dungeon area. It had taken us close to twenty minutes due to all the patrols. The guards were antsy and it certainly wasn't because of intruders. Each one eyed their heartless thrall with high levels of suspicion and did their best not to show weakness. The heartless would prey on them in an instant. “It's getting annoying. I'm thinking of breaking the floor and just seeing if I can find her like that.” “That might hurt her.” Octavia chided me. “I know. That's why I'm only thinking and not doing.” The patrols had thinned out and the sun was starting to set. At least I think it had. With how desolate everything around Annuvin was it was hard to tell if time actually flowed around it. It took a modicum of patient as I dipped us into the next shadow looking everywhere for some clue of sorts. Octavia shifted around on my back holding her keyblade over her shoulder. She was also as anxious as I was to do more than we were doing. “Okay… we have what we're gonna do down right?” Vinyl looked over her less than stellar support ready to charge out into battle. “Of course madame. I shan't be thinking of anything but escape.” Fflam regally muttered out. His harp didn't break at his admission. “I'll cast some spells if they get too close. Though I don't know how powerful they'll be. At most I can distract them from attacking.” Eilonwy grimaced as the small bauble floating around shivered at the thought of combat. “And I shall support you in combat.” Taran haughtily stated. “No. No you won't. You are to make sure to keep ahead and make openings for us to go through. His arms are still rough around the edges because of how they tied him up.” Vinyl reprimanded as she pointed at Fflam who was still rubbing his wrists from rope burn. “You make sure we can escape and not decide to fight without reason.” “But I can do it.” Taran hissed. “All I need is for you to give me the chance.” “This is not the best time for chances when we are trying to escape… alive preferably.” Vinyl chided the stubborn child. “Then when? When there are no enemies to fight? When everything is said and done and I can't prove to you that I am capable?” Taran argued sternly staring at the red eyed unicorn. Whether it was from anger or natural color no one could say since she had dawned her shades the entire time. “When it is more controlled and Gray can assess you better. Also when you have a weapon you can use.” Vinyl countered as she stepped up to the door. “Now get ready we need to move soon.” “I can do something better.” Taran whispered under his breath disappointed that his drive to be a knight and no longer a pig handler wasn't being taken seriously. “Escapees! Over here!” A voice called out from behind the four as a guard finally rounded the corner. “Oh buck me… “ Vinyl muttered under her breath. “Ready to check the next section?” “Wait…” Octavia stopped me as her ears swiveled around searching for something. “Escapees! Over here!” A guard cried out from the southwestern quadrant of the courtyard before a large explosion of ice burst from one of the walls. Apparently there had been fake walls formed into the stonework of the castle. “Damn it… should have expected there to be secret passages. Octavia prepare for combat. I'm going in loud for them.” “Oh dear.” Octavia held on tight as I dove into the shadows and appeared slightly askew of our destination where a familiar white unicorn was racing along with… even more humans of this world while a deluge of heartless and guards chased after them. “After them! Don't let them escape or the master will have your heads!” Creeper called out riding atop a very large heartless shaped like a wolf but on fire. The flames didn't even burn him either. “Octavia, hop off and join them. I'm coming in high.” “Got it. I shall endeavor to keep them all safe.” Octavia announced as she pulled out her keyblade from over her shoulder and galloped into the fray holding said weapon in her jaw. I took off pulling out the tomahawk and dove straight behind the group where all the heartless were and with a sickening crack of air I slammed the head of the weapon into the ground. The sheer size of the shockwave knocked the pursuers away and dissipated several of the heartless except for Creeper’s mount. “You fools! Get up and capture them before the master gets angry!” Creeper shouted desperately as the guards and heartless started to pour in from other sections of the fortress. “Vinyl!” Octavia shouted and rushed to her side. “Tavi!” Vinyl cried out back as the two hugged in relief. “Um… miss unicorn, not that I'm deriding your heartfelt reunion but we should take care of that later.” Eilonwy stage whispered to Vinyl getting her realize what she was doing. “Ugh… showed how uncool I am. Anyways let's leave this pop stand.” Vinyl chuckled as the group rushed for a large iron gate off at the end of the courtyard… surrounded by countless guards and heartless. I kept flapping into the air and dive bombing the area using the tomahawk to create large waves of earth to knock out the opposition. As much as I wanted to greet Vinyl in my own way it wouldn't exactly be discreet. So I opted to blast a path for everyone to run charging ahead and switching between the tomahawk and daggers. The daggers were thrown against walls using the ricochet to knock out any well defended heartless using the terrain to its advantage. “Rush towards there and stop gawking at the sights.” The group of humans who had been mesmerized by my strategy immediately shook their sights off me and ran for the iron gate while Octavia and Vinyl knocked out any guard that got too close for comfort. As we reached the gate I noted that it had to be lifted up by the crank to the left and had Taran start the process. He reluctantly did so making certain to keep his eye on the combat. I joined the forefront bringing out my shield and firing off the ice shards it created to keep the heartless at bay. It took a bit of a disparity in our numbers to notice that Taran had left the crank… with a sword in hand. Before I could call him back the sword seemed to magically tear through one of the heartless dissipating it. As a guard came at him the sword lifted in time to block the strike as if ethereal strings were guiding it. The sword vibrated through the other weapon melting everything in its way. “Well that was surprising…” I threw the tomahawk out knocking away an entire line as I ushered everyone who was still gawking at us as we fought. It took some doing but I managed to get Taran to leave the battle. He seemed a bit stunned at his weapon but a quick tap to the head made him realize he was standing still at this point. “Vinyl, let's try that thing.” Octavia called out to her close friend as they each had their keyblade ready. “Now? Well… fine but don't go crying when it gets weird.” Vinyl groused clearly uncomfortable by whatever they were planning. I was still leading the humans out as they rushed over the bridge. Octavia slammed down her keyblade sending a wave of quake magic across the stone floors knocking enemies over left and right. Vinyl lit up her keyblade and horn as clocks appeared over several targets stopping them in place. Octavia sent another wave of quake magic knocking large pieces of earth into the frozen targets where they exploded into shrapnel hitting even more heartless and guards. When stop wore off all of the targets that were hit felt each blow all at once knocking them out of the fight or dissipating them if they were heartless. “Hm… limit breaks too? I really need to see how well you handle fighting with one another.” I was actually really impressed. Limit breaks were powerful magical spells between two beings who had created a close bond. It was something that needed time to create. I briefly wondered if the others could do the same before noticing how drained the two were. I dove in grabbing the two and slinging them on my back. Using the card weapon I kept any pursuer stopped in their track usually turning them into cards. It was hilarious to see guards panicking from the sudden morph into a two dimensional being. Still I didn't wait long to chuckle at their plight. As soon as I reached the gate I switched to the keyblade and flung it into the chain holding open the gate slicing it in two. I rushed underneath though I think I lost a few tail hairs in the process. The roars and cries of the guards who couldn't make it in time rang out as I joined Taran and his small crew whom had made it to the end of the bridge and waited. In the distance I noted a few flying figures of the orange and yellow variety. “Finally… Spitfire and Sunshower are coming to help.” Octavia muttered over my shoulder. “When do we get back into the sun?” Vinyl groaned as she tried to get off my back… only to be too tired to move. “Soon. Let's get out of here for now.” A quick tap on my shoulders from the two got me moving as we left the fortress castle of Annuvin behind us and traveled on to meet with our friends once again.