Perquisition

by Diexna

Chapter 14

The currently red stallion and the green mare stopped dead in their tracks, staring with wide eyes at the pony whose voice they had just heard echoing from inside their own minds. Sketch herself was trotting ahead, unaware what had just happened. Kickbolt and Crimson quickly traded a mystified looks before turning back to the pegasus before them.

“Sketch, did you just say that?” Crimson quietly asked, having taken a few moments to bring up the courage to speak after what he just heard.

Slowly stopping her movement, the mare in the stallion body turned around. "What are you talking about? I didn't say anything," she responded. "Maybe you just imagined it."

Kickbolt quickly stepped in, shaking his head. "I heard it t-t-too."

"And," Crimson continued, "it sounded like your voice. And I mean your voice. The one I currently possess!”

Sketch gave them an odd look. “But... I didn’t say anything... did I? What did you hear?”

Crimson looked to the side, blushing. “You were... contemplating whether or not to tell me that you... like me.” By now he was tapping the ground with a hoof anxiously.

“I... what?” Sketch asked quietly. Her face flushed red immediately as her wings uncontrollably began to twitch, causing the the feathers ruffling slightly. “How... but... you heard that?!” she almost screamed back in a panic. “I was just thinking to myself!” she explained quickly, before realizing what she had just admitted.

        The silence that followed was all the more difficult to deal with than what had just happened. The three of them just stood there, staring at each other for several minutes. Both Sketch and Crimson tried to break the awkwardness by saying something, but it proved too hard to come up with anything to say at this point.

        “S-S-So... w-w-w-we heard your t-t-thoughts?” Kickbolt eventually managed to get out, attempting to change the subject everypony was thinking about.

        “I guess so?” Sketch replied, rubbing her neck with a leg. “I don’t really know what happened or why. It could just be one of those ‘mind tricks’ that Full Bellows warned us about. I guess we should continue either way. We’ve been standing here for too long already. We can... talk about what just happened later, okay?”

        Crimson nodded meekly. “A-Agreed,” he stuttered slightly, looking down on the ground as if looking for something.

        Only after having continued down the same path for another couple of minutes, another voice could be heard echoing from somewhere.

        “It hurts to think...”

        Crimson and Kickbolt both began twisting their heads again as soon as they heard it. “There it was again!” the current mare said. “But I think it was somepony else speaking this time?”

        “What are you talking about? I didn’t hear anything,” Sketch said, raising an eyebrow in their direction as they were looking back and forth, as if searching for something.

"A-Again!" Kickbolt let out, trying to keep his words simple.

Crimson nodded, looking back down the hallway before them. "I'm only guessing, but I think that was the voice of... somepony else?"

"You mean the two we’re looking for?" Sketch wondered, still looking at her companions as if they've gone mad. “You’re not making much sense.”

The smaller earth pony shook her head and tapped it with a hoof, deep in thought. “I’m not certain of what’s going on, but for some reason you’re unable to hear these voices?”

“What voices?! All I can hear is us talking!”

“Exactly, you can’t hear them. The question is why you and not us?” Crimson said, turning towards Kickbolt standing behind him, who just shrugged.

Sketch held her tongue for a moment before speaking. “I don’t know, but does it really matter right now? I mean, they’re just voices, right?”

Kickbolt squinted in her direction, frowning, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he nudged Crimson forward a step, hoping he would say something similar enough to what Kickbolt himself was thinking.

“Uh... Well, we can’t be sure, can we?” he mumbled, desperate to come up with something else to say as the unicorn kept prodding him with the horn to keep him talking. “I’m pretty sure we heard your voice at first, but after that we’ve only heard other voices. We can only guess that they belong to the ones we’re searching for.”

“So?” Sketch asked with an eyebrow up. “I don’t think that changes anything. We already ran into a trap that made us swap bodies, and now you’re hearing voices? Either way, I don’t see how any of these things are directly bad, just annoying. I’m just hoping this body switch will wear off in time,” she finally mumbled. “For now, let’s just keep going! We’ve already talked about this. You two are probably worrying yourselves over nothing,” she suddenly said in a much cheerier demeanor.

Everypony’s legs but Sketch’s were now wobbling their way forward. Both Crimson and Kickbolt had been telling her about more and more of these voices they were hearing.

“Is it really that bad?” she asked, tilting her head while looking at the other two ponies.

Both Crimson and Kickbolt grimaced even harder than they already were. “This... is maddening,” Crimson let out through his teeth, clenching them as if dealing with pain. “I can hear so many voices... at the same time.” He paused to slowly breathe in before continuing. “It’s beginning to become difficult... to hear actual sound over all the talking.”

Kickbolt just nodded in agreement.

“Well... keep it up, then.” Sketch walked up to Crimson, and pulled up her own book that was still in her original saddlebag. “If the other passages we walked through are of any indication, we should be nearing the end.”

        Just as she ended her sentence, Kickbolt suddenly collapsed. The red unicorn was now lying sideways, having fallen flat on the ground.

        Rushing to his side, both pegasus and earth pony looked over him. “Kickbolt, are you alright?! What happened?” Sketch demanded, shaking him lightly with a hoof.

        “D-D-Dizzy...” he groaned, but after a few moments his face seemed relieved. “B-Better now, th-thanks,” he said, trying to get up on his legs again.

        “Are you sure? You just sorta... fell over, I don’t want you fainting or anything,” the pegasus said with a stern voice.

        Kickbolt nodded carefully. “T-The v-v-voices... b-better now.”

        “If you say so...” Sketch mumbled. “Just... stay close, both of you, okay? I don’t want either of you hitting your head against the floor or anything.”

        Taking up a new formation, Sketch stood in between both Crimson and Kickbolt, supporting them by placing her wings on top of them, which took more work than she would have preferred for some simple control over them.

        They only had to take a few additional steps before something new came into their sight.

        Beneath the crystal ornaments lighting, a light gray mare with a creamy yellow mane was visible. Next to her was another mare, whose coat was the same color as her companion’s mane, while her own mane was a pale green.

        Both of them were lying on the floor, near another dead end.

        “Hey! Hey, are you alright?!” Sketch shook the closest one, the light gray mare. Up close, she could spot a quill writing something as her cutie mark, under her wing. She pulled out Kickbolt’s canteen and splashed some water on her face.

        She slowly blinked herself awake, trying to see through the water dripping down her face. “Uhh... everything seems... clearer now. What happened? Who... who are you?”

        “Good good, you’re still okay. Hold on, we have to see to your teammate first!” Sketch responded, looking over to see Crimson already tending to the other mare, who was slowly waking up.

With a calming smile now on her face, Sketch looked down to the pegasus again. She was still holding up her head slightly with a leg from when she tried to wake her up, only now Sketch noticed that the female pegasus was staring up at her, blushing.

“You... you saved us.”

“Err... yeah. We were asked to see what had happened to you,” Sketch explained as she helped the pegasus up.

Without a moment to spare, as soon as the gray mare had gotten up, she immediately moved closer to lean up against Sketch. “Oh it was horrible! We thought that we could turn off these voices if we made it to the end, but they never ended! Soon enough, our minds felt like... like... mush!” She seemed to calm herself as she leaned tighter into Sketch, who was uncomfortably trying to edge backwards.

“I’m Fleeting Quill,” she spoke softly into Sketch’s ear. “And this is my partner in exploration, Clear Lens!” She moved a hoof in the other mare’s direction, who was standing next to Crimson. At the sight of the the unfamiliar green mare, Fleeting Quill’’s eyes suddenly glared for a moment before turning back to bat them again at Sketch.
        
        Crimson and Kickbolt were both staring awkwardly at what was going on, the latter’s eyes twitching at the very sight. Clear Lens just rolled her eyes at the sight of it.

        “Uh... right,” Sketch muttered, pushing away the attached pegasus. “I’m Sketch, this is Crimson,” she said, motioning towards her own body. “And this is Kickbolt,” she ended, pointing at the unicorn instead. “And due to some unforeseen circumstances, the three of us have swapped bodies. I am now in Kickbolt’s body, while he is in Crimson’s, and Crimson is in my own body.”

        Fleeting Quill’’s eyes narrowed as she looked back and forth between the three of them, Clear Lens seemed to be trying to stifle giggling instead. “Wait, so you’re saying... you’re a mare?!”

        “Uh... currently? Yes.”

        The creamy mare standing behind them suddenly began rolling over while laughing, Fleeting Quill flung her legs into the air, and began spouting several obscene words, every one worse than the last. Sketch’s flushing was now about as strongly colored as Crimson’s usual coat, as was Kickbolt’s.

        After several attempts to get their attention again by clearing her throat, Sketch failed to quiet them, until Kickbolt whistled loudly. She mouthed a quick ‘thank you’ to him before turning to the mares again. “I see you’re both... feeling better, however, could you please help us figure out what’s going on here?”

        “Fine, but only because we could use your help. Just cut the crap so we can get out of this hellhole already,” Fleeting Quill answered quickly enough without making eye contact.

        “Rrright... Well, for some reason, my two companions seemed to be affected the same way as you two were, but I... well... didn’t. I still haven’t heard a single one of those voices they kept mentioning.”

        Clear Lens walked up, taking a closer look at Sketch. “Maybe it’s... you? We could barely communicate with each other until you showed up, then everything just seemed to... fade.” After a moment her eyes shot up, and she looked back to the wall behind her, and then back to Sketch, and then back to the wall...

        “Uh, Clear Lens, was it? Did you figure something out?” Crimson asked, stepping out from Sketch’s shadow.

        “What? Oh, yeah, sorry.” She blinked inconspicuously before turning back to Sketch. “That pendant you’re wearing, where did you get it?”

        “This?” she asked, picking up the round stone she’d been wearing around her neck. “We found it in another passage before making our way here. We didn’t know what to do with it, so we just brought it along.”

        The yellow earth pony nodded to the wall behind her. “There’s a slot here that looks like it could fit something just about that size, we thought it was meant for a magic stone first, but it didn’t work... and by then we were too... exhausted to make our way back.”

        Sketch quickly caught on, moving up to the wall and examining the hole for herself. “There’s not much to go on, it’s just... a hole.” She turned back to Clear Lens. “Are you sure about this?”

        Clear Lens just shrugged back at her. “Meh, what’s the worst that could happen?”

        Snickering lightly, Sketch took the pendant off her neck. “Heh, that sounds like something I would say.”

        After removing the string allowing her to wear it like a necklace, she lined it up with the hole, sliding it in carefully. Everypony held their breaths as first the stone, and then the entire wall, began glowing a light sky colored blue in an pattern resembling an inverted sun, with the rays pointing inwards, the pendant being in the center.

        Kickbolt, Crimson, Fleeting Quill and Clear Lens all sighed with relief as a wave of clarity washed over them. Sketch herself could feel slightly better, even though she hadn’t noticed any ill effects at first.

        “Oooohh... that feels a lot better,” Fleeting Quill moaned, rubbing her templates while doing so.

        “So...” Crimson began, rubbing his chin. “The pendant was the ‘cure’?”

        Clear Lens tilted her head slightly and shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. I just hoped it would work.”

        “Well it would explain why I never noticed any effects. I was the one carrying the thing!” Sketch deducted.

"I don't care, nor do I want to!" Fleeting Quill suddenly called out. "Come on Lens, let’s get the hell out of this forsaken place." Before even waiting for a response, she began trotting with her snout in the air.

Clear Lens sighed again and slowly began following. She turned her head slightly before leaving earshot. "Fleeting Quill may not be the most thankful pony around, so I'd like to say thank you all for saving us."

As their hoofsteps slowly died out in the distance, Sketch and Crimson turned to Kickbolt.

"Sooo..." Sketch began. "Looks like somepony fell for your... good looks," she said, savouring the last few words deeply before uttering them.

Crimson stepped back, blushing.

"What about you? We both heard you admitting you had a crush on Crimson here," he defended himself with.

"Can... can we please talk about this later?" Crimson interrupted them, flushing even harder than before. "I’m not comfortable talking about that, especially when we’re not in our own bodies."

Sketch, who had been flushing up until now, nodded in agreement. "Maybe... maybe you’re right. Lets get back to the task at hoof." She turned back towards the glowing wall and slowly began to tilt her head at the sight of it. "Okay... So... What?"

"Um..."could be heard from behind them. Kickbolt was staring awkwardly at the wall. "I t-t-think this is one of t-t-those things that C-C-Crimson could read, b-because I'm reading it right n-n-now."

"Really?! Crimson asked, wide eyed with surprise. "What... what do you ‘feel’?" The question made Sketch seem even more confused.

Kickbolt waited a moment before answering. "I-I-I-In a s-s-sense, comprehension... It's hard to describe, but from what I can understand is that it says the word ‘rule’, not that I know why."

Crimson nodded slowly upon hearing the answer. "I... see. I suppose this ability of mine is bound to my body. Aren't you able to read anything as well?"

"Actually, something else just appeared... ‘Go portal.’"

"Portal? The one leading to Discord?" Sketch asked.

"Do we know of any other portals?" Crimson answered with another question.

Upon seeing the ponies again, Discord began rolling on the floor in heavy laughter, banging his fists at the floor panels. “You swapped...” he choked out between breaths. “You actually swapped bodies! This is priceless!”

        “Rub it in, will you?” Sketch groaned, shuffling her wings with annoyance. “Can you help us or not? We did what you asked us to.”

        “Won’t you let an old fellow enjoy himself for a moment?” Discord said while cracking another smile. After having traded smiles for scowls for a moment, he frowned himself. “Oh but fine, we have things to discuss either way.” Snapping a claw, the room was suddenly filled with smoke.

        After some light coughing, Kickbolt called out to the others. “Are you guys okay?!”

        As the smoke quickly began to clear, Sketch responded with a cough of her own. “I think so, and I’m... I’m...”

        “B-B-Back in m-m-my b-b-body!” Crimson let out happily. By now the white fog had cleared, and the three ponies could clearly see each others. Smiling at the sight of ponies other than their own bodies.

        “Oh I really missed not having a stutter!” the once again pegasus declared. “Oh and I missed these for sure.” He gave a few strong flaps, hovering slightly above the ground for a moment.

        “It feels good to be back in my own body. This experience was just... weird,” Sketch said.
        
        Discord brought up his lion paw and gave an ever so gently cough, followed by a giant trumpet playing out of his ears, loud enough to wake a sleeping Kickbolt. “Now that I have your attention again, we do have things to talk about.”

        “Y-You said that you could t-tell me about... myself, didn’t you?” Crimson eagerly asked.

        Discord waved a digit at him. “Ah ah ah! I said I might be able to tell you more about yourself. Right now that’s not the case. You are however lucky enough that I will be able to say what I’m going to tell you now,” Discord explained, sitting in his usual throne, normally for once.

Crimson pulled back, dropping his head low upon hearing this. Kickbolt walked up to him and patted his back with a wing. “Cheer up. I’m sure we’ll find out something eventually,” he comforted the other stallion. Crimson replied with a meek smile, blushing.

        “It better be good,” Sketch spoke in a threatening manner, squinting towards the draconequus.

        “Well, I wouldn’t exactly go as far to say it’s good information, just that you should count yourselves lucky. Here’s the thing... Due to certain... circumstances, I am trapped here. I might seem all mighty and godlike to you, but I’m still stuck. I’m here to play a certain role, to... guide you, in a way. The problem is, what I can and can’t tell you is also restricted by the same powers keeping me here. That task I asked you to do? That was one out of many objectives which must be met for me to be allowed to part any further information.”

        The trio blinked slowly. Kickbolt’s head just tilted sideways, as if everything just went over him. Sketch pulled out her notebook and wrote hastily as Discord spoke.

        “Wait... why should we count ourselves lucky?” Sketch asked suddenly, not quite done writing.

        The abomination sighed and rolled his eyes. “As I said, these tasks I ask of you help me help you further. This one, in particular, that you just completed, allowed me to tell you all of this. There are many things that need to be said, but right now I was able to explain this to you. Now you know of my restrictions. I’m not intentionally hiding anything from you, I just can’t speak freely,” he explained further, the last words seemed to agitate him slightly. “Chances were some random information about the background for Crimson or some other silly rule would be explained, but right now I’ve said all that I can. I didn’t lie when I said I might be able to explain Crimson Aegis’ background. I just can’t, yet.”

        Sketch slowly hummed while rubbing the eraser end of her pencil to her cheek. “So you’re saying that if we uncover more of these secrets for you, you’ll be able to tell us more? Possibly about... this world?”

        “A-About me?” Crimson asked.

        “Yes, and yes,” Discord responded simply. “I can help you locate other runes that might be of use, but you need to handle yourselves out there. Although you’ve already proven yourselves quite capable.”

        “Wait wait wait,” Kickbolt walked between everypony, shaking his head. “How do we know you’re not some sort of ancient evil, and you’re just using us to get out?!”

        Discord’s eyes immediately seemed to express boredom. “Kickbolt,” he deadpanned. “Have you ever heard the term ‘cliche’? I don’t do ‘cliche’. Besides, I doubt your female friend here would miss out the chance to unravel all of this world’s mysteries,” he gleefully said, pouting up his cheeks while blinking with giant gleaming eyes at Sketch, who rolled her eyes before nodding slightly in Discord’s direction.

        “Oh come on Sketch!” the blue pegasus cried out. “You can’t seriously be trusting this... this thing!”

        “Oh my, what language!” Discord said, fending off a yawn. “I’m almost offended!”

        The little green mare slowly moved towards the pegasus, putting on a weak smile. “Kickbolt, do you really think we can afford to miss a chance to learn all there is to know about this world? That’s the only thing that’s been keeping ponies going for years!” She finally glanced back to Discord again. “Besides... I think we can trust him. I’m not sure why... but I just do.”

        “Excellent! Now that this is settled!” Discord announced loudly. “I ca--”

        “But--” Kickbolt tried.

        “Now that this is settled,” Discord repeated himself, putting emphasis the last word “I can point you towards your next destination. Well, sort of.” He put his claws into his mouth and whistled loudly. “Here boy! Come here K’les!” He patted his knees while calling for the shadow.

        A wispy jet black shape slipped out through some cracks in the wall, stopping in front of Discord. The draconequus threw the shadow a small bone shaped treat. K’les simply tilted his head as he tried to identify the object.

        “K’les here will guide you to your next destination. He more or less knows where you need to go, but you’ll have to find the exact location yourselves.”

        Upon hearing his task, the shadow’s head immediately began flying up and down in its usual pattern, showing some sort of happiness on his part. “K’les go with pony!”

        “We’re going to be stuck with the shadow thing again? He sort of creeps me out,” Kickbolt muttered. K’les however, remained oblivious as he had already begun to move towards the exit.

        “Sketch... I really can’t stress how much of a bad idea I think this is,” Kickbolt tried reasoning with the mare again. “We don’t know anything about this guy, I’m not sure we should trust him completely.”

        “There’s nothing to discuss. We don’t know anything about this world, and he might be able to tell us something. It’s not like we can research anything about him. As far as I know, we’re the first ones to meet him.”

        The pegasus shook his head. “Wouldn’t that make it our responsibility to make sure we don’t do something horribly wrong? Shouldn’t we bring this up to the council in Ever City first or something?” he argued.

        Sketch blew a raspberry in his direction. “Oh please, those stuck up ponies wouldn’t even believe ‘second rate explorers’ like us even if we actually had the answer to everything right before us. We’re better off without them.”

        “Am I d-d-detecting hostility t-towards the c-council?” Crimson asked from beside the others as they made their way back into Hill’s Base.

        “If there’s anypony I don’t trust, it’s them,” Sketch muttered. “It’s a long story.”

        “Hey K’les,” Kickbolt began, now floating slightly above the ground with his wings. “Where exactly will you be taking us?”

        The black creature that had been hiding beneath the pegasus’ own shadow under the moonlight opened his white eyes, blinking them a few times before responding. “Not sure. Only know direction now.”

        “Well that’s informative,” the pegasus muttered. “We can go after tomorrow. Right now, we could use some rest once we get back to the house they’re letting us use.

        “Speaking of which, we’re finally back!” Sketch happily let out, pointing to the  “Ooooh. I really want a bed right now. Swapping bodies is exhausting for some reason.” Putting a hoof against the door, she pushed it open, letting the group in. “Let’s talk more in the morning, right now all I want to do is sleep.”

        The blue stallion nodded in agreement. “Can’t say no to less talking, my mind is already spinning from all of this. I’ll see you two... err...” He eyed his own shadow suspiciously. “Three... in the morning.”

        K’les separated himself again, and headed towards a dark corner in the house. “K’les wait here.”

        “Rrright...” Sketch let out. “Good night, you two,” she said, nodding towards Crimson and Kickbolt.

        “G-G-Good night...” Crimson finally said, heading towards his own room.

        Sketch was sitting by the table next to the bed. The candle’s flickering was slowly dying out as she made some final adjustments to the notes and mapping she’d been making from their trip. Stretching her hooves as a yawn overcame her, she blew out the candle and decided it was time for some well deserved rest.

        Just as she turned towards the bed, somepony knocked at the door. Rubbing her eyes in annoyance at the late visitor.

        “Come in,” she said while stifling another yawn.

        As the wooden door creaked open, a red pony could be seen entering.

        “Crimson? Is there something wrong?”

        The unicorn softly shut the door behind him, ensuring it was properly closed again. He looked up to Sketch before dropping his eyes to the floor again. “I... Sketch... c-can we t-t-talk? About what h-h-h-happened in the... temple.”

(Author’s note: Okay. So, sorry that this chapter took a while. I’m really sorry, but that’s what happens if writers end up getting jobs during the summer and end up catching pneumonia somehow. That, and I’ve only been a little lazy. Anyway, chapter 14 is here now! I’ll see if I can’t get back into my usual writing rut after this.

        So apparently this story got added to tvtropes, but it doesn’t have it’s own page yet. I’m not entirely familiar with the site, all I know it’s popular for some reason I probably should get into (but not now). If anyone’s feels like they’re up for making a proper page for it, please, go ahead! :d

        Sorry if the chapter feels... weird. I suppose I’m a little out of practice. I did my best though.

        I’d like to thank my proof readers, ARBPW and Lysander. Speaking of which, ARBPW is actually working on his own story on fimfiction. I urge you to go and take a peek on it, like this one, it’s based on OC’s in an adventure setting. Clicky. Make sure you leave him a comment or such if you like it, you know, to get him to continue writing it faster!

        With that said, don’t forget to comment on this chapter (and story in general) as well! I may not answer all comments, but I read all of them. All of them. Multiple times, usually. If you want to reach me, you can do so at Diexna@gmail.com.

Thank you for reading! I promise the next chapter won’t take as long.)