//------------------------------// // Another Problem Starts // Story: Knights of the Realm // by Kinni //------------------------------// The battle against Tirek had been extremely harsh. The Knight's victory had been truly hard fought, and so a period of recovery was needed, not even mentioning that they also had to go through rituals in order to remove the Black Cells from their magic. Even Rarity, the one who was injured the least out of all of them, wasn't really in the best condition, having started experiencing some side-effects from channeling the power of the world. Besides that, there was also the issue of Rarity's World Channel State only being usable against beings that could be defined as enemies of the whole world, which was not the case for any of their current villains. In fact, there were probably only a few existences in the entirety of history that would fit the requirements. And Rarity was honestly glad for that. It would be better if the world never again had any more of those types of beings. Her new understanding of the world, and the creation of her World Ruler Sword had opened up new paths of development for her magical skills, plus she already had lots of ideas for new and improved horseshoe artefacts, and for making a new set of armor for the Knights which could actually handle combat at their current level instead of breaking instantly. But all of that would take some time to fully realize, so while Rarity could fight if it was required, it would be better for her to remain on standby, recovery and development. It had been decided that both her and Rainbow Dash would receive Titles of their own due to their achievements in the battle and the new levels of power they had reached, but the ceremony of conferment would be delayed a little. Their new titles had already been decided. Rainbow Dash's accomplishment of fighting at her absolute limit had earned her the title of "Limit Flier". (By the way, her new powerup, named "Extreme Limit Mode", also had a restriction on its usage, but it was simply that it could only be used against a "sufficiently strong opponent", which the Knights had no shortage of.) Meanwhile, Rarity's new understanding of the concept of World had earned her the title of "World Crafter". The members of the guard were already making bets over who would be the next Knight to gain a title of their own. Only Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Applejack were left at this point. However, villain plots were not going to stop happening just because the Knights were recovering from a major battle, so it was a good thing that there were still Knights available who hadn't participated in the fight against Tirek, and were thus ready to sortie when needed. And when a coast guard saw a large portion of the Equilean sea start behaving as if a great storm was occurring, despite the day being clear, she reported it to her superior, who ordered for an immediate investigation and sent messages about the situation to several places, one of which being the anti-magical disturbance bureau. Their analysts had been warned to pay special attention to any incidents that involved water, so a message was sent to the castle and a line of communication was established between the bureau and members of that particular branch of the coast guard in order to keep them updated on the situation. The Knights who were on standby received messages telling them to ready themselves for a potential sortie. Meanwhile, the disturbances in the sea grew at an alarming rate, to the point that Princess Luna herself went to investigate. As the princess didn't take long to figure out that the reason for the disturbances was some sort of massive ritual that was taking place. At that point, it was obvious that this was a situation requiring the Knights. +0+ The crusaders and Spike rushed to the castle after hearing that it was an emergency. Celestia gave them a quick rundown of the situation before teleporting them to the scene. They arrived on the ground near the ocean, Luna spotted them immediately and flew down to talk to them: "From what I've been able to gather, this is a ritual with discrete parts. The part of the ritual done here has already been completed, but there should be other places in the sea where the perpetrator must set things in motion before their ritual can begin." She informed them after some quickly plesantries. "Do you have any idea where those places could be?" Spike asked. "From analysing the magical signature of this disturbance, I'm only able to tell a general direction for now." Luna said, before indicating northeast with her horn "I'm gonna stay here to keep an eye on the situation and provide support." "Understood. Could you share your results so far?" Scootaloo asked. "Sure. Here they are." Luna cast a relatively simple spell to compile a magical packet containing the information she had, which took the form of a small blue sphere. She passed it to Scootaloo, who used her own magic to read it. The other two already knew what her idea was, so they nodded when she looked at them. "Bond Magic: Grand Analysis." Scootaloo declared, and the trio activated their magic, causing the image of a hourglass cutie mark to appear over them. She closed her eyes and emanated a white pulse. "Okay, I understand." She spoke as their magic faded "With this, I'll be able to tell more about this ritual as soon as we reach the next site." "Then we should be going." Spike spoke, shifting his wings into flight mode. The Crusaders agreed, and manifested their flight disk. Luna nodded at them "Go forth on your mission." She said. They went, headed in the direction Luna had indicated. They quickly began to gain speed, while also making sure to stay close. +0+ Spike and the Crusaders flew over the ocean. The route they were taking was at a shallow angle from the coast, so it stayed in view for quite a while as they flew. In fact, it was still in view when they reached their first obstacle. "That's... fog?" Sweetie Belle was the one who realized it first. Indeed, it was fog. But as they came closer, it became more and more obvious that it wasn't just ordinary fog. It looked more like a curtain that had been cast over the ocean, as the thick white cover did not spread at all, so there was a clear line between "no fog" and "fog barrier too dense to see through". And the fog area covered a huge portion of the ocean, to the point where Spike had to fly quite a bit up to be able to see the end of it. "I guess we're gonna need to go inside that thing." Scootaloo said. The trio had tried to cast a few scouting spells to see what was inside, but none of them had worked. There was no doubt whatsoever that this was related to the ritual they had come to investigate. The Knights prepared themselves to respond to whatever surprises that could be waiting, and then moved into the fog area. Their preparations turned out to be unnecessary, as no dangers presented themselves immediately as they entered, but they still couldn't relax because the interior of the fog was just like what one would expect: The visibility was incredibly limited, to the point where they would lose sight of each other if they went about twenty steps away (or the aerial equivalent). And it wasn't just the visibility that was limited, the fog also seemed to absorb sound, to the point where one wouldn't even be able to tell they were above the ocean, as no noise from it could be heard. It was so quiet that their own thoughts almost seemed to be louder than usual. Yet the most concerning part of this (obviously magical) fog was the fact that even their magical senses had been limited. Each particle of fog contained only a tiny amount of magic, but the sheer magnitude of the fog resulted in an overwhelming amount of "noise" that drowned out any attempts at perceiving anything via magic. That was the reason their scouting spells had failed. There was nothing to do but search the area themselves. Spike and the Crusaders separated in order to cover more ground, though they kept a line of communication between them. They moved through the fog in a sweeping pattern, having already divided things up so no area would end up being searched twice. Due to how limited the visibility was, they had to move around a lot more than would ordinarily be necessary for such recon work, so it was slow going despite both parties being able to move quite fast. And the need to watch out for sudden ambushes slowed them down even more, but it didn't take long before those precautions paid off. "Behind!" Applebloom shouted, having been the first to notice it. Scootaloo immediately reacted, taking control of their flight disk and pulling them up in a radical curve, intending to turn them all the way around and upside down, but midway through the maneuver, a cutting jet of water blasted into them. Sweetie Belle quickly manifested a triangular shield that deflected the hit away, but that interrupted their movement, forcing Scootaloo into a wider, sideways turn. The unicorn filly followed up by manifesting Shining Armor's cutie mark with their bond magic, having decided it would probably be the best tool for their current situation. Another attack came, this time heavy ice shards from above, but Sweetie easily blocked it with a powerful dome shield. Scootaloo looked up, trying to find their mysterious enemy, and managed to catch a glimpse of a small (smaller than a filly) shape before it faded into the mist. Applebloom had looked behind them when the first attack came, but the water jet had been large enough to obscure her view and the attacker had already vanished by the time it was over. Trusting the other two to handle any followup attacks, she sent a quick message to Spike in order to inform him of what had happened. A reply came after a few seconds, saying that he had been attacked in a similar way. During that time, they weren't bothered by any further enemies, so the Crusaders simply returned to their search, except this time they were paying extra attention to any signs of danger. And it didn't take long for said danger to arrive. They were suddenly attacked in the same way again, with a cutting water jet coming from directly below, followed closely by ice arrows coming from two different directions above them. Yet this time the trio was ready, with a united cry of "Dual Bond!" Applebloom manifested Rainbow Dash's cutie mark and Sweetie Belle manifested Sunset's. The energy of those combined powers erupted in the form of a fiery bird construct that felt like a small star. That stable, concrete form showed how much they had improved from the time of the wedding battle, where they were unable to maintain a stable form until unleashing the Triple Bond, and even then it was merely a simple sphere. And controlling those powers better meant they could demonstrate much greater effectiveness in battle. With a cry, the bird launched dozens of fire missiles both above and below, which intercepted all of the attacks and evaporated them out of existence. It happened so fast that their enemies had no time to hide away again, so the trio was finally able to get a good look at them. They were bats made of water. Monstrous bats which were only slightly smaller than the fillies and had disproportional heads. The Knights followed up their defense with an immediate counterattack composed of fire lasers which managed to hit and destroy and bat below, but the ones above were a bit further away and so had just enough time to fade into the mist once more. Scootaloo sent a quick message to Spike about their discovery and then the trio resumed their search. They kept up their current dual bond, having seen how effective it was against the enemies. More attacks came once in a while, but they could do very little to the Crusaders now that their tricks had been seen through. Spike had also managed to find a good strategy to counter the bats on his own, so both sides were steadily making progress. However, things wouldn't remain the same forever. As they headed forward, the trio realized that the enemy attacks were getting fiercer and fiercer, with more bats showing up, and them focusing more on attack, even as they were themselves attacked and destroyed. Soon enough the Crusaders were being forced to deal with effectively nonstop attacks, and it felt like they had to be getting close to their goal. Yet Scootaloo had begun to feel that there was something wrong, only she couldn't tell what. And as she was thinking about it, Spike sent a short message to maintain the regular contact: 'The attacks of the enemies are getting really intense. I think the goal is near.' Was what he said in the message. Scootaloo was about to message back in acknowledgment, but then a thought came into her mind like a bolt from the blue, so she changed her message into: 'Where are you now? Your exact position?" Because made it difficult to tell where one was via normal methods, both groups had been using a standard Knight spell based on proprioception in order to make sure their movements didn't deviate from the planned search pattern, so it didn't take long before Spike's answer came. And since Scootaloo also knew their own position, she was instantly able to spot the inconsistency. 'We are nowhere close to Spike, so there's no way the place we're approaching is the same. Which must mean...' "We've been fooled." She said to the other two "This huge mist is just a distraction. Our real target must be underwater!" Scootaloo fired off a quick message telling Spike and then the trio dove down towards the sea, quickly leaving the area of the mist. +0+ Spike didn't doubt Scootaloo's message for even a moment. Shifting back into his fastest flying form, the dragon dove down faster than the enemies could react, easily getting clear and barely needing to dodge, as only a fraction of the attacks that were fired fast enough had any chance of actually hitting him. It took barely a couple of seconds for him to hit the water, and the moment he crossed the boundary Spike was already almost completely shifted into another form which was more suitable for water, one mostly based on the Whirlpool Dragons, which were famed for swimming fast enough to generate their namesake. Spike's version of their form had slightly shorter but broader fin equivalents and a stronger tail, in addition to a duo of rear claws that could act as boosters by clicking together to generate mini steam explosions. The water was quite dark because of the mist above blocking the sun, but Spike's senses had also been adapted to the current environment, so he could perceive everything around him fairly clearly. As such, he saw that the Crusaders had already made their way underwater. Currently Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were manifesting cutie marks, one was a set of bubbles while the other was a wave. Their construct had shifted into a form that resembled a manta ray made of water and outlined by sea foam. And of course, Spike was also able to perceive that Scootaloo had been right, because now he could feel a large concentration of magic power very clearly, coming from the depths below. There was no need for any words to be exchanged, so the four Knights began to dive towards the source. They quickly reached the bottom of the sea, and soon found out that their destination was even lower, the feeling of magic leading them into an underwater tunnel that seemed to have been magically excavated rather than naturally formed, given how smooth its walls were. And then said walls started shooting at them. The bullets were large stalactite-like sharp rocks and were being fired at really impressive speeds for underwater attacks. However, they were not undodgeable, as the four Knights proved by accelerating to throw off the targeting and using the water manipulation their current forms afforded them to misdirect the bullets that were still accurate. The tunnel was winding but not actually all that long, so soon enough they reached a wide open area and saw their target, the source of the feeling of magic, a house sized red prism that slowly spun, white lines coming from it and sinking into the rock around it. And beside that prism, inside something that looked like a translucent steel bubble was a very familiar pony. Starlight Glimmer.