The Great Escape
Corvo rushed down the stairs, panicking slightly. ‘This is bad, I can’t believe I lost control like that!’
He continued his sprint, clutching his aching side. His assault on the princess hadn’t left him unscathed. Though he had used slow time, the princess had still been able to cut him on the shin with that ice spell of hers and give him a bad case of hypothermia. The ex-protector shivered, literally and figuratively, at the thought of that freezing magic hitting him full on.
Finally reaching the end of the staircase, he looked around and, thankfully, the place was empty. Sighing in relief, the ex-protector continued his escape. Back home, as soon as something went wrong, City Watch would trigger the alarm in an instant, but that hadn't happened here, and though the assassin was happy he didn’t have to deal with groups of guards, he still felt uneasy at the lack of response he was experiencing now.
Rounding a corner, Corvo heard voices; but the assassin didn’t stop. Stopping now could mean death, it was imperative that he leave the area as soon as possible.
“My head...Ugh what was that thing?”
“You think it’s- CELESTIA’S FLANK! IT’S BACK!”
Corvo charged past the two ponies who, by the looks of it, had taken on a fighting stance as if expecting him to attack them. The colts’ faces changed from ‘determined’ to ‘surprised’ as he ran past them. The pair, realizing what was happening, turned around and started chasing the rogue human down the hall.
The ponies, slowly but surely, began closing the distance between Corvo and themselves. The two’s coordination was incredible. They were able to turn and move around each other in such a way that one would never crash into the other.
The guards, even in their heavy armour, finally got within a meter of the assassin. That was when the unexpected happened. Corvo, mark glowing, released the power that he had been holding.
The wave traveled out from his palm, bringing time to a complete halt. Once time had effectively been stopped, Corvo turned around and began laughing as he let loose a Windblast down the hall.
Turning on his heel again, he sprinted down the rest of the hall, counting the seconds as he ran.
‘Three, two... Now.’
There was a loud bang and the sound of metal slamming into rock as time sped back up.
Corvo frantically rounded another corner. He needed to get out of the crystal caverns and out to the palace so he could take back his things.
Skidding to a halt, Corvo looked around; he was back at the cell, the guards were still ‘sleeping’.
Slowly, the assassin walked up to one of the sleeping ponies and threw him in the cell. Slamming the door shut, he turned his attention to the other sleeping guard.
The ex-protector picked up the stallion and put him in a sitting position. Picking up a short sword from the ground, Corvo kicked the knocked out guard in the stomach. The pony coughed and slowly woke up, looking around wildly. Seeing his friend locked in a cell made his eyes widen slightly in a mixture of surprise and terror.
He spotted Corvo standing over him, sword in hand. “W-what are you doing out of your cell?”
Whether or not humans could smell fear, they could certainly hear it.
Corvo delivered another kick to his underside, sending the guard into a coughing fit.
“You are going to show me where my things are, you’re going to lead me there. If you don’t, I’ll kill you and your friend in the cell over there.”
The pony looked up and steeled his gaze. “No.”
Corvo brought the short sword up to the guard's chest, and put a foot on his neck.
Leaning down Corvo asked “Do you have kids?” His voice was sweet and calm, but falsely so.
The pony nodded.
“It’d be a shame it they would have to live the rest of their lives without a father...” The assassin said in the same fake voice.
The ex-protector removed his foot from the guard's neck.
“The princess will stop you!” he yelled.
Corvo gave a homicidal giggle “You know, I just finished pushing her off a cliff.”
“What?”
“She has a terrible habit of getting involved with things she should leave alone, so I taught her a lesson.” the man deadpanned.
“How dare you insult the princess!”
He sprung at the assassin, pummeling him with his hooves. The two soon fell on the floor, struggling to get the upper hoof on one another. The guard's high stamina and strength were easily able to overwhelm Corvo but the one thing he didn’t account for was the ex-protector’s magic.
As the guard beat him, Corvo prepared his possession and loosed the bolt at the pony.
The human soon felt the unusual feeling of being plunged into cold water. Opening his newly acquired eyes, he saw the floor he had been laying on.
Corvo prepared himself to penetrate the mind of the guard. Slamming into his conscience, the assassin gave a frustrated groan as mental defences thwarted his onslaught. The ex-protector then felt a heavy pressure being applied to his mind.
Looking around, the assassin spotted the sword he had dropped. Smiling deviously, he picked the blade up and pressed it down on the pony’s chest hard enough to draw blood but not enough to critically injure him. Corvo shouted in agony as he stabbed himself and, finally, the combined pressure from the pony’s mind and the painful wound ejected the ex-protector from the stallion’s mind.
As soon as Corvo realized he was outside the pony’s mind, he stood up and walked over to the guard. Rolling him over, the assassin pulled out the blade and slammed his foot down on the guard's chest.
“You. Will. Obey!” shouted the assassin, punctuating each word with a blow.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the pony gave in.
“Fine! Fine! Stop, I’ll listen! I swear!”
The assassin showed mercy, halting the relentless beating.
Corvo smiled. “That wasn't so hard, was it?” The pony whimpered. Bending down, the assassin, covered the cut he had made with a hand. Then, he removed the armour the stallion was wearing. Hoisting him up off the ground, the assassin began walking.
“Would you kindly lead me to the exit?” The guard pointed down a hall.
“That way.” He whispered.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The princess's vision blurred as she fell. Her chest felt tight and her breathing was laboured.
After falling for a moment, she quickly realized her predicament and unfurled her wings. Gritting her teeth at the pain, she began slowing down her descent and quickly, performing an aerial roll, she aligned herself with the stone of the castle wall.
Leaning into a dive, she began charging energy into her horn.
‘So tired... Need to tell Luna. Must teleport...’
Celestia released the energy, disappearing in a loud bang and a bright flash of light.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Pinkie awoke with a start as the loud bang dissipated.
“What the...”
Rolling out of bed, she walked to the window and opened it up. Suddenly, the smell of smoke and magic assaulted her.
‘Fire? No...this smells like when Twilight teleports! Ooo! Did she go somewhere? Why didn’t she tell me!? I wanna have a party!’
Pinkie Pie turned away from the window and began trotting towards the door. She walked out of the room, leaving the window and door open.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Celestia landed on Luna’s bed with a thud.
Spinning around at the sudden noise, the princess of the night took a look at her sister.
...And her singed mane and tail from magical teleportation heat.
“Luna!” her voice was hoarse.
“Sister, are you-” The younger mare rushed to her sisters side.
“I am fine, The creature I told you of, it assaulted me! I fear it will do the same to other ponies if we do not act now.” Celestia fell into a coughing fit.
Luna levitated a small glass of water from the bedside table over to the princess of the sun.
“Drink.”
She did as instructed then turned to look at Luna again.
“Go, stop it. Bring guards; mine are at your command if you feel it necessary.”
Luna nodded and trotted over to the door, pulling it open with her telekinesis, she began flying towards the guard barracks.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Corvo continued rummaging through the “Prisoner Belongings” chest.
He gave a groan. “Honestly,” he yelled to his hostage, “what don’t you throw in here?”
The pony shrugged and coughed. This had to be the most unusual and painful experience of his life. He had practically been tortured, threatened, and then used as a navigation system by a biped of an unknown species. Although the experience had been scary at first, some of his fears had died down.
Now that he had spoken with the biped for a bit, he had learned that he was actually not a bad conversationalist. His mindset was very similar to that of a royal guard, but not so much so that it was like talking to one of his other co-workers.
The assassin was retracted into a shell of anger and spite but had moments, like now, where he seemed completely open to talking.
Looking up from his hooves, the guardspony shouted back, “Do you know the last time we had a prisoner down here?”
The assassin pulled out of the trunk a fair amount of bright red liquid in canisters.
“Yeah, about ten minutes ago...” he mumbled, examining said canisters in his hands.
The pony rolled his eyes at the remark. “I meant before you.”
“No and I don’t really care.”
‘There he goes, back into his little shell.’
The colt watched as Corvo pulled open a half empty bottle of the liquid and took a long draft, drinking a quarter of the canister. The assassin sighed contently, then slowly turned his attention back to the guard.
“Let me examine your wound.” ordered Corvo.
The pony got to his hooves, wincing at the pain it caused but not uttering a phrase. He proceeded to stand on his hind hooves as the assassin stared at the deep cut he had inflicted.
“Hurts, doesn't it?” He mumbled.
The stallion nodded.
The human pulled back and stared at the ground for a moment, as though deep in thought. After an awkward silence, the man started and then looked the pony in the eye. “I don’t want to hurt you... too much.”
The stallion immediately began fearing for his life. Scrambling backwards, he fell off the desk he had been placed on, grunting in pain as he did so. Regardless of it, the pony continued scrambling backwards. “I- I thought you said I would live if I did what you said!”
Corvo shook his head and laughed. “Am I really that intimidating?”
“You stabbed me!”
Corvo wisely nodded, “Indeed I did. Now drink.” He gave the pony the canister.
“What is this, poison?”
The assassin stood up and ignored the question, choosing, rather, to go back to rummaging through the prisoner’s belongings chest. As Corvo searched for his things, the pony opened up the canister and looked inside cautiously. Was it really poison? The assassin did drink it...
A sip wouldn’t hurt, right?
Raising the bottle to his lips, he poured the contents down his throat, gagging a bit at the bitter taste.
He waited a minute and was suddenly caught off-guard when he felt a cool sensation spread through his body. “Wow...What is this stuff?” The assassin stopped rummaging through the papers for a moment to look back at the pony.
“A drink.” was his simple reply. Then he pointed at the guard's chest.
Following his finger down, the stallion saw the wound had closed up. Gasping in amazement, he turned back to Corvo only to yelp in surprise as he saw the assassin undressing.
“Erhm, you know, I’m not really into stallions...” He trailed off as he saw Corvo giving him a death glare.
The assassin soon finished his task of changing, now wearing his usual intimidating but smart getup. The only things missing were his mask and wheelock.
“Nice of you ponies to clean all this for me,” mumbled Corvo.
Walking toward the guard he pointed at the chest. “The rest of my things aren't there.”
The guards pony got to his hooves. “You’re not half bad, you know that?”
“Where are my things?”
“But you need to stop being such a stick in the mud. I mean really, all you ever do is threaten me and complain! If you-”
“Answer the question!” Roared the assassin.
“Right, sorry. The princess said she wanted to show some things to you. She took them from the chest and put them in a small bag.”
‘Small bag...Of course!’
Pulling out the rucksack, Corvo dumped its contents out on the table. Just as the pony had said, there were all his things.
Putting on his mask and attaching the weapons to his belt, Corvo began walking towards the door.
“Come, pony. We have work to do.”
Cringing at the way he spoke, the stallion reluctantly followed his captor.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Twilight felt all the air leave her chest as something heavy landed on her. Lifting herself up, she looked around and saw Pinkie Pie sitting on the bed.
“Pinkie! It’s like 2 A.M! What are you doing here?”
“Oh Twilight! Ithoughtyouleftbecausesomeponywasteleportingoutsideandso-”
“Slow down, now, what were you saying?”
“Somepony teleported outside, and I thought it was you! I came to check up on you to see if you were OK. And you are! Isn’t it great?”
Twilight slowly nodded. “Yeah... great. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know who teleported, would you?”
The pink pony shook her head. “I have no idea!” she happily announced.
The unicorn hummed, thinking. “Can you tell me what it looked like?” she said.
She nodded her head. Twilight waited for the description, but it never came. The party pony was silent, sitting patiently on the bed staring back at the unicorn.
“Can you tell me now?”
“Weeeell... I was just asleep minding my own buisness when somepony made a bright flash of light and a big BOOM! All the noise woke me up and so I went to the window to see what had happened and it smelled like someone had teleported!”
Twilight sat for a moment, pondering. A loud boom followed by a light? Explosive teleportation was a very high level spell. It was meant for covering large distances, and if done wrong, could result in a huge fire. Everything would have to be perfect, even one slip up and you are sure to end up with a burnt mane and fur.
There have only been so many unicorns that could perform the feat. The creator, Starswirl the bearded, Clover the clever, the princesses, and herself, but even that was by accident. Twilight giggled at the memory. Being chased by a mob asking to do you favours can really make a mare do things that seem impossible.
Focusing on the problem at hoof, she finally arrived at the conclusion that a princess had pulled the spell off. After all, Starswirl and Clover had been dead for ages, and she was sitting right here.
Slowly, Twilight got to her hooves and instructed Pinkie to find her friends; The princess wouldn’t perform a spell that could destroy the castle for no reason.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Corvo sunk his blade into another guard as he walked down the hall. The human and guardspony were slowly making their way up towards a staircase and library due to the fact that the assassin had some “information he needed to fetch”.
The pair continued slowly making their way to the archives, Corvo singing a questionable song under his breath as he walked.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Applebloom poked at her food, not saying a word. As she did so, Big Macintosh watched with interest.
‘Somethin’s wrong... not normal for her to be so quiet. Ever since the Royal guard came by to tell us about AJ being in Canterlot for some time she’s been moping about. Best go talk to her.’
Trotting over to the table, Big Mac stared at his sister and waited intently for her to start talking.
Applebloom looked up from her food. “You wanna talk to me, don’t ya?”
The farmer nodded.
“Applejack’s gone, and I don’t like it.”
Big Mac reached across the table and patted her on the head.
Applebloom stared at her plate again. “Yeah. I know you and granny love me and that Applejack’ll come back, but that’s not why I’m worried.”
The red stallion’s eyes widened, “Nope?”
“Yeah, I saw the reason AJ went to Canterlot, it’s ‘cus of some creature that was in Twilight’s yard.”
The farmer’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. The guard had mentioned nothing about this!
He pressed for more information like he usually did. By staring intently.
Applebloom sighed. “Well, if ya really wanna know, it was big. Like, real big. It had claws like Spike’s, but five of em’ and they weren’t sharp. And its face was made from metal! The thing was scary, Mac. I think it hurt AJ.”
Big Macintosh stood up.
Applebloom recognized the expression on his face. It was the ‘I’m going to fix this no matter what’ look. She shook her head, smiling. “Canterlot?”
“Eeyup.”
Big Mac grabbed a length of rope from a cabinet and walked to the door. Before opening it. he looked back at Applebloom.
“Ah know. Take care of granny, call if something goes wrong and don’t leave the house.”
The stallion nodded, and left, galloping at full pelt towards the train station.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Twilight and the rest of the girls rushed towards Luna’s quarters. They had been desperately attempting to find the princesses due to the fact that somepony, most likely one of them, had just performed an extremely dangerous spell.
As they ran, Twilight shouted back to the group, “Come on girls, just around this corner!”
As the group rounded the corner, they slammed into one of the mares they were looking for.
“Princess Luna!” They all exclaimed.
“I’d love to stay and chat girls, but I’m in a rush...”
Twilight quickly scrambled to her hooves. “Wait! Princess, we want to help!”
Luna shook her head, “No. You all have done enough. You need your rest, go back to sleep.”
The girls looked from the princess to Twilight. Luna knew Twilight was going to refuse, and Twilight knew that Luna would insist that she go back to her room again. The stalemate continued turning into something of a staring contest.
Luna was the first to break. Between the rush she was in, and the fact that she was about to go on a wild goose chase looking for a creature that could potentially injure her subjects, she had no choice but to give the unicorn what she wanted. “Very well Twilight Sparkle. Whoever is the fastest pony within your group, I have a task that needs to be completed as quickly as possible.”
All the girls all turned to look at Rainbow Dash. The cyan pegasus swelled her chest out with pride. “Yep. Fastest flyer in all of Equestria!”
Luna nodded. “Wonderful. Rainbow Dash, I need you to warn the royal guards that the creature has escaped.”
All the girls whipped their heads around and stared at the princess of the night. Then they all shouted in unison “The creature escaped!?”
Fluttershy promptly fainted, Rarity shook her head and muttered under her breath, Rainbow flew off faster than a shot down the hall and Applejack and Twilight began formulating a plan with Luna.
But out of all their reactions, the most unusual was Pinkie Pie’s. The pink mare looked from her stomach to around the castle, with a look of terror on her face. For the first time in a long while, Pinkie felt fear. Normally she would have laughed it off, but this time she couldn’t. It wasn’t the fact that Corvo could hurt her that scared her, it was the fact that he already had.
The earth pony looked to her friends, who seemed to he handling the situation quite well. Then she screamed.
Everypony dropped what they were doing to shield their ears from the blood curdling shriek that the party pony had released. The only good thing the racket had caused was Fluttershy’s awakening.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Corvo dropped the book he had been looking through as the scream filled his ears. Clutching his hands over his ears, he waited for the sound to die down.
When it was over, he slowly removed his hands from his ears and looked down at his hostage, who was at the moment restrained by a multitude of makeshift ropes, as he had just recently attempted an escape.
“The hell was that?” He asked the pony.
The guard made an attempt to shrug, but failed miserably due to his binds.
“I’m going to take a look around, stay here.”
The stallion glared at the assassin. Chuckling at his little joke, Corvo walked out of the library, flipping open his sword.
Walking down the hall, the ex-protector heard someone talking in a hushed voice.
“It’s okay Pinke. Shhh come on now, the creature ain’t ‘round here right now.”
Crouching down, the human leaned around the turn in the hall.
‘The ponies from before!’
He watched as the pink ‘normal’ pony was pulled up by the orange one.
Corvo smiled deviously
‘Best go... ‘introduce’ myself.’
Taking care to be extra quiet, Corvo made his way down the hall.
Once within a meter of them, he stood up and tapped the closest one, a white unicorn, on the butt.
Rarity slowly turned around. Seeing Corvo her eyes widened.
“Boo.” whispered the assassin.
Rarity’s mouth fell open, and she attempted to say something, but all that came out was babbling.
“But- you and- Pinkie Pie-how-I”
Corvo stood for a moment, then nodded. “Allow me.” he whispered.
In his best high pitched voice, he shouted. “Oh no! Look, it’s the creature!”
The white unicorn stared wide eyed at the assassin. All the ponies in the room turned and looked in the direction of the shout. Their reactions were similar to Rarity’s.
Getting sick of waiting for them to make the first move, Corvo slowly began walking towards Pinkie Pie.
“Judging by what I heard, you don’t really enjoy my company, do you?”
The earth pony quickly shook her head.
“Well, that’s quite unfortunate.” He said in a mocking tone.
The assassin sank down to his knees, then sat cross legged on the floor across from Pinkie.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
The earth pony looked to her friends who were nodding violently.
“Yes.”
Taken aback by the answer, Corvo looked around, moving nothing but his eyes, examining the area for traps. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, other than the fact that talking ponies existed, the assassin slowly clicked shut his sword, and attached it to his belt.
“Ok... What don’t you like about me?”
“You’re a meanie-pants.” she responded simply.
The ex-protector raised an eyebrow and stared at her for a moment, then shook his head.
“Mean?” he asked. “Well, I think all of you are mean too.”
Pinkie Pie’s face took on a questioning look. “Why? We didn’t do anything to you, you just blew up my party cannon and hurt my friends!”
Corvo pointed at Twilight. “She kidnapped me, and then all of you hurt me when I tried to leave.” fake pouted the assassin.
‘It’s like talking to Emily... I like her.’
Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “Well, what did you expect? You were throwing chaos magic around!”
‘Chaos magic? That's must be why their chasing me! But what in the Outsider’s name is it?’
Corvo smiled behind his mask. Finally after all the pointless conversations with the sun princess, he was getting some answers.
“Look, horse-”
“Pony, and my name is Pinkie Pie.”
“Fine, Pinkie Pie, I don’t want to be here and I know for a fact you all don’t want me here, so how about I just go and do what I came here to do and you all,” he gestured to the ponies, “just leave me alone?”
Pinkie looked up at the ex-protector for a minute, then slowly shook her head.
“No.”
Corvo got to his feet and looked around the room. ‘What?’
“Why?” he deadpanned.
This time it was Luna who spoke. “You have resisted arrest and attempted a jailbreak. You are wanted for crimes against Equestria and her ponies.”
Corvo shook his head and looked down both sides of the hall then slapped a palm to his forehead.
“Of all the things I have ever heard, this is the most ridiculous. I refuse to stay. I’m leaving now!” Shouted the assassin.
The mares could do nothing but stare as Corvo sprung at Pinkie Pie and scooped her up. The pink pony screamed and kicked as Corvo sprinted at full pelt down the hall carrying her with him.
Applejack was the first to regain her senses. “After ‘em!” she yelled.
The mares galloped down the hall as hard as they could, but, alas, it was in vain. They knew they had lost their friend as soon as the darkness had swallowed the two up.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Rainbow’s breathing was ragged, her wings burned and her chest felt tight, but the pony ignored the discomfort. Over the years, the pain had taken a backseat to the exhilaration and happiness she felt when she performed her stunts and glided through the air.
But for all that, at the moment, she felt no happiness or exhilaration, just a burning desire to complete her mission. To warn the guards.
The pony streamlined herself and spread out her wings, beating them to increase her speed.
Diving towards the guard's building, Rainbow Dash landed on the cobble ground. Galloping towards the door, she slammed it open without bothering to knock.
“Somepony help!”
The nearest guard, who had been sleeping peacefully in his bed, yelped in surprise as he tumbled out of his bed. Groggily getting to his hooves, the pony looked around.
“What the hay? Calm down, mare! What’s wrong?!”
Dash shook her head. “I need your help! That thing that was in the crystal caverns, it escaped! The princess told me to get help, and then it just showed up out of nowhere!”
The guard stared dumbstruck as his mind processed what had been said.
“Who- nevermind, we’ll work that out later. Let me wake the others.”
The stallion galloped towards the back of the room and into a door.
Slowly, Rainbow Dash slumped down and sat to catch her breath for a minute. She had just flown at least a few thousand meters at top speed. Rest was one of her top priorities.
As she rested, she thought of the horrors that the creature may be inflicting on her friends.
‘Should I have stayed? I went to get help, I didn’t leave them hanging... right?’
Rainbow gritted her teeth. She had followed instructions, but it didn’t feel right. Why hadn’t she stayed with her friends? Was what she was doing really loyal?
‘No...I’m-I’m scared of it. I don’t want to be near that thing. That’s why I left. Not because I was following orders...I’m a horrible pony...’
The pegasus smacked a hoof into her face. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” she muttered.
-------------------
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Hope I improved your Friday a bit.