//------------------------------// // Chapter 16 // Story: Light Wanderings // by ed2481 //------------------------------// Edited by TacoTown Chapter 16 Silent was suddenly knocked to his knees by a powerful dope-slap delivered by Kane. “What the hell did you do that for?” Silent asked in confusion. “You never say that, ever. No, seriously. You NEVER SAY THAT!” Kane said desperately in a low voice as his eyes scanned the room. “What do you mean?” Silent asked as he regained his hooves. “I mean you never ever say that, it’s like asking Bast herself to kick you in the balls!” Kane explained. “When someone says that the ledge that they’re standing on drops out from under them, the enemy archer suddenly gets a lock on them and sends an exploding tracking arrow at them, and the target suddenly smiles at you from your spot in the shadows!” Kane added furtively as his paws reached for the dagger at his side. “I think you’re overreacting. I mean, this place is full of guardsmen, along with two goddesses. I’d say that we can handle almost any-” Silent was cut off as Kane suddenly grabbed his muzzle and forcibly shut it. “Be quiet Silent, we need to tell Commander Bluestreak about this now!” Kane told his partner. “Over a slip of the tongue. Do you really think that we need to do this, or are you fucking with me?” Silent asked. “I’m completely serious!” Kane replied as he began to weave through the crowd. “Alright, but if we get in trouble I’m not taking responsibility for wasting the Commander’s time and-” Silent was interrupted by every light in the room going out at the same time. “Oh hell.” “I fucking told you!” Kane muttered as silence descended. *** “So Shining, gotten laid recently?” Ethan asked suddenly after a long lull in the conversation. Shining and Cadence sputtered in surprise as Luna chuckled; Celestia simply raised an eyebrow and Twilight shook her head in mock dismay. “Errm…” Shining said, looking to Cadence who looked just as flabbergasted. “I’d say that that’s a yes.” Ethan said, giving the two a knowing wink. The room’s lights chose that exact moment to go out. The only light in the room was the light from Twilight’s glowing blue eye. “Well I’d say that things just got a bit more interesting.” Ethan murmured. A nervous silence descended upon the room as those within stiffened as they waited for something to happen. Ethan’s eyes had already adapted to the blackness of the ballroom, and his pistol and knife were already drawn and at the ready. “Can you see anything Sparky?” Ethan asked the unicorn next to him quietly. “Yes, there’s someone at the windows behind us.” Twilight whispered back. “Be a doll and let them in would you?” Ethan asked her. Twilight smirked and turned her magic towards the windows behind the high table. The windows shattered with a similar noise to that of a grenade going off as a blast of magic rammed into them. This wass followed by the sound of high-pitched screaming from below them and deep cursing from behind them. Ethan jumped out of his chair to see several large, cloaked shapes standing in the now empty window panes. He couldn’t seem to see what they looked like beneath the cloaks for some reason, but whatever it was it was big and angry. “Well now it’s a party, ain’t it.” Ethan asked them with a grin as he raised his pistol. “Die!” One of the shapes whispered as it launched itself at Ethan, who fell into V.A.T.S. and time froze. Ethan lined up a perfect headshot and let time return to normal as his gun fired exactly where he wanted it to. The sound of the gun going off caused even more screaming from below and the bullet flew out of the barrel to imbed itself into the cloaked form’s head. To Ethan’s considerable surprise, the cloaked form only stumbled backwards slightly with the velocity of the bullet, before quickly stalking forward. “Oh sonuvabitch, they’re bullet proof.” Ethan groaned. “Of course they’re bullet proof. Sparky, they’re bulletproof!” Ethan shouted as he drew the knife and prepared to meet the rapidly closing cloaked figure. The figure leapt at Ethan, who brought up his knife to deliver a hard slash to the figure’s side. The figure’s cloak seemed to deflect his blade and the only thing that affected it was the kinetic energy of the slash. The figure hit the ground with a surprisingly agile roll for something its size, before it launched itself back at Ethan. Time stood still as Ethan fell once more into VATS and took a second to study his opponent. He still couldn’t see anything about the figure’s face, but he could see two sets of extremely sharp claws extended and pointing straight at him. Time returned to normal and the figure darted at Ethan with a screech that would cause a normal pony to wet its proverbal pants in terror. Ethan simply slashed sideways with his knife and began to exchange blows with the figure’s claws. The rest of the figures had already leapt past Ethan and entered the main ballroom. Twilight was the first to react and she jumped down after them, followed closely by Princess Luna; apparently the loss of light wasn’t doing much to her. Celestia meanwhile, began to cast a spell but was cut off as one of the figures dived at her, cloak billowing as it came. The white alicorn snorted in annoyance and sent out a beam of pristine white light from her horn. To the Princess’s considerable surprise the beam was absorbed by the cloak with little to no affect. The figure hit the solar princess seconds later and attempted to slash into her with its claws. Celestia however, was having none of that and kicked it off of herself with one powerful golden shod hoof, which sent it flying into Ethan’s line of sight. Without even turning his gaze away from his own target, Ethan’s left hand, which was holding his pistol, snapped out and he fired two shots into the flying form as it tumbled by him. Sadly, his bullets seemed to have about as much effect now as they had earlier, and the cloaked form was simply thrown a few more feet to the side while in midair. “Dammit, I hate it when they’re bulletproof!” Ethan shouted as his knife swept under the cloaked figure’s guard and once again glanced off of the all-encompassing black cloak. “Talk less, kill more.” Celestia told him simply as she flew at the figure Ethan was fighting and swept out her hoof in an incredibly powerful kick that sent it soaring into the wall, where it impacted with a slam before falling to the ground. The creature shook itself before regaining its feet. “Nice kick Sunny.” Ethan told her with a chuckle before ducking under the next figure who leapt at him, claws extended. Ethan’s knife shot up underneath the figure as it passed overhead, but it once again slipped through the black cloak. The figure landed behind him and turned in an attempt to slash Ethan, who ducked underneath the swipe, and tackled the figure sending them both flying onto the table. Food was flung in every direction as Ethan laid into him with his knife and fist. Somehow, the figure was still mostly unharmed and flipped Ethan off of him and throwing him off the table into the crowd; luckily he was caught by Twilight’s magic, otherwise he might’ve hurt somepony when he landed. “You okay Ethan?” Twilight asked as she ducked underneath a cloaked figure who had been attacking her. “Just peachy actually.” Ethan replied as he slammed his fist into the face of the figure who had thrown him off of the table and had decided to try leaping at him again. The figure was sent sprawling, but rebounded within seconds and launched himself at Ethan again. Ethan simply dropkicked it away. “Alright Sparky, please tell me you’ve found a way to kill these things because they’re really starting to royally piss me off!” He shouted. “Actually, they’re starting to royally piss me off.” Luna corrected him as she head-butted her opponent, who was sent stumbling backwards in pain. “Oh right. Well, I suppose that that’s your prerogative.” Ethan agreed with a chuckle. “So Luna, do you know what these things are?” He added as he stabbed the figure that he’d been fighting in the neck, causing no real damage except for forcing the thing away. “All I know is that the cloaks that they’re wearing appear to defend against most forms of attack.” Luna replied with an irritated noise as she kicked her foe away again. “Well I hope we can figure something out soon, these things are driving me nuts.” *** “Where are you going Kane?” Silent asked Kane as he followed the sleek cat as he dodged and weaved through the hysterical mass of ponies. The cat’s keen night sight allowed him to easily navigate through the chaotic mass, while Silent had the benefit of being a member of the Lunar Guard. “Despite what you may have heard saying otherwise, Silent assassins aren’t brawlers.” Kane told his partner as he dodged a fat, elderly noble. “Alright, and that means what exactly. Because right now it looks like we’re running away and that’s not something that Lunar Guards should be doing so what gives?” Silent asked Kane in confusion. “Assassins don’t have magical powers like controlling rats and walking through walls, we don’t walk into a room of guards and effortlessly killing all of them with counterattacks, and we’re not tyke bombs sent to fight our way through a city until we get to its leader. Assassins make a plan, follow that plan, kill our target from as far away as possible, and then run the fuck away before anyone notices that that’s where we are.” Kane continued without answering Silent’s question. “So we’re running away?” Silent asked. “Silent what’s the most common saying about cats that you know?” Kane asked as he sidestepped around a terrified looking Prince Blueblood who was cowering behind several extremely annoyed looking Solar Guards. “Curiosity kill the-” Silent began and Kane finished speaking with him. “-Cat. Yes exactly. The problem with that saying is that it’s a bit misleading. It should go; curiosity killed the stupid cat.” Kane told him. “Okay, so where does that get us; because I’m really confused by this non sequitur.” Silent asked. “What I’m saying is that I’m not going to charge into a fight where I’ll be decapitated in a single swing of a stray talon on my first night on the job.” Kane replied. “So what are we doing instead?” Silent asked. “We’re getting to a better view. As a turtle friend of mine once said ‘the view is always better from the roof’” Kane replied as he took out his grappling hook. “We’re going to watch outside?” Silent asked. “Nope, we’re going to watch from the rafters. Unless of course, you’d rather go get slaughtered like those guys.” Kane said with a jerk of his thumb towards a group of Solar Guardsmen who were being savaged by one of the cloaked figures. It didn’t seem like any of them were wounded that badly yet, but they were still losing a lot of blood. “I’ll just follow you. As long as you have a plan to get us involved and we aren’t just running away, because then we’d get in trouble for abandoning our brothers.” Silent replied with a shake of his red mane. Kane nodded and quickly aimed his grappling hook towards one of the larger beams running across the ceiling. He pressed the trigger and the grapple shot out, pulling the cat behind it. Kane landed on the beam with a front flip and turned to survey the chaos down below. *** Twilight was facing two of the cloaked figures at the same time. One moved quickly at her left while the other charged head on. Twilight’s purple magic shot out, forming a thick shield for that the figure charging her smashed into head first. Twilight winced as the impact shot through her system, almost making her stagger long enough for the figure on the left to slash her head off. Luckily Shining Armor leaped out of the darkness and deflected the attack with a shield of his own. “Shouldn’t you be guarding Cadence?” Twilight asked as the figure who’d hit her shield tried to slice its way through it. “She’s surrounded by my guardsmen I’m more worried about you out here by yourself.” Shining replied as he sent a concentrated bolt of magic towards the figure he was fighting, which dissipated off of its cloak accomplishing nothing except for making it stumble backwards. “I’m fine Shining, go protect Cadence!” Twilight told her brother as she leapt away from an incoming claw and responded with a magical shockwave that sent the figure that she was fighting flying away. The purple unicorn pivoted and sent a similar wave at her brother’s opponent, who was likewise thrown away. “I’m not leaving you alone this time Twily, you need me.” Shining told her as the figure who Twilight had sent flying soared back at them with an unearthly screech. “Shining, I’m not even sure how you’re fighting right now thanks to all the darkness.” Twilight told him as she deflected the cloaked figure to the side with a quick shield. “Training Twily, lots and lots of training.” Shining replied as he ducked underneath a claw swing. “Sparky, you okay?” Ethan called as he ran by and kicked the figure fighting Shining in the face sending it tumbling over backwards. “I’m fine Ethan.” Twilight replied with a shrug as she sent out another wave of magic that caught one of figures chasing Ethan in the stomach, sending it to its knees. Ethan sent it stumbling backwards with a punch to the face. “You know Sparky, I’m a little underwhelmed here.” Ethan commented as he dodged to the side of one of the figures. “What do you mean Ethan?” Twilight asked as she batted a figure away with a blast of magic. “I mean these guys were interesting for around ten minutes, after that they became annoying and predictable.” Ethan replied as a figure lunged out of the darkness at him and he simply kicked it away with a powerful roundhouse. “Now that you mention it, they seem more like distractions than anything else.” Twilight agreed. “The question is; what are they distracting us from?” Ethan said with a scowl. “I-I don’t know, they seem to be going after us and the Princesses…” Twilight said with a frown. “I may have noticed that.” Ethan told her dryly. “But they aren’t really going after the crowd except for a few of the guards which doesn’t make much sense if this is an attack.” Twilight added as she sent a beam of purple magic into the figure charging her sending it staggering away. “So where does that get us?” Ethan asked as he dodged a claw swipe and slammed his fist into the figure’s chest. “Well they aren’t after us, they’re not after Celestia or Luna, they aren’t after the civilians, so that leaves… Shit, they’re after the ambassadors!” Twilight shouted, a look of horror passed between the two as the full importance of what Twilight had just said passed between them. "Oh we're boned."