Deception
The Outsider sat in his throne, staring out over his void. He watched as the floating platforms rearranged themselves to reflect the ongoings of the mortal world. Slowly he shook his head and frowned.
‘Something is wrong.’
He felt Corvo’s presence in the mortal world flicker, and his frown deepened. Due to the assassin having his mark, the Outsider had a constant lock on him. He could monitor the ex-protector’s every move. As of late however, he had begun having difficulty doing even that.
The Outsider thought back to the assassin’s actions. As of late, they had changed. His fighting style had gone from brutal, merciless, and loud to pacifist, silent, and forgiving. In most cases, he wouldn't be worried, but the change had been abrupt as opposed to gradual, like his other victims.
Sighing, the god got to his feet.
‘Now that you’ve changed, what do you dream of, Corvo?’
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Corvo’s static expression confused Big Mac. He was a huge stallion, and was prepared to crush this spindly little creature underhoof if it didn’t tell him where his sister was, but from its expression it didn’t actually care.
In reality, it was the complete opposite. Corvo was terrified. He was completely out of options until he had enough energy to Blink again and with Big Mac positioning his hoof the way he had, just beneath his rib cage, he could seriously injure the human and not even know.
Gritting his teeth, Corvo decided to stall. “So, your sister?”
Once the words had left his mouth, the farmer’s attention had snapped back to the immobilized human.
“Eeyup. Where’s she?”
“I’m not sure I know- What does she look like?”
“Orange coat, ties her mane up.”
Corvo nodded. Taking a deep breath, the assassin smiled as he felt some mana return to his system. Turning his head, he looked to the left and clenched his hand.
Feeling a familiar tug behind his navel, the assassin vanished.
Appearing about a yard away from the stallion, Corvo got to his feet, crouched, then dove for his sword. Snatching it off the floor, Corvo turned using his hands, and hurled the weapon at Big Mac.
The blade tumbled through the air, rotating as it flew. It missed the farmer completely, rather, landing tip first in the ground and sticking there. Though the sword hadn’t injured Mac, it had bought Corvo just enough time to pull out his pistol. Now, the assassin stood aiming his Flintlock at Big Mac who was still attempting to figure out just how the man escaped.
The farmer bit his lip as he stared down the barrel of Corvo’s gun.
Putting on a cheery voice, the ex-protector said, “You’re in a very bad position. Not only do you have an angry assassin standing in front of you, but he’s armed to the teeth.”
Big Mac smiled, then looked to the gate. The voices behind it were increasing in volume.
Corvo took a second to analyze the situation, but in the second he took, the gate opened up to reveal his old foes.
‘Just great. Now I’m outnumbered and have been compromised.’
Surprisingly enough, all the ponies but the guards were present, including Pinkie Pie, whom he had recently dangled off a ledge.
The six friends, Luna, and Shining Armor made their way to Big Mac’s side, and before anyone could react, the farmer found himself being pulled into a hug by his sister.
The assassin groaned. He was physically exhausted and he knew that any attempt at a run-and-gun would fail due to the ponies’ ability to fly. Coupled with the fact that he was susceptible to assault at the moment and the fact that Pinkie could be hurt in the crossfire, the ex-protector was reluctant to attack. That left him with only one safe option: To walk away.
Nodding to himself, Corvo put away his weapon and made his way past the siblings to pick up his sword. Once he had acquired his blade, he folded it up and pushed the hilt into his sleeve, concealing it.
Once he was done, he turned his attention to the ponies. Big Mac and Applejack had broken off their reunion and were watching the assassin with rapt attention. Luna had taken a fighting stance, her horn glowing and pointed at Corvo. Twilight and Shining Armour had followed suit. Rainbow was in the process of placing herself between Fluttershy and the assassin. Pinkie was standing next to AJ and Big Mac, sticking her tongue out at Corvo.
Sighing, Corvo raised his hand and pointed at Pinkie Pie.
“Give her medical treatment.”
Having said that, he turned around and simply began walking away.
Everypony took a few minutes to process what was happening. The assassin did the exact opposite of what they had expected. Rather than pull out alien weaponry or use chaos magic to attack them, he had ordered them to give medical treatment to Pinkie and had just walked away.
Twilight Sparkle let out a frustrated growl. Then it dawned on her.
‘I know how to make him stop!’
“Wait!” she shouted.
Corvo refused.
Galloping towards him, Twilight focused energy and appeared in front of the human in a flash of light.
“You can’t go, I figured it out! Please! Please listen to me.”
Corvo stopped and sighed, “Why don’t you all leave me alone? I just want to go home.”
The purple mare was not deterred. “Pretty please?”
“Talk.”
“You’re not from here, as in, from this dimension. I know that because you fell from a chaos magic field and we, well, kind of kidnapped you bu-”
“Kind of?”
She flashed him a sheepish grin. “Umm...sorry? Anyway, you say you want to go home, right? Well, the thing is, you can’t, not until you finish some kind of task! It’s a basic rule of magic.”
Corvo was taken aback. The Outsider’s exact words came to his head.
“There beyond the void lies a powerful enemy. One that threatens you and me.”
‘Does she know something?’
Corvo looked toward the purple mare. She was staring up at him, as if waiting for him to say something.
“Am I right?”
The assassin sighed.
‘No. False hopes.’
Shrugging, the assassin began walking around the unicorn. Panicking Twilight began shouting at the assassin, “Don’t go! Stay, you-”
Twilight was cut off when Luna began using the Royal Caterlot Voice. “Thou shalt not escape without penalty!”
Luna fired an energy bolt at the hooded human before he could react. However, at the rate the bolt was moving, Corvo was easily able to jerk his arm, pull out his sword, and fall to his knees before the spell hit him. The bolt went sailing over Corvo, who turned around and pointed his blade at Luna.
Then, he shouted. “Stop!”
The princess stopped, but she didn’t back down. Rather, she stood, horn glowing, ready to spring into action.
Lowering his blade, Corvo looked around. “Look at me.” he said to noone in particular. “I’m standing in an insane mask, armed to the teeth ready to fight against pastel colored ponies. I don’t want to do this any more, what don’t you understand? I’m done.”
He turned to Twilight. “You want to help? Fine, come with me. Or stay here, I don’t care. I just want to see Emily.”
Turning away, Corvo began walking down the street away from the castle.
This time, Luna didn’t stop him. She was too busy thinking about his last statement.
‘I just want to see Emily? Who is that? Where will he even go?’
By the time she had finished thinking, both Corvo and Twilight were gone.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“So you really don’t mind me coming with you?” asked a suspicious Twilight.
Corvo ignored her and kept walking. They were already through the middle of town. With how late it was, everypony was inside, and the streets were silent.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Corvo stopped.
“Go home.” He said.
“Go back to the peo- Err, ponies that will actually take care of you.”
“You said I could come!”
“I lied. I lie a lot.”
“Was that statement about your daughter a lie?”
Corvo turned and looked at Twilight for a moment before he chuckled. Emily as his daughter? Insane. He thought back to his days as Lord Protector and then...
The smile slid off his face. He was like a father to he. She was probably sitting in a cell, crying and waiting for him to come get her.
“Go home “ he said again.
“No. I’m staying.”
‘I have to stay! I can’t mess this up!’ The unicorn gritted her teeth. She knew she had to stay with the assassin. This was due to the fact that, at this very moment, she was sending information back to her brother through a mental bond. The purple unicorn had thought of the plan in a split second. Go with the creature and pretend to be its friend, while actually sending information to the Royal Guard at all times on his location. That way, if Corvo does anything wrong, the Guard can be there within the hour.
Twilight looked towards the assassin. He quickly pulled his hand out of a small rucksack he had on his hip.
‘What could be in there?’
Shrugging, the assassin began walking again.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Move! We have to get this cleaned up ASAP!” shouted Shining as he helped telekinetically push a rock towards the wall.
The guardsponies had been told to begin cleaning up after the explosion. With the assault still fresh in their minds, the ponies had gotten to work, shifting broken up rubble and moving knocked out or dead bodies to a makeshift medical clinic.
As they moved about the wreckage, from high up on a balcony, Celestia watched.
‘What in Equestria’s name triggered this? What’s so important to him that he disregards other living things?’
When Celestia had first gotten word of the assassin’s assault on the Canterlot Courtyards, she had been furious. She had almost stormed to the armory to collect her battle armor and pursue the assassin. However, once she had been debriefed by Shining Armor, her anger had evaporated.
She remembered staring in disbelief as the Captain had explained their improvised plan. Though she didn’t exactly like the fact that Twilight had been put in danger, her fears had been put to rest when Shining pointed out the fact that she had saved Equestria more than once.
‘Stay safe, my student.‘
The one thing Celestia was still confused about, however, was the fact that Corvo told everypony to give Pinkie medical treatment. Well, that and the fact that the assassin didn’t just pull out his weapons and start shooting at Luna and the other ponies.
Shaking her head, Celestia turned around and walked to her bed, wincing as she sat down on it. Turning her attention to the bookshelf, she levitated a large, heavy book off the shelf. It was titled “A Guide to Everything.” and was written by her mother. With only one copy in existence, she referred to it only in emergencies.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Hey! Listen!”
“Look, with all due respect, shut up.”
“That’s rude!”
Corvo brought a hand to his head and nursed the headache he had developed. Ever since the two had walked out of the city, Twilight had done nothing but pester him, from attempting to make small talk to getting information out of him. She had just recently begun offering suggestions as to what he should do to advance towards his goal.
The assassin looked towards the unicorn. “Yes? Well, you’re obnoxious. You have no idea what kind of headache I’m sporting right now!”
“Are you mean naturally or do you have to work at it?”
“I’m not being mean.”
Twilight threw him a skeptical look. “You aren’t?”
“Have I slit your throat yet?”
The unicorn shivered at the cold statement. Then looked toward him "You wouldn't... actually do that now that we're working together... right?"
The assassin responded “No, of course not.” in a sickeningly sweet voice.
The pair walked silent for a while, Twilight nervously glancing at his sword every now and again. As they walked, the two observed the scenery, Corvo with some skepticism. The place was so clean compared to his home, it was almost unnatural, as though everything was being monitored.
Sighing, the human and pony duo finally settled in for the night. At this point, they were well away from the city and Corvo felt he had placed sufficient distance between him and Luna.
Remembering her angry face sent chills down his spine.
Plopping down, the assassin closed his eyes and leaned up against a tree near the path that led further down the mountain. He was about to fall asleep when a loud voice brought him out of his almost trance-like state.
“Are we stopping here?”
‘Her! Shit! What will she do to me if I fall asleep!? I should have made her stay in the city!’
Corvo grunted in response.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
The mare made her way across from the assassin and sat down on her haunches. Corvo enjoyed watching her watch him. It was entertaining to see her facial expressions for when he did the simplest things.
Deciding to entertain his viewer, he pulled out his gun and cleaning rags. Twilight shied away from the weapon remembering the condition it had put her in.
“What is that?”
Corvo didn’t respond. Rather he just sat and cleaned his weapon.
“Why won’t you talk to me? Is it because you miss your daughter?”
Corvo looked up from his work for a moment. Then, again ignoring her statement, he reassembled his gun and holstered it. Leaning back against the tree, he watched her through the lens of his mask, creating the illusion he had fallen asleep.
Twilight sat awkwardly across from him.
Then she stood up and walked toward his body. He felt his blood run cold when he heard her whisper under her breath.
“Fine, if you won’t talk to me, I’ll just take the information. A little snooping never hurt anypony.”