Episode 143: Plans Go Awry
Episode 143: Plans Go Awry
Having one’s wing bound in a full cast was never pleasant, and even more so in Princess Luna’s case due to the agonizingly slow and itchy process of the regenerative magics her sister had been using to gradually try to restore the connecting nerves between Luna and the wing Firefly had severed off. She’d had to be largely immobile while the healing process was taking place, moving as little as possible as to allow the tissue damage to heal properly while Celestia had periodically administered the regenerative spells at morning and dusk.
Really the internal stress was far worse on Luna than the physical strain that healing magic tended to take out of those receiving it. She hated being out of action, especially as she was all too aware of how dangerous Starlight Glimmer and her minions were, now. In truth, Luna had believed she and her sister would be able to win their battle against Firefly and Platinum handily. A draw was not an ideal outcome where the safety of Equestria was concerned.
Not that Luna was idly stewing over the matter. She had a number of notebooks laid out on her bed whose pages were filling up with tactical notes concerning the battle against Firefly and Platinum, while beside the notebooks were scroll correspondents with allies whom Luna was advising on expanding the search for Starlight Glimmer’s hideout. Princess Cadence was working with King Thorax to place Changeling scouts in every major city, and Dragonlord Ember was preparing a flight of dragon volunteers to begin long range flight patrols over the wider areas of wilderness separating parts of the civilized world.
On top of that, Celestia’s plan concerning Ponehenge had also required calling in other elements to prepare to counter whatever Starlight Glimmer might do.
The thought alone caused Luna’s writing in her notebook to halt, the quill held in her magic shaking slightly as she recalled her sister’s visit earlier that day.
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”I thought you might argue with me more about this,” Celestia said, looking at Luna with that annoyingly sisterly expression that always made Luna feel like she was still being treated like a foal, despite knowing full well that Celestia tended to do this with everypony, not just Luna.
Luna’s personal chambers were darkly lit, with soft, magical lights like the gleam of stars providing a blue coating that was inherently relaxing. This light caused a bright reflection off of the shape of a large, broken sword tip, and the cracked handle of a pale ashwood bow that lay on Luna’s desk. Celestia had placed them there and explained her plan to Luna with the reserved tone of one expecting to deal with a huge argument.
Luna hadn’t given one, and at Celestia’s words she merely rested her hooves on the desk and looked at the two objects in question with a deep sigh, “Sister, you forget that between the two of us, I’ve more experience with the Relics than you. I know full well what they are capable of, and the risks involved with them. I’m the brash one here. As for you, I know you wouldn’t have brought these out unless you were prepared to deal with the consequences. So no, I’m not going to argue with you about this. I’m only going to ask that you be careful. You don’t know what it’s like...”
A brush of cold black as the void touched Luna’s spine and she took a shaking breath. “It’s easy to lose who you are, even just using one. I used two at once and willingly nearly plunged our world into Eternal Night.”
A knowing warmth entered Celestia’s eyes as she reached out to touch Luna’s face, “No one blames you for that anymore.”
“Even so,” Luna reached up, held her sister’s hoof for a second, then pulled it away and sighed, “By using the two I did, I already weakened the seals on the rest of them. If we use more, we need to be prepared for other Inheritors to awaken. I’m not pitying myself any longer, but I bring this up to make sure you’ve got a plan for how to deal with what will likely happen. We don’t even know for sure who all the other Inheritors are.”
“No, but I have my educated guesses,” Celestia said, “And I’ve sent letters to those I suspect and know are on our side. If nothing else, they should be ready for any side effects if I’m forced to use my Relic.”
“And those who won’t be on our side?” Luna asked in an even tone.
“There isn’t much we can do except keep our eyes peeled, and be ready for... whatever may come,” Celestia replied, her horn suffusing with a golden sparkle of magic, lifting the broken blade and placing it inside a small wooden box that she floated beside her. “It’s my sincerest hope I won’t even need this.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to talk Starlight Glimmer down?” inquired Luna.
“If she’s anything near as stubborn as ours, then I’m not hopeful, but one never knows,” Celestia said, and then shrugged and affixed a smile that was half forced calm, half experienced confidence, “And if not, I’ll just have to provide her with a thorough lesson on how I kept peace in Equestria for a thousand years by myself.”
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Luna rubbed at her face, wiping away the growing pangs of tiredness. Glancing at one of the broad windows leading out to the balcony of her chambers, she saw the night sky growing lighter with the coming day. Time to go lower the moon, then, and go get some rest. Celestia would be departing for Ponehenge today, although the appointed time to meet with Starlight Glimmer would not be until the next day.
That also meant Celestia would be taking the Trixie from the human world with her. Luna had been talking almost nightly with the Bount. There was little more she could glean that was useful from Trixie, but Luna had enjoyed simply having a fellow night owl to converse with. It was clear Trixie’s loyalty to Starlight Glimmer wouldn’t turn, but even so she might be the lever Celestia needed to get Starlight negotiating. That did leave a somewhat bad taste in Luna’s mouth, but if the situation had gotten to the point that Celestia was willing to start using Relics, then they’d passed the point of worrying too much over niceties.
But despite Luna’s lack of saying too much to argue with her sister, she did have to wonder if Celestia truly was prepared for all the consequences that would come with using those ancient items of power. Luna had been impulsive enough when she’d succumbed to her weaker drives and had plenty of regrets over using the two Relics she had back then. Nightmare Moon had been an amalgamation of many influences both internal and external on Luna’s psyche, and the helmet and armor she’d worn had played their role as well.
She grunted in frustration as her quill trailed off the page of her notebook and she shut the thing forcibly. She rolled off her bed and trotted over to the balcony, looking up to the brightening sky. Her moon still hung there, waiting for her to lower it as her sister raised the sun. Luna glanced at her flank where her ink blot of a cutie mark sat with hit’s bright moon, symbolizing her connection to the celestial globe. That, and her status as an Inheritor. Not directly, but few understood that her and Celestia’s cutie marks were different from those born by the vast majority of the rest of Equestria.
It wasn’t exactly normal for somepony to be born with a “talent” for controlling the sun or moon, anymore than it was normal for a pony to be born with such a powerful innate connection to magic the way Twilight Sparkle was, or Cadence’s direct link to the power of love. That was because they held a connection to something outside the normal laws of magic that governed the rest of the world. Inheritors to long forgotten powers, whose Relics remained scattered across a realm once ruled by...
Luna shook her head and focused on lowering the moon, whispering to herself, “Please be careful Tia. Even if we’re trying to protect the world, I’m not sure if it will survive if you, of all ponies, lose yourself like I did.”
And despite alicorns having senses that were generally much better than that of regular ponies, lack of sleep and intense focus on her task of lowering the moon meant Luna didn’t quite notice the small object hovering just beneath her balcony. This object then silently lowered, and floated down the length of the tower...
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...And continued onward to the lower wings of Canterlot Palace. The object moved with purpose and intelligence, pausing when needed to hide in bushes or around terraces from patrols of Royal Guard. Eventually the object arrived at the window to a room located in the palace’s east wing. The room was not too spacious but it was well furnished, if one didn’t consider the bars on the window or the heavy locks on the door, designed to keep the occupant inside.
Trixie Lulamoon, as far as she knew the last of the Bount, rolled onto her side on the couch she was lounging upon, setting aside the book she’d been floating in front of her face to read. She’d gotten decently skilled at basic levitation spells, although more magic beyond that was proving difficult. Still, she couldn't complain. For a prisoner she was being exceedingly well treated, if still watched and restricted from leaving her quarters without a thorough escort. Fortunately her room did have an attached lavatory, lucky her.
Looking at what floated skillfully through the bars of her window, albeit with a bit of struggle and a grating popping noise, she sat up and said, “Eisenwand, report.”
Her Doll, Eisenwand, or rather Eisdenwand’s head, floated to a table next to the couch Trixie sat on and landed smoothly. Trixie was still proud of her own genius trickery. She’d displayed Eisenwand’s power brazenly in her fight against Princess Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and that two bit Soul Reaper Lieutenant. But she hadn’t shown off all of her Doll’s abilities, especially the fact that he could detach his head to function autonomously, much like the mythological dullahan his form was inspired by. The ponies may have locked her hat up in another room, but a Bount with a strong enough bond with their Doll didn’t need to be in direct line of sight to the crest their Doll was bound to in order to summon them.
The plan Starlight Glimmer had worked out with Trixie, after Trixie blocked the Equestrian side of the portal, was to essentially get captured, then spend that time gathering intel through Eisenwand. Especially intel on Canterlot itself, and the palace. Starlight wanted to know where any magical items or repositories of knowledge were being kept, and if possible what kind of plans the Equestrians might cook up. Of course Trixie would still need to be rescued in order to bring all her intel to Starlight, but Trixie had faith in Starlight to figure out how to do that. In the meantime her job had been to use her Doll to learn all she could, and that part had gone swimmingly so far.
Eisenwand wasn’t magic, after all, so he didn’t trip any magical wards just by being activated or floating around. As long as he stayed out of sight, he could spy quite effectively. Already Trixie had figured out that Canterlot had a special library with a restricted section that Starlight would no doubt be interested in.
“Mistress, on a hunch, I decided to pay close attention to the Princess of the Night,” Eisdenwand said in his deep baritone, his head tilting a bit forward in a rather awkward attempt at a bow, despite only being a head and neck of polished black armor. Trixie had to reach out with a hoof to keep him from tipping over, “Ahem, I noticed her injuries are recovering, and it’s possible she will be able to take the field again within weeks, or even sooner. However, that is not the most important thing I have learned. In eavesdropping upon her conversations with the Princess of the Sun, I have heard some interesting terms being thrown around. Inheritors, and Relics.”
Trixie’s ears perked up and her eyes became alight as she leaned forward, “Oh? Do go on. Whatever those are, they sound both great and powerful.”
And exactly the kind of thing Starlight Glimmer would want to know about.
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There was little of note or value to be found in the interior of the zoo’s Kraken dome. Twilight could feel the oppressive sensation of a place of activity and recreation now long since given over to decay and death. The hall where elegantly curved pathways led up to the glass observation tubes all but echoed with such silence that Twilight almost thought she could hear the phantasmal whispers of laughing seapony foals accompanying their parents on a day trip to the zoo. There was even a gift shop, long overgrown with barnacles, that still had toys of a comically cartoonish Kraken with big button eyes. The massive sea beast had clearly been the zoo’s star attraction when the city was still alive.
She stayed close to Flash. While it seemed he could swim on his own after getting a good ten minutes to catch his breath, he still looked sluggish in the water to her, and she was more worried than ever now that she was being more honest with her feelings. He gave her a reassuring smile, but she worried regardless.
And her expression wasn’t going unnoticed by her companions, Rarity and Applejack whispering to each other.
“Do you suppose something happened?” Rarity speculated, “It was only ten minutes.”
Applejack adjusted her stetson, wearing a knowing smirk, “Lots can happen in ten minutes, but ain’t nothin’ too far with them two. Gonna guess Rainbow Dash owes me some bits, now.”
“Oh?” Rarity asked, but Applejack waved her off before Twilight noticed them gossiping. Up ahead Wavecrest and Admiral Seaspray shot back inquiring looks at the ponies. They’d swam up to a set of wide openings in the hall ahead of them, what once might have been sliding glass doorways but now were broken openings with the glass long scattered across the floor. Outside was a covered area where part of the dome overhung a walkway leading out to a courtyard. The courtyard was filled with waving stalks of kelp, but the stone portions were clear, and ran underneath a stone archway with a magnificently carved sign. It sported a plethora of exotic sea creatures, all with happy faces, arranged in a parade around the letters of the sign. While Twilight couldn’t make out all the words, her brief studies of the seapony tongue did clue her in that this was the entrance to the zoo itself.
Beyond it the ruins of the city closed in around a straight and wide pathway that led directly towards the palace, which wasn’t far off now.
“That is the palace’s northwest side,” said Wavecrest, “The main gates are on the south, but my mentors notes show that there are several much smaller entrances meant for servants on this side. It is my hope they will not be as well watched as the south gate.”
“Well wishes never won battles,” Seaspray said, “Let us be prepared for the worst, in case the servant entrance is heavily guarded. Your seapony magic has been quite adept at keeping us hidden, but it won’t get us through a gate that’s being carefully watched.”
“No,” admitted Wavecrest, her lips curling back in a teeth baring smile, “But there is more than one way to clean a fish, Admiral. My spell to dampen sound won’t work at close range, but it will get us near enough that we can get a clear view of what we’ll be dealing with. Whether through might or magic, we’ll figure out a way into the palace. From there, I know the route we will need to take to get to the Treasury.”
The group continued down the pathway towards the palace, and ahead a congregation of collapsed spires formed a wide tunnel they swam beneath. Looking up, Twilight got the impression of passing through the ribcage of some vast, monstrous beast, although what she was looking at was the hollowed out husks of buildings that had not held living occupants for centuries. More and more debris cluttered the path ahead, forcing them to swim in a winding path through the tunnel of fallen ruins, but always the palace loomed ahead, bright and distinct like a polished gem.
Several times they had to pause and hide behind some rubble as the sight of a sahuagin patrol passed through the ruins above. One time while doing so, a pulsation of blood red light flickered from the palace’s upper rooms, and Twilight thought she heard some distant, undulating sound like a howl. Beside her, Flash twitched, and she glanced at him.
“You felt something, didn’t you?” she asked, recalling his odd behavior from earlier.
The others looked at Flash Sentry as well, and he licked his lips while nodding his head towards the palace, “I don’t know what I’m sensing. This time it came from the palace. The other time it was further off, somewhere else.”
“Felt what, exactly?” inquired Rarity, “Something to do with your unique senses as a Soul Reaper?”
“That’s the thing. I can’t tell,” Flash said, rubbing at his forehead with a hoof, “To be honest, my senses have been out of whack ever since I came to Equestria. I’ve gotten used to how magic feels, but it’s still hard to sense things as sharply as I would back home. That’s why I’m not sure if what I’m picking up on is real or not. I think what I’m feeling are brief bursts of reiatsu.”
“Reiatsu?” Wavcrest gave him a strange look, “I don’t know this word. It doesn’t sound like Equestrian.”
“It isn’t. Long story,” Flash said, “It’s a word my people use for the pressure beings with lots of concentrated spirit energy emit. Problem is, I haven’t felt anything like that in Equestria since I got here. Sure I can sense just enough of it to feel out living beings with souls, but nothing like the kind of reiatsu I’d feel from one of my own kind, or a Hollow for that matter.”
“Wait, yer sayin’ yer feeling other Soul Reapers or Hollows out there?” said Applejack, a note of alarm in her voice, but Flash shook his head.
“No. I’d be able to tell if it was something I was familiar with like that. Whatever I’m feeling... it’s nothing like what I’m used to. I’m not even sure it is reiatsu. It-”
There was another pulsation of scarlet light that painted the darkness outside the palace, lasting a little longer this time as it strobed for several seconds. This time Twilight and Rarity both flinched as their horns twinged with cold from sensing the twisted, unnatural magic of sahuagin blood spells. Twilight didn’t doubt those red pulses were from some kind of sahuagin ritual. But it was strange, Flash couldn’t be sensing reiatsu from that, could he? The sahuagin had used magic like that on Mt. Aris and he hadn’t detected reiatsu then.
Flash’s face grew tense with focus, and as the flashes of red light subsided, he let out a long breath, “Whatever it is, it’s inside the palace. Weird, could have sworn I felt something out in the city, too, but... well whatever, I can’t hold us up here speculating. We’ve got a mission to finish.”
“Quite right,” Wavecrest said, “But do keep us informed if you feel whatever it is you’re feeling again. The sahuagin shamans use many foul forms of their sacrificial magic, and if any of it is akin to powers you’ve dealt with before, we’d best be ready for them.”
At the end of the tunnel of decayed city ruin, the smashed and dilapidated buildings reached nearly up to the palace wall. There was a separation of about twenty meters, give or take, where the ground gave way to a deep rift that ran down into darkness. The curved palace wall ran up for hundreds of feet, and Twilight could make out a few windows or openings that weren’t closed or barred in some fashion. It was almost as if this side of the palace was more fortress than entrance, with a blunt, unwelcoming exterior that didn’t match the more open curves of the south end.
“My but something about this seems dreary,” Rarity said, then she let out a short gasp, “Oh my, what are those?”
“What...?” Twilight asked, following her friend’s gaze until she saw down into the rift that ran along the palace’s wall. Down in the rock wall were a number of metal cages. Dozens of them. From what Twilight could discern, the cages had been bolted to the wall of the rift and stretched down into the unseen darkness. The cages had no living occupants, but she could see the traces of bone fragments and long decayed skulls of what had to have once been seaponies. The sight made her a tad queasy, but she controlled it and gave Wavecrest a questioning look, “Do you have any idea what this is?”
Wavecrest held her staff close, her eyes flickering between the rift, and the palace walls. She motioned for Twilight and the others to hold back, and remain hidden behind the edge of the ruins as she nodded towards the wall. Twilight had nearly forgotten that they needed to be careful about sahuagin guards, and lowered her head behind a slab of broken stone while peeking just enough to realize Wavecrest was pointing out a pair of sahuagin. Fortunately the pair of fish creatures were high up on the palace wall, floating near a conical shaped opening that had a bolted gate on it. A shark with a hammer shaped head swam in a lazy circle nearby, about twenty feet long. The sahuagin guards were tossing scraps of fish that the shark snapped up happily, and appeared to be so engaged with feeding their pet that they hadn’t noticed what was going on below them.
Once she seemed sure they were out of danger of being spotted, Wavecrest addressed Twilight, “I do not know for certain. This rift is not natural. It was not part of the city’s original design. It must have been carved during the time Charybdis had taken control, before Princess Scylla’s forces came to drive her mad sister from Aqualania. Those poor unfortunate whose remains are in those cages I would guess were citizens Charybdis decided to make examples of.”
“That would fit with the stories we hippogryphs have heard as well,” said Seaspray, his beak turned down in a grim frown, “A jewel of the seas, reduced to a tyrant’s plaything. Truly a ignoble way for such a grand city to fall.”
“So somethin’ I don’t much get,” said Applejack, “If this Charybdis was so big on takin’ over Aqualania an’ such, why ain’t she ever come back all these years? Why stay down in this Abyss place playin’ house with a bunch o’ critters like the sahuagin?”
“I was under the impression she didn’t want to make herself a target by any surface powers, like Equestria,” said Rarity, but then the seamstress looked up thoughtfully at the darkness of the deep ocean above, and rubbed her chin, “Although given how deep beneath the waves this city is, I actually can’t imagine anypony on land would even notice what happens down here. So I suppose it is a tad odd this tyrant of the seas hasn’t returned to this place.”
“Does the motivations of an insane monster matter?” said Wavecrest, “Perhaps she fears a place where she faced defeat. Do not forget, Princess Scylla beat Charybdis right here, above this very palace. Drove her away into the Abyss after Charybdis’ foul magic turned her into an abomination. It could just be that she never wished to lay eyes on the reminder of her failure. Regardless, it doesn’t matter for our task here. I see only the two guards, and one shark. We should be able to get in through that servant entrance easily enough.”
Twilight couldn't disagree with Wavecrest’s logic. They really didn’t have much time to get into a speculative debate over why Charybdis did or didn’t return to Aqualania. Granted Twilight was curious to know more, if only because further knowledge of this dangerous individual would be helpful in ultimately defeating her. Twilight hadn’t forgotten that the final goal of her and her friends’ quest was to face Charybdis herself and free the piece of Adagio’s soul that the deep sea witch supposedly had. She was even a bit hopeful to find more clues as to what happened between the two seapony royal heirs somewhere in the palace, but they still needed to focus on the task at hoof.
“You’re right,” she said, “Let’s just get inside first. I can hold those three with my magic, and then Seaspray and Applejack can knock out the two guards. Flash, do you have any Kido that will incapacitate the shark?”
He nodded, “I think I know one that will do the trick.”
“Alright then, on three. One... two... th-”
Her count was interrupted by a loud wailing noise that echoed through the waters, reverberated many times over by the convoluted maze of ruined buildings that amplified the sound and made it seem to bounce from every direction. It was a horrific, screeching wail that made Twilight’s whole body twitch. Then, off to the south, she saw the glow of actual light in the underwater depths, a potent and ethereal gleam of blue and green light.
“My goodness, what is that awful sound?” Rarity said, clasping hooves to her ears, “It sounds like someone is trying to strangle my dear Opalescence while simultaneously drowning themselves!”
“It’s as if the tortured screams of the condemned have been mixed with the cries of a demonic banshee,” said Admiral Seaspray, holding his harpoon at the ready.
“Even the worst beasts in the deepest parts of the ocean I’ve hunted in did not make a cry so hideous,” Wavecrest breathed, her staff preparing to unleash magic.
Applejack just let out a dry chuckle, “Oh, that’s just Pinkie Pie.”
“Come again? The pink one?” Wavecrest said, blinking astonishment. Even Twilight looked at Applejack somewhat askance, as she certainly had never heard Pinkie Pie make a noise like that.
“Are you sure, Applejack?” Twilight asked, wincing as the wailing continued its horrible echo, “That does not sound like the Pinkie Pie I know.”
“Ya ain’t never been ‘round her during my family’s last hootenanny during Nightmare Night,” Applejack said, “We set ourselves up a’ haunted barn, but ya’ll were in the Crystal Empire that year vistin’ yer brother.”
“Oh,” said Rarity, “And I was at a social gathering in Manehattan this year for Nightmare Night, so I missed whatever happened back in Ponyville. Wait, so you’re sure this is Pinkie Pie?”
“Sure as rainfall n’ autumn. Ain’t never gonna ferget the way our Pinkie Pie can use them pipes o’ hers ta let out a wail that’d scare the scales off a’ hydra.”
Twilight gave a slight nod, shocked, but impressed. “If that sound is Pinkie Pie, the lightshow must be Starlight or Trixie’s work. They must be creating some kind of diversion to sneak into the palace. But wait... why are they going into the palace?”
“They must have reason to think Aria and Sonata are being kept inside,” said Flash, “A diversion is probably their best way to get past the guards. Only problem is that it's going to put every sahuagin in the city on alert.”
“Yet this may benefit us in the short term,” said Seaspray, pointing with his harpoon, “Look.”
The guards at the servant entrance had turned their heads towards the distant flickering of lights and were giving nervous looks around at the continued wailing. They exchanged hushed, swift words with each other, and after a few seconds one of them unlocked the servant gate and swam inside the palace, leaving his companion alone with the shark. The shark had become agitated at the light and noise, but the remaining guard mounted the creature and gave it a soothing path on the neck.
“Well that makes things a bit easier,” Twilight said, her horn lighting up, “Let’s go, quickly. The palace might be crawling with guards soon, so let’s do this.”
There were affirming nods all around from those around her and they followed her lead when Twilight charged upward, swimming with powerful strokes to rush the remaining sahuagin and the hammerhead shark it rode.
The sahuagin saw them coming, but was barely able to make a sound or even bring his trident to bear before Twilight’s magic struck both him and the shark, slamming them into the wall and holding them there with a powerful telekinetic field of magic. Before the sahuagin knew what was going on, Applejack was right next to him and gave a swift swing of her hoof, delivering a right hook that cracked the fishman’s jaw and put him out like a swiftly extinguished candle.
The shark tried to thrash about a bit longer, but Flash was there almost as fast as Applejack, slowed a bit by how tired he was from the poison he’d endured, but still swift. He placed a hoof in front of the thrashing shark’s head and quickly chanted a Kido spell.
“Bakudo Number Seventeen: Inemuri.” (Forced Slumber)
There was a brief distortion in the water in front of his hoof, encapsulating the shark’s head. The creature’s thrashing instantly slowed, then stopped completely as the shark fell asleep. Twilight released the unconscious sahuagin and sleeping shark, although she took a second to set the shark drifting down towards the rift, so even while asleep it’s gills would breathe for it.
Wavecrest and Seaspray reached the servant entrance and pried the still unlocked metal doors open.
“Well, my friends, welcome to the royal palace of Aqualania,” Wavecrest said, and motioned for them all to go inside, “Next stop, the Treasury of Scylla.”
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The royal palace of Aqualania was far larger than Starlight Glimmer had given it credit for. Sure, it’d appeared big enough from the outside, but the unique infrared vision the aquatic adaptation spell caused had also left much of its vastness cloaked in shadow even when right up next to it. Now that they were inside, it was humbling to realize just how enormous the halls were. In truth, the building dwarfed Canterlot Palace, no small place itself.
The immediate hall after passing the gates had been a vertical length tall enough that several adult dragons could have walked through it unimpeded. The ceiling and walls were ribbed like the inner bones of some gigantic whale, with the stone protrusions of the ribs also containing circular doorways that led off to countless side halls. Up ahead the main hall shot forward then curved up into a soft incline that terminated in a wall with three more wide, circular openings arranged in a triangular pattern. Statues of noble looking seapony warriors flanked the incline, and a strange pink emanation of light suffused the chamber. As far as Starlight could tell the light was filtered into the hallway from crystal arrangements mounted in the ceiling and walls, carved like smooth square gemstones.
“Which way are we going, guys?” asked Rainbow Dash, gesturing at the various doors along the hallway, “Because I’m seeing a lot of options.”
“Perhaps we should have kept that prisoner longer,” muttered Tempest, but Starlight shook her head.
“I couldn’t keep up that domination spell forever, and I’d rather have my horn free to fight,” Starlight said, and Tempest’s mouth creased in an obstinate frown.
“But if he wakes up too soon, he’ll alert his fellow fishheads to our presence.”
Starlight gave Tempest a sidelong look, “After the show we just put on, everycreature is going to know we’re here soon enough. Speed is what we need, and Ulgriv didn’t know any more about the palace interior other than there being a courtyard beyond this main hall. Probably through one of those three doors at the end. Bringing him along any further wouldn’t have helped.”
“Didn’t he say there’s some sort of temple in that direction, too?” said Fluttershy, “That might be where Sonata and Aira are being held.”
“So do we just rush in and hope for the best, or do we have an actual plan?” asked Trixie, “Because I feel as if I’ve done my part, but if more of Trixie’s special magic is called for, I can conjure away.”
Tempest raised and eyebrow at her, “Somepony’s pumped up.”
“Trixie is tired of playing second fiddle,” the magician mare declared, “And this is a perfect chance to show up that Twilight Sparkle and show her just how brilliant and talented I am!”
“I think dropping the third-person schtick might help with ponies taking you seriously,” Tempest replied, to which Trixie scoffed.
“I don’t always use it, but it’s perfect for putting on a show. Makes folk remember Trixie’s name, which is good for branding. Trixie is even considering having merchandise made.”
“Not the time for this discussion, gang, we’ve got incoming!'' Rainbow Dash said, readying her cutlass and zooming ahead. Starlight didn’t even see at first what Rainbow Dash was talking about, but then saw the swift shades of motion from the top doorway at the end of the hall. They were sleek and long, a quartet of sharks. Not the burly great whites that the patrols had been riding, but rather more slender creatures, perhaps makos? Starlight wasn’t up on her shark genealogy.
She didn’t see any sahuagin with the sharks, so Starlight guessed these had to be the equivalent of guard dogs left behind to patrol the halls. It was possible the palace was filled with sharks or other undersea creatures the sahuagin had tamed for their purposes. Either way, they had to deal with this fast and keep moving. Who knew how long they had before the warbands at the front gate got tired of trying to chase ghosts that weren’t there and came back to the palace?
Rainbow Dash’s speed meant that she streaked right through the pack of sharks before the rest of the group could even get a chance to react. Now having become fully used to her aquatic form, the champion Equestrian athlete was all but a solid blue ribbon of motion. Her tail smacked one shark across it’s sensitive nose while her cutlass’s basket hilt cracked another across the side of the head. As these two sharks reeled, the other pair flashed teeth at Rainbow Dash’s flanks, but she twisted away just a hair fast enough to keep from getting a bite taken out of her.
Starlight gripped one of the sharks with her magic and introduced it to the floor with significant force, while Trixie’s own horn let out a stream of intertwining blue and white sparkles that combined together in front of another shark and detonated in a popping flash of magic light that left the shark shaking its head in place, utterly disoriented.
Now Tempest caught up to the fray and tackled one of the shark’s Dash had struck, wrapping her hooves around it’s body just behind the head. She then propelled herself and the shark forward until they both rammed into the wall, Tempest using the shark’s body to cushion her own while further battering her target. It was still conscious, despite the blow, and twisted against her hooves, teeth gnashing at her. Tempest held firm, continuing to wrestle with the predatory fish.
Meanwhile the other shark Dash had hit regained its senses just in time to come face to face with the calm if somewhat sheepish stare of Fluttershy, who floated in front of it with a hoof to her chin as she said, “Um, I’m sorry to bother you Mister Shark, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d maybe take your friends somewhere else?”
The shark just stared back at her, looking about as confused as a shark’s limited facial muscles allowed it to look. Then it looked up as Pinkie Pie landed on it’s head and and playfully waved at it.
“Yeah, you don’t want to eat us. I mean, do we look like we’d be healthy to eat? Think about your blood sugar levels!’
If it was at all possible for a shark to appear annoyed, this one managed to pull it off, and started trying to shake Pinkie Pie off it while snapping its teeth at her. Flutteshy sighed and with surprising strength for such a demure pony, grabbed the shark by the sides of the head and turned it to look directly at her eyes, which had grown wider yet magnitude more intense.
“Be nice Mister Shark. Otherwise I’m going to be very cross with you. Do you understand?”
The shark paused mid-bite... slowly nodded it’s head, and proceeded to sheepishly swim away like a chastised puppy.
By then Rainbow Dash had doubled back on the shark, Trixie had disoriented and effectively dive-bombed it with her whole body acting like a makeshift torpedo, leaving it dazed and out of action. Tempest had taken a slight bite to her tail, but with a growl and smashed her own shark’s head once more into the wall, leaving a few noticeable cracks in the stone, and left it floating either unconscious or possibly dead. It was hard to tell which.
That left the shark Starlight Glimmer held with her magic, but a simple bolt of stunning magic from her horn took care of that problem. This left the group free once more to proceed forward, although they paused briefly in front of the three circular doors at the end of the main hall.
“Soooo... are we stuck guessing which one to go through?” asked Dash.
“Of course not,” said Fluttershy, whistling, “Mister Shark! Heel please!”
The shark she’d pacified just moments before now reluctantly swam back to her, and Fluttershy stroked it’s nose.
“Good boy! Who’s a good fish? You are! Now, we’re here looking for some friends of ours, one’s purple, the other is blue, and looks kind of like us but with more fins and sharper teeth. Do you know where they are?”
The shark tilted it’s head, then wagged its tail and nodded. Fluttershy patted the shark’s nose, rubbing it the way one might scratch behind a dog’s ear, “Great! You’ll lead us to them, won’t you?”
Quite thoroughly under Fluttershy’s bewitching influence, the shark was now all too eager to swim ahead, going up to the door on the top right corner. Tempest finished examining her wound, which wasn’t deep but was bleeding a bit, and said, “Well that’s one way to get intel. How’d you even do that?”
“I just have a way with animals,” Fluttershy said, smiling.
Starlight swam towards the door, motioning for the others to follow, “Hurry up guys! I got a feeling we’re running low on time here.”
----------
Ulgriv’s mind swam up to the realm of consciousness as if through a thick gel. The young sahuagin felt piercing pain behind his eyes for a few seconds as he groaned and clutched at his skull. It took a few difficult seconds of enduring disorientation and a heavy blanket of throbbing pain before he could grasp his surroundings. He was floating within the ruins of a market promenade just outside the palace’s main gates. He wasn’t at all certain how he’d gotten there, his memory fragmented.
Piece by piece he put together that he and Rigash had been captured by... what? Soft kin? He got flashes of images of a group of colorful aquatic equines, but something about them didn’t seem right, and didn't line up with the seapony soft kin. One of them had had a... horn? A glowing horn? What had she done to him? He could only remember a flash of bright teal light, filling his eyes, then nothing.
However he didn’t need to remember the details to make an educated guess. One look at the gates and Ulgriv’s heart leapt into his throat. All of the guards were down!? Dead or unconscious, he couldn’t tell, but the multiple warbands that had been guarding the palace’s gates were either gone or lay floating like useless lumps. And the gates themselves were open!
What had happened here!?
With a cold, sinking feeling, he realized that these strange seaponies must have somehow used him to do all this. At the very least they must have wrung some kind of information from him, then left him behind now that they were done with him. Shame burned deep inside him, and fear. Fear that he’d horrifically failed the Deep Mistress. He reflexively clutched at his pendant, whispering a fervent prayer for forgiveness.
No, he shouldn’t simply ask for forgiveness right now. The Deep Mistress always taught the importance of action over words. The strong kin had to be self-reliant and fix their own problems, even while accepting the Deep Mistress’ grace. He had to earn his forgiveness for failure by taking action!
He swam swiftly towards the gates. Passing by a fallen warrior, Ulgriv grabbed a trident that had stuck itself to the seafloor. In the distance he saw warbands of his fellow warriors somewhere off to the southeast. He had no idea what they were doing all the way over there, but there was no time to go to them. If the foul soft kin had infiltrated the palace, he had to give chase! At the very least if he found Morgawr, he could warn the warlord of what had happened, even if doing so might cost Ulgriv his life.
Without further hesitation, the sahuagin youth rushed into the palace.
----------
Divistis was good at hiding his fury. Morgawr’s arrogance was normal for ‘chosen’ warriors like him. Merely because he held a contract with the Deep Mistress, Morgawr acted as if he was superior to all. Foolish. A contract was potent, but shamans knew the true mysteries of the Deep Mistress’ teachings. It may have been a patient art, but it yielded greater results and more fantastic power than the brutish strength one like Morgawr wielded.
Which simply made it beyond aggravating that the Mistress had left Morgawr in charge of this expedition instead of the senior shaman, which had been Divistis’ superior, Agamael, at least until Agamael’s untimely defeat by the surfacers at Mt. Aris. Which meant Divistis now led the few remaining shamans, all neophytes but capable ones. Divistis had left all but one of those neophytes in charge of preparing the translocation sphere. Annoyingly, Morgawr had forbidden sacrifices from the captured soft kin to speed that process along. Even more galling was that he'd also denied Divistis any sacrifices to finish preparing the latest terror beast!
Did that thick boned, rot-brained fool have any idea what it took to control a terror beast, let alone complete the ritual of creating one!?
The only chamber large enough in all the palace to house the ritual circle for creating a terror beast was the throne room. The once bright and shining seat of dominance for the kingdom of soft kin was now a darkened tomb, the teardrop shape of the enormous chamber given over mostly to the carved ritual circle that contained the howling hulk of the terror beast itself. Once a noble creature of the sea, a ‘sperm whale’ by surfacer reckoning, Dvistis’ work, once Agameal’s work, had turned the air breathing mammal into a mutated parody of its former self. Bone armor grew in thick blisters across it’s cracked skin. Unnatural gills, ribbed in poison spewing sacs, lined it’s jaws. Jaws that, in turn, carried gnarled growths of fresh, serrated teeth. It’s head, a mighty battering ram even before the mutations, now held a conical, horn-like protrusion that hooked downward like a cleaver. The terror beast’s once gentle eyes blazed hot red, filled with fury and bloodlust.
But it was still an incomplete thing. Divistus channeled his magic into the ritual circle. With his neophytes busy, he was stuck doing all the heavy lifting himself, but he’d always suspected he’d been stronger than Agamael anyway, and this was his chance to prove it! Returning successfully to the Abyss with a freshly made terror beast would no doubt impress the Deep Mistress. Even if Morgawr got the greater share of the credit for capturing the two first kin, Divistis would still surely get his own reward for his service. Raised to lead a cabal, perhaps? Or even become one of the Mistress’ favored priests, allowed to apprentice under her personal tutelage? Even Agamael hadn’t been granted that honor. As far as Divistis knew, only a very rare handful of individuals, over the centuries, had ever been given that privilege.
Including one of the first kin, a sticking point for many sahuagin shamans. That had been a long time ago, however. It’d seemed unlikely any first kin were even left alive after so many centuries.
...Where had those two they’d captured come from? How had the Deep Mistress known they’d be at Mt. Aris? One usually didn’t question the Deep Mistress, but Divistis couldn’t deny a certain curiosity as to what made these two so important.
Well, no matter, he had work to do. With no soft kin sacrifices to give their lifeblood and soul energy to the cause of finishing the terror beast’s mutations, Divistis was left using less conventional means. There were always plenty of sharks brought along by the warbands to act as mounts, guards, and goods carriers. They wouldn’t miss a dozen or so.
He had an assortment of the fish of various breeds and sizes lined up next to the ritual circle, all drugged into docility. Which made bringing them forward and dragging the ritual knife across the bottoms of their chins quite easy. The lifeblood flowed, along with the supple soul magic that poured out along with it. With the magic taught to him as was taught to generations of sahuagin shamans, Divistis coaxed out the latent soul energy and hooked his magic into it. It always made a lovely, singing sound when controlled thusly, and left Divistis with a familiar rush of power through his own blood.
Blood was both the key and conduit for the soul, it needed to be mixed with the spell, poured into the ritual. Shark after shark was cut and bleed, fueling the giant magical circle, which pulsed with the deepest of sanguine red lights. And as Divistis poured that power into the terror beast, it let out a wonderful howl that made Divistis smile.
Soon it’d be complete.
----------
“W-what is makin’ that awful racket, do ya reckon’?” asked Applejack, looking about with a pensive bite to her lower lip as the unearthly howl echoed through the palace corridor. The whole group halted, floating in the dark waters of the corridor as the skin crawling sound washed over them. When the howl eventually faded, Admiral Seaspray swam a little further ahead to check left and right down a split in the hallway.
“I’ve heard sounds like that before,” the hipporphyon warrior said, “Once or twice while commanding ships at sea.”
“Whatever was it, Admiral?” inquired Rarity, “And is it something we should be worried about?”
He looked at her with an intense stare, then seemed to take in the corridor around them. The hallways of the palace varied in size greatly, so far. Some were narrow enough that only two of them could swim abreast, while others opened up in much vaster tubes, some over a hundred feet wide. Wavecrest had been leading the way through the twisting corridors, but Seaspray had kept point to watch for any sahuagin they might encounter wandering the halls.
“Perhaps,” he said in an ominous tone, “In the larger corridors, at least. That sound, it reminds me of the sound a whale makes as it dies.”
“Whales?” Twilight said, mentally going over her catalogue of information she knew about the ocean mammals, “This doesn’t sound like any kind of whale song I’ve read about.”
“I don’t speak of any simple whale song, but the cries of one in agony,” Seaspray said, his face showing a pallid, grim look, “And anything that can do that to a whale is large enough to be a threat if it’s wandering these larger halls.”
“You are partially right,” Wavecrest said, “The sahuagin use their ugly magics to twist sea life into abominations. It may well be they’ve trapped some unfortunate creature for such a putrid ritual. Perhaps even a whale.”
“Rotten critters, these sahuagin,” Applejack spat, or tried to. Spitting was a tad difficult underwater.
“Oh my, isn’t there anything we can do for the poor animal?” asked Rarity.
“Even if we had time, there is nothing that could be done, other than to put the beast out of its misery,” said Wavecrest with a saddened, but equally hardened look in her eyes, “But we must proceed cautiously. As the Admiral says, some of these corridors are large enough for even a whale to pass through, and even my magic would be no match against such an abomination once unleashed.”
“How much further do we have to go?” asked Twilight as Admiral Seapsray cleared the corridor and Wavecrest led them through one that bent upward and then curved to the left. Twilight was trying to map the palace in her mind, but was having difficulty with it. She could tell that there was some rhyme and reason to the hallways. The larger corridors were like highways, running in several bending pathways around the base of the palace. From these main corridors spanned a tangle of smaller corridors. Because the palace was filled with water, gravity meant little. Hallways could go up, down, curl back upon each other, circle around in a spiral, with any number of dozens of chambers connected to them that didn’t have to conform to the normal structure rooms in a surface building might.
Twilight had noticed that the hallways and rooms had been smaller near the servant’s entrance, and had gradually grown larger and grander the higher up and further south they went. The seaponies of Aqualania had an eye for decorative architecture, for many of the halls sported detailed carvings or colorful mountings of shells, colored stones, or formations of coral that made Twilight feel like she was swimming through a gigantic piece of modern art.
To her question, Wavecrest didn’t pause but did say without looking at Twilight, “We’re following the path my mentor took when she was here. There were fewer sahuagin occupying the palace then, but the path should still be safe. They rarely travel far from the main courtyard in the south, or the barracks below the throne chambers. Our first objective is to find Princess Scylla’s bedchambers, which should have an attached armory.”
“And that’s where the Treasury is?” asked Flash, who’d been bringing up the rear of the group to keep an eye out in case anything tried to sneak up on them.
“No, but it is where my mentor discovered that Princess Scylla had hidden a secret passage that acted as a shortcut to the sublevels of the palace. Using it will allow us to bypass the most guarded areas of the palace and reach where my mentor believed the Treasury was hidden.”
“Believed. As in she didn’t know for sure?” Rarity pressed, “I must say this is sounding a bit less ideal the more I hear.”
“Doubt as you like,” Wavecrest said with a shrug, “But my mentor was near certain she’d found the entrance to the Treasury in the grave chambers of Aqualania’s old queens. She sketched out in detail the hidden doorway and the mechanisms she found keeping it sealed. She also wrote numerous notes on how the door may be opened. All I have to do is get there and finish the work my mentor started before she was discovered by the sahuagin and had to flee.”
“And failing that, there’s always the brute force option,” said Flash, “I mean, never met a door that could stand up to repeated Kido blasts, and that’s assuming Twilight doesn’t want to flex her magic muscles and just bust it open herself.”
Twilight tried not to smile a bit, “Well we’ll see what needs doing when we get there. So you know the way to Scylla’s room?”
“I’m following my mentor’s notes to the letter,” Wavecrest said, her voice started to recite almost like a chant, “Through the servant quarters south two hundred feet, follow the hall of bright blue seashells until the split and take the upper path. Pass the chamber of mirrors then immediately turn right to find the sundered balcony...”
Almost prophetically Wavecrest’s directions proved accurate, as they swam past an opening into a wide, spherical chamber whose walls were lined with polished mirrors. It reminded Twilight almost like a dancing room where ponies might waltz with mirrors to watch themselves, only this one’s sphere shape would let dancing seaponies see themselves mirrored from all directions. They took an immediate right down a widening corridor that then sloped up high and opened up to a balcony that overlooked the palace to the south. The stone platform was sundered in half, as if a massive blade or claw had passed through it, although the rest of the area was perfectly intact.
There was a strobe of crimson light from just below, filtering through multiple huge, circular windows no more than a floor or two beneath them, and that terrible howl filled the air. Not more than a few moments later smaller flashes of red could be seen in a huge, bowl-shaped courtyard that split nearly a full third of the southern portion of the palace.
“The throne room...” Wavecrest whispered, nodding towards the windows where the brighter red flash had been, “That must be where they are creating that abomination.”
“Hmm, then what of those smaller flashes from the courtyard? What do you suppose those are about?” wondered Seaspray, peering with narrowed eyes in that direction, “I’m seeing some activity down there. Must be at least a few score sahuagin.”
“Just a moment,” Twilight said, making use of a fairly simple spell to conjure the equivalent of a mystical set of binoculars. One never knew when one needed a closer look to categorize a new discovery! With a small flash of purple she conjured the magical pair of binoculars and adjusted them to get a closer look at the courtyard.
The bowl-shaped depression had gently sloped walls, and several overhanging archways. She spotted what looked like huge doors leading to the front of the palace, some kind of set of inner gates. To the east, there were large, carved stone steps leading to two towers flanking what looked to Twilight like the front of a temple with multiple columns supporting a domed roof that glittered with the embedding of thousands of gemstones that created the shapes of ocean waves.
However, all those details fell to the wayside as Twilight spotted something dangling down from the center archway over the courtyard. A metal chain led down to a large sphere which was glowing with strange, red light. She could see sahuagin, covered in the bone talisman of shamans, cavorting about the sphere, draining their blood from wounds on their wrists that was absorbed into the sphere.
Nearby, a humongous sahuagin specimen floated, gesturing in violent agitation to several gathered warbands of sahuagin warriors.
“Well, none of that looks good,” she said, and briefly relayed what she saw to her companions.
“The hornet’s nest has definitely been kicked,” said Flash, “The big guy must be the one in charge and is about to send out more troops to scour this place. They probably know we’re here, after that light show the others put on out front.”
“Here’s hopin’ they’ll be alright,” said Applejack, “If they snuck in through the front gate, they’re real close ta the center of all them buggers.”
“Which means Aria and Sonata have to be down there, too,” said Twilight, “Or at least Starlight thinks they’re being held close by. But what is that sphere? It doesn’t look like it’s part of the palace architecture.”
“It isn’t,” said Wavecrest, “My mentor wrote of it as well. Her theory is that it is an artifact created by Charybdis that opens a pathway between Aqualania and the Abyss. It is how the sahuagin bypass the hunting grounds of my kin further north who’d otherwise spot large warbands trying to leave the arctic waters where the Abyss is located.”
“Huh,” Applejack grunted, then got a fiery look in her eyes and cracked a suggestive grin, “Think it’d ruin them stinkin’ buggers’ day if we up n’ smashed that magical doohickey?”
Admiral Seaspray let out a surprised bark of a laugh, “If we could pull it off, I’d say that’d be a capital idea. Cut these blighted creatures off from reinforcements and make all the oceans around this region safer.”
“If we can find an opportunity, I say we do it,” Twilight said, “But the Treasury and rescuing the sirens comes first.”
“Just so,” said Wavecrest, urging them onward, “Come, we’re close. The royal suites should be just up the next passage from this balcony.”
----------
“That’s... a lot of murderous fish people,” Trixie noted in a quiet whisper. Her horn was suffused with a very soft and minimal glow of blue light, just as Starlight’s was coated in a similarly dimmed glow of teal. Both mares were keeping up spells, one of invisibility, and the other to slowly chill the water around them. Starlight’s hope was that the colder water would dissipate enough of their heat to make them even harder to spot, alongside Trixie’s invisibility.
Fluttershy’s new shark pet was floating next to her, tail wagging, while Fluttershy herself kept a comforting hoof on the shark’s nose, patting it.
“Look,” Fluttershy said, pointing at a large set of stairs to their right. The group was hidden at the top of the gateway leading out into the courtyard, using an overhang of stone as cover while they tried to observe without getting spotted. The area Fluttershy indicated had a similar look to the temple they’d found in the city, only with a grander front entrance. The thing that had drawn Fluttershy’s attention was a pair of sahuagin guards who were carefully escorting a bound Aria. The siren was alone, and looked surly as ever as she was led back through the space between the columns along the temple’s front entrance.
“At least we know one of them is okay,” Starlight said, “And that they’re being held in there. Now how do we get inside without having to deal with the small army we’ve got here?”
By her count there were at least a hundred sahuagin warriors gathered in the courtyard. Some of them had swam into the courtyard from above, coming from outside the city. By now the south gates were probably guarded once more. Starlight couldn’t make out anything being said, but the huge sahuagin warrior whom she guessed was in overall command of the fish people was shouting orders and the sahuagin were organizing into smaller groups, no doubt to form search parties to sweep the palace.
“There’s no path from here to the temple that doesn’t take us past them,” said Tempest, “And your spells won’t keep us hidden for long. I also doubt a showing of ghost illusions will do the trick again, either. We may just have to force our way through.”
“Against that many? Are you crazy?” said Trixie. Starlight’s brow furrowed deeply.
“Yeah, I’m good, but I could probably only get twenty or thirty of them, tops, and that’s not accounting for the big guy or those shamans,” she said, noting the group of sahuagin using their blood to fuel that odd sphere in the center of the courtyard. “Unless we can find a way to better the odds, even the element of surprise won’t be enough here.”
“Only if our objective was to beat all of them,” Tempest said, eyeing the rest of the courtyard. Her expression hardened as she nodded, almost to herself, “But all we really need is somepony who is willing to keep them busy long enough for the rest of you to get into the temple and rescue those sirens.”
“Tempest, what are you thinking of doing?” asked Starlight, reaching out to touch the other mare’s leg, but Tempest drew her limb back and regarded Starlight with an amused smirk.
“Don’t look so concerned. I’m not suicidal. But I’ve had to scale my own magic back when near all of you because when I truly cut loose with it, I don’t have the control to not fry everything around me. If I go alone, I can unleash my magic fully, which will get all of their attention. Then I lead them on a chase through the palace while you get the sirens out. Simple.”
“Except for the part where how do you escape with an army of sahuagin on your butt?” asked Pinkie Pie, “I’m often accused of being a bit loopy and even I think that’s a tad nuts, Tempy.”
“Your concern is touching, but I’m a big mare and I know my limits,” Tempest said, tensing her body in clear preparation to make her move, “And honestly, what other options do we have? They’re about to start tearing the palace apart to find us, so if we don’t act now, this whole mission will be a failure. And I’m not used to failure.”
She also apparently wasn’t inclined to let the argument drag out longer, because with that she shot off like a purple bolt of lighting. She swam swiftly up along the top of one of the curving stone archways that went over the courtyard. Without halting, she spun upside down and started emitting a growing charge of crackling magic around her horn. Even so, it did take a few seconds for any sahuagin to even take note of it, so occupied as they were with their own preparations to split into teams and begin searching the palace for interlopers. None of them were expecting one of those interlopers to suddenly appear above them so open and brazenly.
By the time one warrior managed to shout a warning, pointing up with his trident, Tempest Shadow had fully accumulated a potent charge of her barely restrained magic. Her horn burned with the power and it hurt her head like a spiking headache, but she relished the focus the pain gave her and she even enjoyed the thrill of having such a target-rich environment.
Like Starlight Glimmer, Tempest knew she couldn’t take the whole sahuagin army gathered here. But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t planning to take down all of them, just give them plenty of reason to view her as a threat, cause a whole bucket-load of chaos, and expel some of the pent up frustration that had been boiling inside her ever since this whole fiasco began.
A storm lance of pure, writhing magic power exploded from Tempest’s horn and rained down in a curling, lashing beam across the gathered sahuagin in the courtyard. It cracked and blasted apart stone as it went, flinging fish people left and right in a billowing cloud. Some fried instantly, while others had their bones flashed through with magic light as they were left twitching as if from electrical shock. Tempest swam fast, starving left and right with her horn, not bothering to control any of the power and just let the beams of unrestrained magic blast out of her and rock the courtyard like an artillery barrage.
To the sahuagin’s credit, they responded fast, despite the shocking nature of Tempest’s surprise attack. Harpoons were hurled towards her with amazing force and accuracy, making the mare dodge and weave to avoid being impaled, and even then her tail was nicked once or twice as she made a swift bee-line for one of the doorways at the end of the arch she’d been following. She didn’t once stop ejecting magic out of her horn, sweeping sahuagin out of the way as dozens of them started to chase her.
And one in particular ended up barring her path, landing in front of the doorway with such force he nearly cracked the stone arch.
Morgawr spun a gloriously huge trident in his hands and faced Tempest charging towards him. Her horn blasted magic at the chief sahuagin, who smashed his trident right into the path of Tempest’s magical beam. The magic crackled around the trident and entered the weapon, and to Tempest’s surprise the energy didn’t injure Morgawr at all as he swung the trident around and blasted her own magic energy right back at her!
She twisted out of the way, but her escape path now blocked she had no choice but to start circling around the palace wall to seek another path, and the sahuagin warriors, much faster swimmers than her, were quickly closing off any way out.
“Dammit all!” Starlight growled, turning to Trixie and grabbing her friend tightly, “Go, get Aria and Sonata! I’ll help Tempest!”
“Waitwhat!? But what about-!?” Trixie began but Starlight fixed her with an impaling look.
“Don’t argue Trixie! I’m trusting you to get the sirens to safety! Now go, all of you go!”
She didn’t wait for a response, she just swam. Starlight rushed out towards where Tempest was gradually getting surrounded. The mare was flinging her magic about in scintillating arcs of power that was forcing many of the sahuagin to keep back, but Morgawr was already swimming to the front of the group, and was absorbing Tempest’s bolts into his trident.
Starlight grit her teeth and muttered, “Magic eating trident, huh? Well, let’s see you eat this.”
With a deathly glare in her eyes, Starlight used her magic upon the stone archway. A groaning noise echoed loudly in the courtyard as she tore the large middle portion of the archway free with her magic, utilizing no shortage of telekinetic might to lift and then hulr the several hundred ton formation of stone up at the sahuagin, and specifically at Morgawr.
As it happened, a very distraught group of sahuagin shamans clung to the metal sphere that was attached to this chunk of archway and were dragged along for the ride.
Sahuagin warriors were bludgeoned out of the way of the stone archway as it sailed at Morgawr, who turned around and saw it coming just in time to raise his trident and unleash the magic that had been absorbed into it. While the blast of power took a chunk off the edifice of stone, it still slammed into him with incredible force, then proceeded to crash into the wall of the palace.
Tempest blinked in surprise as Starlight swam right past her, shouting, “You’re welcome, now swim you idiot!”
Tempest, for a change, didn’t argue and followed after Starlight, who made a rush for a side window further along the palace wall, wrenching it open with her magic. They just barely got through in time to avoid a hail of harpoons and tridents thrown after them by the sahuagin, who gave rapid chase while others went to check on their leader.
As it happened, the stone archway which had lodged itself into the wall stirred, and then was smashed in half in a powerful blow that sent several lesser sahuagin warriors reeling.
Morgawr stood with his feet planted into the stone wall of the palace, his fists still clenched from where he’d smashed the archway. His body was now glowing with flowing, curving lines of red magic as he called upon the ‘contract’ he held with the Deep Mistress and brought forth his power as a ‘champion’. He bellowed his rage into the dark depths of the ocean, but while he began to bark orders to chase the intruders, fully intent on butchering them himself, neither he nor any of his warriors had taken note of the fact that Trixie and the remaining group of ponies had used all the chaos as a cover to slip into the temple.
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this is pleasing than the chapter is the day of my birthday.
I liked this chapter, and i cannot wait to finally see some good actions focused chapters like before this arc, and it's seem this wish will be fulfilled in the next chapter.
Damnit Tempest, don't you know you do 4x damage from stealth?! You might have been able to OHKO the boss if you'd played your cards right!
And it begins. These battles should prove novel. Also, now I'm thinking that Wavecrest is trying to pilfer one of the Relics in a grab for power to serve her own ends.
What happens when flash Lays anything to rest in equestria?
Well, things just got boiling under the sea. Hope you brought your burn cream.
10895673
Yeah, Wavecrest is sus. Her intentions may be pure (or not), but it feels like she's hiding something.
THE BUCK DID YOU JUST SAY... FIZZLEPOP BERRYTWIST?
You want to talk about being taken seriously, when you had to change your NAME to the most edgy BS under the Sun just to make yourself sound a little tougher. You abandoned your homeland...because they were a little bit mean to you. You're essentially an even worse version of Jiren, and THAT is truly saying something.
Trixie being PROUD of her name and wanting it to be known, rather than pathetically try to hide it by changing it, absolutely gives her a leg up on you in terms of being taken seriously. Take that L and hold it, wear it over your broken horn, Fizzlepop.
As for the fight though.
You know what would come in handy here? A whirlpool that could suck the army of Sahuagin's in. If only we had individuals who could generate the wind necessary to make the underwater whirlwind and significantly mess up the enemies numbers.
OH WAIT! We actually do have that, we have two of them.
Rainbow, Fluttershy, time to take out the underwater trash.
10896182
i really hope than Tempest is the actual name of the Human one, for the equestrian one, it's just a edgy pseudonyme, for the great person than the human one is, it is just,normal, she is impressive, so this doesn't sound the same way than for the other.
She is a old warrior who had been left alone against the Primera Espada and had been fooled by the one who saved her life, and after than this had been revealed, had lost all the persons she worked with for so long, and only ha her adoptive daughters left.
I had talked before of how Captain Blueblood would hate his counterpart, but if the human Tempest would learn of her equestrian counterpart shenanigans, she would be far more angry and annoyed, the Hollow Storm King and Soul Reaper Tempest had known each other for hundred of years, and she owed him a life debt, and they did genuine good things, hence why he was able to manipulate her, and Tempest also had created a solid bond with many of the soldiers,the storm king of Equestria was obviously evil and Tempest had followed him only on the promise of personal gains and he clearly didn't do shit for her, and Pony Tempest clearly didn't cared much of the soldiers nor did she have the same bond with Grubber or have Yin and Yang.
10896183
i hope this is what is going to happens.
Also, Fluttershy have wind based powers ?
10896325
All Pegasi have the ability to generate wind by flying around, just like they can manipulate clouds to control the weather and fly around. The degree to which they're able to do this varies depending on the individual's wing power (or really their magic level but wing power's the canon measure of it).
Rainbow is among the few Pegasi we ever see generate a full tornado by herself and her wing power is just shy of double that of any other Pegasus is Ponyville EXCEPT for Fluttershy who is just generally her superior when properly motivated.
10896351
Oh.
What do you think about what i said of the two Tempest ? And what is your opinion about the real name of the human one ?
10896410
Having not read the side story (because I haven't read the story it crosses over with) I don't really have much to say on how the two tempest's would react to each other.
I would say that, for continuity's sake, I would have Fizzlepop Berrytwist still be Soul Reaper Tempest's real name, or at least her name from when she was alive.
You have intrigued me with this Inheritor stuff. I can't wait to learn more about it. It kind of sounds like Twilight will be getting her own relic pretty soon.
10896414
Well read the other story then , because it is really good.
10896414
After all, i don't give a damn about the other part of the story, only the friendship souls part, so i think it's fine.
10896588
I don't like to read something without having all the context first, I'll have to read The Bridge before I consider reading that story.
Honestly I'm hoping Starlight doesn't manage to get at those relics
10896637
I read The Bridge first, and through the sidestory found my way here. I'd honestly like to see more crossovers. Though it would have to make sense and not shoehorned in.
The Bridge is a Kaiju crossover story. With the Universe called the Amalgamverse as the non Equestria human world of Terra is an amalgam of all giant monster movies.
Fun fact, infrared doesn't really work very well underwater. Not only is water a great heatsink but ocean currents would carry away any heat long before it can ever be detected. This is why aquatic creatures sometimes have organs to sense bio electricity instead, which, funny enough, doesn't work out of the water.
Good thing fiction can just say "screw your 'physics', I do what I want" and we still love it
10909000
Huh
Well, you learn something new everyday. I shall add this to my fine collection of useless, but interesting, knowledge