Divergent Destinies

by Leondude

Chapter 4 - Doughnuts and Devastation

Twilight, Sunset, Night Light, Shining Armor, and Velvet were all sitting inside Joe's doughnut shop waiting for Cadence to arrive. Twilight was still sulking like she was doing in her bedroom, with the only difference being her mouth was covered in icing, coffee, and sprinkles. While she would’ve had the hot chocolate, she read somewhere that it was very bad for ponies. Her wondering of how Joe was allowed to sell a concoction that was dangerous to ponies helped ease her mind off of her colossal failure at the entrance exam, if only slightly.

"Another doughnut," Twilight requested, melancholy still in her voice "Extra sprinkles."

"Don't you think you've had enough?" Joe asked.

"Joe's right, you know," Velvet said, "if you keep drowning your sorrows in doughnuts and coffee, you won't have enough room for dinner."

"Wait, you decided to go out for doughnuts and you want her to have dinner afterwards?" Sunset asked.

"How else is she going to grow?"

"By stuffing my face with doughnuts and coffee," Twilight grumbled.

"Still in a mood?" Velvet asked, "I thought the news of Cadence's arrival would cheer you up."

"It did but I've been waiting for what feels like hours and I have nothing to do because I didn't bring a book,” Twilight complained in response, “I thought I wouldn't need it while Cadence was here and also because I didn't want to get any stains on it, and now I'm left thinking about how the entrance exam could’ve gone better."

The bell on the door rang with a little ding-a-ling, something that caught the attention of Twilight and Shining Armor. Entering the shop was none other than Cadence. Twilight quickly wiped whatever sweet mess was on her face and jumped towards Cadence.

"Cadence!" Twilight called out.

Cadence looked in Twilight's direction, to which Twilight stopped bouncing towards her and did their little dance, with Cadence quickly following in unison.

"Sunshine, sunshine, ladybug's awake. Clap your hooves and do a little shake."

As Twilight and Cadence shook their rumps in the air like they just didn't care, Sunset couldn't help but look and wonder what in Celestia's name they were doing.

"It's their little dance," Velvet explained.

Cadence looked at Shining Armor.

"Hi, Shining," Cadence said.

"Um...Uh..." Shining Armor stammered. It was apparent that Twilight wasn't the only one who inherited Night Light's social awkwardness.

Twilight giggled at Shining Armor before stepping back and trying to make a love heart gesture with her hooves.

"Shining and Cadence, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

"Real mature, Twilight," Sunset deadpanned.

Everypony then had a good laugh about it—Twilight, Cadence and Shining about Twilight pointing out the obvious and Night Light, Velvet and Sunset about Sunset's snarky comment. Then Night Light felt a grumble in his belly.

"Uh oh. I have to go to the little colt's room!"

And with that, Night Light bolted into the stallion's toilets. Just in time for Donut Joe to place a tray full of doughnuts and coffee onto the table.

"One doughnut with extra sprinkles, one strawberry doughnut, one plain doughnut, one sugary doughnut, one medium latte, one large expresso, and two Griffish coffees, one large and one medium."

Twilight trotted back to her seat to enjoy her doughnut and coffee. And when she downed the coffee, Shining stared at her in shock, but not for the reason she expected.

"Uh...Twilight? That one was mine."

Twilight turned the cup around and noticed to her surprise it had a caricature of a green drunken griffin with a shamrock in the background. Griffish coffees, or any drink with alcohol for that matter, were usually a favourite of Night Light's, something that he later passed on to Shining Armor by claiming booze was great for combating social awkwardness, provided you didn't drink too much and vomit halfway through a conversation. Luckily for everypony involved, both Night Light and Shining Armor were fun drunks.

"Oh," Twilight said sheepishly "Sorry!"

---

After a fun night of eating doughnuts, drinking beverages that were perfect for dunking doughnuts in—like coffee, having a laugh, and, in Twilight's case, accidentally getting plastered. It was night time when they left the doughnut shop, with Twilight staggering about and giggling, much to Sunset and Cadence's concern and amusement. She was so smashed, she sang a little ditty as they walked back home.

Do you know that you're all my very best friends?

"Are you sure she only had one Griffish coffee?" Night Light asked Shining Armor.

"Just the one," Shining Armor replied.

"Sorry I didn't stop her," Velvet said "Had I known which was which, I would have handed her the correct cup."

"It's okay, Velvet. On the bright side, if she ever wants to be like her dad and big brother, she could call it practice. Right, Twilight?"

Night Light turned to where he assumed Twilight would be, only to see that she was in fact, not there. When Velvet noticed Twilight had gone missing, both parents frantically look around to see where Twilight had disappeared to, only to see her on top of the doughnut shop holding onto the doughnut sign.

"This one goes out to my two..no, wait, three bestest friends in the whole world! Sunset, Cadence, and this big doughnut!"

Twilight eventually lost her balance and fell off, much to everypony's initial horror. But luckily, Cadence managed to catch her with her magic. Velvet and Night Light wiped their heads and let out a sigh of relief as they continued making their merry way home. Unfortunately, things were about to get a lot less merry very quickly. They were stopped in their tracks by a strange masked creature that was standing in their way. The creature was staring at them with red glowing eyes. If it weren't for it having talons for forelegs, it would have looked like a pony

"Uh...Can I help you, sir?" Night Light asked the creature.

The creature kept on staring at them menacingly. There was something about its appearance that indicated it was bad news. It wore a black cloak with a hood that covered most of its face in shadow. Its talons were mismatched. One was a pale yellow in colour and covered in scars while the other was glowing a translucent green and had dark grey bones showing through it. The creature's mask covered only its mouth and looked like a metallic claw with little holes in the middle, indicating it was used to help it breathe.

"Yes," the creature spoke in a deep but posh Canterlot accent.

The creature then removed its hood, displaying its face for all to see. It was then that the creature was revealed to be a griffin. Or at least it resembled a griffin. Its head was black in colour and it had a white marking on its face that looked like a bat.

"Kain!" Twilight said in a suddenly serious voice.

"Let's not stand on ceremony here, Miss Sparkle," Kain casually replied.

Twilight had read about the masked griffin mercenary known as Kain. Legend said he escaped from Tartarus with nothing but brute strength, cunning, and determination. But the other prisoners, along with Cerberus, tried to halt his escape by piling onto him and mangling him beyond belief, all of which he survived with nothing but his willpower. Impressive feats to be sure, but he hadn’t gotten out of it all unscathed. To relieve him of the pain of his injuries he wore an enchanted mask. The mask also had the added benefit of enhancing his already impressive strength as well. The griffin conquered a village known as Ponyville and ruled it like a king until Celestia swooped in and defeated him in combat. He fled afterward and, apart from green glowing claw marks left on a variety of corpses in recent years, nopony had seen him since, until now.

"To answer your question, Mr. Light," Kain spoke casually, "I'm here for your daughter. My employer has offered me what he considered to be a small fortune if I hand your daughter over to him. To me, the offer wasn’t all that much but it was something I was willing to accept all the same."

"And what makes you think we're going to hand our dear Twilight over like that?!" Velvet asked.

"If you don't, then I will kill you both," Kain replied.

Cadence and Shining Armor stood in front of Night and Velvet to shield them and glared at Kain.

"We’re not going to let you do that," Shining Armor said to Kain.

"How noble of you, but foolish."

Kain then removed his cloak, which revealed the rest of his body to be the same shade of black as his face. He also had a pair of wings that were similar to one of his talons. He had an apparatus mounted onto his back that had vials of a green compound fed into him through tubes connected to his body. It would seem that he had been finding ways to enhance himself. Kain pawed at the ground, readying himself for combat.

"Let us begin."

Kain charged at Cadence and swiped at her, with Cadence dodging the attack. Cadence and Shining Armor used their magic to restrain Kain by his talons, Kain, in response, broke free using telekinesis to smash the two ponies into each other.

"It looks like Celestia needs to teach you little ponies how to defend yourself."

Kain flew up and shot a blast of magic from his green talon directly at Twilight, rendering her unconscious. Everypony ran to the unconscious Twilight as Kain fluttered back down.

"Don't worry, she'll live."

Kain then raised his green talon and shoved it forward with immense telekinetic force. The movement, in turn, threw both Shining Armor and Cadence off their hooves and into a pair of trees. Kain then flew up and forcefully landed down by slamming his talons into the ground. The impact created a fog that obscured everypony's view. Velvet and Night Light clung to each other in fear while Kain prowled through the smoke like a predator. As Cadence and Shining Armor recovered from Kain's psychic assault, all they could see around them was mist and silhouettes. One silhouette in the middle of their view looked like two ponies huddled together. A glowing slash struck their necks and their heads fell. The ponies were then replaced by a monster. Kain slowly approached them, only for Sunset to jump up behind him and smash one of the vials on his back with her magic. Kain simply turned around and glared at Sunset.

"How good of you to join us. Although it would have been better if you were here sooner."

Kain then pointed to the headless corpses of Twilight's parents, much to Sunset's horror.

"Do not worry, you will be joining them very soon."

Kain quickly grabbed Sunset by her neck and started choking the life out of her. It would seem that all Sunset's attack did was slightly inconvenience him. She tried to teleport away but Kain quickly grabbed her by the neck again and slammed her into the ground. Shining Armor charged at Kain as quick as he could, only for Kain to stop him and slash him across the face. Shining Armor screamed as he fell to the floor, the newly formed scar across his face burning a bright red. The fog dissipated as Kain admired his handiwork. He was face to face with a very angry Cadence.

"If it pleases you, Princess, I lied when I said I was here for Miss Sparkle. While my employer does want Miss Sparkle for their own ends, they actually tasked me with killing her parents."

Kain then flew up into the air, preparing to escape.

"And if you do not wish to join them, you better stay out of our way."

Author's Note:

Meet Kain, who is essentially a combination of Blight from Batman Beyond and Bane from The Dark Knight Rises (with a little hint of the comics version of Bane too). No relation to that guy from Legacy of Kain.

Comments

[DmitriTheWriter]

I just couldn't help but imagine this theme playing as Kain is fighting Twilight & co. for some reason.

5/6 vs. 1 and he still manages to be tough? Kain is a Final Fantasy boss for sure.

[Leondude]

10102800
I was actually listening to this while writing Twilight's first encounter with Kain:

[DmitriTheWriter]

10102817
...That makes sense. I'm guessing Twilight's going to become Batman now that her parents are dead. A sort of Final Fantasy Batman, you could say. Or maybe that's just my bad ideas running away with themselves again.

[Leondude]

10102829
Unlikely but I do intend on her paraphrasing a Batman quote at some point.