Adventures of Ise

by Ise no Kami

A Silent Storm

A lone boat rode the rough waves, buffeted on all sides by the sea and the storm. Every crest, every wall of water violently rocked the vessel, threatening to smash it apart. Its sole passenger, a cloaked Abyssinian, gritted her teeth against the onslaught, flinching slightly as a bolt of lightning struck the ocean just a few feet from her boat. Still, she thrust her paddle into the waves as if to slay them for their aggression, pushing herself onward. Her pace increased as the storm grew worse, the jagged mountains of her destination coming into view.

Suddenly, the boat began rising into the air, the ocean choosing to carry the tiny vessel on a wave since the constant bashing didn’t seem to have an effect. Bigger and bigger the wave rose, quickly closing the distance to the mountainous island the cat sought. As she braced for impact, the wave crashed onto the shore, sending the boat flying. It slammed into a cliff face, splintering on impact while bouncing the poor cat off onto the dark sand below. She groaned slightly, but bore the pain; what were a few more bruises after the hardship she went through to reach this place?

As she lay on the beach, gathering her strength, the cat looked up the sheer cliffs toward her true destination: the foreboding castle of the late Storm King. The tyrant who had terrorized half the world, looting entire countries in his pursuit of conquest for conquest’s sake. The monster whose legacy stood so long after his demise that no other would dare venture near his palace even now, the very reason the cat had been forced to cross the seas to this island in a humble fishing boat. Most importantly, the Storm King was the one who had destroyed Abyssinia, leaving the once proud nation a shell of its former self.

The cat heaved herself up, the torrential downpour matting her maroon fur and melding it with the dark, wet sand, and she began trudging up toward the towering structure above her. This day was a long time coming, the end of her arduous, solitary journey. Years of national poverty, years of solitude simply from creatures running at the mere utterance of the Storm King’s name, were about to come to an end. The late King had taken far too much from the Abyssinians; now it was time to take it all back.

A bolt sliced through the sky, touching down somewhere in the turbulent seas on the other side of the island. The cat was going to pay it no mind, but she started to hear a clattering sound coming from the mountains from that direction. Suddenly, another small vessel, much like the one that had carried her to this forsaken island, came flying out from the ragged peaks, before crashing into the rough waves behind her and splintering apart on impact. A second boat… Had someone else been brave or foolish enough to go on the same journey she had? And if so, how had she not met this creature on her travels? She soon shrugged these questions off, however: if there was another creature like her, they all but certainly perished in that crash, if not on impact with the mountains. The cat continued on, leaving this odd moment behind as a grim reminder of just how lucky she was to still be breathing.

Slowly but surely, she climbed the path up to the imposing castle above. The whole way, the storm beat down on her, rain pelting her hard as hail, her single braid drenched and slapping against her face like a whip. As she reached the top, however, she immediately ducked down behind the top crest of the path as a flash of off white entered her vision. She took another peek at the gates to confirm what she had seen: the snow-furred soldiers of the late Storm King’s army, standing guard as if nothing had changed with his death.

The cat let out a near silent grunt, her teeth gritted in frustration. She had come to the island expecting the palace to be an empty ruin; finding the place populated had complicated matters quite extremely. With another peek, she confirmed only two guards at the entrance. Small enough numbers for her to handle, but if the entrance had a couple guards, no doubt the interior had far more. She wasn’t interested in making this a suicide mission by alerting the soldiers to her presence immediately. Seeking an alternate entry point, she turned her eyes upward, noticing a great pair of windows above the gate in the Storm King’s insignia. There: if she could make it up there undetected, that was her way in.

Backtracking down the path a ways, she found a spot where she could climb the steep cliffs out of the guards’ sight. The harsh rains made the rocky surfaces damp and slippery, but she was still able to find suitable holds for her claws. Clambering onto the rough, rocky plateau, the cat stopped to catch her breath for only a second, before swiftly yet silently making her way along the cliff side to the windows. With a mighty leap, she jumped over to the outer sill, extended a claw, and jammed a nail into the glass. With absolute precision, she cut a large hole into the window, and quickly grabbed the chunk of glass she cut free before it could fall and loudly shatter on the ground. Setting the glass aside, and steeling herself for the task ahead one last time, she jumped through and down into the palace.

The interior was dark; not literally, the halls were actually rather well lit, but the oppressively dark grays and purples of the stones and tapestries seemed to swallow that light up regardless. Much like everything else related to the Storm King, his palace was designed purely with conquest in mind, a true evil overlord’s lair meant to intimidate all who enter. Though a great skylight stretched across the ceiling from one end of the entrance hall to the other, the eternal storm around the island ensured no ray of sunshine could break through and pierce the room’s inherent darkness. The cat quickly darted into the shadows, sneaking along the walls and dashing behind pillars as she made her way down the hall. As she slipped into a side passage, she saw the white fur of guard patrols contrast the dark colors of the room, as the soldiers passed by just a hair too late to notice her.

Breathing a sigh of relief, the cat began making her way down the side hallway...and bumped straight into another guard. As she bounced off and collected herself, she silently cursed her own carelessness at having given herself away so soon. The guard quickly turned around, pointing his two-pronged spear at her with an odd uncertainty for an imperial soldier.

“H-halt! State your name and your business here!” The guard stammered.

As strange as the soldier’s behavior was, the cat didn’t have time to question it. In one swift motion, she reached into a pouch on her belt, pulled out a smoke bomb, and threw it in the guard’s face. As the disoriented soldier tried to find her in the haze, she backflipped, kicking up into his chin hard in the same motion. She planned to rush by once she touched down, but she noticed guards on the way, investigating the commotion. She turned tail and zipped into the entrance hall once more, only to be met by another squad of soldiers after only getting a few steps into the hall. Under the skylight, she found herself surrounded, not by unsure, stammering wrecks, but stone-faced knights facing down a hostile. After all the effort she’d gone through to get here, her mission had ended in failure almost immediately…

A sudden shattering sound caught everyone’s attention as something smashed through the skylight above. Though smaller shards flew off in different directions, one giant piece plummeted straight toward the congregation below, spinning much faster than one would expect on the way down. The guard closest to the cat only had enough time to realize how screwed he was before the pane landed right on his head, thankfully with the flat surface and not the sharp edges. In utter shock, time seemed to slow for the cat, not because of the sudden shattering of the skylight, but because of the sudden appearance of the creature who had shattered it. Crouched atop the broken pane, having ridden the thing down from the roof to the guard’s face, was another cat, his fur an unnatural and shocking bright green, an offensive contrast to the dark purple jacket that blended into the palace around them. In that one stretched out second, he looked up, stared her in the eyes, and smirked.

And just like that, the moment was over, time moved normally once more. Ise leaped from the glass pane as it broke in two on the guard’s skull, landed sideways on a nearby pillar, and immediately shoved off again to barrel into the next soldier, sending him flying into a wall. The remaining guards, having been initially dumbfounded by his chaotic entrance, sprang into action to dispatch the feline intruders. The other feline, however, was just as quick to act against the soldiers behind her before she could be overtaken. As one thrust his spear at her, she grabbed the weapon, and in one motion, wrenched it from the guard’s grasp and flung the bottom end up into his chin. She then let go of the spear just long enough to turn around, catching the weapon again to bash its prongs against another soldier’s face mask. Meanwhile, Ise was going to town, bouncing around the hall as he downed guards left and right. Bouncing off a pillar, he landed squarely on a soldier’s shoulders, knocking him to the ground and riding his body as it slid across the floor. Another guard prepared to strike the green cat as he approached on his mount, only to have his lance deflected by a dagger Ise pulled out with lightning reflexes. Using his free claw, Ise grabbed the guard by the chest plate as he sped past, used his remaining momentum to help throw the poor guy up before his ride stopped sliding, and jumped up to kick the soldier down to the ground. He landed with his back to the other cat’s, who had fought her way through another few guards herself, new chinks in their armor showing where they’d soon develop heavy bruises and concussions. Between the two of them, the whole platoon of guards had been taken down. However, heavy noise echoed from the far end of the hall, indicating backup wasn’t far behind.

“So, Miss, ready for Round 2?” Ise asked the other cat, acknowledging her presence for the first time. The cocky smirk he gave her couldn’t make it more clear that he was ready to throw down again.

“Yeah, no, I didn’t come here to die, thank you,” the female feline replied, throwing a smoke bomb down to help mask her escape from the coming guards. Under cover of darkness and smoke, she slipped away into a side hall and into the first door she could find, entering into a storage room. Safe for now, she leaned on a crate and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Fair enough, I guess,” Ise sighed, startling the other cat. She’d assumed he’d stayed behind to take on the Storm Army singlehanded; instead, he had chosen to bail with her.

“Look, I’m happy you helped me out of a tight spot, but I really don’t need your kind of help,” she chastised the green feline. “Only the brave or foolish would come to this island, and you are VERY clearly a fool.”

“Ooh, that stings,” Ise replied sarcastically, smiling as he said it. “I guess that makes you brave, then? The girl who tried to take on an army with only smoke bombs? Or am I missing something?”

“I know how dangerous this place is. I knew the risks going in,” she shot back in defense. “And I came anyway, because someone has to make these creeps pay!”

“Pay for what?”

The female feline was dumbstruck by that response. “Are...are you serious? The Storm King ravaged half the world. He utterly destroyed Abyssinia and left the whole country as a poverty-stricken slum. Don’t pretend you don’t know!”

“Sorry, none of that’s ringing a bell,” Ise admitted, scratching his head. “I mean, I’d heard that ‘Storm King’ name here and there, but my memory doesn’t go back far enough to have a clue who he was. And as for Abyssinia, no memory there either. I haven’t been ‘home’ in years...if I ever was there in the first place.”

“Then...then why did you even come here!?”

“Looting a dark stormy castle that no one wants to touch? Sounded like fun,” Ise explained...and was immediately slapped by the other feline. She trembled with anger at his reply: she had spent years to get here, driven by the grim determination to take back the riches stolen from her home, while this fool simply came here on a whim. His lack of motivation was an insult to her noble cause.

“Get out of my sight,” she snarled at him.

“No can do,” Ise refused. “Look, I get you care a lot about this heist of yours, clearly way more than I do, but I don’t think you’re gonna get far on your own. Besides, if you’ve got a buddy with you, that’s more money you can take back to try and fix up your home. Split it 100-0; I’m just here for the fun, I don’t need the money.”

The other cat opened her mouth to utterly refuse the offer, but then she thought things through. The fool was right: she was capable, but not so much as to pull off a heist like this singlehanded. The encounter in the entrance hall was proof enough of that: she’d be fine if she could avoid being spotted or tripping alarms, but she hardly had the combat prowess to take on an army should she fail. And the odds of perfectly sneaking by every obstacle were minimal at best, especially after that early encounter. She had only come alone to this place because no other creature would dare join her...until now. Now she was face to face with a potential partner who could help her handle combat, and this guy was even willing to forgo a cut of the spoils. Reluctantly, she agreed that she needed his help.

“Alright, but just this once,” she accepted. “Once we’re done, I don’t want to see you again.”

“Guess that’s fair,” Ise acknowledged. “By the way, my name’s Ise. What’s yours?” He held out a claw, and the other cat reluctantly took it and shook.

“Cassandra,” she answered. “Cassandra Scarlett.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ise returned. “So, uh, first order of business...you got a way out of here? My boat kinda...went flying over the mountains.”

“Wait, that was yours!?” Cassandra wondered with only minor shock as she thought back to the boat she’d seen flying off the cliffs earlier. After the grandiose entrance he’d made earlier, she wasn’t exactly surprised. “Sorry to say, my ride’s sunk too.”

“Hmm. Well, crap,” Ise grumbled. “Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, then.” He opened the door just a tad, peeking outside from the safety of the storage room’s shadow. “Looks like the coast is clear...wait, no.” As he peeked, a guard passed the door as he searched the hall outside for the intruders. Pulling out a dagger, he threw it at the guard’s head, the hilt impacting his skull with enough force to knock him out. Then, with his powers, he magnetized the blade to return to him like a boomerang. “Okay, NOW it’s clear.”

Cassandra blinked. “How did you…?”

“Long story,” Ise dismissed her. “Let’s just say that trick won’t work for you. Mind helping me hide this guy?”

Cassandra put any questions she had aside; making sure further alarms weren’t raised took precedence. Discreetly coming out of hiding, scanning the hall in case her impromptu partner missed any sentries, she took hold of the guard’s ankles while Ise grabbed his shoulders, and they dragged him into the storeroom. Making their way into its deepest recesses, they left the soldier slumped over out of sight. Cassandra frisked the unconscious yeti quickly, disappointed to find no keys or other forms of security clearance on him. As she turned to leave, she placed the spear she was still carrying from the earlier fight by a bunch of similar weapons propped up against the wall, the lance blending in perfectly with the others. If another guard were to walk into the room after they left, they would find nothing amiss; even their poor victim could be mistaken for a layabout sleeping on the job.

“You just gonna leave the spear?” Ise queried. “Might be handy if we get into another scrap.”

“Unlike you, I’d rather avoid any more fights with the guards,” Cassandra explained venomously. “A big thing like that would only complicate a stealth approach.”

“Fair enough,” Ise conceded. “In that case, let’s get on with the sneaking before we have to knock out ANOTHER guard.”

The two cats quietly made their exit, sticking to the shadows as they made their way down the palace’s dark, foreboding halls. Though stealth was her preferred tactic, Cassandra had her doubts about her new partner going undetected, with his bright green fur that stood out like a firework amidst the aggressively dark colors of the halls. However, Ise did a surprisingly good job keeping up with her, staying nearly silent as he darted from shadow to shadow, letting the darkness conceal his fur as his dark violet jacket blended in with the surroundings. Though the palace was still on high alert after their earlier skirmish, the two managed to sneak past several guards undetected.

However, the hall eventually came to an abrupt end, with large doors greeting the two intruders. Cassandra silently cursed; a storeroom was one thing, but any other chamber in the palace was likely to have significantly more guards-and significantly less places to hide-than the hallways had. Perhaps they would get lucky, and the room beyond would be empty, allowing them to pass through or rethink their route in peace. Optimistically, she opened the door a crack...only to find the opposite: a mess hall filled with soldiers eating their lunches.

“Well, no sneaking through there,” Ise noted, pulling a knife out. “Ready to raise Tartarus?”

“Is fighting the only option you can think of!?” Cassandra quietly snapped, outraged at Ise’s blatant disregard for danger and overwhelming odds.

The green cat paused for a bit. “No, of course not,” he replied. “It’s just the easiest one, most of the time.”

“Maybe against the Equestrian royal guard, but not here!” Cassandra retorted. “These things have actual combat experience, and there’s at least a couple dozen of them in there, let alone anyone else you might draw in by causing a scene!”

Ise contemplated this for a second. “Yeah, still like those odds.”

“What is wrong with you!?”

“What, you got a better plan?”

Rather than respond, the still fuming scarlet feline looked around for anything she could use to bypass or distract the creatures inside the mess hall. It didn’t take her long to find what she needed: a vent cover on the ceiling of the hall, not two far from the cats. Unfortunately, the walls around them were smooth, with no way for Cassandra to climb up to the cover...but maybe she didn’t need to.

“You see that vent?” She asked Ise, before reaching into her pouch and pulling out a tiny black orb. “Get up there and throw this in there.”

“Um, alright,” the green feline complied. “Not sure what this will do, but if you think it’ll work…”

In a single bound, Ise jumped all the way to the cover, carefully opening it in a way that let him hang from the vent opening the entire time. With the cover removed, he threw the ball in, then replaced the cover before silently dropping to the ground and dashing back to his partner. Cassandra, meanwhile, watched the mess hall intently, waiting for the sign that her plan worked. It didn’t take long to see that sign: black smoke started pouring out of similar vents in the cafeteria’s ceiling. This smoke soon triggered an alarm in the mess hall, causing every soldier within to panic and flee the room. None of the soldiers who fled in the cats’ direction paid them any mind, as they glued themselves to the corner by the door to remain as hidden as possible.

“So, what was that, exactly?” Ise wondered.

“Just a little something I cooked up for situations like this,” Cassandra explained. “It’s a tiny incendiary device, with a small amount of fuel that releases a lot of smoke. Drop it down, especially in a vent where no one notices, it burns just enough to trip the fire alarm, and you’ve got creatures in chaos you can use to your advantage.”

“Literal smoke bomb. Clever,” Ise complimented her. “I think I see a door in the back. How about we keep moving?”

The two slid their way through the empty cafeteria, burying their muzzles in their cloak and jacket as they did so to keep the smoke out of their lungs. Passing through to the opposite hall, they swiftly yet silently made their way down the corridor, sticking to the shadows once more in case there were any onlookers they failed to notice. As they approached a sharp turn in the hall, Cassandra motioned for Ise to halt, discreetly taking a peek around the corner to check if the coast was clear…

It wasn’t, not even a bit. A whole platoon of guards stood waiting around the corner, blocking the felines’ advance and leaving no blind spots to move undetected. Though most wore the usual Storm soldier armor and wielded their usual spears, one yeti at the front of the pack stood out: he wore no helmet, leaving his eyes exposed to burn an intimidating determination into Cassandra’s own, and he held a cutlass made of some sort of semi-translucent blue material, one somehow charged with electricity that sparked that same azure hue around the blade. Cassandra zipped her head back around the corner and motioned to Ise to stay silent, praying to Celestia that the platoon hadn’t noticed them.

“I know you’re there,” the captain declared, dashing her hopes. “Surrender now, intruders; I think we’d both rather keep this civil. I’m sure you know what will happen if you resist.”

Cursing, Cassandra turned toward the mess hall again, hoping a mad dash back the way they came might be enough to lose the guards. Before she could even take a step, however, Ise grabbed her shoulder, and simply shook his head when she turned to him in surprise.

“Bad idea,” he whispered, immediately catching on to her plan. “Oh sure, you MIGHT lose these guys if you run now...and then have to run off again when they set another platoon somewhere else. Or you could run right into that other squad while escaping. We’ve had a good run, but I don’t think we can just sneak past a whole army.”

“Okay, what’s your plan, then?” Cassandra hissed. The green cat wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t like where he was going, not when she pulled the smoke grenade stunt to avoid this exact situation. “You want to fight a whole platoon and that one guy’s lightning sword? That’s suicide!”

“On the contrary,” Ise replied with a smirk, “that’s my part in our little operation.”

Faster than Cassandra could blink, Ise jumped from his place hidden around the corner to the far wall in front of the platoon, then bounced off that right into the guards. He grabbed the fuse soldier he hit by the face mask, letting his momentum carry the two through the guards behind him. As a dozen of the guards still standing surrounded the small hole he made in their ranks, he back flipped off his first victim, aiming to land safely outside their ranks before making his next move. Unfortunately, one yeti was able to keep up with him, ready to thrust his spear and the bounding feline; in response, Ise used his powers to magnetically force the pike away from him, causing the soldier to suddenly lower his spear as he thrust and graze his friend’s leg instead.

Only about two thirds of the platoon were focused on Ise, however. Immediately upon the cat’s assault, the captain motioned to his frontline soldiers to move in on Cassandra instead, hoping to capture her and force her comrade to surrender. The scarlet cat was quick to catch on, however, throwing down a smoke bomb as soon as her pursuers rounded the corner. Amidst the fog, she nailed one guard with a fierce uppercut while he was blinded, then in a single motion she grabbed his spear and slammed it into another guard’s helmet. Chaos erupted in the smoke cloud as the cat gracefully moved from guard to disoriented guard, taking out each one in turn in a display only barely visible to those outside the cloud. Tired of seeing his soldiers getting destroyed, the captain rushed at the smoke cloud, dispelling it with one stroke of his blade...but Cassandra was already gone, leaving only unconscious guards in her wake.

Ise, meanwhile, was having a blast fighting in such an enclosed space. The Storm soldiers may have proved a challenge to some, but they had not fought a foe like him, one who used the walls around them to his advantage, bouncing around them before turning his momentum to his foes and striking them with enough force to knock them out in a single blow. Still, he could only have his attention in so many places at once, and with so many soldiers to fight, it wasn’t long before one lucky yeti saw a chance to run the green cat through when his back was turned. Seizing his moment, he thrust his spear forward...only for it to be knocked aside by Cassandra as she dove in to aid her partner. In the split second of surprise the guard had at being blocked, Cassandra bashed him over the head, and he fell into darkness like the rest of his platoon.

“So, what was wrong with brute forcing our way through here again?” Ise jabbed at his more stealth-minded comrade.

“Shut up. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

As if on cue, the captain, the only soldier still standing, brought his blade down on the pair, the cats only barely dodging the strike that left the air singing with electricity. “Now we’re talking!” Ise cheered, a grin on his face at the thought of facing a more worthy opponent. “Try to make this interesting, will you?”

Once more the lightning blade sliced through the air, but rather than dodge it, Ise pulled out a knife and blocked it. Holding their blades in that clash, Ise stared into his opponent’s eyes, eyes filled with outrage, and flashed back his own feelings of giddy excitement. Cassandra took her opportunity to strike the captain while he was occupied, but he was no fool; he immediately broke the blade clash and made a powerful slash at the cat, slicing the end of her stolen spear clean off and barely missing her head. This did little to deter Cassandra, using the remains of her spear more as a staff to continue the fight...only to have the captain force his free claw through it with enough force to split it in half, grabbing her by the collar of her cloak and lifting her helplessly into the air.

“I don’t know what drove you fools to come here,” the captain began, “but neither of you have any right to assault our palace. You should never have come here, but I will make sure neither of you ever leave.”

“Yeah, have fun with that.” Ise suddenly darted between them, slicing into the captain’s arm as he passed by. The yeti recoiled in pain, but rather than let go of Cassandra’s cloak, he held on so tight as to tear the garment off, leaving the cat to fall to the floor. She still had her pouch of tricks, attached to a belt around her light tan pants, so she took the opportunity to throw down another smoke bomb and get some distance between her and her adversary. Before the captain could dispel this cloud, Ise returned for another assault, landing squarely on his opponent’s chest in hopes of knocking him to the ground and ending the fight.

The captain didn’t budge an inch, leaving Ise to just drop to the floor. The cat rolled backward to avoid a retaliation slash, continuing the motion into a backflip from the floor, hitting the wall behind him, and jumping off that over the captain. From there, he intended to strike back at his opponent...but he didn’t get the chance; the captain found his opening as the cat landed, stabbing his great blade straight through Ise’s back.

“ISE!” Cassandra cried out as she saw her comrade take such a critical blow. The captain, on the other hand...was confused. Though the cat clearly took the blow as badly as anyone would take a sword through the back, the electricity coursing through the blade didn’t seem to be having any extra effect…

“Twilight dammit,” Ise cursed, grabbing the tip of the blade that had come out the other side. “I really liked this jacket, you know that?”

Suddenly, the electricity in the blade went haywire, coursing faster and faster as it started pumping more and more volts into its victim. And yet, the cat wasn’t being electrocuted, or even in any pain aside from the obvious; on the contrary, it seemed like he was taking in the electricity to charge...himself? As the blade seemingly pumped its power into him, Ise started crackling with electricity himself, not an azure color like the blade’s, but the expected yellow and white, with some hints of green. When he felt he had absorbed enough electricity, he forced the blade in his stomach back through his back, staggering the captain. He then turned around, grabbed the yeti by the face, and discharged all of that electricity into him. For almost half a minute, the yeti fried, and when the spectacle died down, his blackened body fell over, unconscious.

Ise soon followed suit.

Cassandra rushed over to the green cat. “Are you alright!?”

“Of course not,” Ise groaned. “You think anyone can just walk off getting stabbed straight through the abdomen?”

“There’s gotta be a place to hide around here,” Cassandra thought aloud. “Let me get you there, and I’ll try to patch you up.”

The feline picked up Ise’s broken body, then started carefully rushing down the hall, hoping to find a place to rest. Before she had made it ten steps, however, another posse of guards rounded the corner ahead, blocking their advance. Holding the wounded mercenary in her arms, Cassandra had no way to reach her smoke bombs, and if she put him down to throw one, she wouldn’t have time to pick him back up before the smoke cleared. If she wanted to leave the palace with her prize, she was going to have to leave her partner behind. That was what all logic told her...and yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She came to a halt, desperately analyzing the situation to find some way to escape with the wounded Ise...or, failing that, go down with him.

Hanging on to consciousness, Ise turned what was left of his attention to the approaching horde, limply raising an arm toward the soldiers...and with a weak flick of his wrist, he shot forth lightning and smote them. The guards sparked with electricity, falling to the ground as their bodies locked up.

Ise immediately fell unconscious as well.

“No! Stay with me!” Cassandra shouted at the limp cat. “Don’t you die on me!”

She rushed past the fallen guards with Ise in her arms, seeking a safe haven where she could attempt to tend to his wound. By sheer luck, she found such a place quickly, spying a room labeled “North Wing Medical Ward”. Cracking the door open a bit, she found the place to be empty; it seemed the ward was not currently in use, though that was sure to change after their invasion.

Wasting no time, the scarlet cat did what little she could to make their stay in the ward as quick and inconspicuous as possible. Granted, there wasn’t much she could do about the latter issue; she found the most out of the way bed in the ward to lay Ise down, and pulled the curtain hanging around it to try and keep him hidden should the soldiers start using this ward to treat the guards the cats had harmed. A pitiful attempt at hiding away, but it was the best she could do; now it was on her speed attempting to treat Ise’s wounds, and sheer luck hoping that the yetis didn’t come in.

As Cassandra rushed around the ward looking for first aid supplies, Ise drifted into a deep sleep. Though he was already unconscious, some part of him had tried to hold on, fully aware of the danger the two felines were still in; left to rest, however, even that part of his consciousness drifted off…

---

“What are you doing?”

Ise drearily observed the oddest dream he had ever had. Though, he couldn’t quite place his finger on why this dream was so odd. He had the same scattered feeling he had when dreaming normally, as if he was an outsider in his own dreamscape, simply watching chaos unfold from some higher plane. And yet, this dream didn’t seem as chaotic. The landscape and denizens weren’t constantly changing: the scene in front of him stayed normal, instead of devolving into a battle against an alien in a courtroom or something else weird like that. And yet the two figures conversing with each other still looked off; that was normal, his dreams tended to not really render well, but still…

“Don’t act like you’re not complicit,” one of the figures barked, walking away from the other. This left Ise mildly confused: clearly he missed a few steps in the conversation. That’s what he got for losing himself in thought, he assumed. Still, he couldn’t quite tell, given how little detail his dreams actually had, but something seemed vaguely familiar about the figure speaking. As for the other...the green feline could tell at a glance that he had never seen that creature before in his life.

Oh wait, it looks like that other guy is yelling, Ise realized. Crap, I missed something again, didn’t I?

“Well, that’s how it turned out,” the familiar figure replied, “and it suits me just fine.” Enraged, the other creature rushed the speaker, only to be met with a punch to the jaw. As they lay reeling on the ground, the familiar figure proceeded to kick them in the gut and bring their foot down on their skull.

“How amusing,” the familiar figure laughed. “You know, I don’t even need you anymore. So, why don’t you make one last...contribution?” Reaching down, the familiar figure grabbed the other creature by the collar, and pulled their barely conscious body up to eye level.

“It’s been a pleasure working with you...Ise.”

Ise? That...that clearly wasn’t the green feline. Wait, no, the familiar figure didn’t make that pause in his speech, he didn’t actually call his comrade Ise. That was…

“Ise!”

The cat’s eyes shot open as Cassandra shook him awake...and then they half closed again as all the fatigue and pain he still had from his injury hit him like a truck. Looking down, he found a shoddy stitch line going across the length of his abdomen, and he had to assume a similar set of stitches lined his back. Looking back up, he looked Cassandra in the eyes, and finally had a good look at her without her cloak on.

Cassandra’s coat was a muted scarlet tone, tinged with snow white at the edges of her face and claws. Her hair was a deep crimson, wild and jagged in style, dropping down behind her to about shoulder length. A single braid of that hair hung in front of her face, dangling over Ise as she sat above him. She wore a leather vest and simple cloth pants; if not for her scarlet fur, she would blend in to a crowd of her kind. Her soft, emerald eyes stared into Ise’s azure ones with concern.

“Well hello there,” Ise tried to say with joking charm, but he immediately felt a sharp pain in his gut just from saying that.

Cassandra rolled her eyes, then immediately returned to serious mode. “The guards are coming. Even if they don’t specifically look for us here, it’s not gonna be long until they start bringing their injured ranks in here. And you’re in no shape to be moved.”

“I’m better than I was, thanks to you,” Ise responded. “I didn’t take you for a medic, but I’m glad you are.”

“No, no I’m not,” Cassandra admitted. “Yeah, you learn some basic stuff living on the street, but nothing serious. All I really did was close your wounds; you need ACTUAL medical attention.”

“Welp, I’m sure not getting that here,” Ise pointed out. “Who’s gonna examine me, the Storm soldiers? They’d probably just kill me to save themselves the trouble.”

“That’s...probably going to happen anyway,” Cassandra told him, looking somber. “We have no way out of this room, let alone off this island. You’re already down, and the soldiers will probably overwhelm me pretty quickly. I think...this is the end of the road. For what it’s worth, I’m glad I met you at the end.” As she finished her admission of defeat, the sounds of several sets of footsteps echoed down the hall outside, until it was clear a great number of guards was about to barge into the medical ward.

“Oh Cassandra...you wound me.”

As the door to the ward burst open, Ise snapped his fingers, and lightning shot forth from his claw and fried the entire squad coming in. “Don’t consider me down for the count just yet.”

With great effort, the thief slowly got out of the hospital bed, careful not to burst his stitches. Cassandra, however, was still concerned. “H-hey, you shouldn’t be moving!” she yelled.

“Well, it’s not like I’m gonna get any proper help here,” Ise reminded her. “Might as well try getting off this rock before I think about resting...after we get some of that treasure, of course.”

“You must be insane,” Cassandra responded. “How can you even think about pulling off a heist in your condition!?”

“Hey, it’s what I do...urk,” Ise tried to quip as he left the room. As he continued through the hall, he limped along, clutching his gut the whole way.

“I take that back,” Cassandra grumbled. “You’re not insane, you’re insanely stupid.

“I’m sorry, didn’t you say you were ‘glad you met me’?”

“...shut up.”

As the two cats meandered through the shadows, they made their way deeper into the palace. Finally approaching the end of the maze of hallways, they hid around the corner from a whole squad of soldiers guarding the throne room. Peeking from behind that corner, the two found the same captain that had impaled Ise there as well, giving orders to the guards. Once he had finished, he made his way down the hall, missing the felines as they glued themselves to the wall to avoid detection. Once they were sure the captain was gone, Ise took one more look around the corner, extended his claw out, and snapped his fingers to zap the guards unconscious.

“Being a lot more liberal with the lightning, huh?” Cassandra noted.

“Don’t really have a choice,” Ise explained. “I can’t really do anything physical while I have this barely plugged hole in my stomach.”

“Where did you even get that kind of power, anyway?” Cassandra wondered. “Abyssinians don’t have magic, that’s just a fact of life.”

“Well, I do,” Ise shot back. “Always have, as far as I know.”

“What, was one of your parents a pony or something?” Cassandra snarked as the two made their way into the throne room.

“Hell if I know,” Ise replied. “My memory only goes back...a few years, I guess?”

Wait, what?” Cassandra exclaimed. “Sweet Celestia, what kind of wackjob are you?”

“Celestia? Who’s that?”

Cassandra just stopped. This guy was kidding, right? The sovereign ruler of Equestria for over a thousand years, only recently replaced by Princess Twilight...and this green doofus had NO idea who she was. Only now was it hitting the poor girl that her impromptu partner was a walking question mark...and she didn’t feel like waiting until they were in the clear to start peeling away at that mystery.

“Okay, back up. What exactly DO you remember?”

“Well, uh...hm,” Ise thought. “I wandered around for a while, until I found my friend Ash. Moved into her place in Klugetown, and...then I started doing everything I’d already been doing. Bouncing around, wiping the floor with creatures like those soldiers, swiping stuff. It’s just that I get paid for it now. That’s been my life for the last two, three years.”

“And the ruler of Equestria?”

“Twilight, right? Why does she matter?”

“Just confirming...how much you’ve missed.”

“Well, that’s probably not gonna be relevant going forward, why should I care?”

“You’re not the least bit curious about what memories you might be missing? There’s no way you’ve only been around for a couple years.”

“I’m pretty happy with my life right now,” Ise remarked. “I don’t need to find any missing memories to feel fulfilled.” As Cassandra broke from her pondering to rejoin Ise, now he stopped and turned to her. “Well, that was my story, short as it was. How about yours?”

“Um...excuse me?”

“You said before that you grew up ‘on the street’. I guess life has been pretty rough for you?”

Cassandra paused for a second, then sighed. “You could say that. Abyssinia was one of many countries that took a heavy blow from the Storm King’s conquest. By the time he was done ravaging us, the country as a whole was robbed of its wealth. I was one of a number of casualties, a normal girl forced into the life of a starving thief by the sudden decline of my home. It just happens I was one of the luckier ones who learned to survive in that kind of environment. Still, the best creatures like us can hope for us just barely getting by. Nothing was gonna get better for us unless Abyssinia could rebuild, and even after the Storm King was defeated, that seemed like an optimistic fantasy.”

“Which is why you came to steal from the Storm Empire. Take back what’s yours.”

“Pretty much,” Cassandra replied. “It took me years to get in a position to reach this place, all of which I had to do alone because no one else would consider coming here. Guess I’m glad I ran into someone who didn’t have the memory to fear the Storm Empire in the slightest.”

“Heh, guess so,” Ise chuckled, before holding out his arm to motion for a halt. Behind the great throne, the back wall of the room was lined with great windows looking out upon the massive storm that permanently circled the island. Ise had opened a door behind the throne, opening into a balcony being peppered by the harsh rains. A bridge stretched out from the balcony to a tall outcropping, where the two assumed the treasury was...but the bridge, unlike the rest of the palace, was made of metal. As such, the bridge was getting constantly peppered with lightning bolts, making it impassable.

“How do the Storm soldiers even cross this?” Cassandra wondered.

“Gotta have a lightning rod somewhere or something,” Ise guessed. “Luckily, that’s what I’m here for.” Walking out into the storm, the green feline raised a claw, and it was immediately struck by lightning...with no effect on him whatsoever. “My power only applies to electricity, so you’re gonna get wet.”

“A...are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Of course. I control lightning, it can’t hurt me.”

Ise stepped forth onto the metal bridge, using his power to act as a living lightning rod and keep the electricity off the metal. Cautiously, Cassandra made her way across the bridge as well, getting thoroughly drenched, but otherwise crossing unscathed. On the other side, they finally found themselves face to face with the treasury door...they assumed.

“Locked, I’m sure,” Cassandra thought allowed, as she pulled a lockpick out of her pouch. “Alright, leave this to me…”

“Not so fast.” Turning around, the two felines found the guard captain on the balcony behind them, his sword crackling with fury. “I‘ve had just about enough of you two. I’m ending this now.”

Cassandra froze with the panic of a cornered rat, but Ise calmed her down by lightly touching her shoulder. “Go. Just get this thing open. I’ll take care of this.”

“Wha-? But you can’t! You said so yourself, you can’t fight him in your state!”

“Oh, I don’t intend to,” Ise snarked. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.” As he said this, the cat’s eyes turned to a cave entrance barely visible at water level on the island cliffs.

“I’m not sure how you quelled the storm,” the captain barked, “but all you’ve done is trap yourselves.” He marched forward onto the bridge, setting a deliberate pace as he prepared to slice the cats into chunks.

As Cassandra fumbled with the lock, Ise snickered. “You really shouldn’t have done that.” He released his hold on the storm, letting lightning freely assault the metal bridge once more, while also directing the electricity he had absorbed at the bridge as well. Caught out on the chunk of metal, the captain took all the volts at once, convulsing as so much electricity coursed through his body. When Ise was done discharging the lightning he had absorbed, he shot a bolt of his own electricity at the captain, blowing him off the bridge and onto the balcony. This last blast was more of a mercy shot, ensuring the captain didn’t just keep getting zapped on the bridge until he died.

Right about then, Cassandra finished picking the lock. “Alright, let’s get going!”

“You go,” Ise ordered. “I’ll catch up, trust me.”

“Why? You don’t need to sacrifice yourself!”

Ise just looked at her with a cocky grin. “Do I look like the kind of creature to throw his life away?” With that, he ran back across the bridge, despite his injury, and began hopping his way down the cliff face.

With no other choice, Cassandra turned back toward the treasury and made her way inside, locking the door behind her to buy time in case the soldiers made their way across the bridge. Inside, she found a spiral staircase descending into the depths, and saw a faint golden glimmer coming from below. As she made her way down the stairs, that glow intensified, until finally, she found herself at the bottom, in front of an utter sea of bits and other treasure. More than enough to help rebuild Abyssinia, if only she had thought to bring some way to carry such quantities of riches…

...but something felt off about the hoard. The entirety of it was a mountain of treasure. Just treasure. The Storm King was known for seeking out magical artifacts in the kingdoms he conquered, hoping to build his own power...and yet nothing in the pile seemed remotely magical. How odd… Even so, Cassandra shrugged this discrepancy off. The riches were here, and that was all she wanted.

Suddenly, the wall burst open, exposing the treasure room to the outside. The Storm King’s dreaded airship hovered just outside, and it extended a ramp into the treasure room. To Cassandra’s surprise, it wasn’t a platoon of Storm soldiers, but Ise who walked off the ship. Or limped, rather; clearly his little stunt outside was not a good idea.

“What is this?” Cassandra asked, confused.

“Our escape route,” Ise explained, panting heavily. “Get on, you’re piloting this thing. I’ll grab the treasure.” Weakly raising a claw, he used his powers to magnetize the treasure, as well as the interior of the ship, slowly sucking the riches in like a vacuum. “You might wanna hurry up.”

“You’re not just gonna carry the treasure with your magic?” Cassandra wondered.

“I do magnetism, not levitation,” Ise explained. “Magnetism can CAUSE levitation, but it doesn’t work the same as when unicorns do it.”

The two felines made their way about the airship, leaving the magnetized ship and treasure to do the loading work for them. Once they felt they had a pretty good haul, Ise disabled the magnetism and Cassandra, now at the airship controls, closed the side hatch. Finally, they began to take off, albeit a bit slower than normal due to the heavy load.

With their exit basically assured, Ise retired to the main cabin to relax...as well as he could. He was pretty sharp, noticing the airship dock cave from the bridge to the treasury, but jumping down to it was a terrible idea in his state. He’d only gotten five steps into the cabin before he coughed up blood, his head beginning to swim. He just barely limped his way into bed before passing out from his worsened injuries. He had no dreams this time, just a sprawling abyss of darkness and nausea…

However, the felines’ escape was not assured. As Ise had pulled the airship out of the dock, the guard captain woke up to see it. He had taken his chance, jumping onto the aircraft and clinging for dear life to the hull. Now, he had finally climbed his way to the deck, and he was ready to obliterate the intruders.

Cassandra only noticed the captain with just enough time to get away before he tried to bring his sword down on her head. She scrambled away from the wheel, making her way into the cabin. The color in her face drained when she found Ise there, clinging to life, in no shape to fight back. It was up to her to keep the brute outside away from the green feline.

Looking around the cabin, she noticed a full rack of Storm soldier spears. Weapons, good, that was all she needed. As she started dragging the entire rack along with her, she felt the ship turning back around toward the palace, as the captain voided their escape. All the more time to set up, she thought. Pulling the rack outside the cabin, she placed it just outside the door, catching the knob on a ring to ensure entry into the cabin was as hard as possible. She then took a single spear, leaving the rest as backup, before heading back up to face her enemy.

“What, your sparky friend isn’t here to save you this time?” the captain queried, seeing Cassandra coming to face him alone.

“I don’t need him to beat you!” the feline snapped back.

As Cassandra rushed him, the captain pulled his arm back to slice her spear clean in half like he had before. However, the cat reached into her pouch and pulled out a smoke bomb, throwing it directly in the captain’s face. As he recoiled and tried to clear his vision, Cassandra slid toward him and swept him with the spear, knocking him off his feet. She planned to immediately strike him again as he fell, but she accidentally struck the ship’s wheel, sending it leaning sharply. As the lean sharpened until the deck became more of a wall, Cassandra held onto the pedestal the wheel was a part of in order to stay on the ship. The captain, meanwhile, stabbed his lightning blade into the deck to give himself a hold.

That was her chance. Cassandra stabbed her spear at the captain’s hand, forcing him to let go of his blade, and fall down to a wall where the hull rose to surround the aft deck. Quickly spinning the wheel back to correct the tilt, she then dropped down before it finished, putting her weight into the spear as its prongs dug into the hull to pin the captain by his throat.

“You miserable filth,” the captain spat at her. “You had no right invading our palace!”

“You invaded my home first,” Cassandra reminded him. “This is payback.”

“Imbecile!” The captain punched her hard, throwing her down to the mid deck as the ship finished righting itself. He pulled out the spear, then moved down to finish his opponent...only to find she wasn’t there. She had scurried back to the weapon rack to get another spear, and as soon as the captain fully came down the stairs to the mid deck, she blindsided him. Her spear sank into his side as she pinned him to the railing. The captain tried to fight back, but was met with another smoke bomb to the face that let the cat effortlessly disarm him.

“Maybe I can’t take revenge on the Storm King himself,” Cassandra began, “but I’ll gladly settle for you.”

With that, she kicked into the captain as she pulled out her spear, dislodging the weapon as she sent the soldier overboard. With the return course to the dock, the airship was low enough to the water that the fall wouldn’t kill the guy, not that Cassandra had wanted that to begin with. Now it was finally time to go home…

Panic finally hit the feline, in a way that no part of the battle had. Now that she wasn’t in danger, she was able to process Ise’s deteriorating health. Before taking the wheel again, she shoved the weapon rack aside and burst into the cabin to check on her partner. What she found wasn’t good: Ise was glued to the wall next to his bed, which was now covered in red, a sign that his wounds had opened up again. The ship tilting had worsened the cat’s injuries when he was already clinging to life.

Cassandra rushed to his side. “Don’t die on me now! We’re almost out of here!”

---

Slowly, drearily, Ise opened his eyes. It took several seconds for the image in front of him to come into focus, and when it did, he found two creatures standing over him. One was Cassandra, looking down at him with sincere relief and concern. The other was Ash, looking at him in apathy and disdain.

“Well, since you’re here,” Ise snarked, referring to his dragon friend, “I guess I’m not dead.”

“Oh look, he’s well enough to crack jokes,” Ash replied tersely. “In that case, wanna explain what the hell you thought you were doing?”

“Go easy on him, okay?” Cassandra implored the dragon. “He’s been through a lot. Besides, I don’t think I could have made it out of there without him.”

“Which is why you’re just as bad, little kitty,” Ash snapped back. “Sounds like you needed to wait around for a few more years before you even thought of doing something this stupid. I’m just glad I wasn’t a part of this suicide trip.” With that, the purple dragon stormed out of the room.

“...yeah, sounds about right,” Ise judged. “So, uh...what happened?”

“You were in really bad shape by the time we got on the airship,” Cassandra explained. “ I took the ship and rushed you to the nearest hospital I could find...which just happened to be in Klugetown.”

“Geez, hope I didn’t get my organs stolen or something.”

“Hey, it’s my fault the hippogriffs don’t have a hospital set up yet,” Cassandra shot back, before looking a bit regretful. “The thing is, being Klugetown, saving your life cost a pretty penny…”

Ise suddenly realized, “Oh no, the treasure…”

“I still have some, of course, our haul was huge. But more than half of it went into fixing you up. It’s just...you did so much for me back there, I wasn’t gonna abandon you for my own idealistic goals.”

“Well, at least you still have a good starting point,” Ise replied. “Oh, and thank you.”

“I only did what I felt I needed to,” Cassandra replied. “By the way, you didn’t tell me your ‘friend’ was Ash Blackmire, destroyer for hire. That girl is bucking scary.”

“Yeah, you got a taste of the real her...which is just as intense as her public face,” Ise mentioned. “Still, she’s got a heart in there. It’s just buried in edge. Not brooding or self-pity, just edge.”

“And you live with someone like that?”

“Yep. Pretty fun netting her by just being me.”

“Alright, I should get going.” Cassandra made her way to the door of the hospital ward, then turned around. “Maybe we’ll meet again someday.”

“I think I’d like that,” Ise replied, smiling, before Cassandra left the room.

---

Stewing in his hospital bed, the guard captain seethed with rage as he thought about the cats who had made a mockery of him and his troops. The red one had used underhanded tactics to gain an advantage, utterly humiliating him in single combat. The green one, though...the green one gave him whole new reasons to hunt him down. Besides his annoying personality.

That lightning power… There was no way it could be possible. And yet, it was the only explanation…

“Captain Jupiter?” A soldier asked, coming into the room. “Are you doing alright?”

“Those intruders,” Jupiter muttered. “They quelled the Storm enough to cross the bridge to the treasury. How do you think they did that?”

“I, uh...I don’t know, sir. We’ve been trying to get back in there for ages.”

“I’ll tell you how. That green one, he had a certain power. One that used to be ours, before that other cursed feline went back on our deal and stole it from us.”

“You...you mean he had the Stone of Storms?”

“Oh no. He used no stone. The power of the Stone of Storms, the power to control the storm around us...he used it freely as his own.”

“But sir, how is that possible?”

“I could not tell you,” Jupiter admitted, “but I do know one thing…”

“I will hunt that wretched cat to the ends of the earth to get back what’s rightfully ours.”