The String of Fate

by Omior Falroc

"Arc2:Tsd" Ch8 the afterparty is gonna be hell

During the time before Omior and Vigil set out, it was quiet. Omior had decided to keep it to himself what had bothered him so deeply, and Vigil took care to keeping the fire going. Shortly thereafter they had fallen asleep and safely awoke to the next day.

They prepared to venture out once more as the day just began. Vigil made sure to gather up more of those berries to take with them as they left to find the main road that goes right through the Everfree.

Once they arrived, Omior spoke up. “May we head for Canterlot? I know not of where it’s located, but it may be imperative to find the princesses.”

“Heh, yeah. We got a small problem though,” Vigil lowered his voice a little bit, “we’d have to go through plenty of villages that aren’t the greatest to get there. Of course I’ll still help you get there, but I thought you should know that if something goes down, I may have to just outright leave you at one point.”

“Then I’ll make sure things don’t devolve to that point.”

“Alright then. Just stay off the main road and follow me. The road gets busy sometimes and that means that its best if you stay out of sight as we head for Canterlot.”

Omior nodded and fell back into the underbrush just out of sight as Vigil began his trek towards Hoofenburg.

The walk was rather uneventful for the first few miles, but as the sun started to lower from its midway point, a broken down cart came into sight. As they got closer, the ponies around it called out to Vigil for assistance.

As Vigil approached the group, he had a small frown of confusion adorning his face. One of the ponies spoke up as he stopped in front of them. “Hey. You know the nearest city from here? We kinda got lost a little ways back and our vehicle kinda... broke.”

Vigil nearly shivered as he looked at each of the ponies there. They gave him this weird look that made him want to turn and run on sight. “W-well. The town of Hoofenburg is about a half a days travel the way w-I am going,” Vigil coughed as the one who asked him the question in the first place leered at him a little bit, “and the way I c-came frome is Ponyville. About the same amount of time to go that way too.”

One of the group of ponies smiled at Vigil, giving him an eerie look. “Thanks. Say, what’s your name fella?”

Vigil let his eyes lower just a bit at the question. “Vigil. The name’s Vigil.”

The ponies all gave different versions of hideous tooth decaying sneers as they started surrounding the Vigil. He began to back up and the ground gave beneath the green unicorn and he fell down into the hole onto his back. “Oww..” Vigil groaned. He looked up to see what he presumed to be the leader of their group, a grey unicorn with a large scar vertically scraping across his eyes. His mane was black as night with blue streaks pointing out from the center.

The stallion looked down at Vigil in disgust before he turned and called out. “Hey samurai! We know you’re out there. Come quietly and we may let you die quickly.”

Silence filled the air as not a sound was made. After a good minute, the shady pony spoke up again. “C’mon, you wouldn’t want to see your friend here on a spit roast wouldja!?”

After more silence, the pony begrudgingly yelled to his group. “Alright! You girls get this pony up here and in a cage. We are leaving!”

The bandits went and dragged Vigil out of the hole and threw him into a small cage before locking it. Some of the other bandits rushed to put back together the cart of theirs. As they were, a rustling came from the bushes adjacent to it. One of them spoke up. “Well, arn’t’cha gonna check it out Sem?”

The youngest of the bandits looked at the speaker and responded. “Well of course,” Sem said as he began walking to the bushes, “not like that samurai guys here. It’s obvious he ran after we cau-” A loud sound of a sword unsheathing itself was heard as Sem stopped just a few inches from the bushes. A blade was jutting out of the pony’s neck and his body quickly fell limp as he was slightly lifted into the air from the weapon.

The sword was ripped back out of the pony, fresh blood dripping down to the handle just out of sight. Sem fell, clutching at his neck before dying quietly on the ground, choking on his own blood. The sword quickly went back into the bushes and one of the unicorn’s yelled out as they fired a spell into the bushes. “Sem!”

The bush burst into a blaze of fire, but no sounds of pain or anguish could be heard coming from them. The bandits quickly grouped up, facing away from themselves, back to back with the leader of theirs in the center, next to the caged Vigil. “Dammit where’d he go?”

“Keep your eyes peeled. Her ladyship wants him dead,” The leader yelled out.

One of the pegasi, a brown and rather meek looking one, shook so violently you could sell him as a giant living massage device. After a minute, Omior started practically running in circles around them, rustling underbrush, scaring wildlife into the open, and stepping on sticks. After a few seconds, it was too much for the nervous wreck of a stallion, and he charged towards the sound of rustling with sweat dripping down his face.

“AHHHHHH!” ‘Schlnk.’ A scream from the pony rang out and the sound of steel meeting flesh was heard as the body was tossed back out into the open. The pegasus had no wings and a hole in his head, blood and brain matter seeping out of the fresh wounds.

A few of the bandits eyed the body nervously before one of them. A blue older looking mare spoke up. “S-sir Ironhoof?”

The pony in question scrunched his face up as it turned red with anger. “Celestia dammit. No more cocky bastards better do that, or I’ll kill ya myself!” He paused as he looked back at his prisoner. “All unicorns, take aim and fire some fire spells in all directions. That’ll take care of our problem.”

The unicorns silently went all in different parts of their circle of armed highway bandits. They nervously looked around as it seemed the samurai warrior was in multiple places at the same time. They began charging up their horns.

“Ready!” Ironhoof yelled out. He watched as the bushes rustled more violently as it seemed his prey was attempting some vein and very stupid idea. “Aim!” Ironhoof raised one foreleg as he took a glance around at all of his unicorns, nervous but ready to give their lives. “Fire!”

Time seemed to slow for Ironhoof as he saw each of his unicorns fire all at once, but he also saw as the spell heading for a particular tree was about to make impact. He caught sight of a certain samurai suddenly leaping into the air and grabbing a rather thick branch. Omior spun once on it and used his overall speed and momentum to fling himself at the bandits. He shot at them like a cannonball, just barely overhead.

Ironhoof’s eyebrows raised as he tried to yell out a command, but it was too late. Omior landed right in front of the pony in charge of the bandits. He unsheathed his sword and sliced through all seven bandits behind him, they fell limply to the ground with their spines very much sticking out of their backs.

Ironhoof backed away as Omior took step after step slowly up to the rest of the bandits. “What’s that about cooking my friend for dinner?” He said as some of the bandits shook. Three of them swallowed their fear and charged at the warrior all at once. It ended quickly with another clean strike hitting two of the three in the face. The third pony slid under the strike and managed an uppercut on Omior. He stumbled back but composed himself fast enough to catch the second blow and returning one of his own. The pony fell back, unconscious with a broken snout.

The rest of the bandits broke from their bundle and ran, leaving Ironhoof by himself to face the human warrior.

Omior shoved Ironhoof against the tree he had been backed into and held his blade to the pony’s throat. “So. I’ve got a few questions. You don’t mind answering them,” Omior accentuated his question by moving the blade a smidge closer, “do you?”

“N-no.” Ironhoof was dropped to the ground with a thud. He scrambled to his hooves, ready to turn tail and run. That is until Omior spoke up again. “Run and you die...”

Omior practically ignored the pony as he walked back to the cage and cut the lock. Vigil walked out of it and sighed. “Took ya long enough. You know how cramped it is in there?” He looked around Omior to see Ironhoof had very much pissed himself already. The green pony smirked at the poor pony as Omior turned around to begin his ‘interrogation’.

The warrior kneeled down and stared the pony in the eyes, holding his blade in his left hand. “Why did you attack my friend and I?”

“O-orders. Please don’t kill me. I-we were just following orders!”

Omior grabbed Ironhoof by the neck and picked him up into the air. “Orders from who?” His composure never broke even once as he pried answers from the fearful bandit leader.

Ironhoof looked rapidly left and right. He began sweating even more so and he dropped a few things on the ground not worth mentioning. “I-i-i-i.....can’t tell you. She’d kill me if I squealed.”

Omior slammed the pony into the tree. “Who’d kill you?” He dropped the pony as he finished asking his question and the pony tried to stumble into a standing position before he spoke.

“Please no. She’ll do worse to me than you ever will. Just do anything to me as long as you don’t make me say it! Please.” Ironhoof was practically in tears at Omior’s feet.

“Get up coward. Answer the question, either that or,” the samurai warrior raised his blade to the pony’s throat, “I get to see if my blade needs to be resharpened.”

The pony gulped as he looked for the right words to say. He looked rapidly in all directions as he thought. Eventually he stopped and looked at Omior. Just as he inhaled a breath to tell him, a snake bit him in the left foreleg. “Ah!” He looked back before muttering. “Oh no, she knows. Oh no, oh no, oh no...” Snakes began to unburrow from the ground as they swarmed the pony. They crawled and climbed on him as he began panickingly throwing them off, they continued to bite at his forelegs and everywhere they could as Omior backed away from the site.

“Oh god AHHHHHHHHHHH!” Ironhoof cried. Seconds later, the snakes completely covered him, and went as far as to enter his mouth as it was open in pain. He howled and ran and stumbled. He repeated the process until finally, he stopped.

Ironhoof fell to the ground as the snakes dispersed, a pool of blood had already began to take form as Omior and Vigil got a better look at what the snakes did to the poor fool. His eyes were missing. Whatever hunks of meat were still attatched to his body were loosely held to their original bones. His entrails, or at least what remained of them, lay scattered and dragged around, far from his stomach.

Omior and Vigil backed away. Vigil backed away out of disgust and he soon ran to a nearby bush to vomit. Omior merely covered his face with his undershirt before taking one last look at the pony. ‘Well, at least I got some answers. Now for a real challenge.’ Omior rubbed his temples. ‘This is giving me a headache.’