Prophecy Approved Companion

The Chosen One, holding the personal necklaces of the Exiled Prince and Exiled Princess in each hand, held them over their respective flagstones, and casually dropped them onto the indentations.

Surprisingly, they landed perfectly in the divots, despite the Hero making absolutely no effort to be careful.

Both the sun and the moon dissolved into sparkling light, revealing small alcoves underneath them. And also, unfortunately, taking the necklaces with them.

“Oy!” the Chosen One exclaimed. “I wanted to keep those!”

Slightly cheered by the Chosen One’s inner loot lover still existing, Qube peeked into the two open holes in the ground. It wasn’t the most subtle of things, and she wasn’t sure if they would need a spell to fill in the holes before someone tripped and broke an ankle, but it was incredibly handy to get new weapons just before they fought the Evil Emperor.

If, indeed, they were going to fight him. Sexy Screamy Spider Briar had her seduction plan, and Qube… well, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she wouldn’t need a weapon to do it. Probably.

Just in case, she pulled out the staff the Chosen One had bought her in Cobbletown.

“Right, do you want to grab those two packages?” the Chosen One asked Qube. “Maybe make some package babies?”

“Of course,” she said cheerfully.

The first package was another staff, slightly smaller than Qube’s. While hers was white, this one was black, made of charred and twisted wood. It looked surprisingly Evil, considering it was from a member of the Royal family.

But then it turned out that even Royals weren’t infallible. A fact Qube was still wrapping her head around.

The second package was a crossbow, much heavier and more lethal-looking than Sexy Screamy Spider Briar’s normal ranged weapon. The Hunter’s eyes lit up as she reached from the twin Qube had just helped birth.

“She’s gorgeous,” the Hunter whispered, running her claws over her new weapon. “Give me a few more, there’s a dear.” She rubbed the stock of the crossbow against her cheek.

“You always get me the best presents,” she practically purred at the Chosen One. “You really know the way to a girl’s heart.”

Qube, remembering a long ago conversation where the much more romantically experienced Hunter had explained that gift giving was an important part in any courtship ritual, found herself grimacing slightly as she handed the twin of the black staff over to Definitely Bad Guy.

While they’d cleared up the misunderstanding about him being hopelessly in love with her, part of her still flinched away from doing anything with romantic connotations towards him.

The Mage, no doubt also embarrassed by the memory of her misinterpreting him thinking she was in cahoots with the man responsible for the devastation of the kingdom, blushed profusely as he accepted the staff from her with a muttered word of thanks.

Or maybe he was just upset that her staff was bigger.

To make up for any perceived shortcomings in his staff size, she birthed two more for him.

“Here you go,” she said kindly. She’d never heard of anyone dual or triple wielding staffs, but if anyone could pull it off, it would be the former Mage Advisor.

“Okay,” the Chosen One said, taking the original staff and crossbow and shoving them into his backpack. “We got everything? Anything we’ve forgotten?”

“We don’t have a plan for the gems,” Qube said. “Well, Sexy Screamy Spider Briar, you have a secret plan.”

The Hunter looked startled for a moment, before thoughtfully nodding her head.

“Yes,” she said slowly, “there is something I can attempt.”

“Cool,” the Chosen One said, straightening his shoulders. “Defeat the Evil Emperor, deal with whatever else the Devs have planned that they’re refusing to tell me about, then convince a panel of people that you guys are people. Too easy.”

Just before he touched the Save Point, Sencha Bard reached out and grabbed his arm.

“You can travel back to this point in time, correct?” he asked with strange intensity.

“Yeah, although sometimes stuff travels back with me that shouldn’t,” the Chosen One said, his gaze flicking over to Qube.

Sencha Bard took a deep breath.

“So if anything goes wrong, if there’s a situation with… someone… that you can’t find a way to save them, you’ll come back here.” It wasn’t clear from his tone of voice whether what he said was a question, or a command.

“If I can,” the Chosen One said quietly.

“I would advise you to make every effort,” Sencha Bard said, his jaw clenching as he spoke.

A flicker of irritation passed across the Chosen One’s face, before it softened into understanding.

“Don’t worry,” he said at last, putting a hand on the Bard’s shoulder. “We got this.”

Shaking free of the other man’s grasp, he touched the Save Point then, with a dramatic flourish, pushed open the throne room doors.

---

The throne room was both exactly and nothing like Qube’s dream. There were no numbers zipping past, or changing mathematical formulas, and no gaping wound in the world drawing her inwards. In fact, given how dark the room was, it was hard to see anything, nevermind a bunch of numbers. But there were doorways just visible from the long walkway that led directly to three short steps up to a dais, on which a shadowed figure lounged on a massive throne.

It must have been custom made since the coup, since Qube couldn’t see anyone in the Royal family owning something so obviously Evil looking. Even in the darkness, it was clear that giant sharp pointy bits erupting from a chair wasn’t exactly a look employed by kind and fair rulers.

By this point, Qube was struggling to breathe. The sheer crushing pressure of being near the Evil Emperor was almost overwhelming, and the pulling feeling drawing her ever closer was stronger than ever.

But not, to her surprise, pulling her towards the same place her dream had dragged her. Rather than being drawn to the Evil Emperor’s side, she was being slowly but surely dragged towards the throne itself.

She involuntarily took a step forward, and purple lights sprang into being, illuminating the ornate throne room, and the scene within.

She paused as the compulsion was temporarily shattered.

The imposing figure was not just the Evil Emperor.

It was the Evil Emperor, surrounded by about a dozen chickens.

Chickens that looked extremely familiar.

They’d done it! The chickens that they’d set to follow the gems all that time ago had managed to complete their quest, and avoid giving in to the murderous rage that lurked in the heart of every fowl.

That meant the gems were in this very room. Either that or the Evil Emperor had managed to turn a bunch of chickens to his cause. In which case, all was lost.

A ruler who had a flock of ruthless poultry on his side would be impossible to defeat. No one in recorded history had ever managed to kill a chicken.

However, even knowing their lethal nature, the sight of the Evil Emperor, covered in all black armour, being sat on, pecked around, and ruffled at by a bunch of fluffy chickens was nearly enough to make her forget the seriousness of the situation.

A situation which only got even weirder when Sexy Screamy Spider Briar sprang into action.

“Excuse me,” she said, moving past the party and walking towards the tyrant. The closer she got, the more purple lights sprang into existence. It had to have been a spell. His helmeted head shifted slightly, the only sign that he was watching the arachnid as she approached. She gave him a curtsey, and peeked at him from under her many eyelashes. Even the children’s faces had stopped screaming long enough to smirk at him.

His gauntleted hand drummed its fingers on the arm of the throne. Several of the chickens watched the movement with fierce concentration.

“Oh great Evil Emperor,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar said, rising from her curtsey. “Long have I admired your forcefulness

. And now, the mere sight of you has driven me mad with lust. Take me, oh leader, for I am yours, and yours alone. Just keep me by your side, and I will fulfil your every desire.”

Even Qube was moved by the passionate plea from the Hunter. How could she possibly say things like that with a straight face? If Qube hadn’t known that this was all a facade, she might have been swept up in the moment and truly believed Sexy Screamy Spider Briar had fallen in love with the Evil Emperor at fourth sight!

“Wow, she’s so good at this,” she whispered to the Chosen One.

The Hero gave her a very dubious look.

“Sure…” he said, not sounding very sure at all. “Very, uh, convincing.” He turned away from Qube and looked at the pair on the other side of the room. “I mean, oh no, how could you betray us like this?” he loudly proclaimed. “Sexy Screamy Spider Briar, you have broken my heart.”

Even knowing he was acting, Qube felt a stab of pain at his cry.

Qube, it should be noted, wasn’t very experienced at this level of subterfuge.

Sexy Screamy Spider Briar, taking the Evil Emperor’s lack of reaction as an invitation, got even closer to the tyrant.

“Come, my new lover, let me take my place by your side,” she said in a low and sultry voice that nevertheless carried across the room. She managed to sidle all the way up to him before he so much as twitched.

She was within arms reach of him when she looked down and managed to get a good look at the gauntlet. The chickens, while useful at confirming the presence of the gems, rather got in the way of examining the Evil Emperor himself. The arachnid was very careful to make sure that none of her limbs even brushed against the volatile creatures.

“I see you have mounted the gems on the back of your gauntlet,” she said, in what Qube thought was a very clever way of telling the party without alerting the tyrant to the Hunter’s true allegiance. “Is that how you’ll defeat my former lover, the Chosen One?”

The Evil Emperor stood up, disrupting the chickens roosting on him and causing Sexy Screamy Spider Briar to rapidly back away. The black-armoured man looked down at the arachnid.

“You aren’t her,” the Evil Emperor ground out.

A sword appeared in his hand. The gems on his gauntlet glowed. His eyes, black pools of death beneath his helmet, fixed on the Hunter.

“[Lesser Shield]!” Qube screamed, even knowing that wouldn’t be enough.

Sexy Screamy Spider Briar was too close! She couldn’t get away in time!

The sword started to swing.

“Nope! [Save Scum Attack],” the Chosen One said, swiping his hand in the air before him.

Qube came back into being outside the throne room. Sencha Bard was still earnestly looking at the Chosen One. Sexy Screamy Spider Briar still had a slight smirk on her face, no doubt reviewing her plan.

“The gems are on his gauntlet,” Qube blurted out. She shook her head, trying to clear the image of that sword swinging towards her friend.

“Yeah, the old seduction plan didn’t quite work,” the Chosen One confessed.

Sexy Screamy Spider Briar went as pale as a spider lady could. A claw reached out and hovered over where her heart would be in her thorax.

“What happened to me?” she whispered.

“Eh, wasn’t great,” the Chosen One said.

“We managed to travel back to the Save Point before he hurt you,” Qube said, focusing on what she knew the Hunter was really asking about. It was important to people to know whether or not they’d died, even if it was in an alternative timeline. “But he seemed angry… he said that you ‘weren’t her’.”

He couldn’t be talking about Qube, could he? Did he want revenge against her for ripping open his mind? Or did he just want to finish the job he’d started in Cobbletown?

“His brutish rejection of your beauty aside, we now know the location of the gems, and you managed to safely return to the present,” Sencha Bard said. The fact that the Chosen One had already used his [Save Scum Attack] seemed to have relaxed him somewhat.

Definitely Bad Guy had pulled out his book and was furiously skimming through it.

“I shall attempt to talk to him,” he said. “I believe I can persuade him to join our cause.”