Qube, being the best (and now only) Prophecy Approved Companion in the land, followed the Chosen One outside the Prophecy Hut. The Hero led them down towards Mr Igma’s shop, then tried to find an alleyway to duck into. Being that this was a beautiful perfect village, he found none. Instead they settled for going down to the warehouse by the river.
The Hero, after checking that they weren’t being followed, used the key that Qube still couldn’t explain how he had and sidled into the place.
“Look,” he said quietly, his expression more serious than Qube had ever seen, “I know we don’t really know each other - “
“We’ve known each other our entire lives,” Qube interjected.
“-but I’m not very familiar with this place -”
“We’ve lived here since we were born.”
“-and I’m going to need you to trust me. This may be hard-” the Hero continued, ignoring his childhood friend’s logic.
“There is literally no one I trust more in the world than you.”
“-but you need to stop interrupting me.”
“Oh.” Qube said, chastened. “Sure. Sorry, Chosen One.”
“That’s not actually my na… you know what? That isn’t important right now. Something bad is going to happen, and it’s going to happen as soon as I take that shiny magical sword,” he said. Qube gasped. The magical sword was trapped? Who could have done such a thing?! She opened her mouth to suggest they tell the Alderman, saw the Hero’s expression and closed her mouth with a snap.
The Hero was right. What if Alderman was in on it? What if he was listening to them right now? The Prophecy reached out and gripped her mind painfully, but she tried to hold on to her thoughts. The Hero had suggested this. Surely she should at least think about it?
The Prophecy tightened its grip.
“You need to take the Sacred Weapon to fulfil your Destiny!” she said, her cheerful delivery slightly more cautious than normal. “How else will you fight Evil?”
“Oh, I’ll be picking up the Sacred Weapon in a little bit,” the Hero of All Time looked at her. The Prophecy eased. “I just need to … secure something first.”
---
“You need to take the Sacred Weapon to fulfil your Destiny!” Qube told him from behind the clay pots. She had been reminding him about every ten minutes, in case he forgot.
“I know, I know,” he grunted, putting another clay pot on top of her. He had built a kind of pyramid on her of clay pots he’d dragged from the warehouse. They were close to the village entrance, “for a quick getaway” he’d said, refusing to explain any more than that.
It was very uncomfortable, but Qube remained under her pile of pots patiently, waiting to see where the Saviour of Everyone was going with this.
“Almost done…” The Hero carefully balanced a pot on the tip of the pile. It wobbled, then fell, smashing to pieces on the ground. With a cacophony of clinking sounds a pile of coins burst out, as if they’d been springloaded inside the pots.
“Why would someone put coppers in a pot?” Qube asked, then looked at the Hero just in time to see his expression shift into a kind of frenzied greed.
“LOOT!” He bellowed, tearing into the pots; flinging them against walls, smashing them with his sword and kicking them open. “LOOT!”
Five minutes later Qube sat in the remains of a pottery-based massacre. The Hero stood next to her, panting and looking slightly ashamed. A large pile of copper coins sat before them.
“Why did -”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He said shortly. “Time for Plan B.”
---
They had been rubbing against walls for what felt like hours, but the sun had yet to move. It was still a fine and sunny morning. The Chosen One would go to a villager’s house, knock on their door, and be ignored. No one wanted to give him any more jobs to do, or be badgered for supplies. Then, he would circle their house, gently pushing against Qube’s shoulder as she walked beside the walls, almost as if he was trying to push her right through them.
At one point she had gotten her foot stuck in a door, and he had gotten very excited until she started screaming and kicked her foot out of its weird pocket dimension. He’d tried cramming her whole body into the small hole but he couldn’t get it to expand, and eventually he got sick of Qube screaming and so gave up.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Okay,” he said, sitting next to the fountain in the town centre. “I need you to help me out here. Is there anywhere the villagers don’t go? Like,” he waved his hands, “maybe someone went to a space once and never came back, or someone went missing in some part of the woods or something. Maybe even a place people feel like they shouldn’t go?”
Qube eyed him almost suspiciously. While she obviously still believed in the Golden Prophecy and its Awoken Hero, the Prophecy had never mentioned anything about wall hugging or pot destroying. She wasn’t doubting the Chosen One, she hurriedly reassured herself, more… wondering how best she could guide him. Yes. That worked.
“People are free to go wherever they like in the village,” she said, then paused. “Although…there is the top of the Town Hall. The higher up you go the more pressure people feel.” The Hero sprung to his feet with a shout. “It’s quite high up though! And I know you’re afraid of heights.”
The Hero paused for a second to look at her in puzzlement, before grabbing her hand and racing into the Town Hall.
---
He threw her into the sky.
He, the Chosen One, the Hero of All, had raced to the top of Town Hall, jumped up and down a few times, gone and gotten a wooden crate, stood on it, and then thrown her into the Prophecy Cursed SKY.
And then she’d gotten stuck. In the sky.
“HOW?” she screamed at the uncaring sky that she was literally stuck inside.
“Don’t worry, I’ll pull you down as soon as the danger’s passed!” the Hero called up to her.
“HOW?!” she hit a new octave.
“I’ll just pull you down… with a … rope… oh.” The Hero sheepishly trailed off. “I, uh, probably should have attached that to you before I threw you into the sky, huh? Whoops! Be right back!” He jumped down off the Town Hall roof, landing in a perfect crouch before sprinting off to find a rope.
And then there was just the sound of her how-ing at the heavens.
---
By the time he returned with a rope she had discovered several very interesting facts about her current predicament.
The first was that if she kicked too hard she slowly rotated in a forward somersault on the spot. Further kicking just sped her up until she nearly vomited.
The second was that it was much, much worse to be stuck in the sky upside down. For one thing, she was wearing robes which flopped down over her face unless she held them. For the other, when she was upside down all she could see was the clocktower. It was about five seconds to noon, despite the fact it had been morning minutes earlier. It remained at five seconds to noon the entire time she stared at it.
The third thing was that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t spontaneously learn any magical hexes to curse the Hero with.
“May your ears rot off your head!” she screamed when he finally reappeared.
“Sorry about the delay, no one would help me find another rope,” he said.
“May your bones turn into rope!”
“I didn’t have enough in my backpack to reach the ground,” he explained, ignoring her cursing. “Gimme your ankle.” He jumped onto the crate and reached for her leg.
She kicked him in the face. Hard. And then immediately started somersaulting in place.
“Welcome to the village, Hero!” she screamed at him, so angry that she reverted to one of her earlier drafts of her pre-planned welcome speech. “You’re going to save the world, Hero!” She’d spun enough to go for another kick but he was ready for her this time and grabbed her ankle.
“Oof, okay, your script is… freaking out. I hope this doesn’t break you,” he said, deftly tying a knot around her ankle. She flailed at him with her other foot, but couldn’t get a solid kick in.
“You’re lucky healing potions are so expensive,” He glared at her, fending off her kick attacks. “Well, that and this will be hilarious if I can pull it off. And...” he paused for a second, ignoring her smacking him in the side of the head with her one free foot. She was pleased to note she was leaving shoe-shaped mud imprints on him. “I don’t like this kind of story,” he said. He glanced up at her, finally noticing she was kicking him in the head, and jumped down off the crate. He threw the length of rope off the side of the Town Hall, then turned back to look at her.
“I’m going to go get the sword now. I’ll grab you after… whatever bad thing is going to happen, happens.”
It wasn’t the coolest exit line for a Hero, but he saluted her ironically anyway and jumped off the roof and started leisurely walking towards the Prophecy Hut.
Qube stopped raging once he was out of sight. She’d only start spinning again. Instead she frowned as she tried to consider what he’d just said. Was he… trying to protect her from whatever trap was inside that magical sword? Why hadn’t he just said so? Oh! That was such a Hero thing to do!
She pressed her hands into her bright red cheeks. Partly they were red because of the somersaulting and screaming, but the rest was a flush of excitement.
Just when she was starting to almost doubt his Chosen One status! When the treacherous seed of wondering whether or not the Golden Prophecy had made a mistake had started to sprout! Was there anything more heroic than him protecting his Companion against her will from threats he refused to properly inform her of?
“By the Words, I will never doubt him again!” she vowed.
As if powered by her newfound respect, a giant golden beam of light blew off the roof of the Prophecy Hut. She laughed in pure delight as the Chosen One stepped out of the ruins, clutching the Sacred Weapon in his hand. He had done it! He had overcome the trap! He was a true Hero!
And then the clock struck twelve.
The world went dark.
---
A beam of blackness ripped apart the noon sky. It crackled towards the beam of gold, swirling around it, engulfing it, before dispersing and filling everything. Lightning bolts of impenetrable energy struck the dirt streets, and from each strike a creature of darkness emerged. Only the Hero, bathed in the Golden Prophecy, stayed untouched by this…
Evil.
“The Evil Emperor!” Qube cried out in horror, her words whipped away by the storm of nothingness.
The darkness above spasmed, then seemed to bend towards the earth, as if a mighty force was pushing it down. The very tip of the darkness touched the ground, then broke, splitting apart to reveal the most dreaded creature in all the kingdom.
The Evil Emperor was huge. He towered over the Hero, as a giant does a child, and in the blackness Qube saw a slash of white as he grinned.
“Finally, you have Awo-”
The Dreaded Demonic Deposer of the Rightful Rulers of the Realm paused. His mortal enemy, who was supposed to be cowering, was instead slashing at the air with his new Sacred Weapon, making little “hah! Teh!” sounds. He then switched to another, much shabbier looking sword, gave it a few practice swings, then shoved the older sword into his backpack.
“A definite improvement over Alderman’s sword,” the Chosen One said, finally sheathing the Sacred Weapon. “Anyway, you were saying?”
There was an awful moment of silence. The world held its breath as the Evil Emperor blinked, just once.
“-ken from your cowardly slumber, Hero of the False Prophecy!” he declared, before throwing back his head and laughing.
He hadn’t even missed a beat.
He must have memorised Every. Single. Cuecard, Qube thought, almost admiringly.
No! Focus! Evil! Evil here to destroy, as according to the Golden Prophecy! Although… Why had he called it fake? Stupid villain, he couldn’t even tell a real Golden Prophecy from what he found scrawled on the side of a pub, Qube snorted. Not that they had a pub in the village. But still. She’d heard of them. She’d looked forward to seeing them once they set out on their epic adventure.
But as the Evil Emperor continued laughing, she started to worry that she would never leave this village alive.