Heya everyone! After a month in England and then a few days of relaxing and getting used to being back home, I decided to replay PoP and continue this story. I might update the Creator sometime, but this is the story I'd really like to finish.

Anyway, if you cheer for me with a few more reviews, the story should be completed pretty soon.

So… review, please!

EDIT: This would have been posted a few days ago, but FF had some problems, apparently...

X X X


the Race

X X X X

To say that I ran is a crude understatement.

I dashed through the city, not caring about saving my strength for later fights. I encountered only one small patrol and that was dealt with within a few seconds. I knew, however, that the closer I would get to the Prince, the more dead patrols I would encounter. I had to pick up his trail somehow, so I had to return to the place where I escaped him. However, upon arriving there, the door remained closed to me.

I frowned. Where could the Prince have gone?

The route he had taken would probably be impossible for me to follow. While I was swift and agile, I couldn't perform the acrobatic feats he could. My strengths lied elsewhere, thus I had to utilize them. With that thought in mind, I returned to the balconies. It was the swiftest and most guard-free route he could have taken, I believed, thus it would be a good idea to follow them.

Bypassing the nearby gardens, which I recognized due to the tall palm trees, I continued my journey through the city. It seemed that there was no one left to defend Babylon now, but us, which hastened my steps. And then, behind the gardens, I saw smoke rising to the sky. Dark, thick, not like vapor or mist at all. Something was burning there…

I took the swiftest route there. Prince or no, I had to see what new devilry that was. Finding ladders and ropes took me a while – I prefer ladders, I'm a very slow and uncertain climber when it comes to ropes or chains or pillars.

What I saw made me gasp, despite myself. A whole workshop, filled with innocent people, burning. It would be a matter of minutes before the roof would collapse and bury all of them in the fire. Then, there would be no escape.

And there was nothing I could do. I was standing upon a balcony with no possible way to reach the ground, or the warehouse.

Taking a few shallow breaths, I remained standing there, frozen. And then, looking away to ease the pain within me somewhat, I saw another balcony, far away, yet close enough to reach the building… and there, a towering pitch-black figure with strange marks upon its torso, rather like liquid gold… or sand…

"PRINCE!" I screamed, attempting to somehow get his attention.

But my cry never reached him – I was too exhausted to yell that much. Besides, had I thought rationally, I would have known that it wasn't humanly possible for a scream like mine to overrun the cries of the dying people in the warehouse, the flames, the fighting and the distance between us.

But almost as if my call had awakened something within him, he began moving and disappeared out of my sight for a long time. I couldn't move. I had to see whether he was going to do something about the workshop, because I couldn't. I couldn't do anything and he could… it was time to see if any of my pleas and commands and doubts had changed the dark part of him.

Mind you, it didn't mean I trusted him yet, but I was willing to give him a chance, to see, remaining unnoticed, whether there was any truth to what he had said.

Minutes passed slowly like days. I was gripping the railing with such a force it might have broken. And then, all of a sudden, I jumped back, because the wall of the workshop closest to me broke down with a tremendous force. A gigantic statue of the king went through it and collapsed. And then, people, small figures, as little as ants compared to the stone statue, surfaced from the building. I held my breath, though deep down, I probably knew what would happen. And indeed, last of all came the Prince, human-looking once more, supporting an elderly woman as she descended the steps of stone.

The sounds of the fire obscured the words an old man was telling the rest of the crowd and I couldn't see much, due to the smoke, but I saw general awe and surprise pass through the crowd, directed at their savior. Suddenly, I felt a slight smile pass through my lips. For all the ill that had happened, for whatever darkness he had gone through, here came a change, a turn of the tide. Light resurfacing.

At that precise moment, causing me to jump back, a carriage broke through the mass, with an immense sand creature guiding the horses with brutal force. Without hesitation, the Prince broke away from the crowds and sprang atop the nearest carriage, heading after the monster.

And I, what was I to do?

The rooftops I needed were there, heading in the direction the carriages took. It wasn't a matter of choice. Within seconds, I was springing after the carriages and when I eventually fell behind, inevitably, I continued retracing the tracks of the wheels, the imprints of the horses´ hooves… and, easiest of all, the corpses of the guards that had attempted to board the Prince's carriage.

I feared I had lost track of them for a moment. The tracks just seemed to… vanish. And then I heard something sinister. Rather like the sound of weaponry. But it was coming from within one of the buildings. I had no time to hesitate and a convenient entrance nearby. What I saw within was truly astonishing.

The building itself was thoroughly destroyed from the inside, but it formed a truly ghastly interior of ruins. The walls were broken down… but it wasn't dark inside. A ring of fire flashed on the ground, effectively isolating and illuminating three figures within it. Two of them were towering creatures of sand, with gargantuan weapons – a sword and an axe, both probably bigger than me. Needless to say, they were terrifying due to sheer size. And in the middle, carefully avoiding the assault of powerful blows, was a smaller figure, but one more familiar to me.

How the Prince had gotten himself into such a mess I had no idea and didn't really have time to think about. He was too close to the monsters and kept jumping around – I couldn't be certain I wouldn't hit him with an arrow if I tried.

But the terrible sight continued only for a moment. Somehow, the Prince managed to deliver a series of acrobatic feats that enabled him to slay the sword-armed warrior. It happened almost too quickly for me to notice. But as the Prince sprang away from the two sand monsters, one of which dissolved into sand almost at once, I saw he was panting, exhausted.

If there was time to think, I didn't use it. All I knew was that I was aiming my arrow at the remaining sand creature, which let out a deafening roar and leapt into the air, axe high, ready to slash the Prince in half. At the same time, it left its torso completely unprotected. I fired.

The power of the shot struck the creature and threw it backwards, sending the axe flying, fortunately, away from the Prince. Without hesitation, I loaded the bow again, just in case. The creature roared, but it was the cry of a dying beast. It was finished, I knew.

Ignoring the height or that something more foul might still attack, I jumped down to the ground level, landing several feet away from the Prince, who seemed to be grateful, despite his clear surprise that, after seeing what I had seen, I had returned. To tell the truth… I didn't really know why I had returned, other than that I had been too rash in my judgment.

"It seems I chose the right moment to return." I said, attempting to brush off the awkwardness and the fact that I owed him an apology.

"Thank you." he said simply.

I nodded, looking away, still attempting to be formal and indifferent to our last encounter. "We should move on I'm sure more are on the way."

The fire, fortunately, seemed to go out rather quickly, so we had the chance to leave the building through one of the many openings caused by the bombardment. Once out of that wretched place, we had to move carefully again. In a silent agreement, we probably agreed that we wouldn't be mentioning the past again. Thus our progress through the city was mostly silent, that is, until we reached a large plaza.

"Be on your guard." The Prince said to me quietly, going first.

"I always am." I replied, my bow loaded, looking above, just to be certain.

The moonlit city we entered was beautiful, but thoroughly lifeless. There was something strange about the empty streets, something eerie and suspicious. I had a very bad feeling about it. True, a city that has been conquered might look lifeless… but not this dead. The Prince, sharing my sentiments, knelt, touched the ground, and after a moment, felt that our suspicions were not unfounded.

"RUN!" he shouted, and I obeyed, now fully aware of the trembling of the ground, of the sound of heavy running from behind us.

We ran as fast as we could, and I could hear more and more pursuers joining in from behind. There was no avoiding them, it seemed, for they rushed out of all directions, surrounding is, making it impossible to flee. I aimed my bow, but knew that fighting was impossible. I felt the Prince standing back-to-back with me, also ready to fight, no matter how desperate and foolish the situation might have seemed.

Death would not bring us down without a proper fight.

And then, into the hopeless darkness, an aged voice spoke with surprising volume and vitality.

"All hail the Prince of Persia! The greatest hero the land has ever known!"

My eyes darted to the direction where the shout was coming from and I was momentarily overcome. A huge crowd of people, armed with whatever weapons they could find – shields made of broken wooden roofs, handmade spears, swords taken from corpses – was standing there, cheering for their sovereign, ready to sacrifice their lives in a battle against the immortal beasts surrounding us. "

You have saved the people of this city!" the old man, like a general marshalling his army, continued. "And we have come to repay the favor!"

With a thunderous cheer, loud enough to even obscure the rough noises of the sand creature army, the citizens charged forward, raising their weapons, colliding with the mass of sand ahead of them.

The Prince and I managed to escape from the enclosure, but we got separated by the crowds. I was shooting arrows as fast as I could, but still taking care not to exhaust my supply. With the corner of my eye, I spotted the Prince briefly, making his way to something through the crowd. Then, I lost him again and was too preoccupied to look again.

After a moment, however, I saw him again… rushing away from the battle. I realized that he must have reached someone, presumably the old man, reminding him that there was no chance that the citizens of Babylon would defeat this massive army. However, the old man probably knew this, that they would provide more than a sufficient diversion and the Prince wouldn't have an entire army chasing after him for a while.

Hesitation was out of the question. I took off after him immediately, running up the stairs, only a few paces behind. A set of heavy, hasty steps followed me, thus I turned, as quickly as possible, and swiftly fired an arrow at the approaching sand creature.

The Prince cut a rope that held the heavy gate dividing a small courtyard at a remote palace entrance from the piazza. Running as fast as I could, I managed to get in just in time.

At the foot of the Tower of Babylon, our ascent was about to begin.