"She wants us to go where?!" Flynn barked.
Logan's brow furrowed. "A cave?!"
Ariel slumped in the back of the wagon. "Yes," she exhaled breathily. "A cave." She helped a wincing, injured Wildcard sit carefully in the center. "Thanks to her friends, Rainbow told me where we can find it too."
"No offense, but..." Flynn jerked his head back and forth between Ariel and the direction he was aiming the wagon. "...right now, with a bunch of bloodthirsty freakjobs at our tail, a cave sounds like the absolute worst idea."
"She says there's a tunnel system!" Ariel exclaimed. She pointed at the tallest mountain forming a silhouette before them. "Up there! About halfway up! There's an entrance that leads to it!"
"What of ourr purrsuerrs?" Kepler asked.
"We can blow the entrance shut with enchanted runestones!"
"Can that work, Keps?" Logan asked.
"Ach..." The wyvern stroked his hairy chin thoughtfully. "We will have to get the carrriage quite a distance into the hollow of the mountain so that the chaotic aurra won't interrferre with the lunarr command. But—yes! I do believe it is a viable strrategy!"
"It's impulsive, stupid, and cowardly!" Flynn cackled. "We'll be dead meat if those things manage to get in there and find us!"
"Well, what would you rather us do?!" Ariel frowned, reaching into a supply cannister of bandages to treat Wildcard. "Cruise pointlessly in an open valley and wait for them to overrun us?! Rainbow and General Death Turkey are doing their best to buy us some time right now but even they can't pull their stunts off forever!"
"Uhhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhhh..." Logan gave a nod towards the mountains. "I'm for the impulstive, stupid, and cowardly plan."
"Dammit Logan—" Flynn began.
"Baldy..." Logan waved a meaty fetlock at the unicorn. "When all of this is said and done, remind me to teach you the difference between nerd-smarts and get-away-with-your-balls-intact-smarts." He squinted. "Now are you gonna take us to the mountain, or do I have to get out and push?"
Flynn sighed long and hard. Nevertheless, he relented, tilting the vehicle slightly towards Omega in order to make for their new destination. "Sometimes—I swear—I've no friggin' clue how Rainbow Dash survived so long before she met the Herald."
"She didn't have bald-headed blowhards to make her think twice about every little dayum thing."
"I just want us to survive this shit! Is that such a crime?"
"We'll read the law books once we're in the cave. Shouldn't be hard. You've got a friggin' night-light stapled to your forehead."
"Can we stop with the bickering and move on with the cruising?!" Ariel snapped, bandaging Wildcard. "Goddess on a treadmill—you two need to get a room."
"Maybe we can carve one out the cave," Flynn muttered. The blunt end of an axe lightly bopped him on the head. "Ow!"
"Get a move on!" Logan growled.
Kepler, in the meantime, was already hard at work with his alchemical kit. "I shall prreparre an apprroprriate mix forr the inevitable explosion..."
As the vessel began its gradual grind uphill, Wildcard looked back towards Edgeside. The griffon clenched his beak tight as his goggles reflected two tiny figures streaking loopty-loops above a pale sea of surging bodies.
"Hresssssssh!" Row after row of enraged trolls leapt up at the two.
Seraphimus dodged with ease and even swiped down once or twice with her talons—Schiiiiiing!—removing digits and claws. As the black blood spray dissipated, even more creatures attempted to tackle the dipping targets.
Rainbow found it much harder to bait and evade their leaping forms—but that was probably because she was distracted. "Friggin'... death... scab frogs... swear to Luna..."
Discord fizzled into existence as two beasts leapt up, fazing through him. "'Scab frogs!'" He lifted a claw, grinning. "I think I'm going to steal that!"
The trolls descended on the downward arc of their dive, and Discord disappeared. Twilight Sparkle materialized in his place. "Don't forget, Rainbow!" she exclaimed. "You and Seraphimus can't do this forever!"
"Wow," Rainbow Dash droned sarcastically. "I'm so devastated."
Twilight pouted. "I'm only saying that you should pay attention to—"
"Fluttershy!" Rainbow looked over her shoulder. "How far up the mountain are our friends?"
"I... I can't tell..." Fluttershy whimpered, ears drooping.
"Why not?!?" Rainbow blinked hard. "Oh... dang it... the chaos stones—"
"Dashie—!" Pinkie yelped, pointing.
Discord appeared in her place. "He's at the twenty! The ten—!"
"Htttt!" Startled, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings hard and lifted—
"Hressssssssssssssssssssh!" A swiping beast flew towards her flank.
WHUMP! Seraphimus rammed into it, forcing it to fall back down and ragdoll into a sea of angry beasts.
"Aaaaaaaand—sacked!" Discord pumped a big foam lion's paw. "That was their last chance for redemption too—"
Seraphimus flew in a zig-zag, but she found the time to holler over her shoulder: "For a pony who wishes to survive, you're not doing a very good job at it!"
"At least you have the decency to call me a 'pony' now!" Rainbow retorted, sweating and frowning.
"Rainbow Dash!" Applejack could be heard hollering. She and her friends had rematerialized again. "We can see the wagon from here!"
"You can?"
"It's shining like a beacon in the night, darling!" Rarity added. "We shall keep an eye out for you!"
"We will tell you when they arrive at the cave—" Fluttershy said, her voice being drowned out by hisses.
"Hrnng!" Rainbow shook and juked to the side, narrowly missing pouncing figures. "Haaah!" She twirled, kicked a leaping troll in the forehead, and flew a little higher. She rejoined Seraphimus in circular orbit of the advancing front. "Bad news...!" She gulped. "Or good news—depending on how bloodthirtsy you are..."
"We need to give your companions more time?" Seraphimus said.
"Uh huh."
Seraphimus exhaled. "Why does that not surprise me?" She dove down extra low this time, raking faces into ribbons with her talons. "RAAAAAAAUGH!"
Sl-Sl-Sliiink!
Just have to hold out a little bit longer.
Wave cleared, standby for final wave...
Seraphimus gets the best nicknames.
Get to the
choppacave!Logan speaking the truth.
Flynn is starting to breakdown quicker than everyone else it seems.
With how Sera talks, I'm starting to read her in a more posh British accent, like Rarity, but posher.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
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It's certainly entertaining to read it that way.
Isn't the chapter title the Dinosaur's Prayer? Bit of a strange place for a Koestler reference...
It's always gotta be more time. More time!
I'm pretty sure Sera could keep this up for quite a bit longer just on rage alone. Hell, give the trolls all RD wigs and watch her never ever stop ever
Well then, we'll have explosions and caves in one chapter pretty soon.
Prepare for a meltdown.8525869
Doesn't sound as bad as the possible scenario of speaking chaos spiders in an ancient forest.
MDK is getting to the point where she remains totally full of rage, but she is realising she has an unlimited number of targets to vent that rage on instead of saving it all for one specific evasive target?
How does she kill so easily?
Simple. She's Always Angry.
I'm generally in the thinking twice, or even three times camp. Its a very wide, murky line between situations where thinking too much will get you killed, or not thinking enough will have just as devastating a result. Overall being stupid isn't a virtue, but something that just increases the odds you're going to do something monumentally wrong. I do take some issue with the way this story keeps trying to spin stupidity and acting without thinking as some kind of grand virtue that gets things done. Still, in this case there isn't that much to think about, as there literally isn't an alternative to going in the cave besides getting overrun.
I mean, its not like Dash has a super power that lets her unleash a wide range sonic shockwave large enough to be seen from various corners of Equestria while also having enough power to shatter rock. I mean if she did have the ability to do something like that, then hell we'd have options, but she can't, and we're stuck with the cave.
It'd also be amazing if pegasi and griffins had demonstrated ability to lift heavy objects and make them fly through the sky, like some kind of delivery wagon or chariot, but that's never been shown before in the history of MLP, so there's just no precedence here. Besides Logan is far too fat to be lifted with conventional means.
Just a moment's time.
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I beat you to that, twice.
Sera is definitely enjoying herself now. She's even being nice to ponies!
Just keep killing, just keep killing, just keep killing, killing, killing...
Now, how long before something else goes wrong?
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Attercop! Attercop!
It's almost as if rainbow has five ghosts distracting her unintentionally and a sixth distracting her on purpose.
Exactly.
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to be fair, i think she already tried to get that kind of speed and altitude back at Darkreach when she attempted to abandon the Herald, but RD found herself iceing over and collapsing from lack of air instead of hitting supersonic speeds. Those two things never ever happened on the Light Side.
Granted, this is far from absolute confirmation, but it does seem to imply that, at the moment, RD certainly believed a Sonic Rainboom is out of the inmediate question, or at least generally unwise as a "harmonic pony buffet here" with a massive prismatic bullseye visible from both ends of the plane.
Alternatively, position Sera at the entrance and block it with corpses.
Deadpan bird is best bird.
Raaaaaagh
--Orc
This seems like an awesome and well-thought-out plan.
How are they planning to get out?
They get to kill more things? It is the murderbird's birthday!
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I read that scene as her turning into a Dashcicle because she was literally leaving the atmosphere and going suborbital. Didn't really get the impression that Sonic Rainbooms or lack thereofs had anything to do with it. Given how easily Dash has been shown to do them in the show I'm not sure what gives in this story other than Skirts not wanting to overplay them and save the big guns for special moments. Could be there's an in story explanation as well, but if there is it flew over my head or hasn't been brought up yet.
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Just use Sera for everything! She's damn near indestructable!
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Her icy nature is legendary, but her claws are unobtanium.
Fair enough.
Discord just helped her. I can't wait to see where this goes.
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Three commenters with flying machines in their profile pictures in a row!
Well, Discord seems to be enjoying himself.
10631837
When is he not?
Well actually-
Small steps.