“Haaaaaugh!” Rainbow Dash barreled her way through a line of soldiers, knocking them against the deck of the battleship. Any exposed part of her blue body was covered in soot and sweat as she looked over her shoulder at the others. “We having fun yet?!”
Crimson came smashing down from a high jump, slamming his metal prosthetic with sonic reverberation. A wave of energy flew at the soldiers, shoving them down onto the lower deck. “You know wh-what?! This is surprisingly easy! Haugh!” He telekinetically tossed a mess of splinters at a group trying to flank him.
All the while, Josho crouched behind a mast, clutching a rifle to his chest as shots whizzed all around him. “Yeah!” he wheezed. “Real easy!”
“Hold on, Mr. Slobberknocker!” Rainbow Dash dove low. “I got them!” With waving forelimbs, she burned her thrusters in the faces of the opposition. The enforcers flinched with their rifles, allowing Rainbow an opportunity to dip in and pummel half of them with her quick hooves.
One of Evans' fellow officers galloped up on a higher platform and fired with a floating pistol.
Rainbow Dash dodged the shots, frowning. “When will these morons run out of bullets already?!” She dove up at him to take the pony out... but fell flat on her belly. “Unnf!”
“What is it?!” Josho shouted over the sound of his return fire. “Now's not an opportune time to go 'Unnf!'”
“My... m-my thrusters!” Rainbow's voice cracked. She was wide-eyed. “They're running out of juice!”
The officer took this opportunity to aim at her forehead. A wooden beam floated into the back of his skull. As he reeled, Crimson came in from the charge, knocking him hard into a nearby railing. Panting, the stallion gazed down at Rainbow. “You alright?!”
“I... I don't know...” Rainbow stood up in the middle of the chaos. All the while, her suit puttered and hissed from several places. “This outfit's been through the wringer. I think it might be starting to go 'kerplunk' on me.”
“Then un-kerplunk it!” Josho shouted, firing at a line of soldiers cowering behind wooden crates. “We need to get off this stupid piece of driftwood somehow!”
“You think I don't know that?!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she galloped on her hooves and dove into the body of an enforcer trying to sneak in from the side. “Nnngh!” She headbutted him and bucked his body down onto a lower deck. “The Noble Jury needs us! And so does Belle!”
“Look, girl, all we know is that you're hallucinating a lavender turd from beyond the walls of the world!” Josho said while reloading his gun. “Let's focus on the task at hoof!”
“I don't remember asking a walrus to lecture me on saving the day!” Rainbow Dash retorted.
“You wanna see some tusks?!” Josho growled. “Crawl over here and pucker up, sunshine!”
“Everypony, be quiet!” Crimson shouted with the authoritative voice of a commanding officer. He pointed across the stunned silence. “Look!”
Josho and Rainbow Dash craned their necks to see a solid cluster of enforcers running away from their end of the top decks.
“They're fleeing,” Josho said, panting. He stood up and cracked the joints beneath his fat. “Serves them right.”
Rainbow Dash squinted. “I've dished out worth punishment than this and it didn't stop them before.”
“Then tell us, Einstallion. What are they running from—?”
The deck exploded in two places... then two more. Chunks of metal and wood flew up towards the balloon from which the battleship was floating. While dodging the raining debris, the three looked northwest to see a burning object screaming down towards them.
Inside the ship—or what was left of it—Terra squatted at the controls. The dead and mangled bodies of metal mares were slumped on either side of her. As blood ran down her face, she sneered through the carnage and sped the vessel on a suicide run towards the battlecruisers.
“All m-must die...” She grinned psychotically, her frenzied eyes reflecting the rainbow-colored shape in the middle of the mess. “No other colors, blessed Searo... Snktttt-heheheheh...” She coughed and wheezed into the smoke. “Only red...”
Down below, Josho let out a wild yell and unloaded an entire rifle clip at the incoming craft. Every round simply bounced off the nose of the dive-bombing vessel.
“It's no use!” Crimson stammered, crouching behind a stack of crates. “Whoever or whatever it is, I don't think they plan to survive this charge any more than us!”
“Could you give me a boost?!” Rainbow Dash said, pointing at Crimson's horn. “Maybe I can... uh... glide into the ship and stop her!”
“You said yourself that your suit is failing!”
More manashots landed all around them. The battlecruiser to their starboard side got hit in the armory, exploding in a huge burst of flames. The entire deck heated up as Rainbow Dash shouted, “What other choice do we have?!”
“I'd drop everything and make passionate love to the nearest mare right now if I could find one!” Josho shouted.
“Yes, well, good luck finding a—Hey!” Rainbow Dash snarled.
“Blessed Spark—!” was all Crimson could be heard saying, for the air was suddenly awash with the noise of Terra's burning ship, inbound.
And then, just seconds before it could fly into the battlecruiser's hull like a missile, a second burning manaship swerved up. The hollow, decrepit thing fired its last engines, spun around like a slingshot, and slammed Terra's ship in the side. The collision the two made was downright musical to the beleaguered ponies' ears. They were almost too dazed to see the red and black figure darting out of the ship at the last second.
Alas, both vessels—spinning like conjoined comets—flew off to the right and slammed into the already-burning wreckage of the collapsing battlecruiser beyond starboard. What was left of the massive ship was reduced to melting splinters, and the whole thing rained fire and ash onto the Ledomaritan countryside below.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash, Josho, and Crimson flinched as the red and black figure skidded to a stop between them.
“Nnnngh...” Roarke braced herself, every square inch of her armor steaming with fire and ash. “Mmmf... Yeah, that's more like it.”
“Roarke!” Rainbow Dash chirped with a smile.
“Buck me sideways!” Josho grinned. “I could kiss you, girl!” He blinked, then looked aside at Crimson as he pointed at the bounty hunter. “She's a mare too, r-right?”
“You're alive!” Rainbow Dash galloped up, breathless. “That's so cool!”
Roarke opened her helmet and stared back with emotionless eye-lenses. “You owe me a new manaship.”
An artery in Rainbow's temple pulsed. “Nice to see you too, gearhead.”
“I see we've saved the day by tearing it a new flankhole,” Roarke said.
“I wouldn't exactly put it that way,” Crimson said. “We really need to get off this thing.”
Roarke shrugged. “Why not just take it over? We seem to be more than a match for these losers.”
“Uhm...” Josho pointed towards the stern.
Roarke and the others looked. Over a hundred soldiers were lined up, all with rifles. Those who couldn't carry weapons were sliding over no less than four cannons, and all of them armed with exploding ammo.
“You know what?” Roarke tilted her head towards the others. “Who needs a battlecruiser? Battlecruisers suck.”
“We have a ride already.”
“Yeah? Where is it?”
”Scrkkk! Rainbow! Rainbow, come in! Are you alright?!”
Rainbow floundered before finally speaking into her sound stone. “We're here, Pilate! Though we're about to become mana sponges! They have enough guns here to light up the night's sky!”
“Then get on the Noble Jury!” The zebra's voice was accompanied by the distant rumble of the vessel in question. Its sleek red body shot across the sun's glow as it roared south of the group. ”Floydien says that he can only afford one pass if he's to outrun what's left of the armada!”
“Nopony needs to ask me twice.” Roarke closed her helmet and grasped Crimson.
“Whoah whoah whoah!” Crimson gasped. “What about Rainbow Dash?!”
“I guess I'll have to make trips then.” She yanked the stallion off his hooves and flew south towards the rumbling body of Floydien's airship. “I'd suggest using fatso as a shield, Rainbow.”
“Are you kidding?!” Rainbow Dash shouted back as the first of several hundred shots landed around them. She and Josho flinched behind a gradually dissolving stack of crates. “We'll never last that long! And we still got Belle to catch up with!”
”Scrkkkk—Did you just say... 'Belle?'”
“A little busy here, Pilate...”
”But—”
“Look, I'll fill you in when I'm not being filled in by manabullets myself!”
“Ahem...” Josho not-so-gracefully gave Rainbow a hug from behind. “You may want to try holding your lunch in.”
“Huh?” With a wincing expression, Rainbow gawked at his brightly glowing horn. “What are you doing?!”
“Believe me, if I was trying to make a pass at you, I would have done a suplex by now...” He held his breath, clenched his teeth, and...
The two ponies disappeared. Seconds later, the gunfire burst through the crates, eating up the space where they would have been positioned.
Stallions galloped across the carnage, assisting the bodies of their fallen comrades as they stirred and moaned from the rogue equines' punishment. Among them was Evans, being helped up by a fellow enforcer's forelimb. He stood up, limping towards the edge of the ship as he squinted towards the southern horizon.
He saw a flash of light, almost too otherworldly to be real. Then, in an even more enchanting show of whimsy, two bodies materialized hundreds of meters away, only to fall and land atop the deck of a red ship powered by a large red shard. With a glint of reflected light, the vessel pivoted about and shot southeast, carving a shadow against the horizon opposite of the sunset.
Evans exhaled heavily. He turned and looked past the starboard side at the plume of dense smoke rising from the fallen body of the battlecruiser's ill-fated sister ship. During this moment of quiet reflection, a pony trotted up with a grave expression on his face.
“Uhm... Enforcer Evans, sir? It's Prime Enforcer Shell.” He raised a glowing soundstone. “We finally got in contact with him, and... h-he's wanting an update, sir.”
Evans blinked. He looked down over the railing, spotting fields of burning wreckage and flames. It all looked so far away... and yet so inviting.
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/198/080/83199%20-%20artist%253AgreyOne%20clearly_I_am_a_sane_individual%20fluttershy%20flutterwalrus%20not_salmon%20salmon%20walrus%20what.jpg
Southeast? Nice choice.
Ha! I knew it! I knew she was alright!
And the battle rages on...
*manachoke*
Apology accepted, Enforcer Evans.
Evans decided to resign his commission and start a restaurant chain.
Goddamn right, we do!
Forty situps, ):(. Knock 'em out!
Even in the midst of an intense battle, you still managed to make me laugh out loud.
So now that this is wrapped up, I doubt the ponies aboard the Noble Jury will be starting any more massive action-packed fights this close to the end of the story.
Hopefully they can find Belle within 16 chapters though.
A dynamic exit and reentry as always, Roarke.
Roarke! I knew she would pull through.
Man, it'll be worth it if Josho sticks around for a while, just for the verbal combat between he and Rainbow. Battle of the snark.
Also, since Minty hasn't been around lately...
Josho obtained new title: The Slobberknocker.
So... *Thud* Awsommmmme...
Good to see Roarke survived. Now to have yet another pony fall from a great height because of Shell. Though this might be the first time its possibly fatal, Evans no longer has a massive main character shield to cushion the fall. Now to find Belle and head east in the next 16 chapters.
Live long and ZADUBADABU!!!
ROARKE!
As awesome a comeback as I could've imagined.
Caught up, at long last!
....
....
...
Now I have to wait. Damn it.
Evans,you're a dead man walking.
Well, I predicted Roarke jumping onto an airship. Close enough. Now let's hope she doesn't try to steal the NJ.
Oh, and I just noticed. We never saw Terra's corpse.
But.......but...but Yamato Cannon!!!
HAHA! Called it! Won't Imre be surprised.
3085205 Wait nothing, Daily chapters man.
So close! We just need wingless rainbow dash and the heavily tattooed scootaloo/ the cutiemark crusaders and we will be ready for a four course meal of awesomesauce.
Wow so let me get this straight roarke isn't dead, shell is gonna be pissed, and everyone flew off into the sunset. Did I get that all?
Every time I get caught up feeling iffy about this story's quality a chapter sneaks up and surprises me. This was pretty great.
Terra's not dead, is she.
And I don't think they're "struggling" to get back together anymore.
This is Australia...
We need to start a betting pool over who of the four mares Dash is gonna manage to hook up with by the end of the story.
Ten bits on RoarkeDash.
Oh come on now.
3085850
We might actually see Imre display real emotion that isn't tied to a traumatic past. Could be refreshing/heartwarming.
3085563>>3086860
If you die in Austraeoh, and nobody sees your corpse, are you really dead?
3087843
Also know as the Imploding Colon's Cat theory.
3087843
No.
This is Australia...
3087843 I sure hope so. She really needs to come out of her shell and open up.
I'm really hoping the next book in this series takes the time to slow down and let us get to know everypony in the new group. I like the fast pace this story has been and the non-stop work the heroes have had to go through to get back together and add to the roster, but I'd like to have some time to slow down and establish their dynamic together. I also hope they get to stay with Floydian. He's neat!
For Enforcer Evans, falling to his death would be the best thing to do rather than getting a scolding from his blood thirsty superior.
3087188
20 on RainbowPetals
3087843 dude, she was engulfed by 4 or 5 ships in one huge explosion. i think she should be dead by now, if not severely crippled.
It is a good day. Roarke is not dead.
Of course, Terra probably isn't dead, either. We didn't see a lifeless corpse, so we got nothing.
It's a far bit different from what it used to be in Austraeoh, when we were all wondering when exactly everyone Rainbow ever met was going to die an agonising and painful death.
There are only really a few people from Innavedr we can confirm dead. Evans, for disappointing Shell, and Pestiferous, or whatever her name was.
Now that they're speeding off away from the battle, we'll finally get to see how they find Belle, I'm guessing two chapters from now. I feel like ending the story with a reunion wouldn't fit the style of Innavedr, there's going to be another battle, and I'm betting that Terra will be there.
IIIIIt's Dashie's First Get-Backing Adventure!
Whew! Thus end the Blue Nova smackdown. And yeah, Roarke isn't dead. My suspicions were correct. In fact, if Dash plays her cards right, she could go grab Belle, drop of the Xonan children, and start up her eastward journey with her friends in tow by the end of Innavedr. But I somehow don't think that'll happen...These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
P.S. One...more...I think...I hope...
Our heroes riding off into the sunset.
That's supposed to be done at the end of the book IC!
Huzzah, everything went better than expected!
Roarke most badass is still alive, Rainbow and Co have been rescued and now no one has to be sad (if Imre got anymore dour she could've given Snape a run for his money).
I have a feeling that the whole retrieving Belle thing won't go as easily, as these story arcs never seem to wrap up so tidily. Then again, this might be different and the next two hundred chapter installment might start with Rainbow and all of her bazillion allies setting off unpursued into the great unknown. Its a toss-up, really.
Well, these things aren't going to read themselves - onward!
eeyup. Shell's alive. Or did we already know that? He's been through so many "no pony could survive that"'s, I'm starting to get them mixed up
Oh yay, Roarke isnt dead!
warp speed activated
Poor Evans. It just isn't his day.
We did it!
Poor Evans.
-SPirit
Sorry Evans.
Also, Roarke is once again a badflank motherbucker.
3087188
Why not all of them?
Roarke just did some awesome flying, there.
“I don't remember asking a walrus to lecture me on saving the day!” Rainbow Dash retorted.
“You wanna see some tusks?!” Josho growled. “Crawl over here and pucker up, sunshine!”
Man Josho, youre a riot every time you let a crack out like that LOL
Evens is about to be in the middle of a Shell sized shitstorm, I feel bad for him
4794698 Because I was right, that's why.
God damn, every passing chapter with him in it make me love Josho more and more!
Well, looks like my predictions were sorta right. The battles with Nightshade were mostly between Belle's group, and the Shell/Terra battle happened separately, but other than that, clusterfuck climax! Woo!
Speaking of Terra, I WANT to believe that she's down for the count, but, you know...
the enforcer's situation can best be described as FUBAR. But it isn't over yet.
Well, at least Evans is intelligent enough to not want to be the one to deliver bad news to Shell.