Slowly, her tongue flicked out, licking the dry edges of a blue muzzle.
"Mmmm... so... so awesome..." She rasped, her eyelids fluttering. "Just... one m-more mug." Her throat gulped as her neck twitched. "Best cider ever. I'm sorry f-for everything I said about the c-competition, AJ." Her lips curved, then almost immediately blanched. "Please... d-don't be mad at me. I'm sorry, Applejack. Sorry for... f-for everything."
Her jaw clenched, and a spasm flew through her features.
Right then, her ruby eyes flew open.
The claustrophobic interior of a slender manaship loomed all around her.
Rainbow Dash blinked. She looked to her left.
Row upon row of metal weapons, crystal rods, armored plates swayed in the vessel's hold.
Squinting, she next looked to her right.
Teeth, tail bones, animal vertebrae, and countless other totems hung from a metal rack.
Rainbow Dash's ears twitched alternatively. Her lips curled into an awkward grimace. She sat up on the slender metal bench that was her stool. "Uhhh..." A gulp ran down her throat. "Okay. Is it just me, or did I get buried inside a giant aluminum cigar?"
The whole ship rocked, its entire contents rattling.
"Yeah, screw this." Rainbow Dash jumped up and tried spreading her wings. A loud clanking noise emanated. "Huh?" Blinking, she looked down at her heavily armored body. "Whoah, what the frig?!" She tried rearing back, only to slam her exposed head into a ceiling crossbeam. "Augh! What the frig!" She stumbled forward, tripping over her collosal metal boots. "What the frig—What the frig?!" She fell and rolled over like a titanium pill bug, her body rattling from head to flank.
"Careful!" a voice growled from the front, a voice even raspier than Rainbow's. "That's Grade-A Searonese Mana-Busting Shell Armor! And as righteous as that all sounds, it doesn't exactly fit you. I'd hate for there to be any damage from you stumbling around like a hydra with its eight balls cut off."
"Unngh!" Rainbow Dash sat up, tossing her mane as she brandished a scathing frown. "You!"
"Granted, I'm talking about preserving the armor," spoke a familiar figure, hunched over before a tiny cockpit with her ringlet'd mane draped over the seat's headrest. "You're damaged enough already."
"After what I did for you?!" Rainbow Dash snarled and galloped murderously towards the seat. "Sparing your life and setting you—" Her blue muzzle flattened like a squished plunger as she slammed skull-first into a sparkling force-field. "—frig!"
"I see your choice of words is as solid as your choice of tactics," Roarke muttered, her lensed eyes pistoning towards the array of glowing diodes before her. She pulled a lever and navigated around a billowing cluster of clouds from beyond the ship's speeding bow. "How you ever defeated me is a mystery only the Great Searo could solve."
"Mmmmf... You wanna test your smelly fart of a god queen once more?!" Rainbow Dash snarled. "Lower your glowy fence thingy and come back here! We can have a round six!"
"I doubt you can do much with the way you're hurting right now, girl."
"Like hay, I can't!" Rainbow Dash stirred and writhed in her suffocating armor. "Everything's gone south! Crimson and Eagle Eye are screwed! The friggin' Ledomaritans have my friends! Shell's burning half the countryside and—owwwwwww..." She winced, a beam of agony shooting through her adorably cockeyed expression. "I'm really hurting right now." She flexed her left limbs. "What gives?"
"You've suffered multiple fractures and lacerations to your left wing," Roarke grunted. "You're in no condition to kick any pony's butt. Besides..." She flung half-a-glance over her shoulder. "I'd just pummel you into a million rainbow pieces if we went at it again."
"My wing..." Rainbow Dash hissed, rubbing her left side through the amor. "Is that why you got me wearing this ridiculous tin shell?"
"No, saving your wing took some wicked tourinquet skills that I didn't even know I had. Heh..." Roarke's lips curved beneath her copper lenses. "It should keep your feathers from falling off." She tongued the inside of her brown cheeks. "Mostly..."
"Huh?!" Rainbow Dash started to hyperventilate. "You... you patched me up?" She turned around. "H-how'd I even get in here? This whole time I was—" She did a double-take as her voice cracked. "My tail!"
"Huh?"
Rainbow Dash spun around, angrily wriggling her barren, armored flank. "What in the name of Celestia on a unicycle did you do to my friggin' tail?!"
"Oh, right." Roarke droned. "I had to get rid of that."
"You got rid of my tail?!"
"Don't worry! It'll grow back!" Roarke turned more dials as she coasted along the crest of another cloud, blurring south. "Maybe it'll look even better this time!"
"Yeah, but... but... but..." Rainbow Dash shook a hoof before pointing at herself. "My tail!" she squealed.
"Look, it couldn't fit into the armor, and I had to patch you up quickly! I'm no Imre, after all."
"Who... it... that... huh?!" Rainbow Dash did a double-take. "Who in the moldy fudge is Imre?!"
"A pony who can do a job like that far better than I could, given the right payment," Roarke said. "Which is why we're going to go see her."
Rainbow Dash squinted out the window from beyond the force field. "We're heading south..." She blinked, and her ears folded back angrily. "You're taking me to your home, aren't you?"
"I really think you should sit your blue flank down about now."
"You're just carting me across country like some hunted game!" Rainbow Dash's hoof slapped the bulkhead framing the force field. "The nerve!"
"Nine hundred percent more attuned than the common mare or breeder," Roarke remarked. "Which is how I know that your heart race has increased and you're sweating profusely. Please don't—I hate it when my armor smells."
"Enough of this crud! I am sooooo getting out of here!" Rainbow said, gazing all around the rattling hold.
"I don't think so."
"Screw you and this turd-ship you flew in on!" Rainbow Dash raspberried as she trotted across the chamber and started banging her hooves against the hull. "I've taken down timberwolves, dragons, and centipedes as big as your mom! I'm pretty sure I can rip open this lousy tin can from the inside!" She grunted and slammed the metal door from the inside. "Nnnngh! Doll me up like a blacksmith's wet dream—I've got friends to save!"
"Unnngh..." Roarke made a bobbing motion with her head, as if she was rolling her eyes beneath her lenses. She flipped a brown switch to her left. "Nighty night."
"Huh?!" Rainbow Dash frowned at the bounty hunter. "You kidding?! This is no time for sleep! I gotta—" Her nostrils flared as green mists seeped out of a vent and flew into her breathing passages. She smiled deliriously as her ruby eyes crossed. "Oooooooh—freckles!" She collapsed, her ruby pendant rattling around her limp throat.
Roarke exhaled, then weathered a curve to her lips as she angled the vessel southeast, aiming towards a gray, hazy continent looming beyond the horizon.
"Well, at least she's shut up."
The cockpit roared from the thunderous sound of a lone pegasus' violent snoring.
Roarke's ears drooped as she slumped in her seat. "Oh, Searo spare me..."
I probably laughed a bit too much during this chapter.
Oh shit, time to play catch-up... Better make that double-time!
-Mis
Oddly jovial considering the setting, but lots of fun exposition none-the-less.
Oh god I laughed...I laughed so hard...
All of that make Roarke look like a goodie now.
I still don't know Roarke's motives.
Please IC, don't make her into another heartless jerk
2238236 Not really, she still got her trophy... She can try to pretend she captured her. Unique prey like that shouldn't be stuffed and mounted. No, it needs to be shown off in all it's glory. Even if the truth is told to your closest friends.
Oh look, Roarke grew a personality. That's awesome, actually.
i never knew such a hard ass could get funny.
im really loving how rainbow and roarke just bounce off each other. this just started and its already awesome :)
lol!
The end
Just what is Roarke planning, hmmm?
That's just too good.
I'm sensing a kind of Crysis 2 thing here, just like how Alcatraz had to be put in the Nanosuit to survive, possibly the same thing is happening here with Rainbow.
love the banter between Roarke and Rainbow!
I wonder if she bit off Rainbow's tail...
2239827
Banter! I love banter.
For whatever reason (probably the title more than anything), this reminds me of that time Rainbow Dash was arguing with Rarity about her ridiculous outfit in Swarm of the Century. Only with less cute and more snark.
Ooooh, freckles! I loooooooove freckles!
Ooh, interesting. Looks like we'll be seeing perspectives from both sides of the schism- one from Dash in Searomare and one from Kera in Ledomare. Hell, who knows, maybe Pilate will have an even more different perspective!
Oh, references Don't worry, Dash, your tail will grow back eventually, although I'm wondering what the hell Roarke used to remove it, if countless AJ bites couldn't do it.
I think I'm really going to like this duo, even if Roarke turns out to be a bit of a jerk later (which I'm hoping doesn't happen, but I doubt she's taking Dash to her homeland for tea and polite conversation). Well, time to see who else gets a pov chapter - onward!
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
So Roarke gets more of a developed character in this chapter. That's nice, at least. However, her motives still aren't clear...She couldn't just leave Dash to die, obviously. And now she's healing Dash back to health. I still can't tell if she'll turn Dash in for the bounty or not, though. These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
I think I've got it figured out: Roarke's taking Dash back to Searotania as breeding stock, mother to a new generation of cybernetic warrior mares whether she likes it or not.
Either that, or she's going to marry her.
Maybe both!
Looks like you may have unwittingly picked up another friend, Rainbow.
2270194
Somehow, I don't think so.
EIGHT BALLS. HONEYTIGER DID NOT NEED TO HEAR READ THAT. SON OF A SQUID.
Some guy who once claimed to have revolutionized philosophy of science. No one that would be of any interest to you, Dash.
2270194 That sounds like material for a bad clopfic... ... ... no offense.
Also: screw you, Roar', I don't care what you do to redeem yourself, you and your entire culture are so messed up, there is no way I'm striking you from my Want-To-See-Dead List. You stay the hell in there.
Well, I'm making my way to the current chapter. I'm still a fair way behind, so I won't comment every chapter yet. Anywho, chapter related shenanigans:
Don't know why I care so much that Dash's tail is gone, but bugger me I care...
And her wing! -_-
Well, I have to say I'm very interested to see how everything links together. This certainly means the start of another epic journey, and I'm looking forward to the road ahead. Onwards!
Hilarious dialogue this chapter and it's good to see Dash doing a bit better. Still, no tail?!? Gah! Make it grow back! Roarke's motives interest me. It will be cool to watch this play out.
In case anyone here has read the Codex Alera, I can really see Roarke and Dash becoming Gadara.
If you haven't, that word means "Friendly Enemy" or "Don't let anyone else kill you, that's my job."
Another OC, Imre, will show up soon. Dash is clearly misunderstanding Roarke's good intentions.
...
Typical Dash.
The banter was funny, but I didn't laugh.
I rarely laugh.
OKay fine.
-Spirit
Well, Roarke is actually pretty cool when she's not killing.
So onto the quest. We pick up on the aftermath of the last book, and I can't quite make out whether Roarke is trying to help dash or capture her for more nefarious reasons. Lets find out in the next chapter hopefully!
Choose Roarke...her whining or her snoring...
But you said so yourself—it's a giant metal banana!
So I guess the big question here is: Is Roarke doin this for the bounty, or repaying Dash for saving her?
Hmm...I really didn't think we'd see Dash so soon. But then again, we have a theme of threes in this story so we'll probably get three story lines at the same time.
Rainbow was hilarious in this, except for at the beginning
Hook those snores up to a microphone and weaponize that instead, Shell. Your enemies would surrender within a week.
Ooooo, are we going to Searo next? 24 has been talking up that, too, should be fun. Well, for a certain value of fun.
Canonically loud snoring Dash really is the best thing.
I haven't the slightest clue as to what Roarke's plans are. I mean, other than taking Rainbow to her homeland.
I wasn't sure how I felt about Roarke in the last book, but now I can definitely say that I like her. I hope she sticks around awhile.
6187426
A weapon to surpass even Metal Ge-
Wait, sorry, wrong thing
"Still the wrong a-word! "
It's funny how heavily the narrator editorializes here, considering that of the two mares aboard this ship, neither would be caught dead using that term.
Edit: ... unless the narrator is channeling Roarke's subconscious thoughts here.
She really does care about Dashie!
Did she just....
5865300
My impression is that she's making too much of an effort to fix up RD if she just wanted the bounty. Her injuries are crippling but not immediately life-threatening.
(That doesn't mean she definitely won't try to collect. Just that she seems to like Rainbow and might be persuaded to ally with her if it is in her interests.)
So, what is Roarke's game here?I already know, but I like asking the question regardless.
05/08/2017 03:02 UTC
I think these two will get along juuust fine~
Hey, your the one who slapped fate in the face with an old fish, did you honestly expect fate to let that go?
09/01/2019
00:47 UTC