//------------------------------// // Nothing Is Ever Random // Story: Ofolrodi // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// "Owwww!" Ariel gasped, looking up from where she sat on the back of the hover wagon. Rainbow Dash and Wildcard jerked in place, looking towards Omega. Far ahead—beyond a cleft of rocks, one of many—an equine figure trotted backwards, clutching his forelimb. "Friggin' oww! Damn!" Piloting the wagon, Logan craned his neck. "Baldy? You okay?" Rainbow could scarcely see Flynn from where she was. "Jordan, could you—?" SWOOOSH! Wildcard was already soaring ahead. In a black blur, he passed the wagon and landed just beyond sight. Soon, Ariel too was taking off to investigate. Rainbow—however—had to take a more roundabout path to keep from coming into close proximity of the chaos metal empowering the cart. Her close friends fidgeted worriedly as they glided behind her. At long last, when Rainbow arrived at Flynn's location, she heard several gasps of relief—especially from Fluttershy. "Guhhhh..." Flynn seethed through his teeth. His right fetlock was bleeding profusely, but it was still a superficial wound. Wildcard was already kneeling at the stallion's side, tending to it with bandages from Ariel's saddlebag. "Friggin' A..." His mechanical eye rotated in and out. "You'd think after so many damned weeks spent trotting through the near-dark, I would have gotten used to my surroundings." "What the Hell happened?" Ariel asked. "You took point to hunt for fresh meat. Did something stab you?" Flynn shook his head. "No." Wildcard paused just long enough to gesture: "Did something bite you? Poison you?" "No. No!" Flynn's cheeks could be seen blushing in the luminescent glow of his own flesh wound. "I... was about to stab this glowy salamander thing when... mrmmfff... I tripped on a rock and sliced my stupid fetlock on an outcropping." "Well then..." Seraphimus remarked, suddenly standing in the midst of them. "...that is certainly a tragedy if I ever heard one." "Guh!" Ariel jumped. Rainbow looked over at her. "Wow. You must have been worried. You got here really quick!" "... ... ..." Seraphimus stared back without blinking. "I am not worried." Her wings tightened. With a flick of a lion's tail, she turned around and marched back towards the location of the wagon. Wildcard made a snorting sound. Smirking under his beak, he continued treating Flynn's wound. Droplets of blood had collected on the stone floor beneath them, casting a dim ruby shine against the curved walls of the surrounding ravine. "Yeesh," Ariel remarked. "That had to have been one Hell of an 'outcropping.' Good thing we've got some rudimentary first aid materials or you'd have passed out." "I almost want to out of shame," Flynn moaned in exasperation, holding his hoof out as Wildcard put on the finishing touches. "If I'm no good in catching a stupid twilight lizard, then how well will I fare against the likes of sarosians or changelings?" "You made a simple mistake," Rainbow Dash remarked. "Live and learn." "He had us worried for a second there!" Fluttershy exclaimed. "My heart's still beating like a tap dancer!" Rarity added, fanning herself. "Ehhhh... I wasn't worried." Pinkie Pie winked at the others. "'Death by sliced fetlock' is sooooooooo an involuntary flank wiggle—and I haven't had one of those since Grandma Pie passed away!'" "What in tarnation did she cut her hoof on?" Applejack asked. "Her own wit!" Pinkie Pie slapped an invisible drum and doubled over, laughing. Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rarity giggled whole-heartedly. Rainbow Dash couldn't help but snicker as well. Flynn glanced at her. "Yeah. I know. Laugh it up." "It's n-not that..." Rainbow waved a hoof. She sighed through a smile. "My friends are glad you're okay." "Awwwwwwww..." Ariel winked. "Well, tell them that Flynn returns the favor." "They're standing all around us," Rainbow droned. "He can tell them himself." "Uhhhhhh... yeah." Flynn looked helplessly at Wildcard, then at the stale twilight surrounding Rainbow. "Thanks, girls. You're all a swell bunch of... girl ghosts." "Back at ya, buster!" Pinkie stuck her tongue out. "We should probably be more careful," Applejack said. "Reckon we oughta spread our senses about, y'know? Look out for more of the hikin' ponies than just Rainbow here." "But we are looking out for the Herald too!" Twilight said. "At least I am. Rarity? Fluttershy?" "Ever and always!" Fluttershy insisted. "Same here, darling," Rarity said. "Although... it isn't always an easy task—what with how dreadfully random this landscape is!" "What's so random about it?!" Pinkie Pie paced about in mid-air, gesturing. "Week in and week out! It's the same old thing!" She moaned, pointing in one direction after the other. "Same old moody twilight overhead! Same old boring ravine!" She flung her forelimbs this way and that. "Same old lifeless rocks! Same old gravel and mud! Same old shaved emaciated pony staring out from inside a crevice!" "You're right—" Twilight did a double-take. "Wait, what?" "???" Rainbow Dash turned to look towards Pinkie Pie, and it was precisely then that she stared down the deadpan face of a shaved emaciated pony staring out from inside a crevice. "Luna poop!" she jumped back, her tail hairs fanning out into the entire spectrum. Ariel and Flynn flinched. "!!!" Wildcard leapt up, unsheathing Bard's bo-staff in a heartbeat. Schiiiing! "Ach!" Kepler's voice called out from a distance. "What is it?" Before the wyvern had finished his exclamation, the wind split—and Seraphimus landed back in their company, standing poised and cautious besides Wildcard with her talons at the ready. The group had formed a frozen semi-circle of caution around the niche. The body inside remained calm. Still. Emotionless. Rainbow's lips pursed as she held her breath. "... ... ..." Dull gray eyes reflected the myriad of faces. Two raggedy ears twitched, punctured in multiple places with narrow stone barbs and studs. Then—barely registering a breath—the pony trotted out... more like glided on feather-soft hooves. A spear emerged along with his thin, gangly body. Seraphimus and Wildcard strafed as one, moving with calculated grace to match the stranger's movements. It was no doubt muscle memory from their bygone days of serving side by side in the Right Talon of Verlaxion. But the pony made no sudden moves to confront them. As the twilight shone across his body, Rainbow and her friends could see that he was completely shaven. There was no mane, no tail hairs. On top of that, the fabric of his coat was completely gone. The equine's pale naked skin was exposed—wrinkly in most places, diseased and necrotic in others. Despite the condition of his pallid flesh, he moved with keen precision and undeniable strength. The further he trotted—making a glacial path through the tense group—they could see multiple scars and pinprick lesions across his forehead, crown, and scalp. He more resembled a hairless creature that had survived a tumble through the garbage disposal than an actual pony. At some point, Rainbow's eyes unlocked themselves from his ghastly features, and she noticed no less than five tiny animals skewered along the stone arrowhead of his spear. Sure enough, they resembled salamanders, and the bioluminescent glow of their scales had long vanished... but the blood dripping from their impaled bodies was still fresh to the smell. In moving, the pony came within centimeters of Seraphimus' beak. The former Talon Commander actually had to back up a space or two. She frowned at the inexplicable stranger—more out of confusion than anger. Soon, she was glancing curiously at Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash glanced just as curiously back. She exchanged similarly vexxed looks with Ariel, Wildcard, and Flynn. "Uhhhhh..." Ariel was the first to actually mouth something. She arched an eyebrow that could pierce the heavens. "...hello?"