The only thing burning brighter than Rainbow Dash was her eyes. She tilted her face towards the heavens, lighting up the whole Machine World with her body as the source of the pedestal's intense flame. After several deep breaths, her ruby lightning pendant pulsed in sequence with her gaze, and out from the conflagration—a smile emerged.
"Yeah..." Something deeper than thunder, brighter than gold "That's more like it."
Her wings spread.
Tongues of fire fountained outward, plunging into opposite ends of the chasm beyond the bridge. The machines stirred once again, slowly and liquidly this time, and not at the maddening pace as the enflamed book had forced them to earlier.
Rainbow's spine straightened out—as did the rest of her body—and she gave the pedestal beneath her a light push with her hooves, as if diving off the edge of a pool. Instead, she drifted up, slowly at first, then accelerated with each pulsing second, carrying the intense brightness of the Machine World's heart along with her.
Soon, she was zooming skyward, clearing the edges of the canyon, piercing her way towards the overcast heavens beyond as everything beneath her came alive with harmonic animation.
As Zaid and Kera glided their way towards the southern mountain range, a majestic clap of thunder boomed behind them. Zaid had to re-grip the controls as Kera shrieked and clutched the stallion hard. Both spun to gaze at the brightening sky.
A soaring equine shape shot its way up out of the earth, trailing with prismatic beams of light.
"Peaches 'n cream..." Zaid stammered.
Kera watched, jaw drop. And soon that dropped jaw formed a smile.
Several ponies gasped.
"Look!" Zetta exlaimed, pointing. Basso and the others watched in astonished silence.
On board the Jury, several ponies' faces turned to look. Floydien spat something unintelligible, but nopony had the strength or wit to respond.
Props leaned against the railing, her blue eyes sparkling as she tilted her head up, up, and up to follow the trail.
"What... what is it?" Pilate leaned against Belle, gritting his teeth. "What's happening now, for Spark's sake?!"
"It's..." Belle stammered, nuzzling him tightly as she watched "It's Rainbow..."
"Rainbow?!" Pilate gasped. "What's she doing?"
Belle gulped, smiling tearfully. "Being beautiful..."
"Aaaaack!" Props suddenly shrieked.
Everypony turned their heads once more, following the mechanic's outstretched hoof.
A giant, gangly beast had just reached the mouth of the ravine...
...and she leaned forward in her diseased foreclaws, squinting painfully at the streaming energy shooting over her snout.
"No!" Nevlamas hissed. She spread her decrepit leather wings, the fleshy web dissolving even as it stretched before the harmonic resonance. "This is not how it ends!"
Defying all odds, the Dark Divine flapped its massive wings and ascended, skimming the vertical trail of the rainbow streams, chasing after the luminescent pegasus.
"Harmony is dead!" Nevlamas shrieked, its twin jaws lashing closer and closer after Rainbow's fiery tale. "All must be reborn! In chaossssskkkt!" Her eyes flickered as she summoned a huge breath of aquamarine wrath from her burning lungs. "Only in darknesssssskkt—will there be a sssparkkk!"
Rainbow suddenly accelerated. Milliseconds later, the sky exploded with spreading bands of prismatic glory. Nevlamas howled in pain, a good half of her scales dissolving away from the impact of the sonic rainboom. All of her remaining shards of chaos crystals exploded like tumorous postules across her flesh, and she flew back from the blast in a limp plunge.
Rainbow Dash kept ascending, kept accelerating. The sky resounded with thunderous crash after thunderous crash as a second... a third... and a fourth sonic rainboom erupted across the heavens. With each harmonic band shot towards every horizon within view, the clouds cleared up, dissolving to reveal an ocean-blue sky of early-morning tranquility above the ravaged hellscape.
The first to see it was Khao.
The leader of the Herald stirred in her cockpit, groaning with the last vestiges of her anguish. Her teary eyes squeezed open, and she saw Rainbow's figure like a distant torch, dissipating at the end of her brilliant, rainbow arch. As the pegasus disappeared, her body was replaced by a beam of light from the east, as the morning sunrise—now unimpeded—gently kissed the tops of the battlements, chasing the smog and smoldering traces of war away.
Khao gasped, her burnt cheeks taking a last rosy hue beneath filmy eyes.
"So... so majestic... angelic..."
She sobbed. She smiled. She exhaled.
"I-I never knew..." Her grin faded. "...Austraeoh."
A breath, a quiver, and she drifted off in peace.
Ten seconds later, the shockwave of Rainbow's prismatic explosion soared over her, blowing at the dead mare's limp mane.
This same shockwave rippled over the bloodied fields, over the smashed tents and storehouses of Seclorum's encampment, past the huddled bodies of Josho and Eagle Eye, and finally made its way towards the trenches where so many dead and living had frozen in mid-combat.
Every Ledomaritan and Xonan soldier had frozen dead in their tracks, their shocked expressions locked on the light-show erupting in the atmosphere overhead. With the overcast sky cleared, uninterrupted daylight shimmered down on every pony—tattooed and otherwise. Every grisly detail of the bloody melee lingered before open sight, with blood and sinew laid bare before quivering eyesight.
At last, the shockwave washed over the flinching soldiers, covering them with an otherworldly fabric of spectral energy, harmonic and cleansing. They shuddered, shivering in place before looking at one another.
Only... it was then that they realized that several sets of eyes were different. Voices murmured in shock—both Ledomaritan and Xonan—as, in every few hundred paces, there stood a stranger in their midst.
Equines with black carapaces stood, hunched over, sporting manarfiles and tasers on the Ledomaritans side... or scimitars and serpentine armor on the Xonan side. These creatures wheezed and whimpered, gazing at the unchanged ponies with uncontrollable shivers. Then, one after another, they flitted skyward on gossamer wings, dropping their various sets of weapon and armor.
The soldiers left standing gasped in shock. It wasn't until several seconds had passed before a random Ledomaritan decided to do something about it, and started taking pot-shots at the creatures as they flew away. Soon, several Xonans joined the volley, firing skyward with their crossbolts.
Two creatures were hit, their shells rupturing and spilling green slime across the trenches. They fell to the mud, writhing in agony, before turning stiff with porous hooves curled towards their chests. The rest of the monsters flew off, forming a flock of at least two dozen—soaring due east without stopping.
As they disappeared into the sunlight, the Ledomaritans and Xonans stood in stunned silence, catching their breaths. Gradually, they looked blankly at one another, not talking, not moving.
And not fighting...
Okay, I'll admit, I was wondering when Changelings would appear.
Still random as hell.
"as the efnlamed book"
And that one.
...
The changelings don't know they're changelings.
Friendship for everyone!
Okay, that was pretty epic.
Pilate seems to be right, that the changelings don't know that they're changelings, which raises some interesting questions. Were they transformed into changelings at some point, or what? Ought to be interesting to see how this ties into the overarching plot.
Also, I actually got some feels when Khao passed on. Never thought I'd see the day. She wasn't so bad in the end, I suppose. Annoying, perhaps. Misguided, certainly. But still...
The changlings are cylons!
Rest peacefully, Khao. You weren't so bad in the end.
~Basso
Rest in peace Khao. *Salutes*
Kill the person and let the function flow.
Well now you're dishing out all the fanservice at once. Including my own. So much death! YES! And ever single one of them marvellous! And I see the Queen will rather end up redeemed than dead after all?
The changeling's behaviour is unclear. They do indeed seem unaware of their own selves - some at least - but instantly fleeing "due east", a.k.a. into the future chapters of this story, would suggest there is somewhere they're flying towards - there has to be a reason for them all simultaneously chosing the same direction.
So, what about Chrysalis in this universe?
Luna reported that Shining and Cadance got married, but said nothing about changelings. Let's review the possibilities.
1. Chrysalis never impersonated Cadance in this universe, and she won't come up in this story at all. I used to think so until today, and it's still fairly possible, I guess, but boring
2. Chrysalis didn't impersonate Cadance because of the timeline divergence. Perhaps the element bearers' deaths, or the chaos vortex in Ponyville, or Dash's meddling with the machine world changed her plans, and she might attack in the future.
3. Chrysalis did impersonate Cadance, but was defeated by Luna, Shining, Cadance and Canterlot guards. Seems unlikely, since Celestia is absent; and in canon Cadance was only freed with Twilight's help.
4. Cadence, who went west with Shining to find the dragon divine Sturke, is actually Chrysalis. I'm surprised nobody thought of it till now. This leaves the question why Chrysalis didn't have her army invade Canterlot during the wedding. Of course, maybe she did and the changelings are disguised as Canterlot citizens (the canon invasion happened after she'd been outed already).
ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh
QUADRUPLE RAINBOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
finally, sonic rainbooms
I fucking knew there would be a sonic rainboom very soon. Also not only did I get what I expected but I got it four times.
So changelings are basically the agents of chaos, sucking all the love and hope out of the world by pitting people against each other?
I believe it.
Lord Almighty, did Rainbow just the end the war?
So awesome!
3797710 I'd be surprised if it simply ended here and now. There's way to much going on for it to just halt immediately, but I don't doubt that this will contribute greatly to it ending.
Rainbow just keeps on getting more awesome.
It was sad seeing Khao go, but I guess she was able to see her dream come true and have a fitting death. The morning sunrise reference was a nice touch.
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. This chapter was, dare I say, awesome in too many ways for me to list here. I think that Imploding has piqued real interest from me for the first time in a while...These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
P.S. SKEEOEYLEEOYSLEEOUKSOEYYSLEEOU
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. This chapter was, dare I say, awesome in too many ways for me to list here. I think that Imploding has piqued real interest from me for the first time in a while...These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
P.S. SKEEOEYLEEOYSLEEOUKSOEYYSLEEOU
So Khao dies in peace.
I have to admit, I feel rather bad about her death...at least in the end she knew the truth.
Sad end Khao
woah. Sublime. An actual proper usage of the word. Sublime.
Peace.
-SPirit
I will say more, though spirit summarized this chapter with one...perfect...word............... peace...
Now i will have MY say
This is pretty much exactly the end i was hoping Khao would have since i saw she fought to destract Nevv.
It actually turned out better than i expected because she saw not only the lavender light, but the furious, ritcheous, beautiful glory of not 1, not 2, not even 3, but FOUR4 succesive sonic rainbooms accompanying that light...grazing the fields with light of peace and harmony. she even died in the eerie silence of it. before the blast wave reached her...not that i wanted Khao to die (now at least ) but anyone who can appreciate the "brighter side of death", as Anna Valerios (from the movie Van Helsing) said, would agree with me. Khao died knowing she did what she had to do, she succeeded, and got to reap the beautiful reward of a blessing light show of accomplishment in the end. The Spark will take good care of her indeed. nothing is better than Redemption
The Changelings: dirty scummy invaders got the unified fire they deserved. Xonans and Ledomaritans turning next to each other to face a common enemy, firing together on them. i fucking CHEERED "ledo, xona! ledo, xona!" as they did so. This is the dawn of a whole new era. a changing point in the course of history for this continent. I couldn't be happier to see this.
I wonder if this will be our last hope of having any kind of positive effects on shell. (not likely )
i also do hope this means that rainbow -with or without her friends- can AT LAST! resume her journey to the east...
my massive summary is finished
So Rainbow did, like, ten sonic rainbooms, spread harmony across the battlefield, and it turns out that there is a conspiracy inside the conspiracies that are conspiring to conspire. Queen Chrysalis is Lasairfion, this I can almost predict. Also, I have to agree that it is very odd that changelings don't know that they are changelings. I want to say it is because they have been completely and utterly brainwashed by sucking in so much chaos and negative emotions, but this is all up in the air until more information is given.
This chapter was a grand one. if I could draw and animate well, I would totally make an Austraeoh movie, or at least a bunch of drawings/ shorts. this is a fic that deserves it.
And the almighty war comes to a brilliant and colorful end.
Fucking hell, Dashie, you really went into overtime on that sonic rainboom.
So changelings were the cause of the fighting? I'd like to say they weren't the soul reason, but the explicit reason was never mentioned for the war, so...
And at least Khao got to see that her death wasn't in vain.
BUT WHAT ABOUT EBONY! HE CAN'T LEAVE!
Well, that is one way to end a war, in the waves of many sonic rainbooms
Tactical rainbow deployed.
Khaos end was a rather tragic one, just as she realized that she was wrong and actually wanted to contribute to Rainbows group and maybe befriend her, she had nothing left to give but her life. She went out with a heart full of regret that she never really got to know the pony she had dedicated her entire life to.
As man, that was both awesome and sad...
After such a long wait. Dash lets loose not just one Sonic Rainboom. But a fourfer.
Kind of sad that Khao didn't get it till the very end, but it was good that she at least saw something truly beautiful before she died.
R.I.P Khao.
East. Always, to the east.
Well, it looks like we might be nearing the end of the Ledomaritan and Xonan war.
The changelings are a new factor though.
Perhaps a hive that feeds off of hatred and violence, as Chrysalis' hive did on love?
I feel like RD is encountering darker and eviler things with every flap eastward. Not sure if I wanna see what' s waiting at the edge... I wonder what would've happened if she went west instead?
We've been waiting for her to do a rainboom for four books, so she just decided to make up for all of them at once.
Changelings. Figures.
Yes!!! Finally!
And also RIP to Khao, in the end she only wanted to help Rainbow along on her journey
SHES GONE SUPER SAIYAN GOD!
That's actually rather sad.
Oh well, I guess that's what sacrifices are for
Ok I know khao was evil per say but why did you take her and not shell
Also what is going on to roake
Now may the hard earned peace stay earned.
09/09/2019
18:18 UTC
edit: 10/08/2019
found a set of decent music for Rainbow ending the war (so to speak)
......
...Wow.