"Huh?" Bellesmith gawked.
"Er... What I mean is..." Eagle Eye stammered, backing away from the pair of ponies. "That is, what I'm trying to say..."
With a heavy thud, Zenith landed to Eagle Eye's right from above. "He's trying to say that he's an incompetent, namby-pamby moron who wants to burrow into your mane and hibernate there for the winter."
"Zenith!" Eagle Eye's voice cracked. "That's not what I'm trying to say at all!"
Phoenix landed on the other side, smirking. "Simmer down, princess. We'll take it from here."
"Don't call me names like that—Ungh!" Eagle Eye tossed his mane and folded his forelimbs.
"Uhm... Beloved?" Pilate murmured aside to Bellesmith as the both of them trembled. "Is it just me, or is the forest raining ponies?"
"Don't worry," Zenith droned. "As if silk saddles here wasn't already a clue, we're not here to hurt you."
"You're not?" Belle remarked.
The heaviest thud of all sounded behind them. Crimson had landed, and he was trotting slowly towards the pair. "No. We're not."
Belle yelped as Pilate shoved her aside and raised his forelimbs threateningly. "You and your freakishly deep voice stay back, Mister! I've been known to kick the cutie marks off of flanks in my day!"
Crimson calmly blinked at the zebra, noting how the stallion was glaring a noticeable forty-five degrees to the left of him. He stepped to the left so that he was in front of Pilate. "That must have been well before your eyes clouded over, good sir."
Pilate bit his lip. A gentle, golden hoof rested on his shoulder.
"Please..." Belle spoke up, her face soft and worrisome. "Just tell us what you want."
"We would like to know what brings the two of you so deep into Foxtaur," Cirmson said while pacing around the pair. "And alive, for that matter. It's not an easy feat in this... well... this neck of the woods."
"An even better question would be what you ponies are doing here," Pilate said.
"It's the longest slumber party ever," Zenith mused. "Only, instead of scary ghost stories, there are nooses begging to wrap around our necks." He smirked.
"You..." Belle squinted, her eyes darting between their unconventional weapons and their sly expressions. "You are not Enforcers?"
"Neither are we bandits, before you ask that as well," Crimson remarked. His hooves came to a stop. "If you must know, we're of the Blades Guild. We hail from Franzington to the far south. We've made a place here in Foxtaur until winter arrives to give us cover for the rest of the journey home."
"The Blades Guild...?" Belle thought aloud. "From Franzington? I don't understand. Why are you so far from your home country?"
"They're mercenaries," Pilate spat, frowning. "The province of Franzington is famous for its warrior culture that sends hundreds if not thousands of hired hooves to fight for the Confederacy."
"You make us sound like we're souless freaks!" Phoenix exclaimed. "I know our country borders Searo, but we're nothing like those metal-spined, mechanical bounty hunters!" The mustached stallion shuddered. "The Blades Guild has honor!"
"Enough honor to go AWOL..." Pilate muttered.
"Just because your eyes are blind doesn't mean your spirit must be," Crimson said. "We served the Ledomaritan Confederacy for over two years—faithfully and courageously. We saved dozens of villages from the rampaging forces of Xona. But then, in the Upper Xonan Heights, we realized that the coilition we were working for was heartless and cruel. So, we sheathed our weapons and left the army. There were twelve of us then." He swallowed hard and exhaled breathily. "There are four of us now. Some might call it cowardice, but then they are ponies who don't understand the price of honor."
"What could have been so bad that you felt compelled to leave the army after two years of fighting for them?" Belle asked.
"Undoubtedly something traumatic enough to compare with what brought you two here," Crimson said, pacing towards them. "But that is not of extreme importance. However, there is something I would very much like to address."
Belle and Pilate leaned apprehensively against each other. "What's that?"
Crimson pointed. "The zebra—he has in his possession an item of magical attunement?"
Pilate's ears twitched towards the unicorn. His metal brow furrowed. "And what if I might?"
"Since you walked into this forest, our boss has sensed something awry," Zenith spoke up.
"There's an entanglement of leylines," Phoenix added. "But your horn is curiously broken, lady. So it can't be you."
"You insist that something is wrong with O.A.S.I.S.?" Belle remarked.
Crimson raised an eyebrow. "Oasis?"
Pilate sighed. "It's the rune-empowered device that I use to read things and navigate a simple landscape. Yes, it is attuned to my leylines. But if there was something wrong with it, I would be able to tell."
"Are you sure of that?"
Pilate was still.
"Because you are being followed," Crimson said.
"Followed?" Belle gasped. "By whom?"
"The key thing is not to panic," Crimson remarked. "If you allow us, I think we can very easily clear your leylines of the entanglement. That should buy us enough time to evade those who hunt you."
"Beloved?" Belle turned and nuzzled Pilate. "What do you think, darling?"
Pilate took a deep breath, his jaw clenched. "This is all so much to take in. But what choice do we have?"
"Should we wait for Rainbow Dash to come back?"
Crimson squinted. "Rainbow Dash?"
"Hey..." Phoenix tapped on Eagle Eye's shoulder and pointed into the forest. "Hey look, fruit!"
"For the love of oats..." Eagle Eye groaned long and hard. He turned around, frowning. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me—" An apple flew into his skull, impaling itself on his horn. "Buh?" A second apple slammed into his face.
Four more tore into the clearing, knocking Zenith's hooves from under him and sending Phoenix spiraling backwards.
Crimson turned and did a double-take. His horn glowed as he reached back for his massive hammer.
"Nnnnnnnnngh-Raaaaaaaugh!" A blue body slammed mercilessly into him.
"Ooof!" Crimson grunted as he was shoved, shoved, shoved across the clearing and slammed into the body of a twisted oak.
"No!" Belle shrieked. "Rainbow! Please! Don't—"
It was too late. With metallic ringing sounds, Zenith unsheathed his polearm and Phoenix twirled loose his spiked mace. Shaking the apple bits off their faces, both stallions charged at the winged pony.
With a glint to her ruby pendant, Rainbow Dash backflipped, twirled through the air, and slid down in between them. She bucked Phoenix in the side, ducked a swing of Zenith's polearm, and slammed two of her hooves across his face.
As Zenith stumbled back, Phoenix came charging with the mace in full swing. Rainbow Dash squatted on the ground and flapped her wings in reverse. She went sliding backwards, passed through Phoenix's legs, and jumped up the other side with her teeth clasping his tail.
"Waaaaaaieee!" Phoenix shrieked as he was spun-spun-spun-spun-spun in Rainbow's jaws before being ultimately flung towards a series of branches snapping overhead.
As Phoenix's body hit the floor, Zenith came back with the polearm stabbing hard at Rainbow's hooves.
Rainbow jumped up, barely missing the bladed spear's charge. The polearm embedded into the floor. Rainbow's hooves came back down and perched on it. She galloped up the length and backflipped off the end of it, bicycle kicking Zenith so hard that the stallion flew back and toppled a dying tree's trunk in half.
As the forest rained with leaves and twigs, Rainbow Dash twirled around—only to get a face full of hammer.
"Haaaugh!" Crimson shouted at the end of his throw.
Rainbow managed to dodge at the last second, but the concussive blast of the lead unicorn's hammer impacting the ground sent her flying backwards. She flailed for half a second before flapping her wings, hovering upright, and twirling in a circular arc through the surrounding tree branches.
"Rainbow, quit it!" Belle shrieked. "They were only trying to help us! Stop before you get hurt!"
Pilate tugged on Belle's mane and murmured, "I think you're talking to the wrong pony."
"Beloved—!"
"Raaaaaaaaugh!" Rainbow Dash finally dove back into the fray.
Crimson levitated his hammer up high and blocked her charge. Sneering, he pivoted the handle and slammed it across her skull.
Rainbow spun from the blast, spinning like a top in the air. She lowered her hooves and grinded them into the earth. Twirling two more revolutions, Rainbow Dash came to a stop—frowning amidst a cloud of upended grass and leaves. Spitting blood into the earth, she flexed her wings and blurred forward with a crack of thunder.
Crimson's eyes twitched.
"Nnnnnnghh—!" Rainbow Dash flew past him.
Crimson's body reeled.
Rainbow Dash inexplicably flew back from the opposite direction within the same breath.
Crimson teetered.
Again and again and again, Rainbow Dash zoomed past his body, spinning around him and knocking into him from several alternating angles.
The lead mercenary hissed and grunted, taking each blow in stride. Finally, he raised the hammer high and slammed it down into the ground before him. The blow was heavy enough to send Pilate and Belle—several feet away—sprawling to their flanks.
Rainbow Dash, however, twirled high up from the blast, coiled her wings at her side, somersaulted, and came down at Crimson like a blue missile.
Crimson looked up at the last second.
Rainbow's hooves planted against his skull and vaulted off the unicorn's cranium like a springboard. Crimson flipped backwards from the blow and landed hard in the grass besides his hammer. "Unnngh..."
With gently flapping wings, Rainbow Dash hovered down to the center of the fray. She was surrounded by bodies of groaning, dizzied unicorns. After taking several breaths, she relaxed her wings and turned towards her two friends.
"Whew. Are you guys okay—?"
A shield flew into view, ricocheting against her skull.
"Oooomf!" Rainbow Dash's body ragdolled into a thick cluster of bushes.
Belle and Pilate winced visibly.
Ringing in the air, the shield flew back into a petite unicorn's telekinetic grip. Eagle Eye stood beside Crimson's body, blinking awkwardly as he levitated the sword and shield beside him.
The bushes shook and quivered for a few seconds before a decidedly angry Rainbow Dash poked her bruised head out. Her ruby eyes glared daggers across the way at Eagle Eye.
He gulped. "Oh jeez..."
Gritting her teeth hard enough to produce sparks, Rainbow Dash leapt out of the bush, flapped her wings, and thundered straight towards the last unicorn standing.
Eagle Eye dropped his sword and held his shield out, whimpering, "Oh jeez oh jeez oh jeez oh jeez—!"
"Yaaaaugh!" Rainbow flew full-force against the mercenary's guard, slamming and bucking and thrashing her hooves across the metal material.
All the while, Eagle Eye held the shield out, meeting each blow, deflecting for all he was worth. His horn pulsed; his hooves grinded backwards in the soil. He was pushed back by Rainbow's relentless onslaught, until his back was to a spreading oak tree.
Finally, with one last swing of her pounding hooves, Rainbow knocked the shield out of his grip and pressed her forelimbs to his neck. She shoved the quivering stallion against the tree trunk and raised a hoof to cave his skull in.
"I hope you've eaten plenty of fiber for where I'm about to send your teeth, ya sniveling little—" Rainbow Dash froze. Her breaths came out in labored pants, her sweaty brow furrowing as she gazed at his violet mane, lavender coat, and purple, tearing eyes. She blinked, and the next breath came out in a pitiful murmur. "—egghead?"
Eagle Eye sniffed, blinking heavily so that a tear wouldn't come loose. "Just leave most of my body intact! I-I-I always wanted t-to be buried as a whole!"
Rainbow Dash frowned. "The hay are you going on about?"
"You've done your damage, Rainbow, okay?!" Bellesmith exclaimed from behind. "Let them be, already!"
Rainbow Dash dropped Eagle with a pitiful yelp. She spun about, frowning. "But they were gonna tear you to ribbons and stuff!"
"No they weren't!"
"I saw them with their weapons and their evil, evil soldierness!"
"They were not gonna tear us apart!" Belle exclaimed, stomping her hoof into the ground. "They're not like the Enforcers!"
"Pfft! Yeah right!"
"Do you see a single beret on any one of them?! Huh?! Do you?!"
Rainbow Dash blinked. She gazed around at the multiple, groaning, stirring stallions across the clearing. "Uhhhh..." She flapped her wings, flew into the center of the place, and reached into the saddlebag where Belle had dropped it. Grabbing one of several berets, she flew over and planted it on Phoenix's head.
"Huh...?" Phoenix finally sat up, squinting dazedly at the violet article hanging off his horn. "What the—?"
Rainbow Dash punched him viciously in the face. She spun from his collapsed body and dusted her hooves off. "There! You happy?"
"Rainbowwwwwww!"
I knew that something would happen when she got a good look at Eagle Eye.
Also, holy crap! I honestly thought this was going to be the "Rainbow Dash doesn't always win" fight.
Nope! Rainbow kicking flank and taking names. All is as it should be.
Of course Rainbow would do something like that.
A little zealous with the head-smashing, aren't we, Rainbow?
Is it bad that part of me wanted Rainbow to get her ass kicked?
Seriously, a couple of battle hardened soldiers should have made her sweat a bit more.
Damn it, ):(, thirty push-ups for making Dashie so awesome that I want her to get hurt! Knock 'em out!!
If they wear a beret, it's obviously a reason to beat the hay out of them.
And if they aren't wearing one, beat the hay out of them, THEN put one on.
Excuse seems legit.
I was wondering why Dash had been holding on to all of those berets. Now I get it.
Touche, Rainbow. Touche.
That's not how you make friends.
This is why we can't have nice things, Rainbow.
ALL OF MY YES
Also, I realized something yesterday that I forgot to post. Remember the comment I posted about the initials in that cabin in Austraeoh? EE and EG? EE, guys...
U can't touch this.. dahh dah da da, dahhh da! U can't touch this! Hammer time!
Oh, Dashie...
Silly Dashie...
Oh, you.
This really should be on equestria daily. Or is it already? Idk
I can't exactly remember when the last time my title was put into the story, but I know I've seen it in a chapter somewhere else before... I guess I'm now a part of the series?
2018228
Evidently, nothing. I just want to know why.
Having it as the royal color is totally fine, but I doubt that's the only reason why everything is blue-flavored. Did Enforcer Shell come from some long line of successful war generals? Was one of the past rulers named Bluemare? Is the entire area around the country literally blue in color? Gah! I need to know!
and you say you can't write comedy
Death by Dash!!!!! (it's how i'd wanna go)
Ooooh, Dash.
Somepony needs to go to the timeout corner.
Heh
Just read Blue Nova's comment.
Yeah, that could explain it.
> Belle: Rainbow! What on earth happened in here?
> Rainbow: These guys were SO obviously trouble! I could FEEL it! *gestures at slumped villagers*
> Belle: But, but how can you be so sure!?
> Rainbow: Look at them! They're wearing berets and whatcrap.
> Belle: Huh. I wonder how they stayed on their heads like that.
> Rainbow: Dunno. It's a weird world. Let's go.
Berets.
Reading this while listening to "Loyalty" creates an interesting feedback loop that nearly made me fall of my chair with laughter. Excellent work.
2022724 This should totally happen at some point in the story.
This is Australia...
By this point, I've lost count of the number of severe blows to the head that Dash has taken. Even taking intothe account her awesomeness, how is she still maintaining any rational thought or understandable speech?
2023372
Just one of the upsides of being all heart and no brain.
2019967
I believe it was totally necessary, and 100% justified.
Plus it's fun to read.
I don't understand....did IC expressed his thoughts about me through this chapter?
Does he hate me? Have I done something wrong?
Someone owes me five bucks.
Primal Concrete Sledge - Pantera
That was best fight scene.
Rainbow:
Strength = 7/10
Speed = 12/10
Stamina = 9/10
Willpower = 9/10
Magic = 5/10
Intelligence = 1/10
2027208
She's a true min/maxer if there ever was one.
I dunno how to do that responsey thing.
But, Ender, in the show we've seen ponies do things like carry medium-sized boulders, and stop tour busses with their back legs. Pastel ponies are tough as shit.
I would think they could also take repeated blows to the brain pan with few long-term consequences
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
So the fight scene here was really cool and really well described. And before I get to that, a few more things - these mercenaries seem to hail from Frazington, which borders Searo, which houses a number of mechanical bounty hunters. Roarke was a mechanical bounty hunter, so she probably hails from that region. Second, Crimson mentioned an entanglement of leylines, and from the way he described it, he has to be talking about O.A.S.I.S' connection with Josho. If Crimson really can fix it, that would be great. Now then, the battle - the moment where Dash mistook Eagle Eye for Twilight Sparkle was a very profound moment, though it may not have seemed like it. Whenever Dash began to think of her friends I'n Austraeoh, she could never handle it emotionally, causing herself (and the readers) a lot of grief. But here, Dash gets over the mistaken identity pretty quickly, and even cracks a beret joke not too long afterwards. If Austraeoh Dash was put in this situation, she would flee for a while in order to regain her bearings. When Eljunbyro Dash recovers from this quickly, it shows us again how far Dash has come and how much her friendship with Belle given her.
So I think that's about it for now. I have to say, I really like EE so far.
EE...huh. Wait a minute...
<rereads Austraeoh>
"EE and EG."
"EE and EG."
"EE."
WHAT THE FU-
These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
Rainbow's a dick in this chapter.
That was pretty damn good....
Nice job Dash, nice job.
And a bit of comedy always works well in the end, so meh, why not?
Onwards!
2019979
No it's not just you.
This is when I know I've gone too long without this fic. I guess having to beat the tar out of everything you run into to protect your new buddies puts you into a "kick flank, ask questions later" mentality that's difficult to shake. Plus Dash is already more action oriented than most, so...
I dunno why, but I'm kind of expecting an Applejack memory due to the apples, and a Twilight one because of the obvious Eagle Eye = boy Twilight/Rarity. Only one way to find out, I suppose - onward!
DAMN IT RAINBOW DASH.
2180947 I don't know, this is imploding were talking about
2070797 It's, uh, been a while. Who is EG, again?
2391982 I was going to say that
...
......
This is why we can't have nice things. But that last part cracked me up
You know, I was just about to ask about those berets. I need more cute ponies in berets.
well... i still think it was awfully nice of her, even though it wasn't necessary
Well, at least she knows how to cover her tracks like a pro
Well her reaction was certainly justified, her new friends are surrounded by potentially hostile ponies, clearly she didn't want to lose the advantage of surprise in defense of Belle and Pilate.
Who says Rainbow isn't smart?
So she puts the Beret on his head, and hits him again. Oh god, Imma wake my family up I'm laughing so hard.
Rainbow, there are more ways to meet ponies than beating them up.
It is raining ponies!
You know, that was very polite of him.
Excellent.
Rainbow Dash always
dresses in stylearrives throwing fruit. Yeah, doesn't really work.Man, these mercenaries were not prepared for The Dash.
Not bad Eagle Eye!