Metal and flesh fingers raked the air.
"Do not... they stare... not knowing..." Wildcard gestured, among other things.
Ariel instantly responded in mid-glide. "Logan and Flynn are just trying to look after us, is all."
Wildcard's fingers sliced through the twilight once again. The words "Gaze" and "buttocks" graced the spectrum.
Ariel giggled. "Yeah, well, I think that's physically impossible, Wildcard. Heeheehee..."
"... ... ..." Rainbow stared blankly at the two.
Ariel's ears perked up. "What?"
"Nothing. Just..." Rainbow fidgeted in mid-flight. She continued ascending the mountain at a casual speed. "Not used to catching up one hundred percent of the conversation. Well... more like sixty-six percent."
Wildcard gestured again, slower this time: "I. Thought. You. Stayed. At. Only. Twenty. Percent."
Twilight Sparkle giggled. The other ghostly mares looked confused.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand he's got a sense of humor, apparently." Rainbow bore a dull smirk as she gazed ahead. "Terrific."
Ariel stifled another chuckle. "What? All this time you just thought he was an edgy silent badass in dark shades?"
"Well, isn't he?"
Wildcard's talons interrupted the two mares. "The mountain side."
"Right." Rainbow nodded. "Let's get this over with. Rarity???"
"Com-iiiing!" The pale fashionista zipped into view.
"Sense anything yet?"
"I'm... afraid not, Rainbow, darling," Rarity replied. "It's still a vacant space of unknown... erm... sp-space."
Rainbow looked at Twilight Sparkle. "And you, Twilight? Likewise blank?"
"Yes. Although..." Twilight rubbed her two fetlocks nervously together. "...I'm pretty sure that the other side of the mountain is where the magic went."
"What if..." Fluttershy bit her lip. "...some mysterious creature is responsible for swallowing all of the magical enchantments?"
"Well, that depends?" Applejack looked at her. "Are ya sensin' any life out there, Sugarcube?"
"Yes. But... no less than what's behind us."
"Okay..." Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. "Sooooooooo... we're flying straight into an unknown space where both Rarity and Twilight sense nothing and Fluttershy senses nothing special." She shrugged. "I hate to say it, but I don't miss the days of flying before I 'foaled yesterday.'"
"What's the matter, Rainbow?" Twilight waggled her eyebrows. "You don't like a challenge?"
"Not when the Herald's safety is involved."
"Well..." Applejack gestured aside. "We've still got Pinkie Pie! Her eyelashes haven't stopped square-dancin' across her head."
"Willllll someponyyyyy stoppppp alllllll thhhhhhe strobinggggg?!" Pinkie begged, blinking rapidly against her will.
"Is it intensifying, Pinkie?" Twilight asked.
Pinkie tilted her head in Twilight's direction. "Is what intensifying?"
"Your eye-twitch!"
"My eyes are twitching???"
"Yes! They're... guh...."
"Twilight, is that you? I hear my lavender unicorn friend but I can'ttttttt seeeeee herrrrrrrr!"
"Pinkie, honestly!" Rarity frowned. "This simply isn't the time for horsing around—"
Then—with an audible pop(!), Pinkie's eyes flashed wide open. "Oh, hey! There's the sky!" Her blue pupils reflected a dark object high above them. "Oh! Look! A meteorite?"
"Huh?" Rainbow looked up, and she saw the intense shadow too. "Whoah—!"
"Look out!" Ariel shrieked.
Swooooosh! Wildcard instantly flew up above the mares. Spreading his wings, he shoved the three of them onto the mountain-top below. There, he shielded them with their bodies, staring up with his goggles.
Seconds passed...
One quarter of a minute... ...
Slowly, the two mares peeked out from underneath their Desperado protector. The three souls observed the rock looming above them. More in particular—they observed how it wasn't falling.
"That... that's a cloud?" Applejack stammered.
"It most certainly is not," Rarity said. "That's pure stone!"
"Rarity, stone can't float," Twilight droned.
"I may not be able to sense what's above us with my ghostly powers, but I know a rock when I see one! That—up there—is none other than a levitating solid!"
"But..." Applejack grimaced. "How is that possible?"
"Uhhhhhhhhh..." Rainbow leaned her head closer to Ariel and Wildcard. "You two see what I'm seeing?"
"I... was about to ask if you and your friends were doing the same," Ariel stammered.
"They're both freaked out and clueless right now. That's why I asked you."
"Wildcard?" Ariel breathed. "What do you make out of this?"
Wildcard—gulping—performed a gesture Rainbow didn't recognize.
Ariel retorted, "That only floats in a toilet!"
"Is... it being carried by a creature?" Twilight asked.
"It sure as hay is purdy dang still up there," Applejack said, craning her neck until her freckles disappeared. "When have you ever seen a bird carryin' something that graceful like?"
"And in one place!" Rarity exclaimed.
"Okay..." Rainbow Dash's eyes narrowed on the object above as it blocked out more and more of the starlight. "Everypony just stay calm. There's gotta be a perfectly good explanation for—" She took a step forward—and slipped on loose gravel.
Wildcard caught her. Both froze in each other's forelimbs—though—for their gazes were locked on the pebbles that Rainbow's clumsy fetlocks had unearthed. Instead of rattling to a stop, they lifted off with a noticeable bounce and hovered half-a-foot up the ground, rotating slightly.
"Wat," Ariel wat'd.
"Whewwww..." Pinkie Pie rubbed her aching skull. "This is too random. Even for me!"
"Something..." Twilight's eyes narrowed. "Some force is making them resist gravity. But what?"
"Uhm... girls?"
Rainbow and her companions craned their necks.
Fluttershy was floating ahead of them—just above the mountain's peak. The arid surface bent down into a steep slope just beyond her ghostly wings.
"You may wish to come see this," she said.
Twilight and the rest looked at Rainbow.
Unhooking herself from Wildcard, Rainbow Dash bravely flapped her wings and drifted ahead. As she did so, the faint twilight of the cosmos above illuminated multiple sporadic mountain peaks—only they weren't mountain peaks at all. Instead, they were the round, globular summits of dozens... scores... hundreds of levitating rock formations. Boulders, shards, chunks of solid earth formed a floating array before and below them. The more they gazed at the phenomenon, the more and more levitating structures they saw... until they realize that they weren't standing on a mountain at all. The only mountain that ever existed in that part of the plane had evidently shattered epochs ago, and in its place there was left a levitating mess of shrapnel... forever falling... stuck in frozen time. One in every three piece rotated or drifted to some degree, but—for the most part—it was a frigid work of art with no motion or even punctuation.
"Ooooooookay, Dark Side," Ariel wheezed, ears and wingtips drooping. "I'm so not in the mood for this."
Wildcard gestured something, but Rainbow Dash was a bit too distracted to read him.
Ariel responded: "Pffft. Don't pretend you're not pissing your downfeathers right now."
"Just..." Rainbow clenched her teeth. "...how many...?" Sucking her breath in, she raised a hoof up to her lightning bolt pendant and rubbed it slightly. A harmonic glow shone through the air above them.
Wildcard and Ariel watched as a lightning-shaped spotlight materialized against an enormous rock-face straight before them. Rainbow pivoted slightly, and the rippling light illuminated a boulder that stretched over fifty feet across. She pivoted even more, revealing curved natural monoliths, L-shaped chunks of earth, and hundreds if not thousands of infinitesimal pebbles hovering in between.
"This... this can't even be possible!" Twilight Sparkle's voice cracked. Her muzzle didn't stop dropping. "What's making them float?!"
"Twi..." Pinkie began.
"Something must be making them float!" Twilight practically snarled.
"I don't think this is anything you can just look up in an Equestrian Floating Rock Encyclopedia!" Pinkie squawked.
"But... it must mean somethin'," Applejack said, rubbing her chin. "Reckon it's somehow connected to what happened to Flynn's wagon?"
"That's what I was thinking!" Fluttershy said.
"I... I don't know..." Rainbow shivered slightly, shining her beacon around. "I'm pretty sure this is all beyond us. Ariel? Wildcard? Maybe we should consider going around all—"
FLASH! The ruby glow was sucked straight out of her pendant.
"What—?" Twilight began, but said nothing else, for she had vanished.
"Whoah nelly—!"
"Oh my—!"
"Dashie—!"
Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie all vanished.
Rainbow blinked. "Girls?"
"Rainbow!" Rarity yelped, flying backwards. "The Vanilla Zone! It's—" And she was gone in a lavender blip.
"Girls!" Rainbow shouted, spinning about with frenzied eyes. "So not cool! Where'd you go?"
"What's happening?" Ariel exclaimed while Wildcard jerked in surprise. "What's the matter?"
"The girls!" Rainbow hyperventilated. "They're... gone?" She looked down at her dull, cold pendant. "I can't see them! Oh Luna—!"
"For some reason I can't explaaaaaain..." A voice sang like he meant it. "I know Celestia's spell's innnnn vain."
Wildcard and Ariel didn't flinch. Rainbow, meanwhile—
"!!!" She spun to face the singing figure.
Discord hovered in place, fully visible—bright as day. "And I'll retuuuuuuurn once more, and then I'll ruuuule the worrrrrld." He noticed the petite pegasus looking at him. "Oh! You actually wanted to speak to me? Well, that's a smexy turn of events." He took one look at the rocks floating above him. "Saaaaaaaaaaaaay..." He pointed a talon at the phenomenon with a goofy grin. "I simply love what you've done with the place!"
This is strange and bad. I have no clue what is happening right now.
Well, fuck.
And so our intrepid heroes find Mount Flatten and even more trouble.
Don't miss out next exciting episode "In Search of the Vanilla Zone" or "Beyond the Rocky Road!"
ohhhhh boy......
Well they're not completely boned yet. Rainbow hasn't started mutating.
Ah, not an anti-magic zone. A chaos-magic zone. Lovely. Well, at least Dash is going to have to deal with Discord sooner rather than later.
On a side note, yes, Wildcard being able to have a "voice" in the story now is going to do wonders for his character I'd say. No matter how subtly one tries to make a character interesting, its really hard to develop them without a means of actual communication the audience can understand.
Been thinking of ways to develop the Herald in general recently. One of their big hang ups as opposed to the Jury in my view is that the Jury had goals beyond just helping Dash out on her journey. The Herald really only has "the mission" right now, and that kind of bottles their characters up on a very narrow road. One of my hopes for this story is that the Dark Side presents enough people and places that are dynamic enough in their own right that the Herald will have something worthwhile to develop their own goals beyond just being Dash's personal party of meatshields.
On the upside, we found replacement magic floaty rocks.
...Not gonna lie, das' trippy as fuck.
When you wat so hard it becomes a verb.
from the way it's described, entering a chaos magic flux causes the vanilla zone to act like a vacuum, sucking the phantom 5 in and sealing shut like an airlock to prevent them from being erased or something.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
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would they stay floaty outside of the chaos zone though?
Methinks the Ariel in the second paragraph here is supposed to be Rainbow.
Floating rocks? They found Pandora? If they're lucky, Rainbow can deal with Discord and the Hearld can press-gang a rock or something into service to create the Hoverplank 2.0
Heh, like they're ever that lucky.
Yup, knew the ghostly 5 rotation could not last forever. Now Discord has the run of the place. Question is, what is he going to do with said run, he seems to be in a good mood at the moment, so maybe he will help. Or he will make things worse, he is quite unpredictable.
I have no idea how these rocks happened, other than 'magic' or 'magnets.' My guess is magnets.
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I found this funnier then I should have. Good on you for the Rocky and Bullwinkle reference
OK, starting to panic a bit.
Ah! The Jagd! What marvelous vistas lie where mortal feet seldom tread.
Didn't you know, Rainbow? Skystones don't work in Jagd.
After Stratopolis, you wouldn't think floating rocks would be that weird.
That said, there does seem to be something rotten in the state of whatever the hell this place is.
Dat Cliffhanger.
I was hoping to see Discord again. Perhaps he can add a bit of ‘information’ to what’s going on.
I love theseeeeee
Cough**Me pregunto si algun dia veremos un personaje que hable español. O incluso una mezcla entre ingles y español... Espanglish? Mierda, al menos yo pagaría por verlo**Cough
No mutation mentioned (yet) — I guess/hope that means the anti-chaos enchantment keeping her condition stable counts as "personal" magic.
Amazing.
...what if Discord's home is just the Dark Side? It certainly seems like it could be.
~For centuries I've stoooood right here~
~I've witnessed peace and times of cheer~
~But I need CHAOS to haaaave my fuuun~
~because these-are-the-things I've built-my-life-on~
Viva la Discord
For anyone unaware of this masterpiece:
Wait what
Stratopolis part 2?
Yes!
Yes!!!!!
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My childhood thanks you.
Another Myst reference? The floating rocks remind me of Voltaic.
mystjourney.com/img/screenshots/exile-161.jpg
Oh, and pieces of feces have hit the blades of a certain contraption.
Perfect
Wuuuuuuuuuuut.
Wat.
Exactly.
No... Fuck you, dick Dark Side!
No... Fuck you, dick Discord!
Ah, hell naw. Manure is hitting the fan...
I MUST READ MORE. 0V0
*Missing Next button* Wtf? Is Fimfic lagging? I literally refreshed the page 4 times, I think? Then I saw...
preview.ibb.co/d1WnrR/wut.png
... AW, HELL NAW. I FINALLY CAUGHT UP?!?! Excuse me while I go eat cheerios.
Floating rocks like in Xona are a good place to find chaos magic. Floating islands specially are a good place to find chaos emeralds.
As Sylvester the cat might say.
Suffering Sanctafrax.
Looks like its not only levitation magic the place is absorbing? Or is it just because its chaotic enough to give Discord the edge?
Oh well, as long as they dont have to deal with Laputas swarm of flying laser beam eyed death robots they should be ok.
Keep the pies hidden.
Also, this could be a sentry. I remember that stratopolis was a sentry, and that there are 2 sentries per part of the Urohringr.
Been a decent time between these.
Well then, I believe it's time to panic and panic really hard.
Meteorite? Floating obelisk? Squeeee-
Go read Broken Earth, it's awesome.
Okay now we know why the war isn't as widespread as we thought it was: because the majority of the dark side terrain away from the Harmonic Prism is too fucked to fight in and that means that the war has lasted this long because they're fighting over logistic corridors that are actually traversable and plains/valleys that possess utility to mortal ponies and changelings and thestrals and Night Shard and what or who ever else is staking a claim on the Dark Side.
This also means that Kepler's briefcase of audio recordings from chief engineer Ranort, which he mentioned were full of inexplicable descriptions of areas the Expedition had found, will suddenly come back into play even though right now obviously it has no way to operate until they get out of the Chaos Jagd.
Boring, in Xona they had flying mountains ten times the size!
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That's what your mom said last night.
I hope this is where Rainbow Dash learns about her chaotic side. If the pendant isn't working, maybe it's really not working.
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GOD DANG IT
shes my favorite character so far!
aside from darkstine unicorns, they talk weirdXD
Unrelated side note: I can never read the word 'space' without instantly reading it as this. Especially with Rarity talking, that's amazing.
Detective Stories: Rainbow Rocks.
Okay that happened...
I thought Rarity figured out the language at some point.
...Oh
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Well crap
And now the countdown to a Chaos Dash and Seraphimus confrontation begins.
This is bad very bad....
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Welcome to the caught up club! Free drinks are on the left, but save some for everypony!
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Howdy and welcome aboard! Be advised that we might be running for our lives from the embodiment of disharmony, so be sure to securely fasten any and all fragile belongings
Oh no. Here's where things get weird.
*exceptions may apply, as far as this setting is concerned
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Welcome aboard the Austraeoh Royal Ship (ARS) pocket-battleship Noble Jury. Our chief mechanic Swan Song, if they're not maintaining the engines, can be found in the mess hall, gossiping about crew relationships. Admiral Pilate tends to reside in his quarters much of the time, but our lookout RoboRed is almost always first to get off a contact report. And I reside in the Fire Control Center, providing hourly updates on the situation as things go on.
*sigh*, I've had the original version of that song stuck in my head recently. Curse you