Zetta’s manaship had lifted high enough to give every pony on board a solid view of the plummeting Hold’s summit. As a result, the group had been given a front row seat to Zytharros’ and Roarke’s battle for the past thirty seconds. As Roarke collapsed under the assault of multiple chaotic summons, several of them gasped.
Kera ran to the port side railing and gripped it, her eyes wide beneath a shimmering horn. “R-Roarke!” she screeched with a cracking voice.
“She’s being torn apart…” Basso slurred.
Zaid looked up from Khao’s writhing figure. “So fly this hunk-o-junk over there and kick the baddy’s flank!”
“And risk the warrior cleaving our lonely getaway ship in two?!” Zetta cackled. “Roarke doesn’t need us! She needs--”
The entire ship bobbed and weaved as seven colors streaked by at the speed of thunder. Pockets of air exploded, popping everypony’s ears as they struggled for even-hoofing.
Kera, however, was too busy gasping with joy. “It’s her!”
“Buck yeah!” Zaid grinned wide.
Nightshade watched nervously, her mane frazzled.
The burning streak soared towards the falling mountain…
...and blew right past Zytharros.
“Oooof!” The stallion stumbled back. He had to use his bastard sword for leverage, shoving it into the earth and holding his weight before he could plummet clear over the summit’s edge. “Augh!” He dangled on the weapon’s hilt, his eyes thin, scanning. “Habullium trentte threnna?”
Milliseconds later, the blur materialized into a blue pegasus hovering right above Roarke. She spun in a circle, kicking each chaos serpent in the face, knocking the beasts off their Searonese prey. With a flip, she knelt besides the mare’s bruised, bleeding body.
The summoned snakes hissed, spun in a wide circle, and leapt at Rainbow all at once.
Rainbow snarled, holding Roarke with one forelimb and massively uppercutting the attacking fray with her other. “Raaaaugh!” The serpents dissolved into streamy bits, returning to the oblivion from which they spawned. “Roarke!” Rainbow Dash shook the mare, eyeing multiple bite wounds across her body. “Roarke, are you hurt bad?”
“Only my pr-pride,” Roarke stammered. She winced as greenish pools of venom poured out of her bitemarks. “Okay,” she wheezed. “Maybe my body as well…”
Rainbow Dash bit her lip. “Okay. I’m gonna get you out of here.” The mountain beneath them shook. The sound of a sword scraping across cracked stone lit the air. “I just gotta fix something really quick.” Rainbow laid Roarke down, took a deep breath, and looked up… glaring.
Zytharros aimed the full length of his sword at her muzzle. “Hava gunnagruun, Oss Tray Oh.” He sneered beneath his helmet. “It was meant to feed Nagu’n’s might, nothing more--”
Before he could finish that sentence, Rainbow Dash was in his face with a massive right hook.
“Haaauuck!” Zytharros’ neck jerked hard to the side. His helmet split in two and fell towards his stumbling hooves.
Rainbow wasn’t done. She flew into his chest, pummeling him repeatedly with two bucking hooves. When he tried swinging at her, she merely grabbed the hilt of the sword, spun around it, and slammed two rear legs across his face.
Zytharros rolled back several meters, uprighted, slid on scraping hooves, and anchored himself with his sword before he could slide off the Hold’s edge.
Rainbow Dash charged at him on stomping hooves, snarling.
Glancing up with a bruised, battered expression, Zytharros nervously blew into his chaos strip and summoned a dozen snakes. The hissing serpents flew at Rainbow Dash from all angles.
She merely side-bucked and headbutted them without losing her stride, her glaring eyes set on the warrior.
Panicking, Zytharros channeled magic through his horn. His sword spread apart, separating into a levitating flock of glowing metal plates. They spun in the air, hovered before Rainbow Dash, and closed all around her like an all-encompassing eggshell.
“Nnnngh--Gaaaugh!” Rainbow Dash grunted and struggled, feeling the levitating objects constricting her from all sides. She gasped for air, her hooves squeezing out and desperately trying to pry the bits apart. She failed, and soon she was encased in a floating sarcophagus.
Zytharros grinned, his lips bleeding as he concentrated harder, strangling Rainbow with the armored pieces.
But then, with a burst of thunder, all of the pieces flew in every direction. In the center of the sudden maelstrom was an angry pegasus spinning in an even angrier blur. With wings spread, she forced the pieces apart with explosive force, then levitated in midair, giving her body the leverage it needed to kick several of the bits straight back at their owner at the speed of bullets.
Zytharros gasped, diving low and rolling from side to side to avoid the streaking projectiles. Two of them grazed his body, spilling blood into the crimson sunset. “Gaaaaugh!” He lost concentration, and the warrior’s horn dimmed.
The rest of the pieces fell all around Rainbow Dash. In a clap of thunder, she flew towards him.
Zytharros stood up, summoned one last wave of magic, and channeled it into his chaos strip. A large portal opened behind him, and the largest serpent of all--his mount--poured out, fangs dripping with venom as it emerged into the real world and immediately charged Rainbow Dash. “Hresssshaaaa!”
“Seriously?” Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth and simply… flew through the beast. With her forelimb extended and her ruby pendant glowing, she shredded through the agonized abomination’s body from mouth to tail, ripping it to ethereal gray ribbons. All that was left was Zytharros on the other side, and Rainbow Dash flew into him like an anvil might handshake a songbird.
Thud! The two plummeted clear off the top of the Sacred Hold, burning through the air at the speed of screams. Rainbow Dash took every opportunity to punch, buck, and pummel Zytharros’ chest along the way. Sooner than either of them expected, they landed hard on a nearby mountain’s eastern plateau. Their bodies grinded to a stop across the dusty gravel with Rainbow Dash on top.
She was gripping his throat at this point. He wheezed, his glowing eyes tearing as his life hung by a thread.
She sneered, teeth gritting to the breaking point. A few seconds passed, and something flinched in her body. She took a deep breath, ears drooping as she tilted her head up and looked towards Zetta’s manaship hovering over the Sacred Hold. From afar, it was difficult to make out the ponies on board, but Rainbow Dash didn’t need to see them. In between blinks, she envisioned the worried expressions of Kera and Zaid, the cold glares of Khao and Nightshade. Then, in the last blink…
Bellesmith… Pilate…
“Awwww Luna poop…”
She stood up from Zytharros’ body.
He glanced up, shivering. Just then, the silver strip was pulled off his neck. The glow left his eyes as he twitched with uncertainty.
“Nnnngh!” Rainbow’s hoof slammed over the strip, smashing it to dusty bits. After leaching Zytharros of all power, she reached into Luna’s satchel at her side, fished around, and pulled out a flask of water and a bag of half-eaten bread. “There.” She tossed it down beside Zytharros.
The stallion glanced at it with a confused expression, then gasped as the pegasus’ face leered right before his muzzle.
“Turn east. Trot forward. Go home. And start a new friggin’ life.” The air around them exploded as she lifted off, blurring her spectral way back to the hold.
Zytharros trembled. He grasped the two items and hugged them to his bruised chest. A gulp.
“Dr-dreit…”
Cracks and fissures popped up all around Roarke. She was finding it hard to sit upright due to how uneven the stone surface had become beneath her.
Her muzzle hung open with panting breaths. A flushed expression ran through her body as her flesh throbbed around the multiple fang punctures. Her body began shivering, and soon her lungs made little wheezing noises.
“Coulda…” She gulped. “Coulda gone a little b-bit faster…” She slumped back down as pockets of air burst through the stone like miniature geysers. The entire Hold was continuously shaking at this point. Roarke’s lenses pistoned in and out, and all she could see was smoke against a bloody sunset. “I-I’m sorry, Imre. I… I tried…” Something like a sobbing whimper. “I really did…”
Roarke’s body shivered once… shivered twice… and lay still--
“Gotcha!” Rainbow shouted as she snatched the once-metal mare in two strong forelimbs. “Hold on, girl! This is gonna get b-bumpy!” She held Roarke tightly to her chest while skimming the surface of the Hold. Patches of stone were literally exploding at this point, blasting chunks of rock into the sky on either side of Rainbow’s flight. She zig-zagged around the bursting blasts as nimbly as she could. Finally, she found an open patch of air and kicked off the Hold’s summit, throttling skyward. The rock exploded beneath her, but she and Roarke outran the debris as they rocketed towards Zetta’s escape ship. Behind them, the Hold had turned practically molten, breaking apart before it could even strike the floor of the desert valley.
On board the manaship, Kera was hopping up and down. “They’re coming! Look! Look! They’re c-coming!”
Basso spun about and nervously barked, “Give ‘em some room!”
The Ledomaritans backed off, opening a patch of deckspace for the two mares to land.
Rainbow Dash did just that, slowly lowering herself and Roarke with gently flapping wings. At last, she laid the naked pony onto the floor. “Easy… easy…” She looked up with hard ruby eyes. “Nopony touch her! She’s been in better shape…”
“By the Spark…” A soldier stammered. “Are those fang bites?”
“Look at the venom!”
“Those abominable creatures finished her off…”
“Shhh! Stop it!” Kera grunted, close to tears. “None of you guys say that!” Gulping, she turned towards Rainbow with glossy green eyes. “Rainbow, I’ve n-never seen her like this! Please tell me she’s going to be okay…”
“Friggin’ idiots…” Roarke hissed, her body jerking with tiny spasms. A gagging sound lit the air, and foam trickled out of her muzzle. “Should have… sh-should have gone on without me. Urkkk... would have found the Jury f-faster…”
“Get it through your sexy thick skull that it’s not all about the easy way out!” Zaid grunted, only for Rainbow Dash to shove him out of the way.
“Everypony, stop crowding!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Gimme some dang space!”
“Why?” Zetta stammered. “What are you going to do?”
Rainbow gently clutched one of Roarke’s forelimbs. “Just… fl-flapping my wings here.” She gulped. “One feather at a time.” She took a deep breath… two… several. Then, closing her eyes, she leaned forward and placed her other hoof on Roarke’s palpitating chest.
Everypony watched in stunned silence. Basso bit his lip. Nightshade stared with thin eyes. Even Khao turned her head to glance at the scene. Her lips pursed as a red sheen suddenly glinted across her shocked expression.
Rainbow’s pendant was glowing brighter than ever. The faint sound of bells lit the air, like ghostly chimes were being struck above everyone. She leaned closer, and gritted her teeth, as if in tense concentration.
Kera felt a rush of energy. She glanced down at the tome that she was hugging to her chest. The runes were flickering across the book, one symbol at a time. At last, her horn glowed beneath the Odrsjot brace, and she found herself gasping, as if oxygen was being pumped into her lungs from nowhere. She looked up in time to see a stream of ruby energy flickering between Rainbow’s pendant and the body of Roarke.
One by one, the tiny puncture wounds across Roarke’s body lit up. The flushed redness of her body went away as streams of green venom literally flew out of the fang-marks in tiny, dissolving strings. In a matter of seconds, Roarke’s body was cleared of all poison, and she panted with long, strong breaths, wincing only from the pain of the minor lacerations alone.
“Blessed Spark…” Zetta gasped.
“All of the venom…” A Ledomaritan murmured. “She… sh-she sucked it out!”
“Harmony rendering chaos to nothing,” Nightshade said, drawing most ponies’ attention. She took a deep breath and folded her forelimbs. “It’s as if she was never poisoned to begin with.”
Rainbow Dash slumped back, taking a long breath as the glow of her pendant faded. Kera trotted over and nuzzled her side, smiling up at her. “Way to go, Rainbow Dash…” She smirked. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
She gulped and finally opened her eyes, glazed and weary. “Didn’t kn-know I could do it either.”
Kera stifled a giggle. “Either way, it was pretty amazing.”
Rainbow blinked, then rolled her eyes. “Pffft… ya little scamp.” She ran a hoof through her mane. “I’ll forgive ya for it this time…”
Kera giggled and smiled against Rainbow’s caress. From afar, Khao blinked, her expression melting between awe and confusion.
“Hmmph…” Zaid folded his hooves with a frown. “ I thought they were gonna friggin’ kiss.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaugh!” Zetta screamed, clutching her skull as she collapsed out of the pilot’s seat.
Basso gasped and galloped over to her side. “Zetta! Zetta, what’s wrong--?!”
But in a matter of seconds, everypony else could hear it too. They groaned in pain as the air filled with an ear-splitting, discordant note. Just then, a shockwave of disrupted air struck the ship, almost knocking it off its own manathrusters. The vessel spun, and only when it came to a stop did the equines see that the Sacred Hold had finally struck the surface of the valley.
But that wasn’t all that took place. The once-floating mountain was cracking apart from within. Pieces of it exploded upwards, with huge house-sized chunks of rock flying into the air. Then, with a burst of icy-blue flame, a fierce reptilian figure emerged from the crumbling mass as if it was a gigantic egg.
Nevlamas, the Dark Divine of Chaos, soared into the air and spread her decrepit wings, blotting out the setting sun in the west. With twin jaws spewing aquamarine fire, she tossed her head left and right, slicing the air with her crystal-studded antlers. Then, with tail thrashing, she roared her way northwest, following the path that the Lightning-Bearer had taken from a distance, and burning all that stood in her way.