//------------------------------// // Why Did You Stop? // Story: Odrsjot // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// The grimace across Rainbow Dash’s face was positively cataclysmic. From a high altitude, she glided over the carnage sweeping across the battered warscape. To the west, the Steel Wing and the Lightning Bearer exchanged whistling barrages of cannonfire. To the east, Ledomaritans and Xonans fought tooth and hoof in deep trenches. Directly below, the Ledomaritan camp was gradually decimated by row after row of artillery blasts. Panting, the pegasus glanced over her tail, squinting towards the southern horizon. “Where are they with that friggin’ tome already?” Gnashing her teeth, she looked forward again. “If we can least still save the machine world--” Her pupils shrunk, and she suddenly jerked to her right. A managlider screamed past her, flying in formation with several Xonans on mounted vipers. Two of the warriors spotted Rainbow Dash and swerved their chaotic beasts to intersect her. “Come on, really?!” she chanted, but it fell on deaf ears. One pony lunged at her, his creature biting with a flash of fangs. Rainbow easily dodged him, frowned, and kicked mercilessly into the snout of the second rider’s beast. Her pendant strobed, causing her body to rip through the flying reptile as if it was made of tissue paper. With a shriek, the monster dissolved to ribbons, and the rider plummeted until he plowed what was left of his viper into the muddy craters below. Rainbow Dash looked behind her. The other snake rider flew off into the distance to join formation with his brethren. The managlider, however, banked around and zoomed straight after Rainbow Dash. All thre Xonans on board fired manarifles in tandem with the twin blasters at the bow of the vessel. “Look, cut it out!” Rainbow shouted. “What are you jerkfaces even accomplishing with--” They reached her. One Xonan reached up, swinging the crystalline bayonet of his rifle. Growling, Rainbow grabbed onto the length of the rifle. She was jerked along with them, and soon she was wrestling with the middlemost Xonan on board the wildly speeding glider. The other two tried stabbing at her with levitating daggers. She twisted her body, flung her rear legs up, and bucked one Xonan upside the chin, then slammed her shoulder into the other. The middlemost pilot took advantage of her thrown balance and smacked her upside the chin with the butt of his rifle. “Ooof!” Rainbow rolled forward, her weight knocking into the vessel’s controls. With a howl of mana engines, the ship suddenly plunged towards the sundered wasteland below. The Xonans shouted in surprise. Using their telekinesis, they heaved Rainbow off the controls. Rainbow gasped and flapped her wings, clinging to the foils of the spiraling craft. The ship twirled three more times in a deathly corkscrew, but at last a pilot pulled the thing straight. A ridge of battered rock loomed straight ahead. The pilot rolled the aircraft around the obstacle and pulled sharply towards the overcast sky. This finally shook Rainbow off, and she went plummeting towards a black, black ravine. “Eeeyugh!” Rainbow’s voice cracked. She flapped her wings, caught her balance, and glided into nothingness. Tilting her head down, she breathed on her pendant, causing the lightning bolt to pulsate. Gazing back up, she saw a ruby spotlight shrinking against a solid wall of reflective metal. “Whoah!” Rainbow flung her limbs forward, planted her hooves against the wall, and kicked off. She backflipped, flailed, and landed hard on an abandoned conveyor belt. “Oooomf--Unngh!” She rolled to an ugly stop, her legs dangling off the end of a golden platform. There she lay, her feathers draped limp and still for the first time in hours. With weary eyes, she squinted towards the slit of gray clouds high above. Serpents, managliders, and streaming cannon shells surged overhead in brief streaks. She gritted her teeth, her body turning to jelly, begging for a respite. “For real. When did I stop flying east?” With a grunt, she flexed her muscles and struggled to her hooves. It was with a sharp, inward gasp that she greeted a hoof pulling her up out of the darkness. She stood up straight, and her ruby pendant illuminated several emaciated faces floating directly in front of her. “Uhhhh…” Rainbow Dash blinked. The booming of shells echoed above, then silenced. “Hello?” “A winged pony…” A Ledomaritan gasped, then gazed forlornly towards the heavens. “This truly must be the end times.” “Is there anything of Seclorum’s encampment above?” a nurse asked. “At this rate, not for much longer,” Rainbow muttered, her eyes drifting, drifting, then narrowing on a tattooed face or two. “Xonans? You’ve got Xonans here too?” “Dreit. It threw in the bodies that be here.” “It?” Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed. “It or they?” “The ones who likely orchestrated this,” a Ledomaritan soldier slurred. “Someone or something wants both armies to slaughter themselve senseless.” He sighed. “And it looks like it’s happening.” “And you guys have been suck down here all this time?” “Oh, there were more of us!” a nurse exclaimed. “But a good chunk of our numbers were able to craft a platform out of metal scraps and use their telekinesis to lift themselves outside of this… erm… place just an hour ago.” She gulped. “The rest of us… we… w-we agreed to stay down.” Her eyes grew misty, but she took a breath of courage. “We don’t have families to return to like the others, and we are too few to lift ourselves, even with our combined magic.” “I don’t get it. Why couldn’t anypony leave this place before?” “That was before he came to help us.” “Who?” “The veteran stallion,” an engineer said, shivering. “The master teleporter.” Rainbow Dash stared and stared… The engineer blinked. “He was terribly fat.” Rainbow gasped. “Josho was here?!” “Dreit, it be its name…” “Then he’s still alive! Which means…” She winced. “Jeez, I gotta save his neck before he saves all our necks by losing his own.” “He said that he had business with Seclorum, his old companion.” “Yeah, I bet he did. I gotta find him. I gotta find all my friends caught up in this mess.” Rainbow Dash flapped her wings. “But first thing’s first. You guys…” “What about us?” “I gotta get you out of here.” Rainbow Dash extended her hooves. “Grab ahold!” “You…” A nurse fidgeted. “You can’t possibly expect to carry us all out at once!” “Duh! I’ll make trips!” “With the Spark’s fury raging overhead?! We’d die in a heartbeat!” “Hmmm… yeahhhhhh.” Rainbow Dash looked around, then glanced up. Bursts of manafire flashed past the ravine’s opening. Her lips curved. “Okay. I think I got a plan.” “Is it complicated?” “Even better!” Rainbow Dash zoomed skyward. “It’s stupid! Wait right here, everpony!”