"Rainbow Dash, at the risk of sounding like a stick in the mud, have you—perhaps—outflown your welcome?"
Rainbow Dash grunted, twirling through the clouds above the large structure. "A little busy here, Pilate..."
"We've 'distracting' this flock for an eternity!" the zebra sputtered from where he dangled in her grasp. "Surely they can't still be chasing us!"
"Uhhhhhh..." Rainbow Dash glanced over her shoulder. No less than four dozen winged freaks emerged from the foggy depths behind her. "Hate to break it to ya, zebra dude, but they're angrier than ever." She gulped as she glided forward. "And don't call me 'Shirley.'"
"Rainbow, we can't do this endlessly!" Pilate spoke over the rattle of the skystone shard in his satchel. "At some point, we have to make for the core of the structure! Only there can we hope to eliminate the evil of Stratopolis once and for all!"
"Pilate, you were never in the heart of this building!" Rainbow grunted as she swung hard to the left and blurred around the structure in a sharp turn. "It's filled to the brim with that goey purple death stuff! There's no friggin' way we can make our way inside!"
"Well, we've got to find a way! Or else everypony we know and love is dead in this place!"
"What in the h-hay?!" Rainbow Dash sputtered, glancing straight down.
"I mean it, Rainbow! It's not like we have the resources to escape on our own! Not even Roarke!"
"No, I mean—what in the buck's going on down there?!" Ranbow Dash exclaimed, staring at the first of several survivors popping out onto the balcony of the structure. "Why'd they come out from hiding?"
"Rainbow, even with this helm, I can't possibly see that far. Who are you talking about?"
"The survivors! Josho, Props, and the others! Even Lasairfion!"
"Perhaps the evil has spread further than we anticipated?"
"Or maybe..." Rainbow Dash gulped in mid twirl. She pulled up and flew skyward from the shrieking pursuers. "M-maybe they're going after the Tarkington."
"The Tarkington?"
"It's Aatxe's stranded ship. We accessed the core of the building to get manacrystals that would power the thing up. I'm guessing that the ponies are desperate to jump-start the thing and escape the infestation, but with the temples spread apart and crud, I dunno how—"
Pilate suddenly gasped. "Rainbow! Look out! Three o'clock sharp!"
Rainbow Dash looked slightly to her right. Three pegasi soared in from nowhere, barreling straight towards her.
With a grunt, Rainbow backflipped to avoid their attack. The first two streaked past her. The third, however—
WHUD! The undead pony tackled Pilate, yanking him from Rainbow's grip and carrying him—gasping—down into the thunderous maelstrom of Stratopolis.
"Pilate!" Rainbow Dash shrieked, hovering in place.
A pegasus tackled her from behind. She snarled, bucked it away, and propelled herself off the thing's chest. Soaring straight down, Rainbow Dash fearlessly threaded her way through the mess of pegasi just as they caught up with her. She spun and spiraled, yelling for good measure. Wingbones snapped and strips of flesh melted all around her. The mare barely managed to squeeze her way safely past the splashes of acidic goo. Once she emerged on the other side, she caught sight of Pilate once again—dangling in one monster's grasp. The creature was leaning its muzzle in to bite onto his neck; the zebra defended himself by blocking the attack with his glowing staff, but he was starting to slip from the freak's grasp.
"Hang on, Pilate! I'm a'comin'!" Rainbow Dash angled her wings, dove like a missile, and practically bowled herself in between the zebra and the zombie. There was a splash of purple goop in the air. Rainbow swiped Pilate up and hooked a single wing out, throwing the two of them into a sharp corkscrew and narrowly missing the splash of slime.
However, this slowed them down, making them prime targets for the creatures soaring down from above. Two separate monsters caught up with Rainbow, spearing her and accelerating her suicidal descent. Rainbow struggled and fought them back, but the four of them still became a tangled mess. Out the corner of her eye, Rainbow spotted the domed ceiling of the structure emerging through the storm.
"Rainbow!" the zebra gasped, his helm flickering from the inside out.
"Brace y-yourself!"
Crasssh!
Rainbow and Pilate sailed through the middle-most panel of the stained glass ceiling. They plummeted among a sea of rainbow colored shards. Somehow, in the last few dozen feet afforded her, Rainbow succeeded in flipping herself and her foes around. They impacted the floor of the room with the zombies striking the granite first. Rainbow and Pilate went tumbling in separate directions, rolling over broken staves and black crystals.
Above, thunder and rainwater poured through the fresh hole in the glass ceiling. Then came the pegasi, slipping through one at a time, shrieking at the top of their decaying lungs.
Pilate was the first to get up. "Rainbow! Look out—" With gnashing teeth, he gripped onto his staff and spun about in time to impact a diving zombie. He bucked a second attack, sending the thing's decrepit body sailing off and smashing through an ancient barricade along one of the adjacent corridors.
Rainbow Dash climbed over a broken monolith, jumped over a splash of purple muck, and landed with a jump kick against a recovering pegasus' chest. "We gotta get out of this place! Pilate, gallop towards one of the tunnels and I'll—"
Two creatures tackled Rainbow from behind, shoving her to the floor and preparing to spill their slimy innards over her wings.
"Rainbow!" Pilate smashed the skull in of a beast, galloped forward, sensed a creature diving from behind, and kicked up a staff from the ground with his hoof. He spun—knocking the debris back with his weapon—sending it slamming off the skull of the diving creature. Once again regaining his stride, he sped in and smashed one monster off of Rainbow's backside, then aimed and fired an energy blast at the chest of the other.
Rainbow rolled to safety in the middle of the room—only to hear Pilate grunting. She looked over and saw two creatures tackling him from behind. "Oh no you don't!" She jumped up, kicked her legs against the center cylinder of the room, and propelled herself at the fight. She speared both zombies at once, knocking them off Pilate's shoulders and shoving them clear across the room.
The three of them slammed into something hard. Rainbow's ears rang with the smashing of granite slabs. She rolled across the ground, coming to a stop with a pained groan. When she looked up, the first thing she saw was the cracked face of an equine effigy.
"Commander Hurricane...?" She glanced behind to see the tomb smashed to bits. The barest hint of a petrified skeleton lingered in the rainfall. "Awwwww shoot."
Just then, the chamber filled with hellish shrieks. Rainbow jerked a glanced upwards. The pegasi had stopped slithering through the hole in the domed ceiling. They flinched in place, thrashing about.
"Uhhhh..."
"Rainbow!" Pilate exclaimed.
Rainbow spun around—but had to squint.
The zebra nervously stood a few feet from her, but even then it was next to impossible to see him. An exceedingly bright aura of gold light was obscuring his figure, including the bodies of the zombified monsters squirming nearby.
"Something's happening," the stallion wheezed. "They... th-they appear to be overcome by something!"
Rainbow squinted, hovering a hoof over her brow as she approached the source of the light. "No friggin' way..." she slurred. "You're not going to believe this..."
"Uhhh..." Pilate gulped as he aimed his helm at the paralyzed creatures. "At this rate, you're welcome to try me."
Rainbow reached into the blinding light. Her hoof felt something and gripped around it. Upon physical touch, the light dimmed slightly, eventually becoming visible in the mare's grasp. It was a long, double-edged sword, guilded down the center with six studded, multi-colored gemstones. The metal of the blade was an immaculate golden color, and the hilt bore the image of a regal alicorn.
"The Sword of Solstice..." Rainbow Dash murmured, her jaw hanging agape.
"Huh?"
Rainbow glanced at the smashed tomb of Commander Hurricane, then back at the blade. "Of course... of course!"
"Rainbow, help me out here! What's going on?"
"I think a little bit of sunshine has returned to Stratopolis."
The zebra cocked his helm slightly to the side. "Is that a weapon in your grasp?"
"And how..." Rainbow looked aside at the beasts quivering in pain. The goo on their bodies evaporated with little puffs of steam the more she held the sword in their direction. "Still, only one way to find out." She gripped the hilt of the sword in her teeth, dove in, and gave the beasts a wide slash.
The creatures literally split in two, and whatever was left of their purple-stained flesh melted into dark ash. Two creatures suicidally plunged from above, but Rainbow was more than ready. She grunted into her grip of the weapon and swung the Sword of Solstice in a high arc. The monsters caught flame for a brief second, then split apart on either side of her, littering the ground with flakes of ash.
"Great Spark!" Pilate wheezed, flinching from the bits and specks of undead flesh littering around him.
Rainbow backed up into him, holding the sword in her hooves. "Pilate, I now know how Hurricane beat back the infestation far enough to seal the heart of this place."
"Then that means..."
Rainbow nodded. "We just might be able to retrace her path and get to the core again."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
"Pfft! Who said anything about waiting?" Rainbow grinned, then launched herself at a writhing mass of undead. "Haaaaugh!" The room flashed with gold as the zombified pegasi met their burning fate.
About time. Guess we know what trashed the hallway leading to the core, too.
Praise the sun
HEKbf<lkebfWEBPWUIOEGBPAIUWE
alergauergpuioaer
aiuergapiwouerghpaowuerhpgauwerg
awiouerghpawourhgpaowehpÑouiHPFouiw´f{O
ñAILhfóAIHfAOHfuophAf
Epic sword of awesomeness.
´p{AIdnfÓIAsfoiAhsdfoÑALhñ
YAY! Time to burn some zombies
4433683
^this
Also:
magiccards.info/scans/en/jou/12.jpg
YES YES YES
fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/181/f/7/celestia_clap_by_mihaaaa-d3kipis.gif
*Epic Weapon gained: Sword of Solstice*
Let the slicing begin.
Item Obtained: Sword of Solstice
th07.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2013/206/2/3/swords__extruded_rainbow_dash__by_rainb00mdash-d6ez40m.png
Time for awesomeness!
Yay a Cool Sword.
It'd be cool if RD keeps this as her main weapon.
LET THE HOLY FLAMES BURN AWAY THE EVIL
PURGE THE SLIMEY SHADOWS
I like this.
4433627 Vereor Nox
Metal.
And then Razaar stole the sword. The end~
So something can stop the Smooze. And Rainbow said "Let there be light!"
4434451
Well, last time it was stopped by the Rainbow of light.
Shwing!
Yaay. Finally, concentrated flutterpony, and, Smooze doesnt seem to like fire?. Quick, we must mine deeper.
Yes, yes!!!
BUCK YES
so, was I right or was I right?
also,
img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120418052354/mlp/images/6/64/FANMADE_YEAH!!!.gif
img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/TimLochore/1295747741642-n1296446092923.jpg
Hark ye, fiends of darkness - the Angels fly once more!
Also, anyone up for Sunshine, sunshine, bake 'em like a cake?
fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/075/8/4/creation_by_nelvakre-d4swb9q.png
Yup, lightbringer sword. Yet another cliché that needs to appear way more often in film and cinema. Because that's where the epicness really shines. Ah, get it? Shines? Eh? Eh?
Time to start blasting metal
A ray of hope appears! Glad there's something to fight back the smooze, it's kinda OP.
Praise the sun!
Time to beat back the Smooze.
-SPirit
That's awesome. Now she can stop using that hatchet.
Go on, Lucina Dash! Perform the awakening on the Falchion and kick the shit out of some risen!
Wait...
Whoops, wrong thing.
Shiny super-sword has been found! Added to party inventory
Rainbow Dash equips shiny super sword! +5 to damage when fighting undead pegasi
Hells yeah!
She beter not lose it
Why was that Shirley joke there?
just why??
somepony please tell me why before i find IC and slap him??
just fucking why??'
Looks like Rainbow got the Dawnbreaker.
A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON!!
Shut up, Meridia. No one likes you. But damn does Stratopolis need Dawnbreaker right now.
I was wondering when she'd finally find the sword.
Something can stop the Smooze!
So today I finally got to watch 7th episode of season 5 and guess what? SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZE
6020622 Lol, My thoughts exactly.
BURN BEFORE THE WRATH OF THE SUN
THE POWER OF THE SUN COMPELS YOU!
rip in pieces commander hurricane's statue
the most tragic casualty of this senseless war
may you never be forgotten as the one who brought us light and the ability to defeat the screaming demo semen monster from hell completely by accident
Time to make with the stabby stabby yes?
I kinda figured that sword would be making an appearance. Glad it did so in such a blinding fashion. Time to cut some bitches.
~SolidFire
On another less painful train of thought; does the purple goo have a life-span or minimum distance it can be from the main mass or will these sprays of goo falling to the ground below still be active?
Thank God Rainbow finally went and grabbed the Sword of Solstice.
Also... Nice Airplane reference
Long ago, in a distant land, I the Smooze, the shape shifting master of slimy, UNLEASHED AN UNSPEAKABLE EVIL! But, flying forth to oppose me was a FOOLISH PEGASUS, wielding a magic sword. Before the final blow could be struck, I outlasted her demise, and was set free unto the world again, where my smung is law. Now another of her kind seeks to return me to my prison, and undo the darkness that is THE SMOOZE. I was having trouble with the middle section, I am open to suggestions to change it
06/04/2017 15:33 UTC
https://lachlan765.deviantart.com/art/Bearer-of-Solstice-705242805
Huh. I guess something can stop the Smooze.
8210233
I love it, great as is
Also seems the Smooze is weak to fire damage. Who knew?