I Can See Clearly Now
Elma gasped, her green eyes pulsing. "Stratopolis," she murmured quietly. Weakly, the frail changeling lifted her head. "Everypony? Something... s-something's happening—"
"Uh huh. That's nice." Josho strolled past her and shimmied up the vertical crawlspace as quickly as his obese body would allow him. "Hey! Thunder Deer!" He climbed into the cockpit behind Floydien, sweating and panting. "The mutant pegasi just gave us a shave so close they're liable to set up a barber shop in my ass. The front half of your Nancy Jane is an open gaping hole. You understand how friggin' ugly a picture this is? You gotta pull this puppy around and take us as far from the center of the store as you can before the zombies decide to come after all our collective sideburns!"
"Easier the spitting than the glimmering," Floydien droned, pointing a cloven hoof out the cockpit window. "What does the boomer's eyes see?"
"Awwwwwwwwww crud biscuits," Josho wheezed, gawking at a solid line of winged abominations hurdling their way from the largest structure. "It's like they come in waves!"
Eagle Eye climbed up, followed by Ebon Mane. "Looks like it's all clear below decks. What's the situation?" His eyes bulged. "Oh fluff."
"Princess, if I had some soap..." Josho muttered.
"Whoah!" Ebon gasped, glancing towards the right. "There's another ship out there!"
"It's the Tarkington," Josho said. "That's where blondie and Prowse are."
"Propsy is on th-that thing?!" Ebon panted and panted. "Guys! We... we g-gotta warn them!"
"My kingdom for a sound stone..." Josho leaned forward and spat over Floydien's shoulder. "Better think of something smart, Secchy! You're about to have guests!"
"Nnngh!" Floydien seethed, shoving Josho back. "Don't get boomer juices all over Floydien juices!" Snorting, he glared towards the windy horizon. "Let us engage in the think think!"
"The Tarkington looks like a freight ship," Eagle Eye said. "I can't imagine they'd have any real weapons!"
"That's because they don't have any real weapons!" Josho snarled. "Just a bunch of crazy, tongue-tied badasses in tattoos and an old fart!"
"But they've got Propsy!" Ebon squeaked. "We gotta save them! I mean... r-right?"
"Eagle?" Josho glanced over his shoulder. "Let's board the top deck. We can make the monsters kiss manaflare, Franzington and Ledomare style."
Eagle nervously nodded, but pointed at the elk. "Things would be a lot smoother if we had his deathbolts on our side."
"Floydien agrees." Floydien put the ship into a neutral hover and climbed out of his seat. "Give me glimmer room atop Nancy's flank."
"Then who's gonna fly us?" Ebon asked.
"Floydien has a constetant in mind." The elk shouted down the crawlspace. "Hey! Clown boomer!"
"Guys!" Eagle's voice cracked. He braced himself against Ebon while pointing a wild hoof out the windshield. "Look! From up high!"
Josho squinted. "What in the popcorn fart..."
"Not them again," Ebon murmured with folded ears.
"No! Something's different about them!" Eagle Eye exclaimed. "Their flight pattern!" He grinned from ear to lavender ear. "I've seen it before!"
"H-huh?"
"H'lanna rekkhar drenna dre'nnden," Arcshod muttered.
"Right..." Seclorum nodded, patting the back of Prowse's chair while ponies murmured in fear behind them. "We can't stay dormant here forever. Somepony's gotta deal with those winged freaks."
"And just how in the bloody hell do you intend to do that?" Prowse cackled. "Piss out the window at them?"
"I wasn't asking you for ideas..."
"Hey!" Props pointed out the windshield of the Tarkington. "Lookie! The Lounge!"
"Oh please, Propsicle." Prowse rolled his eyes. "That's the last thing we need—" FWOOSH! Something black and glossy soared straight over the ship's hull. "The moon's arse!" he exclaimed.
Everypony behind him craned their necks to see.
The spherical vessel hovered into place between the other two airships and the approaching wave of undead. Despite the constant sheets of rain, the forward hull of the vessel slid open. Standing on the platform beneath the receding dome were three fully-armed naga. Cocking their manarifles, they all turned and fired as one at the ravenous pegasi. The air lit up with amber fury, splitting the clouds into errant streams of mist.
In splotches and sprays of purple juices, the abominations fell. Their pained shrieks were impossible to hear over the sound of constant manafire. It was a gradual process, but their numbers eventually thinned, dissolving the charge into a flailing flock of confused, aimless drones.
The Noble Jury flew a little closer to the Lounge's ship. The door to the cockpit opened, and out trotted several gawking ponies. Josho, Eagle Eye, Ebon Mane, and Floydien stood on the top deck first. Finally Zaid poked his head out, squinting curiously at the violent light show happening off the ship's port side. Belle climbed up into the cockpit. She had Kera balanced on her flank. Curious, the two jittery equines glanced out.
"Zaid... what... who...?" Belle murmured.
"Sorry." Zaid shrugged. "I got nothin'."
"I don't get it..." Ebon Mane leaned in towards the rest. "Why aren't they shooting at us?"
"Maybe they had a change of heart," Josho grumbled.
"Not a change of heart," a voice crackled loudly over a speaker system built within the hollow of the Lounge's hull. "A change of mind." The three lizards held their fire, squirming slightly as a fourth figure emerged from the ship's interior behind them, training a hoof-mounted manacannon at their bodies. "An energy discharge hotter than the surface of the sun being constantly trained on their scales will do that..."
Zaid instantly smiled.
"That... that voice..." Belle murmured.
"Is that...?" Kera squeaked.
A patch of red light from the Noble Jury's skystone glinted off the metal mare's copper lenses. "Forgive me for being late. It took a great deal more convincing than I anticipated to make these lizards fly right."
One of the Lounge grunted through his mask. "We'll eat your heart out of your ribcage for this—" A manablast bloodily grazed his shoulder. "Gaaaaught!"
"Quiet, breeder." Roarke's breath blew at the smoke trailing out of her gun. "Before I decide to use your rectum for a silencer."
"It is! It is Roarke!" Eagle Eye hopped up and down.
"Oh! That's wonderful..." Ebon blinked. "...I think?"
"You're welcome," Roarke muttered. She nodded her head towards the Tarkington. "Pass word along to the ponies you've got in your gray mane'd coltfriend's ship, fat one," she said to Josho. "We'll hold off the flying menace for them as well as you."
"Uhhh..." Josho sighed. "We didn't exactly pack enough sound stones to make that sort of communication work in this rainstorm."
Roarke's lenses pistoned in and out. "Well," she said. "Looks like you're still the same idiots you were when I first left."
"It's her alright," Ebon muttered.
"Hold on for a friggin' sec!" Josho frowned. "All this dayum time, you were one of th-them? Hiding in their Ledo-forsaken robes n'crap?"
"Yes, breeder. Some of us can fit into them."
"Just what in the Hell is your plan in all this?!"
"Simple." Roarke cocked her weapon and aimed it at the group of fidgeting reptiles. "I keep my gun on them, and they keep their guns on the winged ponies. We stay here, holding this position, eliminating all bogies for as long as it takes."
"Uhhhh..." Ebon blinked. "For as long as what takes?"
"Uhhhh..." Eagle Eye gulped, trotting forward. "Guys?"
Belle craned her neck. "What is it, EE?"
"Something..." Eagle squinted at the clouds swirling all around them. "Something is happening..."
"Gnnngh!" Elma flailed, attempting to climb up the top rung of the crawlspace's ladder.
"Elma!" Belle rushed over and helped her into the cockpit. "Careful! What's—?"
"I... I-I was trying to t-tell you!" The changeling hobbled out onto the rainswept top deck with Belle's help. "Something's wrong! All of Stratopolis is changing!"
"Not changing..." Eagle gulped. "Moving."
"Huh?!" Josho did a double-take.
"Floydien sees it too," the elk muttered. He pointed with his antlers. "Look. Up in the shimmer shimmer. It thins, yes yes yes?"
Several ponies gasped and murmured. On board the Tarkington, dozens of equine faces peered out the portholes, gazing in shock.
It was subtle at first, but as the seconds ticked by, the winds grew less and less turbulent. The clouds grew less and less thick. Swirling mists gave way to patches of clear air. Huge thunder clouds split down the middle. Suddenly, in sparse beams of twinkling light, a nebulous aura pierced the malaise from random spots above.
"Starlight..." Eagle Eye murmured. He trotted to the edge of the deck, gawking at the centermost structure. "It's... it's heading away from us!"
"Wh-what?" Ebon spun to stare.
Sure enough, the clouds weren't only dissipating, they were receding. Following the large structure, the entire cyclonic phenomenon billowed away, streaking towards the distant horizon at a rapidly accelerating rate. The Jurists on board the top deck glanced left and right, observing the shattered remains of temples and black obeslisks as they drifted by faster and faster.
SWOOOSH! One large temple in particular soared directly overhead, disrupting the air around the three vessels.
The ponies on board both the Noble Jury and Tarkington gasped, floundering about for a solid hoof-hold. Once they stabilized, they watched as several more temples whizzed past them, sailing off against the wind like a squadron of concrete edifices.
"Look!" Eagle Eye pointed. "The creatures!"
It was difficult to follow Eagle Eye's gesture, for the undead flocks were almost nowhere to be seen. In the distance, a thin line of leather bodies shrieked in the winds, but they too became an obscure shadow upon the horizon.
"They're being carried away...?" Ebon murmured aloud.
"It'd make some sense," Josho said, nodding. The air grew chilly again, and the obese stallion shivered, his breath visible in the arctic air. "They keep squirting out of the center building, and that's the thing carrying all of Stratopolis, ain't it?"
"But I don't get it!" Ebon exclaimed. "Why's this happening? Why now?"
On board the Lounge's ship, Roarke's muzzle hung agape. She gulped and murmured, "It's happening..." Her voice carried loosely over the still, frozen air. "They've succeeded..."
"Huh?" Josho turned his head towards the Lounge's ship. "What was that?"
"Who's succeeded?" Ebon remarked.
All the while, Belle blinked. As she felt Kera's trembles atop her shoulders, she gasped. Her eyes grew misty. "Pilate..."
Stats
Page generated in 0.04 seconds
Total duration
700 users online
870,504 hits today, 1,960,719 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Did Roarke not expect Rainbow and Pilate to make it to the control room? She seems pretty surprised by Stratopolis moving.
Speaking of which, it would be nice if someone noticed the Stratopolis control room right about now. On the other hand, it's below the main body of the city, and that would be between Pilate and Rainbow and the ships.
Time to get on the move. Now every knows that Roarke is alive I hope she joins them again and makes up with Rainbow.
Are they gonna get left behind?
4511559
Maybe wasn't sure how long it would take?
Looks like this arc will be wrapping up approximately mid-volume. Assuming, of course, that Rainbow and Pilate can get their asses off Stratopolis. I agree with what Rainbow said a few chapters back, that it's sort of a shame to lose Stratopolis, considering all the answers it could provide. But if it's gotta go, it's gotta go.
-Spirit
Hmm. Well, at least Dash can carry Pilate for as long as necessary to land. Besides, didn't they devise some way of tracking her with that book thingy? I think they still have it with them. Or was it the other way around? Darn you IC, I can't keep all these things straight. Just don't turn into George Martin and start killing all your characters.
well, go get them!
Roarke most resourceful.
I hope Rourke gets teh drop on the now less than useless lizerts, so she can then use the fast Lounge ship to hopefully catch up and collect Dash and Pilate. Or at least meet halfway. Depending just how fast that Machine World Sentinal can propel itself.
Its easy to go supersonic relative to the world, if you dont go supersonic relative to the air around you. thats why so many FTL designs fail .
I can't wait to see this Alafreo place once we're done here.
And the Colon said, "Let there be Roarke."
Oh Roarke. You say the cutest things.
Adorable isn't she.
4513021
Nah, it's just been a rough couple of chapters, and I was feeling nice.
Buuuuuut, since you wanna poke the bear and all, fifty flutter kicks. Knock 'em out!
4511559 To be fair, she didn't know about the Sword of Smooze Killing.
Next chapter: A daring escape!
Next chapter is the halfway point ponies.
What better way to kick it off than with a dead lizard and a daring escape?
yay reunion!
now for rainbow and pilate to get off the sentinel of death
4513118 Okay got it 50 sitting down and using the computers.
4512608
Always so thoughtful and compassionate; that's why we love her.
Wait, no that's Belle... why do we love Roarke again?
Oh, right, it's because she's almost literally Iron Mare. (Just a bit more sexist.) The redeemable anti-hero badass is always a fan-favorite.
Hows it possible that roarke can make 2 amazing entrances.
img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1385/75/1385753810661.gif
4514477 #rekt
4511626
*out
4516553
That would also be acceptable
The rain is goone~
goddamnthatplayedatmygrandadsfuneraltheotherdayohlunaSo . . . they did it. What's the escape plan now, though? They aren't the captain of that ship, so they don't need to go down with the ship.
Good thing the control room lowered. Now escape will be easy... once Razzar is dealt with.
Stratopolis is finally going down! Figures that it'd line up for chapter 100. gg, skirts.
Finished Towering Above The Rest Disk 14.
Aww yiss, time for Chapter 100.
Can we keep Prowse please?
At least until the next conversation with Princess Luna?
Looks like Stratopolis is just about wrapped up. Now time to get out of there.
06/04/2017 18:01 UTC
Right, let's finish Razzar and get the hell outta Dodge!