Wind Chaser

by Thaylien

Chapter 10

Wind Chaser, Chapter 10

In which things could have gone better.

Welp, I'm back on the regular job madness, so writing this will be slow. There's probably going to be about fifty different changes in the world and my status from now until the end of the chapter, so... I'll just get on with what I can. My EQD submission is getting closer... I'm nervous...

* * *

"Stop fidgeting." Chaser told the gagged and bound Athelgeir, "If your Regent comes through, then I really will let you go, I don't like taking hostages. But it's you, or an entire population of innocent ponies, and I'd rather threaten you than let you do it to them."

Even if he's as strong as you, he's not getting out of there, you know. Let's go! Dash- I know! It's taking all I have to not go after the stupid girl already...

There was a long pause from her, That really shook you up, huh?

I... just didn't expect it. In her defense- Yeah, I know that too, she probably has no idea how much what she said hurts. She's got the emotional sensitivity of a rubber chicken, and I know not everybody thinks about stuff the way I do. So why are you- Because I meant what I said! Even though he was only thinking it, he was breathing a bit unevenly after that little emotional display.

Oh... Yes, 'Oh', he thought to himself. She knew what he meant, how couldn't she when she was linked to his very soul? Had things been different, had there not been someone waiting for him at home, there were any number of worlds where he would have settled down. And when he'd been on that beach before, if there weren't already someone else holding his heart in their hands, somebody he needed to return to to feel whole again, he would have kissed Dash that night and never looked back. Earth would have had to get by without him.

Why are you standing here then? Go find her! The last thing you need on your conscience is her getting hurt because you were too whiney to go help her! Do you see me whining? He snapped the thought at her, tinged with irritation. That's better! Snappy Chaser is way better than emotional, girly Chaser. And go back to using 'somepony' in your head, you'll forget yourself next time you're talking.

He rolled his eyes. She was right, naturally. She was only telling him what he already knew. But sometimes... Hesitating! Shut it, tart, I'm thinking. Could'a fooled me.

"You." He got his captive's attention. "Don't move. If I find you've escaped when I get back, there's nowhere you can run far or fast enough to get away. I will be back, and if your Regent has kept his word you'll go free, understand? Nod for me."

The trussed up úlfur glared, but nodded slowly nonetheless.

"You can kill me later, I'll take you on fair and square next time, no surprise attacks. But right now, I've got a friend to find." He tugged the make-shift hobble/gag combo a little to make sure it was tight, before leaping into the sky.

* * *

Twilight looked back over her shoulder, the storm clouds were amazingly concentrated... they'd managed to move out of its path in less than half an hour of running. And they'd been going nearly another twenty minutes since then.

They could have taken one of the chariots, but one was too small to fit more than two of them, and since Applejack was the only one of them that wouldn't collapse after a few miles of pulling, it was easier to leave them.

It was tempting now to stop and watch for a while, she was sure that, any minute now, the whole thing would start to break up, or burst apart, with Rainbow Dash and Wind Chaser posing dramatically in the middle of things.

Any longer than this, though... she was already starting to worry about them.

"Can we... Can we..." Rarity was puffing from exertion, "Can we please... stop for... a minute?"

Aside from Applejack, the rest of them were in pretty much the same state, she slowed and then stopped, the others drawing up around her. It was a minute before she could even speak, galloping at full stretch for that long was the most excercise she'd done. Ever. Sure she was a lot better off than she would have been a year or so ago, the Nightmare Moon incident had been a wake-up call for how unfit she actually was at the time, since then there had been plenty of times that had brought her muscles into steadily more and more use... Before coming to Ponyville a gallop like this wouldn't have been physically possible for her.

She raised her head and watched the humongous cloud formation, looking dark as a cave underneath but for the jagged blue light it walked on. Her friends were in there... somewhere...

"Ya think they're okay in there?" AJ voiced the question they were all thinking.

"I hope so." She replied, trying to make out details from this distance.

"They'll be fine, silly filly," Pinkie pulled them both to her sides in a hug, "Dashie's the best young flyer, and the best weather pony I've ever met!"

"And, um, Wind Chaser said he'd bring her back safely." Fluttershy's huge eyes were scanning back and forth over the airborne edifice.

"That's right, and Wind Chaser's the most super pegasus from another world I've ever met too! Well, he's also the only pegasus from another world I've ever met, and he's also an earth pony and, ooh... whatever, he's nice, and Dashie likes him, so I like him too. I don't like him like Dashie likes him, because that would be super awkward, but I think we're gonna be good friends. And when they get back we can throw them a party!"

"You're right, my dear, they'll be fine." Rarity's agreed quickly, cutting Pinkie's next sentence off before it could begin. It had the right effect though, and the party pony hugged her friends tighter.

"What's that?" Twilight thought she saw a flash of something magical, right down at the front of the mountain of cloud.

"What's what?" Pinkie craned forward, she looked at the right spot in time to see a waft of smoke rise from it. At this distance it looked tiny, like the little streamer of smoke you'd get from a tea-light candle when you blew it out. But if you looked at the trees near it, the scale was easier to guess and the smoke must have been thirty feet into the air.

It lasted no longer than the haze from a snuffed candle, too, gone in a moment or so. But next thing they saw, a few minutes later, was a streak of white shoot up from the spot and head underneath the edifice of vapour and lightning.

"That was Wind Chaser, had to be!" She found herself smiling, he had been flying fast, so he couldn't be hurt, and if he was okay then Dash was too.

"Hoo-wee, tha's a load off mah mind. An' look! There's Dash!"

"Oh yes! There she is!" Rarity cheered.

Sure enough a rainbow contrail looped high out of somewhere near the top of the towering pile, turned in a broad arc, and dived back down inside again at a different angle.

"Thank goodness," Fluttershy breathed,

"Yeah! Go Dashie! Go Chaser! You da ponies!" Pinkie bounced and waved a pair of pom-poms she'd pulled from... wait... she wasn't wearing saddlebags, where in the hay did she...? Nevermind.

"Hey, Ah know Chaser said t'get as far as we could, but... this is som'thin' Ah gotta see." Applejack seemed to be shifting from hoof to hoof, as if desire to stay and desire to go were warring with each other.

"Go Dashie! Go Chaser! Go Dashie! Go Chaser!"

To be honest, she thought so too, she'd never seen anypony, not even Dash, take on something like this. It wasn't just concern for her friends that made her want to stay, it was the curiosity about whether it could even be done.

"We're far out of the way here, darling, we could stand to at least see them succeed. They'll catch us up easier this way too." Rarity's voice sounded like she was half convincing herself of the idea.

"Go Dashie! Go Chaser! Go Dashie! Go Chaser!"

"I, um... I would... could we stay and watch? If that's... okay?" Fluttershy hid behind her mane a little.

"Go Dashie! Go Chaser! Go Da-gllmp!"

"Fine, we'll wait here for them." she agreed, ignoring the sound of somepony smothering Pinkie behind her, secretly happy that her friends had 'talked her into it'.

* * *

It was definitely darker under here now. The sun had risen further and its warmth now vanished as the rays couldn't spread underneath the threatening ceiling.

The vortex at the core of the storm still spun lazily, or so it seemed, the thing was so huge that it looked that way anyway. Around it wind-speeds were gusting to bone-breaking speeds, too fast to even hope of flying into; if she wanted to keep her wings on her body that is.

She couldn't focus on Chaser right now, whatever he wanted to do, she was going through with this. But... she hoped he was following. Something about the way he'd tried to talk her into coming with him... no! She needed to stay on the job. This was weather working, and he knew nothing about it.

Up... she had to go up, in from the top where the air was thin and she'd have the mass to push through.

A lot of weather theory passed over her head when other ponies talked about it, you weren't supposed to work it out on paper, you weren't supposed to make silly equations about it, weather working was something that you felt in the flex of your pinions and the pit of your stomach.

She barrelled up into the Rub, and then pushed through the underlayer of the clouds before any lightning could focus on her. It was like plowing through cotton candy, except it never bunched up, just tore. A moment or so later, she hit a... well it was a space.

There shouldn't be space here, the clouds were so compressed around the vortex there shouldn't be anything out here but cloud.

Looking around though... her entire idea of what a storm should be within was turned upside-down. The whole thing was hollow!

Like a massive dome, the clouds formed a chamber of immense size that, itself, was full of sparking discharge like a second Rub zone. It was pierced right through the center by a pillar of air and sunlight, the vortex, but it just... boggled the mind. Everything else was a sculpted landscape, ridges, arches and spiraling shapes of cloud formed a vast three-dimensional carpet of texture around the floor and walls, and it was the tips of these shapes that sparked lightning from one to the other.

There was no way to safely fly across the middle, not with the gale-force winds in there, and the lightning made straight lines nearly impossible, safest way to go up was around the walls.

She set off, no point wasting time gawping. Weaving around the cloudscape pillars, towers and arches was a challenge, in a good way, to her acrobatics. The shapes were irregular, the distances deceiving, the whole trip was like an extreme obstacle course from flight camp.

That haunting moan from before came drifting across the inside of the storm, lightning crackles making it distort, but it was far clearer than it had been. Lightning flickered in the arches ahead of her, and suddenly the entire area around her lit up in flashes of electricity. It pulled her up short, the gap between two pillars she'd been about to take had started arcing with flashes and hadn't stopped.

Another low-toned moan, or that's what it sounded like, and lightning flickered again. The noise and the lightning... There was no way they weren't linked.

"Gah!" She actually yelled out loud, lightning was sparking all around her now, above and below since she was half-way up the 'wall' of this place. She had no idea how she wasn't being hit by anything, but the bolts seemed to be happy enough arcing between the cloud shapes, and she was happy to let them not instantly roast her.

Another moan... louder now, and a lot clearer. Looking around for the source of it, since she couldn't well move anywhere else, she spotted movement.

Two shapes were galloping - sort of - through the air on the other side of this weird dome, they were off at a tangent to the vortex, but they seemed to be heading right for it. They leapt into the outside edge, to be whipped around the other side of it from her, one huge swing around. Then she hovered, wide-eyed, as they slingshot themselves off the gigantic pillar of current and into a huge leap straight at her!

Closer, and closer, they hurtled as fast as a flying pegasus, but they didn't have wings. And now it was all too clear what they were; wolves! Úlfur! They were hurtling dead at her, up and up and up, then arcing down in a shallow dive right at the easy target she must have made sitting here ringed by lightning.

She flinched... and a flash of light with the static crack of electricity filled the air with ozone. There were no arcs of lightning left, she was free, technically. But there they were.

Two huge beasts, standing easily half again as tall as she was, shaggy furred, glowing eyed, fanged and panting slowly. They were wearing ragged cloaks, layers of them in a floating, shifting mass behind their shoulders, defying gravity in the same way that the royal princesses' hair flowed in a wind that wasn't there.

"What do we have here, brother?" She stared, he sounded... nice. How in the great wide world of hay did he sound nice?! He was a wolf, his 'brother' there was growling at her, and he sounded like the kind of guy she could meet in Ponyville high street!

The other wolf was growling, deep and low. He stopped long enough to mutter something she couldn't hear, but the first spoke up again quickly.

"Pegasus ponies don't do well in úlfur stormclouds, you want to turn around and head straight out of here little morsel," It was like he was telling her not to step on a flower bed, "before I let Raijin eat you."

Now he grinned, he grinned a whole mouth full of sharp fangs. Raijin did the same, and she froze, wings locking in fright and her hooves touching down on the weird spiral cloud beneath her.

Come on! They weren't so scary! Say something! "Y-you don't s-scare me!" Oh crud...

The first wolf laughed, and Raijin stopped growling long enough to look around to figure out who she could be talking to, before giving her a tilted-head look of sarcasm.

"I say we eat her Fuujin, she's made it this far, it'd only be a fitting reward for her hard work."

Eat... her...?

"No, no," Fuujin laughed, "we can't spoil it for Athelgeir. But afterwards I say we find this one again and play with her a little bit."

They leered at her. She'd never been leered at like that before, not with teeth in it... Oh Celestia she was in trouble now...

"How about we play a little game right now?" Raijin's yellow eyes narrowed at her.

"What do you suggest?" His brother also looked at Dash with a calculating gaze,

"I give her to the count of five, she runs, we chase. If we catch her, she's ours and we eat her!" Raijin's tongue lolled out of his mouth as his grin stretched wide, far wider than any grin even Pinkie could pull off, because hers didn't have canines.

"And if we don't? Let's be fair, brother. How about if we don't catch her, she gets to go free and we wait for a year before trying to find her again?"

"Six months!" Raijin bartered,

"Done." Fuujin turned his attention back to the trembling pegasus, "Understand, little morsel? You run away, we chase. We catch you, we eat you. But, if we don't catch you, you go free and have a whole six months head-start before we chase you again."

Dash felt her wings trying to rise, she had to get away, she had to! But... She looked past them, the vortex in the center... if she could just get inside, they wouldn't be able to reach her in time to stop her, she could escape them and still fix this.

"Five..." Raijin began, tongue slipping back out to loll to one side again.

She squeeked. The Dash didn't squeek! But that had startled her. Think! Think Dash, think! How to get away, how to get away...

"Four..." The wolf licked his lips,

"Better fly, little pony." Fuujin warned her, also cleaning his lips with his broad tongue.

She didn't stop to hear 'three', she was gone. She shot past them, straight out and away, but pulled a tight turn and headed right back at them.

This was a gamble, but she liked gambles. Those wolves didn't have wings, so they might not be able to do this... Fuujin and Raijin leapt aside as she careened between them and... punched into the clouds, powering a hole through into the depths of them.

There was an enraged howl behind her, and she knew she'd done something right. If they didn't have wings, they wouldn't be able to power through clouds like she could! If they had to run, they'd be long behind her when she got out and...

Sweet Celestia, that's good... She broke into clear air.

More howls drifted up after her, and she arced over to see whether she'd been right or not... sure enough, there was no sign of them.

Well then... Why don't we turn this into an even better game? She grinned with newfound confidence, and shot back towards the clouds, higher up than she had been and at a different angle. The wind was a bit of a problem, even up here, but it wasn't like she was aiming for anywhere special.

A moment later, she hit the clouds like a stone through water.

* * *

"Are you alright, your Higness?" Her guard captain asked her, trying to stand at attention, despite the obvious pain in his fore-hoof.

"I'm fine, Captain, your guards deserve much praise for holding out as long as you did." Celestia tried to staunch his wounded pride, at the least.

"No, your highness, we failed. But now that we are here, and they must come in to get to us, we will protect you to the last pony." His eyes betrayed none of the emotions that must be swirling inside him.

Celestia looked around the rather airy cage. For a cage it was, lowered into place over them in the middle of the arena, where the damping spells were strongest. The bars were thin, but they weren't meant to be un-breakable, just something to give the guards enough warning of an escape, and the whole effect was of a square bird-cage.

Four úlfur approached the cage door, dragging something between them... it was her wounded guard, the pony who had been unconscious since his own run-in with the wolves. By the loud groan when they threw him in through the door, he was awake at last.

They looked at him silently, letting two of his comrades help him up gingerly, and his eyes panned around the cage slowly, settling at last on the sandy, icey floor below.

"They really did it then..." He muttered to nopony in particular.

"Yes, they did." Celestia felt it her duty to answer this one, to hear the Regent tell it, he had conducted himself with nothing short of heroic valour, outnumbered and surprised. The report of his words before his collapse made sense now too. "They have captured us all, and they move against our homeland, against my sister, even now."

The guards around her looked at their hooves, all trace of military decorum fading in the midst of their despair.

"There is hope, however." She tried to draw them all up, it was her role as their ruler to provide guidance when they could not find it, and by the sun itself she was going to guide them to their former confidence if she had to talk herself hoarse to do it.

"Hope? You mean that pegasus, your Highness?" somepony asked from among them.

"Yes. As long as even one individual still protects Equestria from harm, there will be hope." She paused, then let herself give a little laugh, "Besides, I don't think that 'young lord Athelgeir' is going to be in the mood for conquering anywhere for a while."

The guardsponies returned her light-hearted chuckle a little tentatively, "It was pretty funny..." one of them actually smiled.

"Can somepony fill me in? What's the joke?" Her shaky guard looked around, curiously, especially at the up-swing in mood.

"Oh you should have seen it... big pegasus took out their guy right in front of the whole arena, threatened to geld him if the Regent didn't do something to stop it."

"No way...?" His eyebrows shot up under the rim of his helmet, this was the best news he'd heard all week.

"Yeah," another joined in, "they had the whole thing projected up on the ceiling, like we were right there next to the guy, the one who was going to be the Mikill thingy." Celestia smirked at 'mikill thingy', "He was going on and on about how he could see Canterlot and how the guards were running scared, as if! Then suddenly wham! we can't see anything at all, it's all white, and this guy yells 'Greetings! These are my hooves!' Next thing we know, the wolf guy's been trussed up like a rodeo cow and this pegasus is yelling at the Regent through the ceiling."

There was no need to steer them on any more, Celestia realised, her guards were fine. As soon as they had something to laugh about, they became their old selves again and conversation started flowing freely all around her.

Just a little hope. That's all it took.

* * *

She blasted into the central chamber again, higher than ever. Every time she was somewhere the wolves weren't, too far away, too fast, too low or too high.

It really was a game! She was flying circles around them and they didn't know what to think, let alone what to do! Oh, if Chaser could see her now!

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Chaser doesn't care! If he cared, he'd be here!

A wolf was on her tail, so she dived into the vortex and let it spin her around and out towards another wall. Best bit about this, the wolves couldn't turn on the lightning, or so it seemed. They didn't want to fry her, they wanted to catch her! So here she was flying in and out, and all they could do was play catch-up. Soon enough she'd have them running to one corner of the clouds before she dove into the very top of the vortex. It'd be cold up there, but not so cold that she wouldn't be able to stand it long enough to dive down again. And there'd be no way for them to stop her!

Just one more pass and... A howl shuddered from across the inner space and the whole wall ahead of her lit up with arc lightning!

She pulled up and turned to head another way, another howl, another wall of light greeted her. Again, she hauled herself into a turn.

"Such a shame, little morsel." She shrieked and dived, he had been right next to her!!

"You could have run!" The other was right there!

She threw herself into the vortex and pulled up as hard as she could, but she could see them both watching her as she sped around the other side, eyes watering. She slid out of the outer jet-winds, feathers a little ruffled even this far out from the core.

They were watching her, standing still in mid-air. Half way up, half way across, and half way around the vortex on either side from her.

She turned left. She turned right... Then she flew for the wall again, and they howled. The lattice of strange shapes lit up in crackles and snaps of pure power. Turning... they were almost on her! On either side, closing in, either one of them could start bounding forward any time and even if she was quick, she'd only escape one to run straight to the other's jaws.

She backed up, slowly, further and further towards the wall full of lightning behind her. She was near the bottom of the space, the wall curving under her, and the úlfur were closing in from both sides above.

"Come to us, little morsel. Come and become ours..." The wolf on her left had glowing blue eyes, literally alive with some kind of energy.

"You lose." The other had glowing yellow, twin lamps of malice that lit his muzzle from behind.

She couldn't speak, could hardly breathe... Lightning behind her, teeth in front of her...

Teeth... Teeth... TEETH!!

Her heart was pounding a mile a minute, and then... everything stopped.

An enormous roar of anger and pain, trailing pure power and dazzling white energy, erupted from above her. One second she was staring at her death, the next both wolves were engulfed in the torrent of screaming, dazzling white.

The lightning shut off like a fire doused with a bucket of mud, just a wet sizzle and the smell of something burning.

It was a moment she'd remember for the rest of her life. She would wake at night, screaming from fear of teeth and death and then remember that pillar of crackling fire that smashed it away from her. She'd remember the roar of it, a battle cry, a scream of pain. She'd try, again and again, to make out a shape in her mind, something that would have given her a clue as to what she was seeing before it ended. And even with hindsight, the details forever remained unclear.

Below her now, in a crater that once had been a tower of cloud shapes, the wolves struggled to rise, only they couldn't, they were being held at bay by...

"CHASER!!" She screamed his name like a drowning pony sighting a life boat cresting the waves towards her.

"FLY YOU IDIOT!" He roared over his shoulder at her, "GET OUT OF HERE!"

She stared, his whole body was smoking, sizzling even, and his coat was pock-marked with red-raw flesh. His wings were pressed, leading edge down, into Fuujin and Raijin's chests as he pinned the two wolves to the floor. A floor which was giving and bending around them as she watched.

A buzzing shape interrupted her vision, distracting her, Kirianna, the green ball of fluff, was making emphatic movements in front of her. Following the parasprite's insistent darts, she saw a hole in the clouds behind her, must have been where Chaser came in, it led downwards and away. A perfect escape, ready made.

"But..." She turned and stared back down. Chaser was losing ground against the two wolves, his wings weren't moving, but the two crazed úlfur were biting and scratching with all their might. While they weren't hurting the un-singed pinions, every time one hooked a claw into his coat, it drew blood. He lost his footing for a moment as a kicking hind-leg caught the raw flesh on his flank.

But he wasn't looking at the wolves, he was looking back at her. Kirianna's teeth found her flank and Dash jolted, glaring at the little creature, but the parasprite just flew in close and grabbed the red tips of her spiky fringe and pulled, trying to tug her along.

"Lemmego!" Dash flicked her head and turned back to Chaser, who was still watching her over his shoulder. Everything his gaze told her said she should go, but what about him? What was he going to do against these two wolves on his own? "Chaser!" She shouted again, hesitating right on the edge of the tunnel through the clouds.

"I SAID GO!!" His voice cracked at her like a whip, and the last thing she saw as she turned tail and hurled herself into the hole he'd made was his desperate face as he reared back to stomp on the struggling úlfur.

* * *

Huh... and you thought the last chapter was a cliff-hanger...

I am so excited... the talented HeWhoErasesMost has agreed to save my embarrassment and do the cover art for my little story here! Go to his page! Give him love for me, I'm so, so very happy I could hug the crazy artist if I could!

Until next time.

Comments

[shira]

Brilliant!

It'll be hard waiting for the next update but life comes before fics. I think we can wait patiently for the good stuff

[Thaylien]

221841

Why thank you, as always. I do hate dropping cliff-hangers on everyone... but darnit if it isn't fun

[Celestial]

Haha, here comes the flank-kicking!
Definitely two beautiful chapters. The most memorable parts to me were Luna's trance, the weird faces (oh the faces! ), Chaser threatening with gelding (..pffthahaha! ), Cahser bursting through lightning to save RD, but most importantly, the royal guards keeping the jokes about even in the dimmest of situations. Ponies are a very positive and hopeful race, and authors seem to forget that oh so easily when trouble and/or grimdark sweep the pages; you instead managed to convey that precisely, and I want to thank you for that
Also, strange as it sounds, you're the first I read about that mentioned Rarity being initially from outside Ponyville, and that's quite a feat mister
Cannot wait for you to submit your story to EqD, you deserve every view that it will bring you!

[Thaylien]

224003

'All it takes is a little hope.' If you can get that sentiment right, then you've got the best adventure filler sections for this kind of story. Also, you've gotta love making silly faces at ponies, especially as a pony (pony faces gurn better!), although I'm pretty sure that Chaser might be leaning towards the Renegade side with confluttershying Fluttershy. Can you imagine her adorably confused face? I can. It's epic levels of cute.

Ah, but I think I might have confluttershy'd you as well, that part about being from outside Ponyville was supposed to be from Twilight's perspective, and Rarity was simply the prompt for them to stop and talk rest for a bit (nopony expected her or Twi to keep that kind of pace up for as long as they did). After realising that writing from the perspective of Dash, Twilight, Chaser and Kiri, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Fuujin and Raijin already... that was the probable limit. There might be a few scenes featuring the important bad-guys, but I won't be writing from the perspectives of the other four mane six.

In any case, I need to get on with the next chapter, Chaser's hurt and alone and... well, I don't like leaving him that way! I need to at least write him better, then I can rest.