"Uhhhh... Uhhhhhhh..." Eagle Eye whimpered as he dangled and dangled some more. He gazed down and gulped at the distant treetops of jagged pines looming below the managlider in naked starlight. "Uhhhhhhhh..."
"Will ya flippin' settle down?!" Josho grumbled, coasting the craft northwest over mountaintops. "Last time I piloted a managlider sober was before the Eastern Valley Campaign. I bet you were too busy sucking on your tail and crapping onto your mother's backside."
"Th-This would be a lot easier for the b-both of us if I wasn't hanging off the side like a loose anchor!" Eagle Eye exclaimed.
"Like Hell I'm gonna share this seat with you!" Josho grunted. "I don't take kindly to the position we would need to be in. Just rest your flank; the trouble is behind us now—"
At that precise moment, a cluster of pine trees exploded beneath them. Chunks of wood, burning pine cones, and a screaming squirrel or two flew past them in the starlight.
"Huh..." Josho glanced back and spotted three glinting objects roaring after them with blue manalight. "Oh, for the love of backsweat!"
"What?! What?!"
"Screw it." Josho reached down with a single hoof and yanked Eagle Eye up by his bound forelimb. "Better do this the dirty way or else it's the dead way!"
"Ooomf!" Eagle Eye grunted, straddling the cramped seat of the managlider in front of the enforcer. "Guh..." He frowned. "The heck do you mean by—" His irises shrunk as he realized that he wasn't straddling the seat so much as he was straddling— "Oh my..."
"No ideas, or else you're gonna have no brain mush!" Josho hissed directly into Eagle Eye's muzzle, as the two stallions had little to no other luxury for mounting the craft. He leaned over Eagle Eye's blanching face and adjusted the control instruments, now with full access. "Keep an eye on our six!"
"On our 'six,' got it—Aaaack!" Eagle Eye clung to Josho, trembling, as the enforcer accelerated over the forested hills, all the while bobbing and weaving to avoid the foxes' energy blasts. The dark night lit up with blue mana as the pursuing vessels took multiple shots at their target. With the sound of screaming engines, Josho plunged their managlider down so that they were soaring along the lines of multiple trees, attempting in desperation to throw off their enemies.
"They're still on us!" Eagle Eye shouted, pivoting his muzzle so that he wasn't screaming directly into Josho's ear. "One of them is closing in fast!"
"Stupid... friggin' Grey Smoke tech..."
"Huh?!"
"These mana-gliders have 'Grey Smoke' written all over them!" Josho grunted over the whipping winds and explosions of mana blasts. "Grey Smoke ponies are good at making speedy vehicles, but they never build any damn rear-turrets into their craft! What the foxes thought they'd get for selling these to the Xonans is beyond me! Give me a heaping helping of Nightshade Industrial tech any day!"
"Thanks for the schoolroom lecture!" Eagle Eye frowned. "Uh... the foxes?"
"Get ready to lend me that shnazzy horn of yours!"
"Excuse me?!"
"Telekinesis, ya fruit badger!" Josho twisted the controls and extended two turrets from the managlider's front. "I'm gonna give you something to lob at them!"
"Oh jeez... oh jeez oh jeez oh jeezz—"
"Heads up!" Josho fired into a line of trees directly in front of them. Burning chunks of wood flew high into the stars, sailing straight at them.
Clinging to Josho, Eagle thrusted his neck forward and aimed his horn into the smoldering cloud of debris. He caught over a dozen shards of wood, carrying them with the craft as Josho lifted them both into a steady climb.
Blue streaks of mana surged violently close to their ascending forms.
"Anyday now, kid!" Josho grunted.
"Nnngh!" Eagle jerked his head beyond Josho's shoulder. One by one, he flung the burning wreckage at the pursuers, pelting their crafts like a rebel flinging molotov cocktails.
For the most part, the foxes swerved left and right to avoid the materials altogether. One or two chunks of ashen mess ricocheted off the vehicles' silver bodies, but it had no effect.
"Nothing's helping!" Eagle Eye exclaimed.
"Kid...?" Josho cracked the joints in his neck and yerked at the controls. "Get ready to fling all of the junk at once."
"Huh—Whoah!" Eagle Eye pressed hard into Josho's chest as the managlider soared skyward. Josho flipped the craft about and twirled it in the opposite direction, sailing straight towards the three foxes. Before the vehicles could swerve out of the way, Eagle Eye got the drop on them by tossing all that was left of his telekinetic debris. Two of the pursuers dodged, but one of them took a face-full of the smoldering bricabrac. Blinded, her failed to swerve out of Josho's line of sight.
"Eat the Queen's wrath!" Josho hollered maniacally, his hooves slapping over the trigger mechanisms. Bright blue streams of energy flew into the one pilot's craft and ruptured the manacore from the inside. A huge ball of fire erupted in the air, laced with screams and fox fur. Josho flew underneath it, barely falling past the spreading bits of shrapnel. "Hah!" Josho yelled again, pulling the craft up in a spiraling path that banked them once more towards the northwest. "Best fox hunt I've ever been on!"
"'Eat the Queen's wrath?!'" Eagle Eye stammered.
"Oh, don't you friggin' start..."
"I'm just saying, before he died, he likely only heard 'Eat the Queen.'"
"Look, we killed the bastard, okay?"
"Wouldn't Ledo be ticked off to think that you implied—?"
"What will it take to get you to shut up?!" Josho's frown left him as two explosions of blue flak erupted on either side of them.
Eagle Eye buried his face in Josho's chest. "Get th-them off our tail, pleeeeease!" he yelled into the obese pony's graying coat.
"Oh, buck this all to Hell." Josho yanked back at the controls.
The two stallions' manes blew like windsocks as they climbed, climbed, climbed up towards the starlit zenith. Flying straight skyward, Josho sought to outfly the two remaining pursuers. The foxes proved too resilient—or too pissed off—to let the ponies go. They spun and twirled to dodge streaming sprays of blue mana, but soon that was the least of their problems. The air grew thin, frigid, and frosty. The engine strained and the manathrusters began to sputter.
"Come on... Come on..." Josho jerked and jerked at the controls.
"We're stalling!" Eagle Eye trembled to say.
"They c-can't possibly follow us this high—"
"Look, I know enough about airflight to tell you that at this rate, we're gonna—"
For a split second, there was no gravity, and then the managlider plunged straight back. If the two stallions could scream, they would hear their voices sailing behind them. Instead, they heard the sputtering of two more engines, and realized that theirs wasn't the only vehicle that had stalled. As the clouds passed and cleared, they looked on either side of them to see the foxes' gliders falling like identical stones, plummeting towards the rock-hard mountains below.
"Pull us out of this!" Eagle Eye grunted. "Pull us up!"
"What does it look like I'm trying to—"
"Haaah!" One of the foxes pivoted his craft about in free-fall. His lopside turrets spun around, firing madly in a blue stream.
Eagle Eye and Josho concentrated, summoning a bubble of telekinesis directly in front of them. Two or three shots that could have connected with their bodies were instead deflected.
Stupidly, the fox pilot didn't relinguish the grip of his trigger mechanisms in time to avoid shooting past the stallions, and straight into his partner's craft on the other side. The other creature's screams joined the thunderous eruption of his vehicle as the managlider exploded with a hellish burst. The concussion of the blast sent Josho's and Eagle's craft falling sideways until they collided with the last pursuer.
"Guhh!" Eagle Eye jerked and fell loose. He dangled briefly from Josho's manacled forelimb until he got tangled up in the piloting instruments of the enemy glider. The fox gripped his lower body and pulled out a revolver, aiming it at Josho's skull. "Look out—" Eagle Eye shrieked above the whipping winds.
Josho jerked hard on the controls. He tried breaking loose from the other falling craft, but the gliders' wings were locked together, so that instead of soaring towards safety, the two vehicles spun in an awkward circle. They continued falling, all the while the fox throwing off each of the fox's pot shots. Eagle Eye tried kicking him, but the fox held him back with a stiff leg while jerking in the opposite direction at his controls. This caused the falling vehicles to stop spinning. Grinning wickedly, the creature aimed directly at Josho's heart.
Josho's peripheral vision filled with the rising spires of pine trees. They were just seconds from plunging into the earth. Without a second thought, he flung a beam of telekinesis from his horn and into the barrel of the fox's revolver.
When the fox pulled the trigger, the bullet had nowhere to go. His gun exploded in his grip, taking his furred hand with it. "Gyaaaaugh!" the fox fell back against his seat, clutching the bloodied stub.
Eagle Eye bucked off the glider, knocking it loose so that the vehicle's wings untangled with the stallions. With a desperate lunge, Eagle jumped through the air.
Josho caught him. Slumping back in the seat, he pulled hard on the machine's instruments. The managlider barrel-rolled away from the enemy craft, fired its thrusters, and thundered off just as the pursuer met an explosive end. The air whizzed and whistled from flying shrapnel. Two chunks of metal flew into the belly of the ponies' vehicle, filling the air with the smell of raw mana.
"Wh-what's that?!" Eagle Eye breathlessly stammered.
"We've taken a hit!" Josho growled over his face, struggling to grip the controls easily and hold the smaller stallion at the same time. "I can't hold altitude!"
"Slow us down!"
"If I wanted to, don't you think I would have done that by—" Josho's face paled. "Oh buffalo biscuits."
"What? What?!"
"Hold on!" Josho yanked back, back, back at the controls, almost to the breaking point. Eagle Eye turned to look over his shoulder at the hazard in question. A sharp promontory loomed in front of them, barely a sneeze away from smashing them to bits.
Both ponies let loose a prolonged scream as the engine went out. Two lasting spurts of thruster energy was all it took, and the two miraculously cleared the cliff face. That didn't stop them, however, from ricocheting off two pine trees and grinding several feet through the soft earth. The managlider hit a boulder at the end of its drag, and the two ponies' bodies were launched—flailing—into the jagged forest beyond.
Then all was silent.
Awesomesauce - - we're back to crawling around forests.
Whoa, they actually killed the bad guys.
TRIPLE KILL
EE's lines made me choke on water from laughing.
The interuniversal Scootascale of awsome rates this at 26.8
Those two are just too cute together!
One fox lost an eye, one lost a hand, they all lost the managliders. These guys are just not on top of things today.
2587055
The forests always make me nostalgic of the scenery descriptive chapters of Austraeoh. The crossing of the cold mountains was my favorite though.
EE... Definitely one of the better OCs (even if it wasn't yours).
Back to forests, huh? I'm perfectly okay with that. Nice job, Scolon.
Oh my, indeed. I doubt even George Takei can express the amount of "oh my" that this situation needs.
2587070
Haven't you been paying attention? Even Rainbow's been offing ponies, although mostly it's not very graphic, just throwing them off of really high points or something similar.
2587571
Well yeah, but most of them have a parachute or something.
Even the ones she kills have been offscreen. This time we get chopped of heads, blown off paws, screaming, and bits of fur.
2587217
Yeah. I liked The Rift too. I'm a pretty big post Wintergait fan
NOOOOOOOO!!!
NOT THE SQUIRRELS!!! D:
---
Fun chapter! Wheee~ :D
Hope Roarke will notice those what was happening and come to their rescue.
Either that, or something else. o.0
HA!
2587543
Yes he can.
I Speed At Night - Dio
RIP Ronnie James Dio.
Great chapter! love the Josho/EE banter.
Northwest huh? I wonder if Josho/EE are heading to BlueNova.
Hmm, I have a feeling all heroes are being called to Blue Nova one way or another, and somehow Nightshade Industries isn't the good company we think they are... Then again, I'm always either wrong or guessing the extremely obvious, so meh
Star Fox is down. =(
Gruesome battle is gruesome. Not a good day for foxes. And so much for my mana-glider-will-make-it-easier-for-them-to-meet-up-with-Rainbow theory.
What is it with you and squirrels? Seriously.
almost there... and... fuck, now they have to walk.
"Oh my..." - Can't help but read that in George Takei's voice. I'll be damned if that's a bad thing though.
Dog fights are always freakin' messy. Least we're back to sturdy, forested ground now. The broken limbs might be a problem, mind.
2588630
Nightshade industries? A company named after deadly poison? Good?
2587783 Wintergate was the most beautiful chapter of the entire series to me. It had incredible suspense to it. Both the metaphorical and literal atmosphere were absolutely gooseflesh-inducing - it really put the 'mist' in mystery.
Which leads me to voicing the personal opinion that I actually don't quite like what is happening here. I enjoy your humor Scolon, I really do, but I think you're overdoing it a little bit right now. Maybe your teetering towards us a bit too much? Maybe you aren't taking the story as seriously as I would want you to? I am not certain what the exact reason for my discomfort might be... I just felt the urge to voice it.
Ceterum censeo Searinem delendam esse. That it still stands is actually the real atrocity here.
SO MANY FORESTS.
Grey Smoke? Dammit, colon.
:/ Forest....
More, forest...
Forever forest...
Forest forevermore...
Forests much?
Onwards!
I approve of this chapter title. I also hope there will be a reprise called "Screw the Ocean"
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
What more can I say at this point? Â No, really - I've said everything. Â This was a great action sequence. Â It was as beautiful as always. Â But - But - Just hear me out, I'm having a moment. Â This series has become something very different from the original Austraeoh. Â
In Austraeoh, everything was mysterious. Â You had no clue what was going on and chapters were scenic and beautiful. Â YOU had to think about the story as you read it. Â YOU had to discover Rainbow's quest and the meaning of Austraeoh. Â YOU had to go on the journey with her. Â Yeah, the action was there, and it was good, too, but it was never hugely important. Â It was never about the action, it was about the ADVENTURE. Â The joy of traveling to new places always kept you on the edge of your seat. Â You never knew what was going to come next. Â Everything was unfamiliar and amazing and awe-inspiring. Â It was a masterpiece and a work of art.Â
What is it now?
Well, a lot of the adventure has left. Â We've basically been on the same giant story arc about the Confederacy for 200+ chapters. Â At first, it was exciting - whoa, a new locale! Â Sequencing! Â Where's Rainbow Dash? Â Who's this Bellesmith? Â It was just like Austraeoh - new, exciting, and adventurous. Â Then it started to drag on a bit. Â Sweet, Rainbow's free! Â Now we can, um, get back to flying east, right? Â Yeah, no. Â We've got to go to a forest, find a rebel group - lemme just go ahead and BREAK THAT SHIT DOWN FOR YOU - we've got to go to a forest, get a rebel group, get into a huge, apocalyptic fight with this asshole who, if this were more like Austraeoh, would already be 10,000 miles west of us, but we've still got to fight him now, and, oh yeah, now Rainbow's NEVER going to be able to go east again because she's got x number of new friends that she's built up an emotional connection and just - cannot - leave - behind. Â Oh, and that awe-inspiring mystery? Â Yeah, it's gone. Â We know what Austraeoh is. Â We know Eljunbyro. Â Hell, Innavedr has ALREADY BEEN REFERENCED. Â It took 200 chapters for someone to even say "Austraeoh" in the first story. Â There's a lot more action sequences. Â There's lots more of "Rainbow is awesome and now watch her prove it by kicking <insert bad guy>'s ass." Â Speaking of Rainbow, she seems a lot more cut and dry. Â In Austraeoh, she was DYNAMIC. Â She was MYSTERIOUS. Â She was a lone mare with a troubled past on an epic quest. Â Now she's awesome and she, um, fights. Â Ehh.
COME ON!!!!
I'm done with this. Â You want my evaluation? Â Here it is: Â WRITE AUSTRAEOH, NOT INNAVEDR. Â The Confederacy was good, but MOVE ON. Â It's not in Rainbow's nature to stop traveling, as you established in Austraeoh, but she might as well just buy a house in Ledo's land by now.
I miss the scenery. Â I miss the wonder, the awe. Â I miss the ADVENTURE. Â I won't miss the POV cutting to different characters every ten chapters. Â I won't miss the static character Rainbow's become. Â I might miss her friends a bit, but WE NEED TO MOVE ON. Â If we were following our previous knowledge of Rainbow's chaotic predicament - she also hasn't had a dizzy spell in a century - she should be long gone by now. Â So please - PLEASE - WRITE!!! Â AUSTRAEOH!!!!!!
These are my thoughts so far.Â
-MASH
P.S. Â Posting this is probably a terrible idea, but it felt good to write it. Â At this point, I don't even know what to think...I need to take some time alone to ponder this...
Ah, I spoke too soon. Everything was going better than expected, until our two lovely protagonists decided to play pinball with the local flora. And dang it, stop making me ship E-Josh (I have no idea what to call this. JoshEE?) when I know that it likely won't work out. They deserve happiness, darn it! Also, foxes not having such a good time, are they? I think your dismemberment count has increased significantly since they started getting screen time. Anywho, I gots me some more chapters to devour - onward!
Those mana gliders are freaking flimsy, not to mention volatile.
Was that a furry jab I saw back there?
This was grittier than most of the series thus far, especially considering that the foxes were pretty minor antagonists. I hope this isn't a permanent change in tone. I saw parallels to some scenes in the Petra arc.
Josho and EE are a great pair.
Hoping to catch up soon...
2635778 you have a varry valid pont there and I have been Meaning to post this for a wile now that I have noticed that In austraeoh rainbow flew like a bagellon miles and in the last two books she has hardly flown two. I want two see more of the world that got me in to this fic to start with.
Just saying what you said dashie 76 has been bugging me to
2635778
But that's just like, your opinion man.
I'll admit, it is different. But it's not bad. It's taken the focus from Dash and distributed it among other characters, which disconnects us from Dash indirectly, and yes, it's not Austraeoh, but it's still good.
I think it's very different to Austraeoh. IC has spent a lot of time in Ledomare, but he is gradually moving east. It's just not at the same pace. He also flicked the switch on Dash from being 'unfeeling' to 'feeling', and that's probably a consequence of her death, but he is also taking time to establish other characters.
I think, for IC, 200 chapters of Austraeoh is a lot of time spent on one just one idea and one presentation of that idea. Asking for 200 more is ideal for you, the reader, but very unrealistic. Because times move on. The author changes as a person. The author changes his vision of what he wants you to see, and the ways in which he wants to portray it. If it's a sequel, then he will probably want to pursue other ideas that he's had.
And what's more - you couldn't ask one man to want to run with one idea exactly the way it is for so long. IC published Austraeoh in roughly July 2012. He published Eljunbyro in January of the following year. Innavedr was published in April 2013. That's a full year of the same idea, dude. I wouldn't - and couldn't - pursue the same exact idea so doggedly for a whole year. I mean, surely things would change about my idea or my story over time, or I'd at change the future of the story. And shit, I'm not sure I could run 100% with any idea for more month or two, let alone an entire year. Even if you, the reader, deem this idea to be perfect, it doesn't change anything about how I feel about the idea.
For instance, I once wrote a story that got a lot of attention, and I ended up wanting to change the way it ran, and a lot of people were unhappy that it wasn't in its original form. But I don't have much time to write, and I'd been writing the story in bits and bobs for months and months, and slowly my ideas around the story had changed, and I'd look back on stuff that I'd done and say I preferred otherwise.
So you see, you can't just up and ask the dude to write more Austraeoh. This is Austraeoh, after all. Maybe he'll go back to the same format of 'Dash goes East and gets brief overviews of everything' one day.
>They continued falling, all the while the fox throwing off each of the fox's pot shots.
wat
Ooh, nice job Since I'm mobile, I can't say much, but well-described action scene, as always.
-Spirit
P.S. Ooh, suspense
Ooh, nice job Since I'm mobile, I can't say much, but well-described action scene, as always.
-Spirit
P.S. Ooh, suspense
At that precise moment, a cluster of pine trees exploded beneath them. Chunks of wood, burning pine cones, and a screaming squirrel or two flew past them in the starlight. lol thats filping funny!
2635778
I don't know, man. I liked Austraeoh, I liked Eljunbyro, but I'm tried of all the UNNEEDED mystery and loneliness and all the crud. It's something that didn't define Rainbow, but it gave her needed depth. She has her inner turmoil, her past to run away from, but is it not necessary to come to terms with them eventually? We can't have a depressed Rainbow forever. And she can't travel alone forever. She needs these friends to finally move forward. She was never moving forward until she met Belle. And now she is definitely moving forward.
So I don't think I want more Austraeoh because it makes this whole series useless if she never changes.
Ouch, that's gonna hurt.
4767632
You're right, I don't want to read more of the same thing over and over - I want things to change. The story has changed over the Ledomare arc, but I think that after about 300 chapters, it's about time to move on. I would like to see the fire consumed and pillar activated at Blue Nova before chapter 150 and RD and company moving on before Innavedr ends.
Fucking fantastic
-new friendshipping material
-fantastic action
-forests
you hit the trifecta here buddy boy, IC
Oh, so the foxes took all of the other gliders up after Josho. Not a very bright idea. The Xonans are going to be pissed. But that's not our bound heroes' problem anymore.
RIP more adorably murderous tiny foxes.
And shesh, these two just can't stop falling from stuff.
What a blast of a chapter!
This story has often been funny, but these were the first lines that physically cracked me up.
Eyebrow waggle?
Eat queen
2635778
You probably don't care at this point, but I feel like this is still worth saying: don't yell at the reader. Going on an all-caps spree doesn't make your message stronger, it just makes you seem foolish.
Strength of argument trumps volume of yelling any day.