"Hmmm... the leathery skin... the blue spidery veins... the exposed buttocks..."
Rainbow's eyes teared. Her ears flattened as her muzzle winced and grimaced visibly.
"The thin, wiery hairs that appear willy nilly... the four inch claws... hmmm..."
"...!" Rainbow's eyes popped open. Moist rubies reflecting a twilight sky.
She saw the floating array of rocks over the chaotic crater. They appeared dozens of meters away, looming high above and littered with pale corpses.
The voice resumed—levitating just a few naked feet away from her. "...I swear... they're just so dang familiar..."
"...?" Rainbow flung a look to her left.
Discord "knelt" in mid-air, gazing down at the twitching corpse of a chaos beast. "Yes..." He stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "...yes...I almost think I had one of these as a pet once upon a time. More than one, at least."
Rainbow blinked. Suddenly, the corpse thrashed wildly about, shrieking and clawing at the air. The mare gasped, flapping her wings—only to wince from a penetrating numbness running through her labored body.
"Ah! There it goes!" Discord grinned wide, teeth glinting in the starlight. He lifted up slightly, folding his forelimbs as he proudly watched the bleeding beast struggling to get up. "So persistent! Just what does it have to live for? Death? Well, that's all things, I suppose. But this one just doesn't give a flying—well, you know—about it."
Rainbow panted and panted. Her eyes flickered red-on-yellow, and she resorted to crab-walking backwards across the ground. Her joints ached—the insides and outsides threatening to mutate at any moment from the proximity to the beast.
Hissing, spitting up blood, the mangled thing heard the pony's wheezing breaths. It spun towards her, hissing through a crooked jaw. Its lower legs were useless, and a femur was sticking out of a grotesquely bent limb. Nevertheless, it crawled rapidly towards her, raking and scraping at the earth.
Rainbow crawled backwards away from it, but her pace was far less impressive. The scrambling creature inched closer and closer across the dull, lifeless rock.
"Yes... yes, I definitely would have enjoyed one of these suckers as a pet," Discord said. "At least they make for easier maintenance than gerbils! I mean—think of it—these little fellas will eat anything!"
Rainbow's ear twitched to the sound of banshee shrieks and metal impacts. She flung a brief look to her right and saw the glint of starlight against Bard's bo-staff. "Wildcard," she whimpered. Her vocal cords couldn't decide whether they belonged to a pegasus or a dragonequus, and she struggled to produce a loud enough cry to her friend. "Wildcard! Pl-Please..." Blood trickled from her forehead.
In the crimson flow of the mare's juices, the teeth of the creature glinted. It scrambled closer and closer, laws nipping at her lower fetlocks and tail-hairs.
"They only know how to go in one direction! Just like you, Sparky! Only... in pursuit of a jugular vein, not an alicorn's bright burning sky ball." Discord winked. "Come to think of it, you would make a nice pet too..."
"Celestia..." Rainbow wheezed. Her heart pounded in time with the crawling beast's shrieks. As she scooted backwards, she reached a hoof up—hairs growing and shedding between blinks. Her hoof grazed the lightning bolt of her pendant. "Come on..." She licked her lips, cutting her tongue slightly on a fresh fang or two. "...come on!"
"Hresssssh!" The beast rolled onto her.
"Aaaaaaaaahh—!" She fell back, and as she did so she rubbed the pendant in a concentric circle. A burst of harmonic energy emanated from withing before shooting outward like a ray of sunshine. FLASSSSSSSSSSH!
Cl-Clunk! The beast landed on her... ... ...and did not move.
"... ... ... ... ..." Rainbow Dash winced, forelimbs curling up as she lay helplessly under the stationary creature. As the pallid seconds rolled by, she squinted one eye open and then the other. She blinked at the beast pressed against her.
The monster was dead still... because it had turned to stone. All of it: from head to tail and the sinew in between. Every square inch of its skin and flesh had been reduced to dull gray rock. Even its beady pale eyes had been reduced to glazed chalk.
"Huh..." Discord gave a thumb's up as he slowly, vaporously disappeared. "...the money shot."
Almost perfectly, Twilight Sparkle formed in his place. Her muzzle was hanging agape.
"Rainbow Dash...?" Twilight murmured.
Fluttershy and Applejack floated in.
"Rainbow! Speak to us!"
"Are you alright, sugarcube?"
"I..." Rainbow panted and panted. Wincing, she found the strength to shove the inexplicable statue off of her and sit up. Her shivers were unavoidable as she reached up to clasp her pendant. "I think... I'm..."
"You can see and hear us again, Dashie?!" Pinkie remarked.
Biting her lip, the mare nodded.
"Must of been that there blast of harmony you just let loose!" Applejack said. "Whew! Who'd have known you coulda rendered that varmint to a lawn ornament, huh?"
"I didn't..." Rainbow winced. "I mean... while in the crater, I couldn't even think of—"
"Trolls," Twilight said.
The other marefriends gave her a double-take.
"I beg your pardon, darling?" Rarity remarked.
"Of course...!" Twilight's ears twitched as she looked excitedly at the others. "I know what we're dealing with now! They're trolls!"
"Trolls??" Fluttershy made a face.
"Wowie-zowie!" Pinkie gasped. "Are you so sure-rie?"
"I thought... trolls were a myth?" Applejack squinted. "And even if they weren't... ain't they ancient history? Like... pre-Equestrian?"
"You're right. But here... in a land of full chaos... it's a completely different story!" Twilight Sparkle looked at the others. "According to the written words of Clover the Clever, trolls can be defeated by pure sunlight! Even in the penumbra of the sun's glow, they'll instantly turn to stone!"
Fluttershy eyed Rainbow's pendant. "Or in this case..."
Rainbow heard more sounds of metal impacting. "!!!" Standing upright and regaining her strength, she spun towards the source of the sound. She saw a lone griffin exhaustedly fighting off three bipedal creatures. "Wildcard!" she shouted.
A pair of rattling goggles reflected her petite figure.
"Down!" She hollered, already rubbing her pendant. "Fall to the ground—!"
Without protesting, Wildcard immediately belly-flopped and flattened his body. His three combatants aimed their claws at their suddenly "surrendering" foe.
Gritting her teeth, Rainbow summoned a burst of harmonic energy and fired it in a lightning-bolt-shaped beam that swept over the immediate landscape.
The spotlight swept over all three beasts. Fl-Fl-Flasssh!!! The trolls immediately turned to stone. One of them even toppled over and—Crasssh!—shattered into a hundred pebbly bits.
"Whew!" Applejack whistled, wiping her brow with a smirk. "You and statues, sugarcube..."
"Oh goodness!" Rarity nevertheless winced. "Look at that blood! Is Wildcard okay?"
Fluttershy shuddered. "He's hurting, but he'll be okay so long as we get him to—"
"Rainbow!" Ariel flew in, grinding to a stop against the earth. Breathless, she reached over and grasped the mare's shoulders. "Are you okay?!"
"Simmer down..." Rainbow was still cradling her pendant. "I'm okay. More than that..." She gulped. "...I think I've discovered an edge over these freaks."
Ariel exhaled with relief. "I was so worried when you nearly came into contact with the wagon back there." She frowned. "Why didn't you and Wildcard fly higher?"
"We wanted to, but the situation went south." Rainbow shrugged. "Whatever. Fight scene's gonna fight."
Ariel motioned Curveside. "Flynn's stalled the wagon just a hundred meters away—"
"What for?!?" Rainbow barked. Banshee shrieks lit up from the crater. "They're not going to stop!"
"But I thought you said you found—"
"Won't matter when we're surrounded! Besides, I think my pendant's out of juice for the moment."
Ariel's muzzle twisted. "You're kidding, right?"
"Yeah!" Pinkie floated upside down. "Harmony's got a refractory period! Who'd a thunk it!"
"Never mind. We gotta keep moving." Rainbow turned towards Wildcard. "Wildcard, let's—"
Swisssssssssssh! An Emeraldian rapier flew in and skewered the neck of a stone troll.
CRACK!
Ariel and Rainbow winced.
The beast's head flew clean off, rattling to the floor alongside the rapier. Seconds later, a pale set of talons landed nearby.
"Oh..." Seraphimus exhaled in monotone. "...they're statues now." A charcoal blink. "How quaint."
Wildcard sighed.
Rainbow took a few steps. "Seraphimus, thanks for showing up so swiftly, but—"
"We gotta fly back!" Ariel exclaimed. "Back to the wagon!"
"Right." Seraphimus picked the rapier back up. "Of course we do."
"But it's an open plain!" Ariel exclaimed. She looked worriedly at Rainbow. "Where do we have to flee to?"
Rainbow squirmed in place, thinking hard.
"I... think there may be a simple solution, darling," Rarity said.
"Oh?" Rainbow looked at her. "What are you sensing?"
Before Rarity could explain—
—banshee shrieks lit the air.
The group turned to look towards the crater.
A wave of bounding creatures were already advancing on them.
"Incoming," Seraphimus declared.
"How can there possibly be more of them?!?" Ariel's voice cracked.
Without thinking, Rainbow galloped up to the decapitated troll skull and punted the stone thing into the charge. Three bodies fell hard to the ground from the impacting projectile—but the rest came rushing towards them, faster and faster, undaunted.
"Yyyyyyyeah..." Rainbow exhaled, flapping her wings. "Didn't think that would work." Fwoooosh! She shot Curveside with Seraphimus following closely behind. "You know the drill, children! Move move move—!"
"Come on, Wildcard!" Ariel helped a wincing griffin upwards as the two flew after the other two, ascending swiftly above the reach of the troll army. "Infinite retreat is infinite!"
Don't feed them.
I love Sera so much right now.
Something about kuudere's and how they tend to say "How quaint." is just something hilarious to me.
She shoots, she scores!
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
Wildcard is having a bad day...
8521077
*proceeds to feed them a troll head*
Well unless you can petrify the whole lot of them, Rainbow, I don't think your pendant will get you very far in this fight.
Huh, no wonder they're looking for attention all the time in the most annoying ways imaginable!
I wonder how Rainbow would deal in Discord form for a lengthy time while still retaining her mental faculties(as much as she has them).
Loyalty Laser still works. Keep moving!
I still firmly believe RD going chaos mode is a Game Over. Phazon Corruption. and so on. She's gotta stay in Harmony to live.
Harmony is the name of her ship, not the cap- oh right.
The trolls make me want to reread EoP.
8521096
At least they don't eat their wounded.
What they need to do is get a lens that will let Rainbow's Harmony laser do wide beam.
Huh. And here I was wondering why Dashie didn't just open with the Harmony laser. It worked wonders on Nevlamas, and she was half as chaotic and 1000 times bigger than any trolls.
Come to think, It's kind of a wonder weapon against anything chaotic, innit?
8521210
Why not manufacture a spherical prism to fire it into? Disco ball of harmonic lasery death.
8521188
See, not that, that's not a barrel roll, that's an aileron roll.
A barrel roll has you actually moving in the same direction as the roll.
Nah, that ain't Dash's Limit Break. We're talking Sonic Rainboom for that kind of thing. Or maybe when she learns to use her chaos form. The light splooges from the Element are more akin to handy midrange spells that are situationally useful. Limit Breaks are for clearing the field or ending bosses.
So thus whole fight goes to show why you don't want a party that's mostly fighters. Groups really need a dedicated healer and a dedicated blaster for crowd control. Keps kinda fills the blaster role, but he doesn't seem to be able to use his bombs rapidly. And no healer is really gonna suck if injuries like Wildcard's keep piling up.
Going Harmony has a noticeably less messy method of dealing with bad dudes.
Wildcard is taking too much damage at an alarming rate.
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thenewswheel.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Trollface.png
The only way Wildcard could be continuing is if there was Phoenix Down, Secred Ash etc. Otherwise, this is the long walk to the Hurt Locker, and the only one reaching the Midnight Armory will be an undead Dash.
Now if only Kepler could infuse a chaos bomb with a sympathetic chaos detonator spell, and set off that whole crater.
That's the other story, Applejack.
What type?
Don't feed them...
Yush. Run. We should've known they were trolls... so darn persistent and annoying.
Trolls, and not of the internet variety. Looks like Rainbow has to wait before her harmony laser can fry them again, until then time to scramble away.
Everything tastes the same, everything tastes like chicken, what tastes like fish?
8521449 Edit: Since timestamps evidently don't embed right, go to 2:27.
I didn't even think about using the harmony laser thing on them. Kind of obvious in hindsight.
Yeah turning them to stone one by one wouldn't work anyway she would probably have to find some way to blast them all at the same time. Or something.
What I said before is even more true now. The sword of solstice would be incredibly helpful about now.
Oh boy.
Well, there goes my theory. At least I can use this now: vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/walkingdead/images/3/30/269209_kill-it-with-fire.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150421064045
Needs more Rainboom. I mean seriously... when was the last time we even saw one?
8521091 It's like the fifth consecutive downing in Left 4 Dead or Vermintide. "Just let me die already!"
8521517 To be fair, she did start this whole mess by kicking over Garden Ornament Discord.
8522282
not so much kicking over as turning into a fine powder.
8522195
literally last story, during the fight in Starkiss after she knocked out Sera.
Now more than ever we need a Prism.
8521279
A sphere is not a prism.
A dodecahedron, however, is topologically identical to a sphere.
8522955
Right. That one. Do the thing with that thing and make the thing.
8523087
Although, a regular polyhedron isn't a prism, either, technically, but it would make a stylish projection light.
Imagine how useful hurricane sword would be right now.
8523379
The sword of solstice didn't give off light though.
It needed light to activate it's enchantment, but it didn't have any sort of magical light beams like Dash's pendant does.
Edit, nvm, just checked the wiki, and it did indeed give off a glow, but not a focused beam of harmonic energy like Dash's pendant, it would take a lot longer for the sword to petrify a troll than her pendant would.
Somebody, hand them a flashlight!
goddammit pinkie
Woah! The Tartarusian Curse!
... wait, that's the other story.
The Herald should've brought their lawyer along.
Not retreating, advancing, towards future victory
11/15/2019
03:32 UTC
The way Sera has been talking lately I'm starting to hear her in my head like this.
Ah. Well, I was wrong. Not Diamond Dogs at all. I wonder what they eat, to live here in these numbers? Or do they need to? Can they hibernate? Ah, so many questions, so little time to question the slavering death monsters.
Well there goes my Discorded Diamond Dog theory.
Tactical reverse!