//------------------------------// // A Midnight Conversation, Part Four // Story: Utaan // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// "Anything, Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash asked. Her ghostly pegasus friend hovered in a tight yellow ball, clutching her skull tightly. Her facial features were strained to the breaking point. Rainbow gulped. "Anything at all?" "Mrmfffff... guh!" At last, Fluttershy exhaled, hovering limply above the bleakweed platform. "Nothing..." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Rainbow Dash, but whoever those sarosian scouts found—I'm not sensing a single soul to the west of us." "Well, that's a good thing, r-right?" Rarity remarked, tapping Fluttershy's shoulder. She turned to look at Rainbow Dash. "It means that they're quite a distance away." "Right..." Rainbow nodded. "Could be days before they even get here." "Yeah?" Logan's nostrils flared. "So what?! There's only a hundred or so of those creeps!" Sarosians muttered en masse as he pounded his chest and grumbled, "Let's just knock 'em out and let them sink to the bottom of the ocean!" "Big Show..." Rainbow snarled. "What are we waiting for—?!" Rainbow protested: "This is not about—" "The land dweller speaks truth!" Enix frowned, hovering above the velvety crowd. "If these cretins seek to harm the Blood of Luna, then let us bring our wrath upon them in turn—!" "My little ponies!" Princess Luna's voice thundered, instantly silencing the group situated on the platform. In a calmer tone, she spoke: "Please let my avatar speak." Enix shuddered. She exchanged glances with Xarchellus and eventually bowed. "But of course, Maiden of the Moon..." Rainbow Dash hovered within view of everypony, frowning. "I did not come all this way just to paint the ocean red." Her teeth showed. "Especially after we friggin' set you batty dudes straight from the whole 'murderous pirate crap' thing!" "Rainbow Dash," Ariel spoke calmly. "Nopony's expecting you to go back on your peacekeeping." "Your mortal admirer is right, Austraeoh," Remna said. Ariel rolled her eyes. "Stop calling me her mortal adm—" Remna continued, firmly: "It is a conceivably noble thing that you have done here: reuniting these wayward souls with their matriarch familiar. I would wish no less for my own brood someday." The mare's green eyes narrowed. "But it would undermine all that you have accomplished to throw it all to the fire for the sake of some thinly-defined principle." "Besides!" Logan gestured. "We're only talking about a few death squads here!" "Don't play it off so flippantly, Big Show," Flynn grumbled. Logan glared aside. "Just who's side are you on?" Flynn's nostrils flared. "If Rohbreddenites have made it this far east in tracking the 'Rainbow Rogue,' they can only be set on one thing: absolute friggin' bloody murder. You think a bunch of midnighter pirates are going to stop them from carving a crimson path to the edge of the world? No matter how big their number?" "But any way you look at it, it's a losing battle!" Logan exclaimed. "I would beg to differr," Kepler remarked. "Oh! Tch!" Logan rolled his eyes. "You would." "Allow me to speak, brrotherr." Kepler adjusted his spectacles and glanced at the sarosians at large. "You have grreat strrength, dearr childrren of Luna—both in numberrs and in courrage. Howeverr, none of this will matterr to the self-prroclaimed avengerrs of Verrlax. Therre is a grreat void in theirr hearrts, and one might even arrgue that the void has always been therre, fosterred thrrough pain and ignorrance by a false goddess. When they arrrive—and when they discoverr you prrotecting the Rrainbow one—they will stop at nothing to make surre that all of you sufferr. They will rrip and tearr and murrderr with no second thoughts." "And don't think they're chumps either," Flynn added, gazing at the crowd. "Your messengers said that they were heavily armored. No doubt that this is the best of the best that Rohbredden's military has to offer." "So what?!" Logan shrugged. "We owned a whole bunch of them back in the frozen battlefields!" "We had Mortuana on our side," Flynn argued. "And a stampede of windigoes wasted the enemy forces before they could regroup and form a counterattack." He pointed. "And we wouldn't have gotten anywhere in Starkiss hadn't several dozen of the Central Guard turned on the rest and bought us time to get to the Throne of Verlaxion!" "We could have gone the distance with them!" Logan's nostrils flared. "I'm sure of it!" "That is not the issue herre, frriend," Kepler said. "Can the midnighterrs defeat these two ships of zealous warrriors? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Howeverr... the loss of life will be catastrrophic." The wyvern turned to gaze at the sarosians again. "Ask yourrselves if that would trruly be a victorry." Rainbow Dash added breathily, "Or a 'victory' worth taking home to Equestria." Xarchellus leaned back, rubbing her chin in thought. "Okay... l-look..." Echo paced forward, gesturing with a hoof. "Maybe it doesn't have to involve a battle. Maybe... y'know..." He blinked. "...we can just scare the ever-loving shit out of them." "Scare them?" Nicole squeaked. "Yeesh, Echo..." Ariel huffed. "Have you been sniffing the guano?" "Can it, toots. I'm serious." Echo frowned. "Ponies back in Rohbredden are scared to death of the 'Seventh Tribe.' Maybe... we don't even have to face these assholes one-on-one. Maybe all we gotta do is shoot a bunch of burning moonrocks at them. Show off all of these snazzy submersibles. Y'know... shock and awe! Wave our bleakweed dicks around and call it a night!" Flynn squinted his one good eye. "Do you really think that's going to scare off a bunch of soldiers dead-set on slitting the throat of the mare who murdered their Queen?" "It's better than going balls-out pugilistic!" Echo cackled. "Look—I'm with Rainbow! I'm sick and tired of doing things the nasty and violent way! If there's a plausible solution for avoiding that, don't you think we should snort that shit?" "I ain't sure there is a way to avoid bloodshed here," Bard said. Nicole looked at her older brother. "You mean you think we should attack those ships?" Bard shrugged, exchanging glances with Wildcard. "I'm just sayin' that... with the importance of Rainbow gettin' to the Dark Side, we're gonna be buttin' heads one way or another. Seems rather foolish to assume that shiet's unavoidable." Wildcard nodded. "Okay..." Logan rubbed his forehead. "...then I'd say we bring it back to my first suggestion." He looked up. "We knock out these bastards in one fell swoop." "Big Show..." Rainbow began. "And it doesn't have to cost the lives of these precious bat ponies! I mean... shit alive..." He gestured at the massive platform beneath the assembled sarosians. "Couldn't you just... bring this whole dayum structure beneath the two ships and... SPLOOSH! Breach the surface super quick and reduce their vessels to dust?" "Yeah!" Ariel grinned wide. "Like one massive torpedo!" Bard whistled. "Now there's somethin'." "This torpedo you're talking about would sink in a million pieces," Echo droned. Wildcard and Bard gave him a double-take. "Huh?" Ariel blinked. Echo sighed. "We're standing atop an underwater mountain here, geniuses. This place is a lot more fragile than it looks." He pointed at the reflective spots of shining silver light beneath the choppy waves. "The spells put in place to keep out the water are super intricate. If even one of the lunar runes is damaged, it could cause a super shitty chain reaction that would damage an entire branch of Bleak's Plummet." "You can't be serious," Ariel stammered. "Oh, I'm pretty sure he is," Flynn said, focusing on the underwater lights with his mechanical eye. "I've been staring at those runes ever since we first arrived here. I'm amazed the whole habitat holds together the way it does. For a while, I've been hypothesizing that some interior runic enchantment is responsible for reinforcing the structural integrity." He glanced up at the crowd. "But I'm guessing the truth is... far less flattering." Xarchellus nodded gravely. "We live in a blessedly strong structure... but it is old... and we are swiftly running out of moon rocks necessary for maintaining the enchantment." "The matriarch speaks true," Enix said. "Bleak's Plummet has suffered no less than three damaging catastrophes in my lifetime alone." Her slitted eyes narrowed. "Once was when a group of privateers stumbled upon us while we were surfaced and staged an attack." "We lost an entire branch to the depths," Xarchellus said. "Twenty brave souls perished instantly. Although we swiftly fought off the attackers, the damage had been done." She gravely shook her head. "We simply cannot attempt a maneuver the likes of which the Austraeoh's companions are suggesting." "In fact, it has been our aim to strike passing ships far away from our habitat," Enix said. "Over the past two decades, that has been my charge, and I have succeeded so far in keeping the exact location of our fragile home a secret." The Nightblood warrior nevertheless shuddered. "However... even that task has been growing difficult as of late." "Allow us to guess," Kepler remarked. "You arre swiftly rrunning out of the moon rrunes necessarry for staging an offense." Several sarosian warriors hung their heads. "As it stands, we have just enough enchantment to relocate Bleak's Plummet for the westward exodus that the Matriarch has agreed to," Enix declared. "We would—of course—hope to have enough runes leftover to sustain us for the march across the so-called 'Grand Choke.' And yet..." Fidgeting, the warrior glanced at Rainbow Dash. "We would be remiss in not assisting the Austraeoh in her ever-important journey to the Midnight Armory." "We desire with all of our combined hearts to be reunited with the Maiden of the Moon," Xarchellus declared. "But we also understand that there is far more at risk here than our own particular need—something that we have ruthlessly soured with the years and years of unnecessary bloodletting that the Vigil has forced us to commit." She took a deep breath, gazing at her subordinates. "If need be, we shall forfeit our exodus for the sole sake of assisting the Austraeoh in a last ditch defense against these nefarious forces." "Whoah whoah whoah—hold the sound stone." Rainbow Dash waved her forelimbs while gazing skyward. "Luna, don't let them back out of this whole reunion thing." "Agreed. Dearest Xarchellus—let us not be too hasty in our decision-making." Xarchellus bowed low. "With all due respect, oh Maiden, but I fear we haven't the time to commit to otherwise. Our blessed communication with you is nearly ended, and we have murderous land-dwellers arriving at the branches of Bleak's Plummet." "I share much of Rainbow Dash's concern. While I will be the first to admit that—historically speaking—violent combat is a necessary albeit unfortunate means to an end, one must always search for a harmonic solution." "Except when there is a complete lack of one," Remna said, forcing several Heraldites to wince. "As my sister has made abundantly clear." Rainbow inhaled sharply. "Has she?" She spun around to frown at the mare. "I already screwed over one civilization to get the job done. Why do I have to screw over another? Especially after I just showed them another way to live their awesome, precious lives?" "I don't see you possessing any other option here, Austraeoh," Remna said. "Then let's make one! Heck, more than one!" "H-how, exactly?" Ariel exclaimed. "Two thangs are for sure," Bard remarked. "We gotta get you over to the Dark Side... and them bastards from Rohbredden won't stop at nothin' to see that yer dead." "Okay then, listen..." Rainbow Dash paced about in mid-air while her ghostly companions looked on with interest. "...we've got two major problems. But we also have two awesome outcomes: we get me over the edge of the world, and we get these leafy-eared dudes and dudettes home." She shrugged with a stupid grin. "So why not do both?" Flynn and Logan scratched their heads. Enix and Xarchellus blinked blankly. "You... have already confused us, Blood of Luna," Enix muttered. "However... it would please us to no end if you continued." Several other ponies squeaked in affirmation.