Upheaval: Journeys
Rainbow Dash 6: The Challenge
The backtrack through the long cave proved less agonizing for Rainbow. Probably because she wasn't moving into the unknown this time. She and Longstride made good time, memorizing the path through the place. Tucked away in her pack was the crude bone thing she had picked up. The thing didn't even look like a decent secondary weapon, but something about it compelled her to keep it close. It was throbbing with power earlier. It was dormant for now since she wasn't holding it. Still a faint "hum" emanated from the thing, passing through her body in a steady wave.
"Think the Western Legion can take on Hassyth's group?" Rainbow asked. She knew the answer, but it was still good to just keep up the conversation to stave off both boredom and focusing so heavily on the bone thing. Just thinking about the thing tensed her up like a bowstring in need of release.
"A good portion of the Western Legion has been deployed to the Heartland," Longstride said. "More so than the other Legions as they have been assigned the bulk of training Heartlanders. Even more of the Western Legion has gone north. This will be a stretch of their strength, but they should still be able to muster troops for such an obvious threat."
"Yeah, we got this," Rainbow said with a grin.
Longstride looked back at her. "If you already knew the answer to your question, what was the point of asking? he asked.
"I just wanted to hear you say it," Rainbow snapped. "Don't you get excited for a mission? We're about to get into the heat of ours soon."
"Better to stay calm," Longstride said. He held a foreleg over his eyes as the glare of sunlight marking the entrance finally appeared. "The mission will be accomplished regardless."
Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief. At last, she could soar. A slow, low hover with rocks above her was no substitute for a soaring flight. The trek back may have been faster, but it probably still took half a day. She flapped her wings quickly in anticipation.
A distant boom, like passing thunder, gave her a brief pause. She looked up. Not a trace of storm clouds past the canopy. She didn't smell any dampness. "You hear that?" she asked.
Longstride nodded. "No use worrying about coordinates," he said. "Just follow those explosions."
"What are they?" Rainbow perked her ears, trying to distinguish the sound. She'd heard those sounds before, fairly recently in fact. Where though?
"Arrays," Longstride replied. "Come on."
They flew at a hustling pace, still wary of incoming attacks, but making as best a time as possible. The trees whizzed past them with no deadly arrows in sight. Already, Rainbow saw the edge of the tree line. A bright explosion of colors rocked the ground, shaking the nearby trees, and blowing a strong draft past Rainbow. A few clumps of dirt rained down on both of them as well. The nearness of the blast only excited Rainbow further. She glanced behind her to find Longstride already stringing his bow. Both of them waited for another series of explosions before flying out.
Straight into a whirlwind of fighting.
The ursans were charging the village in huge numbers, more like an avalanche of armored fur than an organized attack. There was no way the village's paltry walls were going to remotely resist this force. Behind the main assault force, more ursans whirled massive slings, hurling small boulders at either the lancers above or the earth ponies milling about. Even as Rainbow looked on, a huge streak of magic arced from behind even the farthest edge of the village, exploding just a few feet away from the slinger group. Even without the direct hit, the blast still forced nearby slingers to hunker down.
Razor Beard's lancers circled the battlefield in loose formations, weaving through boulder shots with practiced maneuvering. They descended in waves, making sure that a fresh one was diving while the first was rising up for another charge. They focused on the slingers, as they should in Rainbow's eyes. Though they survived glancing blows, once every so often, a boulder struck a lancer hard, crushing his armor or tearing off a limb, sending him spiraling to the pitiless ground below. Shatterspine's lances found a lot of new homes among the ursans, stabbing deep into the gaps of their armor, their eyes, their maws, and even through the steel plates. Blood spurted and fountained with each dive, echoed by pained cries and battle shouts.
The main ursan assault would have broken through the village, given that the lancers were not actually blocking their path. The Western Legion's earth ponies persistently harrassed them, however. These brave, outright reckless, legionnaires charged the ursans with over-sized blades and spears while sporting very little protection, diverting the charge into all sorts of directions. They never fought head on, always retreating once attention focused on them, while allies closed in on the sides to slowly bleed out the enemy. It was a perilous task they performed, and a vital one. Behind them was a path to several groups of unicorns in their arrays.
"We've got to help!" Rainbow told Longstride. He already had an arrow nocked even as he flew up. Rainbow didn't have the luxury of being able to hit so precisely from such a distance. She flew in, easily dodging a few clumsy swipes from some surprised ursans. Several boulders flew over her, but nothing too threatening. She had singled out a particularly large ursan who was lumbering towards the gate. This one had successfully batted down a couple of unlucky lancers, shredding their armor with its enormous claws, and knocking them into the dirt. One of them lay unmoving, his neck in a terrible angle. The other was trying to crawl out of the way, but he could barely drag himself around with that broken foreleg and wing.
"Hey!" Rainbow shouted. She flitted in, placing herself just a foot away from the ursan's armored face before firing her crossbow at an eye. She grunted when the ursan proved fast enough to avert its face, leaving the bolt to penetrate its face plate and draw a trickle of blood. Rainbow flew back, the passage of a retaliatory claw swipe ruffling her forelocks. Her forelegs moved with practiced ease now, pulling out another bolt from its case, and loading her weapon.
A fat lot of good it was doing, though. She flitted past another claw swipe, well aware that it was a dangerous game she was playing. This wasn't going to be like the time she got hit by a brachyurus. A good hit would likely shatter her bones or shred her into bloody ribbons, and there was no Applejack around to hold the monster back while she crawled away.
The ursan she fought lunged after a third swipe, nearly reaching her even as she climbed. Its hot, foul breath reeked of fresh blood and drool as it whooshed around her. Its jaws snapped shut with a loud clack a foot away. Rainbow aimed her next shot. Another attempt to get the eyes seemed pointless if the ursan was aware of her. A simple move negated her efforts too easily.
The ursan had more problems than just her. It roared in a fury and turned around. An earth pony skirmisher grinned, hefting a huge, bloody-tipped spear over his shoulder before daring the ursan to chase.
Rainbow thought of shooting the ursan as it roared and swiveled to the side. The sight of the bloody spear however, left her frozen for a few seconds. A lance. Her crossbow wasn't cutting it. She could use a lance. It was insane to try it out now, in the heat of combat, but she'd never forgive herself if this fight ended and all she had to show for it was an empty case of bolts and a bunch of useless shots.
There was no way she could just fly up to one of the lancers right now and ask for one. She scanned her surroundings. Maybe somepony had dropped one. There were plenty of dead lancers on the ground. But most of them were lanceless. Among the dead ursans, there were plenty of lance hafts poking out of their corpses. She was about to fly over to one of them when she hovered close to a dead lancer.
The bone thing in her pack throbbed wildly at the sight of all this fighting. When she entertained the notion of grabbing a lance, it felt as if the thing was about to jump out of her pack. She flitted towards the dead lancer. His lances had been broken by either the swipe or his terrible fall.
Another ursan roar, this time from behind. The explosions from the evocation arrays as well as the constant shouts from everypony could disguise even a giant bear plowing madly towards her. Rainbow rolled through the air the instant she felt the warm breath from of an ursan maw. Those frightful jaws snapped shut without touching her. She wasn't out of danger yet. A swipe would definitely follow that lunge. With a furious wing beat, Rainbow righted herself and picked up some altitude. Claws whistled past her, but all she felt was a brief draft.
That, and her pack opening.
Her heart skipped a beat as some of her stuff tumbled out thanks to a snapped cord and her acrobatics. The food and illumination orbs were replaceable, but the bone thing fell out as well. Rainbow dived for them, winging past the ursan as its momentum carried it ever forward, and into the waiting spears and blades of several earth ponies.
Rainbow frantically looked around, flitting through broken gear, dead bodies, and scattered, bloodstained snow. She found the bone thing next to a dead lancer. It had landed next to the poor stallion's broken lance, surrounded by fragments of his shredded armor. The thing pulsed excitedly.
"I don't know what you're up to," Rainbow muttered. "But stop showing off."
On the outside, it didn't look any different. Just a ratty pair of old bones lashed together. She squinted at some of the old sinews. Were they always loose like that or did they come apart?
The sinews suddenly squirmed and wiggled, like the limbs of a frantic spider. Rainbow gasped at the sight. Instinctively, she picked up the broken lance, and poked the thing as if it were a venomous creature. The sinews latched onto the broken end of the lance, gripping tightly, wounding themselves into secure knots, and affixing the thing as the lance's new head. Now, the whole lance pulsed with power. The wood grew warm to touch, more frighteningly, it started oozing some kind of black sludge. The bones did the same. Panicked, Rainbow threw the thing away, only to discover that it was stuck to her hoof. The sludge felt ice cold as it covered the tip of her hoof. Oddly enough, even though it kept oozing out of the lance and actually dripped, not a single drop hit the ground. The droplets simply dissipated mid air.
"Let go!" Rainbow yelled out of impulse. She shook her foreleg, but the lance held fast. A cold far worse than any wintry wind ran up her leg, chilling her blood, and making its way to her heart. Rainbow was about to slam the thing into the ground when the blasted thing sudden blazed up. "Foal of a nag!" Rainbow braced for searing pain as the white-hot flames covered the lance with a burning corona. The cold merely subsided. Rainbow let out an exhale. It was pointless to try to make sense of what was happening. She was better off trying to use this to her advantage. She raised the lance. At least, she assumed it was still a lance. Her hoof disappeared into an enormous, oozing spike of blackness engulfed in white flames.
Nearby, a pair of legionnaires let out a yell, and pointed at her. "That lance!" one of them said. "Flowing dark crowned with fire! Just like the stories!"
"Yargh's spear!" the other yelled.
Their cries alerted not just other legionnaires, particularly the lancers, but the ursans as well. A big one, quite possibly the same one that had been distracted earlier, spat out the broken remains of an earth pony, and charged.
Rainbow flapped her wings hard, taking as much height as possible within that short period of time it took this behemoth to close in. She could have just kept safely out of reach, but the lance in her grip flared brightly, bleeding blackness that threatened to take her entire foreleg. That charging ursan looked pretty powerful. A veteran too. It had taken down a few lancers with precision blows, and successfully ran down a skirmisher. This thing knew what it was doing. It could easily take her down with a timed swipe. Even its roar was so loud as to disrupt her flying.
She had to kill it.
With a quick shift of her wings, Rainbow turned her frantic climb into a furious dive. The lance seemed to approve, if she could interpret the increased gushing of blackness and intensity of the flame as approval. She circled quickly in her dive, making sure to approach from behind faster than the ursan could turn. She picked her spot carefully: the gap between the plates that covered the ursan's neck and back.
Yargh's spear clearly had some kind of life of its own. It shifted in Rainbow's grip, making it feel as if it were dragging her into the charge. As she hoped, the ursan had no time to turn, and the charge struck true. The blackened, oozing tip tore through the metal with ease. Rainbow had braced for a jarring impact that might rip the spear from her grasp, but she had forked through melons with more resistance than this. Blood burst from the gaping wound she opened, only to sizzle and evaporate from the flames. The ursan roared, but immediately fell silent, collapsing into a heap when the spear head pierced its neck bones and shattered them. Rainbow pulled back, realizing that if she didn't the spear would simply keep going until she was going through the corpse.
She flew up again, panting from both elation and exertion. The sounds of battle around her muted while the crackling of flames around the spear loudened. That was...that was amazing. Even she was surprised how easily that had gone. This thing...as ominous as it appeared gave her the strength she was looking for in this trip. And that charge...it felt so natural, like she had been doing it all her life. Maybe she was and she didn't realize it. She had to try that again. Maybe a bigger, stronger, better armored, more skilled ursan. There was undoubtedly one out there with enough power to rip her to shreds. She was going to find them. There was that titan too. And Hassyth. So many powerful targets to pierce.
"Rainbow!"
Longstride's voice came from the pin attached to Rainbow's collar. She had nearly forgotten that she had put it there in the resulting skirmish, "Yeah?" she replied breathlessly. She continued to scan the battlefield.
The ursans were not letting up. Several of the bigger ones had been taken down along with a lot of the smaller ones. Huge blasts of magic flung dirt, snow, and ursan slingers into the air in great clouds of whites, browns, and crimson. The Western Legion appeared to have a slight, growing advantage, but there was no shortage of dead ponies scattered around.
"What is that thing you're holding?" Longstride asked.
"Don't know," Rainbow replied. "It's really effective, though!"
"Fall back!" Longstride said. "Deactivate it, at least. We don't know what toll it will take."
"No way!" Rainbow shouted at the pin. "I've finally found something that can really help, Longstride! I'm not wasting it!"
"Stupid mare!" Longstride shot back. "There isn't an artifact in this world that doesn't demand a terrible price. Not one!"
Rainbow didn't hear him. She found a new target: a big ursan warrior who was dangerously close to the village. It was covered in blood, drenched in fact. Given how vigorously it was still moving, that was likely pony blood. Several broken skirmisher spears dangled from its armor. She climbed once more, her new spear ready for a killing stab. Yargh's spear pulsed with approval.
The next instant, she was haft deep into the ursan's back, her spear gushing with both black sludge and blood. The ursan merely growled softly, ineffectually clawing at her spot between its shoulder blades. Rainbow twisted the spear, working it out of the soon to be corpse. That was faster than she had anticipated. Her hooves slipped a bit, forcing her to grasp the spear tightly to right herself. She was dizzy with adrenaline and the sick stench of blood. Nearby lancers yelled joyously at her fresh win. With a yank, she pulled out the spear, and held it aloft. More nearby ponies cheered and redoubled their efforts.
'Next one,' Rainbow thought. She was in the zone here. Her strikes were pinpoint accurate. Her speed was topnotch. She was still fresh. She could be this battle's deciding factor if she could keep going.
"Rainbow!"
That was a different familiar voice. She looked up in time to find a red streak making its way towards her.
"That was amazing!" Scarlet gushed. He was also covered in blood. One look at his bolt case showed that he was empty. "One stab to take out an ursan? Even the best lancers can barely manage that!"
Rainbow's chest puffed a bit. She had missed praise. Longstride only ever had dire warnings. "I'm not done yet, Scarlet," she said.
"Great!" Scarlet replied. He pointed to the tree line, where a great many trees were shaking violently. The other ponies had noticed it too. "We've got the main course coming up!"
"Skewers ready!" Razor Beard shouted. "Our guest of honor's finally showed up!"
Ponies scrambled forward while the ursans backed up. Many of the lancers, especially Razor Beard, had huge grins on their faces. The skirmishers were not as eager. Even the arrays stopped pummeling the ursan rear lines to anticipate what was coming next.
Rainbow's heart throbbed in time with the spear's pulses. She couldn't even tell anymore if the excitement welling up was hers or the thing's.
A small hill burst through the tree line; a brown, shaggy hill propelled by giant claws and accompanied by a thunderous, ear-shattering roar. It had fur for grass, and knots of thick, rippling muscle along its slope. At its fore was an open maw lined with jagged fangs, and thick with frothing drool.
The roar alone stunned many of the ponies, and even some of the ursans at the front. The smaller trees it bowled over flew up, knocking one unfortunate lancer from the air. Its massive strides and sheer power carried it across the ground at horrific speed. A skirmisher failed to get out of its way fast enough. The poor stallion looked up and was about to let out a panicked shriek when his body disappeared under a thick pillar of muscle and fur. When the leg rose, the snowy ground beneath was covered with gore.
Two lancers disappeared into its maw as it snapped its jaws shut. The blood spurting from the sides of its teeth showed just enough to tell all what happened to them. A hoof even dangled out.
The titan kept rushing while the ponies recovered from the initial onslaught. Nearby, earth ponies with massive crossbows attached to their backs hunkered down while their partners aimed their weapons. Razor Beard had set up his bear skewers along the perimeter of the battlefield. Rainbow had not noticed then firing into the fight earlier. Likely, they were conserved for this very situation. The skirmishers had abandoned the front line as well, pulling out their own crossbows. While they were not as big as the bear skewers, they were still much bigger than the ones used by Northern Legion pegasi.
The first wave of bolts flew out while the ursans rallied to their titan. The still-surviving slingers renewed their assault, hitting the lancer flight with hails of small boulders. Rainbow dodged and weaved when several of them picked her out as the most dangerous target on the battlefield.
The skewers struck along both sides of the titan, though some missed given just how fast it was rushing them. The thick shafts, reinforced with metal bands, and tipped with tempered steel, punched through even the plates of the titan's armor. The titan grunted while more bolts struck its shoulders. These smaller ones did not penetrate as well, but Rainbow figured that even minor wounds helped with bleeding it out. They didn't slow it down, however. Judging from the change from grunts to a furious roar, they mostly made it angrier.
Something did slow it down, however. A lone, perfectly placed arrow struck the very center of its left eye. The shot was true despite the speed of the target. Rainbow wasn't surprised, even she couldn't outfly that ridiculously precise shot. The titan stumbled, and growled in pain, rivulets of blood running down the side of its snout. The eye had shut, but the titan continued its charge. With a wild swing, it batted two more diving lancers from the air, driving them into the ground with a sick crunch.
The fates of their fellows did nothing to deter the rest of Flight Shatterspine. Razor Beard yelled out orders from above, urging the others to converge on him. Rainbow was about to join them when Scarlet pulled her back. She stopped, then briefly dived low just enough so a boulder zipped past her.
"Don't charge with Shatterspine," Scarlet said. "You're the big player on this battlefield, stand out, don't blend in!"
"Don't be an idiot'" Rainbow snapped. "They need--!"
"Stay clear of the Shatterspine charge," Longstride said through the pin.
"What?" Rainbow shook her head and glanced at Scarlet. This had to be the first time these two agreed on anything. "Why?"
"Your presence is enough to make you as dangerous as a lancer flight in their eyes. If you charge from elsewhere, their slingers will be divided."
Rainbow had to admit that she liked the sound of that. The whole having several ursans focused on trying to kill her not so much, but that did sound like praise. With a shout, she raised her newfound weapon. The spear seemed to respond by blazing brighter and spurting more sludge. That got the ursans' attention. She circled the main charging group, making sure she drew them away from the village. More boulders zipped past her as she lowered her spear for a dive.
As Longstride had planned, Shatterspine managed to dive in. Their lances punched through the straggling ursans, swiftly whittling down the rear lines as the ursan group charged. The titan obviously didn't care for its smaller brethren, and its wild abandon infected the ones still alive.
That all the lancers didn't pile on the titan was surprising as well. Rainbow was sure they were going to race each other to kill the titan first, but Legion discipline still let them focus on defeating the enemy force before glory seeking. The skewers still worked on the titan after all.
Razor Beard dove straight for the titan along with a small group of lancers. With a cry he struck true, burying nearly half his lance between the titan's back plates. With a touch of his hoof, he released the lance. Behind him, his escorts were not as successful, but they stabbed well regardless, so hard that the hafts snapped.
The titan roared, in pain this time, and shook them off. It stopped its charge and thrashed wildly. A wild swipe shredded one of the lancers still withdrawing, spraying chunks of stallion and pieces of armor across his comrades. Razor Beard and the others withdrew, covered in blood, but unharmed.
Rainbow placed herself dozens of feet above the titan, swerving in midair as more boulders flew past her. She couched her spear just like the way she saw the lancers did, though she had to support it with a foreleg given her lack of a lance rest. The spear seemed to sense her incoming charge. It moved in her grasp, pointing down and straight towards the titan on its own accord. "Stop getting getting ahead of me!" Rainbow groused. 'Foal of a nag, am I this bad?'
That moment when she changed from hover to dive felt far too long. A few seconds provided an endless number of opportunities to back off and fly away. That she remained resolved while already in a dive felt like a miracle. Her wings refused to cooperate at first, fear kept them stiff. That the titan's roar drowned out all other sounds, and blew foul, blood-stinking air at her didn't help. With a loud grunt, Rainbow willed them to move until they burned, speeding her dive up until she was undoubtedly a streak of colors quickly approaching the titan. Scarlet shouted something. Longstride yelled something through the pin as well. Whatever they said, went unheard, blocked by the wet crunch of her spear impacting.
Rainbow had aimed for the face. Only when she made contact did it cross her mind that such a decision made no sense. Why the face when there were thick plates protecting its head? Where she had to fly close to its terrible maw, and within range of its deadly claws? Why?
The spear's black tip ran through the metal plate protecting the titan's forehead with all the difficulty of pushing a tack through cork. Blood burst from underneath the torn metal, mixing with the foul sludge that ran across her spear's haft. Rainbow closed her eyes when the warm, sticky liquid spattered across her face. When she opened her eyes again, she realized that her stab was still going.
The haft was halfway in when Rainbow instinctively pulled back. She was in too deep. The spear was probably lodged in some bone. She had to let to, except the sludge held fast to her front hoof. If she couldn't withdraw this thing, she was stuck. Not only that, the spear was pulling at her foreleg. It was still going.
The titan didn't roar. It didn't even growl or moan. No paw came to swat Rainbow away. The haft was two thirds of the way in, so close that Rainbow touched the titan's armor when it hit her. This insane charge was the most straightforward way to face the titan's power. It was about as crazy as charging an envy dragon. Or charging her allies because they were strong. She pulled back harder, slamming her free legs against the titan's armor.
'You listen to me, you stupid spear,' Rainbow thought as she faced the the thing. 'I've had enough of you doing your own thing! You're my spear now, you do what I tell you!'
The answer proved shocking, mostly because Rainbow didn't expect one at all. An image flashed in her mind: the titan dead with dozens of ursans piled on it, all killed by her and the spear. A glorious victory she could be proud of. She imagined telling her friends about it. Then telling the Prince how she cleaned up the western front. That'd probably bring a smile to his dour face. The image rippled and changed in response. The dead ponies joined the pile: Longstride and Scarlet defeated along with all the lancers of Flight Shatterspine. Rainbow recoiled, shutting her eyes tight and desperately shaking her head. No. Absolutely not. More bodies added to the pile: the royalty, Black Rose and the rest of her Thorns, countless legionnaires, those alicorns they fought before, all slain by the spear, all trophies to her fighting skill. If they were strong, she'd beat them. That was the only requirement. Her friends...
At the first hint that they might appear, Rainbow let out a shout. "Enough!" With one powerful tug, she pulled the spear out, splashing blood and sludge all over her. The titan shifted, and started to fall to its side. Nearby legionnaires let out a wild cheer.
Rainbow couldn't respond. Not when the sludge covering her hoof had creeped up to her shoulder. She ground her teeth, flapped her wings hard despite staying in a hover, stared at the sludge as if she could intimidate it into backing off. This thing lacked focus. Even she could see it. So much that it was embarassing. She was all for coming out on top, competing even with friends, and being acknowledged. This spear was all that increased a hundredfold: a mindless thing that just wanted to dominate and kill everything that might be strong. She wasn't like that. She refused to be like that. If only she could get this stupid thing to understand.
"I don't want to hurt them!" Rainbow grunted. She willed the image to change. This was her mind, damn it, and she was going to tell this spear what it was allowed to fight. Oceanus. That's right. She was traveling to find a way to fight Oceanus. He was the only target in mind. She thought back to the great void that she saw him as. 'This is your only target,' she thought. 'Nopony else!'
The image fought to stay on. The spear pulsed and raged, but Rainbow had an image to focus on and resolved to hold on to her goal. She had lost sight of what was important before. Not anymore. Blackness finally blotted out the sight of all the dead ponies. Yes, this was the blackness of the abyss. She had won this battle of wills, and winning felt good.
The spear's rage withdrew, leaving her foreleg free. Finally, she could focus on her actual surroundings.
The ursan titan lay dead beneath her, a great hole on its forehead proving to be its undoing. The other ursans were dead or retreating. The bear skewers and skirmishers closed in, firing as rapidly as they could while the lancers stepped up their diving. A barrage of telekinetic blasts flew from the arrays, slamming into the earth ahead of the retreat to cut them off. Most of the ursans, disoriented, surrounded, and demoralized, circled themselves while the Legion closed in. All of them were skewered before they could make it to the tree line. A few managed to break through regardless.
The dust finally settled, and the roars finally stopped. For a few moments, the legionnaires stood and hovered, simply taking in the battlefield without their foes. Then, all eyes focused on the giant corpse strewn across the ground, only a dozen or so feet away from the village.
Razor Beard raised his last surviving lance, and let out a yell. The rest of Flight Shatterspine followed, then the skirmishers and bear skewers.
"Eeyahoo!" Scarlet shouted, nearly crashing into Rainbow in his enthusiasm. "That was awesome! You killed a titan!"
Rainbow glanced at the spear she still held. "Y-yeah..." she mumbled. Her heart was still racing after that reckless dive and the struggle against the spear. She still held on to the abyss's image, afraid that the spear would resurge if she wavered. Was she going to have to maintain this state of mind for the rest of her life? Longstride may be right after all. There wasn't an artifact around that didn't ask a high price, and having to fight this thing mentally all the time did seem like a really high price.
"Hey!" Scarlet nudged her hard with a foreleg. "Say something!"
Rainbow glared at Scarlet first, but he was pointing to the crowd of lancers around them. They hovered at a safe distance, all focused on her.
"Come on, hero!" Scarlet whispered harshly. "Do a victory cry or something. Raise your fancy new spear at least!"
With the adrenaline already slipping, Rainbow was more in the mood for a nice, long nap than cheering. She didn't fail to notice the small group of lancers at ground level working on a still living ursan whose limbs they had pinned with multiple lances. That was a lucky break, maybe they could get some information as to why the ursans insisted on attacking, and why they were protecting--
Rainbow shook her head. She was turning into a worrywart like Longstride. Maybe this was a good time to revel in her awesomeness after all. Finally, she raised her new spear high and let out a yell.
Flight Shatterspine eagerly joined in.
"Yargh's Spear is with us again!" one of them yelled.
"Shatterspine takes the new era's first titan kill!" cried out another.
Enthused, her chest swelling with the moment, and eager to put aside Longstride's worries for a while, Rainbow flapped her wings and pumped the spear even higher, followed by another triumphant shout. The spear echoed the rising jubilation in the area with a silent cry, the sludge that had started to wane spurting out again, and the fire roaring to life.
"That's enough," Longstride whispered harshly through the pin. "Provoking an artifact we know little about for no reason is madness." Rainbow suddenly found it extremely annoying that he couldn't even be bothered to fly up to her with congratulations. Just to spite him, she raised the spear again, letting it have its fun. The spear seemed to oblige, letting out another "cry" through its presence.
The crowd fell silent.
For a moment, Rainbow panicked and looked around wildly, afraid that she had done something offensive and everypony was about to turn on her. To her surprise, everypony was still cheering. No sound simply came out of their mouths. 'Have I gone deaf?' she thought. The ursan roars were very loud. She hummed a few notes. No, she definitely heard that. She was about to say something to Scarlet, who was still yelling something excitedly to her, when blackness overwhelmed him. Witha gasp, she watched as the same dark blotted out the other lancers, then everything else.
"What's going on?" Rainbow yelled. She looked frantically at the spear, which oozed and crackled excitedly. "What did you do?"
She was in the abyss, no doubt about it. The cold, impenetrable void, the disorienting nothingness...a few moves and she wouldn't even be able to tell if she was upside down or not. She squinted out of reflex, desperate to find some kind of landmark to place her in this wretched dark. Anything at all.
And something did emerge from the dark as a landmark. A brilliant flash of sunlight burst from a distance, piercing the cold with a soothing warmth. Rainbow smiled briefly, then furrowed her eyebrows. Was Princess Celestia here? This was clearly the power of the sun, once more saving her from the abyss. It made no sense when Princess Celestia and Prince Terrato should be on a trip of their own.
The lit grew brighter, painfully so, as it moved closer. Rainbow shielded her eyes, then perked her ears when a faint, ethereal choir accompanied the incoming presence. The fragrance of sunflowers wafted all around her, like a delicate embrace. Whatever fear the abyss invoked in her shrank back at this display of brilliance.
"Rainbow Dash."
That didn't sound like Princess Celestia at all. The pitch was slightly higher, though majestic nonetheless. "Hello?" Rainbow replied. Rainbow's eyes finally grew accustomed to the brightness. Indeed, a tall alicorn hovered before her, white, thought tinged with a hint of gold. Her mane was a scintillating haze of radiance, painful to look at directly. And her eyes...they may look gently at her now, but those bright red eyes could not hide their ferocity not matter how hard they tried.
"Be honored, little pony, for your cry has traversed the abyss to reach my ears."
The invisible choir picked up, rising to a glorious song in a tongue Rainbow didn't recognize.
"I am Solis Coruscaria, Dark Sun of the Abyss, First of the Rightful King's Maidservants, and Overseer of His Faithful."
Coruscaria spread her wings, her chin tilting upward in the process. She looked down on the spear, that serene smile on her face wrinkling very slightly.
"Through that abomination, you have issued to me a challenge, as its creator did a long time ago."
Rainbow remembered the strange image in her mind when she first picked this thing up. Yes, that was Solis Coruscaria; same mane, same face, same eyes. Not as radiant then as now.
"Element of Loyalty, I see you have done this out of ignorance. For this, I shall grace you with my mercy. Lay down the weapon, and fall to your knees. Worship me, and, through me, the Rightful King. Do this, and I shall forgive your blasphemy, and grant you my blessing. You shall become the strongest among your peers, and rule over all pegasi upon our rise."
Coruscaria still spoke in sweet tones, as if she was doing the ultimate kindness. Her words soured in Rainbow's ears though. There was venom in those words, there was arrogance in that look, and, now that she paid closer attention, a very faint whiff of stagnant salt water in that fragrance. "No," she said. She scowled and stared directly at Coruscaria, even if her eyes ached in protest. "I'm not worshipping you or Oceanus." The spear pulsed empathically when she raised and pointed it at Coruscaria.
That gentle look very slowly turned into a budding glare. Still, Coruscaria spoke gently. Something felt odd though. Rainbow winced at the sudden prickling sensation. It was as if thousands of needles were pricking her face and neck. She tasted metal in her throat and tongue.
"Little pony, your Princess Celestia raised her spear against me a long time ago. I broke her before her father. That spear's creator raised his spear against me, and I destroyed him with a gesture. I beseech you, find your wisdom within, and worship me. If not, we shall meet upon my rise, and you shall wither before my light. When your ruined and burned soul is parted from your body, I shall begin your punishment."
The glare grew stronger. Rainbow opened her mouth to say something, but she somehow couldn't find her voice. Her legs trembled and ached. She felt so weak all of a sudden...weak, dizzy, and fragile. Her stomach heaved, and vomit exploded from her mouth. Blood...a great gob of blood splattered on her legs and spear. Something warm and foul dribbled down her hind legs and tail. Her vision blurred, and she collapsed on her belly. At least she would have if Coruscaria's telekinetic grip wasn't holding her by the throat. The alicorn's voice was now truly laced with venom.
"Worship me, vermin. Worship me, and I shall be merciful. With that spear, your cries can reach me. Send me a fervent prayer at any time, and I shall grace you with my blessings."
Rainbow hawked up a glob of blood and phlegm, then spat. She was so weak, however, that it merely dribbled down her chin. The spear clattered beneath her, free of both the sludge and the fire. Then, her vision failed completely.
"Rainbow!"
Longstride's loud cry shook Rainbow awake. Her eyes fluttered open, and found his concerned face looking down at her while she lay on her back. A look around revealed that she was still by the village's entrance. Western Legionnaires surrounded her along with Scarlet.
"I..." Rainbow patted herself down. She was cold and soaking wet. Not only that, she stank of dead fish and stagnant salt water.
"I warned you," Longstride said softly.
Rainbow couldn't answer that. She looked to the spear, which had reverted to being a ratty old thing. 'What did you just drag me into?'