//------------------------------// // Poison Party in Darkreach // Story: Ofolrodi // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Sw-Sw-Swoosh! Wildcard flew up every ascending stairwell he could find. It was far from a straightforward journey. For a colony carved by alicorns, the interior of Darkreach was far from simple in design. There was no single stairwell leading up the entire depth of the facility. Wildcard found himself having to make lateral detours across storage compartments and living quarters in order to find the next shaft that would take him further upwards. It occurred to him that he could be checking every room he sped through for the changeling. However, Rainbow Dash had given him one specific task. If he had any hope of blocking the changeling's exit, he had to reach the exit first. Speed was more important than scrutiny, and the Desperado sliced through the wind like it was butter. The entire time, the lights of the colony were flickering. Wildcard's lenses reflected a dimmer and dimmer environment as the power grid of the place suffered rippling bands of manafeedback. Clenching his beak, he crossed another threshhold and ascended the next stairwell within sight. "Rrrrngh... come on..." Flynn scampered back and forth across the generator room far above Logan, Ariel, and Rainbow Dash. He was levitating fresh crystals and inserting them one after another into the power core looming above. However—for every shard that he slid in—a previously placed one burnt out as the leylines continued overloading throughout the facility. "Buck me sideway!" Flynn hissed. His glowing horn glinted off the metal surfaces of the place as he snatched yet another half-dozen shards from their containment. "Like playing tic-tac-toe with melting ice!" He shoved the crystal array up into the core and delicately rotated them in a desperate attempt to redirect the sparkling manabursts. "Why couldn't we come to the Dark Side to salvage a refrigerator full of cold ones?! Goddess..." Around that moment, Flynn's ear twitched to the sound of a loud buzzing sound emanating from a nearby console. He looked over to see the lower portion of a crude map of Darkreach flashing bright red. "... ... ...what the Hell is going on down in ventilation?" "Rainbow!" Twilight hissed. "For the last time! Stop yanking random levers!" "Grnngh!" Rainbow yanked a random lever. The pipework and fans above her rattled and groaned. "I-I figured that if we both worked at the same time, then our brain bones could meet in the center—!" "You're not helping things!" Twilight's voice cracked as she frowned. "I'm trying to concentrate on where the central power station is and you're not—" "Over there!" Rarity exclaimed, pointing a dainty hoof. Rainbow spun. Her and her friends' eyes fell on a circular arrangement of metal podiums lingering beneath a giant brass knot of conjoined pipes. "That's it!" Rarity said. "I'm sure of it!" "Well, Twilight?" Applejack asked. "Do them leyline thingamajiggers coincide with that hot metal mess?" Twilight's eyes narrowed. Her horn glowed brighter... and at last she blurted: "Yes! That must be it!" "Wowie..." Pinkie blinked at the six podiums forming a circle. "Kinda obvious when you look at it, huh?" "Whatever!" Rainbow zipped over to the consoles in a blue blur. "Step one complete!" "Huh?" Ariel rushed to join her. "Did they find it?" "I hope so. This makes for a lousy vomitorium." Rainbow hovered in place while grasping a console. "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." She blinked at no less than thirty buttons and levers on her podium alone. "... ... ... ..." She looked at Twilight. "Help?" "Okay okay..." Twilight rubbed her two hooves nervously together. "I'm thinking..." "Well think faster!" Rainbow barked. "Logan's been in there long enough!" "Speaking of which..." Applejack woefully glanced at Fluttershy. Fluttershy gulped. "He's not doing well..." "RRRRRRRRGH!" Logan slammed the door with his axe. CLANNNNNG!!! "Hrrnnnghhhh!" He spat into his mask-rag and swung again. THUDDDDD!!! The door was scratched, marred, and thoroughly dinted. But it wouldn't budge from its frame. "Come onnnnn!" WHAMMMMMM! "Damn... stupid—koff—door!" CL-CLANNNG! "Who's your daddy?!?" THUDDD! "Kaff-Kaff... Monkey wants the star banana of happiness!" WHUDDD! Poisonous green mists rose around him... collecting over his skull as he swung and swung his axe— "Rainbow...!" Ariel waved her hoof from the podium opposite the mare. "Not right now!" Rainbow hunched under flickering lights, her eyes scrambling over the array of instruments beneath her. "Which buttons control the ventilation speed... the fans... anything?!" "But Rainbow—" "Just gimme a sec!" "Ungh..." Ariel pointed at an orange button lit-up on the corner of her podium. "This thing looks important!" "I-I don't think just one button is going to help us vent the gas in Logan's room—" "No, I swear I saw these in all the other stories above us!" Ariel slapped her hoof over the instrument in question. A crackling noise lit up the air around them. Rainbow flinched. "... ... ...the buck did you do?" "SCRKKKKK—the buck did you do?" Flynn did a double-take. Sweating, he paused in levitating manacrystals and looked over his shoulder. A small orange button was flashing on a console in the far corner of the generator room. A porous black panel was vibrating, generating speech: "Rainbow, if I could bet my bits on it, I'd say this was an intercom system of sorts—" Flynn rushed over, floating the crystals along with him. He practically dove, slapping his hoof over the orange button. "It is! It is! This is Flynn! What in Goddess' name is going on down there, you two?!" "Scrkkk—The leylines of Darkreach are going haywire!" Ariel and Rainbow mutually gasped, sharing shocked expressions. "... ... ...I could kiss you," Rainbow droned. Ariel's ears twitched. "Could you really—?" Fwooosh! Rainbow shot over and levitated right beside Ariel, lowering her muzzle to the console where Ariel's hoof was still pressed to the lit orange button. "Flynn! Logan's in trouble! We need to vent the room he's in! How do I power the ventilation system!" "Wait... Big Show's what?! Did you find the creature down there—?" "Yes! We found the changeling! It's heading upstairs! I sent Wildcard after it—" "Scrkkk! Huh?! Changeling?!?" "Dang it, Flynn! I need your help!" Rainbow frowned. "We need to juice up the fans down here! Pronto!" "Okay... okay... uhm..." "Do you have any idea whatsoever how we can churn up the air flow—?" "Red and yellow levers!" "Huh?!" "Red and yellow levers! They're all over the place here in the generator room. Yanking them one after another seems to activate power flow!" Rainbow and Ariel looked at the six metal podiums situated in a circle. Indeed, there were matching levers glinting in the sporadic manalight from above. "But I've been having a Hell of a time trying to get the entire place from losing power! There's some manafeedback going on and I'm afraid—" "Just keep the juice going long enough for us to crank up the air!" "But that might overload the core entirely! We'll go dark!" "For Logan's sake, it's a risk we're going to have to take! Now walk us through it!" "Hurry up, Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy exclaimed, wringing her fetlocks. "He hasn't much time left!" "What about the changeling?" Pinkie Pie asked, glancing at everypony else. "Am I the only crazy mare wondering where it went off to?!"