//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: The Collapse 
// by Lightwavers 
//------------------------------//

“Griffon approaching from the northeast!”

Rainbow Dash flung herself off the ground and was in a basic earth stance defensive position before she was even fully awake.

“Distance?” she shouted.

A bright purple and yellow unicorn with a clam shell for a cutie mark startled at Rainbow’s voice.

“Um…I can’t say exactly, but the spell says they’ll be here in a few minutes,” the unicorn said apologetically.

“Well don’t just stand there, do something! Help with the magic defenses or whatever it is you’re good at,” Rainbow Dash said, then fell back on all fours and galloped to where what looked like the oldest unicorns were gathered in deep discussion. She scanned the area in the short amount of time it took her to reach them.

Skies, clear. Ground, clear. Mountains…she couldn’t see through the clouds blocking the peaks, and she couldn’t fly—a slow pulse of anger burned through her at the reminder—or send anyone else up because the only other pegasi here didn’t have their magic either. Out of options, she marked the mountain range as suspicious.

“You have a shield up?” Rainbow asked the gathered professors. She didn’t show it, but she was feeling slightly winded—and for the tiny distance she’d crossed, that was incredibly worrying. She hated how weak she was now. She wouldn’t even stand a chance against a manticore in this state.

The unicorns—and, she noted with surprise, one earth pony—glared at her.

“We were discussing the best course of—”

The blue one tried to say more words but Rainbow didn’t let her finish.

“Well stop. Evil griffons are going to be here soon, and I know griffons. Even the friendly ones don’t think a day’s complete until they’ve speared some poor little animal and torn its guts out. So stop delaying and start doing.”

Rainbow Dash stared at them. The blue one tried to speak again but Rainbow once again started first.

“Anyway. Another unicorn said they’ll be here in a few minutes. So you get your magic stuff ready and I’ll make sure my team doesn’t do anything stupid.”

With that, she galloped back to where her pegasi were. They weren’t professional by any means. A weather team with more competent leadership would never have let Rainbow Dash into the prized position of lead weatherpony, no matter her skill. That meant these Ponyville pegasi frequently slacked off, were extremely disorganized, and knew pretty much nothing except how to do their jobs.

“Right. Form up, team.”

Her pegasi formed an uneven row that was somehow even more chaotic than just standing around.

“I’m going to be blunt with you. None of you can fight. All of you need to go under the unicorn’s shield while they fling magic stuff at the griffons. And don’t touch anything. Keep your hooves to yourselves and when I get back, if I find out you’ve broken something I’m letting the griffons have you.”

Rainbow stared at her troops. “Any questions? No? Good. Now go.”

The pegasi hurried over to where the unicorns were all clustered, then went into full out gallops when a purple dome formed over the unicorns and started descending. They all made it, thankfully. Now Rainbow could fight without worrying about the collateral damage. Except she wasn’t as awesome as she normally was, so she’d have to restrict herself to fighting two—three, tops—griffons at once.

Then she heard wing beats. They were different from the light staccato of a pegasus. These were the slow and hard flaps of predators that feared nothing. She looked back to the mountain and saw a series of winged forms flinging themselves toward the travelers.

“Incoming!” she screamed, then flung herself up to meet the attackers.

And fell to the ground.

This would require some thought. She couldn’t fly, so most of her pegasus-style martial arts would be useless. She had trained in some earth pony styles, but not very extensively. So her options were to use only very basic moves that she knew would work or to try to combine them with the pegasus styles. The second option was an extremely bad idea and every instructor she’d ever had, even that one grouchy old unicorn who’d seemed to revel in seeing her struggle, would be screaming at her to stop if they knew what she was thinking. And perhaps slapping her across the face.

But she was Rainbow Dash. She took risks all the time. And she could finally spend some of her pent-up anger on targets worth the effort. She flattened herself to the ground and waited for the griffons to swoop. Once that happened, she could jump on them. And then…wait.

They weren’t swooping. And they were wearing plate armor. And were carrying thin tubes of metal with a strap fixing it to their bodies so it wouldn’t fall off.

“They have guns!” Rainbow called. Hopefully that shield wasn’t sound proof. If it was, well...they would see the results soon enough.

Rainbow Dash shrunk backward, trying not to draw any attention. Griffons with plate armor and guns were an entirely different story than ones using just their claws and talons. If she’d had her magic, she might still have risked attacking, but now her only chance at winning would be to surprise one on the ground. She might be itching for a fight, but she wasn’t stupid. She began subtly digging at the ground, tossing grass on top of her and partially burrowing into the mud. It was extremely icky and cold and wet and slimy and sticky, but she did it. Then she looked at the griffons again.

As she watched, one of them sighted along the barrel of its weapon and depressed the trigger with a claw. A bang rivaling the sound of a small tornado roiled through the air and a cloud of smoke engulfed the barrel of the rifle. The purple dome of energy surrounding the unicorns brightened for a second and then went back to its normal glow.

Wow, that shield was tough. Rainbow had seen rifles actually shatter unicorn shields before. It was extremely cool to watch, and Rainbow had actually hired a unicorn to set up a range for herself and Gilda with the unicorn’s shield spells as the targets.

She waited for a beam of light to emerge from the shield and strike back at the wheeling targets overhead, but nothing happened. Griffons didn’t fall from the sky, or have their feathers explode, or fall to sleep in midair. Maybe the shield was too strong and wasn’t letting out any attacks.

Then the griffons started to descend. Rainbow Dash abandoned her line of speculation and gathered herself back into a crouch. If they were going to stay on the ground for more than a few minutes, one of them would eventually get too close to her. And then she would pounce.