Seraphimus sat alone in the wagon atop the mountainous ridge.
The Herald shuffled briskly downhill in a solid train. Garbed in plates of green-tinted armor that reflected the twilight, they approached the edge of the parallel—right where the glass plate lay dormant.
The griffin took a deep breath. Despite the obvious consternation forming feathered lines in her face, she nevertheless craned her neck left and right... squinting to make out what precisely was transpiring far below at the end of the cliff's slope.
"Guh..." Flynn grimaced, shaking his rear legs a few extra times between every other step. The armor rattled around his thin figure, and the visor of his helmet kept sliding down. "Goddess dammit! Rrggh...!" With a telekintic burst, he snapped the ancient visor off his helmet completely, giving him an unobstructed view of the wild landscape ahead. "Ahhh... much better."
Behind him, Logan grunted: "Don't be pissing away all my hard work, now."
"Relax, Big Show," Flynn grumbled, approaching the glass plane. "Wouldn't be right to use the old Emeraldinians' stuff if I didn't truly appreciate it."
"You're telling me to relax?" Logan's brow furrowed. "You're the one squirming all around like you've got soggy pancakes down your pants."
"Forgive me if I'm not exactly... used to cold metal chaffing."
"How do you think I feel?" Logan spat. "I'm weighing like a friggin' tank in this thing!"
"Dude, you're always a tank."
"What does that make you? A sling-shot?"
"Very funny."
"Actually, no, not funny," Ariel rasped from overhead. She flew limply with a frown, putting extra-effort into lifting her armored body. "Could you cut it out? We've got some serious business to do here."
"Everypony relax," Rainbow Dash said, trotting in the center of the group. "We've only got a thick sea of squirming death tentacles to tame and fly over. Let's not snap at each other's necks, okay? Besides, we'd crack a tooth on account of the armor."
Wildcard gestured something.
"Hrmmmmfff..." Logan responded with a heated breath. He reached the edge of the "forest" and leaned against his heavy axe. "Straight lines aren't as easy as they used to be, Double-Yoo. But... we just might be able to afford the next best thing here."
"My starrs and garrterrs..." Kepler had been hunched over this entire time, but upon reaching the clearing in the sea of stalks, he practically crawled on his thinly-plated belly. The armor around his figure rattled as he studied the glass plate up close. "It is just as Rranorrt had spoken about!" The wyvern adjusted his spectacles and tapped the edge of the glass plate with his claws. "Positively immaculate! Afterr all of these yearrs, too!"
"Well, what do you guys think now that you're seeing it up close?" Ariel asked. "Can it be enchanted?"
"Once upon a time, maybe it could have been," Flynn said. The tip of his horn was glowing outside his helmet as he scanned the environment before him. "But that was a long... long time ago, and who knows who actually manufactured this thing."
"Or if they're still hanging about somewhere," Logan added.
Flynn gave a nod. "Right."
"Rranorrt speaks of unidentified flying objects spotted by Warrhol's team," Kepler said. "Vessels of geometrrical simplicity... constrructed out of trranslucent materrial, much like this one. I'm afrraid that none of Gwen's forrces werre capable of meeting the trrue pilots of these airrcrrafts face to face."
"But..." Rainbow Dash looked at the glass plate, then up at Kepler. "...it was an aircraft."
"I honestly cannot fathom just what else this thing could have belonged to," the wyvern said. "If it was simply deposited herre as a means of clearring this unsightly wilderrness, I cannot say that it is doing that fine of a job!"
"So... it was dropped here," Ariel said. "But—lucky for us—it might give the wagon the boost it needs."
Wildcard gestured.
"Wildcard wants to know how we're gonna pull this shit off," Logan grunted. "And while we're at it—so do I."
"Sure thing." Rainbow nodded, then looked at Flynn. "Flynn?"
"Grnnngh... right..." Flynn took off his helmet so he could breathe better. Sweat lined his bald forehead under the twilight. "So... I've brought with me some extra rocks for hover-enchanting."
"Huh?"
"The same thing we did to the Hover Plank 5000 we're going to do to this right here." Flynn gave the top of the glass plate a hoof-tap for emphasis.
"Soooooooo..." Ariel squinted. "...we're going to have an even bigger wagon?"
"No no no no no..." Flynn shook his head. "I don't even remotely have enough to make that happen. Instead..." He turned and pointed at the Curveside edge of the plate. "...if we apply just enough of the rocks to the furthest foundation of the plate and enchant its leylines, then we can get that half of the glass plane to levitate up off the ground. The rest of it will stay dormant. I'm expecting us to end up with a ramp that's tilted no less than fifty-five degrees off the earth."
Wildcard nodded, then gestured.
"Sounds simple enough, eh?" Flynn shook his head. "Sorry to break it to you, buddy. This thing looks like it weighs a ton. Even still..." He took a deep breath. "...I should be able to lift just the corners of it. It'll take all of my mental concentration to manipulate something this large with my telekinesis. The rest will be up to you."
"We'll be slapping the enchanted rocks and dust in place, right?" Rainbow Dash said.
"Uh huh. Then—once we've applied it to both corners and sporadic spots along the Curveside edge, I can enchant the leylines. The ramp should then lift up on its own, propelled by the "hover" spell."
"How long will it be tilted up like that?" Ariel asked.
"Not for long," Flynn said with a sigh. "We'll only have a window of... ten minutes at best. That should be long enough for us to give the Hoverplank a shove and ride it down to glory."
"In other words..." Logan's eyes narrowed. "We only get one shot."
"Right." Flynn nodded. "Better not buck it up."
Awkward silence.
"Well!" Kepler slapped his talons together and smiled at the group. "All the morre incentive to do ourr best! Ha-Hah!"
Rainbow gulped. "We're forgetting one thing..."
"Right. The hard part," Flynn remarked.
Logan glanced aside. "These damned death vines."
Flynn's natural eye reflected the gently waving sea of stalks that densely flanked three sides of the flat plate. "To apply the enchanted rocks to the underside of this plate, we're going to have to get uncomfortably close to these buggers."
"Well, at least we're wearing armor!" Ariel remarked.
"The armor won't do shit if more than one of these things grab you," Flynn exclaimed, hissing. "I've seen some of the biological journals sketched in the heart of Darkreach. The probisci of these creatures are stronger than whale bone. If you get lasso'd by one of them, it'll be a struggle just to keep your limbs in tact. Goddess knows how shitty it'd be if you become dinner to multiple stalks at once."
"None of that matters," Logan grunted. "Only one thing does."
"What is that, frriend?" Kepler asked.
Schiiiing! Logan raised his axe and approached the edge of the forest. "Can we kill 'em?"
"Ach! But of courrse."
"Hold it right there, Big Show." Rainbow Dash blocked his way. "Don't go charging into the death weed. That'd make for a lame obituary."
"What am I, stupid?" Logan smirked, then nodded his head at the organic mess. "I'm not about to commit salad seppuku. I just need to see what these things are made of."
"And how do you plan to do that?!" Ariel exclaimed.
"Hmmmmm..." Kepler stroked his hairy chin. "Perrhaps if he werre to test the strrength of just one of these inferrnal living vines."
"Sooooooooooooo... what, then?" Rainbow Dash blinked. "We thread one out from the rest of the group?"
"Sounds good to me," Logan said.
"But how?"
Logan looked over at Wildcard. "Double-Yoo? Got something to throw at these shits?"
Wildcard nodded, producing a few daggers that he had gathered from Darkreach.
"If you plan on tossing that into the wilderness, it's not going to have the desired effect," Flynn said. "You saw how these things acted earlier. They just lash out at whatever's thrown at them."
"So, we just have to figure out how to annoy only one," Logan said. "Since you're about to put your brain to extra epileptic use, what say we exercise your telekinesis a bit?"
Flynn sighed. He reached magically for one of Wildcard's daggers and levitated it high in the air. "Where do you want me to kite it?"
"Towards me, duh." Logan slapped the visor of his helmet down and tightened his grip of the axe. "And you'd better lure just one of those things down here!"
"I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise," Flynn droned.
"The rest of you back off!" Logan hollered, his armor rattling from the authority in his voice. "This is my time to work!"
"You... uh..." Rainbow hesistantly backtrotted along with Ariel. "...you sure you know what you're doing, guys?"
"Probably not." Flynn squinted his one good eye as he floated the dagger outward... upward... and towards the very edge of the living forest. "Okay... okay... getting there..."
"Have you spotted one of them yet or not?" Logan asked.
"Just hold onto your butt!" Flynn took a deep breath. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand... antagonize!"
He jabbed the dagger forward from long-distance, poking savagely at a single vine along the fringes of the sea of stalks. Despite how many times he poked and prodded, the wavering structure refused to budge.
"Come onnnnnn..." Flynn licked his lips as his horn glowed brighter with the effort. "Tickle tickle! Tickle tickle—"
Thw-THWPP! At last, the vine shot out a long red "tongue" that looped three times around the dagger.
"Got it!" Flynn gnashed his teeth as he pulled and yanked down at the object with all his mental might. "Rnnnnnngh!"
"Don't slice it!" Logan barked, gripping his axe as he eyed the stalk being "reeled in" from a distance. "Don't slice it or we might lose it—!"
"It's okay..." Flynn hissed. Snorted. "It's... grnnngh... grabbing the hilt!" As the telekinetic energy reached a boiling point, Flynn felt himself sliding forward on scuffed hooves. "Hoooboy—"
"Wildcard!" Rainbow barked.
Thwooosh! Wildcard flew forward. Wrapping a metal arm around the stallion's armored body, he successfully anchored Flynn in place.
"You should have it now, brrotherr!" Kepler proclaimed.
"Here it comes!" Rainbow Dash pointed as the long stalk shook, thrashed, but was eventually dragged down to head-level like a wriggling fish out of water. "It's getting within reach!"
"It's now or never, Big Show!" Ariel hollered.
"Happy New Year—!" And Big Show swung his axe down savagely.
CHTIIIIINK! The stalk snapped in an instant from the slicing blow. Almost immediately, a hot curtain of crimson juices splattered across Ariel's, Kepler's, and Rainbow Dash's gasping faces.
Flynn and Wildcard grimaced.
"Hey!" Logan lifted his visor up, revealing a smirk. "It even bleeds! Cool!"
Rainbow and her two fellow Heraldites stood awkwardly in place, thoroughly strained. Before them, the severed stalk flipped and flopped around before finally curling up into a hardening coil of dead organic matter.
"Okay... on second thought..." Ariel whimpered. "Go ahead and feed me to the forest. I just lost my appetite. Forever."
"A most educating experrience," Kepler remarked, beginning to wipe the blood from his glasses.
"Well..." Rainbow Dash shuddered, observing her soaked armor. "...at least we know we can kill 'em. Logan? Proceed with Operation Weed Whacker." A few seconds later, Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. She looked towards the space at her right. "No, Fluttershy, I don't actually believe that the 'poor thing' felt that. An if it did... then jee-jee... cuz I don't want to live in a universe where something like THAT has feelings..."