"Okay..." Flynn took a deep breath. He stood on the freshly-cleared swath of land between the edge of the glass plane and the new line of the living vine-forest. "Okay..." He squatted up and down, flexing his legs. "...let's do this."
"You don't need to do calisthenics for a friggin' telekinetic feat, Baldy," Logan groaned, standing next to him with a pile of enchanted rocks balanced across his flank.
"Says you!" Flynn frowned, his lensed eye rotating in and out. "I'm not exactly flipping pancakes here." He pointed at the immense glass plate with his hoof. "Have you any idea... any idea how much this friggin' thing weighs?"
"If it's too much for you, Flynn," Rainbow Dash spoke, standing beside Logan and Ariel with a batch of stones of her own. "I'm certain we can find another way to turn this friggin' thing into a ramp."
"No. I've got this." Flynn took another deep breath. "Could just use less fat-ass antagonizing."
"Meh," Logan meh'd.
"We whole hearrtedly believe in your, brrother," Kepler said with a smile. "You saved Logan and Wildcarrd back at the Gondola—against all odds."
Wildcard nodded vehemently.
"Always appreciated, Keps," Flynn said. He squatted low and narrowed his good eye on the edge of the glass plate. "But sometime's the task is tougher when you know it's lying ahead of you." He inhaled and exhaled, heavily. "Just... be the glass." His horn started glowing. "Don't think about its alien make-up or inexplicable existence here... just be it."
"In other words, less thinking and more lifting." Logan snorted. "We ain't got all day, buddy."
"Take your time, Flynn," Rainbow said, her voice growling a bit so that Logan could hear it.
"Everypony know their places?" Ariel asked.
"Yeah," Logan exhaled.
Wildcard gave a metal thumb's up.
"Okay..." Flynn exercised his lungs yet again. "Here goes." His horn glowed brighter and brighter.
Twilight hovered beside Rainbow Dash. "What the poor fellow needs is some sort of mantra."
Rarity looked over. "To concentrate better?"
Twilight nodded. "I know it sound silly, but doing that used to help me when I was just starting at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns."
"'Azure Metrosexual Synthetic Oats!'" Pinkie Pie chanted.
Fluttershy giggled.
"Mrngggggggggrh—!" Flynn clenched his teeth and—
Flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!
Bright blue light emanated outward in every direction. After a blinding strobe, Rainbow and the rest saw the Curveside end of the glass plate lifting dramatically.
"Whoah nelly!" Applejack visibly flinched in mid-hover. "That's a heck of a lot faster than I expected!"
"Impressive!" Twilight Sparkle grinned wide.
"Scary!" Fluttershy grimaced. "His poor head!"
"Let's not put it to waste!" Rainbow Dash gestured to Ariel and Wildcard. "Okay—move it, ponies!"
Sw-Sw-Swoosh! Three bodies swiftly flew in, hovering beside Flynn. They watched as the glass plane tilted higher and higher. Flecks of dirt and stone pebbles rattled in a dusty cascade all across the belly of the raised object. An arid earth that hadn't been exposed for years suddenly presented itself—unhindered—along the fringes of a forest of waving stalks. Rainbow half-expected a colony of spiders, pill bugs, and worms to go scrawling in every direction. Inevitably, the landscape of the Dark Side was just as dead beneath the plate of glass as it was above.
"Okay..." Flynn gnashed his teeth as sparks flew from his horn. "There... there!" His knees locked in place. At that very same moment, the plate stopped lifting up. The glass structure stood in place at a forty-five degree angle. The strain of the effort was visible on the stallion's sweating features. "Better hurry..."
"Don't need to tell us twice!" Ariel exclaimed, already slapping the stones against the underside of the lifted plate. A carefully administered adhesive worked to keep them locked in place. "We got your back, Flynn! This won't take long!"
"Careful!" Rainbow hissed, glancing aside at Ariel and Wildcard as she placed her own rocks along the underside. "Place them equally apart! Along the lip! Along the lip!"
Wildcard nodded, continuing to place his own allotment of glowing stones across the glossy surface.
"Whew..." Flynn grunted out the sides of his muzzle. Little by little, his limbs began to wobble. "...whewwwwww boy... gonna be feeling this up and down my spine for days."
"Just hold it in like a stallion, Baldy," Logan belched. "You've got this."
"You know..." Kepler shuffled to a stop beside the large stallion and peered at the work being done. He rubbed his hairy chin. "...I still have my alchemic materrials. If need be, I could still utilize a jarr of fierry concoction to clearr the edges of this most alien forrest."
"We've cleared enough, Keps, thank you."
"It's only that the stalks appearr awfully close to the edges of the would-be rramp, and should the situation unfold undesirrably—"
"Could you save it for a time when our only magic macguffin with legs isn't about to suffer a brain hernia?"
"Ahem." With a nervous smile, Kepler backed up. "Duly noted, brrotherr!"
"Hey...!" Logan spoke loudly. "Could you three buttholes hurry it up?! Kepler's having to fill for time!"
"First batch applied!" Ariel shouted.
"Good!" Rainbow placed the last of her rocks and threw a glance at Wildcard. "Second batch!"
With a joined breath, all three skirted out from underneath the lifted plate and over to Logan. They grabbed equal shares of the rocks balanced on the large earth pony's flank, then zipped back to the plate's underside to finish the application.
"Rrrrrrrrgh..." Flynn was sweating profusely at this point. Every joint in his body quivered as more and more sparks flew from his horn. "...st-starting to see st-stars here!"
"He's gonna poppppppp!" Pinkie squeaked.
"Oh goodness—!" Fluttershy covered her ghostly eyes.
"Get 'er done, Rainbow!" Applejack barked.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaand..." Rainbow slapped in the last of the faintly-glowing rocks. "There!"
"Me too!" Ariel wheezed.
Wildcard scurried to place two more stones in place. He flew backwards from the plate, exhaling.
"We're good, Flynn!" Rainbow shouted as the three hovered above him. "Let 'er go!"
"But are you sure that—?!" Flynn began to whimper.
"The rocks are in place! We're all clear! Drop it!"
"Here goes!" Flynn spat as he released everything.
The entire Herald winced, expecting a thunderous clap or something. They were rewarded with glorious silence, followed by a low-pitched hum. All eyes locked on the plate—which loomed above them, pointing gloriously towards the heavens at a forty-five degree angle.
It remained in place.
"Woohooo!" Pinkie Pie cheered.
"It worked!" Twilight Sparkle hopped multiple times in place. "It worked it worked it worked!"
"Did..." Flynn slumped down on his belly. "...did it work?"
"Relax your tits, dude." Logan marched over with a lazy smirk. "It worked."
Flynn squinted his one good eye open. Upon seeing the magical accomplishment, he slumped back onto his chin. "Praise the succulent science goddesses..."
"Yeah yeah..." Logan heaved the unicorn's limp body over his flank and steadied him in place. "At least you're not a hairy puddle." He turned to look at the others. "Well...?"
Wildcard hand-signed.
"I'm afrraid we haven't verry long, now," Kepler said. "As Flynn explained it to me, therre's prrecious little time until the enchantment in the rrocks fades completely."
"In other words, we gotta use the ramp now while we can," Rainbow said.
"Then what are we waiting for?!" Ariel flew up the mountain from which they came in a gray blur.
"Get me back to the Hover Plank Five Thousand..." Flynn gulped. "...I gotta pilot the thing before I pass out."
"Don't be such a panty-waist," Logan grumbled, marching up the rocks. "Think of this day as something you can boast proudly about to your kids."
"You... actually think... I'm capable... of offspring..." Flynn sweated and panted as he lay across Logan's back. A weak smile graced his muzzle. "...ya sentimental bastard..."
"I didn't say they'd be mine." Logan sighed long and hard. "You compliment a nerd once and the next thing you know you're buying curtains..."
Seraphimus sat quietly in the back of the wagon. Dispassionately, she eyed a bundle of deceased stalks that had been roped together—salvaged from the last few hours of the Herald's "deforestation" of the alien landscape below. As she heard wingflaps and hoofsteps, she glanced up.
Ariel reached the wagon first, followed soon after by Rainbow Dash.
"Alright! I've got starboard side!"
"Good girl." Rainbow squatted on the left edge of the wagon overlooking the mountain slope and glass plate below. "Port side for me." Rainbow hollered into the air. "Wildcard?! You good with the stern once again?!"
Swooooosh! Wildcard landed next to Seraphimus. The Desperado gave Rainbow his trademark thumb's up.
"You know, you're a lot easier to understand when you've got two arms," Rainbow said with a smirk.
Wildcard smiled back and then settled into place.
Seraphimus—in the meantime—looked lethargically from the slope back to Rainbow. "I see that you got your illustrious 'ramp' lifted."
"Eeyup." Rainbow nodded. "No thanks to you."
"... ... ...how could I have helped? I've been sitting up here on this Goddess-forsaken carriage, limbs bound like they have been for the past untold weeks."
"Hah!" Ariel scoffed. "Like you actually would have helped us if we removed those shackles!"
Seraphimus exhaled. "I would not have been opposed to assisting in this latest endeavor."
Twilight Sparkle and Rarity exchanged glances.
Rainbow glanced at Ariel, then squinted over at Seraphimus. "What are you trying to say...?"
"Wait for it..." Applejack droned.
Seraphimus calmly spoke: "It is abundantly clear that this will only lead to everypony's swift and catastrophic demise. If I could actually lend a talon... then it would make this interminable existence cease all the more swiftly."
Applejack smiled bittery. "And there ya have it."
Rainbow sighed heavily. "Was there ever a day when you weren't a emo death penguin with broken knees?"
"Your hyperbole eludes me."
"Everything eludes you!" Rainbow Dash spat. "Hope! Courage! Sincerity! Joy! The simple instinct to survive!" She gnashed her teeth. "Heck, I bet back in Rohbredden the friggin' sunlight did backflips to avoid touching your glacially unfeeling neckfeathers!"
"Any hope for grasping the light of righteous existence faded long before we entered this dreaded domain," Seraphimus grumbled. "The least you can do is admit it—for yourself and for your companions."
"Whew, boy!" Rainbow shook her head with a limp smile. "Y'know, Sera, sometimes I wish you were around back when I was with the Jury. Your attitude would have made those cold, dreary days following Lerris rosy and sparkling by comparison!"
"I... have no idea what any of that means!" Ariel said, nevertheless frowning. "But Rainbow's totally right!"
Seraphimus was too busy frowning in a sea of rising crestfeathers. "Do not call me 'Sera.'"
"What's this?" Logan marched up to the wagon with a smirk. "Did Rainbow finally find a Right Button of Verlaxion to push?" A dull chuckle. "And after all the work I did to find out on my own."
"Ignore her, Big Show," Rainbow muttered. "She's being the usual stick in the mud."
"Morre akin to a cedarr trrunk if you ask me!" Kepler smiled as he mounted the carriage. "Ha-hah!"
Wildcard sighed and gestured.
"Yeah yeah... we're ready to go," Logan said. "Just need the ignition key." That said, he unceremoniously threw Flynn onto the wagon.
Whump!
"Ooof!" Flynn winced all over, rubbing his sparkling horn. "Dammit... B-Big Show..."
"Strap in, Baldy." Logan hopped into the middle of the vehicle, making the whole plank sag on its levitation field. "Time for the World's Craziest Downhill Derby."
"Left my friggin' soap box at home..." Flynn sat in place, took a deep breath, then spoke over his shoulder. "All good to go, Rainbow Dash. The ramp's only going to last for a few more minutes. Waiting on your signal."
"It's now or never, Rainbow," Twilight said.
"Twi... please..." Rainbow took up her position yet again on the left side of the wagon, parallel to Ariel. "It's times like these when we take a moment to soak up the awesomeness of the heroics to come."
"You are going to fail epically and it will cost the lives of everypony you care about," Seraphimus droned.
"Oh boy!" Rainbow smiled crookedly, throwing her hoof forward. "Let's go!"