//------------------------------// // Out Flying the Eldritch // Story: Ofolrodi // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Rummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmble! More columns of cloud and debris rose from the earth in thick bursts. Rainbow Dash only had to glance towards her right in mid-flight to see a continental chunk of the Omega horizon shifting with each of the creature's sluggish movements. "Wow-weee!" Pinkie Pie exhaled, gliding alongside her anchor. "Look at it go!" "Geeeughhh..." Rarity shivered all over. "I'd rather not." "But... it's so incomprehensibly big," Twilight Sparkle murmured. "Nothing in any of the books I've ever read even mentions something this large existing!" "Reckon it's cuz this here creature's Dark Side folk," Applejack said. Rarity spoke: "Or—here's a dreadful thought—maybe there is a creature such as this living on the Light Side, only none of the ponies living above its dormant figure know a single thing about it." "What do you suppose it eats?" Pinkie Pie chirped. "Ponies?" "Don't be silly, Pinkie," Twilight said. "They'd be too tiny for its frame." "... ... ..." Pinkie blinked. "Fat ponies?" "It seemed to enjoy chasing after us all the same," Rarity said. "When its... tentacle-back-hair failed to work, that is." "Yeah..." Pinkie's muzzle scrunched. "What was up with those things anyways?" "I think each of the flagellates are equipped with a separate digestive system," Fluttershy postulated. She gawked at the shifting earthscape beyond while Rainbow flew. "They grab their prey, suck the nutrients out of their body, and then ferry them through the creature's greater bloodstream." "So..." Twilight Sparkle tapped her chin in thought. "...it's like a symbiotic relationship between separately functioning parts?" "Yes! Exactly! But the small tentacles function under an autonomous nervous system." Fluttershy smiled, tilting her chin up. "Nature is so fasci—" "Could we please focus less on the creatures and more on finding my friends?" Rainbow growled. "Erm..." Fluttershy squirmed. "I was only commentati—" "I know what you were doing!" Rainbow Dash growled. "And we've got no friggin' time for it!" She flashed a frown at Twilight. "Do you sense the wagon or do you not?" "Uhm..." Twilight nervously pointed Curveside, just ahead of the shifting earth. "There's a mana signature up ahead... down low." "Good." Rainbow dove swiftly. The wind whipped around her figure as she approached curvaceous assortments of rock and limestone. "Keep your ghost-horn peeled." Fluttershy wilted in mid-glide. "I'm so sorry, Rainbow Dash. It wasn't my intent to be disrespectful to your friends—" "Just forget about it," Rainbow grunted, eyes narrowing on the erratic topography ahead. "It's over and done." "No it ain't," Applejack said. Her brow furrowed. "Somethin' happened just now." "AJ..." Rainbow sighed, gaining speed. "I don't have time—" "It was Discord, wasn't it?" Applejack raised an eyebrow. "He appeared to ya when you was goin' all beastly." Rainbow Dash did not reply. And yet, in such a manner, she did. "He appeared to you?!" Twilight Sparkle stammered. "When you were separated from the pendant?" A dull groan echoed up Rainbow's throat. "The full nine cruddy yards..." "Yeesh!" Pinkie shook all over. "Freaky deaky!" "I wonder if that has anything to do with your state of being, darling!" Rarity remarked. "If Discord's presence is somehow related to the cessation of your fainting spells—" "He's got nothing on me," Rainbow grunted. Rarity shook her head. "I'm only saying that if we understood more—" "Just drop it, okay?!?" Rainbow's teeth showed. Rarity folded her forelimbs with a frown. But before she could say anything— "Let us find Rainbow's friends," Fluttershy spoke up, calm and gentle. She looked at everyone as a whole. "I'm sure that Rainbow isn't the only one concerned about them." "Well, shucks..." Applejack shrugged. "The Herald's tough!" Pinkie Pie grinned. "If anyone could bounce back from the headbutt of an eldritch horror, it's them!" "Twilight...?" Fluttershy looked over, warm eyes entreating. "We've crossed quite a distance. Do you now sense where the wagon is?" "As a matter of fact, I do." Twilight Sparkle pointed slightly to the right. "In that little alcove over there. You're going to have to go low." "Thanks, egghead." Rainbow flattened her wings and dropped until her belly was a few feet above the rolling earth. "On it." Sw-Sw-Swooosh! The petite pegasus threaded her way through a series of limestone loops. The rock formations blocked the starlight overhead, making the entire environment eerily dark. "Mrmmmffff..." Rainbow rubbed a hoof over her pendant, shining a ruby spotlight ahead of her blurred flight. "Can never ever be simple..." "Whew-wee..." Applejack dusted off her ghost-hat. "Must have taken quite a tumble to have landed here." "How, though?" Twilight remarked. "There's constant cover—" "No, there isn't!" Rarity insisted, pointing up ahead. "There's a break in the rock!" Pinkie said, "Who wants to place bets that it's Hover Plank Five Thousand sized?!" Sure enough, as Rainbow rounded a cleft of rocks, she discovered the hoverplank lying precariously on its side beneath a broken chunk of rock. A halo of starlight illuminated some rattled crates and an assortment of supplies scattered all over the place. Miraculously, the wagon itself was in one piece—although banged and scuffed up in innumerable spots. Only one or two of the straps holding the supplies in place had broken, so Rainbow guessed only one of the containers had shattered loose. "Wow... Flynn really built that thing to bang around!" Pinkie exclaimed. "I could care less about the dang wagon," Rainbow Dash grumbled. "Where's the Herald?" "What..." Rarity grimaced as she and her friends still felt the rumbling earth growing closer and closer. "...what if that terrible beast ate them?" "Not a chance," Twilight Sparkle exhaled. "If that was the case, then what would it be searching around for?" Applejack looked at Fluttershy. "Anythang, sugarcube?" "Mrmmmfff..." Fluttershy clutched her skull, concentrating hard. "I'm working on it." "Okay..." Rainbow took a deep breath. "Well, it's a start." She flew up to the wagon and pushed against it in an effort to shove it back onto its hovering end. "Grnnngh... next order of business is to hide this thing somewhere safe... and go searching for our missing buddies." "Guhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Pinkie winced as her tail twitched and twitched. "Achhh!" A rolling tongue sounded off from above. "...?" Rainbow looked up into the patch of starlight. With swift ease, she flung her hooves out in time to catch a disheveled wyvern. Thwump! "Ooomf!" Kepler jolted in place. With a shaking claw, he swung his glasses completely around and plopped them crookedly on his snout. "Grreetings, sisterr..." Fluttershy exhaled with relief. "There's one."