//------------------------------// // Rainbow Dash's Limit Break // Story: Ofolrodi // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// "Hmmm... the leathery skin... the blue spidery veins... the exposed buttocks..." Rainbow's eyes teared. Her ears flattened as her muzzle winced and grimaced visibly. "The thin, wiery hairs that appear willy nilly... the four inch claws... hmmm..." "...!" Rainbow's eyes popped open. Moist rubies reflecting a twilight sky. She saw the floating array of rocks over the chaotic crater. They appeared dozens of meters away, looming high above and littered with pale corpses. The voice resumed—levitating just a few naked feet away from her. "...I swear... they're just so dang familiar..." "...?" Rainbow flung a look to her left. Discord "knelt" in mid-air, gazing down at the twitching corpse of a chaos beast. "Yes..." He stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "...yes...I almost think I had one of these as a pet once upon a time. More than one, at least." Rainbow blinked. Suddenly, the corpse thrashed wildly about, shrieking and clawing at the air. The mare gasped, flapping her wings—only to wince from a penetrating numbness running through her labored body. "Ah! There it goes!" Discord grinned wide, teeth glinting in the starlight. He lifted up slightly, folding his forelimbs as he proudly watched the bleeding beast struggling to get up. "So persistent! Just what does it have to live for? Death? Well, that's all things, I suppose. But this one just doesn't give a flying—well, you know—about it." Rainbow panted and panted. Her eyes flickered red-on-yellow, and she resorted to crab-walking backwards across the ground. Her joints ached—the insides and outsides threatening to mutate at any moment from the proximity to the beast. Hissing, spitting up blood, the mangled thing heard the pony's wheezing breaths. It spun towards her, hissing through a crooked jaw. Its lower legs were useless, and a femur was sticking out of a grotesquely bent limb. Nevertheless, it crawled rapidly towards her, raking and scraping at the earth. Rainbow crawled backwards away from it, but her pace was far less impressive. The scrambling creature inched closer and closer across the dull, lifeless rock. "Yes... yes, I definitely would have enjoyed one of these suckers as a pet," Discord said. "At least they make for easier maintenance than gerbils! I mean—think of it—these little fellas will eat anything!" Rainbow's ear twitched to the sound of banshee shrieks and metal impacts. She flung a brief look to her right and saw the glint of starlight against Bard's bo-staff. "Wildcard," she whimpered. Her vocal cords couldn't decide whether they belonged to a pegasus or a dragonequus, and she struggled to produce a loud enough cry to her friend. "Wildcard! Pl-Please..." Blood trickled from her forehead. In the crimson flow of the mare's juices, the teeth of the creature glinted. It scrambled closer and closer, laws nipping at her lower fetlocks and tail-hairs. "They only know how to go in one direction! Just like you, Sparky! Only... in pursuit of a jugular vein, not an alicorn's bright burning sky ball." Discord winked. "Come to think of it, you would make a nice pet too..." "Celestia..." Rainbow wheezed. Her heart pounded in time with the crawling beast's shrieks. As she scooted backwards, she reached a hoof up—hairs growing and shedding between blinks. Her hoof grazed the lightning bolt of her pendant. "Come on..." She licked her lips, cutting her tongue slightly on a fresh fang or two. "...come on!" "Hresssssh!" The beast rolled onto her. "Aaaaaaaaahh—!" She fell back, and as she did so she rubbed the pendant in a concentric circle. A burst of harmonic energy emanated from withing before shooting outward like a ray of sunshine. FLASSSSSSSSSSH! Cl-Clunk! The beast landed on her... ... ...and did not move. "... ... ... ... ..." Rainbow Dash winced, forelimbs curling up as she lay helplessly under the stationary creature. As the pallid seconds rolled by, she squinted one eye open and then the other. She blinked at the beast pressed against her. The monster was dead still... because it had turned to stone. All of it: from head to tail and the sinew in between. Every square inch of its skin and flesh had been reduced to dull gray rock. Even its beady pale eyes had been reduced to glazed chalk. "Huh..." Discord gave a thumb's up as he slowly, vaporously disappeared. "...the money shot." Almost perfectly, Twilight Sparkle formed in his place. Her muzzle was hanging agape. "Rainbow Dash...?" Twilight murmured. Fluttershy and Applejack floated in. "Rainbow! Speak to us!" "Are you alright, sugarcube?" "I..." Rainbow panted and panted. Wincing, she found the strength to shove the inexplicable statue off of her and sit up. Her shivers were unavoidable as she reached up to clasp her pendant. "I think... I'm..." "You can see and hear us again, Dashie?!" Pinkie remarked. Biting her lip, the mare nodded. "Must of been that there blast of harmony you just let loose!" Applejack said. "Whew! Who'd have known you coulda rendered that varmint to a lawn ornament, huh?" "I didn't..." Rainbow winced. "I mean... while in the crater, I couldn't even think of—" "Trolls," Twilight said. The other marefriends gave her a double-take. "I beg your pardon, darling?" Rarity remarked. "Of course...!" Twilight's ears twitched as she looked excitedly at the others. "I know what we're dealing with now! They're trolls!" "Trolls??" Fluttershy made a face. "Wowie-zowie!" Pinkie gasped. "Are you so sure-rie?" "I thought... trolls were a myth?" Applejack squinted. "And even if they weren't... ain't they ancient history? Like... pre-Equestrian?" "You're right. But here... in a land of full chaos... it's a completely different story!" Twilight Sparkle looked at the others. "According to the written words of Clover the Clever, trolls can be defeated by pure sunlight! Even in the penumbra of the sun's glow, they'll instantly turn to stone!" Fluttershy eyed Rainbow's pendant. "Or in this case..." Rainbow heard more sounds of metal impacting. "!!!" Standing upright and regaining her strength, she spun towards the source of the sound. She saw a lone griffin exhaustedly fighting off three bipedal creatures. "Wildcard!" she shouted. A pair of rattling goggles reflected her petite figure. "Down!" She hollered, already rubbing her pendant. "Fall to the ground—!" Without protesting, Wildcard immediately belly-flopped and flattened his body. His three combatants aimed their claws at their suddenly "surrendering" foe. Gritting her teeth, Rainbow summoned a burst of harmonic energy and fired it in a lightning-bolt-shaped beam that swept over the immediate landscape. The spotlight swept over all three beasts. Fl-Fl-Flasssh!!! The trolls immediately turned to stone. One of them even toppled over and—Crasssh!—shattered into a hundred pebbly bits. "Whew!" Applejack whistled, wiping her brow with a smirk. "You and statues, sugarcube..." "Oh goodness!" Rarity nevertheless winced. "Look at that blood! Is Wildcard okay?" Fluttershy shuddered. "He's hurting, but he'll be okay so long as we get him to—" "Rainbow!" Ariel flew in, grinding to a stop against the earth. Breathless, she reached over and grasped the mare's shoulders. "Are you okay?!" "Simmer down..." Rainbow was still cradling her pendant. "I'm okay. More than that..." She gulped. "...I think I've discovered an edge over these freaks." Ariel exhaled with relief. "I was so worried when you nearly came into contact with the wagon back there." She frowned. "Why didn't you and Wildcard fly higher?" "We wanted to, but the situation went south." Rainbow shrugged. "Whatever. Fight scene's gonna fight." Ariel motioned Curveside. "Flynn's stalled the wagon just a hundred meters away—" "What for?!?" Rainbow barked. Banshee shrieks lit up from the crater. "They're not going to stop!" "But I thought you said you found—" "Won't matter when we're surrounded! Besides, I think my pendant's out of juice for the moment." Ariel's muzzle twisted. "You're kidding, right?" "Yeah!" Pinkie floated upside down. "Harmony's got a refractory period! Who'd a thunk it!" "Never mind. We gotta keep moving." Rainbow turned towards Wildcard. "Wildcard, let's—" Swisssssssssssh! An Emeraldian rapier flew in and skewered the neck of a stone troll. CRACK! Ariel and Rainbow winced. The beast's head flew clean off, rattling to the floor alongside the rapier. Seconds later, a pale set of talons landed nearby. "Oh..." Seraphimus exhaled in monotone. "...they're statues now." A charcoal blink. "How quaint." Wildcard sighed. Rainbow took a few steps. "Seraphimus, thanks for showing up so swiftly, but—" "We gotta fly back!" Ariel exclaimed. "Back to the wagon!" "Right." Seraphimus picked the rapier back up. "Of course we do." "But it's an open plain!" Ariel exclaimed. She looked worriedly at Rainbow. "Where do we have to flee to?" Rainbow squirmed in place, thinking hard. "I... think there may be a simple solution, darling," Rarity said. "Oh?" Rainbow looked at her. "What are you sensing?" Before Rarity could explain— —banshee shrieks lit the air. The group turned to look towards the crater. A wave of bounding creatures were already advancing on them. "Incoming," Seraphimus declared. "How can there possibly be more of them?!?" Ariel's voice cracked. Without thinking, Rainbow galloped up to the decapitated troll skull and punted the stone thing into the charge. Three bodies fell hard to the ground from the impacting projectile—but the rest came rushing towards them, faster and faster, undaunted. "Yyyyyyyeah..." Rainbow exhaled, flapping her wings. "Didn't think that would work." Fwoooosh! She shot Curveside with Seraphimus following closely behind. "You know the drill, children! Move move move—!" "Come on, Wildcard!" Ariel helped a wincing griffin upwards as the two flew after the other two, ascending swiftly above the reach of the troll army. "Infinite retreat is infinite!"