Rainbow Dash, Seraphimus, Ariel, and Wildcard ascended rapidly. From their lofty vantage point, they could look down and see the wave of pale monstrosities sweeping across the plain. The trolls rolled like a leprotic bedsheet towards the tiny glowing speck that was the Herald's hover wagon. Rainbow guessed that they would overwhelm the group—and their vehicle—within three minutes. Maybe two.
"Okay, Rarity." Rainbow Dash gulped, gazing down in mid-flight. "Where's your solution?"
"Feast your eyes Curveside, darling."
"For what?!" Rainbow's voice cracked. "You think we can somehow get to the Midnight Armory in the span of a fart and hunker down inside?!"
Frowning, Rarity gave Rainbow's skull a ghostly swat. After her hoof phased through, she pointed downward. "Cease with your facetiousness and look closer!"
"She's right, Rainbow!" Fluttershy exclaimed, pointing. "Look!"
Rainbow's eyes squinted. As her vision adjusted, she noticed a layer of shadows shifting before the rest of the darkness. "Hills?" Her ears twitched. "Mountains."
"I see them too!" Ariel spoke up, gliding closer to Rainbow. "Ah jeez... can we go around them?"
"That'll take too long," Rainbow said. "Those creatures will catch up before we scale them—"
"Rainbow, listen to me!" Rarity pointed. "Slightly to the right—towards Omega—there is a hollow entrance! Upon the Edgeside slope of the highest summit, about halfway to the peak!"
"... ... ...you mean a cave?!" Rainbow exclaimed.
Wildcard glanced over amidst his labored wingflaps.
"Your 'solution' to all of this is a friggin' cave?!" Rainbow's voice cracked harder.
"It's more than that, darling!" Rarity exclaimed. "I'm sensing a tunnel system! That mountain ridge is practically hollow!"
"Rares, where there's tunnels there's bound to be tunnel-makers." Rainbow frowned. "I know this from experience! First-hoof! And that's a hoof that I've nearly had bitten off more times than I can count on... m-my hooves!"
"It's either that or attempt to outrun these blasted cretins on open land, Rainbow!" Rarity glanced back down at the stampeding masses with a noticeable shiver. "The odds of that appear slimmer and slimmer."
"Rainbow, we only know for sure about one threat at the moment," Twilight Sparkle said. "Do you want your friends to be safe or what?"
"Rnnnnngh..." Rainbow's eyes rolled in the bitter winds. "Twilight, caves are bad news. I'm telling you—"
"It seems most fortuitous," Seraphimus said unemotionally. "Especially if your wyvern has the means for closing the entrance off to our pursuers."
"See?" Applejack pointed. "Even better!"
"For real...?" Rainbow blinked.
"Uhhhhhhhhh..." Ariel took another glance at the trolls, then back at Rainbow. "I'm on board for the cave idea!"
"To the Dash Cave!" Pinkie Pie hollered.
"Grnngh—Fine... FINE!" Rainbow Dash flailed her forelimbs. "But you'd better keep your ghost horn lit, Rarity. We're going to need a find a way out of that place eventually and that's on you!"
Rarity saluted as elegantly as she could manage. "I shan't let you down!"
"Better not get too close to the wagon, then," Rainbow muttered, ears drooping. "The chaos will blind you... and the rest of us."
"Oh dear..." Fluttershy quivered. "I hadn't even thought of that."
"Guess we'll just have to deal with it when the time comes," Rainbow said. She looked at those flying next to her. "We gotta get the wagon to that mountain!"
"Uhhhhhhhh..." Ariel squinted Curveside. "Which mountain?"
"About thirty degrees towards Omega!" Rarity said. "Tallest peak! Halfway up to the summit!"
"Thirty degrees towards Omega!" Rainbow repeated. "The tall mountain! About halfway up! There's a cave!"
Wildcard's goggles locked on a shadow silhouette. He gestured sideways in mid-flight.
"Does Wildcard see it?" Rainbow asked.
"Wildcard sees it!" Ariel stammered.
"Great!" Rainbow pointed at the wagon. "Go to Flynn and company and tell 'em what to do! I can't get close myself because of the chaos metals—"
"They must ascend a steep incline," Seraphimus declared. Her headcrest shifted. "Will they even make it to the enclosure in time?"
Ariel shook her head vigorously, her blue eyes reflecting the pale stampede. "Not looking like it!"
Seraphimus exhaled. "Then someone needs to distract the charging brutes." Swooooooooosh! She was already diving backwards, wings coiled. "I'll see about eviscerating a few in the process."
"Wait!" Rainbow reached a hoof out. She slowed slightly in her glide and gnashed her teeth. "Dang it, Sera...!"
Wildcard jolted to go after her, but Ariel yanked him in place. "Oh no you don't!" Ariel frowned. "You've done enough, buddy!"
For once, the wounded Desperado was aching too much to protest. His goggles nervously reflected Seraphimus' diving figure.
"Fuuuuuuuuuu..." Rainbow's ears folded back. "She's dead meat if she thinks she can distract all of those freaks on her own."
"Yeah." Ariel nodded. "And?"
"Not the time, girl." Rainbow pointed at the wagon. "Rendezvous with the rest of the Herald. Give them the instructions—AND get Kepler and Flynn to work on some lunar or chaos boom-boom to close the cave entrance once we're through!"
"Awwww crap..." Ariel clung to Wildcard, grimacing. "You're diving after her, aren't you?"
"I'm not just gonna ignore the fact that she's done so much to help us today!" Rainbow was already diving backwards. "There's never going to be a better opportunity to salvage what's left of her than right friggin' now! So go already!" Swoooooooooosh! "We'll join up! I promise!"
Ariel and Wildcard momentarily hovered in place, watching as Rainbow also became a speck against the pallid sea.
Wildcard's beak tightened, and he was shivering slightly.
"Just keep it together, buddy." Ariel held him tighter as she dove towards the wagon at breakneck speeds. "You're not going to lose any more friends today—old or new." Her brow furrowed. "Not if we can help it."
"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh—!" Seraphimus raked her claws down into the ocean of bipedal beasts. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaugh!"
Sl-Sl-Sliiink! Strips of flesh ribboned in the air, flanked by sprays of black juices. The entire stampede shifted, stumbling around the island of collapsing corpses left in the wake of Seraphimus' attack. Within blinks, trolls were leaping high, swiping at her with massive claws.
"Httt!" Seraphimus juked to the left, then to the right. She kicked one beast away and met another's leap with a vicious talon punch straight into the gut. When she pulled her claws back out, they were dragging intestines. Kicking the beast away, she flung the dribbling viscera into a fresh wave of potential attackers, blinding them before they could flank her.
She flapped her wings harder, preparing to ascend...
...when a nimble beast climbed up the shoulders of its companion and leapt swiftly at her blind side. "Hresssssssh!"
Before Seraphimus could fully turn around—
FLASSSH!
—there was a brilliant strobe of ruby light. Seraphimus gasped into a shadow and spread her forelimbs out. Cl-Clump! She caught the statue of a troll frozen in mid-leap.
Panting, Rainbow Dash coasted downward with a hoof pressed to her pendant. "Even if you're being heroic right now, a death wish is a death wish... and most uncool."
"Hmmmm..." Seraphimus' beak tightened. "You had your spotlight back in Frostknife. Don't lecture me on making a scene."
"Can we not? Please?" Rainbow held her breath as she twirled to avoid a leaping troll, then a thrown chunk of earth. "Not during Operation Counter-Troll???"
"Very well..." Then, with a well-timed grunt, Seraphimus flung the full weight of the stone statue into a flanking group of attackers. THUDDD! Bodies sprawled and patches of ruby light billowed around her as she dove towards the sea again with a distracting growl. "...at least let me exercise my frustrations!"
"A bit late for that, ya think?" And Rainbow accelerated, exchanging dips and dives with her former foe. Together, they made the army of trolls stall and flounder to strike back at their two tender targets.