Ofolrodi

by Imploding Colon


One Does Not Simply

Slowly, one wobbly hoof after another, Rainbow Dash shuffled out of the tent. The twilight above shone dull and dismal through the urban haze of the abandoned city. Nevertheless, Rainbow found herself squinting as she peered around, searching for her companions.

As it turned out, she didn't have to look far. As the lofty platform came into focus, so did five familiar figures—trotting closer.

Flynn gulped. Leaning forward, he was the first to speak, "Rainbow Dash...?"

Rainbow took a deep breath, coiling her wings by her side. "Lookie. Flynn lives."

"There! See?!" Flynn turned to scowl at Logan. "I told you the venom didn't rot her brain."

"Not as far as we can tell..." Logan's eyes narrowed.

Flynn held a hoof up to Logan's figure. Patiently.

Logan sighed, reached into a satchel, and produced a bit that he slapped into Flynn's fetlock.

"Jee..." Rainbow Dash droned. "How touching."

"It's not as trivial as it looks," Logan said. "That's the only bit we have on the Dark Side. It's worth a mountain of gold."

"Here's hoping you win it back in another bet."

"Seeing as how you're still alive, I probably will." Logan smiled and trotted until he towered over the mare. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Missy."

Rainbow playfully punched his forelimb. "Holding up the fort here, Big Show?"

"You can count on me."

"The spiders are the ones setting up a defense perimeter..." Flynn breathed onto the coin, polished it, and smirked at the petite mare. "But go on. Let him dream."

"Bald-ass douche canoe..." Logan muttered into the twilight.

"At least I've been putting myself to good use these past two weeks!" Flynn grinned. "I've been studying the ancient technology lying around these platforms and you have no idea the kind of discoveries I've made!"

"Save the briefing for another time," Rainbow sputtered, limping down the line of Heraldites. "I don't want to slip back into another coma." She stopped at a hairy wyvern. "Heya, Keps."

"Harrk!" The spectacled companion saluted with a smile. "Grreat to have you back, Rrainbow One."

"Thanks for all the healing broths," Rainbow Dash said. "It's... a shame I threw most of it up."

"Yes, well, accorrding to Merrula, you fairred quite well."

"Tell that to my migraine." Rainbow playfully fluffed his hairy mane and shuffled past Ariel. "Hey girl."

"Feeling better, Rainbow?"

"Better enough."

Ariel weathered a weary breath. "I told the messengers of Abaddon that you were awake. I suspect they'll be sending one of the Merulas up here to speak with you."

"Good. Cuz I've got lots of questions to ask."

"You didn't figure them all out from Abaddon's song?" Flynn asked.

Ariel snapped at him. "Will you give her some space, Flynn?! For Goddess' sake! It's a miracle she stopped freaking out like she did upon waking!"

"It's okay, Ariel," Rainbow muttered, trotting along. "You don't have to tell everypony you kissed me."

"Eeep!" Ariel blushed heavily.

"Wait... what?" Logan's eyes darted. "Who kissed who?"

Rainbow didn't respond. She was standing before Wildcard at this point.

At last, the silent griffin looked at her. Twin black goggles reflected her haggard face. Then—with a beak smile—he held a metal talon out.

Rainbow took one look at the arm, ignored it, and leaned forward to engulf the Desperado in a dear hug.

Wildcard—clearly surprised—simply patted her back and nodded.

The two parted ways, with Rainbow breathing through a tired smile. "It's okay, Jordan. I know you were worried. You don't have to thank me for that."

"The way you talk," Flynn remarked, "It's as if you've made a habit out of experiencing comas in the past."

"Coming back from the dead is an art," Rainbow said. She looked at Wildcard again. "The only thing that sucks is that I never went to school for it."

With slow, deliberate swipes of his fingers, Wildcard hand-signed something before Rainbow.

"I... uh..." Rainbow looked at Kepler. "Sorry, I'm a bit rusty... and groggy. He said something about hair?"

"He states that yourr hairr has grrown considerrably long," Kepler remarked with a tusked grin. "And he would be rright."

"Yes, well..." Rainbow brushed a hoof through her spectral bangs. "...some sins take longer than others to be forgotten." Her eyes narrowed at the group as she spoke in a soft, warm tone. "I'm... really really lucky to have you guys... y'know that, right?" She gulped. "I can't imagine how stupidly sucky it must have been to be waiting here for so long... not knowing if I would wake up."

"We had Merrula to give us assurrrance," Kepler explained. "And during my ministrations I could tell that you werre simply dealing with a temporrary spell."

"Still... it couldn't have been easy..."

"We're the Job Squad," Flynn said with a huff. "'Easy' means we're doing it wrong."

Logan chuckled at that.

"... ... ..." Rainbow Dash scanned the urban horizon. "... ... ...where is Seraphimus?" One ear twitched, then the other. "Is she... I mean did she—?"

"She's around..." Logan shrugged. "...buzzing about."

Rainbow's brow furrowed. "But... I-I thought she was dead-set on splitting for lonely pockets of the Curve—"

"So did we," Ariel said with a nod. But... turns out she's still hanging about." She gestured lazily into the air. "She flies around for hours, comes back to check to see if you've recovered or not... and then rinses and repeats."

"Should I be flattered?" Rainbow's voice cracked.

"That griffin is batshit insane," Flynn wheezed. "I don't know what keeps her around, honestly."

Wildcard hand-signed, and this time Rainbow read it: "She is probably searching for answers."

"Mmmmm..." Logan nodded. "She's not the only one..." His eyes traced towards Rainbow.

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, facing the Herald as a whole. "I wish I could give you more, everypony. But... I-I simply don't have more to give."

Wildcard gestured again: "The Spider Queen spoke to you. I heard everything."

"Yeah, well, did you see the stuff that I saw?!" Rainbow rasped. "Did you feel the song in your veins?"

Wildcard was merely silent.

"What was the experrience like?" Kepler asked.

Rainbow gazed off across the spires of the empty city. "Friggin' scary as heck... at least at first. Then... as time went on... it felt like being out-of-my-body..." Rainbow smirked aside. "Believe you me... I'm not exactly new to crazy metaphysical fart-brainage... but this was just so... so..."

"Spidery?"Ariel suggested.

Rainbow blinked. "I was gonna say anticlimactic."

Ariel shrugged. "Seems to come leg-in-leg."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that... come on, Rainbow!" Ariel gestured dramatically. "These are giant friggin' spiders we're talking about!"

"Amazingly gifted, perrceptive, and meticulously melodic spiders," Kepler added.

"Whatever. They're still big squirmy things with big squirmy brains working on the same squirmy Song for eons and eons..." Ariel grimaced at Rainbow Dash. "Weren't you going on and on before about how Abaddon could very well be senile?"

"She has a very thorough mind!" Rainbow stated somewhat defensively. She felt a tinge of dizziness and had to steady herself against Wildcard's supportive talon. "So... l-long as it's got a thorough st-story to tell." Rainbow sighed. "... ... ...one she's been dwelling on for a very very long time, it would seem."

"Then it's a bust," Logan declared. "She wasted all of our time and your sanity for nothing."

"Not exactly. I know about the Shards now."

The Herald stirred anxiously.

"Ariel was trying to explain that to us yesterday," Flynn remarked. His mechanical eye rotated in and out with contemplative poise. "Turns out... the Divine Endrax had an even grander plan beyond death?"

"It wasn't enough that she gave her life to block the entrances to the Midnight Armory," Rainbow Dash said. "The three friggin' armies haven't been able to make her corpse budge. I doubt we can manage any better. However—when she died—she purposefully discarded three enchanted horns from her very own skull. They each fell into the hooves of the three different factions..."

"Lemme guess..." Logan folded his forelimbs with a knowing nod. "...it gave them something else to fight over."

"A distrraction!" Kepler declared.

"More like an obsession," Rainbow Dash said. "One that has wasted more lives than the previous half of the war... and in a shorter timespan as well..."

"It's a mirracle that any of the arrmies arre capable of standing to this day!" Kepler added.

"And that's the scary part." Rainbow looked at the group as a whole. "These three horn pieces—these Shards of Endrax—are required to disenchant the spell binding the Divine's corpse to the Midnight Armory."

"You sure of that?" Flynn remarked.

Wildcard briskly hand-signed: "I heard the Spider Queen say it herself."

"And I saw it." Rainbow frowned. "I saw the frightening possibility for any of the fragile factions to crumble under the right pressure... allowing either of their nemeses to scoop up their Shard, combine it with the power from the one they already have, and turn the tide of war in their favor."

"By then... they will have become an unstoppable force," Ariel muttered. "Harmonic Prism or bust."

"If that's the case..." Flynn grimace. "...then that could happen any time!"

"And when they acquirre the gift of the alicorrns, all we've worrked forr will be lost." He pointed a wing-talon at Rainbow. "All that you have flowned forr... would be nothing. Alas... the fate of Urrohrringrr would go to rruin."

Rainbow stood tall. "Not unless we get to the Shards first." And she stared patiently at the eyes and faces of her companions.

Silence hung tensely over the Herald.

Ariel bit her lip. She looked at Logan and Flynn.

Kepler took his spectacles off and nervously rubbed them clean.

At last it was Wildcard who "broke" the quiet with a series of gestures.

Flynn grumbled. "Yeah, Doubleyoo, and if Bard was still here, he'd say the same thing. That's what I both loved and hated about you Desperadoes." His teeth showed. "You were a bunch of optimistic jackasses!"

"Baldy..." Logan sighed.

"I always knew this entire campaign of ours amounted to a suicide mission... but how..." He flailed his forelimbs before his muzzle. "Tell me... how in Mortuana's name are we expected to just march right into these murderous nihilistic assholes' lairs and slip back out with the very diamonds of their militant desire?!"

"Forr all we know, we could be the forrce that tips the scales," Kepler said. "We could strrategically inserrt ourrselves into theirr rranks, make out with the prrize, and stand by while the confused factions fall all overr one anotherr like dominoes!"

"Yeah?! Like... how?!" Flynn face-hoofed, stifling a groan. "Honestly... I'm trying to be hopeful about this... but we'd need an army for such a friggin' thing!"

Ariel pointed at distant webs. "The Winter Children of Abaddon—"

"—are stuck here because the Bloodwings have made mince-meat out of their ailing numbers throughout the rest of the Dark Side," Logan grumbled in a somber voice. "They're the arachnid kings of this domain, but their venomous ballet dancing ain't worth shit beyond the city limits." He looked lethargically at Rainbow. "I hate to say it, but Baldy's right. So far—with all we've seen and witnessed—there's only one way to pursue these 'Shards of Endrax' if we actually wanted them... and that's on our own."

"And on top of that...!" Flynn waved in the air, spitting. "We don't even know where in the Hell they are!"

"... ... ... !" Rainbow Dash spun to look at her tent.

Wildcard saw it. His feathers instantly perched.

"What is it...?" Ariel asked with a murmur.

"Hold up..." Rainbow trotted towards the tent. Halfway through, her grogginess got the best of her, and she tripped.

Wildcard flew over to help balance her. She patted his talon and pointed into the tent.

"Please, Jordan. If you could. My b-backpack from Equestria."

Wildcard nod-nod-nodded. Fwoosh! Fwoosh! In two blinks, he shot into the canvas structure and returned with the stachel dangling from his metal grasp. The loyal griffin held the item up before Rainbow.

Rainbow took it. She reached deep inside, and when she drew her hoof back out she was cradling a pearlescent sphere in her fetlock.

"The dragon sphere?" Ariel asked.

Rainbow took Axan's mysterious gift. Slowly—with precise movements—she rotated and turned it around.

Flynn rubbed his muzzle, watching intently.

At last, there was a faint flicker of scarlet light across the edge of the sphere... followed by a slightly brighter one situated perpendicular to the first. Finally—after more than a little bit of fumbling—Rainbow got the sphere positioned in such a way to register a third signal, this one puslating with an intense crimson glow.

Logan craned his neck. From his perspective, the beacon of light within the giant marble resembled a compass needle. His gaze traced to where it pointed in a straight line towards the edge of the City.

"My starrs and garrterrs..." Kepler exhaled. "...it all makes sense now."

"If those Shards are the only parts of Axan's sister that are left living—so to speak..."

"...then her stone is likely pointing us to where the three of them are currently located," Ariel finished.

"Where's this bright one pointing?" Rainbow dumbly asked.

Wildcard gestured: "Omega."

"But... who, then?" Ariel stammered. "Which faction is it?"

Rainbow bit her lip. Her ruby eyes reflected the shimmering band within the stone. "I've got a pretty dang good guess who."

Logan sighed. "The Bloodwings." His tail flicked. "Buck me..."

"Even still, Rainbow..." Flynn winced. "An army of six? How... how could we even pretend to approach them?"

"Fighting is simply out of the option," Kepler said, shaking his hairy head. "Therre's farr too few of us. As diplomats—perrhaps—we could win ourrselves an opporrtunity to simply distrract them! But... I-I fail to see how six strrangers frrom the 'Penumbrral Edge' could convince them to rrelinquish theirr Shard!"

"... ... ..." Rainbow Dash looked up from the stone. "Not an army of six." She stared firmly at the group. "But a army of seven..."

Flynn and Ariel instantly winced.

Logan looked at Wildcard.

Goggles locked on Rainbow, Wildcard slowly gestured: "She stopped being the Commander of anything a long time ago."

Rainbow nodded. "That's the first comforting thing I've 'heard' since waking up." She shoved the dragon stone back into her weathered saddlebag. "Enough time has gone by. I have to speak to her."

"But..." Ariel shrugged. "...there's no telling where—"

"Fluttershy, remember?" Rainbow stepped briskly down the platform street and began flexing her forelimbs. "If Merula shows up while I'm gone, have her leave a message."

"Just listen for my screams," Flynn droned.