//------------------------------// // The Ice Sentinel III // Story: Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego // by MagicS //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash quickly realized a problem with her attempt to simply fly away from the monster now. She felt sluggish, her hooves were unresponsive and wouldn’t move right at the moment to let her get into as aerodynamic a form as possible, she was cold, and while her wings were unharmed and still working as normal, Rainbow Dash’s lowered energy levels and rising exhaustion meant that even they couldn’t keep up their usual standards. In short; she was slowing down. Which was bad when a seemingly invincible monster was chasing you. “KRRRAAAAAOOOOHH!” The monster screamed from behind her, Rainbow Dash glancing over her shoulder to see it diving at her with talons opened wide. “You clearly don’t need food so why are you even chasing me in the first place?!” The pony yelled back at it. Its only response was to pull off another ice spike and launch it at her. Thankfully even in her weakened state the pegasus had the reflexes to dodge it. Her eyes narrowed though when she saw the icicle glide right past her injured leg, that thing was intentionally aiming for her weakspot now to cripple her further. Although it’s not like it really needed to do that considering it was gaining on her anyways. “Crud,” Rainbow Dash muttered and looked ahead. With all the fighting and flying around she had been doing she was briefly disoriented and wasn’t sure what direction she was going in when she turned to flee from the monster. But as she saw a huge glacier in front of her she knew she was still heading directly north. Rainbow Dash wasn’t entirely sure what to do. Keep flying north through the mountain range and try to lose it or hope it gives up on her? Maybe. Or maybe try and loop around one of the mountains and head south to see if the thing only cared about her because she flew into its territory. This would be a lot easier if it was an animal or something she could speak to to figure out its motives, since fighting it directly hadn’t gotten her anywhere. Worse still, with her body in the condition it was in now she wasn’t sure if she could actually make it as far as she wanted. Maybe if she pushed herself hard she could outpace it again and create some distance but that would also exhaust her if she wasn’t careful and leave her as easy pickings. Her injured leg throbbed. The coldness from the slashes had made its way up her flank and Rainbow Dash’s wings twitched reflexively, halting her in midair. She was in the open air between the mountains and practically right above the glacier, there was nowhere to run and try to lose the monster like this and she didn’t have the time or speed anymore to escape. She could hear the monster flying through the sky close behind her, she’d have to fight it at least temporarily again. Rainbow Dash wheeled around just in time to roll out of the way of its striking talons. The ice monster shrieked as it flew by her and tried to cut her with its tail but Rainbow Dash was thankfully able to doge that too by flying up. Much to her annoyance though the ice tail still cut off a few bits of hair from her rainbow tail. “Hey!” Rainbow Dash grumbled, the normally jagged ends of her tail now trimmed in a straight line. Well fine, if that’s how this thing wanted it then so be it! Rainbow Dash flew at the monster with greater speed than even she was expecting. It was still easy for her to dodge the wide swiping motions of the talons and get inside the beast’s range. Rainbow Dash hesitated briefly as she hung right before the frozen ribcage, hitting the monster some more might make the cold and numbness in her hooves worse but if she didn’t stun it at all or anything she couldn’t escape from it at this point either. Throwing away her hesitation, Rainbow clenched her jaw and furrowed her brow, bringing up her hooves and rapidly striking the ribcage dozens of times before the monster could move or attempt to attack her. Her rapid-fire blows created small cracks all over the ribs before finally a number of them shattered altogether. Using her four hooves together Rainbow Dash then pushed off the ice monster, knocking it away from her and launching herself back towards the glacier at the same time. Her hooves were cold after that. They almost felt frozen solid, like she had dipped them in ice water in the middle of winter. She tried to breathe some warm air on them to heat them back up but it wasn’t doing much. Looking back at the monster she saw the thing shaking and twitching around again like when she had first struck it and cracked its skull. But if that was any indication it was just going to heal itself soon and chase after her some more. She had to get away quickly or all she had done was hurt and make herself easier prey further. But as she fell back through the sky towards the glacier the nagging thought going through her head was: Where could she go? It was obvious she couldn’t make it anywhere farther in this mountain range with how she was and the speed of her predator. Her only options now would be trying to dive down to the forest and losing it on the ground, or maybe… Rainbow Dash looked at the glacier, she was already right at it and could easily reach its surface before the ice monster reached her. The numerous cracks and crevasses in it stood out to her. It was a risky choice but it might be her best bet with how far away everything else was. With the size of that ice monster Rainbow Dash could tell it wouldn’t be able to fit in the same crevasses she could. But there was the risk that she would just get trapped in some hole that didn’t lead anywhere. “Whatever!” Rainbow Dash threw her hooves up. “Do first and think later!” She said and flew towards the glacier and one of the crevasses that was closest to her. “KREEEAAAW!” The beast bellowed as it finished growing its ice bones back into place. It flew at her again with a speed that bordered on not even medium for Rainbow Dash but was still enough to overtake her with the condition she was in. Dash beat her wings as hard as she could towards the blue and white ice of the glacier while all the while she could hear the telltale whistling in the air of the monster getting closer to her. It would be close. Her eyes were drilled onto a dark crevasse near the front of the glacier that spread inwards quite a ways before closing back up. Was it just a small hole or would there be more cracks for her to travel through in there? She didn’t know but she sorely hoped it was the latter. The opening to the crevasse was just wide enough for her to squeeze through it as well, she’d have to angle herself perfectly so she didn’t accidentally clip her wings or hooves. Piece of cake for Equestria’s best flier. Despite the situation and painful shape she was in, Rainbow Dash grinned and shot towards the crevasse with full confidence. At the same time she could practically feel the icy cold talons of the monster reaching out to grab her. But like a torpedo she folded her wings to her sides and dove right into the crevasse, an instant later hearing the ice gargoyle crashing into the surface of the glacier and roaring for her. Rainbow Dash turned around in the narrow crevasse (and was barely able to do that without her wings hitting the walls of ice) to see the monster glaring at her and trying to squeeze in after her. “Heh, what’s the matter? Can’t catch me?” She taunted it. “KRRRAAAAWOOHHHH!” The monster shoved a claw down into the crevice trying to grab her or tear her to pieces but Rainbow Dash just moved down slightly and blew a raspberry at it. It scraped and scraped along the ice walls of the glacier but they wouldn’t yield one bit for it to continue its pursuit. The gargoyle stuck its skull into the crevice and tried to wriggle its shoulders through as well but the thing was just too bulky. Finally it gave up and stalked above the crevasse, never fully taking its vision off Rainbow Dash. She sighed in relief and looked around the crevasse. It seemed to fall all the way to the bottom of the glacier, where she could see nothing but shadows, and extended a bit further into the core of the glacier before taking a jagged turn. Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure where that turn would take her or how far she’d be able to go down here at all, but it was the only path for her to take with that thing up there hunting her.