//------------------------------// // The Ice Sentinel IX // Story: Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego // by MagicS //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash flapped her wings to keep her altitude steady right above the summit of the mountain, giving her the space she needed and making sure she was ready to fly circles around this dumb monster when it reached her. She didn’t want to be caught standing around and not be able to react in time. Although if she was being honest, Rainbow Dash was pretty sure she was fast enough to be lying down and asleep and still have the quick reactions and reflexes needed to dodge this thing coming at her at the last moment. She was Rainbow Dash after all. And that thing coming up at her probably wasn’t even as fast as an average Wonderbolt. Rainbow Dash just knew it was dangerous and didn’t want to give it any sort of edge. She didn’t need to get another slash across her leg right at the start of the fight or get affected by the cold numbing effect touching it had. Despite her cockiness and taunting she was going to take this monster seriously. The ice monster was flying with its arms outstretched at her and talons open wide. It wanted to grab her and rip her apart from the very beginning. Well Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to let that happen. The moment the ice monster flew up past the rim of the mountain and into the sky with her, Rainbow Dash flew sideways and easily avoided the talons grasping for her. She flew under the wings of the monster and waited for the striking tail she knew was going to come next. Sure enough the razor tail whipped at her as the ice monster fully passed her by but again Rainbow Dash easily moved out of the way of it. She lowered herself in the air slightly, floating only a few feet above the ledge she had earlier been standing on while the ice monster turned around and looked back down at her. “Hey loser, I’m right here! Is it really that hard for you to catch just one pony?” Rainbow Dash spread her forelegs wide, egging the monster on with an annoying grin also plastered on her face. The monster emitted a grinding noise and pulled two ice spikes from its back, throwing them at Rainbow Dash and then reaching up for more and more. They regrew… or refroze… whatever it should be called, quickly enough for the monster to throw them constantly at Rainbow Dash until it was practically raining icicle spears down on her. Rainbow Dash wasn’t worried in the slightest though, it was easy for her to dart and snake around them and dodge the barrage completely. She flew fast and low to the ground as they all impaled themselves into the dirt and snow of the top of the mountain, practically turning the summit into a pincushion. Grinning the whole time it was happening she kept a single eye glanced up at the gargoyle to make sure it wasn’t trying anything else without her notice. It kept throwing icicle after icicle at her as if not accepting that she could easily dodge them all. While it tried to spear Rainbow Dash it ended up creating a trail of dozens of icicles in the ground as the rainbow blur just outran everything. The ice monster finally screeched in frustration at its repeated failures and flew down to the ground itself, attempting to just land on Rainbow Dash and take her out up close and personally. Naturally she saw that coming and with a sudden jolt of extra speed she pushed away from the monster right as it landed on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust and snow. Perhaps that cloud was something it planned to create though as a second later its tail shot from inside it in an attempt to stab Rainbow Dash through the stomach. But the pegasus was as always far too quick for the monster in her normal state. She ducked under the tail and set down on the ground as the tail recoiled and struck out at her a second and then a third time, with Rainbow Dash dodging them all. Finally the ice monster lunged out of the cloud all at once but Rainbow Dash easily jumped backwards on top of a boulder while its talons came down right where she had just been standing. “So you’re as slow and clumsy as ever, huh?” “KRAAAAEEEE!” The monster scrambled atop the boulder while Rainbow Dash just laughed and hopped up a few more, landing on top of a thin rock spire. The monster’s sharp talons allowed it to easily crawl up the spire itself even without using its wings. When it reached close enough it swiped out at Rainbow Dash, who jumped from the spire with a backflip and kicked a lower point with her back hooves, cracking it and making the whole thing start to break off thanks to the weight of the ice monster on it. The monster only seemed to realize too late what was happening as the spire broke in two and it fell over backwards, flapping its wings to try and keep itself from falling but failing thanks to its size and the short distance it had. Rainbow Dash watched with satisfaction as it smacked into the first boulder, the ice bones making up its back and spine cracking, and then bounced off to the next before finally hitting the rocky ground, looking like it was close to shattering completely form the repeated impacts. It didn’t shriek or anything but it kept twitching and emitting breaking and snapping noises while Rainbow Dash hovered above it. With her eagle eyes she could see to her dismay that it hadn’t fallen apart and the cracks in its ice bones were already fixing themselves while the monster tried to stand up on its four shaky limbs. “Tch,” Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue and zoomed to a coconut sized rock on the ground. She picked it up and with pinpoint accuracy threw it right at the ice monster’s skull. It shattered a large portion of the avian ice-skull, taking off a number of the spike’s from its mohawk as well and causing the monster to fall over again. Rainbow Dash happily pumped her hoof at the great shot and flew around looking for more rocks to chuck at the monster. Obviously that one hadn’t taken it out for good, she had done similar damage to it the last time they fought and it was just fine in a second. The only difference now was that she wasn’t getting hurt in return. She quickly flew all over the broken peaks of the mountain, grabbing any rock that looked big enough to do damage and throwing them at the monster. At its body, limbs, skull, wings, anything was as equally breakable. She created a constant hurricane of attacks so her opponent couldn’t recover. It must’ve been about a hundred rocks thrown before she ran out of ones she could just pick up and throw like that. Breathing only slightly heavily, Rainbow Dash stopped to see what damage she had done to the monster. “Had enough?” It hadn’t. Although cracked and broken in many places it was still more or less whole and knitting itself back together just fine. And its glowing eyes were focused dead on her. “KREEEEOHHHH!” The monster screamed as soon as the last cracks in its ice bones closed up and it flew at Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash decided to just let the thing chase her for now. She turned into nothing more than a rainbow blur and led it over boulders, between pillars, under arches, and past piles of rubble. Her small size made it easy for her while the monster’s tunnel vision on her led it to accidentally smash itself into things all the time or even get stuck. Rainbow Dash grinned at it and blew a raspberry when it tried to push itself between two large pillars of rock and instead nearly shattered its own wings on impact. It clawed at her and finally had the sense to just go over the rocks instead of trying to squeeze through. The clouds continued to roll overhead as the chase went on, Rainbow Dash still had an ocean of energy in her but even that would exhaust itself eventually. That brimming confidence she had hadn’t exactly taken a hit yet but she still didn’t exactly know how she was going to defeat this thing. She glanced down at the healed but still visible cuts on her leg. At least she hadn’t suffered another wound like that or made the mistake of touching the monster directly yet. Rainbow Dash climbed up one of the many peaks and then dipped down the backside of it just as quickly, ducking under a rock formation at the bottom in the shape of a horseshoe stuck into the ground that the monster would’ve been far too big to fit through. But instead this time it had the sense to completely go around the rocks, something Rainbow Dash wasn’t expecting. While it shot around the side it pulled off an ice spike from its back and launched it at Rainbow Dash. The pony was caught a little by surprise but she still managed to duck her head in surprise and let the icicle fly past her. “Nice aim!” Rainbow Dash taunted as she looked over her shoulder at the monster and then flew on. And clotheslined herself on the recently thrown icicle sticking out of a rock. “Hurk!” She wheezed as she flipped end over end before crashing on the ground and rolling. Totally caught off-guard by the fact that the ice monster had tricked her she almost didn’t react in time to the thing jumping on top of her. “Gah!” Rainbow Dash squeaked as she saw the talons coming down right on top of her and rolled under the body of the monster just in time. The talons stabbed right where she was and then the ice monster reached under itself, trying to grab her and pull her out while at the same time it stuck its tail up under its body in another attempt to stab Rainbow Dash. The blue pony kept narrowly avoiding the monster each time but this was a rather dangerous situation that she wanted to get out of. When the monster reached under itself to grab her again she kicked its talon away and zoomed out from under it. But immediately after she already started losing sensation in that hoof… “Oh come on! One touch and it’s already getting like this?!” Rainbow Dash complained to her own body. The ice monster roared and flew up to pursue her so Rainbow Dash didn’t have more time to complain. As it chased her around the peaks it threw more icicle spears at Rainbow Dash but this time the pegasus was making sure she saw exactly where they landed too so there wasn’t a repeat of before. That vigilance didn’t change the fact though that Rainbow Dash was unable to do any lasting harm to her adversary while she was now already starting to get weaker thanks to the magical numbing effect it held. She looked around for anything that could help her, maybe she could get it trapped in some of the rocks? The slash marks on her back leg were starting to ache… “KRRRAAAAOOOOOWW!” Rainbow Dash briefly looked over her shoulder to see the ice monster flexing its wings, getting prepared to throw off a storm of razor feathers at her like it had done in their previous fight. With how many it could shoot at once Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure if she could dodge everything in this state. In her frantic search for something she could use against the monster up here, Rainbow Dash finally saw something. A large boulder sat on the edge of one of the broken peaks. Perilously close to falling over it looked like a simple nudge would be all it took to make it crash on down. If she could hit it or the rock wall it was sitting on at just the right moment and get it to fall on the monster… Rainbow Dash nodded and flew towards her new destination. From behind her she heard another scream from the ice monster as it threw out the flechette storm of ice feathers at her. She couldn’t change course since she still needed to bait it so she had to do her best to dodge in the miniscule amount of air space she had. So many feathers just came at her like daggers while more whirled around like flying buzzsaws, everything looking to converge on her and turn her into mincemeat. She twisted and turned to avoid as much of it as possible while the monster tried to close the gap and take her down if its feathers couldn’t finish the job. Ahead of her, Rainbow Dash could see the rock, a single kick right below it would shake it enough and cause it to tip over, she just needed to reach it and hope her timing was right. With her focus temporarily broken a single errant ice feather pierced into her left wing. Rainbow Dash winced and faltered in midair, the pain from her wing making flying a little more difficult. If this didn’t work she might not be able to defend herself and evade the monster’s clutches anymore. But she still forced herself to fly to that rock, knowing the ice monster was right behind her and gaining, and kicked the rock it was standing on with all the strength she had in her legs. As she flew past it she glanced back to see it shaking and the boulder just starting to tip over while the ice monster flew under, right in its path. Come on… Rainbow Dash bit her lip. The boulder fell. And as its shadow fell over the ice monster the flying sculpture looked up just in time to realize what was happening before it hit and smashed it right to the ground, pulverizing it on impact and utterly obliterating the monster. It must have shattered into a million pieces as Rainbow Dash watched, the ringing sound of a hundred mirrors shattering all at once filling her ears. That pain didn’t stop the grin on her face whatsoever though. Crushed, broken, buried, the ice monster looked to be totally out of commission. “Yeah!” Rainbow Dash threw her hooves up in victory.