//------------------------------//
// The Eternal Furnace XX 
// Story: Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego 
// by MagicS 
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On the next level up things had gotten a bit hairy…

“How many of these things are there?!” Double Duty yelled as a mechanical spider jumped on top of him, the fanged mouth trying to chomp down on his face.

Frayed Wire blasted it off him with a beam of magic from his horn and helped his former rival up. “I don’t know—too many.”

“I had to deal with these things when I was flying through the city earlier!” Rainbow Dash shouted over the sounds of the melee. “I didn’t know there were still all these left!”

In a large lobby area on the level they were on that was probably somewhere that was scheduled for jettisoning, the army suddenly found themselves attacked by dozens of the metal spiders and crabs. They crawled from the ceiling, from vents in the walls and out from panels and gratings on the floor. In an instant Rainbow Dash’s forces were thrown into a pitched battle. They weren’t used to fighting things like these either and the metal monsters were very dangerous with their pincers and even just their sharp legs. So Rainbow Dash was doing a lot of the heavy lifting again.

That wasn’t to say everyone else wasn’t trying their best and some of the tougher ponies like the leaders and ones like Soot Mane and the unicorns in general were a lot of help. Rainbow Dash just had to fly around and make sure no one was getting overwhelmed, often prying or kicking the monsters off of ponies who just couldn’t handle them. She pulled a crab off of a screeching pegasus mare and tossed it on the ground before they both stomped on it with all their weight a few times, making sure it was broken. The stupid monsters kept crawling along the walls and ceilings though so you had to lookout everywhere. One spider attempted to drop on Dash but her awareness and reflexes were too sharp, it just got a stiff uppercut for its troubles. But a lot of the other ponies here weren’t as fortunate and Dash was stuck on rescue duty for a while.

“These things are creepy,” Soot Mane said as she and Cast Iron swung one into a wall together and snapped a few of its legs.

“Tell me about it,” Cast Iron said as she reached forward and tore off a few important looking wires from it.

When a spider leapt from the ceiling, Acid Rain and two of his pegasi crashed into it, kicking it to the ground and letting Double Duty smash it before the thing could recover. Acid Rain continued on working like that, much the same as Rainbow Dash since he was one of the faster pegasi. Frayed Wire meanwhile kept blasting any he had a clear shot at with magic. It didn’t always disable them but it went a long way.

One crab came out of the crowd and lunged at Double Duty, its pincers aiming right for his head to clamp down on. He ducked and back-stepped out of the way but then found himself accidentally backing into a wall and cornering himself.

“Uh oh,” Double Duty gulped as the crab jumped at him with pincers at the ready.

Nut slammed into it from the side and tackled the crab, the two of them rolled across the floor until they stopped with the crab on top of her and trying to pinch her now. She screeched and moved her head to the side while its claw slammed down on the empty metal floor right where her head had just been. Nut then wormed her back legs up to her chest and kicked out, knocking the crab off her and onto its back. Before the crab could right itself she jumped on top of and started pummeling it, looking for any loose wires or tubes that she could pull out and break. Double Duty ran over and stomped down on the crab’s pincers for a moment to make sure it couldn’t retaliate, and soon enough Nut had done enough damage to make it inoperable.

But more and more just kept streaming out from everywhere and continuing the battle.

“There’s just no end to these wretched things...” Double Duty growled and threw the broken crab at a spider on the wall, the metal crunch signifying another broken machine as the spider slid to the floor.

“Well it’s one more down at least,” Nut said, panting.

Rainbow Dash found herself on the floor facing off with five spiders while an equal amount of other ponies stood with her. The spiders liked to jump a little more than the crabs and jump they did, with Rainbow Dash leading the charge against them. Her ponies met them in midair and the two groups of adversaries tackled each other with some ponies winning out and pinning the spiders and some spiders winning out and pinning the ponies. After that it was just work for Rainbow Dash to bash her opponent’s chassis in and then move on to one of her comrades who was less fortunate and needed help dealing with their spider. In a quick minute the five spiders had been dealt with and aside from some bruises and bruised egos everybody else was fine.

“Don’t let up, everyone!” Rainbow Dash then shouted so everyone fighting could hear her. “There’s gotta be a limit to how many of these things there are, just keep fighting and help each other out and then we can keep moving!”

A rallying cry went up from the ponies and they fought the metal monstrosities with renewed vigor. Acid Rain landed on top of one of the crabs and twisted around the pincers at their joints until they snapped and fell limp, Frayed Wire used his magic to lift a spider up and repeatedly slam it into the ground, Double Duty simply bucked a spider out of the air that tried to jump on him right into the wall. The others like Nut, Soot Mane, and Cast Iron kept fighting just as hard and helping out the ponies that weren’t doing as good.

Rainbow Dash zoomed over the heads of several ponies and landed a lightning quick strike on a spider that was just coming out of one of the vents. She then reached a hoof to its underbelly and snapped a bunch of exposed wires, the glowing red eyes turned off and the spider whirred about for a moment longer until an elbow drop from Dash dented its back and the whole thing went limp. Rainbow Dash then peeked into the vent and saw one or two more of these metal beasts coming from deeper inside. She clicked her tongue and chucked the destroyed spider back inside at them to delay them for a moment.  

“Get out of my face!” Soot Mane yelled from close by her as she pivoted and bucked a crab monster away, making an opening for a bunch of other ponies to dogpile it.  

“Nice one,” Rainbow Dash grinned at her.

Soot Mane grinned back. “Thanks but I think we should be saving all that for after the fight.”

Double Duty meanwhile had a crab monster in a headlock while Frayed Wire pinned down its legs and pincers with his magic. The earth pony leader quickly snapped its head around backwards and broke it.  

There were still quite a few spiders and crabs but their numbers did seem to be thinning out. Not as many were coming out of the walls anymore and groups of ponies were getting better at dealing with the ones who were still here. Rainbow Dash was flying with Acid Rain now, the two of them forming a duo and picking off any spiders or crabs that were alone on the outskirts of the fight and watching for new ones emerging. They were fast in their job and made good support for the ponies on the floor who couldn’t keep track of everything or watch all their sides at once. The two flew right past several ponies fighting with a crab monster and took out the spider that was trying to sneak up and attack them from behind.

Cast Iron and Nut, two mares who decidedly did not like each other just a few short days ago, were also in the middle of helping each other out against a spider. It was kind of like that all over. Ponies who had been at best rivals and at worst mortal enemies were now fighting together to defeat their true enemy. Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but feel proud even though they were still in the middle of a dangerous fight for their lives. The tides had turned completely at this point though.

Rainbow Dash proved that when she and Acid Rain crushed another crab and looked around, not sure where the next one they needed to take out was. And if there were so few left that that was the case then it was a pretty good thing. No more new ones were coming, they had finally gotten to the end of Resin’s reserves when it came to these miniature metal guards. Now all that needed to be done was mop up the ones remaining.

“Hah!” Rainbow Dash yelled as she punched a crab in the face hard enough to shatter the red plastic of its eyes and knock it against the wall.

There weren’t anymore for her to fight after that, she just watched and listened as ponies like Double Duty and Nut destroyed the rest right up until the last one fell. When it finally did—at the hooves of some earth pony whose name she didn’t even know—there was a brief moment of rest and then a grand cheer as the army of ponies celebrated their victory. This was their first real battle against Resin and they had won. Rainbow Dash knew there were bigger monsters ahead but this was a real confidence booster and it helped unify and bring everyone together.

She was admittedly really tired though. She had been pushing herself constantly all day and she was running out of adrenaline to keep pulling out of thin air. And she couldn’t even let it show, Dash had to be strong in front of the others.

“Okay everyone, that looks like the end of those things but we’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Dash called out across the army. “If you’re injured don’t push yourself, just stay back here and let yourself heal up, there are still plenty of us to handle the rest.”

“What she said. I don’t want to see anyone forcing themselves to fight, you’ve all done well,” Double Duty said.

Rainbow nodded to him with a smile. He had changed a bit if he was willing to look out for the other ponies like that. “The rest of us get ready to head to the next level. We’ll be at the top soon.”