Icy's legs burned as she ran at a full sprint through the forest, trying desperately to keep up with Lance and Archer as they ran and wishing fervently that she'd gotten around to asking her mother about joining her when she exercised.
Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she recalled her mother telling her about proper breathing technique while running, but the exact details escaped her – she could remember that she was supposed to use her mouth for one part of the breath and her nose for the other, but had no idea which was which. Besides, even the small part of her that remembered this was aware that the urgency she was moving would prevent her from properly implementing whatever technique was correct.
Not to mention that anything even resembling rational and methodical procedure seemed nearly impossible while she was running through the pouring rain that had been pulling and scratching at the edge of her consciousness like a cat playing with piano strings. Ever since she'd reached the surface, it had been keeping her painfully on edge and now that she was once again sprinting through it and hitting every drop in her path, after spending so long immersed in the stress of it, her mind was tumbling in a chaotic mass of emotions and noise, with only the occasional snatch of coherent thought showing one of its frayed edges.
Fortunately, it seemed neither of her teammates was so hampered, as Lance raised his head to indicate he had something to “say”, then jerked it towards the mountain and gave it a small spin.
“No, of course, we... don't know they'll... send a tornado,” Archer said between her far more ordered breaths, “but they know we're... here and they'll... want to stop us. If they don't... send a tornado... that just means... they've got worse... for us.”
Even through her internal hysteria, the idea that whoever was responsible for her misery could have even worse prepared than what they'd already seen managed to penetrate, driving Icy to growl and put every scrap of her rapidly dwindling energy into her legs, pumping them hard and lengthening her strides as if she hoped she could outrun the pain and fear.
In retrospect, that was probably a mistake, as it meant she was paying even less attention to where she was going than before and, when her forehoof rammed into a particularly high root, she was sent lurching forward, her stomach seeming to rise and press against the roof of her mouth as she was catapulted over. She grimaced as the ground rushed up as if to punch her.
In her peripheral vision, she could just about make out Lance moving towards her, as if to catch her, but he wasn't close enough to make it. Instead, he quickly went completely out of her sightline as she tumbled end over end, the muddy ground providing a smooth but slippery path for her to roll along until she could barely imagine what up and down were, let alone which was which.
After a good few seconds, she eventually came to a stop and, miraculously, ended up the right way up. That said, it would be inaccurate to call her truly vertical, as she ended up splayed across the ground, her limbs tangled and slightly embedded beneath her and her wings sagging into the mud. Her mind took a much longer time to come to rest, but in the meantime, she was treated to the general feeling of being wet, exhausted, scared and generally unhappy.
As she lay there, breathing heavily in an attempt to suppress the urge to retch, she heard Archer give a tiny, almost imperceptible chuckle as she turned to her. “Well, that's one way of asking for a rest.”
Icy looked up to her, pouring her final scraps of energy into a glare.
It did seem to have some effect, as Archer nodded. “Yeah, I know, sorry.” Icy knew it was petty, but she did get a small jolt of satisfaction when she noticed that even the ever-confident Archer was panting slightly, her knees bent a little as she got her breath back.
For some reason, as her thoughts finally reassembled themselves into an almost-coherent order, Icy thought of Spike and the one time she'd seen him truly tired. It had been when she'd gone round to his house after he'd been working all day in the castle – technically the same building, but Icy tended to think of them as distinct – due to Princess Twilight having “had an idea”. She remembered thinking how odd it was that, to recover from his fatigue, he'd bent over and put his hands on his knees. She had no idea how that helped him recuperate – if he'd gone to all fours to spread his weight over more limbs, that would make sense, but he was still putting the same weight on his legs, so she didn't think it should have helped, but apparently, it did.
Unfortunately, however it worked, it wasn't an option for a quadruped, so ponies had to find other ways of helping themselves recover after massive exertion. The easiest way was to lean against something, but there wasn't always anything suitable around. As such, while it was hardly a common sight, it wasn't unknown for a pony to simply sit down on the ground after a long hard run or a bit of heavy lifting. Failing that, there were ways ponies could bend their legs to keep themselves stable so that they didn't have to put as much effort into keeping upright, since they'd be somewhat balanced against each other.
Come to think of it, that might have been how Spike's thing worked too. Still, she didn't regret thinking otherwise, as the moment she'd looked down and offered to help him search for whatever he had bent over to look for had been a very funny moment for the two of them. Well, for him at the time and for her in hindsight.
Icy sighed a little, relieved that she was at least able to think clearly enough to remember such a moment. Swallowing hard, she refocused on the situation. “Are we safe now?”
“Should be,” Archer replied as she and Lance went over to a large tree near them. “We're out of the line of fire if they send something to where we were and, if they could keep track of us through the trees, they'd probably have launched something at us by now. We should be fine,” she finished as she and Lance leaned their torsos against the tree, sending a silent, minuscule vibration through its upper branches.
Domino breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the tree vibrate in just the wrong way, instantly deducing that two filly-sized bodies were leaning against it. She didn't smile, as the whole experience of tracking their movements, such as she even could, had been hard, painful and exhausting.
Watching and trying to keep track of and predict living creatures, ponies especially, was tortuous at the best of times, and she'd had to not only focus all her attention on the area she'd seen the arrow come from, followed by the path she saw her quarry taking by way of the occasional disturbed branch or wrongly-moving leaf, but she'd also had to actively push her mind and Talent to keep track of all the different factors involved, lest she mistake some other creature's movement for theirs. The constant flood of information and calculation her cutie mark deluged her mind with had increased from heavy and sharp to almost smothering.
However, after a couple of seconds to identify that the group of ponies had stopped moving for at least a few seconds, she looked down at the trio of tethered-together rockets at her hooves. Fortunately, the one advantage of having to keep her overactive perceptions focused was that she could let her hooves and Talent work on their own, shifting the rockets along with the moving ponies, keeping them in the rough path of the eventual whirlwind. This was alongside shifting the knots on the tethers to lengthen the gap between rockets – she was having to take out ponies who were small but quick, after all, so sacrificing much of the hurricane's power to increase its area was the most effective use of her resources
Of course, even her Talent wasn't enough to perfectly arrange the rockets to create such a hurricane without any real effort, so she took a deep breath and focused her attention once more, this time on the rockets in front of her. This was far easier and less unpleasant though. All it took was a tiny turn to each one, a quick adjustment to how the tethers and fuses were lying and a quick gust from her wings along the ground to clear the initial flight path and get the wind moving in just the right way. Nothing to worry about at all.
Allowing herself a tiny nod, she brought the lighter to the fuses in turn, carefully measuring the time between lighting them until all three were burning down.
Her shoulders sagged as she finally allowed her perceptions to return to normal, relaxing as much as she was able. Which wasn’t much.
After a moment to centre herself, she turned back towards Ponyville. The whole business of keeping track and taking care of the interlopers had taken up all her attention, such that she hadn't been able to keep up her rainy assault on the town. Not that she was worried, of course – she had done enough to work towards its flooding beforehoof that she could afford a short hiatus in the onslaught. However, she did have to get back to it soon, otherwise, the weather would start to lessen, which could lose her considerable progress.
However, before she could even begin to calculate what rockets would be needed next, she stopped, her mouth hanging open as she saw something utterly baffling in the sky. She was so confused and shocked that, for the first time in days, actual words tumbled out of her mouth.
“What the...?”
Icy closed her eyes for a long while as she focused on recovering her energy. She had, by this point, remembered her mother's advice on proper breathing technique and was focused primarily on maintaining it, even if she wasn't entirely clear on exactly why it would help.
After about ten seconds, she opened her eyes again, seeing that the others hadn't moved much for that period either, both of the much fitter ponies also having to recover. Sadly, Icy was too focused on her fatigue to feel any more satisfaction at this.
Well, it certainly felt sad at first, but Icy soon realized it was probably a good thing, as it meant she had her attention in the right place. Besides, she didn't honestly think it was right to feel that sort of... whatever-the-germane-word-for-getting-enjoyment-from-others'-misfortune-was about her teammates.
She shook her head to end the mental tangent, happy that it only ached slightly as she did. Looking up, she saw Archer looking in the direction of Mount Foalja, even though she obviously couldn't see it through the tree line. The sharp-eyed filly had an uncharacteristically pensive, calculating look on her face and Icy couldn't tell how much of that was because she was focused on their mission and how much was out of shame for having endangered it. After a moment, Icy gave up trying to work it out, figuring it would be both more sensible and kinder to focus on the task at hoof herself.
“So, what do we do now?” she asked, drawing Archer's eyes back towards her and Lance.
“Now?” Archer replied before pausing for a moment in thought. “Well, the mission's not changed or anything – we still need to get to this pony and stop them. Trouble is, even if she's lost us, she knows we're out here somewhere, so we're gonna have to be real careful not to get spotted.”
Lance nodded, giving Archer an unsure look.
Archer returned the nod. “Yeah, I know, but it's not like you can't do stealth, Lance. You're just not too experienced with it, that's all. Besides, you do kinda have a natural advantage, don'tcha?”
Lance raised an eyebrow, leaving it quite ambiguous whether he was perturbed at the joke itself, the irrelevance of it or simply the fact Archer was making one.
Still, Archer didn't seem bothered. “Plus, we've got distance going for us, so it's not like we're gonna have to be whisper-quiet for a while. What about you, Icy? You up for a good old “Solid Skunk” mission?”
Icy allowed herself a slight giggle, her throat still aching too much for any more. Still, as she made a mental note to lend Archer the comics she'd referred to, she did feel the need to correct her. “Sure, but it's Solid Sn-”
“Whatever, some animal that isn't liquid or gas,” Archer replied with a playful smile. After a moment, though, she turned back and her expression became a little unreadable. “Anyway, we better be going. Who knows what this pony'll throw at us if they know… we're...”
She trailed off as the sound of a rocket rang through the sky like a funeral bell, joined a few seconds later by the sound of two more rockets and the rapidly building sound of wind. And all of it sounded as if it was heading straight towards them.
“Oh, you gotta be kidding me!” Archer hissed as she strained her eyes to see through the small gaps in the canopy.
Not that it needed eyes as sharp as hers to see, as Icy only needed to glance up beyond the leaves to see the massive cylinder of seemingly solid wind rapidly swirling into existence and rising into the sky. Icy gulped hard, suddenly missing the situation where Archer would need to tell her what she was seeing. As it turned out, being able to see the problem herself didn't always feel great either.
It didn't help that the view of the tornado was also giving her a heavy dose of perspective. When they'd seen the previous tornado, it had been quite a distance away from them and moving sideways from their perspective, meaning they could only really gauge its movement relative to its size, making it seem to move at a weirdly sedate pace. With this whirlwind, however, not only was it bigger, seeming to them more of a curved wall of moving wind than a funnel, but it was advancing on them like an impossibly huge juggernaut, meaning they were judging its speed through the distance it was eating up between them.
As a result, it was practically sprinting towards them, gobbling up leaves, branches and small trees like a combine harvester and roaring ever louder as it approached.
Icy's hooves started moving rapidly, trotting in place as they tried to get her to run, even as her mind assured her that it wouldn't help – with the size and speed of the whirlwind, there was no way she'd escape it in time. Even the time it took to get her hooves under control was enough for it to get significantly closer.
“Grab something!” Archer called out, drawing Icy's attention to the side to see her running towards a large tree. “Big branch, root, grass, anything!”
Icy wished she could say that she didn't need to be told twice, but the fact that, a fraction of a second later, Lance's head jerk was what truly snapped her out of her shock suggested otherwise.
Still, she could at least not say she was suicidally oblivious, as her head whipped around to look for a solid anchor point. A moment later, she locked her gaze on a thick, low-hanging branch on one of the larger trees in the area. Running over, she grabbed onto it with both her forehooves and pulled herself close to it, taking a moment to wrap her wings tightly around her torso. Her sensitive feathers were already beginning to feel the effects of the encroaching wind, reminding her just how dangerous it would be to effectively have two sails attached to her back in a windstorm.
She looked up from the branch and immediately regretted it as her eyes burned, the wind, debris and soil kicked up getting slammed into them for a moment before she reflexively squinted and her eyes filled with water, blurring her vision as she looked behind her.
Fortunately, the colours of her companions stood out distinctly, the white of Lance's fencing gear showing him like a beacon against the dark background while the even darker blue that covered Archer's suit, coat and mane made her a solid blob of colour even through Icy's watering eyes.
A moment later, she managed to blink her eyes clear enough to see what they were doing. Lance had wedged himself between two branches, pressing all four hooves out around him as he grasped them, fixing himself firmly in place. Meanwhile, Archer was, to Icy's surprise, only holding onto the root she'd gone for with one hoof while the other wrapped a rope around her midsection, tying it off before feeding it under the root, presumably to attach herself fully to the ground and ensure she remained there.
Icy winced, this time out of uncertainty – while it would be very effective if it worked, she wasn't sure Archer had time to fully attach herself before the tornado was upon her. Still, she swallowed hard and shook her head – while she was no expert at estimating... well, anything, really, it was certainly possible that she could get it done and she trusted Archer's eyes enough to think she could probably manage it.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, even the best eyes have their limitations, including that they can only see things that are visible. And, as it turned out, tornados weren't only dangerous when you were in the central funnel.
A sharp gust slammed into Icy, causing her to let out a squeak as she clung harder to the tree. Or rather, the gust seemed sharp for a split second before it continued, making it clear that it wasn't fading anytime soon and they'd better get used to it. Icy wasn't sure she'd be able to, as the powerful wind drove into her, jabbing under her tightly clasped wings and into every slightest corner of her body, trying to bulldoze her off of her branch. However, through a combination of a firmly prepared grasp and adrenaline, she managed to hold on.
To her immense credit, Archer also managed to keep a hold on her root, even with only one hoof. She was blown back by the gust, but just about kept herself stable, even as her back hooves slid along the ground to hang just on it like an almost-airborne wind sock. Still, for that moment, it seemed as though she wouldn't get pulled into the vortex.
Unfortunately, the rope she'd attached to herself was not so fortunate, getting yanked easily away from the root that she had intended to tie it around and up into the buffeting cyclone.
It could have been the wind – it was difficult to tell with how overpowering the noise was from the tornado at that point – but Icy could have sworn that she heard Archer yelp as the rope extended out behind her, yanking her sharply. Her one stable hoof remained firm as the thing she'd intended to ensure she stayed grounded was now providing one more force to pull her into the air, but it was clearly a temporary arrangement.
With a shaking grip, Archer tried to pull herself forward to get her other hoof in front of her. For a moment, it seemed like an even bet whether she'd get a second hoof onto the root before the first one gave way. Icy had known Archer long enough to think that, given an extra hoofhold, she could probably ride out the storm.
However, the moment before she could make it, there was a crack as the tree she was attached to was knocked hard by a large rock, ramming it into a slight slant and causing the root to jerk slightly out of the ground. It was a relatively tiny movement, but it was enough to shake Archer's grip when it was already as fragile as a thread.
With her face registering only mild shock, Archer was ripped off the root and up into the cyclone.
Icy almost reached a hoof out towards her, symbolically rather than out of any hope of doing anything to help her, before the feeling of the bark beneath her hoof reminded her of the need to keep her own grip.
Still, as she turned away, praying that Archer would be alright, she did just about catch the filly grabbing a piece of flying debris and leaping off it, launching herself higher into the whirlwind, above the tree line and out of sight.
Icy didn't have any time to question this, however, as the moment she was facing into the wind again, she immediately gave her own yelp.
Fortunately, the large chunk of wooden chips and debris that was heading towards her was still a fair distance off, but at the speeds the wind was driving then, that still didn't give her long. However, she might have been able to do something to avoid or brace for them.
Unfortunately, the realization that they were there started a terrible domino effect, as her yelp opened her mouth wide enough that the copious flying dust and dirt in the air shot in through her lips, scraped painfully over her tongue before ramming itself with the force of a bullet into the back of her throat. She instinctively gasped at the pain, not even having time to think about the fact that in doing so, she was simply letting it force itself down her windpipe and into her lungs, causing her considerable pain and sending her into a series of painful hacking coughs.
Through some miracle of biology or willpower, she managed to keep a grip on her branch throughout the coughing. Sadly, though, it turned out it didn't matter since, as soon as she caught sight once more of the incoming debris, she didn't have the time or wherewithal to think about her response and simply flared her wings, ready to bring them forward to shield her face.
She never got close, of course. The instant her wings were away from her body, the wind picked them up and yanked them backwards hard, sending a powerful jolt of pain into her shoulder joints. She didn't have any time to dwell on that, though, as the seemingly doubled force of the wind on her wrenched her grip away from the branch in less than a second, twisting her forelegs painfully and sending her flying off and into the whirlwind.
The force of the wind soon had her spinning wildly, sending the world into a blurry mass of greens and browns that she couldn't begin to make out even if she wasn't busy coughing out the rest of the dust and trying to get her limbs back under some sort of control. However, as she passed above a big blur of white that she vaguely registered as Lance, she saw it move up towards her, reaching out something – presumably a hoof or possibly a blade handle – towards her. It did no good, of course, as she passed far above its reach and, as Icy finally managed to clear her throat enough that she wouldn't have to cough until she next breathed, she realized that that would almost certainly mean he would get sucked up too, bringing them all into the cyclone together. For some reason, Icy did not find this togetherness encouraging.
She barely had a second to dwell on it, however, as she suddenly found out why Archer had climbed so quickly – being caught in a tornado was dangerous enough in any situation, but they were in the middle of a forest, meaning that she was being hurtled at incredible speeds in a space thick with trees. Or rather, as it seemed from her perspective, the trees had started moving around with the speed of a pegasus and the size of a medium dragon, which gave them the power of a falling boulder. Icy had no idea how accurate that was and, indeed, how accurate it would stay if she impacted one, but she was neither contemplative nor interested enough to want to find out.
Instead, as one such tree came at her like a jouster, she flapped as hard as she could in its direction. The force of the winds around her felt almost solid, as if she was trying to sharply jam her wings through a block of tar, but it seemed to have some effect as her body shifted trajectory suddenly. What's more, through some combination of luck and instinct that she'd never be able to figure out, she'd flapped her wings roughly downwards, sending her leaping up above the treetops.
From there, she seemed relatively safe for a moment, at least in the sense of not being imminently in mortal danger. The whole experience was still awful, but she didn't seem in any danger of being splattered against a solid object as she continued to rise into the wind. The updraft had seemingly combined with the momentum of her flap to bring her higher and send her spinning in an entirely new direction. Still, in the occasional moments where she'd be looking downwards, the ground got further and further away, as well as being more and more obscured by the dust and debris. Still, Icy got the impression that, in at least the very short term, higher was better.
Of course, that certainly didn't mean she was out of danger, even ignoring the obvious fact of “tornado”. The flash and the loud strike of thunder that sounded from... some direction, she couldn't tell which, was enough to remind her of that. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she wondered what the thunder was for, since there wasn't any thunder naturally in the rainstorm and it was sounding from a long distance away – close enough that they could hear it clearly and almost immediately, but far enough that it probably hadn't been intended for them. Of course, the fact that they were facing someone who could, from what she could see, aim a lightning bolt was intimidating on its own, but she had other matters occupying her mind.
Still, she blinked heavily, trying in what small way she could to clear her vision enough that she could see if there was anything that might come at her. It was no easy task, as not only was the dust only slightly less dense at her higher altitude than it had been on the ground, but the fact that the wind would often, as she spun, be flying directly into her eyes made the task even more arduous.
In the tiny part of her mind that was, even in this overwhelming and critical situation, still thinking about trivialities, she realized that she now knew why the Wonderbolts wore goggles when they were flying and she briefly wondered if that was also why Misty Freeze and Captain Cryo from the AC universe wore those goggles too. If so, she resolved to get a pair herself as soon as this was over. If she was able to afterwards, of course.
Fortunately, most of her mind was focused on the situation at hoof, not that that was saying much, either for her attentiveness or for how much she could actually do about it. Being picked up like a leaf didn't exactly make her feel like she had any control over her fate. In fact, as the beginnings of pressure in her stomach and throat suggested, simply being able to stop spinning would be an achievement worthy of celebration.
Still, she did what she could, forcing her shaking wings out, hoping that tensing them up as much as she could might arrest her spinning. It took a few seconds even to spread them out fully, considering how much air was flowing over them, and once out they quivered like water after a boulder had fallen into it, taking all her effort just to hold them in place. Angling them to level herself out was completely out of the question, let alone managing to escape the whirlwind. Once more, she cursed how weak her wings were and wondered why she couldn't have the power most pegasi had in every feather.
It didn't help that her wings were one of the few parts of her body that were exposed to the raging elements. Not only was the wind a constant force trying to squeeze and twist her wings and almost succeeding, but it also gave its force to the massive amount of dust and particles in the air, sending them scraping along every inch of her exposed coat and feathers, scratching them painfully like millions of tiny, blunt teeth. Vaguely, it registered that the rain had actually helped slightly, as dry particles would be even sharper and could probably strip flesh if given long enough, but she didn't feel that lucky as all the dust grated along her sensitive wings.
However, despite the pain, she did partially achieve her goal, as her nauseating spinning soon slowed and her stomach settled down to the normal level of nausea one can expect when in an incredibly harrowing and perilous situation. It was still a factor in her sensations, but it was simply uncomfortable as opposed to imminently vomitous. She was still turning around in the air, of course, but it was far more gradual and manageable, like hanging on a rope rather than being strapped to a gyroscope. It was still unpleasant and made it difficult to get her bearings, but at that moment, Icy wasn't in any mood to be picky. She tried to let out a sigh of relief.
Unfortunately, that only brought to her attention another problem with her current situation – she couldn't breathe. Not wanting to get another mouthful of dirt, she tried to breathe out through her nose, only for the sheer force of the wind in her face to not-so-politely inform her that there was quite enough air out there, thank you, and that her breath was going to stay exactly where it was. Her throat contracted a couple of times in some impotent attempt at coughing as the used-up air in her lungs was forced down even harder, making her chest and her limbs begin to burn.
She tried to turn her head to the side, hoping to relieve some of the pressure in her face, but it was no good – unless she could turn her head one hundred and eighty degrees, there was no way to stop the wind from sliding hard into her nostrils, so it didn't look like she'd be able to take a breath until she was facing wholly away from the direction of the wind. Which, thanks to the mild success she'd had at slowing her rotation, wouldn't be for a little while. Still, her turned-away face did have one advantage – the hood drawn tightly around the rear half of her head blocked a bit more of the onslaught of dust, reducing the amount of scratching she was being exposed to. Through the rapidly increasing weight of her thoughts, she thanked the wondrous material of her costume for protecting most of her body. If only it could have covered her face, she could...
Her eyes widened as she realized what she could do and stayed wide even as the dust slammed into them, though they did tear up for the second it took for her to grab her hood and yank it forward, covering her face as much as she could before pressing it tightly around her nose and mouth and forcing her chest down to breathe out into the small pocket of relatively unmoving air.
It still wasn't easy – the force of the air around her pressed hard against the loose material, pushing it into her as if trying to force it up her nose to mould the inside of her nostrils. However, with what felt like more strength than even her wings had taken, she managed to force the air out of her lungs before letting the seal she had around her muzzle relax for a moment, letting out the used air and letting in a dust-coated but still welcome breath of relatively-fresh air.
Before she could even begin to feel either thankful for the breath or miserable about the scratching of her nose, mouth and throat that came with it, a massive thunderclap blasted into her eardrums, driving her into a heavy flinch and almost sending her into another bout of mad spinning. She flared her wings once more, only getting them a little off of her back but enough to keep her stable, as she let the hood drop around her face so she could look where she'd heard the noise coming from.
It wasn't easy – this time, the bolt had seemed to come much closer to them, the sound echoing from just outside the wind funnel. Icy wasn't sure what, if anything, it was being aimed at, but she dearly hoped it wasn't anything either important or vulnerable. She darted her blurring vision around, hoping to find the others still inside the maelstrom rather than having been picked off in midair.
Fortunately, Archer's blue ensemble stood out fairly well from a short distance away and she was very much alive and unfried. While Icy obviously couldn't get a clear picture of her face, she got the impression from her posture and movement that Archer wasn't all that bothered by being tossed around in a tornado like a pebble in a blender.
Lance took another short while to find, his white being a little less bold against the pastel background the wind and dust were creating, but she did eventually spot him when she looked down and behind her. It helped that, in a similar manner to her wings, he was holding out his broad-brimmed hat to the side to slow himself down and keep himself level.
Worryingly, however, it seemed to work a little too well as, barely a second after Icy had caught a glimpse of him, he slid out into the outer edge of the cyclone before being flung off completely, flying out of Icy's vision.
The sight sent a wave of panic through Icy, causing her wings to flap in agitation, sending her spinning once more. It was hard to tell exactly how high they were, but she wasn't naïve enough to assume Lance could get flung out of a tornado and fall however far it was to the ground without getting at least injured.
However, as soon as she started picturing his fall and impact, some of that terror vanished with a strange certainty, purely because she found it literally impossible to imagine him not twisting himself into the perfect falling position and directing himself to hit the absolute maximum possible amount of branches to break his fall before he landed. Of course, that wouldn't stop him from being severely wounded in the fall and, in the Everfree, that could also be a death sentence, but Icy at least had reason to believe he could be alright. At that point, she'd take what she could get.
Blinking heavily and swiping a hoof across her eyes in an almost effective effort to clear her vision for a moment, Icy scanned her surroundings as she continued her uncontrolled spin. She knew it wouldn't take long for the wind and flying dirt to choke her vision again, but she hoped that she was spinning quickly enough to get a glimpse of Archer before that happened.
Fortunately, Archer's colours stood out just as boldly as before and Icy caught sight of her a moment later. Of course, she then rotated past her, too quick for her to even turn her head to keep the other filly in sight. Still, she at least knew roughly which direction she wanted to end up facing when she arrested her whirling.
Of course, knowing which way you want to face and actually getting yourself to face there were two very different things, as was proved by the next twenty-or-so seconds of Icy holding her shaking wings out, trying to slow her spinning down enough that she could stop herself at the angle she needed to, while not going slow enough that, once she overshot it, she would need to wait an inordinately long time for that position to come around again.
However, with a lot of effort and no small amount of pain, she managed to arrange herself so she was looking directly at Archer. Once she did, she found that Archer was having the same problem in trying to twist herself around in the air to get into a position she wanted to be in, though what position that was, Icy couldn't say.
Furthermore, Archer lacked wings like Icy's, even if it didn't always seem like it given how acrobatic the earth pony could be when she felt like it. Which was rather often. However, that skill didn't help that much in terms of mid-air transportation, so she was resorting to the alternate method of firing her bow and using the recoil to push her and twist her as she flew along the wind's path. Icy was more than a little surprised that a bow had recoil at all, but she couldn't argue with the results. Or at least, how effective the results were at moving Archer.
What she definitely could argue with was Archer's apparent decision to manoeuvre herself so she was flying right next to the trio of rockets encircling the tornado's eye. Not only was she getting dangerously close to the inside edge of the more powerful winds, risking falling into the eye and down to the ground, but Icy wasn't sure being next to such powerful sources of magic was a wise idea.
However, it seemed to be what Archer was looking to do and, despite the lapse in judgment that had led to this situation to begin with, Icy had faith Archer knew what she was doing. She tried to catch Archer's eye to give her some non-verbal encouragement but, through her own rapidly clouding vision, she could see that Archer's eyes were forced into a heavy squint, open enough that she would just be able to see certain shapes while remaining closed enough that her eyelashes would be able to block most of the dust going into her eyes.
Realizing that this was a far better solution to the problem than simply letting her vision fade painfully and cursing how large a pony's eyes were, Icy rubbed her eyes with a hoof once more, making sure to use the inner part that wouldn’t be quite as dirty, and squinted as well.
In the brief window of clear sight, she saw something somewhat surprising – Archer wasn't just unconcerned by her position, she was out-and-out smiling.
Not that this was by any means an out-of-place expression on Archer's face. Her confidence was an absolute constant for all the time Icy had known her and a self-assured smirk was almost her default look at times. However, that particular grin usually meant that either she had just done something impressive – even if she didn't seem especially impressed, instead just clearly having fun with her abilities – or that she was about to.
Icy was briefly confused by this before she saw the massive branch twirling through the air behind her, looking as if it were about to catch her unawares and hit her hard enough to knock her out of action, maybe even break something. However, Icy knew better, almost immediately realizing that Archer wouldn't have put herself in the branch's path without some kind of reason.
Indeed, a moment before it hit her, she shot her hooves out in front of her and grabbed the huge chunk of wood, her legs bending hard to diffuse the impact. Once she had a grip on it, she hauled herself up on top of it and turned, using the spinning surface as a platform to orient herself into a vaguely vertical position.
She turned to face the centre of the whirlwind and raised her forehooves slightly off of the branch. Her head briefly turned towards Icy and, though it was impossible to tell clearly due to Archer's squint and her own blurred vision, Icy could have sworn she saw Archer wink at her.
However, there was no time to dwell on that as Archer launched herself with her rear hooves, leaping off the branch and pushing it down below her as her forehooves pulled an arrow out of her magic quiver and aimed her bow, pointing it a seemingly random direction as she nocked the arrow and fired.
It quickly became apparent, however, that the direction was far from random, as the force of the wind that slammed into the arrow as soon as it was fired altered its trajectory until, after a flight of, at most, five to ten metres, it was driven hard into the side of one of the rockets, piercing the thickened paper of its shell.
As soon as it did, the rocket started erupting, every ounce of wind magic within it seeming to burst out of the newly-made hole as the whole structure of it was ripped into scraps. A massive, whirling tangle of wind flew out of it in a miniature explosion, sending a small shockwave through the air that even Icy could feel at the further distance she was.
Of course, Archer was right next to that explosion and, though she didn't seem hurt by it, it did knock her away at high speeds. And though Icy thought she should have been focusing on the other two rockets coming loose from the circle they were in and flying out of the tornado, as she could hear they were doing, she couldn't tear her eyes away from Archer as she was flung away and totally out of the tornado, until her image completely faded away into the solid wall of wind and dust.
This time, Icy managed to keep herself still enough not to send herself into another spin, though not without considerable effort. The suddenness of the explosion of wind hadn't given her any real time to prepare, so the same surge of alarm went through her, but that same suddenness also brought the situation into sharp focus, giving her just enough wherewithal to keep herself stable.
Still, that didn't stop the dread from settling over her as she realized she was now entirely alone in the tornado and, though there wasn't anything the presence of the others had done to help her situation, it still took her fear to a new level to know that there was no one around. She was on her own against the full force that nature and magic were able to create and that made her feel incredibly, horribly small.
She slammed her eyes shut, as if she could shut out the problem, and tried to call up the image of the others, only for the constant motion around her to ensure that, when she did, she was imagining them falling into the forest and smashing into the ground. From there, it was only a short jump to seeing herself plummeting as well, though without anything near the level of grace she associated with Lance and Archer.
Fortunately, that same image helped remind her of something, as the image of her falling with her wings unmoving against her sides seemed so unnatural that the presence of those wings was brought to the forefront of her mind, letting her remember that she had, at least theoretically, the ability to glide and soften her fall. She wasn't entirely sure of her ability to do so, considering both the force she'd probably be flung off with and how much the flurry of rough, scratchy dust was hurting her wings, but it was at least possible and she had to stop herself from instinctively flaring her wings as she imagined it.
Of course, as she calmed down a little – or, at least, as much as one can when inside a whirlwind – she couldn't help but ask the question of what would happen afterwards. Even if she could land without any kind of injury at all, which she doubted, she'd still be alone in the Everfree Forest and would still have the job of taking down the pony creating this extreme weather, only now she would have to do so single-hoofed.
She gulped as she realized that she'd never really had to fight on her own before. For that matter, she couldn't at that moment think of anything she'd really achieved on her own, at least in terms of stuff the team needed to do. She'd always had at least a couple of the others to work with and, though she liked to think she'd... sometimes contributed to a given task, she wasn't at all sure of her ability to handle things alone.
She briefly considered finding Lance and Archer as soon as she landed, assuming she was even able to. However, she quickly remembered that they were unlikely to be in any shape to help her, or possibly do anything much. Except that just brought to mind a quandary: should her priority be to find them and help them first, getting them at least to a place or state where they'd be able to survive until the crisis was over? Or should she focus on the main task at hoof, going to stop the pony at the head of the problem before dealing with the fallout from it? Which was more time-sensitive and who was more in danger from her leaving it? Should she prioritize the safety of the town as a whole or the lives of her friends? Was it better to focus on the needs of the many who it would take more to help or the few who it would take less?
Icy blinked her eyes open as it suddenly occurred to her that these were oddly contemplative and coherent thoughts to be having in the middle of the hurricane. As she looked around, she realized that her vision was a little less blurry, her breathing a little easier and her motion a little less nauseating. It was an incredibly small change, but in that situation, she was hypersensitive to tiny improvements and it did seem as if the cyclone was beginning to calm a little. It would take quite a while to die down completely, but it seemed that at least a somewhat safe end was in sight.
Still, as she turned her head into her hood to take a deep breath, she knew she wasn't nearly out of the woods yet. Well, technically she was above the woods and, as she'd learned as soon as she'd left the ground, that was the better place to be when being tossed around like a sock in a washing machine, but she was still in danger.
“Ic...”
Icy jerked as the crackling sound of Archer's voice suddenly came, barely audible, out of her badge. Icy stared down at the thing in shock for a second before her ears relaxed from being tightly pressed against her head, a motion she didn't remember doing but that made sense to have done instinctively when the deafening roar of the wind around her started pounding against her eardrums and the dust swirled and scratched around the sensitive insides of her ears.
Still, it allowed her to hear a little more of what Archer was saying, even if it wasn't even close to enough to understand her.
“...t's... ...ka... ...ur m... he... sh... ...tch y....”
Icy's face scrunched as she tried to work out what Archer could be saying. She didn't sound like she was too badly hurt, so that at least was encouraging. Although, knowing Archer, Icy wasn't sure she'd sound pained if she was being torn apart by wild monkeys.
Still, whatever the case, Archer was presumably saying something important, so Icy blinked heavily, trying to assemble the tiny snatches of words she'd heard into any kind of distinct sentence. After a moment, she shook her head – it was no good. She'd need to listen closer if she had any hope of understanding it.
Unfortunately, she didn't trust her ability to keep a hold of her badge if she took it off and the suit it was attached to was designed to cling to her skin tightly, though not with any real pressure. Nevertheless, as she grabbed the fabric around the badge and tried to pull it up towards her face, she did wish it was just a touch looser or more stretchable.
After a few moments, she leaned her head down, trying to twist her head so her ears were as close to the badge as possible. Unfortunately, as she couldn't either turn it more than ninety degrees or transpose it to the side of her neck, this wasn't much, but she did get a little closer as she squeezed her eyes shut tight to deal with the discomfort.
“Sorry!” she yelled as she opened her eyes again. “What did you... AH!”
The sight of the huge branch flying at her from behind at face-breaking speeds shocked out of her contortion and spurred her wings into a heavy, instinctual flap that sent her tumbling gracelessly through the air and out of the whirlwind.
For a single, infinitesimal fraction of an instant, Icy was overcome by a bizarre feeling of serenity as she sailed through the air, the sudden cessation of buffeting, curving wind, abrasive particles and all-consuming noise making her straight, simple, stable trajectory seem like a pleasant glide by comparison.
Unfortunately, it was not to last, as the raindrops she barrelled through quickly built up into a thin layer of moisture in front of her that reminded her of how much water was both around and beneath her, setting her on edge again. It was like her very soul had been lightly brushed by an unwanted hoof. On some level, she realized that was very odd – the tornado, for as rough as it had felt, wasn't exactly dry. It had drawn in plenty of droplets itself and yet Icy hadn't felt nearly so uneasy about that. Then again, the overarching problem of the tornado itself might have overwhelmed those feelings, but the surrounding water should have at least sharpened the fear a little, providing the rotten cherry on the sundae of skin-crawling scariness. The only other difference she could think of between then and now was that, while she was in the cyclone, the water was flowing in the same direction she was and just as much at the mercy of the winds.
However, all this was very much in the back of her mind as the droplets she rammed into sent a wave of anxiety through her that brought her predicament into a much sharper focus. She tried moving her limbs, hoping to affect how she was tumbling a little, enough that she could get her wings out into a gliding position. However, it almost instantly became clear that, while her mildly coordinated flailing was definitely having an effect, she had no idea how to control that effect and alter her movement enough to get it under control. Given enough time, she could maybe figure out how to level herself off, but she knew such time was extremely limited.
In desperation, she tried simply flaring her wings out and hoping that would stop her unsteady twirling. Unfortunately, they weren't nearly strong enough to withstand the sharp wind around her and were wrenched painfully around her body, drawing a slight whimper from her that seemed to hang in the air behind her as she sailed away from it.
Icy closed her eyes tight, hoping to keep herself in the dark, literally and figuratively, about how and when she'd hit the ground, or whatever came between it and her. She had been fully aware that her only hope of surviving or, at the very least, avoiding terrible injury had been to glide and, with that option denied to her, she could only wait for whatever would happen to happen. She tried to suppress the image of herself splatting against the ground, only to find that the only other things she could think of were the other relevant parts of what was happening.
They had failed. Archer and Lance, if both were still alive, would remain stranded and injured, the pony who had caused all this would continue with impunity, the town would be flooded and wrecked and everyone would be...
Urk!
Icy flinched as she suddenly found herself jerking in the air, her uncontrolled flight suddenly turning at a sharp angle and slowing down massively. Icy frowned through her closed eyes, unwilling to open them if she was still going to have to watch her doom coming towards her.
However, after a moment, she realized that not only was she no longer curving down into a freefall, but she wasn't moving vertically at all. The wind rushing past her was moving in one direction across her body and, as her sense of balance stabilized and figured out which directions up and down were, she found that she was moving in neither.
She blinked her eyes open in confusion, finding the world to be suddenly, measurably brighter than it had been a few seconds ago. Sure enough, she was flying far above the trees, not descending even though her wings weren’t spread.
Looking around, Icy quickly saw the slight wobbling in the air around her that told her what was happening and that, sadly, she hadn't somehow figured out how to winglessly levitate. Or rather, she had, but only because somepony else was providing the levitation – a unicorn to be specific. However, the fact that the aura around her didn't seem to be flooding her vision with one colour but rather lightening all others meant the magic holding her was white and the only unicorn she could remember with a white corona was...
Icy looked around for a moment, her peripheral vision soon letting her know that there was something above her. Twisting her head around as she found herself being pulled upwards, her heart swelled as she saw the massive, wing-like wedge above her, its triangular surface marked with dark, multicoloured markings that made it look like some huge, inert-yet-moving butterfly.
And looking down from beneath it, her hooves wrapped firmly around the lower bar of the hang glider, was her mother. Sunny Flight grinned down at her daughter as her horn glowed brightly, drawing Icy up towards the harness hanging from the bar below her.
“Hey, sweetie. How's your day been?”
“Mom?” Icy found herself saying, raising her voice before she consciously realized she'd need to. As she slid into the harness and felt it closing and fastening itself around her, she said the only thing she could think of in this situation. “I thought you were retired!”
Sunny gave a loud, ecstatic laugh with only a small touch of mania. “Oh, well, you know what they say, honey: You can take the filly outta the sky, but you can't take the sky outtaaaAAAA!” She trailed off with a howl of joy as a sharp wind buffeted the glider from the side, her horn lighting up a moment later to deflect it a little as she pulled the glider to the side and into a huge, looping roll that had them rising and falling along the edge of a huge cylinder.
As they came down again, Icy heard a voice from her left. “Icy! Why didn't you tell us your mom was this awesome?!” Looking over, Icy saw Archer hanging from another harness attached to the left half of the surface above them, her smile ever-so-slightly wider than normal, signifying that she was having almost as much fun as Sunny was.
Well, somewhere close, at least. Icy wasn't sure that even many pegasi had as much fun in the air as her mother.
Still, she shook her head as she thought. “I... thought I had. Maybe I... kinda underdid it? I didn't mean to, but...”
“But it seems like it,” Archer replied. “I tell ya, I do not plan on letting Scoots know she missed out on this.”
Icy was about to hum in agreement when she heard a sharp burst of static from her badge and saw Archer shift her head to look past her. Turning to see what she was looking at, she saw Lance hanging from the other side, perfectly positioned to balance the weight out along the hang glider's surface. He took his hoof away from his badge now that his tap had got everyone's attention and pointed to the wing above her before miming a jagged path downwards in the air in front of him.
“Nah, don't worry,” Sunny replied to his silent query. “Even if lightning did hit, the harnesses and hoofholds are all kinds of insulated. You're acting like I've never flown in a thunderstorm before.”
Lance thought for a moment before nodding firmly – yes, he was acting like that.
Sunny shook her head. “Don't worry. Most that'd happen is the glider'd get charred, we're not getting zapped,” she called out, eliciting a slightly concerned head tilt from Lance at how casually she had said that. Still, she continued, “Still, may not come to that – this pony's not thrown anything at me after the first couple of bolts. I'm almost insulted.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Archer replied. As Icy turned back to her, she saw that the hanging filly's eyes were focused intently on the distant mountain. “Looks like she's been preparing us a special surprise.”
“Can't wait,” Sunny said without a hint of sarcasm.
“Stupid... living... thinking... stinking...”
Domino muttered to herself with a furious sneer as she finished tying the tethers to another batch of wind rockets, moving as quickly and precisely as she could, which was saying something. She'd only had two sets of tornado spinners ready, thinking she was unlikely to need any more and that, should she need them, she'd almost certainly have enough time to make another. But trust ponies to find the ridiculously unlikely option and force her to make one in a hurry.
Still, she managed it just as the hang glider turned towards her again. She was using five rockets this time – overkill, perhaps, but she wanted this cyclone as large and as powerful as possible. How much this was out of a practical desire to stop these interlopers and how much was simply out of anger was impossible to say and she wasn't feeling anywhere near self-reflective enough to try.
Still, after a few moments, she had the rockets properly arranged and aligned. However, she waited a while before she lit the first one. One good thing, from her perspective, about her enemies using a hang glider was that it limited their motion, the size and momentum of the apparatus making it difficult to perform any kind of complex steering and impossible to move as freely as a pony walking or flying with wings could. That didn't make them any less painful to look at, as the mere movement of their bodies as well as the tiny course corrections that could be made still sent all the factors of the world around them into a horribly uncertain flux, but it at least made them easier to deal with.
Once the glider's motion towards her straightened out and would make it next to impossible to avoid her whirlwind, she lit the fuses and backed off. While there was a certain, very small part of her that wanted to simply sit back and watch, she quickly dismissed the idea. Not only would keeping more than a single, occasional eye on her opponents prove far more arduous than it was worth, but she also needed to prepare for the possibility, however small, that they might manage to get through to her.
She scurried over to the crate full of weather rockets and started rummaging through it, pulling out the largest yellow rockets she could find, already calculating all the variables for how and where to fire them for maximum effect.
Living minds may think that being unpredictable made them impossible to deal with, but she knew better. Just because she couldn't see what path they would take didn't mean she couldn't take those paths into account. And it certainly didn't mean she couldn't close them off.
“Er, Mom?” Icy called as the rockets streaked out from the mountaintop.
“I see it,” Sunny replied, eyes locked forward.
“Those'll make a...”
“I know.”
“Shouldn't we get out of the...”
“Not if we want to get there any time soon,” Sunny shook her head with a slight smile as the whirlwind became visible. “Wind in a tornado isn't just limited to the funnel. Right now, we'd still get swept up and with a heck of a lot less control than if we take it head on.”
Lance thumped a hoof against his badge, drawing the others' eyes to him as he pulled his head back and waved a hoof forward, sharply questioning whether Sunny thought she could keep the glider under control in a hurricane.
Sunny thought for a moment. “No idea. Let's find out!” And with a loud, excited yell that transitioned into a laugh that could be heard even over the noise of the wind, she twisted the glider to the side, turning straight towards the heart of the wind funnel.
As Sunny had stated, the wind started buffeting at them quite a distance before they made it to the tornado proper. For a moment, as the glider started shaking and starting to roll, Icy was convinced that they were about to be picked up like a leaf and tossed around the area uncontrollably.
However, a moment later, a pale white construct flashed into life before the glider's front edge, shifting along with the wind to stabilize them considerably, reminding Icy that this was her mother's Special Talent after all. And while Sunny had never explained to her daughter the exact circumstances that led her to know for certain that she could outmanoeuvre even a fair number of pegasi, she had no reason not to take her word on the matter.
It helped that, in this case, Sunny had a bit more control over the exact weight distribution of the glider thanks to the two young ponies dangling from harnesses to either side of her. The glider was designed so that passengers could be strapped to the wings, but because the weight of those passengers would vary from journey to journey, the harnesses could slide along them horizontally, enabling the pilot to place the ponies at the exact right points to balance each other out. And, as Sunny had explained once, that actually gave her a lot more control over her glider if she ever needed it, since she could grab the harnesses mid-flight and shift them to alter the glider's centre of gravity freely.
Admittedly, she had said that the passengers strapped into said harnesses didn't always appreciate being shoved around in the middle of dangerous weather, but as long as they kept themselves from panicking and flailing, that didn't matter so much. And, while Icy didn't know if her mother was actively thinking about it, she knew that of the passengers this time, one couldn't verbally complain, one could but wouldn't, and neither would allow themselves to panic.
Whether or not she knew just how perfect they were for it, Sunny's magic was also focused on Archer and Lance's harnesses, pushing them back and forth along the wings almost continually, making dozens of tiny micro-corrections to the weight distribution as the winds necessitated it.
However, as they approached the wind funnel, the turbulent air around them sending juddering shakes through the glider, she pushed both the harnesses towards the same side and twisted the bar she held in the same direction. The whole apparatus swung sideways, seeming for a moment like it was going to go into a roll along its central axis. However, a moment before they hit the central column of wind, it stabilized into an almost vertical alignment that almost immediately got sucked into the whirlwind.
The shuddering that ran through the glider increased massively as they entered the maelstrom, sending horrible vibrations through Icy, as if her bones were knocking against each other and the flesh around them. She gave a small yelp that even she couldn't hear, the wind pounding into her ears and seeming to fill them so utterly that no other sound could fit. The shaking rattled her lungs, making it hard to keep her breath in long enough to do anything. This wasn't helped by the fact that, while the wind wasn't in her face as much as last time, given they were facing the same direction it was spinning, it was still blowing heavily across her muzzle, making it difficult to breathe out and sending dust into her vision, blurring it with tears.
She started reaching a hoof up to wipe her eyes, only to find it was much harder than normal, her leg seeming to get heavier with each passing second. As she registered this, she also realized she was getting pressed, harder and harder, down against her harness, as if somepony had grabbed her and was trying to pull her away from the glider. She quickly realized what was happening – the force of their rotation was trying to pull the glider out towards the edge of the circle, but Sunny had positioned it so that it would stay relatively stable in its shaking orbit. Icy had no idea how she managed that – whether it was careful calculation and precision, a trick to flying a glider she didn't know about or simple magic – but it didn't confer the same benefits to the glider's occupants, as found herself being pulled harder and harder against the harness, the breath being forced out of her as the weight on her chest intensified.
And yet, through all that discomfort, motion and noise, she did just about manage to hear Archer yell, “Can you get us closer to the middle?”
Icy blinked hard, only a little to clear her vision. She wasn't that surprised that Archer hadn't sounded remotely concerned in her shout, instead sounding like she had just seen a friend from across a large plaza and was yelling to greet them and get their attention. However, she was more than a little concerned that she wanted to get even deeper into the raging winds. She briefly wondered if she planned to get all the way into the tornado's eye, but quickly dismissed it – even if they could get into the centre, they would only be safe as long as they stayed there, remaining in the exact centre of the tornado as it moved slowly across the landscape. And as good as her mother was, Icy very much doubted that she was able to make a hang glider hover.
However, she was good enough that she only needed a small adjustment to get the glider's angle to shift, pointing it at a sharper angle and pulling it closer to the centre. As their speed increased, Icy put all her energy into pulling her hoof up to her face, letting out a long, strained grunt as she took what might have been her last opportunity for a while to clear her vision. She pressed her leg across her eyes, the force of their spinning preventing her from applying more than light pressure to her face, and managed to sweep away most of the dust and water. That done, she relaxed her leg again, only to be shocked as it was yanked hard out again, driving the breath out of her once more as she was rammed into the harness.
Still, she had managed to clear her vision enough to look down and see what Archer was doing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she had drawn her bow and was aiming an arrow down into the cyclone. Oddly enough, not only was she similarly being forced down in her harness, but she was also pressing her hooves up and against the rear structural bar of the glider, even as she visibly struggled to keep her grip there. If Icy had to guess, that was to stabilize herself for her shot, but she didn't know nearly enough about marksponyship to say for certain. Whatever the case, Archer was taking a long time aiming her shot, suggesting that either she needed to wait for exactly the right moment or that, even for her, this was difficult.
Actually, Icy thought as she blinked her vision clear again, it's probably both.
As the image cleared up in her eyes, Icy noticed the arrow that Archer was using. Or, well, she supposed it was still technically called an arrow, even though it wasn't arrow-shaped. Instead, at the end of the shaft was what appeared to be a small, broad guillotine blade, its wickedly sharp edge slanted between its two sides, both of which curved slightly at the front corners. Icy could only assume that was for its aerodynamics, which seemed limited enough as it was. However, it did seem as though, assuming the arrow was for cutting things, it would do the job perfectly well.
Icy didn't have time to wonder exactly what Archer was intending to cut before she fired, apparently at a point where she could hit what she needed to despite Icy seeing no real difference from one moment to the next. However, as the arrow flew down, the wind buffeting it to the side as it fell, she could at least see that it was heading in the direction of the ring of rotation rockets.
For a second, Icy was a little confused about why Archer had used a slashing arrow when a normal, pointed one had worked perfectly well previously. However, when the arrow reached the ring, it didn't hit any of the rockets. Rather, as Icy saw in the split second before it hit its target, it fell between them and flew right into the tether that was holding them together, slicing through it without difficulty before plummeting past them.
The moment that one leash was cut, however, things changed as the force pulling one of the rockets into the circle vanished, sending it flying out of the circle and pulling all the rockets attached behind it along with it, forming a rough procession of them hurtling out of the tornado and out towards the mountaintop. And, though it was hard to see, both because of the whirlwind in the way and the smaller amount of air involved, Icy could just make out the stream of gale-force wind that went along with it.
From above her – or was it to her side, it was hard to tell – Icy heard her mother give a whoop of excitement. “Nice thinking! Now hold on tight,” she called, despite the others having nothing really to hold on to, as she guided the glider along another loop of the cyclone, her eyes locked on the massive wind channel, “it's gonna be a heck of a ride!”
With that, she flared her horn, three coronas blazing into life as she formed a huge, flat construct in front of them, driving the wind up into the very tip of the glider and pushing it out sharply towards the edge of the tornado, a movement aided by her magic grabbing onto seemingly the whole apparatus and wrenching it to the side.
The force of the turn pressed Icy sharply into her harness, drawing a wince from her as it dug into her skin and forced her breath out once more. However, after a moment, it relented as Sunny grabbed the others' harnesses and relocated them to a more balanced position, bringing the glider level as it flew out of the cyclone and along the long current of wind. Sunny let out a bellowing laugh as they rocketed forward, heading at an incredible speed towards their mountaintop destination.
Sadly, it quickly became clear from their trajectory that they wouldn't pass directly over it but they were definitely heading in that direction and would pass close by the flattened peak. If nothing else, if Archer's still-firm stance and new arrow were any indication, they'd be passing within range for her to get a shot off.
Indeed, within a minute, they were closing in on the area, looking to just about fly onto the edge of the area they would be able to safely dismount and land without injury. For a split second, Icy anticipated the three foals on the glider leaping down – or gliding down in her case – and taking the fight directly to their opponent.
Then she got a close enough look at said opponent to get a clearer view of both their face and what was about to happen. It was a filly, looking a little older than her but not by much, with a pale white coat and a close-cropped black mane. The filly was facing her, so she wasn't able to see her cutie mark, but she did get a fair idea of her eyes – a grey so dark the iris almost seemed to blend with her pupils and her mane.
However, the reason she was able to ascertain this was that the filly's eyes were locked on the incoming glider as her hooves adjusted a large rocket with a green stripe painted along it, the light on its fuse about to reach it.
“Sunny, incoming!” Archer called out. “It's a wind ro-”
“I see it,” Sunny replied as she banked the glider hard, just about getting it out of the path of the rocket as it streaked past them, exploding into a burst of air just behind them that drove them forward, locking them on the path they'd been diverted onto - a path that wouldn't take them near enough to their target to safely dismount.
However, it did bring them close enough that Archer was able to quickly load an impact arrow and, after a moment to firm up her grip on the glider around her, fire it just as the filly was turning her body towards them. It was, naturally, a perfect shot, heading straight for the base of her neck, where it met her chest and left a small gap in the bone where the impact would be felt most. The filly's motion meant that not only would she meet the arrow's path there, but that her momentum wouldn't allow her to dodge much, if at all, and the arrow would definitely catch her.
Which was why it was so disheartening when her forehoof flicked up as she moved, sending a large rock flying into the air right in front of her, directly in the path of the arrow. Not only did that block the shot but, when the arrow hit it, it was at an angle where it got deflected to one side of the filly and the rock got knocked to the other side, allowing the young pony to continue her turn unhindered. Had she not had to move to kick up the rock, it would have seemed like she hadn't noticed the attack at all.
As the glider rocketed past the mountaintop, Icy could hear Archer sigh even over the rushing air. “Really?!” she said, as if critiquing a bad joke rather than complaining about a perfect shot getting ruined.
“Can't win 'em all,” Sunny said, shrugging as she started to turn the glider around, the momentum it had gained making that a slow process.
Archer shook her head. “Oh, I can, I just didn't.” She looked behind her. “Though maybe you can, cause she's got a few lightning rockets for you.”
“More?” Sunny asked, not sounding worried. “How many?”
“Er,” Archer said as she looked down between her legs at the still-retreating mountaintop. “Can't really tell at this distance, but I'm thinking... all of them.”
That got Sunny's attention, her head whipping around to Archer as the glider reached the halfway point in its turning circle, the flat surface blocking any view of the problem. “You sure?”
“Nope,” Archer shrugged in her harness, though her face didn't show much doubt. “But it seems like it, cause there were a heck of a lot of 'em.”
Sunny hummed as she faced forward again, preparing to try and see them herself as soon as they came into view.
As it turned out, however, that wasn't necessary. As soon as they could see the mountain again, so close to that moment that it might have been planned, the rockets were fired, streaking up into the sky in front of them on trails of fire.
Like Archer, Icy could see there were an awful lot of them. And whether it was due to her pegasus magic, her knowledge of their opponent's skill or simple pessimism, she got the distinct impression that even Sunny wouldn't be able to dodge the sheer amount of lightning that was about to be unleashed on them.
It seemed like Sunny agreed, as she called out. “Anypony see somewhere safe I can set her down? I mean, safe enough,” she amended, casting a worried glance up at the sky. Not that she needed to look, Icy thought, as the rumbling coming from all directions in the sky around them, climbing to a crescendo ridiculously fast, was enough of an indication of what was about to happen.
There was a short pause as Archer and Lance searched the ground beneath them. A moment later, just as Icy realized that she should probably take a look too, Lance tapped his badge and pointed down at the side of a smaller mountain to their left.
“I see it, ten o'clock!” Archer called out, translating Lance's gesture so that Sunny didn't have to look away from her navigation. “Don't think it's big enough to take the glider, though.”
“Well,” Sunny said, her voice giving away that her smile had returned, just a little, “we won't know until we try, will we?”
Icy wasn't entirely sure of the validity of her mother's sentiment but quickly had the thought knocked out of her head as the glider swerved to the left, sending her stomach spinning a little but quickly realigning their flight path in the direction Archer had told them.
Icy looked up at the rumbling clouds above, seeing the rapidly building electricity crackling through them as they looked ready to disgorge it into the air and ponies below.
“Mom!” Icy called up, her mouth pulled back in a grimace.
“I know,” Sunny replied. “Hold on!”
Icy had neither the time to hold on to anything nor to point out to her mother that, given that she was hanging off the glider by a harness, there wasn't anything to hold on to before she felt the scaffolding about her beginning to move. After a split second's consideration, she settled on clasping onto the harness as hard as she could and trusting it to remain attached.
She grasped it just in time as, a moment before she heard the clouds above her beginning to break open, Sunny went into a near-vertical dive, plummeting down towards the treetops as if determined to beat the thunderbolts down there, or possibly kill them all before the lightning had a chance to.
A terrified whine started building up at the back of Icy's throat, quickly rising to become audible, to her at least, and beginning to edge into a scream. Before it could fully transition, though, the clouds above them exploded, ripping the exclamation from her in a pitiful yelp.
Despite the lightning moving as fast as, well, lightning, Icy could have sworn that she could see every stage in its motion as a collection of thunderbolts so dense they seemed almost solid ripped their way out of the cloud cover and streaked towards the crowd, crisscrossing and combining as they streaked down in a Gordian knot of electricity.
Her eyes flicked upwards towards the glider, just in time to see the bolts charging down at them, and she didn't even have time to close her eyes before they hit. However, to her surprise, every single one of the bolts that came near them arced right into the metal pole on the rear edge of the wing, with none of them going past it to strike either the unlying scaffold, the harnesses or the ponies attached to either. Instead, it all surged into the highest point of metal – a sort of extra-wide lightning rod, Icy supposed – and ran through it before emerging from the tip of the glider and continuing down towards the ground. And, true to Sunny's word, the insulation protecting the underslung parts of the glider held firm, with only a lot of smoke around the points the electricity would otherwise have surged through to signify its efforts.
That said, the lightning did set fire to several parts of the glider's fabric – no mean feat, Icy knew, considering how strong it was and how protected it was against catching fire – but Sunny's horn soon lit up and snuffed out the flames, even as her hooves guided the glider back onto a more horizontal path.
They weren't out of danger yet, of course. The initial outburst of lightning had only been the beginning, the clouds above continually belching out further bolts, though now only a few at a time in a rapid, unpredictable rhythm. However, the fact that there was space between them, both physically and temporally, gave Sunny the chance to avoid them by swerving and slaloming the glider around as much as its bulky construction and her Special Talent would allow. And that averaged out to a considerable amount.
Still, she was being careful to keep her distance from any bolts until, as they neared the edge of the area, they heard a rumble above them and, looking up, Icy saw a gathering of electricity that it didn't look like Sunny could dodge.
No sooner had Icy realized this, however, than she further realized that, even if her mother couldn't avoid the bolts, it would feel much safer if she were to try, rather than simply ploughing forward as if she hadn't even noticed it, as Sunny was appearing to.
Icy was about to point out what was about to happen when she saw a flash of white to her side and, looking over, saw a large magical construct form, slanting over the path the glider was taking and just about positioned to block the lightning that had just started spewing down from the cloud. Icy began to gulp, unsure if her mother's magic could begin to block a lightning bolt this big, particularly as she could see her mother beginning to sweat and wince in her peripheral vision, clearly showing the immense strain of her frequent magical exertion during the flight. Before Icy's gulp could even get halfway down her throat, the glider passed under the construct and she heard the bolt fire down towards them.
To her surprise, however, as her eyes flicked to the side at the edge of the construct that just peeked into view past the wing, the bolt didn't break through the magic but instead seemed to travel along it like water along a slanted roof. A moment later, the construct still burst from the power, drawing a pained yelp from her mother, but by that time, the bolt had safely passed down to the ground.
Icy looked up at her mother. “How...” she started shouting, cutting herself off a moment later as she realized this probably wasn't the best time to ask about the mechanics of a thunderstorm.
To her credit, however, Sunny looked down at her daughter and gave her a smile as she blinked the tears out of her eyes. “Helps to know how lightning works. It's kinda lazy and always takes the easiest path. Just gotta make sure that's not through you.” She looked up and shook her head a little, banishing the last of the water from her eyes and setting her face in a determined frown. “We're not taking the easy path, though – hold on!”
Icy barely had time to turn forward again and register that they were skimming over the treeline towards the cave mouth before she felt her harness fall a little. A shock of worry ran through her before the motion stopped and she found herself being lifted up, realizing that her harness had simply been detached. She didn't have time to question why before she was lifted onto Sunny's back and had to devote her reflexes to grabbing on tight.
A moment later, as the glider passed the edge of the treeline, Sunny's horn lit up, shoving both Archer and Lance to the right and drawing a mildly startled grunt from both. As she did this, she yanked herself forward and up with her forehooves, bringing her body, as well as Icy's, to a higher position within the underslung scaffold where she could land all four hooves on top of the bar and hold on, balancing as if on a beam while simultaneously wrenching it to the right as hard as she could.
The reason for all this soon became apparent as the glider swung to the side, with its left tip surging forward just in time to slot into the mouth of the cave, the glider continuing to turn as it went into the cave until its back edge was fully parallel to the way the cave went into the mountainside. At that point, the tip of the front impacted the side wall of the cave, grinding along it and producing a deafening screech, along with a torrent of sparks pouring forth from the friction between the two. Seemingly no sooner had that happened than the control bar made contact with the ground, bringing the thunderous grinding into a weird kind of stereo and slowing down the glider even further.
A second or two later, a third grinding joined them as the cave narrowed to the point where the back edge of the wings scraped against the opposite wall of the cave. Fortunately, this meant that the friction was coming from both sides of the wing, bringing the whole glider to a stop a moment later.
As soon as their motion had ceased, Sunny hopped off the control bar, levitating Icy off her back before going into a short series of trotting hops, trying to diffuse the heat that Icy could now see beginning to darken the metal of the scaffolding.
“Geez,” Archer said as she quickly undid her harness, falling to the cave floor and looking at Sunny with a breezy kind of respect, “now that's what I call a landing.”
Sunny smiled as her agitated trotting started to slow down. “Well, any landing you can walk away from...” she began before bringing all four hooves back down to earth. Her eyes twitched inwards in the faintest hint of a wince before relaxing again – evidently, her hooves were a little sore, but far from burnt or damaged.
Still, she raised her right forehoof and examined it with a deadpan smile. “Mind you, that's a Yak saying and they can walk away from most things, so maybe that's not a great standard.”
Archer shrugged as she trotted towards the cave mouth, Lance falling to the ground gracefully behind her. “Well, I'm not complaining. Least we got out of there without getting hurt. How soon do you reckon you can get back in the air?”
Sunny looked up at the glider, humming for a moment. “Well, I want to look over it first – I think I took care of all the fires before they could do too much damage, but can't be too careful. Plus the time it'll take to pull it out of here.”
Archer nodded as she looked out into the forest. “Might have time for that – looks like the lightning's staying around for a while,” she said, not bothered by how redundant the statement was considering the flashes and thunder that continued to make themselves evident even where they were in the cave. “Plus anything else she migh- Incoming!”
Icy's head whirled around to see Archer sprinting back down the cave. A moment later, she heard the distinctive sound of a weather rocket coming towards them. She was about to turn and run deeper into the cave, hoping but not sure that her mother would be willing to leave her glider behind in the face of imminent danger, when she heard the rocket impact far above the cave, sounding as if it had hit about halfway up the mountain.
She blinked as she heard the explosion of wind. “Huh? Why'd she send it up there, why didn't sh- er...”
She looked around at the others, seeing her own realization mirrored in their faces as the sounds above them didn't fade, but instead transitioned to a loud, deep rumble that shook the ground under their hooves.
With a resigned slowness, the group turned towards the cave mouth just in time to see the rocks begin to fall in front of it, the largest coming down to jam it up first before an absolute flood of smaller rocks and gravel poured down over them, totally blocking off the entrance of the cave and plunging them into darkness.
Domino smiled. It had taken a long time – by her standards, meaning a good ten seconds – and a lot of effort and mental pain to calculate the exact point to hit the mountain to block off the cave her enemies had taken refuge in, but it was worth it. With the combination of rocks she'd sent down over them, they would be unable to either dig their way out or push the blockade away. While the very existence of their minds made it impossible to say for certain that they were out of the picture, she was reasonably confident they wouldn't be a problem any more.
And even if they were, at least she had removed their access to that infernal glider. It was bad enough that its pilot had managed to dodge her initial bolts and saved the others from her tornado, not to mention forcing her to make and waste another set of tornado spinners. But to manage to find the only way to avoid all the lightning she'd sent at it? That was enough to make her shake with rage, as well as pain.
Still, it wasn't a danger now and, while she would have preferred to destroy it, she supposed sealing it away was fine too. Either way, she could now fully turn her attention back to the town.