//------------------------------//
// Chapter Eight: Down the Rushy Glen 
// Story: The River Rising (Iota Force Issue #7) 
// by The Iguana Man 
//------------------------------//

With a grimace, Icy turned to the others. “What do we do?!”

Sadly, she got no immediate answer, as she could see they were all thinking. Lance was tapping his hoof on the ground rapidly, his body and head stiff and focused squarely on Ponyville, his mouth the only other part of his body to move as it fidgeted, as if mouthing out ideas he couldn't and wouldn't say out loud. Archer's eyes, meanwhile, were focused on the distant mountains, agitated, flicking all over and searching for some hint as to how to deal with this problem. And Sunny didn't seem to be looking at anything, her eyes blinking rapidly and remaining pointed at the sky. Icy knew her mother enough to know that she was focused entirely on her own thoughts as she tried to come up with some idea before it was too late.

Icy swallowed hard, feeling a little awkward as she realized she was looking at the others rather than at the problem. She shook her head, deciding to focus her attention on where it was needed, but another glance between her teammates made her suddenly question where that was. As if to split the difference between the threat and Ponyville, she looked out to the side, into the forest between them.

However, she blinked as she did. “Wait, how'll the water get to Ponyville?”

“Through the ravine,” Sunny answered without even thinking about it. “It'll join the river at the bottom and make it big enough to flood the town easily.”

Icy nodded absently before the image fully registered in her mind, at which point the solution suddenly seemed obvious. “Could we just block up the ravine with something?”

Lance glanced over to her and raised a hoof, rolling it in front of him to indicate for Icy to go on and tell them what to block it with. However, Icy had barely begun to realize she didn't have an immediate answer before her mother cut her off.

“Doesn't matter anyway,” she said in response to Lance's gesture. “Even if we blocked the river completely, the water wouldn't go anywhere. It'd just stay there until whatever dam we made went away or broke. We'd just be delaying things.”

Icy sighed as she silently nodded. That was the trouble with the obvious solution – the flaws with it were usually just as obvious, otherwise it'd mean there wasn't a problem in the first place.

However, now that her mind had fully imagined the scenario, she found she was having a difficult time letting go of it. This was partially because she'd already spent so much effort conjuring up the image, partially because it still seemed like it could work, or at least help, and partially because she didn't even have the beginnings of another idea.

Either way, she shook her head. “Well, could we maybe move the water out of the... dammed-up bit?”

“Where to?” Archer asked, shrugging. “Plus, we'd have to pull it all the way up and out of it. If we had somewhere to drain it to... don't s'pose there are any caves in the ravine?”

Sunny sighed. “A few, but none big or deep enough to take that much water. We'd need a big cave system to properly drain that much water away.”

Icy began nodding before the mention of cave systems twigged her memory. “Hey, what about the caves we came through? Didn't you say there was a bit where they came up under the ravine, Archer?”

Archer shrugged, her mouth opening to answer, but slowly enough that Sunny was able to pre-empt her. “No, there's a bit where it almost comes up, where a cavern comes up to just below one of the offshoot canyons. We could build up the water there, but it's not enough. We'd need an actual entrance to that cavern to drain the water away.

Icy sighed, nodding as she acknowledged the problems with her idea. With a depressed sigh, she started to dismiss the image, ready to try, and most likely fail, to come up with something else.

However, just before she could, Archer spoke up. “So, if there isn't an entrance or a hole... why don't we just make one?”

There was a pause as everyone turned to Archer, Icy feeling torn between questioning her about what she intended to use to make a hole and questioning herself about why she didn't think of that.

And, while the latter question would forever go tragically unanswered, the former was immediately satisfied by Archer's confident stride towards the crate of weather rockets, which had already demonstrated that they had enough force behind their bursts to damage rock.

Icy nodded, glancing over her shoulder at the ravine. “You sure you'll be able to do it?”

Archer scoffed with a good-natured eye-roll. “Oh, please. I may not be able to aim a thundercloud from the ground, but when it comes to straight-up shooting, I doubt even Little Miss Calculator can match me. And it's a pretty straight shot down to Carte Canyon, so it's fine.”

Icy giggled for a moment. “Would you need one?”

Archer shrugged. “Nope, but it can't hurt.”

Sunny gave an awkward kind of groaning grunt, clearly uncomfortable with having to interject and ruin the hope they'd built up. “Nice idea, but that still doesn't help when we don't have anything to block up the main river flow. Without that, a bit of water'd go down your hole, but not even close to enough to make a difference. And it's not like we can just use branches and scraps of wood or rocks or forest bits or...” she cut herself off with a sharp throat-clearing. “Even if we could get enough stuff like that down there and fit together so it doesn't just fall apart, it wouldn't be solid enough to actually stop the water.”

Archer sighed, her hoof frozen in the middle of reaching for the crate as she thought about it. “You got a point,” she said, a little grudgingly. “We'd need to put something down there big and solid enough to block it off.”

“We couldn't,” Icy answered immediately as she brought the image to mind. “Anything that big and solid, we couldn't move down there without a lot of work. Plus I'm pretty sure there's nothing like that around. If we wanted something like that, we'd have to make it while we’re down there. But what can we make that's solid like that?” A shiver of doubt ran through her, ruffling her wings noisily against her side.

Wait... my wings...

She looked up, only to meet her mother's eyes, seeing immediately that she'd come to the same conclusion Icy had. However, the rest of her expression made it clear that her reaction to the idea was very different.

“No...” Sunny began, a little distantly before shaking her head hard. “No! You can't!”

Icy gulped, not feeling particularly good about the idea herself, but shook her head. “I don't think we have any...”

“Doesn't matter!” Sunny interrupted. “I mean you literally can't! Even if I did let you go down there, onto the river and in the path of a wave like that when you're still not even comfortable in the bath... I've seen you in action, Icy, and I've seen you practice. And even with your suit, you don't have enough power in your gusts to freeze the whole pass. You might make a little speed bump at most but...” Sunny gulped, tears poking out at the edge of her eyes. “I'm sorry, I really am, but I'm not letting you throw yourself into that kind of danger for something so futile!”

Icy closed her eyes, feeling her own tears begin to well up slightly at both her mother's tone, understandable as it was, and at her own feeling of helplessness. Even as she did, though, her hooves were trembling at the reminder of all that water down there, as well as the still-massive amounts pouring from the sky all around her. She took a shaking breath in, half-wishing that her mother hadn't called attention to it and brought the feeling she got from all that water into sharp focus and half-wishing Icy herself hadn't forced her to. However, after a moment, she shook it off – the feeling was already there, whether or not she happened to be distracted from it.

However, when she realized that, she couldn't help but focus even more on the feeling, almost as if she was extending her senses into it. And, after a moment, her mother's words back in the cave echoed in her head, bringing to mind that there was something to the water. That memory immediately sent a wave of sickening fear over her, but she held on, trying to push past her terrified instincts and feel what was actually there. She didn't know why she was doing so for a moment before she realized she was also focusing on her wings and the veins of cold she'd been unconsciously trailing along them as she thought about what they could do. As she did, a couple of other recent memories surfaced - one of the wet wood she’d frozen on the bridge, the other of how they’d broken up the boulder in the cave. Both times, the water had taken her energy… weirdly well. 

Only half thinking consciously about what she was doing, she reached a wing out, waiting a split second for the rain to build up on the feather and start sliding off. Once a good flow had started, she twitched her wing muscles, not trying to channel the cold into her feathers and from there into the wind as she normally did, but simply letting a tiny spark of freezing energy drip out of her wing.

The effect was immediate, the water solidifying in an instant into a solid mass of ice that tumbled off her wing and shattered onto the ground. But what struck Icy so much about what she'd just done wasn't the result, as it was only a little bit of water, so freezing it wouldn't have been hard. What she noticed was just how effortless it was and how the cold flowed along the water, as if the liquid itself was helping it along. Now that she was paying attention, Icy could feel just how easily her cold energy flowed through the rainwater and, as she opened her eyes, she realized what she needed to do.

“I can't make enough ice from my gusts,” she said, repeating her mother's words a little absently. “But I don't think I have to. I think... I think I can use the water itself. The water in the river and...” she gulped, doing her best to push down the fresh wave of fear, “maybe even the water in the wave.”

Sunny spluttered for a moment, her jaw dropping in appalled disbelief. “Are you six kinds of crazy?! I don't even think you should go down to the river before the wave gets there, you're talking about putting yourself right in the way of it?! No! A million times no! Even if you... use the water... even if your connection...” Her eyes widened, most likely remembering her previous talk with Icy and regretting it if she was. “Even if you can, do you really think you can make something big enough to stop that much water?!”

Icy swallowed hard as she considered this. Her idea had been a matter of her instincts after all and she wasn't stupid enough to assume her instincts had to be right. Still, she shook her head after a moment. “I don't know, maybe I can't... but I have to try!”

Sunny let out a shaky sigh, looking at Icy with intense sympathy. “No. You don't. You don't have to do this to yourself. I know how much this is going to scare you and I'm truly sorry I have to keep reminding you and... no one is saying you have to put yourself through that. There might still be another...” She paused for a moment before shaking her head. “And even if this is the only way, that doesn't mean it's a good one and it doesn't mean it'll work. You don't have to do this.”

Icy nodded, grimacing as her mother's words rang true. For a moment, she wanted to blame Sunny for using her phobia against her like that, but she quickly shook it off – the fear would happen one way or another and it made sense to bring it up as a factor. And she did give serious consideration to her sentiment, thinking about what would happen if she didn't go and if they didn't stop the flood.

She thought about their own house, the walls getting smashed by the force of the water. She thought of Pinkie and Sugarcube Corner being brought to ruin, every scrap of their food and their livelihood getting swallowed up by the water, dissolving into nothing. She thought about Fluttershy and all the animals that would be either carried away or made homeless in the rushing water. She thought about Skrik, their ever-reclusive, sewer-dwelling friend and all the rats he loved and cared for, getting forced out of their underground home, out into the open air – something Icy knew frightened him more than any water could ever frighten her. She thought of Spike, with his room full of comics he'd spent so long and so much collecting, building up so much of a collection and a treasury of stories that he loved so much... all reduced to wet scraps in the flood.

She thought of all the ponies in town – all the acquaintances, all the strangers and all her friends. And she came to a decision.

“I... I do have to and... Mom, I want to!” She said, meeting Sunny's gaze with as much determination as she could muster. “Because... I mean, I'm not gonna lie, that... I'm frightened. I'm terrified. But as much as...” she jerked her head towards the mountains where the rock holding back the water was still splitting apart, giving Icy a new view of how close it was to releasing and how much water she was dealing with, “as much as that scares me… if I don't do this, the whole town gets destroyed and that...”

She took a deep breath and straightened herself up, staring intently into Sunny's eyes. “That scares me more.”

There was a moment of tension as mother and daughter stared each other down, making Icy swear she could feel sparks as their wills pushed against each other, both feeling the impact of the other's determination.

After a moment, though, Sunny jerked her head back slightly, her gaze buckling for a moment before crumpling completely, making her look off to the side.

“Dammit!” she said bitterly. “Damn it all to Tartarus, why...?”

She shook her head with a humourless chuckle before looking back at Icy, more tears beginning to make themselves visible even through the rain. She looked at her daughter for a moment, her face a mixture of sorrow, fear and pride, even as her tail whipped lightly against her own flank, hinting at a heavy feeling of anger directed purely at herself.

She gave Icy a thin but genuine smile. “Why did I have to raise you to be so damn brave?”

Without another word, Sunny turned around and walked over towards her glider, keeping her head held high as if she didn't want to insult Icy's decision by showing further hesitation.

Icy, on the other hoof, didn't see any reason to hide her fear as she followed her mother, not backing down on her commitment but also not shy about how much it terrified her. After a moment, though, she was distracted when she saw white come into the corner of her eye and, turning around, saw that Lance had joined her, marching alongside her as if it was the most natural and obvious thing in the world to do. He didn't look at her as he walked, but didn't need to, his every step broadcasting his intention of coming with her.

Icy wasn't so certain about that. “Er, Lance, are you sure about this? You really don't have to come with us.”

Lance nodded twice in quick succession – yes, he was sure, and yes, he didn't have to join her – but didn't so much as slow down. He was going to anyway.

“Hey, Icy!”

Icy blinked and turned around, just in time to catch the little bag Archer had tossed to her, though it took a few moments of fumbling to get it steady and see inside it to the multicoloured leaves within. She nodded in understanding as she recognized the plant they’d received from the Manticore.

“Rainbowsellia? Good thinking!” Sunny said as Icy turned back and trotted toward her. “Analgesic without anaesthetic. Should help you if you overtax yourself without knocking you out. Just remember…”

“I know, one leaf, two at most,” Icy assured her as she lined herself up beside her mother.

After a moment, the three of them had arranged themselves along the underslung control bar of the glider, Icy and Lance having to squeeze slightly to fit on either side of Sunny. Lance nodded firmly, looking down at his hooves and visibly checking that he'd be able to let go and descend from his perch whenever he needed to. After a moment, he nodded and looked to the others, signalling with another nod that he was ready.

Icy, on the other hoof, was taking the time to strap herself onto the bar with one of the harnesses Sunny had brought along. It wasn't that she didn't trust herself to hold onto the glider as it went – while she was neither as strong nor as skilled as her mother or Lance, she'd ridden alongside her mother enough times when she was younger to be relatively secure. Besides, even if she did fall, she trusted her wings just enough to glide her to safety. Instead, she was using the harness simply so she'd have all four hooves free to prepare for when she went down there.

Once she was strapped in, she swung the tiny bag containing her ice skates down from her back and, just to be safe, tied one of the straps around the glider's scaffold as well. One of the first things she'd learned from Pinkie was that, strangely enough, ice skates didn't just help you move on ice, but also made it a lot easier to stand still thanks to having four different straight, focused areas on the ice that she could angle enough to give herself a relatively stable stance.

Once the bag was attached, she turned to her mother and nodded as well, signalling that she was... well, as ready as she was ever going to be.

The moment she did, Sunny surged to her hooves, raising the bar above the ground enough that both Icy and Lance were picked up completely. Neither of them were able to get their hooves back onto the ground before Sunny was running, sprinting fast enough that, despite the massive weight and resistance of the glider, the two smaller ponies were trailing their hooves in the air behind them even before they truly took off.

It didn't take long for them to do so, however, as Sunny leapt from the edge of the mountaintop and the glider surged forward, the force driving Sunny's rear hooves too to trail straight behind her, as if she'd started jumping and simply never stopped.

Icy quickly shook her head and pulled her focus away from her mother, however, because she had other things to be concerned over, because she didn't trust her mother to avoid displaying enough skill to strike her paralysed with awe and because she really didn't trust herself not to be struck.

Instead, she focused on the bag below her, plunging her hoof down into the tiny thing and fiddling around as she got a grip on one of the skates for her rear hooves. She smiled shakily, thankful for possibly the hundredth time today for À La Mode's skill at making apparel. While the eccentric mare hadn't figured out how to fully integrate the skates with her suit, she did know enough that the skates didn't need to have attached boots and laces, instead simply consisting of normal horseshoes with blades attached below them that would simply adhere to her via magic when placed on the correct hoof. This was a tremendous help, not only because she wasn't confident in her ability to pull up and firmly lace a set of boots while in midair, but also because it meant the skates themselves were small enough that she could keep with on her back without a bag big enough to interfere with her wings, even with the shrinking spell on the inside of it.

Either way, she took a moment to ensure she had a firm grip on the skate before pulling it out, preparing for it to expand in size the instant it left the bag so that she didn't either get startled or lose her hold on it and drop it down into the forest flying by below.

That said, once she'd fully got it out, it was difficult getting her rear hoof up to a point where she could reach it at all, let alone attach it as firmly as she needed to. The force of the wind resistance was pushing her hooves back with immense force and it took a long time for her to force one hoof forward to the point she could reach it with her forehoof. However, with a lot of effort and no small amount of pain, she just about managed to get to a position where she could clamp the skating horseshoe there before letting it jerk back to its trailing position with a mildly sickening jolt.

Shaking her head, Icy began to repeat the process with her other hindhoof. It wasn't any easier, but she did eventually manage it and, fortunately, strapping the shoes to her forehooves was far easier, taking only a few seconds. However, by the time she was done with the whole process, the glider was just beginning to fly over Everfree Ravine, drawing her attention down below them and sending a new wave of nausea through her.

The water below them was rushing through the ravine with a chaotic force she could feel from all the way up in the sky above the clifftops, surging through the bottom of the gorge as if trying to escape the constant barrage of rain. There was no river bank down there; the water went from wall to wall with only the occasional boulder sticking out into the river providing any kind of even vaguely horizontal surface, and not even one of them was both big and level enough to provide a comfortable place to stand.

And, while she hadn't taken note of its level the first time she'd crossed the gorge – in fact, she’d taken great pains to try not to notice anything like that – and she was positive it was her imagination, but she could have sworn the water was much higher than it had been before. Before she could think to stop them, her eyes flicked up and over to her left, seeing the thin but wide spray of water spilling out through the cracks in the rocks around Rongbuck pool. The flow had increased considerably since the last time she'd looked which, in addition to the rainfall, would explain the higher water level if it were true.

She shook her head, tearing her eyes away from the distant mountains before she could start imagining what would happen when the rocks inevitably burst. Instead, she focused on her task. As much as the sight and the feeling of all that water made her stomach feel like it was trying to push its way out of her body and her limbs so shaky that she would have been flung off the glider in a moment were she not strapped in and her eyes tear up and her mouth dry instantly even as a whine came to her throat...

She grunted as she focused. As much as she didn't like this, she had to do it. The whole town was counting on her and she tried to keep them in mind, hoping that she could convince herself this was okay as much as she'd convinced her mother.

It was a good thing she'd thought about this when she did, as Sunny chose that moment to dive sharply down into the ravine, sending the glider plummeting down towards the pounding river. The sight of all that raging water rushing up towards them sent a shock of panic through Icy, but her focus allowed her to at least suppress the scream that built up in her throat in an instant, keeping it down to a quiet whimper that was lost to the wind. It might have gotten worse after a while, but fortunately Sunny soon levelled the glider off around five metres above the water.

That said, this didn't diminish the urge to scream particularly, just stopped it from getting worse. The proximity to water was practically blanketing Icy's mind and senses, grabbing her attention forcefully and drawing it in, forcing her to stare with a horrified fascination.

It was only a flash of movement to her side that managed to distract her for a moment, making her look to the side for an instant to see Lance leap from the glider and fall gracefully down into the ravine, tilting his body to guide it alongside one of the cliff walls. This didn't stop Icy from getting scared, a bit of her scream leaking out in a call as she saw her friend and one of her only lifelines fall towards the water. Her body instinctively rammed itself downward to try and go after him, stopped by the harness around her and the bar below her, so she succeeded only in sending a minor vibration through the glider's scaffold.

Before she could think on this, however, she saw Lance flip himself around as he fell, causing Icy to crane her neck around to keep him in view as she and the glider went away from him.

After a moment, Lance's hoof darted down to his side before whipping out his rapier and twirling it in his hoof until held straight. From there, the blade flashed up until it was horizontal and pointing towards the rock wall next to him. A moment later, a split second before Lance would impact a protruding rock below him, he slammed the point of the sword into the cliffside, slowing to a stop in an instant until he was simply hanging off it like a gymnastic ring. Once he'd come to a complete stop, he lowered his hindhooves down to the boulder below him and planted them into the corner where it joined the wall, wedging himself firmly in until it seemed that nothing could move him from that spot if he didn't wish it.

That done, he glanced at her over his shoulder and beckoned her over, holding out his hoof to indicate he would catch her. Icy wasn't sure how much each helped, but the combination of his invitation, the unshakable confidence and stability in his stance and the fact that he was actually managing to stand up while hanging off the cliff's surface rather than simply dangling there like a dead fish gave Icy a boost of confidence that almost managed to overcome the nausea she was feeling.

Of course, this was quickly weakened when the glider jerked upwards, sending Lance out of her eyeline as she and Sunny rose above the top of the ravine, then the treeline, but it didn't go away entirely. This was fortunate since her rising altitude didn't help her overall anxiety, as the glider was turning even before it got past the canopy, going into a wide, mostly vertical arc that telegraphed that it would be falling again long before it did. After a few seconds, they were going back down into the ravine, having turned around so they were heading towards Lance once more.

Before Icy could register this, she felt the harness around her getting undone and, looking down, saw a white magical aura working on the straps. She looked up at her mother, who was giving her an intense look, both questioning and hopeful. “Are you ready, Sweetie?”

For a brief, endless second, Icy considered what would happen if she said 'no'; if she abandoned her whole plan then and there. She could just stay strapped into the glider – she was positive her mother would never force her out of her harness and would take her to safety the moment she asked her to. They could pick up Lance again, if they even needed to, as opposed to him simply climbing the cliff himself, and within minutes be back up the mountain, out of the way of the incoming flood that would sweep down the gorge and into town...

“Let's go!” Icy snapped, abruptly ripping off the harness and spreading her wings, the force and speed of her movements doing a good job of outpacing her ability to think about what she was doing. As soon as her wings fully spread, she seemed to rocket backwards from the glider, the quivering running through her feathers not reducing their ability to slow her down and let the glider fly on without her. Still, the force of her deceleration sent a sharp ache through her sensitive wing muscles and she closed her eyes as she focused on keeping them rigid through the pain.

After another few seconds that felt like minutes, her speed reduced to the point where she was only having to worry about her weight pulling her down. This still wasn't exactly comfortable due to the aches remaining fresh, but she was at least able to remain aloft without having to push herself forward. She breathed out a small sigh of relief, revelling in the feeling of flying blind and not being able to worry about anything happening around her.

Of course, thinking that immediately brought her attention to the roiling mass of water below her, both destroying her peaceful feeling and reminding her that she needed to focus on what she was doing.

As she opened her eyes, she was also reminded why it usually helped to be able to see where you were flying, as she saw Lance just below her – too far and too sharply below her for her to be able to get his help landing. After a moment, her head was past him and she began trying to think of how to get back to him – she wouldn't be able to keep aloft long enough to circle around, so how was she supposed to...

Fortunately, her head was already turning to look below and behind her as she felt a hoof grab her rear leg, meaning she was able to see him move as it did and realize that he was simply catching her. As a result, she was able to keep her surprise to a minimum and her scream easily contained when the hoof yanked slightly and her flight abruptly halted.

A moment later, when her forward motion was gone and she began falling towards the water below her, however, she gave a scream worthy of two such surprises, slamming her eyes shut as her body locked up, too scared even to start flailing in panic.

In retrospect, that was a very good thing, as it meant Lance was able to keep a hold of her as she swung down, swaying back and forth a couple of times before eventually coming to a rest, almost completely dry. Droplets of water sprayed across her face, but the rest of her body remained untouched.

Shakily, Icy opened one eye, as if she wasn't sure if her dry skin and ability to breathe were reliable indicators that she hadn't gone into the water. For a moment, she still wasn't sure as she saw the surging water in front of her. After a moment, though, she was able to orient herself and realize that it was the surface of the water she was looking at, meaning she was above it, even if only by a few inches.

She looked up, past her vertical body and her legs and wings – both of which were still pointing up, having apparently realized the need to keep out of the water before her brain did – to Lance, who was still wedged comfortably against the cliffside, his hoof firmly clamped around her rear ankle and giving no indication that he was in any danger of dropping her.

Icy gave a shaky, unconvincing smile. “Sorry... I think?” In all honesty, she wasn't sure whether she should apologize to him for almost missing him, for forcing him to hold her up like this, for doubting his ability to, or if he should apologize to her for the brief moment of terror and the undignified position – even as scared as she was, she felt a bit of humiliation at hanging off of him like an old coat in a cloakroom.

Still, to his credit, he did give her a grimace of apology before nodding down at the water, as if Icy needed reminding of its presence.

It did remind her that she had a job to do, though, so after returning the nod, she took a deep breath and relaxed her head again Her neck swung down until she was facing the water, her stomach surging as she did.

She stared at the water, her eyes quivering as she let out a growling grunt, as if trying to will both the water and the danger into submission. The water remained unmoved, but Icy did feel a little better as she gradually lowered one wing, carefully closing the distance between it and the river surface while putting off as much as she could the time when they touched.

However, this was both helped and hindered by the sheer force with which the water was barrelling past her, as it caused huge amounts of spray that splashed against her wing, both sending freshly sick streaks of sensation through her stomach and making the wing feel almost submerged long before it touched the water. Soon, though, it did make contact and Icy had to send a surge of tension into it to keep it from being swept aside.

Icy took a few seconds to breathe, trying to get used to the feel of her wingtip being submerged in the rushing water and almost getting close to managing it. That done, she considered how she was going to do what she needed to. She was still sure she could use her connection with the water to help her in freezing it, even as the thought sickened her, but she was only just realizing that she had no idea how. Experimentally, she called up a small amount of her energy, sending it out along her wings until it reached her primary feathers, where she let it flow out and into the water.

The effect was immediate and she not only saw the block of ice materialize in an instant but also felt the energy surge out of her wings and into the surrounding water. And not only did she feel the energy as it went along her feathers, but she seemed to keep enough of a connection to it that she could feel how it was diffusing into the water, surging along every direction she'd released it in until the extremely mild force she'd put behind it ran out and it came to a stop, the forming ice ending where it did.

Of course, a moment later, the ice block was carried away by the river's current, streaking down along it before being driven into the side of the ravine and smashed, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that Icy knew she could do this and, what's more, knew how she could.

Carefully, she lowered the same wing back down to the water, soon joined by the other wing before she once again focused on bringing up some energy. This time, however, she didn't simply let it flow out naturally along her feathers and diffuse into the water. Instead, she kept it as tightly bound as she could and tried to focus it into a straight line, from the base of her wings to the tips of her outermost feathers. It was a little difficult, the wild energy pushing against the constraints within her wings she was keeping it in, but after a moment, she felt it build up in her wingtips and let it off.

To her delight, the bolt of freezing energy fired down through the water like a laser, streaking right down to the riverbed in an instant and remaining just as focused, causing a thin column of ice to spring into existence.

However, Icy wasn't satisfied with that and kept pouring the energy out, feeling it flowing along and down the ice pillar until it diffused into the water around it and thickened the column. With a slight grunt of exertion – though more because she wasn't used to this kind of sustained flow of energy than because she was incapable of it – she kept it going. After about five seconds, the pillar had reached about four feet in diameter, both strengthening it considerably and providing enough of a platform for Icy to stand on.

She looked up and gave Lance a nod before turning back down and reaching out with her forehooves. After a moment, the blades below her hooves made contact with the frozen ground beneath her, forcing her to take a moment to balance herself on the ice skates. Pinkie's lessons hadn't quite reached the point where she was comfortable with bipedal skating, let alone on her front hooves, but she was competent enough that she could at least get a rough equilibrium with them.

A moment later, she felt the grip around her hindleg release, making her spread her wings out on instinct to slow her fall. The force of the wind drove her forward a little, but a quick turning of her forehooves' blade inward slowed it enough that, by the time she had all four hooves on what was passing for the ground, she hadn't careened straight off the side of the pillar.

Still, she came uncomfortably close, so the moment she landed, she shot her wings forward and down, crouching down to let them plunge into the water. The top of the pillar was only an inch or two above the surface of the river, so a lot of splashes and waves were flowing over it, but none so powerful as to upset her balance.

Once her wingtips were submerged, she sent a bolt of energy forward, not as tightly focused as the one she'd used to make her pillar, but still heavily directional. The energy surged through the water, so fast the current didn't even have an opportunity to push any of it back, resulting in a nearly perfectly straight path of ice between her and the opposite side of the river, joining up with the far cliffside to create a platform. Still, Icy kept the energy flowing a moment longer, catching not only more of the water flowing under the path to thicken it but also any that was flooding over it, raising the surface above the top of the water. After a few seconds, it too was a few inches higher than the river's surface.

Of course, the force of the river's flow made itself known even before she'd finished making the path, a slight groaning making itself heard from all along the ice, telling her in no uncertain terms that this path wouldn't last long without reinforcement.

Icy gulped before turning around, keeping slightly crouched and putting her wings into the water on the other side of the pillar. Fortunately, this edge was much closer to the rock wall, so she only had to send a short burst of energy into the water to join the overall path to it. That done, she turned back towards the centre of the river.

She gave a tiny whimper as she slowly, carefully made her way forward along the ice path, putting every ounce of energy she had into keeping her trembling to a minimum. Both Pinkie's instructions and her encouragements rang in her ears as she pushed herself along, but even her remembered boisterousness couldn't shout down the feeling of the water rushing a few inches below her, as well as lapping up along the ground below her hooves, never enough to even move her a millimetre, let alone sweep her away, but always enough to keep her aware that it theoretically could.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, clamping down her thoughts to stop them flying off on their own about what could happen if she did get swept off, down the river, pulled below until...

No!

She shook her head as she opened her eyes, not giving any thought to the tears that were flung out of them as she did. She was safe, she was on solid ground and she could feel the ice beneath her. Taking a shaking breath in, she tried to focus on that, on the feeling of the solidified water she was safe on rather than the rushing liquid around it... that even now she could feel begin to wear the ice down, a micrometre at a time.

Still, she pushed herself forward, spurred on by the ever-present knowledge that it wouldn't even last long enough to be worn down if she didn't reinforce it. With a painfully hard swallow, she made her way to the centre of the long platform before dipping down, spreading her wings so that one was dipping into the water below on either side of the path.

A yelp escaped her as she plunged her wings deeper than before, enough to feel the full force of the water barrelling forward. Well, she knew it wasn't the full force, both because she could feel the momentum of the whole river below her and because she knew that the full force would be enough to either yank her off the ice with barely any effect or, failing that, probably rip her wings out of their sockets and carry them away. She had no proof of that, nor any knowledge of how firmly her wings were attached, but she was fairly sure of it. And if she didn't have her wings, then...

She smacked herself on the forehead with a hoof. Focus, dammit!

With a snort of anguish and frustration, she called up her energy and sent it flowing down her wings once more. She was again trying to keep the stream focused, a task made even more difficult by the fact her wings were both bent, meaning she had to curve the streaks of energy around while keeping their momentum. After a moment's focus, though, she brought the energy to her wingtips. However, she didn't send it straight down this time, instead focusing the beams towards each other so they met in the middle, right under the centre of the ice below her, and formed another column right underneath the ice.

After a few seconds, she felt the expanding column reach her wingtips and attach to the platform, signalling that it was now supporting the whole width of the path and allowing her to relax slightly. Well, relax her wings physically; she doubted there was a platform solid or wide enough to uncurl the massive knot of petrified tension engulfing her stomach, not without completely removing the river from the equation. Which, come to think of it, was exactly what she wished she could do, so she guessed...

With a grunt, she smacked her head against the ice below her to bring herself back into the moment. This, oddly enough, did help her state of mind a little, as the lack of any real cracking noises from the impact gave her a sense that, for the moment, at least, the ice below her was stable and in little danger of breaking. However, the quieter-but-still-noticeable groaning from in front of her made it clear that that wasn't the case further along, so, with a whimpering groan, she raised herself up again and pushed onward.

She silently thanked her lucky stars – whichever they were, she was never certain – that the point she'd been dropped off at had been at a narrow point in the ravine, so the river wasn't nearly as wide as it was further up and down. This not only meant it would be easier to make and reinforce her dam – still not necessarily possible, her stomach reminded her with a sickening jab, but easier if she could – but also meant she didn't have nearly as long to skate to get across her current platform. This, in turn, meant she didn't have to do the rote-but-still-finicky process of gradually speeding up and changing the angle she was pushing against the ice with her skates and the amount of time she was gliding. Instead, she just had to turn two hooves' blades horizontally to push herself forward while letting the other hooves stay relatively stable and simply drift forward.

Of course, it also made it far easier to stop, turning her skates inward to stand pigeon-toed – an odd phrase, she thought, as pigeons lacked the hard toe that a pony had around the front and sides of their hooves. Wouldn't 'pigeon-taloned' make more sense, though maybe pigeons didn't have...

One of her skates slipped slightly, turning a little more sharply than she'd intended and twisting her foreleg painfully. She stumbled for a moment before slipping completely onto her belly, her other forehoof and hindhooves pushing down to try and keep her sliding to a minimum. She grunted as she came to a stop before rolling her shoulder experimentally. It certainly ached a little, but luckily the force behind her movements hadn't been enough to do any lasting damage.

As she sighed and lowered her wings into the water once more, she resolved to try and keep her tendency to get lost in her thoughts suppressed. Though, as she called up her energy and sent it flowing down into the water once more, she wondered why she would have to in the first place – she'd be the first to admit, plus the second, third and fourth if she got distracted between admissions, that she was hardly the most focused and situationally aware filly in the world, but she'd have thought even she would have the base-level common sense to remain focused in a situation that was life and death for both her and for countless others. Plus, if that didn't keep her mind on task, she'd have expected the fear of her position to do so.

However, once the ice column below her expanded to the sides of the bridge she was standing on and she relaxed, she felt her wing get rammed hard into the newly-formed pillar by the force of the current, producing another jolt of pain, another wave of nauseating fright and an answer – her mind wasn't thinking of tangents because it wasn't bothered by the situation. It was trying to distract her from the fact that she was literally millimetres-deep and figuratively hip-deep in what had to be her ultimate fear.

With a growl, she smacked a hoof against the ground, turned so the blade of the skate didn't make contact. For some reason, knowing why she was having trouble felt like it helped, as she rocketed to her hooves with an intense scowl, determined then and there to push past her own fear and her own nature.

She skated forward with long, forceful strides, as if trying to shove away her thoughts, before sliding to a halt once more and lowering herself carefully, placing her wings into the water once more to create a fourth column.

By the time that was done, the groaning sound had completely vanished, at least to Icy's ears. It was still obvious the bridge wouldn't exactly last for weeks, but at least it didn't seem in any danger of collapsing any second. Still, Icy knew that it had to hold up to a lot more force than it was currently under once the full flood came and that any weak area would almost guarantee a collapse, so she rose and gave one final burst of speed, getting almost to the other side of the gorge before stopping and creating a fifth and final column.

That done, she took a deep breath, steeling herself before looking down, at the ice platform and down into the river around it, into the dark, roiling depths. With a strangled whimper, she kept her eyes firmly trained on the water, both flowing against, under and, most importantly, over the ice. She'd intended to use the very rush of the incoming water to make the main body of the dam and increase its height to as high as it was needed. However, it was clear that it would need a little bit of height first to build up against. As it was, there were only splashes coming up and over the bridge, too thin even to use as a starting point for raising the ice.

With a shake of her head, Icy looked up once more, trying to think of how she could use the water below her to make ice next to her before quickly dismissing the idea. It seemed like if she wanted ice there, she was going to have to make it herself.

She turned to the side, sliding up to the rock wall ahead of her before coming to a stop right next to it. She had plenty of experience with sending her freezing bolts on gusts of wind, but that required a fair bit of effort, though mostly from her wings. And she now knew she could transmit the energy through water a bit more easily, though still taking a little bit of a push in addition to the concentration and constraint needed to properly guide the ice formation. However, as she thought, she reached forward with a wing, placing it gently against the ice as she called up a big influx of energy, wondering if having no transmission medium at all would mean...

The ice sprang up before she could even finish the thought, barely giving her enough time for her reflexes, heightened even as they were by her quivering tension, to kick in and pull her wing away before it got encased in ice and attached to the now-frozen cliffside.

Icy blinked in astonishment as she reached forward with her muzzle, poking the inches-wide block of ice in front of her gently and finding it relatively solid. It wasn't quite as dense as the ice beneath her hooves, but it was certainly substantial enough to at least hold up for a little while against the inevitable torrent. The oncoming flood would likely rise over it before it smashed it, as it was only around a metre tall, but that was something Icy could deal with.

A shaky smile came to her lips before she looked back across the river, her mouth falling again as she recognized that she still had a lot of width to cover if she wanted to complete the lowest part of the dam. Still, she didn't allow her lips to fall into a pout or a grimace, instead fixing them into a firm line as she placed her wingtips against the ice and focused, concentrating on pulling her energy up but not on channelling it, simply letting it flow up along her wings and pour out naturally.

The ice before her surged forward, forcing her to push herself backwards on her skates to avoid getting caught up in it. This time she had to shove herself back hard, moving a good metre or so away from the ice as it rapidly sprang up around where she had been a moment ago. For a moment, the idea of simply freezing herself solid to keep safe from the water around her flicked across her mind, before she dismissed it with a sneering shake of the head. It wouldn't work and it would mean abandoning her duty and her friends and she desperately tried to convince herself that the latter was more of a factor in her rejection of surrender than the former.

Still, she didn't dwell on it long, instead reaching forward with her wings once more. This time, however, she only brought up her energy in her right wing, while her left simply remained pressed against the ice wall in front of her until the moment the energy was released from her other wing. The instant it did, her left wing pushed hard against the ice, sending Icy scooting back away from the edge. As she moved, her right wing continued to pour out energy, drawing the torrent of cold backwards as the ice formed along its trail, making the wall expand even faster than before.

Her hooves kept fairly rigid, making sure that the blades on her skates all remained straight, pointing right at the expanding wall in front of her to keep her glide smooth and stable for as long as possible. After a few moments, she slid to a stop, the wall now considerably wider.

Icy took a moment to look at her work before giving a nod of satisfaction at the technique. Her smile returned for a moment before dipping back down as she placed her wings against the ice once more, this time calling her energy to her left wing.

Once more, she pushed away, this time with her right wing and, while the force she applied was only slightly less, she did so a lot slower and gentler, giving her a smoother movement backwards. As she did, she released the energy built up in her left wing a little more gradually too, feeling even less strain and giving her a lot more of a sense of how much she had left. As soon as it was almost done, as she was beginning to skate to a stop, she called up more energy to her right wing before waiting a moment. After a split second, her motion and the ice formation in front of her ceased, her left wingtip resting gently on the ice. As soon as it did, she pushed forward with her left wing while bringing up her right once more to start releasing its energy.

Once that movement ran out, she switched back to her left wing again, repeating the process until, by the time she'd pushed herself four or five times, she'd gotten into a perfect-feeling rhythm, dragging a frozen blockade across the length of the river. Strangely enough, she found the whole process relaxing in how simple and satisfying it was. No guesswork, no uncertainty, just push, release, glide, stop, push, release, glide, stop, push...

For some reason, her occasional bouts of drawing came to her mind, the feeling being oddly similar despite the two actions seeming to have almost nothing in common. Still, there was the same sense of contentment she often felt when she'd planned out the whole drawing in her head, mapped out all the stages she'd need to do in order and only had to carry out her plans, with the freedom to do as she wished at each stage and no need to worry about what would happen in the next one.

Of course, while she technically had the freedom to do as she wished with this construction, she knew it would be a bad idea. Still, the simplicity and certainty of what she was doing proved very fulfilling and the easy rhythm of it gave her a calm that felt almost surreal given how she'd been feeling a few moments ago. Idly, she wondered if this was the sort of thing some ponies felt when they meditated. She had no idea, having never felt the desire to do so herself, but she thought the fact that she could have such thoughts at that point had to be a good sign.

Similarly, when all thoughts were slammed out of her head by a colossal boom sounding from nearby, she instinctively assumed that to be a terrible sign, even if any such coherent thought was beyond her at that moment. Her hooves and skates started slipping every which way, making her move like she was doing a bizarre sliding tap dance for a second before falling onto her belly. Around her, the cliffs and the ice seemed to rumble. Nothing shattered and she took a grateful sigh of relief at that, but a lot of pebbles and small rocks fell down the sides of the ravine, many of them bouncing off the top of the slanted front of the dam. Fortunately, none of them were big or fast enough to make any substantial breaks in it, just making a few small cracks and chips, but it still gave Icy an uneasy feeling.

Still, a moment later, that feeling was supplanted by an even worse one – that the rocks holding the water back had started to give way earlier than expected, sending the flood towards her before she was ready so it would overwhelm her barrier and catch her up and...

Another noise slid its way into her ears, disproving her theory and pulling her out of her rapidly spiralling panic, such that, even when it was followed by another boom, it encouraged Icy rather than demoralizing her.

It was the sound of a rocket streaming down from high up and impacting the ground and, now that she was in a mental state to place it, she realized it was coming from very near her; from the canyon a short distance – by river standards, at least – before her dam.

Shaking her head, Icy turned to look behind her, only to find she was just a few feet from the cliffside, her barricade having almost completely spanned the river. She hadn't been moving especially fast, yet hadn't noticed the process taking all that much time at all. She blinked in astonishment at either the efficiency of her method and powers or simply her ability to lose track of time.

Either way, she shrugged a moment later and turned back to the ice wall, continuing to expand it until, within half a minute at most, it had reached the cliffside, meaning she just had to send a small bolt of energy into the tiny remaining air gap to make what she was pretty sure would be a watertight seal.

Dipping her wings into the water behind her, she sent a small wave of energy out to create a larger platform for herself behind the barrier, the sudden feeling of being even a little in the water causing a lot of her muscles to lock up, smashing her sense of serenity. That moment of immersion made the tiny platform she made feel like more of a strain than the metres-long barrier she'd just erected. Still, after a moment she yanked her wings out of the water, stepping back on her skates to take a look at her work. She was already mentally preparing to smile at what she saw.

Once she was calm enough to truly analyse what she was looking at, though, that smile died before it could even begin. On a technical level, it was an impressive piece of craftwork and, were the imminent flood less mind-shakingly massive, it would be perfectly sufficient. And yet, as looked at and through the ice and felt the water bumping up against the bottom of it, already beginning to rise slightly against the dam and press forward against it, she came to one inescapable conclusion.

“It's a bit too thin!” she said, her hoof pressing on her badge as she did even though she neither expected nor especially desired any response. She just wanted to say it and be heard.

She lifted her wings, feeling a tiny, but oddly deep and disturbing twinge run through them as she did. Her muscles and feathers all felt fine and yet, she felt a noticeable weakness beginning to seep through them. Presumably, this was the sign that she was beginning to drain her stores of energy, similar to her mother's earlier magical exhaustion. Still, she shook her head and focused – there would be time to rest and recover when everyone, including her, was safe.

“I'm going to try to make it thicker!” she called over her badge once more, taking a moment to pull up a bit of energy, though it was a bit more noticeable of an effort. “I don't know how much I can – I'm starting to feel a bit tired, the energy's not coming as easy and making ice in the air's way harder than doing it in the water – but I've got to try, I guess.”

Fzt fzt.

Icy blinked in surprise at the interjection and looked up at the still-hanging form of Lance, unsure why he'd tapped his badge twice for 'no'.

Lance waited a moment, hanging still until he caught Icy's eye and nodded, now sure she was fully looking at him. Shifting his grip on his sword to hold on one-hoofed, he pointed the other at the ice wall below him. After a moment of lingering there, he swept his hoof down in a diagonal line into the water behind the dam, before giving three more diagonal strokes further down and back, through the water. He then repeated the motion a couple more times, pointing at areas of the dam further away, but Icy had already got his meaning.

She looked down at the river flowing away behind her, taking a moment to allow her skin to finish the nauseating quiver that ran through her neck and head before she tried to figure out the best way of carrying out Lance's suggestion. After a moment, she let out a whimpering hum and dipped her wingtips in the water once again. There was a brief moment where the force of the water took her by surprise, but much of the force of the river's surface seemed to have been broken by the dam behind her, meaning it didn't push at her wings with nearly as much force and only barely elicited a yelp from her.

After a moment of letting her wing and her stomach settle, she sent a short bolt of cold out along the surface. The forming ice didn't get much distance, fading out after around a couple of metres but creating a thick, flat-topped path for her to shakily skate her way along. Once she'd gotten about a metre along it, she turned back to the dam and looked to the top of it, finding to her satisfaction that the length of the path was roughly equal to the dam's height, though she’d need to shorten the path a little to create a  proper forty-five-degree angle between the two tips.

That established, she turned back around again and gave a kick to the ice in front of her. Or, at least, she tried to – her tenuous stability on her skates and her absolute terror at the possibility of kicking too hard and breaking the ice beneath her resulted in her hoof giving a truly pathetic tap that the thick ice barely seemed to notice.

With a pained, embarrassed grimace, she opened her mouth to ask for help, only to be cut off by a rapier flying down from the side, landing point-first in the ice in front of her and sending a thick crack through the ice path. She stepped back instinctively, just in time for white to fill her vision as a body fell onto the platform in front of her, not even giving time for her eyes to resolve it into the shape of Lance before he grabbed the sword and leapt back, twisting the embedded blade as he went to wrench the end of the track away before he rose high enough to need to pull the blade out, flipping over Icy's head as he went.

Icy blinked for a moment as she watched the part of the ice she had been trying to separate flow down the river like a torpedo. “Er, thanks?” She said, barely turning her head to indicate who she was talking to while her eyes remained sharply focused on the now-jagged end of the shortened path.

Stepping forward, she bent down and braced herself before plunging her wings into the river, a fair bit deeper than before. Fortunately, her mental preparation seemed to work, as the greater force this exerted on her wings didn't cause any more anxiety than before. It also didn't cause less, but Icy was still immensely thankful for small mercies.

Still, she didn't allow her mind to think too much about it, instead focusing on building up her energy and taking the time to figure out her aim, both in the position of her wings and in how to fire off the energy. After a few moments, she felt as confident as she was likely to and fired off another bolt, creating another vertical pillar in the river.

This time, however, she didn't simply leave it at that, instead raising her wings slightly a moment later so they didn't get caught up in the column, shifting them around slightly and firing another bot, this one aimed more diagonally. She had to put more force behind this one – while she hadn't learned the details of Python Gears' Theorem, she knew that diagonal was generally longer than straight down. Still, the ice spear shot out of her wings, merging with the top of the vertical pillar and firing down into the riverbed a short distance away.

Still, though, she didn't stop, raising her wings once more and sending off one more, even more forceful bolt at a shallower angle, creating a triplet of pillars, all joined at the top before reaching out towards the bottom of the river at various angles. A shaky smile almost managed to totally encompass her lips before she turned around and was reminded of the one thing she had left to do.

She doubted she could bridge the gap between the pillars and the top of the dam by releasing her cold through touch as she had when extending the barrier – even if she could reach that high easily while still keeping her energy flowing, she certainly couldn’t do so while remaining on all fours.

Instead, she gulped and crouched down, spreading her hooves out to the side so she could lie with her stomach on the ice. She felt herself begin to dry heave a little as she felt the tiny waves lapping up over the platform and against her belly, her skintight suit only barely softening the sickening caress of the water.

Still, after a couple of deep breaths, she placed her wings on the ice, just in front of the point where the pillars all joined together, and pushed more energy out of her wings, hoping desperately that the ice was as good at channelling her energy and maintaining her aim as the water was.

To her immense relief and unpleasantly-massive surprise, it seemed it was even better, as a thick column of ice started growing, following the directions her muscles and mind were giving it to gradually extend up towards the ice wall behind her. It was neither quick nor easy, since she was once again having to make ice in the air rather than the water, but after nearly a minute, she looked behind her to find the thick, rough cylinder of ice joining up with the back of the wall.

Her previous smile returned, still shaky but this time managing to overtake her mouth completely as she looked up and down its length, from the top of the dam down to the river's edge and then down, at varying degrees, towards the solid bed below. She was no engineer, by any means, but she thought she'd made quite an effective brace for the wall that would, hopefully, provide a lot more strength against the smashing wave that would be coming.

Still, she didn't allow herself to rest just yet, as a single brace near the edge of the dam wouldn't exactly be a foolproof failsafe – it may keep that area of the dam stable, but the rest was still fair game. So, ignoring the pain in her wings, she swooped a wing down, swiping it through the water as if physically throwing the bolt of cold she sent through it to the opposite bank. The path it created wasn't as strong as it could have been, but Icy knew she didn't have the time to do more before she raced off along the river's width.

She stopped once she reached roughly the middle of the river. Ideally, she wanted at least five buttresses, but she figured it was better to get the important ones in the centre and on either end done first. She skidded to a stop before plunging her wings in once more, not giving herself time to feel the panic before firing off her pillars and pulling her wings out again. She pressed her wings hard against the now-more-stable path and focused once more, making another column reaching up towards the dam.

That done, she paused for a moment before firing a quick bolt horizontally towards the dam, joining it to the three pillars in another way. She didn't know if or how it would help, but it felt like it would. A moment later, she dashed off towards the riverbank, this time not even waiting until she'd fully stopped before plunging her wings in and firing. However, just as she was pulling them out again, she heard a sound that made her body freeze, her stomach drop and her throat retch.

It was distant, quiet in that way that made you know for sure that, if you were closer to it, it would be deafening. As it was, she could hear it over the rushing roar of the river around her, but not by much. Still, it was both clear and sharp enough that she had no trouble identifying it, much as she wished she did.

It was a deep, level, splashing boom – not the sound of an explosion, but of something exploding or, rather, bursting. The rumbling before and during it and the series of distant thudding impacts told her it was a large mass of rock that had burst and the wide, high-pitched slosh of flying, spattering liquid that contrasted it told her of the water that had finally punched through to flow fast and free, a fact underpinned by the gushing roar she could just about make out in the distance.

The lake had finally let loose and a wall of water was making its way towards her at a horrifying pace and with a sickening certainty.

Icy shook her head, only now registering how she'd fallen onto her stomach and pressed her head to the ground, her wings halfway to covering it as if she could somehow hide from the oncoming flood. With a swallow that felt like she was trying to force what little moisture she still had in her mouth through a brick wall, she reached her shuddering wing out in front of her. After an unpleasantly slow second, she had extended them fully forward and pushed them down, pressing them with far more force than she'd consciously intended. Still, she didn't feel the need to let up, finding the firmness of the pressure weirdly comforting, even if it only reduced her overall anxiety by a tiny amount.

She took a faltering breath in and tried to push out her energy to join these columns up to the dam, only to find that not only was she having trouble focusing enough to do so, but it was also much harder to reach into her stores, drained as they had already been. She winced – she hadn't even gotten to the main part where she was going to expend her energy and already she felt like she was starting to run dry.

Come on! she snapped at herself in her head. Get over it! You know the water's not a danger. You know this whole thing started because you've got some connection with it, so what are you worried about?

She sighed, another thought replying as if in a debate with the first and wanting to cut it off. Except even an actual Seapony wouldn't want to get in the way of something like this. It’s not like Earth Ponies are immune to rockslides. This isn't some phobia thing, this is really dangerous.

Any more than half the things I've gone up against the last few months? the first, more determined part of her asked.

Oh, yes! her more anxious thoughts responded without missing a beat. This is enough to wreck the town, how am I...

I have to! she finally thought to herself, the thought taking hold of her whole mind. Because it will wreck the town and hurt everyone there if I don't. Everyone's counting on me! My friends, my teammates... my mom... they believe in me. They trust me. I can feel the love and I'll be damned if I let that love be for nothing. I'll do this, I'll... her thoughts cut off when she heard a strange groaning from in front of her, opening the eyes she hadn't realized she'd closed to see something amazing.

The bridging shaft she'd been struggling to make a few moments before was now solid before her, thicker than even the previous ones had been and looking like it could take even more force before buckling. She looked down at her wings in astonishment, pulling them back with a painful twinge. It was clear that she hadn't increased the amount of energy she was capable of calling up, but had found it easier to access for some reason.

She didn't pause for long, though, as the slowly increasing roar of the distant torrent growing rapidly closer wormed its way into her ears once more, sending her skin crawling and her forehoof surging forward. She kicked off of the column in front of her as her other hooves pivoted, turning her into a sliding dash back towards the centre of the river. As she did, she tried to recall exactly what had happened a moment before – how she'd managed to pull so hard yet easily on her reserves of energy.

And yet, she honestly couldn't recall, having not been focusing on her wings at that moment, but rather on the feeling she had invoked in herself – the feelings of friendship, camaraderie and love that she had tried to huddle under like a blanket to hide from the fear.

Blinking in puzzlement, she skidded to a halt around halfway between her previous pillar and the one in the centre and ducked her wings down into the water again. Frowning a little, her face making clear how weird she found the idea and how unsure of it she was, she tried calling up those feelings again as she fired off three quick bolts into the water almost tentatively.

This time she was focusing a little on her wings, so she truly felt and registered the jolt of dull, sickly pain that shot through them as her energy surged out. But even that couldn't overwhelm the bizarre feeling of ease with which she created three more columns. She had managed it even quicker than she had any of the previous times and, while she didn't doubt that the rush of terror was contributing to that, it still seemed to show that thinking about that – or possibly of simply anything else – did help immensely.

I guess friendship really is magic. Even my magic.

Taking a breath in that felt more stable and loose than any she'd taken in the last ten minutes, she placed her wings against the surface of the platform and let loose once more, pushing past her wings' complaints with images of all the ponies in town – those she knew well, those she'd talked to a little or those that she'd just seen in the background once or twice. All of the ponies and others were people in their own right and deserved to be protected.

She latched onto that thought like a limpet as she finished the shaft and hopped over it, kicking off it with a hindhoof to surge forward towards the opposite bank. The sound of the rushing water was getting much louder now and she reckoned she'd have time for one more brace, if that.

Of course, she'd need to put it between the centre strut and the right-hoof one, meaning she'd have to get past the centre strut, but a quick flap against the ground soon had her leaping over it into a glide. Weirdly enough, that use of her wings didn't cause that much pain or discomfort, making it clear that it was her internal stores of energy that were being exhausted, not her wings themselves. This was a little encouraging, but since her wings weren't strong enough to fly her out of there if this didn't work, it didn't exactly dispel her worries.

It did, however, give her an extra store of confidence to bolster her efforts as she shot her columns down through the water before pouring her energy onto the ice in front of her, an involuntary, pained groan seeping out of her mouth as she pushed the energy up into the final buttress.

That done, she flapped once more, gliding over to the centre before landing on the platform she'd formed underneath the brace, taking up a position just behind her ice wall to stand and wait.

From the volume of the noise she was hearing from the other side of the wall, it didn't seem like she'd have to wait long, but as she trotted on her skates, trying to find a position where her suddenly-jellified legs could remain stable, it became clear any time at all would be too long.

Still, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she carefully angled the blades beneath her hooves, nearly sweating with the concentration needed to keep them steady and under control. Gradually, carefully, she put a hoof onto her back and pulled one of the leaves from the bag she’d got, placing it hesitantly in her mouth. After a moment’s chewing, she gulped it down, her throat feeling like she was trying to swallow a tennis ball, as she gradually got her hooves into a position where she was unlikely to either slip or collapse.

That done, she reluctantly opened her eyes and reached forward with her wings, leaning against the wall in front of her, the ache lessened but still there. There was a brief moment of juddering shock as her wings nearly collapsed under her, forcing her to rebalance herself on her hooves clumsily for a moment before she could force enough rigidity into them to keep herself upright. She knew that, theoretically, she didn't actually need to put her weight on the wall, but she knew her own mind and her own fears, even if there were split-second-brief flashes where she wished she didn't.

She couldn't afford to let up once the water reached her and even a momentary, instinctive backing away could destroy everything she, the team and the town had worked for.

Shaking her head, she focused her eyes and ears forward, having to force them there like there were physical barriers stopping them, and then focus on keeping them there as they tried to wander off, almost feeling magnetically repelled from looking at the river beyond. She couldn't see anything yet, as the ravine turned a corner a few hundred metres in front of her, but she still didn't want to stop looking there when the incoming wave did show itself.

This wasn't helped by the sounds she could hear almost surreally clearly, getting louder with every passing second. It was hard to even think about time passing through the noise – not that the volume alone was loud enough that she couldn't hear herself think, but that what the noise was of, the gushing, splashing, flowing, bursting gush, hammered against her ears and her mind, making every thought feel like it was having to push forward through a hail of boulders, every millisecond bringing a new impact trying to ram her mind backwards and off-balance.

She growled, putting every ounce of physical energy she could muster into keeping her body and mind focused forward, ready for when the water would come.

Except, even though she could hear it approaching and could have sworn it would arrive any second, it didn't. Every moment she remained focused, the noise increased and she was positive that the wave would come crashing around the corner now! And every moment, it failed to, instead just growing louder again after another moment that seemed to stretch out to infinity, every tiny sensation and twitching anxiety drawn out and brought into sharp focus in Icy's mind. Every moment the water failed to arrive, she found herself jarred by the lack of it, instead being driven further down into her tension like a spring being pressed down until each loop was deformed by the ones above and below it.

And yet somehow, when the huge, surging wall of water slammed its way around the river bend, smacking boulders off the cliffside like dust off of shelves, it still managed to catch her off guard, taking the coiled spring and wrenching it out into a stretched, tangled twist of metal. She felt her whole body lock up even as the command to turn and sprint away flew unbidden from her brain and bounced around inside her limbs like a ricocheting bullet. Tears formed in her eyes as she desperately tried to keep them open. She felt her lungs and stomach squeeze tightly as she began to gasp between dry heaves and her skin had a shiver sent through it that flew through her whole body before bouncing off the end of it and wandering all over her at random.

Still, through all this, the wave held her attention, stabbing itself like a fish hook into her mind and pulling with all its might, forcing her to stare helplessly into the vast, yawning, churning maelstrom within, yanking her sharply-yet-continually into it. A long, pitiful whine seeped out of her lips as she remained frozen, her eyes widening as if trying to keep all of the massive wave in her sight as it got closer and closer, unstoppable, unavoidable, unknowing, uncaring, unaware of how and when it would crash into her and break her bones and slam her down into the water below and press her and hold her and squeeze her until she burst and died and was carried along and down the river and through the town and...

Her squeal came to an end in a sharp, whining groan as her teeth clenched, both to bring her round and keep her stomach from discharging anything up. She focused on her wings as the wave neared her and her barrier, reaching in as deep and hard as she could for as much energy as she could muster. It was hard enough to focus enough to find any at all, and there wasn't much readily available, it seemed, so she growled, one eye squinting in concentration as she reached even deeper. She reached into her wings and past them, through the bones and the shoulder joints and into her core, her torso, her heart. There still wasn't nearly as much as she wished there was, though she didn't know if there was any amount that would make her feel confident, but either way, she grabbed as much of the energy as she could and pulled it with all her might out into her wings.

The surge of energy that shot along her feathers did a lot to shock her mind back into the moment, not in any way dispelling or reducing the terror that was suffusing every cell in her body, but at least allowing her to rise above the tide of panic, enough to tread water for a few moments, at least.

And a few moments were all she needed and all she had, as the wave closed in on her, growing close enough to blanket her entire view, wide enough to obscure the cliffs on both sides and high enough that she could barely see the dim sky above her. For a moment, all hope vanished as the sheer altitude of the wave made itself clear to her - high enough to dwarf her and her dam, so much so that it would barely have to step over it to get past it.

However, a flash of movement at the very bottom of her vision drew her attention mercifully downwards, only to see the water beyond the ice, forming a sharply-edged blob against the half-transparent barrier, slowly beginning to rise towards the top of the small barrier.

She let out a strangled sigh, taking another look at the incoming wave. And, in front of the huge, curling crest of water was a long, far more gradual slope and several smaller waves that drew up towards the main wall of water. It still reached a peak far higher than her barricade, but at least there would be some build-up to when it would overwhelm the obstruction. And that build-up was all Icy needed.

At least, she desperately hoped so.

However, she didn't have long to hope or worry as the front of the wave dashed up and, as Icy fought down one more surge of nausea bashing against the back of her throat, it slammed against the wall of ice in front of it.

There was a sickening, skin-crawling crack that rang out and echoed around the ravine, clearly audible even over the deafening storm of water. Fractures, both large and small, sprang up all over the dam, a few spurts of water even managing to slip their way through.

And yet, that was all that got through as, for that single, brief, wonderful, horrible moment, the barrier held.

It was clear that it wouldn't last long, but Icy didn't need it to. All she needed was that single second for her to register that she wasn't being swept up and away and under and that that massive, looming volume of water was being held just away from her.

As soon as that became clear, the gathered, tense energy in her wings fired, her feathers shifting to direct it out in a wide arc. She could feel the energy rushing through the ice, occasionally getting hung up for a millisecond in freezing the tiny streams flowing through the cracks.

However, that didn't last long before the majority of the energy had reached the other side of the ice barrier and, as soon as it came out into the water, froze it instantaneously, the weight of the water that had a moment before been trying to break through the ice now attached to it and aiding in its thickness and stability. Not to mention providing an extension to the path the energy was taking, allowing it to leapfrog through the newly frozen area and into the water behind it to continue expanding.

For a moment, it seemed like everything would work out fine, but that moment proved fleeting as two other factors made themselves known. Firstly, the energy she'd spent so long building up had almost completely run out and secondly, even though the water was freezing quickly forward, the full height of the main wave was closing in on the dam and a thick cascade was already beginning to flow up towards the top of the dam, ready to fall over the top and on top of her and down the river once more and...

Icy gave a long, whimpering groan as she shifted her wings, focusing her energy up towards the top of the dam, causing all the water above it to freeze and add to its height. After a moment, she remembered clearly that that had been her plan all along – freeze any water that got above the dam until it was high enough that she wouldn't have to. However, that only increased the dulled ache in her wings and sent a stomach-turning doubt seeping into her thoughts.

Icy scowled through her tears as she focused inwards, allowing her wings to settle in place as she put every effort she could, physical and mental, into drawing up as much energy as possible, trying to use the momentum she'd already built up in the flow to keep it coming up and pumping out. The stinging ache in her wings grew rapidly, soon overwhelming the painkillers’ effects. It blurred her vision and squeezed her stomach, but she tried to ignore the pain as she dove inside herself.

‘Ponies are powerful’. That was what she had told her mother. All ponies had incredible power within them, it was just a question of what they chose to do with it. What they could do with it. At that moment, she didn't have a choice, but she had the power and she knew, on the deepest possible level, that she had to put all of it into this one moment.

A crash came from above her as the peak of the wave flew over the top of the dam, a few drops gushing over and onto her back, almost disrupting her concentration. Still, she held firm, trying to channel the rush of terror into a force to drive her even deeper into her well of energy. It seemed to work too, somehow, as the pale-blue-white energy surged out of her, continuing to fly through the ice and burst out of the top, catching the now-feet-thick layer of water atop it.

It took about a couple of seconds to freeze completely, during which time a thick curtain of water continued to fall over her, sending such a wave of goosebumps through her it felt like her skin was trying to pull off of her body. She felt herself retch and didn't even bother trying to suppress it, focusing all her attention on her wings and her energy. She even felt the water that fell onto her wings freeze over, coating them in ice and attaching them to the wall in front of them, but she didn't let that stop her. She’d let them freeze solid if that meant the water would too.

Fortunately, her tension and focus were so intense that she didn't find herself relieved once the wave had finished hitting, as that moment barely lasted a millisecond before more water surged up and over the top of the dam. The water barrelling towards her wasn't just a single, thin wave, after all, and the continued flow made the water level fire up like a climbing pegasus and every second saw another thick layer of water clamber over the top only to be flash-frozen by the torrent of energy flowing up through the ice.

Sweat poured from Icy's body, flowing down underneath her suit to pour out of her cuffs and splash onto the ice below her, along with some getting close enough to her wings to freeze to her skin. Her wings were screaming in agony now, the muscles tightening into iron-hard lumps as they begged for the force and the energy to stop, but Icy shook her head, instead reaching further down, attempting to double down on the outpouring of energy. However, even that was a tremendous struggle – she could practically feel the insides of her stores being sucked up towards her wings as she pulled on the last vestiges of her energy and tried to search out any more, somehow-hidden pools of it.

To her side, a loud gurgling rose up above the deafening roar of water, loud enough to register even through the thick barrier of concentration and pain that was consuming almost all of Icy's senses. It took a moment to pin down what the noise was and establish that it wasn't just her hearing things – it was coming from her left, down into the canyon Archer had fired into, so it was probably the sound of the water flowing down into the underground caves, meaning she hopefully wouldn't need to keep at this for much longer.

Icy closed her eyes, squeezing out the tears and compressing the pain, as she threw herself forward, pushing out one last, long thrust of energy. Everyone was counting on her, everyone needed her, she couldn't stop. Even the all-consuming agony and effort didn't compare to the possibility of letting them down now, when they needed her the most. She let out a long scream of pain and defiance as she forced the energy out.

“GrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

The deep, guttural howl went on and on, not letting up as she put everything she had into thrusting out her energy, sending the ice climbing up and past the angle where she could easily see it, even as the water level's rise slowed over the seconds. She craned her neck upwards as much as she could without taking her wings away from the ice, just able to barely see the peak of the dam through the difficult angle and her swimming vision.

However, despite that, it seemed like the water had come to a halt, well below the height that the barrier was now reaching, and the gurgling from the canyon had risen to a loud steady volume. With what little conscious thought she was capable of, Icy desperately hoped it wasn't her imagination, but she wasn't about to take chances. So, even as her yell trailed off and she gradually let go of her efforts to push out her energy, she kept her wings firmly on the ice in front of her. Thankfully, the ice still coating them made that take little effort, but she still made sure not to let up.

The last remaining energy surged up towards the top of the dam as she cut it off, freezing some extra height into the air above it. It wasn't nearly as much as if it had gone into the water, but it did give her a bit more of a sense of security – either it would prevent most splashes from leaping over the top or it would give her a bit of breathing room if the level started to rise again and she needed to extend the wall once more.

She was just about to consider what an impossibility that appeared to be, with her floppy wings and the painful draining inside her, when her badge crackled to life. “Honey, you did it! The water's draining off!”

Icy blinked heavily at her mother's voice coming from her chest, trying for a moment to see what she was talking about from her angle far below the dammed-up water's surface before giving up and focusing on the more easily asked question. “Mom? How... badge...?”

“I'm using Archer's,” Sunny replied, apparently finding it easy to parse Icy's exhausted fraction of a sentence. “She's riding with me and we're just coming to pick you up. But yeah, the water's beginning to lower and that blockade should easily last until it's back to normal. You can relax now.”

Icy nodded, not even considering how pointless a gesture that would be to someone she was talking with over her badge. “Okay, yeah, gonna... I'll just...”

She began to step back, only for the combination of the ice around her wings yanking her forward, the small surface area with which her skates were touching the ice below her and her tripping over her own exhausted hooves to all result in her stumbling over. Fortunately, the ice coating her wings was thin enough to shatter the instant her weight was directed into tumbling away, but she still found herself falling over towards the edge of the ice, not even having the energy to feel the terror of plummeting towards the water, regardless of whether she had the momentum to actually fall in.

Fortunately, she was saved from having to find out by a firm pair of hooves diving below her and catching her sagging body. She blinked up towards the blurry white form, smiling loosely at what could only be Lance. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that he didn't seem to have ever climbed up to safety, despite being just as much in the wave's path as she had been. He'd had absolute faith in her.

Well, nice that one pony did. The thought managed to float to the top of her soupy mind as she vaguely registered a rope falling next to them. After a moment, Lance grabbed the dangling line and tightened his grip around Icy a moment before the two were pulled off the ice and into the air.

Icy smiled as she looked up at the distinctive silhouette of her mother's glider. She let out a happy, satisfied groan as her eyes fluttered close, taking comfort in just how much everypony had her back.
I guess even when I'm all out of everything, she thought before slipping out of consciousness, I can count on them to help me stay strong.