//------------------------------//
// 54 - The Dragonslayer 
// Story: The Hollow Pony 
// by Type_Writer 
//------------------------------//

We spread out as Dash grabbed her weapon, so that we weren't too close together when the fight started. Gilda took to the air, which made Dash glance back at the sound of wing-beats, but neither one made a move towards the other. After a moment, “Tank,” the massive turtle we'd all mistaken for an errant boulder, lifted his head up to meet Dash, with an odd-looking spear in his jaws. She took it into her own hooves, patted him affectionately on the forehead, and flipped back over to the balcony above the twin thrones of the sisters.

“Gimme a second to tune up. It's been a bit since I've had a good fight.” I peered closer to see what she meant, and found that her spear was a much more complicated item than I had imagined. It was part weapon, and part musical instrument; the lower half appeared to bulge outwards to serve as a guitar, while the strings followed the neck upwards to a set of tuning knobs, just below the spear's cross-guard. Beyond there, the shaft split into two blades in parallel, which looked as though they had been electroplated for reinforcement. Dash held it as one would hold a guitar, in her own magical grip near her hooves, and I saw a faint glimmer around the tuning knobs as she tweaked them; her hooftip strummed the strings directly.

Her wings were still spread from before, and I could feel the pegasus magic building up around her feathers like static electricity. Moments later, it became visible, with sparks and arcs of sheer power crackling across her armor and down her hooves. Her bizarre guitar-spear seemed to accept the lightning she was channeling into it, and I realized the device must have been crafted for this purpose.

An electric guitar-spear, then? From all that I'd heard about Rainbow Dash, it seemed no lesser weapon would suffice. Surely, this weapon had to have been more fragile or less utilitarian than a plain weapon, but she must have considered those all less important than looking as “cool” as physically possible while still retaining some fighting ability.

Within moments, Dash had finished tuning her instrument, and she gave the strings a much more solid strum, loud enough that we could all hear it as the sound of the instrument echoed through the throne room. Lightning arced across her wings and down her hooves, then flew across the instrument's woven metal strings as it flashed up the neck towards the tip—where we could all see the lightning crackle between the twin spearheads.

I couldn't see her face through the visor of her helmet, but I could hear the wild grin in Rainbow Dash's voice. “Alright. Let's rock and roll.”

She leapt up into the air, but it was a feint to throw Gilda off; the gryphon had already been lining up a shot with her bow, but Dash turned into a sharp diving corkscrew, which threw off Gilda's aim. Instead, the pegasus pulled up just before she was about to hit the marble floor, and she sped towards us less than a leg-length from the surface. Red and I scrambled to dodge away from her strike, and she didn't even seem to care.

Rainbow Dash flipped herself around in mid-air using her magic, and contorted herself into a pose more befitting a minotaur, as she slammed her armored knees into the marble—and didn't slow down in the slightest. Sparks scattered on either side as she skidded towards us, and over the sound of her armor scouring the marble floor, I could hear her playing the guitar, building up another electric charge.

She slid right past us, and flicked herself around again to put her back to the entrance—while her wings flared, drawing in and then projecting a wall of fog that covered the door. Even from here, I could feel how solid she'd made that vapor, and I knew even Red couldn't push through it. It might as well have been cloudcrete, and she'd formed that wall on a whim. We were sealed inside this room until the fight was finished.

Gilda had adjusted her aim by now, and she loosed three arrows in quick succession, which Dash didn’t even try to dodge, letting them clatter off her blue-chromed steel armor. She swept the tip of her guitar-spear back at us, and lightning poured from the spear-tip as though it was dragonfire that rolled over the marble like a wave cresting on the ocean, and while Red was quick enough to dodge, I caught the leading edge of the tide.

Pain filled my body as the negative charge sparked across my body, attracted by my own metal armor, and I felt the surface of my flesh scorch as my own armor flash-cooked me for a split second. My muscles locked up and my vision went white as the power of the weather magic flicked me backwards, and I landed on my back on the throne room's red carpet. It barely cushioned my fall onto the marble underneath the fabric, and I was still stunned for a few moments as I tried to make my muscles respond to my mind's commands once more.

“Holly, get up, you're on fire!” Red barked, just before the sound of a massive foot stomping on the floor shook the room.

I swore to myself as I struggled to roll over, because I could feel it. My fur had ignited when the wave of lightning hit me, or maybe my cloth under-armor. Either way, I had to start rolling across the floor and away from the flammable carpet, so I could extinguish myself.

Thunder boomed, and I braced myself—only for a wave of freezing rain to suddenly wash over me, and make my hooves slippery on the stone tiled floor. Dash whipped past me a moment later, and I only recognized it had been her because Gilda was giving chase, at a much slower speed.

“Get back here so I can gut you!” Gilda squawked, and I could hear Dash laughing as they danced through the miniature storm cloud that had formed within the throne room. Was this all just a game to her?

I finally steadied myself, and drew my mace as I tried to track Dash's flight, only to be knocked off-balance again as a second slam echoed through the room. My attention turned to Red, and the titanic turtle he was attempting to strike with his axe; Tank had joined the fray as well, by charging forward to try and stomp us under his massive weight. Gilda would have to handle Dash in the air; if I didn't help Red, then he might get crushed flat by the giant reptile.

Red put all of his weight into an overhead downwards swing, which would have split Tank's skull—if it had connected. Instead, the turtle drew his head back into his shell, and Red's axe bounced off the marble floor with a teeth-rattling clang. I chose to go for one of his forelegs instead, and brought my mace to bear against the turtle’s knee.

It felt like I was striking solid rubber. If I even struck the bone, I couldn't feel it. I got Tank's attention, though, and he kicked at me—a clumsy maneuver, not much more than a hard shove, but enough to stagger me before moving to slam his foot down atop me. I wasn't eager to become a pegasus pancake, so I dove underneath the great creature, then realized this place was even more dangerous than under his foot.

“Move!” Red barked, and I scrambled out from underneath just as Tank slammed his entire body down. I narrowly escaped getting crushed, only for a blue blur with a rainbow trail to sweep my legs out from under me with the side of her spear.

“Gotta get good at dodging, dork!” Dash cackled, already long out of reach. Gilda swooped down to help haul me to my hooves, but just as soon as I was standing, Tank stood back up. From underneath him, the blue blur reappeared, and Dash tackled Gilda away from me. “C'mon, let's get some air under your wings!”

Gilda screeched as she clung onto Dash's guitar-spear, and narrowly avoided being impaled—but Dash just strummed the strings again, and Gilda was thunderstruck, falling away from Dash as her claws smoked. She fell out of sight on the other side of Tank, and I turned my attention back to the massive animal.

I dodged a backwards stomp, and my own back slammed into the wall of the throne room, before I bolted to the side. Red was trying to push him back, away from the door, but he'd been accidentally pushing him towards me! Not that I could blame him; this melee was already a confusing mess. I grabbed my discarded mace with my teeth as I ran by, but I heard Dash laugh again, and suddenly the metal weapon in my mouth was electrified—and my jaw locked up, meaning I couldn't release my grip to drop it again.

I screamed through the lightning in my teeth, and swatted the weapon away with my hooves as my jaw burned. Even as it bounced away, I could see sparks of lightning arcing between the metal fins of the head, and Dash flying at me, upside-down. “What kinda pegasus are you, huh? Can't even handle a little spark? Come meet me up here in the air!”

I let out a feral snarl as I jumped upwards, trying to bite her, and I even beat my wings to try and get a little extra height—not that it mattered. She was already gone before my aching jaws could snap shut around her leg, and I landed awkwardly with a stumble as I tried to grab for the mace again. More arrows whizzed past our opponent and clattered across the marble as Dash dodged Gilda's volley with ease, and I only hoped she didn't hit me instead. In fact, Dash was probably trying to bait her into doing exactly that.

Red let out a roar that grabbed my attention, and I looked up just in time to see him bury the head of his axe in Tank's foot. The turtle started snapping his jaws at the stallion as Red tried to pull the weapon free, but he didn't move fast enough, and one of his forehooves was caught in the great reptile's jaw. There was an awful crack as the bone was crushed, and Red bellowed again before he slammed his uninjured forehoof into Tank's eye. That got his other hoof loose, but he was bleeding, and he had to limp away on three hooves. Tank blinked away the pain within moments, and he was less impeded by the axe in his foot than Red was by his broken leg—he was slow, but he was still going to catch up in moments if I didn't do something.

Dash screamed past again, launching a shower of hail that scattered against my armor, but I forced myself through the chill to grab onto the grip of Red's axe. I yanked downwards as Tank lifted his foot, and the massive turtle seemed to gasp in pain as the weapon twisted in the wound. Then it came free with a sucking sound and a gush of blood that ran down the scales of his foot, and I staggered back as that foot slammed into the marble just before me. 

“Catch!” I yelped to Red, as I heaved his axe back to him—only for Dash to catch it in mid-air.

“How about nah?” She flared her wings to swoop overhead, and I turned my head to follow her, to see where she was going. Then my vision jerked back suddenly as my face exploded in pain, and I sprawled across the floor as the axe bounced away. She'd thrown the weapon right back at me, and the flat head of the axe had still nearly knocked my head from my shoulders. I was lucky that it hadn't done more than that, but I was still stunned on the ground—and I could see that Tank was approaching.

I scrambled to try and get back to my hooves, but I was still dazed, and couldn't manage more than dragging myself away from the great beast. He easily caught up, lifting his foot over me once again, and I screamed as all of Tank's weight came down on my legs. I felt them all snap at once in an instant, and I was left as little more than a gasping torso, removed from the fight in one cruel stomp. I expected Tank to step on me again, now that I was immobile, but his attention was stolen by Gilda, who screamed out my name, then started firing arrows at Tank's eyes to pull him away.

“Hey, quit that!” Dash yelled, and the three of them were thoroughly occupied with each other, which allowed Red to limp back over as quickly as he could. He grabbed a fold of my cloth under-armor in his teeth, and started to drag my limp, broken body away from the fight, for which I was thankful.

But that meant that I had an unobstructed view of Dash and Gilda's aerial fight. They swooped past each other, then dove at the same time—Gilda was catching on to Dash's moves, and trying to match her. They swooped back towards each other as if jousting, and Gilda must have realized at the last moment that only Dash was equipped for that.

She let out a panicked cry, which was cut off suddenly as Dash speared her straight through the chest, and Gilda's bow flew away as her claws flailed wildly. She was trying to claw at Dash's face, or her hooves grasping the spear, anything to try and free herself, but the armor kept her claws from finding flesh. Dash turned upwards, climbing as Gilda's wings flapped uselessly, and just before they were about to hit the rafters, Dash slowed down, hanging in mid-air.

Then, in a cruel move, Rainbow Dash strummed her guitar once more, and lightning flashed across Gilda's body. She was electrocuted both within and without, and her whole body seemed to ignite as lightning flowed through her. It lasted for only a moment, at the apex of Dash's maneuver, and then it was done, and Gilda went completely limp. Then Dash rolled backwards, using Gilda's weight to gain momentum, and she corkscrewed back down towards the floor. As she spun, she flicked her spear one last time, launching Gilda off the end and towards the door—where Red had been dragging me.

Gilda's burning, limp, bloodied corpse bounced over the marble floor with a series of wet-sounding cracks, and each one left a fresh smear across the white tile. She only came to a rest next to the fog wall, and Dash landed beside her.

For a moment, I thought she was going to strum her guitar one last time, to finish both me and Red in one move. She even seemed to be considering it. But she apparently decided otherwise, and flapped her wings once more to dispel the fog wall. “Tell Gilda, when she wakes up. I'm always down for a good fight, but anypony that wants to harm the Princess is gonna have to go through me first.”

The sounds of our battle had drawn quite a crowd; there were at least a dozen Golden Guards outside the door, staring at us hungrily with their Hollow embers. Red let my limp body drop, then indicated towards them with his bad foreleg, and a wince of pain. “If she wakes up. Reckon they'll suck the three of us dry first.”

“What, them?” Dash glanced back at the Golden Guards, and snorted. “Hey! Jackasses! Don't touch these three. Don't attack them, don't bother them, don't even acknowledge they exist—unless they try to get past me, or try to reach the Royal Bedrooms. Tell the others the same. That's an order.”

Dumbly, they nodded, and began to disperse. I let out a ragged sigh of relief; at least we had nearly free reign of the palace now.

“They shouldn't stop you from leaving now, either,” Dash said, pointedly. “Seriously, you're not gonna get past me. I'm not gonna hold back, and neither will Tank.”

“Ah hear ya,” Red grumbled, before he grabbed my armor in his teeth again and continued dragging me through the door. I left a smear of black ichor as I was dragged, and I was probably staining the marble beneath me. Dash gave Gilda another kick, which shoved her out into the corridor, and she even went back to grab Red's axe and Gilda’s bow, which she tossed through the door after us. Then she flapped her wings, and the fog re-materialized in the doorway, sealing off the throne room from the corridor where we had been left.

“The fog's warded. I'll know if you try to pass through, so don't think you can pull a fast one on me.” Dash called through, and then we heard her wings flapping as she flew away.

Red snarled as he dropped me again, and he spat out a mouthful of blood towards the fog. “She ain't changed much.” His attention turned back to me, or more specifically, the bottomless bag attached to my side. “Holly, how do ah get that flask out?”

I had a brief moment of doubt—did I really want other ponies to have that knowledge? The bag wasn't bound to me, not really, and anypony could put things in or take things out if they only knew how. But Red had been extremely reliable for the entire time that I knew him, even moreso than Gilda—the only time he'd ever lied to me had been that he'd gone by a false name up until now, and even that wasn't much of a deception. I could trust him.

“R-reach in, think ab-about the flask. Th-that's all there is t-to it.” It was hard to talk, with how much pain I was in, but I struggled through the words anyways.

Red nodded, and sat down next to me; it was difficult to pull open the bag with one hoof and his teeth, not to mention reach inside with that single hoof to pull something out, but he managed after a few minutes of struggling. He pulled the silver-wrapped cork out using his teeth and spat it out, then splashed his broken foreleg with a bit of the liquid sunlight inside.

“Ruttin' Tartarus!” He gasped, as his bones began to knit back together, and he had to use his good hoof to hold his broken leg in the right place to make sure it set properly. He was a strong stallion, tougher than I was, and it was clear that mending his broken foreleg was agony.

After a few moments, he flexed the leg, and it seemed a little stiff, but functional once more. He stood to test his weight on the repaired joint, and when he deemed it healed, he picked up the bottle again and started towards me.

All four of my legs were broken just as badly, if not worse, than what he'd just had to fix. My throat went dry and I let out a whimper as I realized just how badly this was going to hurt.


* * *


The last of the liquid sunlight had been used to mend my throat, after all my screaming had shredded it. Long ago, I'd thought that Rockhoof and Zecora had gone too far when they'd snapped my neck and killed me, before healing the damage that Applejack had done to my ribs. Now I wish that I'd thought to have Red do the same this time, so I'd be spared the agony of feeling my legs getting snapped back into place so they could heal.

But I could walk again, even if my hooves were shaking worse than they ever had before. I'd be fine. Eventually.

“Sorry.” Red mumbled. He still looked guilty, even though I'd told him to keep doing it. I needed to be able to walk, as painful as it had been. I'd told him a dozen times already that I forgave him, but the big stallion still must have been beating himself up over the whole thing.

“Red. You're f-fine. We sh-should worry about G-Gilda.”

At the mention of her name, we both looked over at the broken heap of gryphon. She wasn't much more than a pile of blood and feathers now, after what Dash had done to her. I wasn't even sure she'd come back, like us; she'd been adamant up until now that gryphons didn't Hollow, but meeting Gallus before provided more than enough evidence to the contrary.

I looked back at Red. “C-can you feel her fire?”

Red closed his eyes, and I felt something around us shift in the air as Red centered himself. After a moment, he opened his eyes again, and nodded. “Yeah. Faint, but still there.”

I swallowed, and staggered over to her, then started to roll Gilda over onto her back. “If this is her f-first death, then she m-might be a while...it seems to get f-faster the more you die, and she d—oh, stars—“

I wanted to puke. I hadn't seen Gilda's face up until now, but the waves of lightning that Dash had forced through her spear and into Gilda's body had absolutely ravaged her body. Her feathers were still smoldering, her flesh smelled like cooked poultry, and worst of all were her eyes; the sheer heat seemed to have caused them to burst, leaving only two empty sockets in their place. With only a single death, Gilda already looked deeply Hollowed.

Even Red winced, when he saw the damage for himself. “Damn. Hopefully she's still sane when she wakes up.” He glanced back down the corridor. “If it'll take as long as you say, we should go hit the armory now. We got time.”

I swallowed a wave of bile, and nodded. I didn't want to leave Gilda, but we could hardly wait for her... “Sh-should we leave her a note when she w-wakes up?”

Red rolled his shoulders as he rolled the question around. “Can't hurt. She might be blind when she wakes up, but just in case she ain't...”

Stars and void, I hoped Gilda wasn't blind when she woke up. Especially if she woke up while we were gone, meaning she'd be confused, blind and alone. “We c-could take her with us?”

“We're not goin' that far. And the guards should leave her alone; they left us alone, anyhow.”

“D-don’t trust them,” I mumbled. “And she d-deserves a bed, not…not just being l-left on the floor like that.”

Red seemed like he wanted to argue, but eventually he shrugged, and I helped haul her onto his back so we could find a suitable room to claim as our own. Besides, it seemed like we’d need a space to regroup before we even tried to fight Rainbow Dash a second time.