//------------------------------// // Very Bad Feeling // Story: Innavedr // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash heard a rattling noise, only to realize that it was her own armor. She gnashed her teeth beneath her helmet, turning her gaze away from the grated bars that lined the edge of the miserable cell. "Okay... Think... Think... This is totally not what it looks like." She heard the sobbing of the half-blade and the whimpers of the diamond dog. "Only, it totally is. Uhm..." Her metal-plated hooves tapped rhythmically across the floor. She spun around and hissed at the distraught apprentice. "Hey! You there! What do they have us here for?" "Give me strength, Searo," the mare continued to stammer. "I will spill much blood. Much blood for you. Just have me live..." "Nnnngh—Darn it!" Rainbow Dash pivoted, trotted over the emaciated stallions, and shook the diamond dog's shoulder. "Hey! Fido! You know anything about all of this?" The dog's hair arched up as he batted Rainbow's hoof away and snarled. Rainbow stumbled back, her armored plates clanking against one another. "Blessed Luna. This is why I hate furry things." Just then, there was a loud hum. Rainbow Dash turned around... then tilted her head up. She followed the swinging body of the cell door with her helmeted gaze. Bright torchlight bled into the room, followed by the echoing noise of the chanting onlookers in full force. Then, with a loud clang that shook every soul in the tiny enclosure, the door locked into place above them. They were exposed to the blood-stained body of the arena beyond. Rainbow Dash glanced left and right. "So... uhm... what do we—?" A loud hiss emanated from behind. Rainbow spun about. She gasped. A metal plate had lowered over the wall bearing the door she was thrown in through. Powered by mana and hydraulics, the solid sheet of metal slid completely across the enclosure, effectively sweeping out the bodies of the stallions, the diamond dog, and the two mares who were huddled inside. "Whoah whoah whoah—Wait!" Rainbow stammered, falling clumsily on her side. She rolled like a pill bug out into the arena, sealed off as the hydraulic wall slid completely out and fused with the cylindrical wall surrounding the place. With a grunt, Rainbow jumped back up to her hooves, accompanied by the shivering bodies of her hapless companions. She saw rows upon rows of glaring, shouting, angry-faced Searonese mares, seated above a ring of elevated blue luminescence positioned over thirty feet above the floor of the arena. "Alright..." Rainbow muttered, trotting in circles as she got a view of the resonating, torchlit deathscape. "Things have just galloped on into freakytown." Just then, her ears twitched, for she heard several hissing noises from the far end opposite to where she stood. She turned to look, and her jaw dropped. Two more enclosures were being exposed to the arena. Outside of each of them, the half-hearted bodies of stallions, diamond dogs, anteloupes, and other vagabonds of Searonese society had been shoved out. But what took Rainbow Dash's breath away was a sight directly across from her. "Imre...?" Her eyes immediately caught Rainbow Dash's helmet from afar. She wasn't terrified, but she certainly wasn't enjoying herself. A perpetual grimace hung off her features, and she was trying in vain to resuscitate a sickly half-blade that had collapsed in her midst. Rainbow's voice murmured through her helmet. "What in the heck is going on here?" She made to gallop across the arena when a circular fountain of mist billowed up from the ground before her. "Gaah!" She stumbled back, wincing from the heat, squinting into the unnatural fog. Overhead, her voice amplified by resonating sound stones, the pale and nightmarish figure of Lady Pestiferous gestured towards the crowd with a metal-reinforced forelimb. "Behold, fellow daughters and shhhhhisters of the goddesssssssh most bloodied, we gather to witnessssssh the weak and frail meet their end like they could never meet their glory, in feeble-hearted desssssshperation!" Sparks danced from the top blade's mask as she hissed and shouted, "In one land and in one land alone isssssssh there no toleration for that which issssssh pathetic! Feassssssht your eyes on the poetry of death, and relish the blood given to Ssssshearo this day!" "Blood for Searo!" "Blood for Searo! "Blood for Searo!" Rainbow Dash leaned forward. As the steam parted, she made out a pair of lenses high above, belonging to a figure seated besides Lady Pestiferous and High Blade Terra. Roarke's body stood icy-still in the glistening kiss of the nearby torchlight. "Oh no she didn't..." Rainbow Dash dragged a hoof across the floor. She could no longer hear herself from the bloodthirsty shouts emanating all around her. "This is for all of those suplexes, isn't it? Why that jerk-faced, thimble-eyed—" A loud roar filled the arena. Rainbow Dash blinked. She looked straight ahead. In the very center of the arena, a circular platform had lifted, exposing several notches within which green vapor poured loose. Marching thickly out of the enclosures from all sides—their eyes shimmering with emerald fury—were no less than six timberwolves. They looked upon the tasty morsels of meat and howled in ravenous hunger. Rainbow Dash gulped, backtrotting towards her group. "I've got a..."