***Sunday, Day 98***
**Midday**
Days had passed as normal for most of the ponies in the group. Rhino’s parents had stayed for a few days and even accompanied Pinchy when she spent some time at Fluttershy’s house one day. Other than that, the only notable thing is the rather intense training regimen Volt is now enrolled in thanks to Coach Hydro.
Volt had mentioned jogging as his current exercise, while Hydro had approved of this, he also said it was not enough. Volt was now running while burdened with rocks in his saddlebags. Sweet Apple Acres also now has a new volunteer thanks to the electric unicorn. Hauling carts, lifting bales, even taking the plow for short amounts of time while Big Macintosh takes a break.
As one might expect, there are a few forgone results of this training tartarus. The first is that Volt now has the habit of dropping unconscious whenever he can to recover energy. The second is that he would inevitably get hurt, namely when he got stuck on a rock when plowing the field and jerked his foreleg out of its socket, putting him essentially out of commission.
This means of course, that when Orion comes around to let us all know that another fragment is slowly flaring up, both the electric stallion and his self-appointed nurse Twilight are both unable to attend. DAISI D is also absent this trip, her exertions in the last one having stripped many of her gears leaving her creator to repair them when he has time. Thus the same group from last trip again make our way through the forest, again in a different direction.
The trip is slower this time around, apparently this shard is only slowly warming up unlike the flaring tendencies of the others. We soon reach the outer edge of Rambling Rock Ridge, a mountainous area on the edge of the Everfree. A quick spell from Rarity reveals the shard high up on the mountain closest to us.
However, it is not as easy as we would have thought. As we approach the base, the sliver of star begins to shine brightly as its flare finally kicks in at full force. A large rumble rocks the area causing us all to freeze-
-as the mountain begins to move.
A gravel-like groan echoes as the base shears itself in half vertically, revealing itself to be a pair of thick legs. The sides split as two arms bearing thick, rough fingers, vegetation grown on the knuckles, stretch. Finally, a formation of rocks near the top shift in various ways until two small boulders rise up to reveal glowing eyes behind them.
At last, a large cave opens a distance below the eyes as a deep groan once again echoes, declaring to the world that this is not a mountain... but a colossus!
All of us stare open mouthed and silent as the giant creature raises one of it’s arms to paw at the spot where the shard is embedded in its stone hide. Due to the arms size and shape however, it is unable to reach it. The creature grumbles unhappily and slowly raises one of its feet before slamming it down with an earth shaking thump a distance away. The other foot soon follows as the being begins trudging off.
We soon regains our senses and run quickly after the giant of stone. The colossus seems docile in its wandering as the light shines from the shard upon it. If anything, it looks like something that was rudely awakened and now only wishes to be able to sleep once more.
“So how are we suppose to get it?” Orion pants out as we run.
The earth pony of the group deadpans. “Well, half of you are pegasi.”
“Yeah, we just fly up and snag it off it. Simple.” Blue states confidently.
The white stallion gulps as he looks warily at the colossus in the distance. “I suppose...”
I spot a figure quickly moving along the ground towards the goliath. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it quickly. Our competition is here.”
Atom flaps his wings as he darts forward. “Alright boys, let’s fly.”
***Aerial team***
The three pegasi fly ahead through the dusty ridge to where the titan is clambering. All the while keeping the aforementioned figure in sight as it tries to reach the giant.
The black stallion smiles as they close in on their quarry. “Looks like we might beat him there.”
The purple-clad diamond dog chooses that moment bursts out of a cloak he was wearing and jumps onto the leg of the colossus. He begins climbing the rocky limb quickly, managing to start leaping up certain parts of the lower half of the leg to gain more distance. Atom takes notice and pursues him around the leg. The black pegasus follows the dog closely until he loses track of him amidst the jagged hide of the beast. Suddenly, Amethyst appears from the shadow of the rocks and leaps onto Atom, using the momentum to throw him harshly into the other leg. The dog then uses a hooked rope to attach himself back to the original leg and continue moving upward. Meanwhile, Blue and Orion manage to fly to the shoulders and grab the star piece only for it to be immediately taken by a well thrown grapple-hook from Amethyst.
“Are you still trying to out-hunt us? I thought you learned your lesson last time?” The dog grins as he takes the shard from the hook.
Blue shouts down to him as he dives, “And I thought you would have learned your lesson after we beat your friend!”
Amethyst is unaffected by the taunt. “Oh yes. A shame what happened to Sapphire, but then again he was always too wrapped up in his chemicals to take fights seriously. Regardless, let us focus on our own fight.”
The dog puts up his fists in a playful manner acting like he wants to engage in a fair fight. Both Blue and Orion look at each other before the former shoots an air blast at him. Amethyst dodges barely and pretends to teeter on the edge before settling back into place and reaching into his pocket. He pulls out what appear to be marbles and begins to fiddle with them in his open palm.
“Would you all be willing to play a game of marbles? I can play pretty well even in the harsh winds up here.” The dog smiles cheekily.
Orion flies slowly around the canine, looking for an opening. “Are you just going to sit there and mock us?”
Blues, meanwhile, is still glaring at the one that defeated him last time. “What’s gonna stop us from just beating you while you sit and fool around?”
The wind seems to pick up slightly as the ponies have a standoff with the diamond dog. A unsettling smile stretches across Amethyst's face. “My turn of course.” Instantly, the dog uses his fingers to launch one of the marbles right in between the plating on Blue’s wing gear and lodge itself in the muscle of the wing.
The blue pegasus cries out in pain as his wing tenses up and he begins to plummet groundward. Orion looks down immediately to try and react to Blue’s fall only to see Atom coming from below, already on rescue duty.
“Can you fly on your own?” Atom asks.
Blue winces in pain as he tries to flap his wing to no avail. “No I Can’t move it. Which also means my gauntlet power is limited now.”
“Such a shame, I hate it when I win too fast at his game.” Amethyst chimes in. He then aims another marble, this time at Atom. “But I do like two-for-one points.”
Orion looks decidedly at the diamond dog and back to his friends in danger before charging at the diamond dog to attempt to draw his attention. As he closes in at a breakneck pace, Amethyst does one of his high jumps up into the air and launches a marble right into the back of the white stallion’s head. Blinded by the pain, Orion falls off course and crashes into the neck of the colossus. Meanwhile, Atom has caught Blue, so the two try and attack from their tandem position, only to miss and make even more of a hassle out the predicament.
Atom growls as he holds Blue underneath himself, his wings working for two. “This isn’t going to work.”
The other stallion, as comfortable with being flown as the average pegasi, which is to say, not very, comments. “You could always drop me off.”
Atom narrows his eyes at the purple opponent. “We can’t let this guy have any chance of escape. We have to try and keep on him, even if that means some dangerous dodging.”
Meanwhile Orion is slowly coming too as he finds himself shifting among the grinding stone plates that make up the hide of the colossus.
“Ugh. What happened?” He mumbles, before reaching his hoof out to support himself on the moving stone, only for his hoof to sink in marginally on the smallest plate. His train of thought is immediately cut off by a roar from the colossus as its hand immediately comes up to scratch the general area of the irritation. Orion, meanwhile, flattens his body up to not get hit by the lumbering limb. Soon after the hand is pulled away, he carefully moves away from the the nexus of stones.
He takes notice of the design and how they move rhythmically, the raised smaller plate in the center of the point where many larger ones would otherwise collide. A sort of stone pressure point. “Interesting.”
Back down around the shoulders, Blue and Atom are performing strenuous dodge movements to make sure the marbles being launched at them don’t hit their remaining set of wings. This doesn't mean they haven’t taken a few body shots though. Amethyst on the other hand, hasn’t taken any damage from the two pegasi’s sloppy attempts at a counter attacks.
Atom is visually frustrated. “We’ll be tenderized before this is over. Our offensive is embarrassing.”
“At least your sword is more reliable than my gauntlets right now. I barely can get enough charge to form a single blast-” Blue is cut off by his immediate view of Orion below. The white pegasus is making frantic movements with hooves and wings as he points up to Amethyst and down to the neck area. He then finishes it up with what looks like a blast motion at the small plate and a large hoof swing.
Blue puts on a smile “Want to make a gamble on a game of charades?”
“What?” Atom says confused.
“Drop me and charge Amethyst to lead him down to the neck.” Blue says simply.
Atom puts on a surprised look. “Have you gone mad?!”
“Better than being dead!” Blue wiggles out of Atom’s grip and starts falling.
Atom takes Blue’s advice and charges Amethyst, barely dodging the marbles and taking a large horizontal swing. The dog dodges and hops around the shoulders dodging the swing with ease. The pegasus stallion on the other hand, has rigid focus as he moves his opponent closer to the edge he needs before winding up and taking one final swing. Amethyst takes a small hop backwards before realizing the sword extended in length with this swing and actually hit him, pushing him off the edge of the giant.
Blue, who had fallen further than he would have liked to during Atom’s little rumble, takes notice that their target had begun falling as well. With this in mind, he charges his one shot by flapping his good wing as much as he can before firing all he has in Orion’s direction. The latter meanwhile is using his bright white coloring to frame the aforementioned sensitive spot so that they don’t lose track of it.
“Hit the weak spot for maximum damage.” Orion mumbles as the blast hits his desired location, causing him to stumble away from the impact. He jumps away from the area and takes flight as a large roar of pain erupts from the colossus. Amethyst, meanwhile, confused about what they were doing, takes his hook out and attaches it to the side of the titan to stop his fall.
“You all realize I’m the one you are suppose to be fighting right?” The dog yells as his momentum carries him back up in an arc.
Blue looks up and yells before he is out of earshot. “Yeah, but we thought you could use a hand.”
In that moment the colossus’ hand flies up at a high speed to swipe whatever was attacking his pained neck. Unfortunately Amethyst happens to be right in the impact path as he is hit by the massive hand before he can dodge. Like the mosquito being swatted by the larger creature it annoyed, the dog flies off at high speed, his flight ending with a muffled thump as he crashes into the ground. Meanwhile, Orion dives down as fast as he can to catch the falling Blue before he’s too far gone. The stallion flaps and flaps as he tries to catch up to the other, but doesn’t gain speed fast enough. As Blue begins to realize his doom, he begins to flail his one wing frantically, before he disappears in a rainbow blur.
A familiar prismatic-maned pony gives him a cheeky grin. “You know, you boys were doing really well in that fight for most of it. Try to have a plan to get out of it in one piece next time.”
Blue puts on an ecstatic look. “Boy, am I happy to see you-” A thunderous crash cuts him off.
***The ground group***
The three of us who have been on the ground the whole fight having been running after the colossus the entire time. Mostly the terrain has been flat rock, so it hasn’t been that bad aside from the massive thumps of each giant step. As the fight wrapped up and we see Amethyst defeated, Hydro and I let out a cheer.
Rarity however, lets out a shriek.
The thunderous crash cuts off any question from my friend and I as we see what she had saw coming. An actual mountain that we had been running next to, had the unfortunate luck to be in the path of the colossus’ flailing arm. The stone limb seems to almost shear through a section about midway up the tower of rock, meaning everything above it comes tumbling down.
The area surrounding us becomes dark as the light is blocked off by rocks and dust bearing down on us. It all happens so fast as some stones thunder the down the mountainside and others simply freefall.
I vaguely hear the shouts of the pegasi just before I am deafened by the crashing boulders around us. Dust envelopes the area around us, bringing visibility to zero. My eyes water even as my ears ring as I try to figure out where I am as thuds echo around me. I vaguely feel a sharp stab of pain in my rear right leg as a rock of unknown size hits it, causing me to stumble and limp from then on.
I don’t know how long I stay in that brown-grey limbo, wandering. All I know is that eventually, I can start to make out the sound of my own voice shouting for the two who had been with me. I find a white shape on the ground, revealing itself to be the fashionista, covered in minor cuts and bruises from the shards of the falling rocks, but otherwise unharmed as she takes shelter in the shadow of a relatively intact boulder.
I say her name, but she does not hear me. She remains curled up in a protective ball until I crouch down, wincing on my injured leg, and nudge her with my nose. She uncurls and sees me, her eyes watering as well, as she slowly gets up, visibly shaken from the experience. I motion with my head for her to follow me and she does so, shakily, but steadily.
As I turn my thoughts to my missing friend, a corner of my mind flares into life, more intense than I have ever felt before. The mental link he and I seem to have, usually a source of unlikely coincidences in thinking or simply knowing what the other is doing without any other information other than gut feelings, is now screaming at me. I don’t know how I know, but I turn and limp in a specific direction, knowing my friend would be there.
As I close in, I begin to worry, the screaming link only seems to get louder and louder. Finally, a dark shape can be seen in front of me. I am vaguely aware of Rarity looking around besides me as I trudge closer. A red shape soon shows itself among the piles of rocks and boulders that make up the dark mass. Much like before, the shape lying on the ground does not respond when I call it’s name. As I close in, I realize exactly why the link had been screaming as it had...
… the pool of red spreading from its groaning red owner.