//------------------------------//
// Lives We're Given 
// Story: Innavedr 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

	Belle and Pilate disappeared into the darkness.

Kera took a deep breath, her shivering little body weathering a humongous sob coming from a mile away.  Before she could so much as whimper, a blue body blurred past her.  The air split apart with a crackle of thunder not related to any gun or shell.  With tearful green eyes, Kera watched as Rainbow Dash galloped clear off the edge—rattling armor and all.

The hot dusty air swhistled past Rainbow's ears as she plummeted like a rock.  Her ruby eyes quivered, looking for spots of brightness against the grit and sediment.  Far ahead, at twenty meters and plunging, were two equine shapes amidst the nightmarish debris.  Belle's and Pilate's bodies twirled, outflying screams and the bubbling of their own blood.  The great gray gash of the canyon floor lingered cold and hard beneath them.

A tear or two squeezed out of the edges of Rainbow's eyes, only to be knifed away by wind and gravity.  In a twitch, she saw six exploding columns of ash, bathing an emerald landscape with a ghostly halo.  Something beastly inside of her snarled, and she writhed through her descent like a serpent.

Waves of energy rivulted up her armored body.  One panel of metal flew off... then two... then three.

At last, her ears took in the sound of helpless sobs as her plummeting body caught up with her best friends' screams.  She growled back, flexing her muscles, bursting through the metal and madness like a monster coming out of its coffin, or a bright beam of light emerging from the east horizon.

The legpieces of her armor came off, followed by the portions wrapped around her flank.  Then, with a glorious crack, Rainbow's breastplate shattered down the middle, parting ways as a pair of healthy blue wings shot out on either side of her.  The feathers lit the whole canyon up as they caught air and then the sunlight that warmed it.  Without a second thought, Rainbow angled her wings diagonally, pulling her body into a downward smile.  She ripped through the air like a drill, emerged through a bursting pocket of air, and spread her wings out once more as soon as she finally caught up to Pilate's and Belle's body.

There was less than ten meters left to scream at that point.  Rainbow Dash's yell dominated the canyon's acoustics, for she had hoisted her limbs around the pair and yanked them up just seconds before they could burst like bloody bags against the gray stone.  The air deep within the ravine popped several times from the resulting rain of pebbles, stones, and broken armor bits.  Dust rose, filling the belly of earth with bursting brown fog.  The three ponies flew into this, disappeared, and then exploded out the other end with a rainbow streak.  With her Loyalty pendant glistening in the sunrise, Rainbow glided the two away from the avalanche above... then promptly grinded into the earth.

"Unnngh!"  Rainbow slammed into the ground and rolled several times to a dizzied stop.

In the meantime, Belle and Pilate rolled a little further.

"Aaaaugh!"  Pilate grunted before lying on his back and panting for breath.

"Mmmf..."  Belle winced, stood up, and winced some more.  She flexed her muscles, breathless at the prospect of being alive.  She threw Rainbow Dash a look of awe, than wrenched her eyes off to gasp at Pilate.  "Beloved!"  She scurried over and swept him into a hug.  "Oh Spark, I love you!  Thank goodness..."  She sobbed as she pressed his face to hers, trying to contain her hyperventilating breaths.  "Thank goodness thank goodness thank goodness..."

He hugged her back, tightly.  With a shudder, he tilted his frazzled face over her shoulder and stammered, "Rainbow!  Did... did she..."

"Rainbow, bless your loyal heart..."  Belle sniffled.  With tearful eyes, she looked behind and smiled.  "If it wasn't for you, darling, we would have—"  Her chestnut gaze twitched.  "Rainbow!"

Rainbow's face was drenched in tears.  She clenched her teeth as she writhed on the ground, overwhelmed with hideous shivers.  "Nnnngh... g-g-guh... g-gotta get you out..."  Her voice was a tiny tremble against the shells and exploding chunks of rock high above.  "Can't... m-move..."

"Spark, spare us..."  Belle scrambled to her hooves, resorting to a shuffling slide as she crouched above Rainbow's spasming body.  "Your armor!  It's gone!"

"Gaaah...!" Rainbow only thrashed harder as soon as Belle touched her.

"Oh no!  Y-you're hurt!"  Belle fought back a sob.  "You must have shattered something in that fall!"

"Not... br-broken..."  Rainbow hissed.

Belle blinked in confusion, numb to the explosions overhead.  "Huh?"

"Bellesmith..."  Pilate stood up on teetering hooves.  "O.A.S.I.S. is going haywire.  Something isn't right here."

"But... But I don't understand!"  Belle spun around.  "Rainbow Dash is—"

The blind zebra pointed a hoof at Belle's figure.  "Beloved.  That object that you're carrying..."

"Huh?"  Belle's jaw fell.

"My manasphere can't penetrate it.  What is it?"

Belle blinked.  She looked down at her satchel.  The tome of runes was glowing like a second sun.  She gasped, ripped it out of her bag, and tossed it at Pilate.

He caught it awkwardly, falling back on his haunches.  "It's..."  His blind eyes twitched against nothingness as he felt the contours of the enchanted binding with his hooves.  "It's the book!  But... it's changed somehow..."

"It absorbed a plume of ruby flame."  Belle gulped.  "The same sort of thing that we had seen in the Underworld.  Madame Nightshade of Nightshade industries had it somehow."

"So, you did find some flame..."  Pilate thought aloud.  "This is what Nightshade was trying to control..."

"And it's messing with Rainbow's body somehow!"  Belle leaned in, brushing Rainbow's bangs across her sweating forehead as she closely examined the ruby pendant.  The lightning bolt was fluctuating wildly.  "Rainbow!  Can you hear me?!  Is it worse than the dizzy spells?!"

All Rainbow could do was whimper in response.  Her limbs curled around Belle's forelimb like a feverish foal.

Belle bit her lip.  She turned around.  "We have to get that thing away from her—"  Roarke's four hooves landed with a thud between her and Pilate.  "Augh!"

Roarke retracted her helmet, tilted about, and stared down at Belle with whirring lenses.

Belle shivered in place, clinging to Rainbow Dash.

Roarke's brow furrowed.  "What's her problem?!"

"We're quite fine, Ms. Roarke, thank you..."  Pilate shuffled forward and gestured.  "Belle indeed has the ruby flame.  It's having the same effect on Rainbow as it did back at the Battle of Blue Nova."

More explosions rocked overhead.  Roarke grunted, "You don't say."  She gripped Rainbow Dash's shoulders.  "I'm getting her out of here."

"What?!"  Belle shrieked, reaching for Roarke's forelimb.  "You can't just—"

"Don't worry, she's on our side, beloved!" Pilate exclaimed.  "You will get Rainbow Dash to safety, won't you?"

"That's a relative statement.  Everything up there is getting shelled to Searo's bones, including our getaway ship."

"Then just carry her somewhere and we'll—"

"Nnngh... No..."  Rainbow Dash suddenly burst with furious strength.  "No!"  She pushed back against Roarke's forelimbs.  "You g-get them outta here!  You get th-them to the N-Noble Jury, stat!"

"Rainbow..."  Roarke hissed.  "I'm not about to let you die of lame dizziness down here—"

Rainbow yanked on Roarke's muzzle so that her sweaty face stared the metal mare down.  "You... will... get them... to safety..."  Something pulsed red on yellow across her eyes.  "Or I will feed you your teeth, one by one right, right in the place where you pee..."

Roarke actually flinched, if only for the demonic tone of the pegasus' voice.  Nevertheless, she frowned.  "You're absolutely crazy!  You realize how much the rest of us need you—?"

"I don't g-give a flying feather!"  Rainbow wheezed.  Her eyes rolled back from another dizzy spell as she fell back into the dirt.  She felt the vibrations of endless shelling through the ravine's belly.  "Without th-them alive, I am nothing..."  She writhed from the waves of lavender energy wafting off the tome.  "Without y-you... w-without you guys..."  She stifled a sob as she hugged herself and curled over in the dust.  "Nothing... j-just nothing..."

Roarke's face took on an uncharacteristic look of pain.  She sweated more and more profusely as she tossed glance after glance at the couple, then back at Rainbow.  "I'll come back for you!"

"Whatever... just..."  Rainbow gulped and hissed, "Get them to safety.  I... I'm c-counting on you now, Roarke... to save my friends..."  She made one last bit of eye contact.  "Do you understand...?"

Roarke opened her mouth to say something.  She gnashed her teeth, spun around, and galloped towards the pair.  "Okay.  Let's go."

"Rainbow, just stay where you' are!"  Belle shouted as Roarke grabbed her and Pilate.  "We're going to get through this!  It'll be okay!"

Pilate gasped as he felt a tug on the glowing book in his grasp.  "What are you doing—?!"

"Getting rid of this damn thing!"  Roarke grunted, tugging some more.  "If it's hurting Rainbow Dash—"

"We can't afford to leave it here either!" Belle exclaimed.  "If the Ledomaritans get it..."

"Nnnnngh..."  Roarke's hairs rose beneath her armor.  After stomping her hooves, she slid her helmet shut.  "Buck it..."  With one swift move, she hoisted her forelimbs around Belle and Pilate and fired her rear legs' thrusters.  The metal mare shot up and up the walls of the steep canyon.  The frazzled couple gazed down.  Rainbow shrank like a bright blue pinprick across Belle's chestnut eyes.  The mare sobbed once, tilting her face skyward as Roarke flew the two of them back to even level with the plateau.

Hot, ashen air pelted them instantly.  There were twice as many craters now as the Steel Wing loomed barely a hundred meters above the ruins of Deep Ridge.  The last of several Xonan families were just then running up the dangling ramp that led into the rear hangar of the Noble Jury.  The ship could barely stay aloft, having to resort to a deadly drift as it skimmed the bomb-strewn surface of the world.  Shells exploded on either side of the craft, pelting the skystone propulsion with damaging shards of rock.

"Glimmering stabby-stabs are the stabbiest!"  Floyd could be heard, shouting above the maelstrom.  As he fumbled with the controls of the ship's cockpit, he yelled over his shoulder, "Nancy Jane does not like this and Floydien is inclined to share with her spit!  We must fly out of here!"

"No!" Clark hollered, helping panicked Xonans downstairs into the lower decks.  "We still have to pick up the others!  We can't leave without them!"

"Tweak's been injured!"  Props yelped as she scurried across the deck, dropping a crate of tools as another explosion reverberated off the port side.  "He's got a crack in him!  A bigger crack than usual!"

"What about Nancy Jane's broken heart?!"  Floydien roared, waving a cloven hoof.  "She can't fly on account of all this glimmer!  Must re-shine the rock shine or else fall in forever flameever!"

"Oooh!  I can do that!" Props' charming voice flew across a chorus of sobs and wails.  "I can totally reshine stuff!  Especially when they clank-a-clank, you handsome antler dude!"

"Then into the bowels of my beloved with you!"  Floydien gave her a swift kick in the flank.  Props fell with a mixed giggle-shriek as the elk spun around.  "Where are my motherless boomers already?!"  His red eyes shrank as a bright orange shell hurled violently towards the fragile hull of the Noble Jury.  "Ohhhhh no no no..."

"Incoming!" Clark shouted, using his body to cover a frightened Xonan foal or two.

Everypony on board the ship flinched as the piece of ordinance overtook them.  Just then, a little fuzzy body ran up the deck railing, stood his ground with a flailing tail, and stretched two paws out against the fire and flame.  With tesla coils brimming, Simon let loose a hellish squeal.  Ribbons of sparkling telekinesis billowed across the vessel's portside, taking the brunt of the shell and then bouncing it off.  A hole was blasted in the earth.  The Noble Jury teetered left and right, but settled in a dull hover, no worse for wear.

With a high-pitched groan, Simon gave into a migraine, falling back onto the deck with an unconscious plop.

Floydien shuddered, pivoting the vessel around in a desperate attempt to hover out of range from the Steel Wing's bombardment.  "More nuts for the nut god, Floydien thinks..."

Meanwhile, Clark ran towards the railing's edge, shouting above the chaos.  "Come on!  Noble Jurists, we are leaving!"

Imre heard this, though she was too busy crushing a glowing red gem and pouring its dust over Tweak's fractured leg.  The stallion hissed in pain, but Imre didn't stop, instead spilling more of the liberal sediment over his wound.  Once finished, she pulled a bandage out from her satchel and wrapped it several times around his leg and flank.  As she did so, an intimidating voice echoed loudly over the bombardment above.

"By the power invested in me by the Council of Ledo, your lives are all forfeit.  Give up Rainbow Dash.  Give up the target, and you shall be spared."

Imre froze still, staring into space as her hoof dangled on a length of gauze.

"Imre..."  Ebon leaned over Tweak's writhing body.  "Imre!"  He whistled.  "Yoohoo!  Stay with us, girl..."

Imre snapped out of it, shuddering.  "Right... Uhm..."  She finished wrapping the bandage around his leg.  "We gotta get him to the ship."

"And fast!" Crimson shouted.  He and Eagle Eye and Josho were levitating a flimsy barricade of rocks to shelter the medical operation from the blasts.  "I honestly think they've been holding back!"

"And the Noble Jury...?"

"Still intact!" Eagle's voice cracked.  He gulped.  "But not for long."

"Where the heck did that water color catastrophe go?!" Josho shouted.  "We could certainly use her wings now!"

Imre looked up right as Roarke streaked overhead.  The metal mare only had two ponies in her grasp, and it summoned a nervous twitch from the medic.  Imre looked at Tweak's agonized body, at the Noble Jury struggling and puttering to lift itself through the barrage, and finally at the Steel Wing lingering above.

"Wait!  What about Rainbow Dash?!"  Kera suddenly galloped up from the canyon's side, breathless.  "Why isn't she saving Rainbow Dash?!"

"What the heck is one of them still doing out here?!" Crimson shouted.  "We gotta get on board the ship—"

"No!" Kera stomped her hooves, trying to frown past the onset of sobs.  "Rainbow Dash is Belle's friend!  We can't just leave her!  This is all about her, isn't it?!  This is—"

A stallion hoisted Kera up from behind.  "It's okay, Crimson," Phoenix said, already galloping on three limping legs.  "I-I got this..."

"Nnngh... Let me go!" Kera cried as she was carried towards the dangling hangar entrance of the Noble Jury.  "Somepony's gotta save Rainbow Dash!"

The words echoed in Imre's ears.  She took a deep breath.  Seething, she suddenly shoved her medical bag into Ebon's grasp.

The stallion flinched, looking up from Tweak's body.  "Huh?  Why are you giving me this?"

"I need you to take care of my stuff for a while," Imre said.  "The enchanted filament should mend his crystal wound. But if he doesn't show signs of recovery..."  She pointed into the bag.  "Crush these red shards and spread them around the edges of the fracture.  Get Mr. Crimson to apply some unicorn magic.  Or maybe Fatso or Princess Squeaky-Saddles over there."

"Hey!" Josho and Eagle Eye simultaneously blurted from their barricade, only to share a nervous glance.

"But... But what about you?!" Ebon asked over a nearby explosion.  He winced.

Imre didn't.  "I... I need to hold out here and make sure Rainbow Dash is okay!" she exclaimed.

"Are you nuts?!" Josho grunted.  "For all we know, she's a rainbow loogey at the bottom of that canyon now!"

Imre didn't bother wrestling with Josho, instead yanking Ebon down by his neck.  "Tweak is going to die unless you get him out of here now!  You understand?"

Ebon gulped.  "L-loud and clear!"  He gazed over his shoulder.  "Boys?"

"You're getting no argument from me!"  Crimson slammed several rocks down in a line to form impromptu cover.  He rushed over and lifted Tweak's rear half.  "Mr. Josho...?"

"Yeah, I'll get his hick-end..."  Josho levitated Tweak's skull, and the two stallions hoisted him briskly towards the Noble Jury while Ebon Mane and Eagle Eye ran along his side.  "Don't worry, pal.  You're no longer gonna be in danger... just in slightly more danger..."

"Nnngh... Crimson..."  Tweak wheezed, stretching a hoof out as he was carried along.  "Be a good stallion... mmmfff... and look after m-my boys after I've croaked..."

"Nothing to it, buddy," Crimson grunted.  "You're going to snuggle their smelly flanks when all of this is said and done.  That's a promise."

"Awwwwwww poop..."

As the four stallions carred the crystal pony away, Imre lingered in the middle of the field of craters.  She looked out of the corner of her eye to see the Steel Wing shifting about, heading towards the Noble Jury as it aimed its bombardment at the ponies in question.  She was about to turn and gallop away when a dark shadow crossed her.

"Imre!" Roarke shouted from above.  With a roar of thrusters, she cut her glide short of the ravine and landed in a slide before the medic.  "What in goddess' name are you doing?!"

"Go save Rainbow Dash, Roarke," Imre droned.  "That kid she was with is right.  This is all about her.  Everything that's been fought for will be utter garbage if you don't save her."

"I don't know what's gotten into your lame-brain head..."  An explosion pelted them both with pebbles.  Flinching, Roarke growled and opened her helmet to spit at the mare, "But I'm not about to let you do any last-second heroics!"

"Why not?  You're rather cavalier right now."

"Imre, I'm not about to argue with you..."

"You're right."  Imre frowned.  "You're not."

"Dammit, Imre!  What's gotten into you?!  I don't have time for this—"

"Surely you heard it!" Imre shouted.  She leaned forward with a scowl.  "Surely you heard that voice!"

Roarke's brow furrowed.

Imre simply stared at her.

After a few rumbling seconds, Roarke's features paled.  Her lips hung open.  "No way..."  She gulped dryly.  "By Searo's blood..."

"I have to go, Roarke."  Imre trotted past her, making a line for the petite Nightshade airship that Belle and Phoenix had piloted there.  "I have to do this."

"No!  Dammit, Imre!  Come with me!" Roarke exclaimed.

Imre paused.  She slowly turned around and gazed tiredly at Roarke.

Roarke winced.  "With us..." she stammered.  "Pl-please... don't... don't leave..."

For once, Imre smiled without being asked to.  It was a bittersweet, delicate thing.  "You've always had the mind of a warrior, Roarke."  She shook her head.  "But not the heart.  I think that's your problem in a nutshell."

Roarke shuddered as a soft voice escaped her lips, "And what's your problem?"

"Something for the first time in my life, I'm going to fix."  Imre pointed as her face took on a heavy frown.  "And you have your own task to do."

"I thought... th-that I could fix you..."

"You did, Roarke.  And so did Rainbow Dash.  And now... she needs somepony to fix her... to keep her and her friends' journey alive.  I'm not the only pony around here who can heal, y'know."

"But.... but Imre—"

"Don't fight me on this, Roarke."  Imre's voice lingered, but she ultimately got around to saying, "We both know that it's all about Rainbow now."

Roarke's lenses pistoned inward.  She weathered a savage lump in her throat.

Imre's hoof brushed against something.  The mare looked down.  It was one of the brown cloaks, discarded by fleeing Xonans.  "Go, Roarke..."  She picked the fabric up and hoisted it around herself like a shawl.  "You've got a new life to live, as does Rainbow.  Maybe you two will be right at home with flying far, far away.  But me?"  She trotted swiftly towards the airship.  "I know where my home is..."

Something ripped through Roarke's chest as she watched the mare go.  She had all the thrusters, weapons, and snares at her disposal, but even as she leaned forward she couldn't move a single inch.  Imre's last words hammered into her ears, and she cringed from the inside out.  Her body buckled, and her face took on a vicious frown. 

Shuffling around, Roarke galloped towards the canyon's edges.  She fired her thrusters and dove out of sight, descending towards a fallen rainbow.

Meanwhile, the air shook even louder as the violet airship beyond the craters lifted up, pivoted about, and cruised towards the source of the monumental shelling.