"Hang onto your stripes, Pilate!" Rainbow Dash plunged over the platform's edge, spread her wings, and soared after the gliding shape and the hostage in tow. "I'm coming for ya, buddy!"
The zebra's voice could be faintly heard bellowing from a distance, "Sounds like they're using st-steam modulated wind gl-gliders! You sh-should be able to outfly th-them once you hit a straightaway!"
"Save the friggin' science lecture for after I've royally kicked their flanks!" Rainbow Dash snarled, angling her wings to accelerate after the cloaked pony with the blind stallion in its grasp. "No sir. I am not about to lose my friends to the Emo Cloak Crew!"
As if hearing her words from afar, the zebranapper angled its wings and banked left, soaring over and under an array of bridges attaching the Bronze District to the Gold District's platform. Bustling ponies gasped and flinched as the two blazed past them. In her desperate bid to catch up, Rainbow Dash nearly knocked three equines off a bridge. She grunted as luggage, metal airship parts, and multi-colored fabrics exploded all around her. Gnashing her teeth, Rainbow twirled through the mess and caught sight of her target soaring to the right and into the mid-level section of the Gold District.
With the wind screaming past her ears, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and shot hard right. She and her target threaded through a thin space full of cramped market shops and flickering neon lights. Ponies dodged every which way as the two thundered through the claustrophobic compartment, blazing past angrily shouting vendors who tossed their less expensive wares at them.
Sooner than Rainbow Dash would have expected, the compartment opened up to pure sky once again. The world exploded with light, and when Rainbow's eyes refocused, she saw a thick line of puttering steamships hovering in dense traffic.
"Luna Poop!"
She veered hard left, barely avoiding the surface of a lumbering dirigible. Swiftly skirting the far edge of the craft, she found herself soaring head-on towards a solid line of airships. Somewhere far ahead she spotted Pilate's stripes, and the billowing cloak of the figure that had enveloped him. Her target was fearlessly flying against traffic, and somehow making good speed doing so.
Gritting her teeth, Rainbow Dash accelerated, daredevilishly flying against airship after airship. Startled pilots gasped and yanked at their controls, causing the line of densely packed traffic to weave back and forth in the air. Rainbow paid the nearly-colliding airships no heed, instead doing all she could to gain distance on her elusive target.
At one point, the cloaked figure set its hooves down on the top balloon of a large airship. Dragging Pilate along, the pony flicked a rear hoof, and a series of metal spheres flew out from underneath its brown coat. The ball bearings bounced off the airship, swished through the air, and soared towards Rainbow's skull. In expert timing, they exploded with bright flashes of light and smoke.
"Gaaagh!" Rainbow winced, momentarily blinded. As soon as she reopened her eyes, she found herself soaring straight into the windshield of a large passenger aircraft. With no other option, she stretched her body out like a living torpedo at the last second.
The world around her shattered. She flew through the glass, barreled through a compartment full of gasping pilots, soared down several rows of screaming passengers, and burst her way out a porthole near the stern.
With a twirl, Rainbow pulled back up in the open air, sailing towards the northeast side of Gray Smoke, a hulking platform full of smoldering smokestacks and spinning metal windmills. Hyperventilating, she shook the shards of glass off and looked past the nearby array of hovering aircraft. "Nopony—and I mean nopony craps grenades at me and gets away with it!"
Up high, passing the glare of the noonday sun, she spotted Pilate and his abductor at a great distance. After climbing sharply, the two dove low, gliding towards the underbelly of Gray Smoke's industrial district. The smog there was dense, and—combined with the shadows of the large metal platform—it was only a matter of seconds before Rainbow lost sight of her target entirely.
"Oh no you don't!" her voice cracked in a fit of anger. She shot past the last streams of dense air traffic and dove after the attacker. Her athletic body parted the smog down the middle. It was getting harder to breathe with all the smoke. So, taking a page from her sudden nemesis, she decided not to. She spread her wings to her side and simply glided, angling herself past the burning exhaust ports and weaving through the dangerously sharp windmill fans lingering above her now.
Soon, it became dark as night from the huge mess of metalwork looming overhead. From Rainbow's perspective, it almost looked like she was flying upside down over the horizon of a metal world. She slapped herself once or twice to keep her focus, all the while not inhaling too much of the fumes pumping all around her. Her glazed ruby eyes scanned the blackness above her, and at last she saw a streak of movement.
With bursts of steam, the figure was propelling herself upward, eventually threading through a crack in the platform. Birds and bats flew out, frightened from their hiding places with errant shrieks. Rainbow Dash flew through the flapping flocks, gritting her teeth as she bore the brunt of their leather and feathery wings. At last, the world turned pitch black, for she had entered the bowels of the industrial district. Steam pipes and boilers churned all around her, shooting gusts of gray mists against her sweating body.
Coming to a gentle hover, Rainbow stretched her forelimb up and rubbed a hoof in gentle circles over her pendant. The Element of Loyalty glowed, shining a crimson spotlight forward through the grimey domain. Rainbow Dash made a face as her pendant illuminated slime-covered pipes and rusted, rotating gears. Spiderwebs dangled from connecting manaconduits, and various small, gangly things skittered away from the light, hiding in the extreme corners of the place.
"Pilate?!" Rainbow called out. Her echoes were swallowed up by the bass reverberations of grinding gears and rattling chains. She flew over conveyor belts, pulley systems, and hissing steam vents as she flew towards a dimly-lit part of the domain. "Pilate?! Are you there?! Give a shout out!" She started to pant, her face sweating from more than the sheer heat of the place. "Oh jeez. Oh jeez. Please tell me I didn't lose 'em. Please, Celestia. I swear. I'll do anything—"
"R-right here, Rainbow D-Dash..." A voice sputtered from below.
Rainbow spun, eyes wide. She dove down, threaded her way through two webs of criss-crossing pipes, and came upon a platform made of stationary gears looming beneath a wide stretch of translucent windows aglow with golden sunlight. Sitting perfectly in the center of the dim halo was Pilate. The stallion rested on his haunches, clutching the O.A.S.I.S. sphere to his chest as he tried to regain his bearings.
"Pilate! Heck yeah!" Rainbow touched down and placed a pair of hooves on his shoulders. "You're in one piece! What are the odds—?" She froze, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Spinning about, she snarled like a canine into the darkness beyond the halo of light. "Where is the punk?! Where did he go?!"
"I... I don't know..." Pilate stammered. "As soon as we entered this... this pl-place full of heat and noise, she dropped me!"
"Why in the hay would he simply just drop you after all of that—?" Rainbow Dash did a double-take. "Wait, did you say 'she?'"
"This... was definitely a mare..." Pilate muttered, still panting for breath.
"How do you know?"
"Because she spoke to me, Rainbow..." Pilate gulped. "Right before she dropped me here, she said 'It's not you we seek. You are just a means to an end.'"
Rainbow Dash bit her lip, standing up straight as her wings coiled up defensively. "Then somehow I doubt that we're actually alone right now..."
"No, you are most definitely not alone," a voice said from beyond the clattering noise. "Not so long as we are here to mind the wind that carries you aloft."
Rainbow Dash spun around. "Who are you?! Show your face so I can smash it back to your mother's womb!"
"Rainbow," Pilate hissed. "I don't think we even remotely have the drop on her."
"I'm not gonna just let punks like this lecture to us from the shadows..." Rainbow reared her head. "You hear that?! You wanna chat?! Come out and let's talk with our hooves!"
"You need to hear what we have to tell you, or else you will surely endure nothing but suffering... Austraeoh."
Pilate gasped.
Rainbow Dash went pale. She fidgeted, ultimately lowering her haunches to the rusted gear beneath her and her friend. "Alright..." She muttered. "I'm listening..."