“Roarke!” Rainbow Dash rounded a corner of the village marketplace.
She saw a pair of figures beside the town mill. She didn’t recognize them until one of the two fired a beam of crystal energy from her shoulder, breaking a piece of the water wheel’s axle.
Seething, Rainbow shook her mane loose and galloped towards the site. “Roarke! What the hay went on back there?! Why’d you leave me in the middle of that fight?!”
“Why did you instigate the fight to begin with?” Roarke muttered as she fastened Zaid--upside down and writhing--to the paddles of the water wheel with steam clamps.
“Yes… but… I…” Rainbow Dash went cross-eyed, then shook her head with a snarl. “Look! That doesn’t matter! So I screwed up! I thought we were a team! That means we look out for each other! I mean, they tried to rip my pendant off, for crying out loud!”
“Then maybe you should consider wearing it inside yourself from now on.”
“Grrrrr… Roarkkkke…”
“Do excuse me, Rainbow,” the bounty hunter metallically rang as she finished attaching the stallion to the wheel. “I’m a little tied up at the moment.”
Rainbow Dash blinked, squinting awkwardly at the scene. “You’re tied up? What the heck are you even doing--?”
“Shhhh…” Roarke tilted the wheel up. “Finding Kera for you.” She threw her forelimbs down.
“Gaaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaaiiie!” Zaid shrieked as the water wheel plunged--loose on its melted axle--from Roarke’s forceful metal hooves. His body went sailing deep into the stream. “Bllblblblblbblb!”
She gave him a thorough five-second rinse before pushing up against the wheel, raising him up out of the river’s currents. “So then. The Herald.”
“You doin’ this to get m-me sober, girl?!” Zaid gasped and sputtered. “I only had three shots! I can handle eleven!”
“What did they and their boss Khao do with the little filly they snatched from Gray Smoke?”
“Unless you count that one time in Haytona Beach! But ponies were betting on me so they fed me bigass mugs of coffee in between each serving--”
“Not helping.” Roarke pulled the wheel down.
“Aaaaah--Blblblblblbblbll!”
“Uhm…” Rainbow Dash cleared her throat. “Roarke, what are you doing?”
“Not being told about Kera so far,” she droned. “Perhaps you should ask what he’s doing.”
“I don’t think I’m half as intimidating as you.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Roarke yanked again at the wheel.
Zaid rose up, sputtering. “Alright! I lied! It was New Samarena Beach!”
Roarke hissed. “Kera. The filly. The little Xonan with a mane the color of dragon phlegm. What did you and your extremist brothers and sisters do with her?!”
“Oh, whoah, you’re talkin’ about a little girl?!” Zaid stammered, his face thoroughly drenched as he dangled from his restraints. “I couldn’t make you out earlier cuz of all the water in my ears.” He wheezed. “Also, I think I may have pissed myself.”
“Uh huh.” Roarke shoved again.
Zaid took the plunge. As his body hit the river, he cackled, “Whoah! Warm water! Looks like I definitely pi-blbblblblblb!”
“Don’t you think you’re overdoing it?” Rainbow remarked.
“I don’t take kindly to ponies wasting my time.” She tilted her head until her helmet reflected Rainbow’s gawking face. “He’s delaying an answer to the question.”
“He’s being an idiot. Cut him some slack.”
“Do you want to find Kera or don’t you?”
“Yes, but not this way!”
“Do you have a better plan in mind?”
“Air! Air!”
Roarke frowned beneath her helmet. “We’ve already tried searching for her from the sky.”
“No, you melon fudge!” Rainbow shoved at the wheel, forcing Roarke to draw him up. “I mean, that’s enough!”
Zaid rose up, dripping and wheezing. “Ohhhhhh-wow! He gasped and gasped again. “The only thing that flashed before my eyes was this one time in second grade when I picked my nose and found a pill bug inside myself. Is that bad?”
“Tell us where the girl is!” Roarke barked.
“What, you mean the cute little thing in the robes that the beret toters took away?”
Rainbow Dash did a double-take. “You gave Kera away to enforcers?!”
“Well, I think they were enforces.” Zaid squinted towards the gray sky. “If so, that explains why they were blowing the crap out of our ship. Y’know, Khao ticked them off one too many times. I think it could have been her whole ‘your Queen is an apostate false shepherd and we have come to cleanse the imperial dogma from this land’ schtick. Or it could have been that she double-parks her zeppelin. I mean, whew, that got me super cheesed the first time I saw her at the helm at Blue Canyon, and I don’t get pissed off that easily. Unless of course you rub grilled cheese sandwiches in your armpits before serving it, but that only happened once in Sarasaddle Beach and I think the guy had drunk too much seawater.” Dripping, he turned and smirked at Rainbow Dash. “Hey, I like your mane, by the way.”
“Right.” Roarke shoved the wheel again. “You don’t deserve those lungs anymore.”
“Roarke, quit it!” Rainbow Dash clamped both hooves over the wheel, forcing it back up. “We’re not going anywhere with this.”
“Well, certainly not with you interfering half the time.”
“I mean you can’t torture the guy!” Rainbow Dash pointed. “He’s a moron!”
“Everything knows pain, Rainbow Dash,” Roarke said. “It goes without saying that over ninety-five percent of those things know how and what to do to avoid pain.”
“Yeah, well, having been in a few pretty nasty scrapes myself, I sympathize with the five percent!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
“Hey! I sympathize with koala bears!” Zaid said with a grin. “Can somepony cut me off of this big wooden bagel now?”
“I know that you’re queasy when it comes to doing dirty work, Rainbow,” Roarke said. “That’s why you should trust me to find Kera for you.”
“Girl, he’s already telling us!” Rainbow’s voice cracked. “He just confessed that Ledo got ahold of her!”
“I doubt his conviction. He’s likely making the story up to misdirect us.”
“I’m telling you, he’s not like the others!” Rainbow frowned. “Take him off the wheel! Now!”
“You can’t have everything your way all the time, Rainbow Dash,” Roarke said as she placed both hooves on the wheel again. “Especially when you don’t have what it takes to acquire it--”
Rainbow’s hooves flew across Roarke’s helmet. Before the bounty hunter could recover, Rainbow Dash flew into her with a vicious headbutt, slammed two hooves into her gut, punched her in the side, stomped on two of her hooves, caught her as she was off-balanced, and viciously suplexed her through a pair of wooden crates. “Haaaaugh!”
Roarke went sprawling across the edge of a dock, her metal suit sparkling in several places. As she struggled to look up, Rainbow slammed down onto her, pressing the full weight of her furious body.
“Excuse me?! Excuse me?!” Rainbow snarled, her teeth showing. “I don’t have what it takes?! I… who beat you within an inch of your measly life when you were nothing but a punk who still believed she had a chance with Lady Pestiferous McCrabBot?!” I… who was the only pony who bothered to keep you from becoming a melting tabletop when Foxtaur burned all around you?! I… who single-hoofedly saved countless civilizations from chaos bats, minotaurs, fire dragons, and drunken psychopaths wearing gas masks?!”
Rainbow hoisted Roarke’s head up, gave her helmet a slap, and forced the thing open so that she was glaring down the metal mare’s eye-lenses.
“I was flying sonic rainbooms and taking names long before I ever needed your cowardly missiles and pew pew lasers, lady! I’ve only kept you around for the same reason a mare keeps a raincoat handy: when the weather permits. So long as we’re all working for the same goal--which is to get our butts as far east with as little mayhem as we can--then I’m good with having you on board with the rest of the ponies I’m willing to call my ‘friends!’ But the moment you give me sass and try to make me feel like an idiot for doing something we both know is wrong, then you’re out of the equation, Roarke! And not because I’m right, but because I can and will beat the ever-loving-snot out of your metal flanks from here to the Edge of the World if you ever… ever try and talk me down again!”
She leaned down, hissing into Roarke’s face.
“Do I make myself clear?”
Barely two seconds had passed, and without flinching one bit, Roarke replied in a calm voice. “Agreed.”
Rainbow Dash blinked, and all the anger instantly flew from her face. “Buh?”
Roarke stood up from beneath Rainbow Dash. “You’ve proven your point, and now I will remove his restraints.” She brushed herself off and did just that. “As far as I’m concerned, this interrogation is over.”
Rainbow watched nervously as the metal mare removed the soaking wet stallion from the wheel. “You’re… not going to fight me to the death because I just royally beat the crap out of you?”
“No need to fight, and you did not beat the crap out of me.” Roarke dropped Zaid like a grunting wet bag to the docks. “However, I’ve always known that you could. Now that I know that you will... well…” She trotted over and paused at Rainbow’s side. “I’m glad.”
Rainbow squinted. “You are?”
“Yes. And for the first time since you dropped like an anvil at Gray Smoke, I’m no longer worried about your resolve.” She trotted off towards the tavern. “I’m going to see if those malcontents dropped any valuable items. He’s all yours.”
Rainbow gaped at her as the mare trotted away. She slumped back onto her haunches with a confused expression. At last, she snarled and barked, ”I. Don’t. Get. You!”
Zaid gasped, sputtered, and rolled onto his back. He gazed up at her with a drunken smiled. “Dude… you both are sooooooooooo hot together. Heheheheh--ow, m-my lungs.”
“Pffft…” Rainbow glared to the side as she muttered, “Shut up, cultist.”