//------------------------------// // Legend of Dashie Master // Story: Odrsjot // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Zetta’s eyes quivered, reflecting the jet-burning figure of Roarke soaring straight at her. The metal mare was within feet of smashing Zetta’s horn inside out when twin blasts of crystal energy struck her in the side. She took the impact with a grunt, coming to a sliding stop against the floor of the corridor. She spun and glared through her helmet down an adjacent hallway. A line of five guards who chanced upon the scene stood in open view. They scrambled to reload their weapons, their berets nearly falling off their trembling skulls. “Come on! Come on! Shoot her!” Roarke cocked her head to the side, cracking the joints in her neck. “Good morning, breakfast.” With a burst of engines, the Searonese fighter dove on them like a bird of prey. The stallions shrieked, and soon they were all over the place as Roarke spun and flung her metal bullwhips in the midst of their numbers. Zetta gawked at the scene, then glanced over towards Basso. “Nnnngh!” Rainbow Dash was flying circles around the massive stallion, punching and bucking and kicking every chance she could get. “Rgggh! Yaaugh! Haaugh! Take that!” Basso blinked, craning his head about with a worried expression. “According to the soldier’s handbook, non military suspects can’t be attacked unless attacked first. I’m pretty sure you’ve attacked me at least twenty times… no, twenty-one, ma’am.” “Why… won’t… you… go… down?!” Rainbow Dash resorted to pulling at his tail with her teeth. “Nnnnngh-Come onnn!” “Not like that, Har-Har!” Zaid shouted from the sidelines. “Hit him where it hurts!” “I’m…” Rainbow grunted through the side of her teeth. “Trying…!” “Punch him in the nipples!” Rainbow blinked, then glanced aside. “He’s a stallion!” “Then punch him in the nipples harder!” “I need to ask you to stop,” Basso said. “For your own good, and for my tail’s.” “Uh uh! I don’t negotiate with Lame-o-maritans!” Basso looked sad. “Now that’s just cruel.” He flicked his tail. The tiny gesture was enough to fling Rainbow like a cannonball into the nearby wall. “Ooof!” The metal dented from her impact. Wincing, she exhaled heavily through her nostrils and snarled, “Alright, that’s it!” With a swift burst of her wings, she soared straight down the hallway. “I hope the acoustics in here are good, because we’re about to test a sonic rainboom indoors!” Basso raised an eyebrow. “What’s a sonic rainboom?” “The heck do I know?” Zaid said, then grinned wide. “But I sure as Hell wanna find out!” He turned and waved at the hulking pony. “Hi! I’m Zaid!” “Hi, I’m Basso!” “Grrrrr!” Rainbow Dash grinded her hooves, coiled her wings, then sprung forward from afar. “Ramming speed!” In the meantime, a series of loud thuds struck the floor. Roarke had finished pummeling the cluster of enforcers on her end of the hall. She spun about, standing amidst the pile of twitching, groaning soldiers. Zetta stared at her, lips quivering. Roarke’s helmet flickered. She jerked forward. “Aaaack!” Zetta dropped her taser with a clatter. She squatted low, covering her skull. “Please! Don’t hurt me! White flag! White flag!” “Hmmph. Wuss.” Roarke trotted by--paused--then kept going. She looked ahead, and the very moment she saw Basso, her engines burned back to life. Basso glanced aside. “Oh, hey, another one!” “The one and only.” Roarke sailed towards him. “I don’t care how big you are! Any breeder can crack!” Basso shrugged as he consumed Roarke’s vision. “One second, ma’am.” He looked ahead and hooked his massive hoof out in time to catch the body of another pony in from the other direction. “Ulp!” Rainbow Dash gasped, losing all air from her lungs as her neck found itself in the crook of the stallion’s limb. All Basso had to do was twirl around, and the combination of his strength and Rainbow’s suicidal velocity flung her like a catapult into Roarke’s body. “Aaaaugh!” The metal mare’s helmet shattered from impact. Both bodies went flying through the officer’s door behind the stallion. “Holy crap monkeys!” Zaid exclaimed. Basso winced. “Ah, for Ledo’s sake. Not again.” Zetta looked up from the cowering little ball she had turned into. She blinked at the settling dust around the fresh hole in the room. “Basso…?” “I didn’t mean to!” The stallion stammered, lumbering about in the battle-strewn hallway. “Honest!” “That… was… so radical!” Zaid chanted. “Yeah!” He gazed up at the stallion with sparkling eyes. “Do me next?” Basso fidgeted. “Okay, now this is just getting out of hoof…” Meanwhile, inside the room… “Unnngh…” Rainbow Dash lay upside down atop Roarke’s twitching suit. She lifted her head, fluttered her eyes open, and caught sight of a flabbergasted filly seated breathless on the nearby cot. “Oh, hey there, Kera. Cool.” “Rainbow Dash!” She grinned wide. “You came for me!” “Just gimme a second, kid.” Rainbow lay her head back down, wincing. “I gotta have a little talk with my concussion.” “Rainbow, they have the book!” Kera hopped down and vigorously shook the pegasus’ shoulder. “Nightshade! She stole it! We gotta get the thing back and get back to Belle and--” Rainbow suddenly lifted up. “Whoah!” Kera and Rainbow fell to the side, tangled with each other’s limbs. Roarke had stood up and was limping left and right, groaning and growling. “Nnnnrghhh… stupid… friggin’... last breath he ever breathes… I swear by Searo’s uterus… mmmff...” “Hey, guys!” Zaid poked his head in under the noise of a repeating buzzer. “The alarm sounds like Khao after eating a Mintian quesadilla!” He blinked. “And did somepony just say ‘uterus?’” “Kill ‘em!” Roarke hissed as her battered suit opened in two dozen places and activated twenty misguided weapons at once. “I’ll kill ‘em all!” Her angry shrieks were drowned by several tiny explosions and concussive blasts painting the walls with metal shrapnel. “Whoah whoah whoah!” Rainbow Dash protectively hugged Kera’s body as she frowned over her shoulder. “Save the fireworks for after we’ve blown this joint, girl!” Basso stuck his head in beside Zaid’s. “Actually, uhm, fireworks are explicitly banned inside the battleship according to Article VII subsection Z--” “Kill!” Roarke’s eye-lenses flickered as she dove murderously at the giant stallion. “Aaaaaaaah!” Basso barely flinched as Roarke mounted the back of his neck and repeatedly poked and prodded him with angry bright tasers. “Blood for goddess-damn Searo!” “For who?” Basso asked, then winced. “Ow! Ow, that hurts!” He stumbled backwards out of the cramped, debris-filled room. “Come on! Stop it! I shaved for b-basic training!” “Yeah, buck this…” Rainbow Dash stumbled achingly onto her hooves, standing Kera up beside her. “Let’s ditch this sky zoo already.” “But Rainbow!” Kera stomped her hoof as she squealed over the sounds of Roarke’s bloody roar cries outside. “The book! We can’t let Nightshade get away with it!” “I’m more concerned about getting your adorascamp flank back into Belle’s and Pilate’s loving forelimbs--” Rainbow Dash did a double-take with a rattle of her pendant. “Wait, did you say ‘Nightshade?’” “You deaf or something?!” Kera frowned. “She helped me out of the Steel Wing, but then she stole the book from me!” “You were on the Steel Wing?!” “Darn it, Rainbow!” Kera barked, stomping her hooves again. “Let’s just get the book already!” “I will, that is--as soon as Roarke stops waging war against testosterone incarnate.” Rainbow winced towards the sparkling madness outside. “Princess Celestia on a bicycle, what does that guy eat?” “A bicycle? Really?” Zaid scratched his yellow-streaked mane. “I woulda figured your god would ride a moped.” “Gaaaaie!” Kera jumped onto Rainbow’s back and hid her trembling face into her feathers. “A cultist! A cultist! You brought a cultist!” “Hey! Chillax!” Rainbow grunted over shoulder. “He’s not gonna hurt you, kid!” “Pfft! What?!” Kera raised her head just in time to frown. “You’re gonna tell me he’s as ‘good cultist?’” “Eh… ‘stupid’ is more like it.” “Hey! Not fair, dude!” Zaid attempted to frown. “I totally got my General Education Diaphragm… er… thingy!” “Shut up, cultist.” “Basso! For Spark’s sake!” Zetta shouted from outside. “Just toss her off already! She’s trying to kill you!” “I think we’d… uh… better go out there.” Rainbow was already galloping while Kera held on for dear life. “Is she really?” Basso stated as the group rejoined the fight outside. The stallion gripped the side of Roarke’s armor and held her high above the floor, dangling. “Whoah! She totally is! What’s up with that?” “I’ll make you burn in a hundred righteous fires!” Roarke shouted, propping loose a missile launcher from the side of her armor. “So long as I still have warrior’s blood!” Basso nodded. “Okay.” “Roarke!” Rainbow shouted. “We got Kera! Leave him be, already! You’re letting your anger fill your head!” “At least I’ve got a head!” The metal mare hissed as she launched the projectile. “Enjoy pumping iron in everlasting torment, you five legged sycophant!” “Now what did I say about fireworks?” Basso frowned as he clamped a hoof over the missile. The projectile launched… and went nowhere. Held by the stallion’s forelimb, the rocket thrusters blew back into Roarke’s suit, sending her flying off like a living torpedo in the opposite direction. “Oh for the love of--” Smash! Her armored body made a hole in the wall, exposing a chunk of metallic manaconduits between there and the nearest corridor. Basso winced, gripping the burning rocket like a coffee mug. “Darn it! This just isn’t my morning!” “Good enough for me!” Rainbow shook the weight of Kera closer to the middle of her back and galloped through the hole. “Zaid, let’s make like a griffon and brush off!” She hoisted Roarke’s crumpled body up as she passed into the next hallway. “You too, champ!” “Unnngh…” Roarke moaned, stumbling after the pegasus. “Did I burn a hole through his chest.” “Oh. Uh. Sure! Me and Kera are totally eating his heart right as we speak.” “T-tastes like waffle,” Kera added with a nervous twitch. Roarke drunkenly smirked as she broke into an awkward trot. “Blood for S-Searo…” Zaid was the last to pass through, pausing to spin around and toss a smirking gang sign with his two forelimbs. “Ha! You got Harbingered, suckah! Yeee-ah! Sky ponies represent!” And he disappeared into the mess, leaving the two enforcers alone with the buzzing alarm. “Uhm…” Basso spoke over his shoulder. “Ya think we should report this?” “Way ahead of you!” Zetta planted her hoof against a sound stone built into a nearby intercom. “Straker! Lieutenant Striker! We have intruders running amok along Level Three!” She turned--then did a double-take with wide eyes. “Basso!” she squeaked, pointing. “What?” The stallion glanced at the rocket smoking in his grasp. He shrugged, then tossed it aside. The thing went off with a massive explosion, covering his muscled body with ashen debris. “Dang it! Every little thing today!”