“Kera…?” Rainbow’s voice called out. “Kerrrraa?”
If the foal could hear her, she didn’t respond. She simply crawled through the settling dust of the hazy cavern. Sputtering, she tripped over Nightshade’s stirring body and almost collapsed face-first into the glowing book of runes.
With a miniature gasp, she scooped the heavy thing into her little hooves and darted a look to her side.
Nightshade’s muzzle was twisted in pain and shock from the magical blast just seconds previous. She curled up in a fetal position, murmuring incoherent words.
Biting her own lip, Kera grasped the book in her forelimbs and used her rear legs to push away from the madame. She inched like a little tattooed worm across the floor of the place, brushing aside loose clumps of stone and rubble in her path. The warriors’ torchlight cast an orange haze across the place, showing shadows stirring in the distance as the Xonan guards stumbled back up to their hooves.
Before Kera had time to panic, she ran into something else. Gasping, she glanced aside in time to see a familiar hoof-brace rattling into place. The symbol of Odrsjot reflected twice off her green eyes.
Xonan voices rose in the distance. Scimitars and staves scraped against stone. Once more, Rainbow Dash’s voice called out. Kera was numb to it all.
Her lips pursed as she stared harder and harder at the lone inscribed anklet.
“I keep thinking and thinking about it,” Zaid had said, his words reverberating off the edges of the prison cell. “The hoof-brace. It was supposed to guard against the powers of the book.”
Kera merely raised his eyebrows at him.
Zaid continued. “The runes! All those funny looking images that are all linked with the Austraeoh. You think they would all work for her and not against her, y’know?”
Kera fidgeted, gazing at Nightshade, Zetta, and the others as the stallion sighed and continued.
“They gave us the hoof-brace thingies so we could help her. We were elephant jade brown, after all.”
“You?” Kera had stated, squinting.
At some point, Zaid winked and replied, “Who said you gotta be flesh and blood just to be flesh and blood, ya dig?”
A warm breath left Kera. She laid the book on the ground and reached forward with two trembling hooves. At last, she grasped the circular object, picking it up so that she could stare closer at the pointed runes. The jagged arrows glistened in the distant torchlight, as if beckoning her to twirl the brace around in her hooves. Instead, she pushed in the arrows’ direction, collapsing the cylinder in on itself and making the thing thinner. Soon, it had shrunk to the size of a vial, wrapping around itself so that the rune had become nearly indistinguishable.
“I… I think I get it…”
By this time, Nightshade had regained enough strength to sit up. She gazed weakly in Kera’s direction, her eyes blanketed by dust. “Nnnngh… ch-child…?”
“Belle… Pilate…” She droned in a deep, contemplative voice. “I never really left you guys, did I?” That said, she lifted the thing up and slid it over her tiny, tiny horn. Instantly, the hoof-brace lit up, showering sparks of magic all over the foal’s figure. She clenched her eyes shut, grimacing slightly as her tattoos lit up like candles, flashing from head to tail. “I… I understand now…”
“Wh-what…?” Nightshade stifled a shriek as she inched away from the child’s glowing form. “What… are you…?”
Kera took a deep breath. Two sun-bright eyes opened, flickering in rhythm with her pulsating horn. “Eljunbyro.” Just then, the brace at the top of her skull flashed, sending a bright-blue aura in every direction at once.
The light splashed over the book, causing its lavender flickers to relax into a dim glow.
The light cascaded over the Xonans and Basso, freezing them in shock and awe.
At last, the light bathed over Rainbow Dash… and disappeared into her ruby pendant. The Element of Loyalty pulsed once, twice, and then relaxed to a steady shine. Almost instantly, her wingtips stretched out. Blinking, the mare sat up… then stood up. She gazed down at her hooves, almost surprised at how easily she was balancing herself. That was how she knew--just as everypony else in the room knew--that the perpetual dizziness had at last cleared.
Kera tilted her glowing eyes in Rainbow’s direction. It took concentration, but at last her green pupils reformed. “Rainbow Dash. Are… are you okay?”
Rainbow Dash was already flapping her wings. She hovered in place, feeling light as a feather. She glanced at Kera, then stared down at her hooves. She flexed her forelimbs, breathing evenly. Then, with a heavily furrowed brow, she turned until she was icily glaring in the Xonans’ direction.
The guards stared back at her. They rattled in their armor.
Rainbow Dash’s body angled into a veritable arrowhead. Before the visual spectrum could register the blur of her wings, a pocket of air had already exploded from behind her propulsive charge. The very next second, six whole guards were slamming into opposite walls, having been tossed dozens of feet in a single blink.
“Vemielen saat! Oss Tray Oh herannadren!” One shouted. “Rekhar! Rekhar--” His voice limped behind him as a prismatic blur pushed him so hard into a granite wall that his body made a deep, crackling impression.
A millisecond later, Rainbow Dash was backflipping off him, dodging scimitar swings, and diving into the screaming sea of guards. She straddled one’s chest, repeatedly pummeled his skull until his helmet spit in two, then tossed his body like a living club into two more grunting victims.
One guard tried puncturing her from behind with a poleaxe, but she was already grabbing it with two twisting wings. The feathers alone rotated, snapping the thing like a twig and yanking the Xonan into a pair of bucking hooves. Before the guard’s body could hit the ground, Rainbow Dash had blurred over in time to catch him, swing him by his tail, and club him across the craniums of the last bunch of Xonans scrambling to escape.
At last, a final guard galloped towards the distant exit, leaving his torch behind. Holding her breath, Rainbow Dash spun about like a top and flapped her wings in his direction. Thunder rolled as a cyclonic patch of air roared towards him, lifted him off his hooves, and slammed his cranium against an overhang of rock. He fell down with a groan, adding to the stark silence of the room.
Basso stirred. He stumbled to get up, but then felt a mighty tug to his shoulders. Blinking, he looked up in surprise at Rainbow’s easily hovering figure.
“At ease, ya big lug,” Rainbow droned. “The main event is back.” She spun and looked across the sea of collapsed, unconscious Xonans. “Kera? Kera!” In a blur, she darted over to the foal. “Whoah! Ease up on the eyes there, sparky! What gives?! Was it you who turned on ‘goddess mode’ all of the sudden?”
“I… uh…” Kera bit her lip and pointed up at the brace that was acting as a cap to her horn.
Rainbow blinked. “Huh.” The corner of her muzzle curved slightly. “Guess we now know that Khao royally sucks at accessorizing. Not that I’m the best judge.. heh…”
“Rainbow, I… I…” Kera bit her lip. Moisture steamed at the edges of her glowing eyes.
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. She turned and glanced at Nightshade, regarding her gaping expression with suspicion. She then looked at the pile of rubble past her.
Kera’s lip quivered. Her voice took on a wavering tone. “He saved me, Rainbow Dash. He… he only wanted to fix what was wrong with Nagu’n. He helped me get the book, and he s-saved me. And Nightshade…” She clenched her glowing eyes shut and whimpered. “She… she killed… sh-she killed…”
Rainbow’s lips parted. On strongly flapping wings, she turned until she was looming thunderously over the madame.
Nightshade scooted away, her muzzle stretched between a grimace and a frown. “He’s betrayed Ledomare before. He was only going to turn on us! I swear it!”
Rainbow’s eyes icily narrowed. She jerked forward.
Nightshade flinched--
Rainbow soared over her, past her, and spun in the air. Then, with a deep breath, she flew straight down into the pile of rubble. Rocks exploded in every direction and the whole floor of the cavern shook. Nightshade and Kera shielded themselves as pebbles and shards of rock flew past them. They craned their neck to see a fresh hole in the rubble from where Rainbow Dash had begun burrowing, using both legs and wings in full force.
Basso limped up, standing beside Kera and resting a nervous hoof on her shoulder. The enchanted foal glanced up at him, still sniffling. She hugged the book of runes to her chest and gazed at the rubble, waiting… waiting.
Seconds passed. Minutes--
With a blast of rocks and heated air, Rainbow Dash surfaced, her back to the three equines. She hovered in place, levitating just meters above the mess of stone debris.
Kera and Basso leaned forward, breathless.
At last, Rainbow glanced over her shoulder at them. Her expression was blank. As she pivoted fully around, the others understood why. Dalen’s body hung limply in her forelimbs. The stallion’s neck hung at a sickeningly unnatural angle to his spine. His eyelids were folded shut and his mouth stretched open in a silent, eternal scream.
Kera gasped. Her face scrunched up and she hid her sobbing muzzle into Basso’s foreleg. The stallion patted her gently, though his eyes darted nervously about.
Rainbow Dash floated down to the floor. She laid Dalen’s body gently across the stone, taking careful time to fold his forelimbs across his chest until he looked at peace. The pegasus lingered there, hunched over, suffering increasingly deep and deeper breaths. Finally, her eyes tilted up, slicing the air with a venomous glare.
Nightshade received the bitter end of it. The glow of Rainbow’s pendant swam over her like a crimson funeral shroud. “I d-did what I had to do,” she murmured. “Just as you must do what you have to do!” She pointed at Kera. “Now that she’s found a way to cancel out the book’s effect on your senses, we must make our way to the--”
Rainbow Dash shot at her like a bullet. Nightshade’s jostled lungs were incapable of shrieking as she found herself being throttled clear across the cavern and down a dark passageway beyond.
“Rainbow!” Kera shrieked, flashing a horrified look in the direction of the ruby glow. She stomped her hooves. “Rainbow, wait! Please!”
No response.
“Uhhhhh…” Basso sweated.
“Quick!” Kera dried her tears and hopped-hopped at the stallion’s side. “We gotta go after her!”
“Is that even possible now?”
“Just move!” Kera squeaked as he lifted her up onto his backside. She gripped onto him and the lavender book as Basso galloped at full speed, bounding helplessly down the corridor in pursuit of Rainbow’s angry exit.