The air crackled with chaotic flame.
Rainbow Dash jerked to the side, twirling like a damaged kite.
The first volley of fire dropped past her and the Lightning-Bearer, but it was followed soon by a second plume of aquamarine death.
Rainbow strafed to the other side, still struggling to keep up her pace with the stolen dreadnaught. This was not something that pleased Nevlamas, and soon the air resonated with her howling song as she angled her massive wings plunged like an armored mountain towards the flailing pegasus.
The pendant around Rainbow's neck had shorted out. Musical praises flew from the mouths of those on board the airship. Rainbow looked everywhere at once. All was chaos, fire, and starlight. Panicking, she dove towards the only patch of air that was still dark. From the shifting fluids in her ears, she sensed that she was plummeting toward the earth, though her eyes couldn't tell from all of the flames suddenly erupting before her. Rainbow Dash found herself plunging into a sea of chaotic plasma, and she did all she could to pull up.
Evening out, Rainbow realized that she had sunk below the Lightning-Bearer. With the ship having slowed immensely, she found herself skimming the bottom hull of the vessel. She spun until the battleship's dark surface became her lower horizon, and she raced towards the bow looming in front of her across quivering starlight.
Before she could blink, the hull lit up with an aquamarine sheen. Nevlamas had descended until she was below her target, and she let loose an ear-splitting shriek as she closed the distance between her and the petite pegasus in her enraged sights.
Rainbow Dash looked behind her. All she saw was the Dark Divine's crown of antlers sweeping through the air after her. Sparks flew as the crystalline tips scraped the metal belly of the Lightning Bearer on a path towards eviscerating the pegasus.
In a split second, Rainbow Dash relied on utter stupidity. She stopped flapping her wings altogether, kicked against the hull with her hooves, and flipped backwards. Angling her body, she miraculously twisted and slipped her way between the razor-sharp branches of Nevlamas' antlers.
Twirling, Rainbow pivoted herself upright and flew in theopposite direction, threading her way between the hull of the Lightning Bearer and the undulating spine of her possessed foe. This required careful zig-zagging, since the chunks of chaos crystals embedded in Nevlamas' backside constantly thrusted into Rainbow's face like a forest of teeth.
At last, she reached the thrusters of the dreadnaught again, and she felt as though she was in the clear.
Nevlamas' thrashing tail disagreed. With one massive swoop, it swung within meters of Rainbow Dash's position. The sheer concussion blast of the distorted air around the Divine's appendage was enough to knock Rainbow off her flight like a wrecking ball.
"Aaaaugh!" Rainbow's voice cracked as she twirled wildly towards the desert valley below. She had lost all of her senses for a brief blink in time. By the time she uprighted herself, the horizon was still reeling. Rainbow pivoted until she was facing northwest, and the Lightning Bearer loomed hundreds of feet away, growing more and more distant as the Xonans resumed accelerating the battleship beyond the pegasus' reach.
Before she could even resume her flight, two shrieking jaws consumed her vision, spitting fire.
With a yelp, Rainbow dove below the plumes of flame. She had to dive a second and a third time as Nevlamas' claws raked across the air, followed by her deathly tail. Rainbow flew northwest, but it had become a haphazard act. Having to dodge the attacks of Nevlamas caused her to lower to sea level, and now she was skimming the desert floor so closely that dust flew past her wings and obscured the stars to her left and right.
The entire time, Nevlamas' beating wings gave the moment its deadly percussion. Rainbow could easily see each boulder and crag of rock that she had to skirt around thanks to the light emanating from the Divine's gaping jaws.
As the air heated up, Rainbow's racing mind quivered between adrenaline and memories. When it came time that Axan actually wanted to kill her, the pegasus had barely lasted ten seconds before her body was torn to ribbons. Now a Divine of Chaos wanted her deader than dead. How could anypony outrace that?
A loud bass noise echoed from above. Rainbow's eyes darted up in time to spot the Lightning Bearer accelerating in a burst of magically imbued speed. It soared towards the northwest horizon... towards Seclorum's headquarters... without her.
"Okay, sister..." Rainbow Dash suddenly snarled. "You wanna have a race?" She pivoted so that she flew backwards, thrusting an angry sneer at the burning maw of the dragon behind her. "Then you darn well better keep up!"
Nevlamas answered with a breath of fire.
"Come on!" Rainbow Dash howled into the distorted vapor as she juked to the left, then barreled over the flames in a beautiful corkscrew. "Ngggh-Yaaaaaugh!" She shouted against the deafening roar as she pushed her body just inches past the skin-roasting plasma.
Her body darted behind a craggy mesa. Instantly, the air cooled, but Rainbow Dash didn't revel in the moment. She kept accelerating, keeping her eyes locked to her left. In a matter of seconds, she cleared the plateau, and aquamarine daylight swam parallel to her in the shape of an enraged dragon.
Nevlamas spat two more fireballs to her right, launching them at her speeding target.
Rainbow dodged the first one, dove down, and squeezed her way past a pair of boulders in order to narrowly escape the second. The rocks exploded behind her; Rainbow used the concussive blast to get a boost. It was good timing too; Nevlamas had launched a liquid plume of chaos flame, and it trailed after Rainbow's tail as the pegasus pushed her wings to the limit.
Squealing with strained muscles, Rainbow pulled up. The stream of aquamarine fire trailed after her. In a daring move, Rainbow backflipped, twirled around the flame, and curved her wings at an angle. Air-braking, she stalled, spun, and then flapped her wings so that she shot to the left... and straight at Nevlamas' mutated skull.
The Divine's eyes actually twitched. Her nostrils flared, and two mucousy crystals spat out from her snout. They fell and then hatched in mid-air, giving birth to a pair of hissing serpents that swam upwards on chaotic currents of energy. With hissing fangs, they launched themselves at Rainbow's figure.
Rainbow was already twirling before the snakes latched onto her. With a deep-throated growl, she spun and spun and spun until the twin serpents were dangling loosely like a pair of windsocks. At last, she thrusted her wings out, and the summoned beasts flew into dissolving starlight. Angling herself towards Nevlamas' skull, Rainbow growled and fired a bolt of ruby energy from her pendant.
The crimson beam flew true, lopping off a tiny branch at the end of one of Nevlamas' antlers. Before the Divine knew what was happening, Rainbow snatched the crystalline barb in her teeth, clutched the dragon's crown, twirled down the central shaft of the antler, and landed with her hooves planted atop the monster's brow. With a muffled scream, Rainbow stabbed the sharp end of the branch deep into Nevlamas' forehead.
Tainted blood sprayed across the night, followed by Nevlamas' howling scream. All the Divine had to do was toss her head once, and Rainbow Dash was thrown off like a prismatic tick.
Holding her breath, Rainbow Dash used the momentum of the dragon's toss and flapped her wings until she controlled her own velocity. She angled herself northwest, breathless. With twitching eyes, she caught the distant glow of the Lightning Bearer. She flew after the sight before it could disappear against the horizon, a task made intensely difficult as the angry snarl of Nevlamas grew closer and closer to her tail, followed by her heated breaths.
Sensing another burst of flame coming, Rainbow Dash looked everywhere. Glancing down, she saw the desert valley dipping into a series of craggy ravines. Soon, she dove along with it, quivering at the sight of the rocky walls lighting up with demonic aquamarine firelight.