//------------------------------// // Killing a Dying World // Story: Odrsjot // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// "Guhh!" Seclorum stumbled back through the mud on metal-laced hooves. He sneered, eyes flaring. "Who the buck?!" A shield slammed across his haggard skull. "Ooof!" Eagle Eye slid forward, snarling. "Me!" He barked. "I'm the buck! Yaaaaugh!" He charged at the battered stallion, slashing and stabbing and slicing with his sword. Sparks flew from each impact his blade made against Seclorum's rusted frame. "Easy, k-kid!" Josho sputtered, slowly pulling himself up onto even ground. "The d-dude's a lot tougher than he looks—" "So that gives him free reign to toss one of my best friends about like he's leftovers?!" Eagle's voice cracked as he leaned the weight of his weapons against Seclorum's blocking forelimbs. "Grrrrrrrghhh!" He spat. "You call yourself an 'old friend?!' Haaaugh!" He shoved Seclorum through the muck and wreckage as shells exploded overhead. "I don't care how round or smelly Josho is! Nopony uses him like a hoofball without asking me first!" "You're feisty, soldier..." Seclorum hissed, eyes narrowing like daggers. "But headstrong." He reached through Eagle's defense and grabbed his shoulders. "Allow me to relieve you the burden of your skull!" "Dammit, fruitstain!" Josho hollered. "Don't worry! I've got this!" Eagle's eyes suddenly bulged as he was lifted skyward like a paperweight in Seclorum's grip. "Wait! I don't got this!" The metal-reinforced stallion flung him into the debris field of a collapsed tent. "Aaaaackies!" "Eagle!" Josho snarled. He watched helplessly as Seclorum thundered towards the unicorn, tossing up mud and loose earth. With fatty muscles rippling, Josho rolled himself awkwardly onto the edge of the plateau. "Ggggggnnngh!" "Rainbow...?" The pegasus was curled in a fetal position, hissing into her folded forelimbs. "Mmmngh... j-just... just a hangover..." Whe wheezed. "Don't... don't sw-sweat it, AJ..." "Rainbow..." A tiny hoof shook the pony's shoulder. Rainbow's eyes popped open. The yellow and red melted away, instead reflecting a filly's gentle face. Kera and smiled. "Good. You're awake." She gulped. "You think you might... uhhh... b-be ready to save the world, now?" Rainbow's ears twitched. Instantly, her head swam with pain and dizziness. Nevertheless, she gritted her teeth past the agony and stirred her limbs. Zaid and Nightshade reached down, helping the mare up to her hooves. Teetering left and right, Rainbow struggled to keep her lunch in. She stared with bleary eyes at the book. Kera stepped back, levitating the runic tome higher in Rainbow's sight. With the Odrsjot band clear from her horn, the book glowed brighter than ever. It almost made Rainbow pass out just to look at it. "It's now or never..." Rainbow shivered, then glanced over to her side. Nightshade stared firmly. "You have to be the one to put the book in," she said. "You know this." "Right..." Rainbow said with a shudder, limping forward towards the book. She almost stumbled, causing Zaid to jerk towards her, but she picked herself back up with outstretched wingfeathers and marched towards the golden pedestal. "Library duty in the face of an apocalypse. Heh. See, this is why I never got into egghead stuff." "We're right behind you, Rainbow!" Kera said. "Yes, well, you might wanna be a bit further behind me," Rainbow grunted from the middle of the metal bridge. "There's no telling what sparks might fly once I shelve this motherbucker." "Whatever happens, it is for the good of this continent," Nightshade said in a low tone. Zaid's eyes jerked towards her. "Right..." Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, then lurched forward with the book. "Here goes." "Uhm..." Zaid squinted nervously at Nightshade, then back at Rainbow. "Is it too late for a time out—?" It certainly was. Between Rainbow's disappearing figure and the unimaginably bright pulse of light devouring her, there were no more words to be said. Kera shrieked, falling back into Zaid as an enormous pulse of energy fountained outward from the pedestal. The Xonan filly teetered towards the chasm below, only for Zaid to catch her at the last second. He squatted low, hugging Kera deeply, aiming his shoulder against the wavering bands of energy. Somewhere, Rainbow's voice could be heard, cracking loose a wheezing shriek. Nightshade stood against the tumult, squinting her eyes, striving to see. And all around them, the metal world became alive. Pendulums swung. Conveyor belts rattled. Gears spat loose millennia worth of dust as they turned and spun and spiraled. The lavender light was all encompassing, filling every crevice and corridor, setting the entire ravine aflame... Far away from the edge of Seclorum's encampment, Nevlamas touched down on putrid limbs. She hunched over the smoldering remnants of a skystone manaship, leering her leprotic snout through the rising flames. Hissing, the Dark Divine reached her talons forward, gripped the hull of the vessel, and peeled it apart like a giant soup can. With sparks of loose mana and shrapnel, the vessel's cockpit lay bear. A battered, charred figure of an equine lay inside, barely breathing. Khao's teary eyes reflected the dragon of chaos looming above her. She didn't have enough strength to move, much less scream. The zealot leader simply sat—slumped and bleeding—in her cockpit, as her whole body lit up with an aquamarine spotlight. Nevlamas opened both jaws wide, the air between her and her target distorting with heated vapors. It was precisely then that the chaos fumes pouring out of her body suddenly billowed, blowing away from the ravine far away. "Hraaaauckkkt!" Nevlamas sputtered, her body going limp. Her shoulders buckled, and she almost collapsed entirely onto the fragile shell of the manaship. Eyeslits narrowing, she spun and looked past her tail. A beam of lavender light spat out of the lacerated earth. It almost blinded her to even look at it. "Graaautkkkt!" Nevlamas shuddered again. Her scales spread apart between each breaths, revealing a pained aquamarine glow from deep beneath her flesh. Her diseased skin fumed with thicker and thicker currents of chaotic runoff. "Hrgggghhh... no..." Her teeth gritted, producing sparks. "No! Austraeoh, you fool!" Snarling, she dragged herself away from the battered skystone vessel and bounded towards the source of the harmonic resonance. "Let this dying world die! You hearrrrr me?!" She stumbled her way towards the burning energy source, losing flanks of skin and dragon armor with each slithering stride. "Let it die!" Khao shuddered, wheezed, and clenched her bleeding jaw shut, eyes closed to the misery engulfing her.