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// Now That is Textbook 
// Story: Odrsjot 
// by Imploding Colon 
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	Ebon Mane instantly shuffled aside when Rainbow Dash trotted up.  The pegasus halted as soon as she got a clear sight.  Her ears folded, and she stooped down on trembling knees.  Gulping, she looked up, flashing a glance from one equine to another.

"I... I don't get it... wh-when?"

"Around the time the first lights flickered," Ebon said.  "Every unicorn's horn was going haywire.  And then... erm... and then the Jury--"

"Everything running on mana went down," Props said, squeezing the book in her grip as her blue eyes glistened.  "At first, I thought it was engine failure, but then I realized it was happening everywhere and to everypony's tech..."

Rainbow Dash bit her lip, staring back down with glossy eyes.  "Her... her manacore."  She gritted her teeth.  "Friggin' A... that's what happened.  It failed her."

"It all happened so fast, Rainbow Dash," Pilate said as he held Belle and Kera close.  "There's nothing anypony could have done fast enough."  He gulped.  "Including you—"

"I'm not fast enough?!" she barked, sneering.

Pilate and Belle winced.  The other ponies looked away, all save for Kera, whose face was trickling with tears.

Rainbow gulped and glanced back.  "But... b-but the Jury is fine now!  Maybe... maybe she c-can be fine too!  Maybe she got better—"

"That was over thirty minutes ago, Rainbow Dash," Ebon Mane said.  "She... sh-she's been cold ever since."

"I'm sorry, Rainbow."  Pilate breathed.  "She's gone."

Eagle Eye's face scrunched up.  He turned and hid into Josho's big shoulder before he had a chance to sob.  The large stallion said nothing.

Rainbow exhaled calmly.  The edges of her eyes shimmered as she gently reached forward, playing with the metal-ringlets at the ends of Roarke's mane.  "Belle," she murmured.  "Tell me... what am I doing wrong?"

Belle sniffled, then glanced aside.  "You... Y-You've done nothing wrong, Rainbow."  She leaned over and nuzzled the pegasus, pausing in her sobs just long enough to speak evenly.  "You've given everything to save all of us—and more.  This battle came to a complete halt.  I wish you could have seen it."  She smiled delicately.  "One way or another, you keep on flying, and you're spreading harmony where the world needs it."

Rainbow bit her lip to the bleeding point.  "Then... how come I keep meeting ponies... and they just k-keep dying?"

Belle stammered wordlessly.  A tear rolled down her cheek as she hung her head.

Rainbow's nostrils flared.  "This isn't what Imre would have wanted."  Her face wilted in pain.  "This... isn't what Twilight and the girls would have wanted."  Her jaws clenched.  A slight whimper fluttered in the base of her throat.  "Celestia, why am I even still alive...?"  She leaned her head down, her body starting to heave.  Belle and Props reached over from opposite sides, rubbing the pegasus' shoulders.

The Noble Jury hung in silence.  Even Floydien's red eyes grew glossy.

And then Zaid groaned.  "Pffffft.  Yeah, alright.  Enough of this shiet—"  And he fiercely shoved his hoof into the back of Rainbow's neck.

"Mmmmmmmfff!" Rainbow's lips pressed hard against Roarke's cold muzzle.  She sputtered and lifted her face as everypony gasped.  "Zaid?!?"

The stallion shrugged. "Well, that's how it always worked in my book!"

Rainbow was glaring daggers.  "How what worked?!"

"Gaaaaah!" Roarke suddenly inhaled, her whole body thrusting upwards.

"Luna Poop!" Rainbow fell back with a shriek.

"Spit!"

"Giggling Gagglesprockets!"

"Whoah dayum!"

"Haaah!" Zaid grinned a crescent moon.  He jumped high and pumped a hoof into the air.  "Biz-zowwww!  Woooo!  Yeah!" He slapped his hooves together. "What'd I friggin' tell you?!"

Roarke sat up straight, sputtering and spitting, her mane rattling like a throng of rattlesnakes while everypony (and elk) gawked.

"Storybook story, motherbuckers!  Sleeping goddess-dayum-beauty!  With explosions!"  Zaid raised his hoof high.  "Now who likes grilled-cheese?!  Huh?!  High-hoof!"

Floydien zapped Zaid into a mast.

"Ooof!"

As the stallion collapsed, Ebon shuffled over and sat besides the metal mare.  "Roarke!  How... in the wide world of hay alfredo are you still alive?!"

"Grkkkk..."  Roarke quivered all over, clutching her lower abdomen.  "B-b-backup... core..."

"You... you..."  Ebon's eyebrow turned into ellipses.  "You have a backup manacore?"

"Well of course she does, silly Ebony!" Props chirped, rolling her eyes.  "Didn't you take Searonese 101?  Why fill your body with two-thirds gizmos if you can fill it with three-fourths gizmos at thrice the cost?!"

"And just where do you have the room inside your cold, cold body for a backup manacore?!" Ebon squawked.

"Nnnnnghhh..."  Roarke growled, her eye-lenses pistoning in and out.  "You think a mare like me plans on using her b-birth canal anytime soon?"

"Oh, uhm, well I guess that makes—"

"You!" Roarke gripped his throat.

"Mmmmm-mommy!" Ebon wheezed.

"Why didn't you kill me when I asked you to, breeder?!" Roarke grumbled.  "I told you I deserved a warrior's death!"

"B-b-but I couldn't! I-I didn't know how!"  Ebon sweated profusely, trembling in her grip.  "The only thing I know h-how to kill is an empty stomach!"

"How about I empty your stomach?!"  Roarke shoved him hard across the deck and dragged herself up on trembling hooves.  "Just reach in there and hollow it out with a Searonese war drill?!  But I bet you'd love that, wouldn't ya, you sorry-tailed sissy?!"

"Heeeeeeeeee!"  Eagle Eye plowed Roarke down to the deck, hugging her intensely.  "Roarke, you're you againnnnn!"

"Grrrrrr!"  Roarke snarled, thrashing helplessly at him with limp, un-armored limbs.  "Get off me!  I will murder you and your entire family!"

Instantly, the majority of the crew cooed and drew in, hugging the metal mare in a tight circle.  Even Kera and Belle stopped sobbing long enough to nuzzle whatever piece of Roarke they could get a hoof-hold of.

Josho rolled his eyes, though it took all his muster not to bear even the slightest of smirks.  Floydien stood tall in the background, cracking his neck joints.  He caught a pair of ruby eyes from across the group, nodded, and turned right around before entering the cockpit.  Slowly, with gusts of steam, the Noble Jury pivoted over the battlefield and glided its way east.

Rainbow Dash stared, her eyes darting back and forth from smiling face to smiling face. Roarke was throwing a hissy fit, in answer to which Eagle Eye merely giggled.  Ebon laughed while Props hummed a merry little tune.  In the middle of it all, Belle leaned back to take some time to nuzzle one another while Kera began dramatically weaving a tale of the last ten minutes inside the machine world.

Slowly, with an agonized groan, Zaid stood up.  "Alright..."  He raised a hoof and smiled crookedly.  "I'll settle for some PB&J."  That said, he collapsed onto the deck, out cold.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.  Slowly, her smile faded, and she gazed deeply—thoughtfully—into the eastern horizon, squinting against the sunrise, as Floydien made off for some nebulous destination.