//------------------------------// // Any Dash In a Storm // Story: Urohringr // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// "Auccchhh!" Prowse grunted as his body rolled into the engine room's rattling wall. "Oooof!" Props collapsed on the floor not far from him. She tilted her head up, reeling, and gasped. "That felt like a Magnetic Transconductive Crystalline Energy Dishcharge!" With two more resounding thuds, the hull of the Noble Jury shook around the Uncle and Niece once more. She stammered into the flickering lavender light. "That was! That was a Magnetic Transconductive Crystalline Energy Discharge!" She dashed towards the nearest door and burst out into the stairwell. "We're being shot at!" "Propsicle!" Prowse sputtered as he struggled back to his flesh and metal hooves. "Whaur ur ye runnin' aff tae, lassie?! Thes engine is spittin' up steam somethin' fierce!" "You can keep an eye on it, Unky Prowsy!" her voice shouted down the compartment. "Just make sure we all don't explode!" "Ye dae realize fa yoo're talkin' tae?!" Prowse winced, turning to face the mess of glowing, rattling pipes that filled the interior. "Mmmmmmmmmm bloody hell..." All the while, the Noble Jury hurled through the thunderous mess that was the Flurries. Dark clouds frothed on all sides, spitting lightning and flashes of light in random direction. Sheets of rain poured in blinding gusts, and yet the skystone vessel hurled itself down the cneter of it. Tailing the ship's stern, speeding along at a menacing rate, hurled the Lounge's ship. The craft bobbed and weaved through the turbulent weather with unmatched grace. In fact, the only reason it slowed at all was so that it could align its sights with the Noble Jury cruising ahead. At regular intervals, the bulbous black sphere rotated a cannon along its central access, taking aim and firing bright flashes of murderous light at its target. These streaks of energy skirted past the Noble Jury's hull, at least until the stream inevitably made its mark, and then the resulting fireworks would send the Jury spiraling violently deeper into the howling tempest. Ebon Mane and Zaid collided dumbly with each other. Meanwhile, Elma clung desperately to a metal panel while Floydien braced himself against the front end of the buckling cockpit. "Grrgggh! Stop hurling turd glimmers at Floydien's beautiful beloved!" the elk shouted. "Crkkkk! Floydien!" Rainbow Dash's voice crackled from a cluster of soundstones. "You gotta lose 'em!" Floydien spat back into the intercom. "Well Color Wheel Boomer was the one who found them!" "So the job of the losing the death stabbies is not up to Floyd Floyd, now is it?!" the elk's voice cackled. Rainbow Dash gnashed her teeth as she looked across the careening mess hall towards where Pilate, Bellesmith, and Kera cowered. "You gotta fly more unpredictably! Try pulling is into a dive to see if they can match!" "Does Nancy Jane have blue feathers and a cracking voice?! Nancy is far more delicate than east farting horse horse!" "Well we're gonna be toast at this rate!" Rainbow rasped. "Dashie!" Props' voice ran ahead of her as she scampered out of the kitchen and into the mess hall. "The baddies are using a—Whoahhhhh!" She slipped, somersaulted, and rolled like a blonde ball across the room. Rainbow pivoted and caught the mare with her legs and wings. "Oooof!" They boith slid across the room and landed beside Bellesmith. Props shook her dizzied head, then looked down at the pegasus she was straddling. "—a Magnetic Transconductive Crystalline Energy Generator!" "Uhhhh..." Rainbow blanched before practically bucking the mare off her. "Don't know if you've noticed, blondie, but we're being shot at by rogue freaknuts in the middle of Hurricaneville!" She flapped her wings and hovered in the middle of the rumbling ship. "If you need spare parts, I'm not really in the position to do some scavenging—" "No, don't you get it?! That's what these ebil ebil guys are using to shoot at us!" Props gulped, leaning against Pilate and Belle. "And Magnetic Transconductie Crystalline Energy Generators are highly sensitive to other magnetized materials! Something tells me these yahoos aren't used to shooting at ponies who can fight back!" "Fight back?!" Pilate stammered, clutching Belle as the ship around them jolted from more energy blasts. "You mean if we had some magnetically conductive dust to launch at those chasing us?" "Or m-maybe strips of energized industrial cobalt!" Belle added with a quivering breath. "Darn it, guys, would you listen to yourselves?!" Rainbow hollered. "I blew it! And now we're all up to our earballs in pew pew death and lightning!" She kicked a nearby bulkhead, grunting. "Where in the heck am I gonna find magnetic sneeze powder or cobalt whatsits at a time like this!" "Beats the fluff out of me," Props said with a shrug. "I mean, aside from the bucketload of industrial cobalt slabs that Roarke bought in Gray Smoke and left sitting and collecting dust in our very own hangar." Rainbow Dash did a double-take. "Buh?" "Oh... uhm..." Props smiled awkwardly. "I mean we totally have a bucketload of industrial cobalt slabs that Roarke bought in Gray Smoke and left sitting and collecting dust in our very own hangar!" Pilate's jaw hung open. Belle slowly pivoted her head to gawk at Rainbow Dash. "And you didn't think to mention this before, because...?" Rainbow Dash hissed. "Well, you seemed super merry-go-round-cheesed off at Roarke before and after she left, and I never once thought that'd we'd be on the run from a bunch of shady bad guys firing a Magnetic Transconductive Crystalline Energy Generator at our butts while in the middle of a dark magical fate storm—" "Scrkkkk!" The nearby intercom lit up. "Will you stop spitting and just save Floydien's Nancy Jane already?!" "Sorry handsome!" Props squeaked. Rainbow flew over and picked the mare up by her shoulders. "How can I make explosions with strips of chocolate bolt?!" "Cobalt! And it doesn't involve explosions." "What?!" Rainbow grimaced. "Their ship's gotta be super charged with crystalline energy!" Props stammered above the thunder and rattling bulkheads. "If the cobalt slabs were to—say—get in contact with the hull of the bad guys' ship..." Pilate finished, "The magnetized metal in the slabs would overload the Energy Generator from the outside!" "So?" Rainbow flashed the zebra a look. "What's that mean?! No pew pew?" Pilate gulped and nodded. "No pew pew." "Fine!" Rainbow dropped Props ("Whoah!" Thud!) and took a deep breath. "Then I'll grab the slabs, fly out there, and save the day with... erm... death metal!" "Rainbow, are you serious?!" Belle hugged Kera tight with one forelimb and pointed out a flickering porthole with the other. "Look out there! You won't survive for one second!" "Belle—" She frowned. "You'll be cut off from us in a second! We can't afford to lose you at a time like this!" She gulped. "And after all that your Princess Celestia said..." Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth. Another energy blast struck the ship, forcing everypony in the room to jolt. Rainbow Dash glanced, panting, at Kera lying in Belle's clutches. Her ears perked up. "Maybe I don't have to be cut off at all..." Eagle Eye tumbled into the room, clutching to the doorframe to the kitchen. "Rainbow, I think they're gaining on us and—" He blinked. "What's going on?" "I'm about to save the day, is what!" Rainbow darted across the room and shoved Eagle Eye with her towards the stairwell on the other side of the kitchen. "Come on! And grab Josho!" "Ew. He'll never let me hear the end of it..." "Just move!" "I dunno what your treasured ship is made out of!" Elma clattered through a quivering break. "But even it can't last this long against the Lounge!" "Floydien has a good mind to carve snap snap into a new bidet!" Floydien grumbled, veering the ship left and right through the pelting wind and rain. The flashing lightning illuminated the hardened lines in his frowning muzzle. "Why can't the Lounge make like their name and drink the piss?!" "Floydien! This is Rainbow! You gotta trust me! I need you to fly the ship even for a little while!" The elk flashed the intercom a horrified look. "Has the Color Wheel finally lost its paintbrush?!" "Hey Rainbow!" Zaid sputtered, disentangling himself from a thoroughly dizzied Ebon. "Love hearing your voice! Why's it sound so sexy and determined all of the sudden?" "I'm going to get those jerkensteins off our tail for good!" "You are?!" Ebon murmured as Elma helped him up onto quivering hooves. "And how?!" "The only way! The best way!" Rainbow Dash stood in the ship's hangar, tightening a saddlebag full of heavy, magnetized slabs over her leather coated flank. "Stupidity!" she cackled. Turning back, her gaze followed a tight metal cable wrapped around her body and looping its way towards a steel rig that Josho, Prowse, and Eagle Eye were tightening. "You done tinkering with that, Professor?" "Aye!" Prowse nodded. "Yer elk mukker has a braw rig an' aw, but he certainly coods dae wi' a guid few grease monkeys overlookin' his pride an' joy!" "Let me worry about the ship!" Rainbow Dash shouted as the vessel jolted once more. She pointed. "Just you make sure that this thing doesn't snap loose while I'm out there!" "Leave it to me, daredevil," Josho said as his glowing horn reinforced the cable rig with strong magic. He finished fastening his and Eagle's fetlocks to the nearby railings while Prowse dug into a nearby bulkhead with a prosthetic of razor-sharp talons. "I'd go out there with ya, but—face it—without wings, the best I'd be is a wrecking ball." "That'll be our second option," Rainbow said with a nod. "Here's hoping it doesn't come to that." She turned towards Eagle Eye. "Wanna start the party, Double-E?" The unicorn gulped, then brought a hoof towards an adjacent lever. "Are you r-really sure you wanna go through with this, Rainbow?" "No. Best to get it over with before I wake up to the insanity." She looked at the red-bearded stallion. "Professor, any wise advice before I fly out into the storm?" "Yeah! Try nae tae gie yer nipples bloon aff by lightnin'!" "Jee. Thanks. Eagle Eye?" "Good luck," he said, pulling the lever. "Don't get killed!" "Hah!" Rainbow smirked and slid goggles over her ruby eyes. "You forget who you're talking to. Danger's my middle—" FWOOOOOOOOOSH! A cyclone of blisteringly cold air sucked Rainbow out as soon as the doors opened a sliver. "Luna poop!" Rainbow hollered, legs flailing, as she and the weight of the metal strips went flying out of the ship's stern and into the tempestual flurries. The cable danced and twirled behind her while the stallions on board clutched to the bulkheads for dear life. Eagle Eye winced, his tearing eyes squinting into the maelstrom. All he saw was lightning... and the dark silhouette of a black orb in deathly pursuit...