//------------------------------// // Bring Me the Blue Dashes // Story: Urohringr // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// As Rainbow Dash entered one of several corridors leading to the center of the large round structure, the hiss of wind and rain dulled to a low roar. All had become darkness and echoing hoofsteps. After a brief pause, a ruby beam of light emanated from her pendant, illuminating the narrow marble walls on either side of her. She glanced left and right, her blue hooves splashing in tiny puddles as she made her way towards the far end of the passageway. She came upon a junction of tiny intersecting hallways. She sniffed the air with her fuzzy muzzle, squinting left and right across the shadows. Muttering under her breath, she took a pensive left turn and followed a long, curved corridor. As a minute limped by, she judged that this hallway followed the generally circular shape of the building's outer walls. On her left and right, doorframes opened to small, cramped corridors. She took a moment or two to glance in, and for once she saw some semblance of former civilization. Broken pieces of old pottery and delapidated furniture littered the floors and corners of the cramped compartments. Curious, she wandered into one, picking up a piece of curved plaster that must have once been an urn of some sort. Across its dusty surface, she made out the faded images of winged ponies in pre-classical Equestrian armor. "Hmmm... Pegasopolitan..." She stared up at the ceiling, spotting cracks where streams of moisture bled through, trickling noisily to the floor. "I bet Twilight would have gotten a real kick out of this place, the friggin' egghead." She paused for a moment, and her mouth hung between a grimace and af rown. "Heh... bet she'd get a real kick out of me." She dwelled on that for a little too long. With a barely audible grunt, she taused the piece of pottery uncaringly to the floor. Turning away from the shattering noise, she trotted back into the curved hallway and resumed her slow, exploratory journey. It wasn't long until she came upon a hallway to her right that was significantly bigger and significantly longer than the compartments she had stumbled upon previously. Judging that it must lead towards the center of the building, she proceeded on through. She sniffed the air, noticing a staler smell than in the previous interior sections. The deeper she traversed towards the heart of the building, the colder and deader the atmosphere felt. She felt a sharp chill run across her body, and she wrapped her wing feathers around her sides for a smidgeon of added insulation. "Brrrrr... no way in heck Commander Hurricane could have been in charge of this place," Rainbow Dash muttered aloud. She glanced back at the darkness behind her. "Any self-respecting bird-brain woulda piloted this rainy hunk-a-junk to the tropics where it would have warmed up." She bumped into the pointy end of a spear. "Ow!" Her voice cracked. She turned and stared down the hollow nostrils of a horse skull. "Gaaaah!" Hopping back, she shielded her wincing face with her wing, then nervously peered over her feathers. A pony skeleton lay, its spine and ribcage propped up against a stack of moldy, imploded wooden crates. Several sharp pikes lay in a solid barricade along with the body. The equine's forelimbs faithfully held a staff at a forty-five degree angle to the ceiling, pinned against its decayed frame. "Uhhh... h-hey there..." She craned her neck and blinked with wide eyes. "...sister." A pair of pegasus wings dangled from the skeleton's sides. "That's not crazy or anything." Rainbow leaned closer, squinting through the ruby haze of her lit pendant. "It... it couldn't possibly be the Angels that Khao yapped on about, could it?" She tapped her chin, then glanced aside at a second pegasus—then did a double take. Much like the previous skeleton, this pony's remains were situated along the front end of a crumbled barricade. Not only was it equipped with a jagged spear, but rusy bits of armor lay around its decrepit side. Rainbow's eyes traced and re-traced hauntingly familiar helmet motifs. "So, Commander, you weren't alone." She gazed at the barricade as a whole, spotting three more skeletons, frozen forever with gaping jaws. "Your batallion followed you to the bitter end." She took a deep, proud breath. "Talk about loyalty." Squinting, she peered down the far end of the corridor. "Just what were you guys all protecting...?" Her murmuring voice echoed across the dark walls. Curious, Rainbow Dash crept forward. Her muscles strained harder to trot, and that's how she knew that the floor was tilted upwards at an incline, like a ramp. As she moved along, she became aware of a faint light straight ahead of her. She heard a pitter-pattering sound, like that of rain cascading across thick glass. Eventually, the light was strong enough that she could dim the glow of her pendant. Right about this time, the ascending hallway ended, and it opened up to a massive, massive chamber. The tiniest of shuffling hoofsteps sent frightful echoes across the place. Rainbow Dash saw curved walls with segmented columns and arches, all surrounding a spacious interior filled with scattered stone-like structures about the height of an average pony. But the most noticeable detail was the granite ceiling—or rather a lack thereof. Upon entering the room, Rainbow realized that the very center of the building formed a shallow dome, and the innermost circle was comprised of an elaborate stained glass window with several circles within circles of panoramic designs. It was difficult to make out any of the jagged illustrations, on account of the gray light of the world outside being refracted by copious ribbons of rain water sloshing all across the outer shell. Rainbow squinted, her face bathed in the prismatic kaleidoscope of waterlogged light. Determined to see better, she flapped her wings and hovered up until she was a spit's distance from the stained glass ceiling. Here, she spun in slow, slow circles, taking in as many details as her beleaguered mind could. The outermost rim of the circle showed a starry expanse. Comets and nebulaic bodies and constellations filled up the long curved panels with translucent purples, blacks, and violets. The next circular panel looked as if it had been blacked out, until Rainbow looked harder and realized she was seeing a pure ring of metallic browns and grays. Next, she saw what must have been the "machine world," complete with its gold and platinum platforms, sweeping pendulums, rolling conveyor belts, and endless streams of gears and levers. The layer within that is what caught Rainbow's attention the most. Here, she saw landscapes, clusters of earth, forests and valleys, seas and deserts. Not all of it was green—some landscapes were brown, gray, blue, and even odd colors such as purples and yellows. But what made Rainbow Dash gawk in confusion was the nature of the illustrated creatures living within this layer of the window. She saw quadrupeds, to be sure, but also bipeds, simeons, reptiles, and some creatures with limbs she couldn't even recognize. What was more, each of these creatures congregated around one particular section of the panel, corresponding to a different landscape. Rainbow counted, and she ultimately discovered twelve distinct sections. Strangely enough, none of these sections depicted ponies—or at least that's what she thought at first. Hovering higher, she studied one part of the panel that was considerably darker than the rest. It wasn't until closer inspection that she realized the panel wasn't dark—but rather it had been damaged in such a way that the light from outside was too scattered to properly break through. She flew until she was within a breath's distance, studying the cracked parts of the glass from the uncracked. Drops of moisture dripped through from the rain outside, and after a few flashes of lightning, she finally spotted something that caught her eye. She saw feathers, and wings, and the flanks that they were attached to. "Pegasi..." Rainbow Dash muttered, then gulped. "The angels." Sure enough, that part of the panel was populated by winged ponies. Why it was damaged, Rainbow couldn't properly guess, until she surmised that the cracks could easily have been formed by one or two well-aimed Pegasopolitan spears. "Guessing they weren't all that they were cracked up to be, eh, Khao?" Rainbow Dash ran a hoof through her wet mane as she glanced down. "Hurricane, what did you figure out about them...?" From this height, Rainbow could spot several clusters of delapidated junk cluttering the room's otherwise pristine floor below. She glanced out towards the perimeter, and thus discovered twelve passageways total, all leading out from the large chamber. Each passageway was barricaded with all manner of junk, pikes, and rusted chunks of armor. No small amount of pegasus skeletons dotted the "bastions." They all faced out, armed to the teeth, fending off some invisible foe into eternity. "This was a last stand," Rainbow murmured aloud as she descended on limp wings. "They all died holing themselves up here." She perched on one of the stone structures, giving the walls a cockeyed glance. "But wh-what?" Her cracking voiced echoed against the dusty granite lengths of the place, accompanied by the dull pitter-patter of rain against the glass above. Rainbow Dash glanced straight up, studying the very center of the stained glass ceiling from below. Set within the center of the dome beyond the "surface world" were two final panels. One, a swirling effigy of clouds and skies—both sunlit and moonlit. Then, within the very center, she spotted what looked like a ruined panel of stained glass, until she realized that the small circle was nothing more than a ribboning spiral of prismatic colors, occupying the entire spectrum from red to green to violet and back. "Hrmmmf... Rub it in, why don'tcha?" Rainbow Dash tilted her head back down with bored eyes. It was then that she noticed an equine shape to her far right. Jumping a bit, she pivoted to face it directly. A statue of a horse's head loomed above a marble slab—only the slab was considerably different than all the rest. It wasn't part of the room's structure, but rather a neatly arranged pile of rectangular stones fastened together like an ark. Trotting towards it, Rainbow took notice of the horse head's features. The muzzle was curved and the neck was slender—the tell-tale traits of a pony mare. What's more, her determined face featured undeniable battle scars. "Commander Hurricane..." Rainbow muttered aloud. Her eyes fell to the slabs beneath the effigy. She bit her lip. "Are... are you in there?" She turned to look back at the skeletons guarding the twelve entrances, then at the tomb once again. "Ah jeez. And I thought I lived an awesome life." She gave a bittersweet smirk, then blinked... For there was a series of black staves sticking out of the ground not that far away. Curious, Rainbow Dash trotted past the tomb and approached the forest of slender vertical rods. There were dozens of them, and all situated around a circular stone in what Rainbow Dash realized was the very center of the room. Sure enough, as she stood upon the stone and gazed straight up, she saw the rainswept center panel of the stain glass domed ceiling. Glancing down at the base of the rods, she saw long deep grooves in the floor, all pointing towards the centermost stone. Looking at the rods' tips, she saw black shards, lock vulcanic obsidian. As a matter of fact, from the slender crystalline structure of the shards, they almost exactly mimicked the— "Obelisks..." Rainbow Dash breathed. "Just like the big ones floating outside." She squinted. "That couldn't possibly be a total coinkydinky." She reached a blue hoof towards one. "Pffft. That would just be plain stupid—" Flash! The obelisk glowed to the touch, then slid slightly away from her. Rainbow Dash gasped, instantly hovering on twitchy feathers. She heard a grinding noise, then glanced down to see dust flying out of the groove as the entire staff traveled slightly towards the center stone. Not long after, there was another grinding noise—two, actually. Rainbow Dash spun around to see two of the stout granite slabs moving towards her and the center of the room. The entire thing lasted for about five seconds. As soon as Rainbow removed her hoof from the shard at the top of the staff, the staff itself stopped moving. In turn, so did the two slabs behind her. All was silent once again, save for the hush of rain and the muffled rolls of thunder. "Hmmmmm..." Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. She pivoted towards the staff yet again. She touched it. The crystal glowed. Gripping the shard in her hoof, Rainbow looked behind her as she pulled the staff back. The two slabs moved in perfect sync. Rainbow pushed the staff forward. The slabs approached her and the center of the room. Licking her lips, Rainbow Dash flew forward, pushing the staff the rest of the way. With a noisy grind, the two slabs swam past their siblings and came to a stop just outside the ring of vertical staves. This happened at the precise same time Rainbow found that she couldn't push the rod any more; it had reached the very end of its groove, stopping just short of the circular stone in the very center of the chamber. Rainbow Dash released her hoof from the horn. She rubbed her chin in thought. "Wait a second..." Her eyes brightened. "Wait a second... wait a second!" Breathless, Rainbow Dash darted out of the chamber, flew past the collapsed skeletons, and zig-zagged her way through the shadowed corridors that led to the outer ring. Emerging once again in the sheets of rain and howling wind, Rainbow Dash perched sideways on one of the circular balcony's many-many pillars. She squinted, staring out into the thick precipitation and stormy haze. Undaunted, she flew sideways, darting over and under crashed airships until she found what she was looking for. One obelisk was suddenly levitating so close to the large building's edge that Rainbow Dash could practically kiss it. What's more—it wasn't alone. Two temples of varying sizes hovered along with it. She judged that any pony with a lick of athleticism could easily jump the tiny, rainy gap that now loomed between where she was and the edges of the two temples. Blinking, Rainbow gazed out at the hovering depths of Stratopolis. She spotted each obelisk, and she now realized that they numbered just the same as the rods that stood in the center of the room. With a gradually growing smile, Rainbow Dash flew towards one edge of the building until she looked out onto a particular section of the floating city. She spotted the temple where she knew that the Noble Jury and its beleaguered crew were quietly waiting. Counting the obelisks between it and the one she had just "pulled," she immediately flew back into the heart of the large round building behind her. "I'm telling you, man." Zaid grinned, leaning casually against a tilted mast on the Jury's top deck. "Just grab an open jar of mayonnaise, sandwich it between a pillow and your bed mattress, and then go to town. Best thing ever, guaranteed." "Uhm... er..." Eagle Eye stared at his own hooves, blushing furiously. "Heh... I know, right?" Zaid yawned and closed his eyes shut. "You can thank me later, dude." Just then, the entire ship shook... along with the temple around it. "Whoah whoah whoah!" Zaid gasped, flinging his eyes open. "Not now, you stud!" "Something's h-happening!" Eagle Eye stammered. Ebon Mane galloped out of the stairwell, breathless. "Are we f-falling?!" "Hold on, boomers!" Floydien shouted from the cockpit as he fired an array of sparks into the control instruments. "We're getting off this evil rock of float float!" He spat into the intercom. "Blonde boomer! Give Nancy power—" "Scrkkkk! Don't you sweat your antlers off, buddy. I've got this..." "Blonde boomer?" Floydien's brown muzzle scrunched. "Why so crack-a-squeak?" "Because this is Rainbow, you red-nosed-reindork! Pay attention to the sound stone and take a good long look! Port side!" "Ehhh?" Floydien craned his neck to see. Around this time, Josho and Prowse climbed up to the cockpit to look as well. The temple, an obelisk, and another building in the distance were all coming together, hovering towards a fixed spot of rainy air alongside the edge of Stratopolis' largest building. As the temple housing the Noble Jury cruised to a slow stop, a blue figure darted out, hovering between two pillars and a crashed zeppelin as she spread her forelimbs victoriously. "Tadaaaaaa! Neato keano, isn't it?" Rainbow's teeth grinted in a flash of lightning. Eagle Eye and Ebon cooed. Meanwhile, Zaid spat out the edge of his muzzle. "Pffft. Hax." The temple jolted to a stop, throwing him into the Jury's mast. Thud! "Crackapoop!"