"Eeugh!" Elma convulsed in Belle's embrace. Her black shell flickered from one coat to another as her eyes fumed with green smoke. "No! N-no, mother, please!"
"Elma!" Bellesmith hissed, dragging her deeper into the confines of a collapsed zeppelin. She tried desperately to silence her. "Elma, you must be quiet! They'll hear us!"
"D-don't do it, mother!" Elma squeaked and writhed. "Don't do it to them!" She curled her forelimbs and sobbed into Belle's chest. "So... so tired... so s-sick and tired of devouring pain..."
"What's happening, Elma?" Belle gulped and stammered, "What's 'mother' doing to who? What is she planning?"
No sooner was she done asking this then a loud series of buzzing sounds flitted past the zeppelin. Belle glanced out a rusted, gaping window just in time to catch streaking black bodies on dragonfly wings.
Pilate winced. It wasn't enough that his visual senses were being overloaded by the Oracular Array of red lines against virtual blackness. The rolling thunder of the Stratopolitan tempest pounded his eardrums, making it hard to walk straight, much less carry the weight of the amber skystone on his back.
Neverthless, he pressed forward, keeping the Lounge's energy rod that Roarke had given him close to his side. He was about to trot past the umpteenth marble pillar when—suddenly—his helm practically vibrated from the sheer amount of information he was receiving. He didn't know exactly how or why, but he sensed a dense cloud of objects surging up from behind.
"What in Spark's name...?"
Pilate's heartrate increased tenfold. Glancing left, he saw a collapsed pillar lying on its side beneath a crashed manaship. There was a niche within that was small enough for his body. He rushed over, slid on the moist balcony's surface, and threaded his body through the narrow crack.
Not long after, several objects zipped by, propelled by blurred wings. Pilate stared out—but realized he didn't have to. Even through the immediate structures surrounding him, he could sense the flying bodies as they streamed through the rain and wind.
"...twelve... seventeen... twenty-two..." He didn't realize he was doing it at first, but he was counting each of the bodies, clearly separating them from the rest of the chaos and noise. "...thirty-five..." His brow furrowed under the helm. "Where are they off to in such a hurry?"
It was then that he started to feel massive vibrations through the floor of the balcony beneath him. Whatever was happening, it wasn't in sync with the thunder.
Determined, Pilate slid back out from underneath the niche and trotted swiftly—cautiously—after the flying figures.
"Th-they're coming!" Props stammered beneath the sound of the rattling mana crystals on her back.
"We can all see that!" Seclorum grunted, pausing along the stairs to reload his crossbow. "Now keep moving!"
The procession of Xonans, Ledomaritans, and Lounge scampered its way up the spiral stairs. Some took the opposite path, so that when they paused to fire down at the advancing muck, their projectiles criss-crossed and converged on their target.
But the danger was growing larger, faster, and more widespread. With each undead pegasi shot, the virulent puddle multiplied in size and speed. Soon, a deluge of the stuff was fountaining out from the chamber below and rapidly rushing up the walls of the place.
"It's no use!" Josho shouted, his voice drowned out by the echoing shrieks of the winged monstrosities. He blasted the brains out of a lunging pegasus and watched as it plunged back down into the curdling depths. "Every time we kill one of these motherbuckers, it only makes them stronger!"
"Then we just have to be faster!" Rainbow Dash shouted, coaching the galloping, breathless survivors on. "Come on! Run like your lives depend on it!"
"Razzar, master, they will overtake us!" one of the Lounge Members exclaimed.
"Then we must gain the upper hand. Come, my brothers!" Razzar ripped his gloves off, exposing gnarled claws and rust-brown scales. He turned away from the fight completely and clamped his fingers into the curved wall of the granite pit. His comrades followed suit, and—with tails thrashing out from under their cloaks—they shimmied swiftly up the walls of the place, easily outpacing the labored equines.
"Gen'salla keemsleen thulien massa..." Arcshod paused in firing to gape at the lizards.
"Mrrrmmf..." Seclorum galloped along, glaring at the steps ahead. "That's just wrong."
"Aaaugh!" a Xonan warrior grunted from far down below.
Rainbow Dash glanced down.
The tattooed mare had collapsed on her chest. Another Xonan rushed over to help her, but it was too late. A bubbling pool lapped up to their limbs. Floating eyes blinked and all turned towards the two victims while the haunting heartbeat intensified.
Gritting her teeth, Rainbow Dash blurred down towards the scene. She hoisted one forelimb under the mare's chest and another under the other pony's. Fiercely beating her wings, she took off slowly, floating away from the stairs as they washed over with purple slime.
"Nnnngh! Just... h-how many dang... grasshoppers h-have you been stuffing yourselves with here?! J-jeez!"
"Nagu'n!" the mare in her grasp shouted, for directly beneath them a pair of pegasi emerged—groaning—from the lavender mass and flew at full speed.
"Razzar!" A naga shouted. "Down below!"
In one deep breath, Razzar hung from one arm, pivoted, unholstered his pistol, and fired down the pit.
The yellow energy blasts struck one pegasus in the chest and the other one right between the eyes.
Invigorated, Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth and flew faster, streaming up past Razzar and his fellow lizards. The Lounge fired down at the mess while the equines continued scaling the stairs. Rainbow soared away from the echoing chaos, making it to the top level where she safely deposited the two breathless Xonans.
Without wasting a second, Rainbow kicked off the platform, backflipped, and dove back down into the raging battle. "Josho!" she shouted. "We won't make it at this rate! Time to cheat!"
"Yeah, I hear ya!" Josho grabbed Props' waist with one forelimb and Seclorum's with another "This should bring back memories, Secchy, old chum."
"H-huh?!" Flash! Seclorum went cross-eyed as he appeared dozens of meters above in a blink. He grunted as Josho landed with him and Props on the upper platform, dropping them like ragdolls to the granite floor. "Bleaachkk! Ledo's vulva, Josho! Warn a stallion, why don'tcha?!"
"Jee, I'm sorry for giving you yet another lease on life." Josho bravely plunged himself back into the abyss while his horn sparkled. "Gotta jet!" Flash!
Josho materialized halfway down the steps. He reached out and grabbed the closest survivors he could.
"Rainbow?! I'm holding up my end! How about you?!"
"Grnnngh!" Rainbow hissed as she somehow managed to carry two survivors in her arms and one frazzled Ledomaritan on her back. "Working... on... it...!"
Two pegasi suddenly lunged at her. Before she could react, the Ledomaritan on her back fired a crossbolt, sending one creature tumbling into another until they both exploded in the coverging manafire of the Lounge.
"Just fly!" Razzar hollered. "It's our only way out of this!"
"If... nnngh... you th-think for one second that we're even..." Rainbow snarled.
"We can kill each other once we're done killing them!"
"Raaaaaaaaaugh!" Arcshod slammed the skulls of two pegasi with the butt of his crossbow. While Josho ported back down to rescue the warrior's remaining companions, the large Xonan stood his ground halfway up the spiraling stairs, firing multiple bolts at the advancing undead.
The shrieking pegasi wormed their way into a living stream, curling and spiraling their way upwards like a serpent of purple slime. They adapted to the firing patterns of the Lounge, snaking swiftly up the pit and approaching with great speed. At last, avoiding a series of yellow energy beams, they slammed into the bottom of the stairwell just beneath Arcshod.
"Grunngh!" The large unicorn teetered, nearly falling off the stairs entirely. Her heard a cracking sound, and he looked straight down. A deep fracture had formed in the stairs beneath him. Clenching his jaw hard, he aimed his horn at the segment of stairs and pulled with all his telekinetic might. At last, he ripped loose a huge chunk of stone granite. By now, the pegasi had rose to his level, charging like a living serpent's head.
With a loud shout, Archod mercilessly threw the enormous slab of granite straight into the swarm. The air filled with the sickening crunch of many-many bones. The stream of pegasi shattered completely, their limbs and bodies spreading outward as they fell back into the ooze-filled pit. Not long after, a collective mound of undead figures surged through the sea of slime below, slamming intelligently into the side of the pit.
The entire chamber shook. The Lounge struggled to keep their grips, relinquishing the aim of their weapons. The stairs cracked in many places, and Arcshod—
"Gaaaugh—Mmmmfngh—Xon!" He teetered, slipped, and fell towards the lavender mass below.
"Hrnnngh!" Rainbow grunted, catching his left rear fetlock and flapping her wings as hard as she could. With desperate resolve, she kept the large stallion dangling in place just a dozen feet above the rising muck.
Arcshod painted in horror, his eyes reflecting the pool while more and more bodies emerged below.
"Can't... h-hold on much longer..." Rainbow's voice cracked while her pendant flickered. "You're... sl-slipping..."
Flash! Josho materialized on the stairwell parallel to her. He gasped, nearly slipping into the slime himself. He glanced aside, blinking at Rainbow's struggle. "Seriously?!"
Rainbow sweatily nodded. "S-s-seriously," she hoarsely replied.
Arcshod slipped an inch, his lungs emptying with a tiny yelp.
Josho groaned. "Oh sweet... merciful kittens..." With a deep yell, he plunged straight out into the air, grabbed onto Arcshod's body, and fired his teleportation spell.
Fl-Flash! Josho, Arcshod, and Rainbow Dash materialized against the ceiling... and upside down. With a combined shriek, the three plunged a few feet and landed on the platform's edge above the pit of death.
"Ooof!" Rainbow winced as she rolled over, her blue hooves curled against her chest. "Is... is th-that all of them?"
Josho stood up, sweating all over his fat body. "That's... th-that is all of th-them..."
"Dreit..."
Right then, four reptilian bodies scurried up over the platform's edge on all fours, then stood up in their glowing cloaks and masks.
Josho glared. "...present scum excluded, of course."
"They are advancing rapidly," Razzar said. "No time for rest."
"You don't say?!" Rainbow Dash stood up straight, gnashing her teeth as she prepared to yell at him some more—
"Rainbow!" Aatxe's voice rang forth. He galloped past Seclorum and Props and approached the pegasus. The majority of the survivors could be seen from a distance, standing near the brightly-lit entrance to the chamber. "Rainbow, what's going on?! We heard screams and gunfire and..." His eyes narrowed. "Good heavens! Are there less of you?"
"Never mind! We gotta go!" Rainbow Dash shoved him along, pulled Josho and Arcshod to their hooves, and flapped her wings. "We all gotta move! Now!"
"But... b-but what's—" Aatxe stammered in mid-gallop.
"No time to explain!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she soared down the tunnel ahead of the group. The mosaics of rings and defaced pegasi blurred on either side of her. "We gotta get out! And we gotta seal this place up right behind us! Pronto!"
"But... b-but the manacrystals!"
"I've got them!" Props breathlessly chirped. "And so do some of the lizard guys! But trust us! You don't wanna stay down here long—"
"Holy garbage farts!" Seclorum suddenly rasped, skidding to a stop, wide-eyed.
"Huh?!" Rainbow frowned at him. "Why in Luna's name are you stopping?!" She looked ahead. "We've gotta get out—" She froze in mid-air, her ruby eyes twitching.
A changeling stood right outside the door. Then two more touched down. Then five more. Then ten. Then twelve. At last, nearly three dozen shape-shifters stood at the entrance, silhouetted against the swirling gray malaise of Stratopolis. Then, in a burst of green flame, they all took on blue coats with rainbow-streaked manes.
Rainbow Dash's ears folded. "Oh no..."
There was a lavender glow to the doorframe. And then... SLAM! The chamber was sealed with thirty-five times the speed with which Rainbow had first opened it.