//------------------------------//
// Run For Your Bucking Life 
// Story: Urohringr 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

	The first river of slime jettisoned through the crack in the doorframe to Rainbow's right.  She flinched, nevertheless keeping her hooves pressed to the Urohringr symbol as the barricade slowly, slowly rose towards the ceiling.

Then a second stream of muck poured through.  The shrieks of the survivors echoed in horror.  Rainbow caught the sight of bobbing eyeballs in her peripheral.  Her ears filled with the rhythmic bass beat of the evil within.  Then, all in one accord, the floating eyes on either side swiveled to face her.

"Dashie!  Look out!"

Rainbow flinched.  She glanced up.  A curtain of purple goo was raining down on her.  She flapped her wings and rotated to the left, rolling out of the path of the falling gunk.  Fumbling and breathless, she struggled to plant her hooves flat against the door to the heart of Stratopolis once again.  The ooze was pouring down in three places all around her, slowing the door's ascent by tenfold.  Before she knew it, undead bodies started rising from the impossibly thin spaces that the growing lavender puddles occupied.

"Rainbow, you're surrounded!  They're bursting out all around you!" Josho's voice shouted.  Already, hooves were storming off into the distance as half of the survivors simply turned and ran.

"I... can... cl-close it...!" Rainbow sputtered, even as necrotic wings twitched on the edge of her vision.

"Rainbow, stay alive!" Pilate's voice shouted through the mess.  "More than anything, we need you alive!"

"Don't leave us, Dashie!"

Rainbow snarled.  At this point, all she could hear was heartbeat.  Her nostrils filled with rust and decay.  She took one glance up, and her ears drooped.  There was five times as much space left between the door and the ceiling than she had anticipated, and now the purple muck was gushing through like a waterfall.

"Gnnngh!" she bucked against the wall, threading her way through two pouncing pegasi and barely skirting above the quivering pools of death ooze.  Twirling about, she shouted at what was left of the group.  "Go!  Gallop back to the hold!"

"B-but—!" Aatxe began.

"Don't stop for nothing!  Get someplace where you can seal yourselves up!"  Rainbow had to shout over the sounds of shrieking undead.  "And whatever you do—don't let them touch you!"

Four winged ponies took a running start and leapt wetly into the air.  Three of them soared after Rainbow Dash while a fourth streaked towards the survivors on the other side of the balcony.  Props flinched and Josho reached weakly for his shotgun.

"Raaaaugh!"  Arcshod stepped in, swinging a piece of rusted airship parts at full force.  He batted the creature away, sending it flailing into the hurricane winds beyond the balcony's edge.  Spitting into the gale, Arcshod turned and shouted to his fellow Xonans.  The group galloped along, although Arcshod trailed slightly behind, keeping eye contact with the last hub.

"Well, old friend..." Seclorum tugged Josho telekinetically to his hooves while Aatxe supported the stallion's other end.  "That's our cue!"

"We'll never outrun them at this speed!" Aatxe stammered.

"I don't think it's our job to!" Props said.

Everypony looked up to see Rainbow Dash flying rapid figure-eights in the air.  By this point, a cluster of six undead pegasi were clinging to her six.  At the sight of the limping group of survivors, two winged ponies broke off, swooping down on them with muzzles dripping with the purple slime.

Rainbow Dash saw the breakaway group.  Pivoting her wings, she spun a sharp turn to her right, bravely flew through the cluster of pegasi soaring after her, and bucked off the spine of one of the monsters, plowing it wetly to the floor.  The other pegasus noticed her in an instant.  It broke off from pursuing the survivors and chased after Rainbow Dash instead.

"Careful!"  Seclorum shouted, looking back.  "Touch them in the wrong place and—"

"Will you just friggin' go?!"  Rainbow panted in the middle of backflipping and twirling towards the far end of the balcony, away from the retreating ponies.  "I'll keep them off your back!  Tell Lasairfion and the rest—I'm gonna distract them!"

"But... b-but..."  Props fidgeted.

"You heard the mare!"  Seclorum and Aatxe dragged Josho along.  "Let's go!  Let's go!"

Props reluctantly joined them, turning away from Rainbow Dash completely.

Rainbow, in the meantime, was skirting her way clockwise around the structure's balcony.  Squinting, she caught something that made her frown.  The Lounge were already dozens of meters away, running as fast as they could from the scene.

"Guess those slimy salamanders didn't wait for nothing."  Rainbow looked to her right in mid-glide and gasped.

Pilate was standing his ground, twirling and flailing with the staff gripped in his muzzle.  All the while, winged ponies closed in on all sides, surrounding him with a solid ring of bubbling purple ooze.

"Luna Poop!"  Rainbow Dash gnashed her teeth and hung a sharp right.  From the shrieking breaths behind her, she realized the creatures were a lot closer to her tail than she had anticipated.  In quick order, she darted in and around various granite pillars along the balcony, forcing the undead train of mindless cretins to crash and slam into random structures.  "Pilate!  Get a move on!  What in the hay are you doing?!"

"I c-can't run away, Rainbow Dash!" the zebra exclaimed between panting breaths.  "I have to get this skystone to the city's core!"

"Dude!  This death ooze?!  I dunno if you can see it, but the inside of Stratopolis is simply pouring with it!"

"I don't care!"  Pilate frowned, backing up to a wall as a trio of limping undead stalked him.  "I-I have to find a way!  Roarke tasked me with the only means of destroying this city!  For my beloved's sake... for everypony's sake!  I gotta see it through!"

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth.  Her ears ached from the horrific, undending shrieks and bass rhythm.  Beyond that, winds howled and thunder roared.  Somewhere, in a place of safety and power, Chrysalis and her brood watched all of this hell unfold, succulently devouring the misery that poured out from the heart of Stratopolis.

"Nnnngh!"  Pilate smacked a pegasus in the face and uppercutted another with his staff.  He leaned back, his muzzle grimacing under the helm as he sensed the ooze creeping up towards his fetlocks.  "Oh blessed Spark..."  He shuddered.

Swooosh!  Rainbow Dash plucked Pilate from beneath the balcony.  The two of them spiraled out of the reach of lunging pegasi, then soared into the hurricane winds.  By now, enough slime had poured through the door to spawn a veritable squadron of undead.

Pilate stammered above the rising salvo of shrieks, "Rainbow!  Please!  We can't retreat!  Not like the others!  We have to—"

"We're not!"

Pilate's jaw dropped.  "Huh?!"

Rainbow struggled to fly them steadily through the whipping winds and outpace the zombified ponies on their tail.  "Tell me more about this crazy plan of Roarke's!"

"Oh, Rainbow, bless you!"

"Don't bless me yet," Rainbow grunted into the rainwater.  "You picked one heck of a bad day to see again..."





"Vaughan!  Vaughan!"  Razzar's mask rattled as he shouted once more into his communicator in mid-sprint.  "In Quezaat's name, brother, wh-what's happened to you?!"

The other three naga came to a stop at the jagged end of the balcony facing a scattered swarm of half-demolished temples.  "Razzar, master, what are your orders?"

"We have enough energy in our packs to bring these manacrystals to the ship!"

"Vaughan has failed to respond.  The changelings may very well have gotten to him—"  Razzar froze in mid speech.  His gloved knuckles morphed into fists.  "Unless..."

A series of loud shrieks echoed from above.

"Master!"  One naga pointed straight up.  "Look!"

Razzar tilted his mask up into the pouring rain.  In a flash of lightning, he saw Rainbow Dash and Pilate soaring through the maelstrom in a yellow streak.  The source of that yellow color was a particularly large skystone shard.  Razzar inhaled sharply, then exhaled through a hissing voice:  "Make your way to the temple where we last left the ship."

"What of you, brother?"

"There is one pegasus yet living in Stratopolis," Razzar said, even as he jumped onto a pillar and scurried up onto the domed roof of the structure.  "I may indeed have to fix that..."

The other three naga exchanged masked glances.  In tight formation, they faced the ship's edge, leapt, and ignited their manapacks.  The three soared off on yellow beams of energy, threading their way through the storm as they made for the first platform with solid footing.