Eagle Eye's ears twitched. At the sound of a loud, deep hum, he spun to face the clouds opposite the cyclonic winds. A large metal body was hurling towards him. Its red skystone crystal shone brightly through the haze of Stratopolis.
"Hey!" he sputtered, soaking wet with rainwater. "Hey! Guys!" He scampered towards the edge of the platform he was on and hopped up and down, waving. When that didn't seem to work, he aimed his horn at his sword and fired a basic illumination spell. The sword lit up, and he waved it left and right through the air like a bright baton.
And yet, despite Eagle's best efforts, the Noble Jury soared over head and cruised right past him, continuing on its perpetually circular flight.
"Come onnnnn!" Eagle Eye whimpered, frowning. "I'm right here! Can't you see me?!" He stood, panting in the wet rain. "Seriously, since when was Floydien ever that blind... or bored?"
He heard another sound, this one a great deal higher in pitch... not to mention louder. A veritable chorus of shrieks pierced the air, growing nearer and nearer by the second.
Eagle's heart rose to the bottom of his throat. Gulping, he spun to face the center of the storm. "What... the fluff...?"
That's when he saw a squadron of dark shapes flying overhead, all of them carried aloft on bony wings. They flew with supernatural precision, their haggard and decaying bodies slicing through the wind like knives. With a twitch, a third of the hellish valkyries broke off formation and dove down at him, drooling purple goo and liquid gore.
"Bad fluff... bad fluff!" Eagle Eye shrieked as he turned and ran.
His hooves splashed wetly across the floating temple as he made a mad dash for the stairwell that led down towards a lower level. The pegasi closed the distance all too quickly, streaking down at him and attempting to rip his flesh off with gnashing jaws. He dodged to the left and right, barely avoiding their aerial assaults. Then—at last—two of them got a better idea and simply plunged into his backside.
"Ooof!" He rolled through the splashing puddles, ended upright, and slashed upwards with his sword. "Haaaaaugh!"
A pegasus' chest and neck split up the middle. As its body collapsed to the ground, a long puddle of purple goo landed between Eagle's legs. Almost immediately, eyeballs emerged from the slime, rotating around to blink at him.
"Ay-jee-jee-jee-jee!" He scooted backwards from the abominable phenonemon. He was almost too busy wretching to see another pegasus diving towards his forehead. He swung his sword and decapitated it in one swipe.
The mosnter's body flew into the hurricane winds while its cranium ricocheted off a granite pillar and landed on the floor. Almost immediately, the skull sunk into the ground, becoming a large lavender puddle. Within seconds, two equine shapes were emerging from the puddle, covered in slime.
Grimacing, Eagle Eye stood up. At the sound of more shrieks, he galloped as quickly as he could towards the lower level of the temple. From the sound of flapping wings immediately behind, he knew he wasn't alone.
"Almost got it stabilized," Ebon Mane sputtered, sweating as he adjusted a series of knobs in the Noble Jury's engine room and brought the fluctuations of the lavender tome down to a minimum. "Heck, at this rate, I might even be able to redirect power anywhere! Heh... and I always thought it looked so hard, Propsy—"
There was a resounding thud, and the entire ship shook. Several of the knobs Ebon had worked hard on adjusting rotated loosely.
The stallion's jaw fell. He shook and gritted his teeth. "Nnnnnngh... Zaaaaaid?!" He reached over to an intercom and slapped a hoof over it. "I thought you said you were gonna keep the ship steady—"
Thud! The ship shook again.
This time, Ebon Mane wobbled, his ears folding atop his head as he grimaced.
"Uhm... Zaid?"
No response.
Ebon started to panic. In quick order, he flung the engine room door open and scampered towards the bow of the ship.
Climbing up two decks to the top floor, he emerged in the cockpit. "Zaid, you're alive!"
"Uhhhhhh..." Zaid sat in the seat, his eyes locked on the windshield.
"You scared me half to death!" Ebon frowned. "Why didn't you answer the intercom?"
"Sorry, food dude. I was... uhm... a little distracted?"
"Yeah? By what?"
WHUD! A decaying zombie pegasus slammed against the windshield.
"Cheese and crackers!" Ebon hid behind the pilot's seat, shivering.
"Not a good time to make me hungry!" Zaid sputtered.
"Whatisthatwhatisthatwhatisthatwhatisthat?!"
"I dunno... but it seems to have a lot of brothers and sisters."
"Huh?"
"What, you can't see?" Zaid flung his hoof over several instruments. "Let's see... nope... nope... uh uh... nope... ah! Here we go." He activated the windshield wipers. The twitching pegasus was peeled off the window. Once it was gone, the two stallions could easily see a flock of black necrotic shapes populating the grey thunderclouds. "There they all are! Aren't they cute?"
"Cute?!" Ebon stammered, gripping hard to the back of the pilot's seat. "They're hideous! Where in Spark's name did they come from?!"
"Well, Ebony, when a zombie mare and a vampire pigeon love each other very much—"
"Zaid!"
"Look, I have no friggin' clue. One moment, it was clear gray nightmare. The next... it was a fluffy gray nightmare with undead winged ponies four croutons!"
"Why's everything gotta be a food analogy with you?"
"'Cuz I'm friggin' starving, okay?! You picked one hell of an afternoon to become an engineer!"
"Blessed Spark..." Ebon grimaced at the denser and denser squadrons of the undead. "You think... you th-think they could have gotten to our friends?"
"I dunno. Seems to me they're content to just fly around and enjoy the breeze." Zaid pointed. "I mean, look at 'em! Just like a graceful flock of birds!"
"Uhhh..." Ebon shivered as his pupils shrank. "They're... uh... th-they're flocking this way."
"Oooh!" Zaid smirked over his shoulder. "You too are a fan of Michael Critrot?"
"Zaid, do something!" Ebon shouted as the creatures drew close enough for the ponies to hear their shrieks.
"Yeah... uhm..." Zaid gripped the controllers. "Say, I have an idea. Did you like playing Starfilly 64?"
"Starfilly what—Gaiiiiie!" Ebon clung to the pilot's seat for dear life.
The Noble Jury spun around on an invisible axis, thereby drilling its way through the rampaging sea of pegasi. Necrotic bodies went flying, their purple gooey innards dissolving into the wet, drenching rain.
The rest of the undead soared after the Noble Jury's hull. In a desperate move, the vessel dove down low, skirting past the underbellies of several buildings as it made its way to the far end of the floating nightmare city.