"Zaidddddddddd—" Ebon whimpered and hid his face behind a pair of curled forelimbs.
"There's no gettin' off this Nancy Jane we're on!" Zaid cackled while barreling the vessel through another wave of pegasi. Yet more splatters of guts and purple goo flew across the ship's windshield. "H-hey! Ten points! Twenty!"
"Really, Zaid?! Really?!"
"What?" The stallion looked over his shoulder. "I lost my ability to scream in acute terror over two hours ago."
"At least watch what you're barreling into while you barrel into it!" Ebon shrieked, pointing straight ahead.
"Whoah, dayum!" Zaid jerked up and down at the controls—inadvertently bunny-hopping the skystone craft in mid-air as it bobbed and weaved its way around floating temple shards. He twirled past a leaning column of rain-slick granite and soared his way under a particularly large, looming temple. "You gotta admit, they're pretty darn persistent for a bunch of nasty-wasty distant cousins to Rainbow Dash!"
"We h-have no clue who these creeps are related t-to!"
"Why not? They share her same social graces!" Thud! "Aaaaaand thirty points, fillies and gentlecolts!"
"Zaid, you have to get us someplace where they can't see us!" Ebon stammered. "I dunno what that yucky muck is that's dribbling out of them, but I think it's some kind of acid!"
"That's what a diet on rotting pigeons will do to ya."
"Zaid!"
"Hold up!" Zaid craned his neck, looking upwards through the windshield. "What do we have here?! Who's a pretty pony?"
"Huh...?" Ebon did a double-take, then gasped as beams of mana shot down in bright bolts, impacting the pegasi and clipping their wings before they could get within clawing distance of the Noble Jury's hull. "Where's that coming from?"
"Up there!" Zaid pointing towards a temple twirling in the wind alongside the Noble Jury's trajectory. A lithe figure was galloping along the crest of the temple's edge, aiming his horn into the maelstrom and taking pot shots at the creatures swarming around the vessel. "Well well well..." Zaid grinned from ear to ear. "It's fitting that he'd protect such a beautiful ship."
Ebon's muzzle quivered. "EE...?"
"You're gonna have to whimper your true love's name in a slightly higher volume, there, chief."
"Eagle Eye!" Ebon practically climbed over Zaid, waving and flailing his forelimbs like mad. He gestured desperately against the cockpit windows in hopes that the stallion could see. "Over here! We're right here!"
"Dude, chillax!" Zaid wheezed and shoved Ebon back so he could re-grip the controls with ease. "It's obvious he sees us! He's fending the monsters off for a reason!"
"Oh jeez! Th-they'll swarm him too! And he's out there all alone! St-stranded!"
"In another minute, we'll have sped past the floating temple's velocity."
"Then we g-gotta slow down... or s-something!" Ebon hyperventilated, jumping and squirming in place. "Anything to let him hop back on board! It's obviously a whole lot safer in here!"
"I don't think I can slow the ship fast enough! All I can do is steer!"
"But Zaid—"
"However..." Zaid glanced over his shoulder. "If some loverboy was to get his sailboat flank to engineering—"
"I'm on it!" Ebon was already gliding down the stairwell and landing on the bottom deck. His voice shouted upwards as he scampered towards the heart of the ship. "Get us in close to the temple! I'll slow us down so that Eagle Eye can make the jump!"
"Hey—uh—if I get a good whiff of his sopping wet mane, I swear, it'll totally be by accident!"
"Alright!" Josho spun from the collapsed mound of mortar and debris. "We're sealed off!"
"But not for long," Seclorum muttered, staring warily at the clogged corridor as loud thumping noises issued from the far side. "They'll get through eventually. They made it past Arcshod's barricade at the outer entrance, did they not?"
"They seem to operate under a one-track mind. Long story short, we ain't going back out the way we came." Josho swiveled to face the others. "Is there another way out of this place?"
"There is," Prowse said with a nod. He continued priming his weaponized prosthetic while he squinted at the frazzled, rain-soaked team. "Why? Are we going anywhere soon?"
"These aren't the same as changelings," Josho said. "Whatever these creatures are, they aren't just happy with you guys staying here." He turned to glare at everyone. "Nopony will be safe here for long. They have powers the likes of which I've never seen."
"And when they touch you, you become one of them," Seclorum said.
Several ponies gasped and murmured.
"Ya can't be bloody serious," Prowse stammered.
"I've seen it happen to a Xonan and one of the Lounge," Seclorum said. He turned towards Arcshod and his fellow warriors. "I'm sorry for what happened back there, big guy. But if we stayed too far behind, half of us would be on the other side trying to barge in right now."
Thud! Another reverberation echoed through the chamber.
Props squeaked and clung—shivering—to Prowse's side. The manacrystals on her back rattled.
Josho glanced at them, then at the others. "Then there's only one course of action. We're not safe here forever. We have to find a way to go mobile."
"The Tarkington..." Aatxe remarked.
"Right."
"But even if my old ship could keep us safe once it's powered up, how in the hay are we going to get there?!" Aatxe exclaimed. "It's at least two floating temples away and none of us can fly!"
"What happened to Rainbow Dash and Pilate?!" Bellesmith remarked. "Where'd she take my beloved?"
"Darling, your beloved watch a few notches above resident badass last time I saw him," Josho said. "Apparently Roarke slipped in among the Lounge and used their tech to give him an elbow up on the situation."
Belle's jaw dropped. "What... wh-what kind of an elbow up?! What's Roarke and Rainbow up to?!"
"I-I thought they went to distract the creep-jeepies!" Props exclaimed.
"Well they're not doing a very good job of it," Seclorum grumbled.
"Bite your tongue, Secchy!" Josho snapped. "Rainbow and Pilate are the main reasons we got out of that hell hole in the end!"
"Sevu'vlien lassa threen rekk'har siul ranna'kess," Arcshod stated.
"Right." Seclorum gulped. "The longer we stay here and discuss it, the sooner we all become dead meat."
"But how will we even get to the Tarkington?!" Aatxe growled. "How is that even a viable option?!"
Josho glanced at Seclorum. "Queen's Convoy?"
Seclorum nodded. "Yes... yes... it might work. But in this weather?"
"We've done it in worse."
"Done what?" Bellesmith asked.
"It's a seldomly practiced Ledomaritan military maneuver where—to span a gap—multiple unicorns line up and act as mana-buffers, spreading a levitation spell across a wide area."
"You mean..." Prowse gawked. "...you horn blokes form a levitating bridge through sheer willpower?"
"Depends on how much junk we can find to utilize for it," Seclorum said. "And if there's enough of it facing the direction of the temple where Aatxe's old ship is."
"Well, I say it's bloody brilliant!" Prowse nodded. "Let's do it!"
"But if we gallop out in the open now—we'll be risking absolutely everything—"
"Risk is part of the game, laddie!" Prowse gestured at a stockpile towards the back of the room. "We have weapons! We have bludgeons! Hell, we even have my trusty old mortar shells from my expedition!"
"There's no telling if the fuses for those work still—"
"No sense in not tryin'! Besides, the more explosions on your side, the better!"
"I'm with Unky Prowsy!" Props said.
Josho glared. "You're always with Unky Prowsy."
"This time I'm with him with fries on the side!"
"Hey... uhm..." Bellesmith shuffled nervously with the weight of "Eagle Eye" on her back. "This is supposed to be a closed-in hiding place, right?"
Everypony looked at her.
"Right..." Seclorum slowly nodded.
"Then... uhhh..." Belle squinted. "Why does it feel so breezy?"
Props blinked.
Josho glanced around. "Did anypony seal up those holes that the temple shards smashed?"
One Ledomaritan shook her head. "No... th-they were too big."
Prowse added, "I kept my boomstick trained on it for if any wayward... changelings... flew in..."
Everyone was dead silent.
Josho craned his head... then followed the motion with a limp side-shuffle. He rounded the corner, once again seeing the large gaping rifts in the bottom of the building where gray wind and wet rain billowed through.
He stood there for a few seconds, biting his lip.
Not long after—
Three shrieking pegasi burst in at once, skittering like crickets across the ceiling and vomiting ooze out their ravenous muzzles.
"Nagu'n!"
"Great Spark!"
"Unky—!"
"Everypony stand back!"
Krakowwwww! Pow!
"Nnnngh-Guh!" Ebon sweated hard as he pulled back on a lever. Steam vented from the bulkheads encasing the Noble Jury's engine room. "Okay, Zaid!" he wheezed as he felt the ship buckling around him. "That should decelerate us to something within r-running speed!"
"Neato keano! I'm pulling up along the temple now!"
"Is h-he there?!" Ebon responded to the crackling intercom. "Does he see us?!"
"Just chillax and let me assist him with the hurricane-defying leap of death! Okay?! Now keep it at this speed!"
"Hurry up!" Ebon panted. "If I h-hold us back for t-too long, we m-might stall!"
"Almost got him... almost got him..."
"Come on, EE..." Ebon heaved and hissed. "Come on..."
"Hnnnngh-Gaaagh!"
Eagle Eye dove forward, rolled out of the way of a diving pegasus, and stabbed his sword straight up into the gut of another one flying through the narrow chamber after him. The creature split in two, splashing into wet purple puddles against the far side's columns. The first attacker came around for another swipe, but Eagle Eye was ready, blinding the thing's glazed eyes with a magical attack. When it flew past him, he gave its wing a deep cut, ripping it from the stalk.
As the creature spun into the lightning and thunder, Eagle Eye saw an odd sight in the distance.
The breathless stallion stood up, leaning tiredly on his glistening sword. His expert eyes squinted, and he gasped.
The Noble Jury was pulling up along a temple, and a petite lavender shape was bravely leaping off the platform and landing on the ship's top deck just beneath its flickering red skystone. From afar, the tell-tale flash of an opening cockpit struck Eagle's vision, and then the Noble Jury picked up speed, outflying a rampaging flock of pegasi.
"No..." Eagle Eye stammered. "N-no... that's not me..." He gnashed his teeth and ran up to the edge, shouting against the thunder. "That's not me!" He shivered and yelped, "Don't let him on board, guys! Don't let—"
More shrieks echoed behind him.
"Gnnnghh!" Eagle hissed into his clenched teeth, swiping blindly overhead. The pegasi nipped and snapped at his ears, barely missing him by a hair. Puddles of quivering muck collected thicker and thicker as he hopped over the mess, scampered around a series of columns, and struggled in vain to catch up with the runaway manaship. "Noooo! Come back! Please! Come b—"
The undead swarm flew at him from all directions.