The engine room door creaked open. Sweating, Ebon glanced over. After a blink, his gaping jaw curved into a bright smile.
"EE..."
The unicorn stood at the far end. His lavender coat shone in the matching light of the Noble Jury's flickering engine core. His gaze lingered on Ebon Mane, and eventually he smiled back. "Ebon..."
Ebon Mane's breaths came in shallow little squeaks. Fighting the urge to shiver, he released his heavy grip of the lever. The ship shook as the engines regained their thrust. "Zaid! She's all yours!" Ebon sputtered into the intercom, leaning up against it with a pair of twitching hooves. "Take us out of here!"
"Aye, cook, my cook!"
The room rocked slightly from side to side as the ship once again picked up speed. Ebon twirled with a suppressed squeal. "Omigoodness! I'm sooooo glad to see..." He blinked at nothingness. "...you?"
"Everything is operating efficiently?" Eagle Eye had crossed the length of the room.
Ebon swiveled to face him, blinking. "Uhm... y-yes! I mean... it wasn't easy to keep this thing running." He trotted over with a nervous smile. "Ever since Mr. Floydien went k-kerplunk, Zaid and I have been chomping at the bit to keep from crashing the ship into a temple or some other floating structure. Neither of us exactly know how to slow the ship down or even land it... but so far... uh... so g-good?"
"You've done magnificently," Eagle Eye said, staring at the floating tome inside its cage. "Bless the Spark for having stallions like you around."
Ebon smiled. He leaned in and nuzzled Eagle's damp mane. "That's not all I'm thankful to the Spark for."
Eagle Eye turned towards Ebon.
Ebon smiled, biting his lip.
Eagle Eye brought a hoof up, caressed Ebon's forelimb... and gently brushed the stallion aside. "How about the engine core?" he asked while trotting across the room.
Ebon stumbled, blinking loosely into the bulkheads. "Uhhhh..." He snapped out of it and glanced over his shoulder. "Huh?"
"Is it damaged in any way?" Eagle Eye asked, studying the wires connecting the core to the wall consoles.
"Uhmmmm..." Ebon teetered back and forth on his hooves. After a few more blinks, he cleared his throat and said "No... I-I mean... I don't th-think so. Everything's operating smoothely."
"That must mean that Rainbow Dash is still alive."
"H-huh?"
"Rainbow Dash and the book have a connection..." Eagle Eye murmured. Silence. He turned and brandished a dashing smile. "Don't they?"
Ebon slowly, slowly nodded. "Yes... I figured as much..."
"So, if the book is in one piece, then that must mean Rainbow Dash is still alive somewhere in this city." Eagle Eye trotted up to the core again. "This is a good thing, don't you think?"
"Well... uhm... of c-course, Eagle Eye. But you're alive as well! I mean... we're so lucky..." Ebon's voice trailed off.
"Where do you suppose she may be at this moment?" Eagle Eye asked, squinting into the lavender light. "You think this thing is capable of indicating that?"
Ebon bit his lip, starting to tremble.
Eagle Eye slid, scampered, and rolled across the rain-slick temple platform.
No less than three pegasi scraped against the floor beside him, barely missing him in their deadly swoop.
At his lung's breaking point, Eagle Eye jumped up, slid backwards, and levitated his sword in a twirling slash. He lopped off the front limbs of one undead and lacerated the face of another. A third pounced on him, but the ex-mercenary rolled backwards and used the creature's momentum to fling him out into the twirling winds.
Kipping back up to his hooves, Eagle Eye stumbled forward and leaned—panting—against a column. His dazed eyes squinted through the maelstrom.
A familiar red streak was surging back towards him on its clockwise rotation. Within a minute, the Noble Jury would be once more in leaping distance. However, at its maddening speed and even crazier distance—
Shrieks lit up behind Eagle Eye.
He looked over his shoulder, then raised his sword at the last second.
A snarling pegasus slammed into him, its mouth snapping at his muzzle. Eagle Eye blocked its teeth with his sword—but took the brunt of the impact. His body plunged over the side, plummeted, and fell onto a craggy cliff of broken granite below.
"Ooomf!" Eagle Eye winced, pain wracking through his body.
Three sets of legs landed on either side of him. His ears heard the thumping of a demonic heartbeat through the rain, and he saw dribbling curtains of purple leaking over the granite in his peripheral.
Gritting his teeth, Eagle spun three hundred and sixty degrees on the wet surface, slashing the sword out in every direction. A dozen legs were reduced to ribbons in a blink. The howling undead collapsed all around him, forming a ring of bubbling purple.
Eagle Eye hopped over the acidic ooze, standing precariously now on the edge of the platform. Hurricane winds pelted his face with needle-sharp drops of rain. He teetered, wheezing, his eyes thinly gazing at the Noble Jury.
The craft was streaking below at this point. Within seconds, his last window would be missed.
Eagle gritted his teeth. He heard more banshee cries and looked up.
A solid line of undead soared his way. Eagle could see the whites of the eyes marinating in their gashed flesh.
Taking several deep breaths, Eagle frowned. As the air lit up with thunder, her twirled the sword until it was directly in front of him...
And he leapt suicidally into the deathly flock, his body one with the storm.
"See? It pulses brighter and dimmer." A lavender hoof pointed at the glowing tome across the engine room. "Could it be resonance from proximity to Rainbow Dash?"
"I... never thought that hard about it, EE," Ebon Mane said.
"If it's true, then we could use it to find Rainbow Dash."
"Uh huh..." Ebon Mane clenched his teeth. He looked left. He looked right. A large wrench hung off the edge of Props' workbench.
"Wouldn't that be a good thing?" Eagle Eye asked, his nose nearly brushing with the dark cage housing the tome. "Having Rainbow Dash here would solve so many problems."
"Yes... perhaps..." Ebon silently, stealthily picked up the wrench. Holding it in the crook of one hoof, he shuffled ever so gradually towards Eagle's flank on his other three. "Like what kind of problems?"
"Well, certainly we need to save the others," Eagle Eye said. "But we'd have to save ourselves first."
"Save ourselves..." Ebon held his breath and loomed directly behind the stallion, holding the wrench up high. "...from what, EE?"
"This is a very dangerous place, Ebon. Only Rainbow Dash is the key."
Ebon said nothing. Already wincing, he nevertheless flung the wrench towards the back of Eagle's skull—
Th-Thwwpp! Eagle's violet-streaked tail morphed into a black tentacle that spun three time around Ebon's neck.
"Snkkkkkktttt!" Ebon wheezed.
Eagle's head spun one hundred and eighty degrees, glaring at the stallion. Half a second later, his eyes flickered green... and he smiled.
Thwoooosh! WHAM! The tentacle slammed Ebon into one wall—Crasssh!—then straight through Props workbench, scattering tools and metal nick-nacks everywhere. Ebon collapsed hard on the floor sputtering and wheezing.
Eagle Eye twirled his tail back to normal, spun, and morphed his right forelimb into a crab's pincher. The black claw reached up and yanked a manacable loose from the circular frame of the caged engine core. Sparks spat out its ends as the changeling took one massive stride to the wall, grunted, and shoved the electrocuting mess deep into the intercom system. The lights of the Noble Jury flickered instantly.
Up in the cockpit, Zaid blinked. His instruments were going haywire.
"Whoah whoah whoah whoah!" He released his grip of the controls, flinching away from the splashing sparks. "What the fart?!"
A bright light strobed to his left.
Stupidly, the stallion glanced towards it.
The intercom system flickered, sparkled, then outright exploded. Bands of burning mana shot out from the overloaded soundstones and leapt into the pilot's nervous system.
"Gaaaaaaahhckkkt!" Zaid shook, quivered, and slumped to a limp, smoking heap beneath the pilot's seat. His eyes rolled back as he lay still against the bulkheads.
Its skystone engine flickering, the Noble Jury teetered to its port. It veered awkwardly through the mess and into the looming path of wayward floating platforms. The ship was soon lost in the wind and rain as it barreled along its suicide path.