With a glicker of greenflame, "Eagle Eye" smirked at himself. He swiveled around from the Noble Jury's damaged intercom and approached the far end of the engine room—
Clanggg! A dislocated steam pipe slammed across his skull.
With a hiss, the changeling jolted backwards, breaking face with a wincing expression. It turned back into Eagle Eye long enough to glare across the cabin.
Gripping the pipe in his teeth, Ebon Mane paced himself from the shape-shifter, flicked his tail, and came in for another strike. "Gnnnnghhh!"
Eagle Eye easily side-stepped him, ducked a second strike, swiveled about, and bucked Ebon Mane in the fetlocks.
"Ooomf!" Ebon pratfalled, collapsing against the teetering floor of the runaway vessel's interior. He struggled back to his hooves—only to have the weight of the changeling slamming down against his spine. "Guhh!" He quivered as his grinning nemesis clutched his chin and scalp in separate hooves, pressing inward from both angles and threatening to crush his skull. Wincing, Ebon squinted forward. His hoof danced around until it grasped the dangling electrical manacable that had been detached from the ship's engine core. With a grunt, he jabbed the cable up and into the changeling's fake horn.
"Gaaa-aaa-aaa!" The shapeshifter rolled off of Ebon.
The stallion scampered up to his hooves and ran forward. He crossed the distance of the engine room and yanked a metal tool off the nearby bench. When he spun around to face his foe—a tentacle had wrapped around his waist.
Snarling, the half-mutated changeling pulled back, flinging Ebon along the full length of his morphing appendage. The stallion slammed into the wall, another wall, and was finally sent—crashing—through Props' workbench. Ebon rolled limply to the floor, whimpering in pain.
With thudding footsteps, the changeling trotted icily towards Ebon's twitching figure. He retracted his tentacle, morphing it slowly back into a hoof. "You've given me quite the workout. I would gladly feed..." His hoof spread into five sets of digits as it became a reptilian hand in the changeling's possession. "...if only you weren't such a blank slate." Then, with a snarl, he formed all five fingers into a fist and slammed it straight into Ebon's muzzle.
High above the Noble Jury's plummeting plight, a flock of undead pegasi flew in circles. There was no rhyme or reason to their aerial patterns. This may have had something to do with the fact that one of their numbers was being ridden like a bucking bronco.
"Grrrr-rrrr!" Eagle Eye hissed into the pelting rain. He straddled one of the larger pegasi, stabbing his sword straight down through the creature's skull. Telekinetically twisting the hilt of his blade left and right, he awkwardly steered the creature, struggling for dominance of its flight pattern.
Beneath him, the monster hissed and spat purple vomit at every turn. Its labored wings deteriorated under Eagle's weight. Its already mangled body was dissolving, shred by shred, losing its pulpy muscles in the merciless rain.
"Come on... c-come onnnn..." Eagle gnashed at his teeth, feeling the pull of gravity nip and bite at his senses with every thrashing move that the monster made. He heard shrieks rising around him in intensity, and he ducked his skull with folded ears to avoid the passing pegasi from biting chunks of skin off his head.
Down below, the Noble Jury loomed within view. Through the rain and lightning, Eagle Eye nervously spotted a gigantic temple hovering in front of it at a distance—a distance that was swiftly closing.
Eagle Eye bit his lip. Around that time, he felt a dip in the monster's flight. His sword's hilt grew looser and looser. "H-huh?!" He glanced down.
Purple goop was crawling up the blade, just inches from Eagle Eye's body. The zombie pegasus was literally melting from the inside out, and twirling white eyeballs peaked out of every lacerated orifice in the beast.
Eagle Eye took a deep breath. He ducked the swooping attack of another pegasus, then stood up on the creature's back with wobbly legs. With an inward shout, he ripped his sword out from the monster's head and tossed the infected weapon skyward. It skewered the bodies of two more pegasi, breaking off their attack.
While they were distracted, the ex-mercenary swan-dove off the spine of his liquified mount. He straightened his body into a lavender arrowhead, plunging towards the ship far below. As its rain-slick bulkheads grew close enough for Eagle Eye to spot every rivet of detail, he concentrated hard and encased his entire body in a magical field. The wind wipped against his face, forcing him to blink. When he next opened his eyes, he could only see moisture. So, in a desperate shout, he flung himself forward with the force of a telekinetic booth, and stretched both forelimbs out...
The door to the Noble Jury's engine room hung open.
One shuffling hoofstep after another, the changeling crept through the navigation room and approached the observation room at the ship's bow. Despite the rattle of the bulkheads and the shrill whistle of the hurricane winds outside, he kept his pace slow, methodical, and calm. He glanced down at Floydien's meaty body, smirking at the bruises lining the elk's skull. As he stepped gingerly over the creature's limbs, he approached a little bundle of a figure lying on the hammoc in front of him.
Kera lay in a fetal position, her glazed eyes reflecting the figure as he drew close... and closer.
"Hmmmmm..." The changeling squinted at her. Slowly, his smile returned. "Yes..." He grinned harder. "Oh yes..." As he came closer to the filly, his hair grew in length, turning gray around a pale coat. "You have so much misery to give..." One of his eyes scarred over while a cold voice murmured through the Prime Enforcer's throat. "...so very delicious."
Kera's breaths grew shallower and shallower through her nostrils. A slight tremble ran through her figure, and a tear rolled down her tattooed cheek.
The changeling's one good eye flickered green. Fangs glistened from under his lips as he reared his muzzle over the filly's throat—
WHAM! A pair of legs slammed across his skull.
"Ooomf!" The changeling slammed into the wall, morphing into an equine insectoid. Snarling, it glared angrily across the observation room.
Zaid finished sliding down the ladder of the vertical crawlspace. "Httt!" He landed across from the changeling, his mane sticking out at every angle with electrical sparks fizzling at their ends. "Did I ask for this 'fro, bra?! Did I?!"
"Hsssssssss..." The changeling cracked the joints in its neck and hissed, "When I'm done feeding off of her, I'll shove her useless flesh down your throat—" A horseshoe ricocheted off its skull. "Aaugh!"
"Buck you, pal!" Zaid snarled, yanking another horseshoe off and tossing it. "Buck you and the horse you rode in on! So, in other words, buck you squared!"
The changeling dodged the second shoe and charged viciously across the chamber. "You were doomed before you even came into this city—OOF!"
The shape-shifter's words came to a stop, for Zaid had unabashedly speared him with his diving body. The stallion plunged the two of them across the cabin so that they rolled over the floor and ended up with Zaid on top. The stallion brought both forelimbs together to smash the changeling's face in. The shape-shifter swiftly turned into Josho and head-butted Zaid savagely. Zaid stumbled back, sputtering, and the creature pounced on him in the form of Rainbow Dash.
Kera's body swung in the hammock from the ship's perilous flight. Her unblinking eyes reflected the two equines locked in combat. One shape repeatedly punched the other while its opponently finally returned with an uppercut and a slam to its gut.
"Gnnkkt!" The changeling spun, slamming chest-first into the wall of the observation room. Before it could peel itself away, Zaid pressed into its backside. The stallion gripped the insectoid's skull and slammed it repeatedly into the bulkheads. "Do not!" WHAM! "Threaten!" WHUD! "The filly!" SMACK! "It's totally!" THWACK! "Not!" THUD! "Sexy!"
In a flash of green flame, the changeling rematerialized with its head on backwards. With a hiss, it lunged forward and bit its fangs into one of Zaid's forelimbs.
"Aaaaaugh!" Zaid wailed in pain, repeatedly bopping the thing's skull in desperation to dislodge it. "D-dude! Not on a first date—"
In the meantime, the changeling's tail morphed into the bottom half of a snake. The reptilian limb coiled around Zaid's rear legs and lifted him off the floor. After tossing the stallion towards the ceiling, the creature leapt up, morphed into Arcshod, and bucked Zaid's body in midair.
"Ow ow ow ow ow—" Smack! Zaid winced as his muzzle mushed up against the doorframe to the crawlspace. "...owwwwwwwwww." His front hooves dangled against a fire extinguisher.
Grumbling, Arcshod morphed into Seclorum and marched forward—Clangggggg!—and right into a swinging fire extinguisher.
Panting, Zaid trotted forward, swinging the bludgeon about in the crook of his hoof. "Jee, is it cold and lifeless around here?" Smack! Thud! Whack! "Or is it just you?!"
After the last impact, the changeling spun around and turned the end of its tail into a razor-edged blade. It sliced the fire extinguisher down the center, spilling flame retardant goop all over the floor.
Zaid stood in place, blinking dazedly at the two halves of the extinguisher in his grip. "Dude... not cool." WHAM! A hoof at the end of a tentacle savagely uppercutted him.
Wasting no time, the changeling wrapped the appendage around Zaid's throat and slammed him multiple times into opposite walls. At last, he dropped him to the observation room floor and loomed above the groaning stallion. The creature morphed its two forelimbs into barbed insectoid stingers and aimed them at the nape of his neck.
Zaid gulped. "What I wouldn't have g-given to get laid once m-more..." He sputtered. "...with cheese."
"Mother spare me," the changeling snarled, spitting green blood and saliva. "The Austraeoh wasted all of her time on a ship of fools. And to think that this task almost offered me a challenge—"
Flasssssh!
A fountain of electrical energy soared into the creature's gut. Zaid gasped as the changeling flew off him and slammed into the bubble windows at the very front of the room. Wincing all over in manafire, the changeling looked across the cabin.
Floydien was sitting up, awake, and very pissed off. His antlers crackled as they summoned an even brighter charge this time. "Get off my Nancy," the elk slurred. Zaaaaaap!
The changeling let loose one scream before its melting body was shoved like grinded meat through the shattered glass. Dissolving in a green spray, its limbs flew off into separate directions, carried off by the shredding gales of Stratopolis. The cabin instantly flooded with wind and rainwater.
The first thing Zaid did was grab Kera's body and shelter her with his figure. He hobbled over and crouched beside Floydien with his back to the pelting maelstrom.
"H-hey there, big guy! Bodacious wake-up ultra! My aching flesh would have liked it if you did it a minute or two earlier, but—"
"For the love of hush hush..." Floydien groaned, rubbing his bruised scalp with a cloven hoof. "Does the boomer ever shut up?"
"You have no idea how glad I am to hear your deliciously wonky voice, duuuude!" Zaid shouted above the howling winds. "Still, did you have to get medieval on your own windows? It's not exactly Mareami Beach outside the Jury, y'know—"
"Nancy Jane..." Floydien's red eyes twitched as he gawked at the smashed front window behind Zaid. "...where is Floydien's beloved headed to...?"
"Huh?" Zaid held Kera tight as he glanced over his shoulder. His pupils shrank. "Oh pineapple tits!"
An enormous temple loomed just within view. The entire ship was ten seconds away from smashing into a rusted pulp.
"Get Floydien's flank to the cockpit!" The elk stammered, struggling to get up on wobbly legs.
"I'm... tr-trying...!" Zaid grunted, shoving his shoulder hard into Floydien's enormous side. "But Floydien's flank is so darn flankity!"
"Floydien... can... h-hardly trot balance-side-up..." The elk slumped helplessly against the doorframe to the crawlspace. "Nancy, forgive Floydien... so much dizzy dizz...."
"Come on, ya big lug!" Zaid resorted to kicking the elk repeatedly in the rear. "Just jump or something! You can make it up there..." His voice cracked as he felt the whole ship tilting upwards. "...make it?"
Floydien gasped, gazing awkwardly towards the bow.
Through the shattered windows, the temple could be seen swaying out of view. The clouds shifted, and the heart of Stratopolis evened out. The vessel had lifted to a higher elevation on its own.
"Floydien didn't..." The elk murmured. "...then what boomer did?"
Zaid blinked, then blinked again. With a gasp, he lay Kera down in the doorframe to the navigation room and scurried swiftly up the ladder.
Up in the cockpit, the door to the Noble Jury's top deck had been forced open halfway. Rainwater seeped over Zaid's body as he ascended from below. He gazed in shock at a sopping-wet figure seated at the controls.
"Don't ask," Eagle Eye sputtered, evening the vessel out so that it spun clockwise once more around the heart of the floating city. "You wouldn't b-believe me even if I told you."
"Lavender Unicorn!" Zaid lunged forward, hugging Eagle Eye from behind and nuzzling the back of his soaked mane. "Heeeee! You totally pulled a Han Soloats!"
Eagle Eye shivered and said, "The name's Eagle Eye, y'know."
"Don't ruin the moment." Zaid smirked. "Egads, look at you! It's like you just got an invite to a wet saddle contest and your mane was caught unprepared." Suddenly, Zaid blinked, then leaned back with a suspicious squint. "Wait. How do I know it's you?"
Eagle Eye sniffled. He glanced back with sparkling eyes, biting his lip. "My... mane isn't t-too ruined, is it?"
Zaid stood perfectly still. At last: "Yeah, okay. 'You' enough."
"Please tell me the others are alright!" Eagle Eye exclaimed.
"Thanks to you, a bunch of us are."
"Define 'a bunch of us.'"
"Kera's in one piece. Floydien recovered just in time to paint the skies with shape-shifter intestines. I'm still all around best background pony—"
"Ebon..." Eagle Eye gasped, his eyes growing wider. "Where's Ebon? Is he...?"
Zaid blinked, then smiled. He tugged at Eagle's forelimbs and switched places with him. "Let me be the autopilot pony once again until Floydien's ready. You go down into the engine room and check on yours turly, Romeoats."
"Okay..." Eagle Eye panted, shimmying swiftly down the crawlspace. "Okay okay okay..." He galloped straight past Floydien and Kera, practically throwing himself into the engine room beyond. All was silent for the space of a minute, and then the door to the room closed slowly, shutting the two inside.