//------------------------------// // A Piece of the Sun // Story: Urohringr // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// "Rainbow Dash, at the risk of sounding like a stick in the mud, have you—perhaps—outflown your welcome?" Rainbow Dash grunted, twirling through the clouds above the large structure. "A little busy here, Pilate..." "We've 'distracting' this flock for an eternity!" the zebra sputtered from where he dangled in her grasp. "Surely they can't still be chasing us!" "Uhhhhhh..." Rainbow Dash glanced over her shoulder. No less than four dozen winged freaks emerged from the foggy depths behind her. "Hate to break it to ya, zebra dude, but they're angrier than ever." She gulped as she glided forward. "And don't call me 'Shirley.'" "Rainbow, we can't do this endlessly!" Pilate spoke over the rattle of the skystone shard in his satchel. "At some point, we have to make for the core of the structure! Only there can we hope to eliminate the evil of Stratopolis once and for all!" "Pilate, you were never in the heart of this building!" Rainbow grunted as she swung hard to the left and blurred around the structure in a sharp turn. "It's filled to the brim with that goey purple death stuff! There's no friggin' way we can make our way inside!" "Well, we've got to find a way! Or else everypony we know and love is dead in this place!" "What in the h-hay?!" Rainbow Dash sputtered, glancing straight down. "I mean it, Rainbow! It's not like we have the resources to escape on our own! Not even Roarke!" "No, I mean—what in the buck's going on down there?!" Ranbow Dash exclaimed, staring at the first of several survivors popping out onto the balcony of the structure. "Why'd they come out from hiding?" "Rainbow, even with this helm, I can't possibly see that far. Who are you talking about?" "The survivors! Josho, Props, and the others! Even Lasairfion!" "Perhaps the evil has spread further than we anticipated?" "Or maybe..." Rainbow Dash gulped in mid twirl. She pulled up and flew skyward from the shrieking pursuers. "M-maybe they're going after the Tarkington." "The Tarkington?" "It's Aatxe's stranded ship. We accessed the core of the building to get manacrystals that would power the thing up. I'm guessing that the ponies are desperate to jump-start the thing and escape the infestation, but with the temples spread apart and crud, I dunno how—" Pilate suddenly gasped. "Rainbow! Look out! Three o'clock sharp!" Rainbow Dash looked slightly to her right. Three pegasi soared in from nowhere, barreling straight towards her. With a grunt, Rainbow backflipped to avoid their attack. The first two streaked past her. The third, however— WHUD! The undead pony tackled Pilate, yanking him from Rainbow's grip and carrying him—gasping—down into the thunderous maelstrom of Stratopolis. "Pilate!" Rainbow Dash shrieked, hovering in place. A pegasus tackled her from behind. She snarled, bucked it away, and propelled herself off the thing's chest. Soaring straight down, Rainbow Dash fearlessly threaded her way through the mess of pegasi just as they caught up with her. She spun and spiraled, yelling for good measure. Wingbones snapped and strips of flesh melted all around her. The mare barely managed to squeeze her way safely past the splashes of acidic goo. Once she emerged on the other side, she caught sight of Pilate once again—dangling in one monster's grasp. The creature was leaning its muzzle in to bite onto his neck; the zebra defended himself by blocking the attack with his glowing staff, but he was starting to slip from the freak's grasp. "Hang on, Pilate! I'm a'comin'!" Rainbow Dash angled her wings, dove like a missile, and practically bowled herself in between the zebra and the zombie. There was a splash of purple goop in the air. Rainbow swiped Pilate up and hooked a single wing out, throwing the two of them into a sharp corkscrew and narrowly missing the splash of slime. However, this slowed them down, making them prime targets for the creatures soaring down from above. Two separate monsters caught up with Rainbow, spearing her and accelerating her suicidal descent. Rainbow struggled and fought them back, but the four of them still became a tangled mess. Out the corner of her eye, Rainbow spotted the domed ceiling of the structure emerging through the storm. "Rainbow!" the zebra gasped, his helm flickering from the inside out. "Brace y-yourself!" Crasssh! Rainbow and Pilate sailed through the middle-most panel of the stained glass ceiling. They plummeted among a sea of rainbow colored shards. Somehow, in the last few dozen feet afforded her, Rainbow succeeded in flipping herself and her foes around. They impacted the floor of the room with the zombies striking the granite first. Rainbow and Pilate went tumbling in separate directions, rolling over broken staves and black crystals. Above, thunder and rainwater poured through the fresh hole in the glass ceiling. Then came the pegasi, slipping through one at a time, shrieking at the top of their decaying lungs. Pilate was the first to get up. "Rainbow! Look out—" With gnashing teeth, he gripped onto his staff and spun about in time to impact a diving zombie. He bucked a second attack, sending the thing's decrepit body sailing off and smashing through an ancient barricade along one of the adjacent corridors. Rainbow Dash climbed over a broken monolith, jumped over a splash of purple muck, and landed with a jump kick against a recovering pegasus' chest. "We gotta get out of this place! Pilate, gallop towards one of the tunnels and I'll—" Two creatures tackled Rainbow from behind, shoving her to the floor and preparing to spill their slimy innards over her wings. "Rainbow!" Pilate smashed the skull in of a beast, galloped forward, sensed a creature diving from behind, and kicked up a staff from the ground with his hoof. He spun—knocking the debris back with his weapon—sending it slamming off the skull of the diving creature. Once again regaining his stride, he sped in and smashed one monster off of Rainbow's backside, then aimed and fired an energy blast at the chest of the other. Rainbow rolled to safety in the middle of the room—only to hear Pilate grunting. She looked over and saw two creatures tackling him from behind. "Oh no you don't!" She jumped up, kicked her legs against the center cylinder of the room, and propelled herself at the fight. She speared both zombies at once, knocking them off Pilate's shoulders and shoving them clear across the room. The three of them slammed into something hard. Rainbow's ears rang with the smashing of granite slabs. She rolled across the ground, coming to a stop with a pained groan. When she looked up, the first thing she saw was the cracked face of an equine effigy. "Commander Hurricane...?" She glanced behind to see the tomb smashed to bits. The barest hint of a petrified skeleton lingered in the rainfall. "Awwwww shoot." Just then, the chamber filled with hellish shrieks. Rainbow jerked a glanced upwards. The pegasi had stopped slithering through the hole in the domed ceiling. They flinched in place, thrashing about. "Uhhhh..." "Rainbow!" Pilate exclaimed. Rainbow spun around—but had to squint. The zebra nervously stood a few feet from her, but even then it was next to impossible to see him. An exceedingly bright aura of gold light was obscuring his figure, including the bodies of the zombified monsters squirming nearby. "Something's happening," the stallion wheezed. "They... th-they appear to be overcome by something!" Rainbow squinted, hovering a hoof over her brow as she approached the source of the light. "No friggin' way..." she slurred. "You're not going to believe this..." "Uhhh..." Pilate gulped as he aimed his helm at the paralyzed creatures. "At this rate, you're welcome to try me." Rainbow reached into the blinding light. Her hoof felt something and gripped around it. Upon physical touch, the light dimmed slightly, eventually becoming visible in the mare's grasp. It was a long, double-edged sword, guilded down the center with six studded, multi-colored gemstones. The metal of the blade was an immaculate golden color, and the hilt bore the image of a regal alicorn. "The Sword of Solstice..." Rainbow Dash murmured, her jaw hanging agape. "Huh?" Rainbow glanced at the smashed tomb of Commander Hurricane, then back at the blade. "Of course... of course!" "Rainbow, help me out here! What's going on?" "I think a little bit of sunshine has returned to Stratopolis." The zebra cocked his helm slightly to the side. "Is that a weapon in your grasp?" "And how..." Rainbow looked aside at the beasts quivering in pain. The goo on their bodies evaporated with little puffs of steam the more she held the sword in their direction. "Still, only one way to find out." She gripped the hilt of the sword in her teeth, dove in, and gave the beasts a wide slash. The creatures literally split in two, and whatever was left of their purple-stained flesh melted into dark ash. Two creatures suicidally plunged from above, but Rainbow was more than ready. She grunted into her grip of the weapon and swung the Sword of Solstice in a high arc. The monsters caught flame for a brief second, then split apart on either side of her, littering the ground with flakes of ash. "Great Spark!" Pilate wheezed, flinching from the bits and specks of undead flesh littering around him. Rainbow backed up into him, holding the sword in her hooves. "Pilate, I now know how Hurricane beat back the infestation far enough to seal the heart of this place." "Then that means..." Rainbow nodded. "We just might be able to retrace her path and get to the core again." "Then what are we waiting for?" "Pfft! Who said anything about waiting?" Rainbow grinned, then launched herself at a writhing mass of undead. "Haaaaugh!" The room flashed with gold as the zombified pegasi met their burning fate.