//------------------------------//
// Regarding the Failure to Launch 
// Story: Urohringr 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

	"I got it..."  Props stammered, her goggles reflecting the bright glow of the manacrystal in its new power housing.  "I th-think I got it!"

"Brill, Propsicle!" Prowse shouted above the noise of the Tarkington's rumbling engine.  "Just in the nick of time too!"

"We gotta get this thing into the air!"  Props flinced at the dull reverberation of pegasus bodies colliding with the outer hull.  "These survivors have spent enough time freaking out!"

"Right!  Let me just adjust the auxiliary output—"

"Nnnngh!"  Props shoved the stallion across the room with a remarkable show of strength.  The blonde mare snarled into his face.  "You get your handsome keister to the cockpit! I have things taken care of here!"

"But... but..."

"Do it now or else I'll bolt your remaining legs to the bulkheads!"  She blinked, suddenly blushing.  "Uhm... please?"

Prowse blinked, then smiled awkwardly.  "Yes, ma'am."  He spun and hobbled out the engine room.  Threading through seated and trembling ponies, Prowse galloped the full length of the Tarkington.  "Look out!  Coming through!  Move your bloomin' arses!"  He breezed past Lasairfion and her subjects, a cluster of Ledomaritans, and finally landed in the ship's one-seat cockpit at the far end.  "Time to take to the skies, lasses and laddies!"  He flipped several instruments and pulled twin levers, powering up the rear thrusters of the craft.  Tilting his head back, he shouted over his shoulder.  "Anypony with the bollocks to be fighting those freaks outside..."





"...now is an awfully good time to give it a rest and throw yourself on board!"  Prowse's voice echoed through the open doorframe.  "We're kissing this temple good bye!"

"That's our ride, Arcshod!"  Seclorum shouted above the criss-crossing projectiles and energy blasts.  "All aboard who's coming aboard!"

"Dreit dreit..."  Arcshod smashed one last pegasus' skull in with a tossed chunk of granite.  Sweating, he spun and galloped on heavy hooves towards the Tarkington's door.  Seclorum followed after him, trotting backwards.  "Josho?!  Old stallion?!  You coming?"

"Sorry, Secchy," Josho grunted as he reloaded his shotgun and shuffled towards the Noble Jury.  "But there's a new mistress in my life!  And her name's Nancy!"

"You could at least be subtle about it," Eagle Eye stammered while fending off a pegasus with his metal shield replacement.

"And you could learn to shriek less."

"Huh?  Aaaaaaiiieeeee!" Eagle Eye squealed like a little filly as he was picked up in Josho's telekinetic field and tossed onto the Noble Jury.

"Go time, ya space elk!"  Josho hollered as he threw his heavy self after Eagle Eye and abandoned the temple.  "Vacation's over!"

"You hear that, hollow boomer?!" Floydien shouted to the cockpit as he fended off a retaliating wave of undead.  "Just like Floydien showed you!  Drift drift and glimmer zoom!"





"Aye, your red-nosedness!"  Zaid grinned from ear to ear as he yanked at the Noble Jury's controls.  Behind him, Floydien, Eagle Eye, and Josho gripped to the top deck as he veered the ship away from the temple in a turbulent hover.  "Props and the other ponies on board the sausagemobile had better catch up, though!"

"She'll get them into the air!" Eagle Eye's voice sputtered into the hurricane winds.  "They're in the best possible hooves!"

"The sexiest too, depending on whose team you're rooting for!"  Zaid turned around and shouted down the crawlspace.  "Belle, how're you doing down there, girl?!"

"Just fine, Zaid...!"





Bellesmith crawled down the last rung of the ladder while Elma clung to her back.  She gulped and continued, "Just keep doing what you're doing!"

Her eyes remained locked on the observation room.  Gently, she laid Elma down on the floor within the doorframe and rushed forward.  She reached her hooves into a hammock and scooped Kera out.  Her eyes instantly teared up as she leaned in and nuzzled the dormant child.  With a hissing inhale, she broke into a fragile smile, caressing the filly's mane.

"You're so brave, Kera.  I'm sorry.  All this time... all the things I did..." She rubbed her cheek against the child's.  "I'm sorry.  Things will be different.  I promise.  You'll..."  She sniffled, smiling painfully.  "You'll get to see your daddy again.  I can guarantee it.  I can..."

Her chestnut eyes drifted up.  She stared out the shattered observation room window with a moist blink.

Outside and below, the Tarkington hadn't lifted off.  It continued lying on its side atop the temple, swarmed by zombie pegasi.  Its engines flickered and sputtered, but the vessel didn't move an inch.

"Why hasn't it taken off yet...?" Bellesmith murmured.





"Rainbow, c-could you slow down a little—?!"

"No can do, buddy!"  Rainbow hissed as she squeezed the two of them through the tunnel at the bottom of the pit.  The two zoomed past the petrified plant in the chamber full of vines and dripping muck.  "This city's got a one-way ticket to oblivion and you and me are the sole conductors!"

"Look out, Rainbow!" Pilate exclaimed, his helm buzzing.  "Above us—"

"I see it!" Rainbow said, then spun upside down so that the zebra was aimed at the dropping goo.  "Sword out!"

"Ah—Spark!"  Pilate winced, nervously slash-slashing the golden weapon left and right.  Thanks to the way Rainbow positioned him, he successfully evaporated the muck before it could cascade over them.

"Good job!  But the icky part is coming up next!"

"H-huh?!" He tilted his head upside down and gazed at the narrow corridor ahead.  "Oh, heavens, no..."

Rainbow spotted gurgling pegasi emerging from the gunk in her peripheral.  "We gotta make this quick.  Hold onto your stripes!"  Hooking her wings in opposite angles, she threw the two of them into a maddening spin.

"Guhhhh!" Pilate focused entirely on gripping the Sword of Solstice.  Together, the two mimicked a fiery golden pinwheel as they soared into the curved, descending tunnel.  Like a drill, they burned and melted all of the purple slime that coated the dark, twisting stairwell.  Several agonizing seconds later, they emerged into the chamber where the hellish nightmare started.  Here, a virtual sea of purple goop awaited them, with several winged bodies leaping out and hissing.

"Time for the main event!"  Rainbow Dash held her breath and spun a low orbit through the claustrophobic room, barely avoiding the ring of holes where more and more rivers of ooze fountained loose.  "Just slash anything that moves!  Unless, of course, it's rainbow colored and attached to me!"

"Not... m-making... this any... easier!" Pilate sputtered between sword slashes.  One pegasus after another dissolved into ashen bits from the weapon's golden fury.  "Rainbow, we c-can't be doing this forever!"

"Well, I sure can!"

"I'm serious!  Our goal is the control room!" the zebra exclaimed, pointing at the center of the purple sea with his sword.  "Access to that was on the central dais—the one Razzar touched when he summoned this nightmare in the first place!"

"Right.  And now we got the key to getting to that place unscathed!  Got it!"  Rainbow flipped, dodged two lunging pegasi, and came back around to the center of the room.  "Okie dokie lokie!  Let's make ourselves an island!"

"And h-how do we do that?!"

"I dunno.  Be awesome!  It works for me!"

"Uhhhh..."

Rainbow panted, glancing out her peripheral vision as shadows closed in on all sides.  "Now or never, robo-zebra!"

"Grrrr-Raaaaaaaugh!"  Pilate lunged forward in her grasp, striking the sword down so that it stabbed half of its length into the quivering muck.  Rivulets of energy fountained outward from the stabbing point.  The purple ooze dissovled to ashen flakes, like dead skin.  Emerging through the pool was a raised platform with a cylindrical podium and a lever.  Within seconds, the Sword of Solstice had burned away enough slime to allow standing room.

"Perfect!  You're the stallion of the hour!"  With that said, Rainbow dropped Pilate.

"Gaaah!"  The stallion awkwardly stumbled to a stop, his sweat-slick back braced against the cylinder.  Rainbow flew past him in a prismatic streak, illuminated by her pendant.

"The sword!  Alley-oop!"  She stretched her hooves out.

Without a second thought, Pilate tossed the blade towards the convergence of red-and-black crosshatches that signified her figure.

She caught the blade's hilt in her teeth and immediately spiraled around in her circular orbit. "Nnnngh-ghhhh!"  A wider space in the floor was melted away, giving Pilate more breathing room.  Rainbow spat the sword out and gripped it in the crooks of both hooves.  "Okay!  You do your awesome skystone voodoo while I hold off all this crud!"

"I... I'm not entirely sure how!"

"Gnnngh!  Y-you mean Roarke never told you?!"

"She told me what to do once we got to the control room!  But opening the last door to it—"

"Just think at something!  You're good at the thinking!  Me?"  Rainbow continued hacking and slashing at the muck.  "Grnnngh!  I'm a bit busy with pulverising!"

"Right!  Just hang on!"  Pilate squirmed, ultimately gripping the lever on the center cylinder and struggling with it.  "Nnnngh... I... I-I got this!"

"Dang straight, you do!"  Rainbow spun and slashed a pegasus down the center before the slime-coated thing had a chance to pounce on the both of them.  "Hey, pretties!  How about a taste of summer?!  Yaaaugh!"





"I don't get it..."  Zaid sputtered out the side of his muzzle as he flew a slow orbit around the temple.  His eyes remained glued on the Tarkington beyond the Noble Jury's windshield.  "Why aren't they going zoom-zoom?"

"Don't spit like Floydien in the company of Nancy," the elk in question said as he marched up and practically threw Zaid out the seat with one cloven hoof.  "Everything gold and gliding, yes yes yes?"

"No no no!"  Zaid picked himself off the floor and pointed out the windshield.  "They're stuck like ducks in muck!"

"Poetic," Josho grunted as he and Eagle Eye marched inside the cockpit from the wet deck outside.  "For real, though, what gives?"

"Isn't Props on board, helping them?" Eagle Eye squeaked, breathless.

"They must be having trouble," Josho mumbled.  "Poor Aatxe's ship hasn't flown in years.  Who's to know how much dust is crammed up that vessel's plot."

"We g-gotta help them!" Eagle stammered.

"How?"  Josho frowned.  "They've got all the juice and juju they could possibly need!"

"Well, Floydien thinks the glimmer is not enough..."

"Come on... come on, blondie," Zaid shook his hooves, biting his lip in tension.





"Propsicle?!"  Prowse yanked and yanked at the controls of the Tarkington.  The engines of the ship sputtered and roared and sputtered again, sending dull reverberations down the body of the dormant craft.  Behind the pilot's seat, several survivors murmured and trembled in panic.  "Propsicle, now would be a good time, lass!"

Props' voice shouted down the long corridor from the engine room.  "I'm giving her all she's got!  But she won't take off!"

Arcshod sweatily stammered, "V'lanna'siul messul nessa'keen thiul spaana'keem!"

Seclorum galloped past him.  "The sound's coming from the rear!"  He leaned against the back of Prowse's pilot's chair.  "It's gotta be the take-off thrusters.  After all these years, they must be burnt out."

"If that's the case, then we can't take off, no matter how much raw power my niece channels into the manacircuits."

"So what do we do?" Seclorum sputtered.

Prowse looked over his shoulder at him and the other ponies.  "Hypothetically, unicorn magic can set off the thrusters with a spark, but..."

"Lemme guess..."  Seclorum's eyes narrowed.  "That's gotta be done on the outside."

Prowse bit his lip.

Seclorum took a deep, deep breath.  "Well, it's not like I was going to live forever."

"Huh?" Prowse blinked.

Seclorum turned and gestured towards the door.  "Somepony open it up again!  I feel like going for a stroll—"

"Grnnngh!"  Arcshod slapped Seclorum's hoof away and glared the stallion down.  "Haak'tin!  N'mberaat siul rekka siulen drenn'adrentte!"

"Love you to, ya big lug," Seclorum droned, then brushed past him.  "But this has gotta be done.  It's not like we have any more miracles to rely on—"

Just then, the entire ship shook.  Everypony gasped—including Seclorum—as the vessel jolted forward, then jolted forward again.  Even Lasairfion blinked with wide-eyed surprise.

"What in the bloody hell...?!" Prowse stammered.

Props' voice rang through the ship.  "We're moving!  We're taking off!"

"Yeah... but..."  Seclorum spun towards one of the many portholes, squinting at the gray world outside.  "How...?"





"They're moving!"  Eagle Eye hopped up and down with a bright smile.  "They're moving they're moving they're moving!"

"What in the spit spit...?" Floydien's red eyes twitched.

"Did blondie pull through?" Josho asked.

Zaid smirked wide and pointed out the Noble Jury's windshield.  "I'll give ya six little hints."

Everypony craned their necks to see.  At the rear of the Tarkington, a half-dozen black bodies were pressed against the stern.  With buzzing dragonfly wings, changelings heaved and heaved, shoving the vessel forward until it slipped clear of the temple.  Once airborne, the thrusters sputtered to life—glowing a hot orange.  The ship raised up, and several more changelings flew in from the misty clouds, giving the vessel extra lift as its engines adjusted to the slow, cruising flight.





Inside the Tarkington, Seclorum stepped slowly back from one porthole.

Through the glass panel, a pair of changelings flew parallel to the ship.  One of them glanced over, making eye contact with the former enforcer.  In a flash of green light, Aatxe's face stared, smiled, then reverted back to an insectoid slate.  The two changelings veered off, joining a dense formation that dodged and outran the rampant flocks of undead also populating the clouds of Stratopolis.

For the time being, the Tarkington was in flight... and safe.  Several ponies exhaled and cooed with relief, hugging each other and chuckling with tears of joy.  A few of them clapped their hooves against the bulkheads in subtle applause.

Arcshod exhaled heavily, turning to smile at his equally relieved Queen.  Props' cheering voice could be heard from the engine room in the back.

Prowse smirked, gripping the controls with a hoof and a prosthetic limb, guiding it alongside the Noble Jury in a smoothe hover.  He glanced once over his shoulder, directing his voice at Seclorum.  "What do you think about shape shifters now, eh, laddie?"

Seclorum shuddered, falling back on his haunches.  "Eh... they're still flank-fuggly..."  A small smile.