“Rrrrgh!” With crazed eyes, Midnite Bastion charged a line of reindeer straight on.
The guards backtrotted, firing blast after blast at her with their enchanted antlers.
FLASH! FL-FLASH!
Midnite hopped to the left and right, dodging the energy streams. As they fired low, she flung her body forward in a massive slide. She came to a stop in the middle of the group, spun her legs all around, and tripped three of them. As they fell down, she hopped up, swiping a staff from one guard and using it to block another's attack. After uppercutting him, she pole-vaulted through the group, dodged another blast, spun, and flung the thing like a javelin—grazing a soldier bloodily in the shoulder.
By this time, a thick phalanx had formed protectively besides Saikano's body. They formed two columns, one crouching before the other, and they all launched their mana-charges at once.
Midnite spun about, her pupils shrinking as she witnessed the wall of rippling destruction surging her way.
At the last second, a blue figure flew in front of the mare. Rainbow Dash gripped a dislodged metal ceiling panel in her front hooves, and she held it out like an enormous shield, blocking the converging manablasts. CL-CLAAANG!
“Rainbow...” Midnite wheezed, sweating.
“Grnnngh!” Rainbow gnashed her teeth as her body buckled under the jolting panel in her grasp. “So, lemme get this straight...” She glanced over her shoulder and spat, “You led us down here and gave us all concussions just so you can turn on the bad guy in the end?! Couldn't you have just cut out the stupid part in the middle?!”
“Oh, I'm sorry!” Midnite retorted, frowning. “Maybe you can give me some advice from the last time you had to turn on your very own father!”
Rainbow wheezed, shrugging. “Okay, I'll give you that.” She tilted her head up and shouted. “Hey! Buttwinkle! Time to pull a rabbit out of your hat!”
“Pancreas! I thought you'd never ask!” Deafening hoofsteps echoed across the chamber.
The phalanx of antler-flashing guards looked nervously towards their sides.
Thud Thud Thud! “Might cause underwear stains!” Jake hollered as the hairy hunk of meat charged them, horns first. “From beyond the grave!” WHAMMM!
Floydien winced. His red eyes reflected the bodies of guards as they went flying across the floor like bowling pins. He turned to look as Rainbow flung the smoking panel aside, launched up from the ground, and drop-kicked a pair of guards. “Good job!” The mare breathlessly blocked another guard's attack and head-butted him in the neck. “But let's not have ourselves an endless Celestia-damned fight scene here! Somepony knock out the cocoons before—”
“Spoke too soon!” Midnite yelped, pointing down the hallway as a fresh wave of soldiers bounded in, this time fitted with rattling plates of body armor. “Constable—”
“Haaaaaugh!” The moose galloped across the room, meeting the group head on. With two sweeps of his antlers, he had already smashed several groaning grunts into the walls of the chamber. “Me! Does a body bad! Hah!”
“Fine! You do that!” Swoosh! Rainbow dove towards the base of one glowing cocoon and pressed her body against it. She struggled, kicking against the floor in an effort to use her weight and knock the thing over. “Grnnngh... Midnite! You think you can cover me?!”
“Don't worry!” Midnite bashed one guard in the skull, dodged a beam of mana, and clashed her lance against a set of antlers. “I'm on your side for good!”
“Yeah!” Jake's voice hollered from across the violent echo chamber. “Can't re-bitch the bitch, can you?!”
“Come on... come on...” Rainbow hissed as she struggled against the pulsating pupa. “Oh, what I wouldn't give to be made out of some of your metal sometimes, Roarke...”
Th-Thwppp! Roarke spun, lashing her long metal cable of a tail through a group of imps.
“Aaaaaugh!” One goblin shrieked as the elastic bullwhip lopped his ankle clean off.
Two of his companions huddled behind a metal crate, taking cover as they fired pot shots of hot lead into the windy air.
Roarke dodged one bullet while she deflected another with her metal fetlock. With a flick of the hoof, she popped loose a flame thrower and sent a plume of plasma billowing their way. Fwooomb!
One goblin jumped out of the way. The other wasn't so lucky. “Haaa-aaaaugh!” He stumbled out of hiding, flailing as his flesh roasted in an instant.
As his smoldering corpse fell down, the goblin overseer came charging up the stairs with three heavily-armed imps in tow. “What in Haman's dickhole is going on up here—?!” He froze in place, pupils shrinking at the sight of Roarke.
Roarke crouched into a battle stance besides the damaged propeller.
“Shit!” The overseer's voice cracked as he pointed a trembling finger at the metal mare. “Sh-shoot it to shit!”
All three security officers hoisted tiny miniguns off their backs. Whirrrrrr— The grimy barrels spun, and within milliseconds—RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT!
With a burst of thrusters, Roarke lifted off the battleship's deck. The bullets whizzed straight past her, shredding the last worker to bloody ribbons and filling the propeller engine behind him with smoking holes.
“No no no—Gaaaaugh!” The overseer pulled at his ears. “You stupid ass maggots!”
Th-Thwpp!
He looked up, twitching.
Clank! Roarke fired a grappling claw into the starboard side of the vessel. She swung around on the length of a metal cord, propelling herself by flaring rockets in her rear hooves.
“Kill her! Kill her already!” The overseer unholstered a sparkling pistol, taking aim. His electrical discharges joined the stream of bullets from his companions as they traced after the metal mare.
Roarke was too fast for them. She twirled on the length of the cable, flying overhead. At last, as she started swinging down, she detached the hook completely and dove with a thrust of her remaining jet packs. FWOOOSH! She slammed helmet-first into the chest of one of the gunners.
Whump!
“Aaaaaaaaaa—!” The imp shrieked as his body flew off the deck and fell—CRUNNNCH—directly into the middle port side propeller engine. While his body was grinded to a pulp, the remaining ammunition in his minigun exploded, shattering the motor compartment to ribbons from the inside out.
Shrapnel whizzed by, ripping the throat out from under one of the two gunners. As he fell back, the overseer and the remaining officer stumbled back towards the stairwell, firing like mad into the smoldering haze of the torn engine.
“Aaaaa-aaaagh!” The gunner yelled in panic, the veins popping in his sweat-stained neck. “Die! Die! Die!” Soon, he ran out of bullets, and his minigun barrel spun with impotent dull clicks. He stood in place, panting, wide-eyes peering into the flame and smoke.
Beside him, the overseer panted and panted. He leaned forward finally, squinting.
Th-Thwpp! A black grappling cord flew out from the smog. Th-Thunk! It embedded bloodily into the gunner's shoulder.
“Grkkk!” The gunner jolted in place. His body acted as an anchor while—
Thwisssh! Roarke's suited body soared out of the ashen cloud. When she retracted the full length of the cable, her body slammed the gunner to the ground. The imp struggled with her, trying to swing the minigun like a club.
Clank! Roarke took one hit to the helmet. Her speaker's crackled with an annoyed breath. Overpowering the imp, she shoved the smoking-hot barrel down into his chest, then forced the goblin to pull the trigger. Whirrrrr! Blood and scraps of flesh sprayed between them as she shoved the spinning barrel into his ribcage like a drill. The gunner twitched one or two last times and was still.
The overseer stumbled back, his body shaking to the point that he could no longer hold his weapon straight.
Roarke's blood-stained helmet tilted up to meet his gaze.
“...!” He spun around and ran down the stairwell. “Everyone! Quick! Seal it up!”
Roarke leapt up, fired the jets at her horseshoes, and rocketed down after him.
The goblin scrambled into the lower decks, waving his arms wildly. “Goddammit! Seal up the ship! We've got a hellsteed out ther—”
WHAM! Roarke slammed into his spine. The sheer force of her velocity slid him across the metal floor underneath her hooves, grinding his gargling face to paste.
Several goblins looked up, gasping.
Roarke looked back. She cracked the joints in her neck, then reached for a lever beside her. Sch-Schwisssh! She sealed the stairwell shut above, casting the corridor into darkness. There was a strobe of crimson light, and then rocketflare.
Screaming, the goblins unleashed their weapons, filling the decks with flashing strobes as their numbers were whittled away, one by one.
“Haaaaaugh!” Jake plowed through several more guards, knocking them unconscious with strategic hooves to their chests. “Heheh!” He looked back, wiping the blood from his grinning muzzle. “Anyone besides me having fun yet?!”
A door opened, and three reindeer jumped out, summoning a conjoined blast of mana.
Midnite gasped, shoving her opponents back and pointing. “Constable! Behind you—”
Jake tried turning around.
FLASSSH! He winced... but found he was still standing.
The three guards in front of him stumbled from an electrical blast. Just as they were about to regain their bearings—FLASSSH!—another billowing stream knocked them back on their flanks.
Jake turned around.
Floydien marched forward with smoking antlers, seething. “Do not ask for whom the shimmer stabs!” He pivoted his neck and fired another shot. “It shimmers for you!” FLASSSH!
The guards in front of Midnite were slammed against a wall where they fell into groaning spasms.
The mare slumped, leaning against her lance with a breathless smile. “Nice shot, Floyd.” She instantly winced. “Erm, I-I mean...”
“Hey!” Rainbow's voice barked from further along the corridor. “Space elk!”
Floydien turned, red eyes squinting.
Rainbow gestured at the cocoon she was wrestling with. “How about shooting something a little squishier, huh?”
The elk was already dragging a hoof across the floor. “Color wheel boomer should move her butt butt.”
“You'll get no arguments from me!” Rainbow Dash dove aside. “Zoop!”
“Stupid stabby crater full of deer deer...” Floydien snarled loudly, his eyes bulging as he fired the brightest beam of mana yet. “The ghost of Simon spits 'hello!'”
A stream of electrical beams spun around each other as they traversed the width of the chamber, and pierced straight into the core of the cocoon. There was a brief strobe of green light, and then the shell exploded with green slime and smoldering embers.
Inside the High Council building, Mamunia and Jet sat calmly on a bench outside of Chancellor Fishberry's office. They wearily eyed the green-eyed guards standing emotionlessly on either side of the doe's door.
All of the sudden, the guards twitched, then spasmed. Their knees buckled, and they fell to their haunches, groaning in pain.
“... .... ...!” Jet tapped nervously on Mamunia's shoulder.
The servant glanced over, gasping. She stood up, nervously fiddling with her hood.
The guards clenched their teeth as their eyes flickered with bright pulses of emerald beneath their eyelids.
Frightened, Mamunia and Jet glanced down opposite ends of the curved corridors as they heard the collective groans and collapse of more guards in the distance. Delegates and office clerks murmured in fear.
Panicking, Mamunia opened the door to Fishberry's office and rushed in, followed swiftly by Jet.
“Duchess Arcanista!” she stammered. “Your honor! Chancellor! There's something wrong with—” She froze in place while Jet gasped sharply beside her. “...Chancellor?”
Fishberry lay on the ground, clutching her head and screaming in a high-pitch.
Arcanista gaped at her. She slowly looked towards the two servants.
Mamunia and Jet blinked back at her.
Gulping, Arcanista murmured, “It's happening...”
“Sir! Secretary, sir!” A royal guard rushed down the corridor, breathless. “It's the Soul Sentries, sir! Out in the courtyard! They're all suffering from some sort of acute mana overload! I think we need to relocate the Prince before—” He blinked, mouth agape. “...sir?”
Sharp Quill leaned against a marble pillar, sweating bullets. He opened his sockets, his eyes rolling back as he hissed with a low guttural sound.
“No...” He choked on dry air. “Saikano... you're losing them... th-they're slipping...”
In the streets of Val Roa, citizens stopped in their tracks.
Peddling merchants and chatting aristrocrats ceased talking altogether.
Chauffeurs came to a dead stop, craning their necks while their affluent passengers peered curiously out the stagecoach windows.
On balconies, atop guard towers, and various platforms, dozens of soul sentries were collapsing one by one. Stalwart reindeer guards who had occupied the same posts—motionlessly and soundlessly—for days were now reduced to drooling messes as they clutched their heads and moaned in agony.
Atop the jagged mountains running north and south along the western edge of Val Roa, guard post after guard post dimmed. Reindeer's stumbled out of their towers, falling into sweaty heaps on the arid summits, twitching and spasming.
Rushing out of a supply depot, a pair of Val Roan officers marched towards the fallen line. They stared at the paralyzed grunts as they continued to suffer a collective seizure.
The officers exchanged glances, then glanced due north. One raised a series of binoculars to his squinting eyes. From a distance, he spot a pulsating beam of light, signaling a coded message.
“Station Two-oh-Twelve is experiencing the same thing.” The elk lowered his viewers, trembling. “'All soul sentries down. Unresponsive.'” He looked at his companion. “It's not just us.”
The other officer took a deep breath. “What in God's name is going on here?”
“We need to radio this in.” He glanced south as—one by one—the green lights faded. “And quick.”
Zaid's head nodded... then nodded again. His eyelids fluttered shut—
Whap! A peach hoof slapped across his skull.
“Guh!” Zaid jolted, sitting up straight. “I-I'm just educating myself, Khao!” He blinked tiredly. “Don't you wanna know what a naked elephant looks—”
“No, coco-loco! Look!” Props pointed. “It's fading! It's fading!”
“Well hot damn on a hot damn bagel...”
“What was that?!” Belle climbed up, breathlessly, followed swiftly by Pilate. “The perimeter?”
“See for yourself!” Props stepped aside. Beyond the cockpit, the western mountaintops of Val Roa were growing dim. The green stream of lights faded into the brown earth, dissipating from the inside out like a dying gloworm.
“Beloved...?” Pilate leaned in.
Belle's lips pursed. “It's just like Rainbow Dash said...” She gulped. “That was fast.”
“Almost too fast,” Zaid said. Nevertheless, his hooves gripped the controls tight. “Could it be the real thing?”
“How much more real do you want, Zaidy Waidy?”
“Maybe they're just—I dunno—recharging their antlers?” The pilot gulped. “Did Rainbow Dash even tell us what it'd look like if she succeeded?”
“It's your call, Cap'n!” Props chirped.
Belle took a deep breath. She brushed her bangs back over her shattered horn. “Push on through.”
Zaid smirked. “Pushing, ma'am-sir!” He thrusted both throttles forward. “Like a fat mare foaling!”
FWOOOSH!
Pilate and Props grunted as their bodies were jolted against the bulkheads. The Noble Jury flew forward so swiftly that it buckled from the inside out. Air streamed all across the bow, condensing moisture briefly across the windshield. The ship picked up speed exponentially, zooming towards the western mountains on screaming skystone engines.
“Careful!” Pilate sputtered. “We don't want to overload Rainbow's tome!”
“Pick your poison, Bray Charles!” Zaid spat, gritting his teeth as he clung to the rattling controls. “Either we overload ourselves or they do! In pieces!”
Breathless, Props slid down the crawlspace. “I'll be in the womb!”
“Words to make love to by!” Zaid hollered, leaning back as his eyes squinted at the incoming mountains. “Hang on to your horse holes!”
The air whined around the Nancy Jane. Immediately outside, Bellesmith could see a cone of air forming thickly. She was so mesmerized, that she almost didn't register the crackle of her soundstone.
“Beloved! The stone—”
“Oh Spark!” Belle fumbled with the enchanted rock, gripping it finally in the crook of her yellow hoof. “Roarke? Roarke?! Is that you—?!”
“Roarke?! Ding Dong, it's me!”
Belle gasped. “Rainbow!”
“Any result?!” Noise crackled across the leyline.
Pilate's ears twitched. “Is... is that mana discharge in the background—”
“Rainbow!” Belle hollered. “The perimeter's down!”
“Scrkkk! Good! Just as I hoped! Now's your chance!”
“We're already taking it!” Belle stammered, hugging one forelimb around the edge of a bulkhead. “How much of a window do you think we have?!”
“I dunno! So far, Floydien's taken down only one cocoon!”
“Huh?!” Belle grimaced. “Cocoon—?!”
The sound of energy blasts filtered through the soundstone. “Never mind! A little busy here! Just go! Go! I'll try to—SCRKKK!”
Belle's ears drooped. “Oh blessed Spark, protect them...”
“And protect us.” Pilate hugged Belle from behind, wincing. “O.A.S.I.S. is flashing white light into my nerves.”
“You mean—?”
He nodded. “Just like last time. Somedeer down there is charging up again.”
“Zaid—”
“Waiting on blondie!”
Scrkkk! The intercom buzzed to life. “That's it! I've given Nancy some extra steam thrust! That's all the speed you're gonna get!”
“Hooooo booooy...” Zaid gulped, pressing back in his seat. “Here comes the poopie part...”
“Nnnngh... mmmfnngh...” One of several soul sentries stood up on the mountaintop, his naked eyes blinking blearily. “What... where...?”
“Wake up, soldier!” One officer hollered at him while the other frantically fought with a communications array. “Wake up! You've vowed your life and soul to Val Roa!”
“Huh? But...” The reindeer glanced weakly at other dazed figures much like him. “...my family? Why am I here...?”
“There are intruders incoming!” The officer pointed at the streaking skystone ship barreling in from the west. “Bring it down in the name of your Prince!”
“The... Prince...” The reindeer shook his head, winced, then clenched his eyes shut. “I... we...” When his eyes reopened, it was with a flash of hot emerald. “Yes. As she wishes.”
The other reindeer formed a line, their green energy regained. “As she wishes...” they collectively chanted, forming a solid line and tilting their heads skyward.
The officer blinked at them with momentary confusion. Nevertheless, as sparkling static energy filled the air, he rushed over and forced his fellow elk to shield themselves behind the supply depot.
Aiming their antlers, the soul-sentries summoned a sweeping pulse of mana.
“Zaaaaaaaaid!” Belle squeaked.
“I see them!” The pilot pushed the throttle to the limit. The mountains surged underneath, pulsating with faint green surges. “I don't like it much either!”
“Zaid, just flying by isn't going to be enough!” the mare shouted.
“Ahhhhhh kittens.” Zaid blew out his lips. “I knew you were going to say that.” He jerked hard to the right. “Hold onto somepony you love!”
Belle and Pilate flew towards the wall—then the ceiling, shrieking.
Inside the engine room...
“AAAAAACKIES!” Props flailed as she clung to the iron cage in the center. Her lower body spun like a three-sixty pendulum.
The tome pulsed and pulsed inside its cage.
Th-Th-Th-Thwoosh! The Noble Jury spiraled over the mountaintop like a corkscrew.
Seconds later.
FLASSSSSH! A violent stream of green energy shot after them, followed by several more volleys.
FLASH! FLASH! FL-FLASH!
Each bolt ricocheted off the twirling skystone shard, missing the gondola every time.
Thus. POW! With burst of sonic energy, the Noble Jury skimmed straight over the mountaintops, even knocking a few possessed deer onto their flanks in the process.
“—aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Zaid bellowed. Once the ship had pierced through the perimeter, he flung it upright and heaved breathlessly against the controls. “Aaaah! Aaaaah-haah-haah!” He pounded the dashboard with a sweaty hoof. “Yeah! You want some fries with that, ya tree-headed bitchtards?!” He flung a crazed grin over his shoulder. “Whew! I love this job!”
“Yes...” Belle shuddered, collapsed on the floor in a mane-tousled heap. “...regular nine to five.”
“Hey blondie!” Zaid shouted into the intercom. “You okay in there?!”
“Scrkkk! I can't find my goggles!”
“Stay right there! I'll come down and then we can make love and have a whole friggin' litter of baby bouncing goggles!”
“Heehee! Brkktkkl-urk... bee arr bee... barfing! SCRKKK!”
“Heheheh...” Zaid pumped a hoof in the air. “Wooo! Val Roa or bust!”
Belle helped Pilate into a sitting position. Smiling, she plucked the O.A.S.I.S. sphere up from where it was rolling across the cockpit and snapped it back into place against his choker. “There... are you okay, my love?”
“And a half...” He nodded, panting for breath. He leaned towards the sound of her voice, resting his metal forehead against her stubby horn. After several hyperventilating seconds, the stallion gulped. “Captain?”
“Hmmm?”
He smiled. “Good call.”
Belle smirked. She kissed his forehead and leaned in to nuzzle him as—
FWOOOOSH!
—the Noble Jury soared onward towards Val Roa proper.