//------------------------------//
// Almost Bacon Headed 
// Story: Appledashery 
// by Just Essay 
//------------------------------//

	Rainbow Dash hard, her tail-hairs curling from—not one—but half a dozen fireballs being spat at her from behind.

The mare panted and heaved.  She flashed a look behind her flapping wings.

Through the violently rocking world, she spotted no less than three draconian bodies plunging after her, vomiting stream after stream of burning breath.

"Fire bad!" Lancie belched, holding on for dear life.

"I know!" Rainbow gnashed her teeth, spiraling in desperation to escape the range of the burning projectiles.

"Fire bad!  Fire bad!"  Lancie's fangs clattered as the treetops blurring past them turned to ash.  The air crackled all around as smoke plumes exploded on either side.  "Fire Bad!"

"Yeah, I get it, Señor Bitch-Bitch!"  Rainbow held her breath under a cloud of embers.  "Hold on!"  FWOOOOSH!  She straight up with a savage downthrust of her wings.

"Guh!" Lancie rolled over her body, clinging to her mane before toppling off into the twirling world.

Thw-thw-thw-thwisssssh!  Rainbow arched up in a mad twirl, hurling her body towards the dragon pursuers.  Several slitted eyes flinched, as if the monsters were startled by Rainbow's daredevilish choice.  Nevertheless, the scaley beasts launched a converging array of fireblasts.

Rainbow tugged so hard at the winds that several of her blue feathers uprooted.  Nevertheless, she pulled herself into a heroic roll, narrowly avoiding the hot cores of the launched volleys.  Next came the leathery wings of the dragons—like jagged clifffaces.  She soared past them, missing by inches.  She groaned from the sheer heat of the frictious near-contact, then soared on past their frames.

Tails thwicked and slashed, and this provided a whole new challenge.  Rainbow glided past two sets of limbs no problem, but the third dragon's rear appendage was flinging towards her like a ball and chain.

"Crushed bones, incoming—!" Lancie yelped, pointing.

"Think positive, stupid!"

"Or do you mean 'think stupid, positive?'"

"Pick one!"  Holding her breath, Rainbow suicidally flung her forelimbs out—caught a length of the tail, then swung herself around it like she was gripping a flagpole.  She stopped the motion with her body mounted on the very tip of the limb.  Then, she waited just long enough... and when the tail was being flung skyward again, she released, springing upwards, being launched towards the sky like a blue bullet.

It was around this time that the three dragons swung around, their angry eyes scouring the clouds.  To their mutual surprise, there was no sign of the equine target.

The group floated to a stop, hovering in the shadow of the castle.  With heated breaths, they growled at one another:

"You all saw that, right?"

"You mean the tiny morsel of meat that used your tail as a springboard, brother?"

"Grrrrr!  Shut up!  Was that or was that not a pony?"

"A winged pony!"

"Impossible!  This far from the hoofed pastures?"

"Tell the others!  We've got a feathery idiot begging to be singed to a crisp!"

"I'll let Big Boss know!"

"No!  Just spread the word among the brood!  First one to get an eye on the morsel gets an early lunch!"

"But shouldn't we tell Aatxe—?"

"About a pony?  Pffft!  You know how Big Boss hates being bothered.  No reason to wake him over a pesky fly."

"Bah!  Whatever... nothing happens up here anymore, I swear..."

The dragons growled amongst one another and flew in opposite directions.





Rainbow Dash heard their leathery wings beating from where she clung to the belly of the floating castle's earthen base.

She pressed herself tighter to the dark dirt and stone, panting, clinging to a loose length of tree roots.

Wiping the sweat from her brow, she turned and smiled devilishly at the statue hanging off her shoulder.  "See?  Easy... as... pie..." She wheezed for breath.

Lancie folded his arms.  "Said She Who Was Nearly Barbecue."

"Hey.  What matters is I made it."  Rainbow frowned.  "Nobody said this was a ballet!"

"If only my lil' sis were that lucky," Applejack said, standing upside down on the floating island.

"Ohhhhhh shut up," Rainbow grumbled.

"Huh?" Lancie blinked.

"Not you.  Not this time, at least."  Cringeing, Rainbow Dash nevertheless scurried her way across the underbelly of the floating rock, her ears tickled to the beating wings of dragons surrounding the structure.  "Now, let's see what's up with Big Boss' Base..."