Re:Harmony

by starcross7


99 - Dust to Dust

Chapter 99 - Dust to Dust
 
The strong scent of dye had the strength of smelling salts, and that enabled Rainbow Dash to regain consciousness in a tangled web of wires that hung over an exposed sky that she saw through a big blown hole on the floor.  She did know where she ended up, but the mixed bodies of guards and slaves that lay around hole assured her that, at least at first sight, her friends were not dead.
 
She would have been goner if not for her quick reflexes.  Dash had survived big explosions before, but the one that blew up the Factory's docks lacked any sense of coordination, reason, or style.  This was a work of a mad mare.  She could only think of two ponies that would relish upon this wanton destruction, and she could not decide if she should blame her or congratulate her for separating her from the fearsome Empress Commander.
 
Rainbow Dash slipped out of the web of wires and onto a stable platform.  She doused herself with water from a fallen guard's canteen to wash off the dye off her face and mane, and then flexed her wings.  Her right wing painfully resisted her conscious command, a telltale sign of a serious sprain.  She could still fly and fight, but her performance was not going to be up to snuff.  This pain, however, was nothing compared to the shame of freezing up before the burning fury of the Empress Commander.  She knew she could have grabbed the Sky Key off of her so easily, but the torturous past memories of her childhood abuse occupied her focus.
 
She took a deep breath and regained her focus.  There was no use crying over her failure.  The priority right now was to stay alive and find her friends.  She would and wanted to fly, but she needed to rest her wings should she need to face any high-ranking pegasus warrior, whether it be a captain or a Lord General.  This was going to take a while, for when Dash turned the corner, the Factory revealed its maze-like structure.
 
She galloped as fast she could in the dark halls of the Factory while her nose wrinkled at the smell of oil and metallic dust.  The terrible rumors about the Factory in Cloud 2 started to become more believable.  Whenever slaves were brought in, they never came out, and the so-called rainbows that spilled out from the many drainage pipes contained not only waste fluids, but also the blood of the ponies who were sacrificed for the Pegasopolis war machine.  This was the first time she ever stepped hoof into this monstrosity, and it felt as if the Factory became more gruesome the last them she attempted to breach it.
 
Several minutes had passed, and that was too many for a pony like Rainbow Dash.  She had yet to encounter any other conscious pony, and she wasn't getting tired from all the running around.  She was no Geosense-aware earth pony or an aura-sensing unicorn, but she really wanted to bust through each wall to find her friends.  Think, Dash, think.  There had to be a way to find her friends in a jiffy, but all she could think about was reading a sign seventy-five meters down the hall pointing to an enclosed slave ship hangar.
 
That's a start.  At least she could hijack a slave skiff and fly out to back to the blown-up docks.  Dash followed the signs, but it was so far away and she made a lot of turns before she finally arrived.  To her dismay, it was empty, and powdery dust filled the air.  In her anger, she bucked over a box of pipes that stood near the doorway.
 
Oh, wait.  There was one left at the farthest corner.  Boy, it looked really crappy, and one of its aero-oars had an obvious crack on it.  Beggars could not be choosers though, and Dash happily took a step towards an aircraft she could escape in.
 
Except that she felt a presence bristling the feathers in her wings and tingling the hairs of her fur.  She immediately stopped in her steps and she smelled something burning strongly in the hangar.  Dash saw no visible signs of fire or smoke.  Cautious, the blue pegasus picked up one of the fallen pipes and threw it in the middle of the hangar.
 
The dust electrified the metal pipe in midair and scorched it black before it clanged on the ground.
 
"Show yourself!" Dash cried as she spread her hooves in a fighting stance.  "I can take you on!"
 
From the shadows in the farthest end of the hangar, a masked pegasus mare in black and purple emerged with a chuckle.  Her turquoise wings extended, and sparks from the dust surrounded her to give her a menacing appearance.  She leapt off the ground and flew around in speeds that rivaled the Sonic Rainboom, causing many screws and bolts on the hangar walls and ceiling to shudder and unscrew themselves off from their threaded holes.  She left a trail of lightning in her display of her flight prowess, and at her last revolution, she sped head-on towards Rainbow Dash, who then braced herself for impact.  Instead, the mystery mare missed her target by an inch.  On purpose.
 
That attempted attack was no feint.  The blue pegasus sidestepped just in time to avoid the brunt of the true intent of her opponent’s technique, and the residual electrical force knocked her backwards like a punch to the face.  Rainbow Dash slid back several before grounding her hooves back to the floor once more.  After rubbing the drop of blood off her nose, she then turned around to face the mare in black who hovered over at the lighted corner closest to her.
 
"I've expected nothing less from you, Rainbow Dash," said the mystery mare.  "Other ponies would have had their faces melted off after passing through my Lightning Afterburner technique."
 
"I never knew I was this famous in Pegasopolis," Dash grinned, "but for some reason I feel I should know you from somewhere."
 
"You should have the honor of meeting your foalmate in a long time, Dash."  The mare in black pulled off her mask, to reveal her light turquoise face and golden mane.
 
"Lightning Dust?" gasped Dash.  "I thought you died in battle."
 
"I was reborn after I survived ten months alone in No Mare's Land eating nothing but dead leaves while fending off a thousand of Gaean soldiers and their napalm bombs.  That weak foal you knew is no more.  I am the true Lightning Dust, and I challenge you in mortal combat for betraying our herd."
 
"Uh, maybe later.  You see, I have a bunch of friends I need to find.  Sexy friends I might add, so if you let me go for now, I promise that I'll fight you till then.  I'll even do a Pinkie Promise."
 
Lightning Dust was not amused, and she drew a line in the air with her front left hoof.  After one brief pause, the lone slave skiff exploded into an electrified mess, sending out a shrapnel of nuts, bolts, and metal plating hurtling towards Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash.  Just like that, Lightning dust thwarted Dash's escape.
 
"You're not making this easy for me, are you?" asked Rainbow Dash.
 
"Only to make your defeat much more satisfying," smiled Lightning Dust.  "Behold, my Atmos Arts ultimate technique: Dust to Dust Doom!"
 
A burst of electrifying sparks spread out from Dust's wings and gradually filled the hangar, and several of them struck Rainbow Dash.  Dash was lucky to get buzzed by five electrified dust particles, but if she was hit with several more, Lightning Dust was going to electrocute her to death.  The Dust to Dust Doom was a dangerous Atmos Arts technique that exponentially electrifies all the Atmos particles in the air into dangerous levels and places its own wielder at risk.  Lightning Dust was getting serious.  She was willing to sacrifice herself just to kill her former foalmate. Dash needed to defeat Dust, but she did not want to kill her.
 
She turned tail and flew away. A citizen-warrior would rather die than flee, but Dash had renounced her citizenship with Pegasopolis a long time ago. This was strategically retreating from the enemy, and as Dash zoomed out of the hangar, Lightning Dust kept right behind her just as planned.
 
That was step one, but Dash did not plan on step two, and she needed to so quickly. Lightning Dust fumed with anger over Dash fleeing from battle.  Meanwhile, the electrified dust particles gathered right behind the blue Pegasus, and slowly but surely, they nipped at her chromatic tail. In addition, Dash felt the full pain of her sprained wing, but she could not afford to stop beating them. She might end up permanently ruining her feathered appendage if she continued flying down the steel halls of the factory.
 
Then she saw a sign one hundred meters ahead of her in pegasese script that pointed to the high speed wind tunnel on the left.  That's it!  The blue pegasus beat her wings faster and made the sharp turn towards her destination. Several more meters, she emerged into a hall leading into the cylindrical metal cavern.  She set her eyes towards the freestanding control panel that lay smack dab in the middle, and she had only ten milliseconds to her make her plan work.  
 
But damn the luck!  The pain from her sprained wing sent her veering off the control panel.  Subconsciously she folded her wings, cutting off the Atmos Particles from entering through her pegasus feathers and into her bloodstream.  She slid all the way to the end of the wind tunnel with her horseshoes sparking across the metal floor.  She ended up one tail-length away from the massive safety grate of the windtunnel fan.
 
In no time, Lightning Dust air-braked when she reached the windtunnel.  Her smile meant that she figured out what Dash had been planning, and wagged her hoof towards Dash in a mocking manner.  "Tsk, tsk," she said.  With a flap of her wings, Lighting Dust sent her electrified dust particles towards Dash, who flinched and held up her front legs in an attempt to block the attack.  Not a single speck struck Dash.  Moments afterward, however, an electrical explosion blew the fan's massive safety grate to pieces.
 
Lightning Dust hammered her hoof on the red button on the control panel.  The massive windtunnel fan started its deadly spin, and its vacuuming force latched onto Dash who barely galloped a few feet towards safety.  She lost her mastery over Atmos particles, and her horseshoes screeched as they gradually lost its grip.  She could see Lightning Dust's smugness laughing at her imminent demise as she held onto the safety rail by the control panel.  This sucks.  Dust was going to chop Dash up into the primary colors of this deadly rainbow factory.
 
But then Rainbow Dash had an idea.  A crazy idea.  An idea that had a twenty percent chance of success.  That twenty percent might as well be one-hundred given her burning desire to defeat Lightning Dust and find her friends, but it could also be zero percent given that the odds were stacked against Dash.  She had to risk it either way.  With a cool smile, Dash unstuck herself from the floor and allowed the massive fan take her in.
 
The last thing she saw was the stunned shock on Lightning Dust's face.