Chapter 2
Rainbow Dash awoke, feeling worse than she ever had before. Even worse than the day after that one party, the one that had made her quit drinking so much.
Urgh, was there another party? Her thoughts were sluggish. Man, I was limiting myself to two or three drinks, max. Did… did somepony spike 'em? Feelings began to register, it felt like she was lying sprawled half on her side on rocks, dirt, and spiky, scrubby plants. I passed out outside? And everypony just left me there? Groggily, she pried her eyes open.
Only to find that they were already open.
Uh, uh, this is bad. She fought back panic. She blinked several times, feeling the lids pass over her eyes. Okay, they weren't damaged, or they'd probably hurt, like the thorns poking her side that she should probably do something about. So why couldn't she see anyth…
Sight returned with shocking suddenness. Colors, light and shapes swirled around bewilderingly, sickeningly. Her stomach knotted, hard. Oh, microbursts, I'm gonna be sick! She managed to get her front legs underneath her before she vomited, so at least it didn't go all over her. Small favors… where the hay am I?
As she spat to clear her mouth of the remains of her breakfast (breakfast? When did I eat breakfast?) her eyesight settled down, showing her a barren, rocky scrubland. The plants were all small and dry-looking, with thick stalks, small leaves and plenty of thorns, and she was surrounded by smallish hills. The sky overhead was clear, cloudless, and a strange shade of light blue, and a dry, dusty wind moaned as it blew through the hills, ruffling Dash's mane. The sun was close to the horizon, and a crescent moon stood high in the sky. Um… okay. Well, this sure keeps getting worse. Even worse than after that party, really, when she'd woken up in another filly's bed with no idea what had happened or how she'd gotten there. She still hadn't managed to squash all the rumors that had started, but at least it hadn't been some dead wasteland! How the hay did I even get…
Memory returned with a rush. The lab. The fractured spell. Hurtling helplessly into tortured gray nothing, unnatural cold gnawing at her bones and pulling at her very heart, trying to hold on to…
"Oh Celestia! Twilight!" Dash looked around frantically, spotting a limp lavender form lying a few bodylengths behind her. She hauled herself unsteadily onto her feet, staggering badly and almost ending up falling back to the ground before she managed to find her balance. Argh, I'm still loopy from… whatever happened when we hit that thing. Gritting her teeth, Dash focused all of her concentration on the simple act of walking, and was able to hobble stiff-legged and without a trace of her usual grace over to where Twilight lay on her side, unmoving. "Twilight? Twilight, wake up! Oh, please, please, please be okay!" Leaning over unsteadily, Dash pressed one ear to Twilight's side, and let out an explosive, relieved sigh at the sound of her friend's breathing. Bracing herself on three legs, Rainbow used a forehoof to shake Twilight's shoulder. "Come on, Twilight, wake up! We need to figure out what the hay happened!" After a few moments of shaking, the unicorn's eyes flicked open. Dash's already-wobbly legs sagged with relief, and she wound up sitting down heavily, only to spring back up again with a yelp as she landed on one of the thorny scrub-plants.
Twilight blinked a few times, staring blankly, and then her eyes started to roll randomly, not focusing on anything. The unicorn's stomach heaved, and Rainbow realized her friend was going through the same disorientation she'd just gotten over. Rushing forward, (huh, it's getting easier to move, at least) she lifted the spellcaster's forequarters enough that Twilight didn't choke, though she wasn't able to keep her from getting a bit of vomit on herself.
"Yuck. Sorry about that, Twilight. Hey, don't worry, it starts off kinda like a really bad hangover, but it goes away pretty fast. Did for me, at least." Dash stood at Twilight's shoulder, waiting for the unicorn's senses to settle down. She only fidgeted a bit with impatience. Darn it, I have a feeling that we're in serious trouble, I should be doing something, but I don't know what to do! She decided to try yelling. She wouldn't have to leave Twilight alone half-recovered, and who knows? Maybe somepony would even hear her. Besides, she really felt like shouting right now.
"Hey! Heeeeeeeeey! Is anypony out there? Anyone at all?" Nothing. "HEY! If anyone's out there, my friend and I need help! Anypony hear me? Heeeeeeelp!" She listened as the echoes of her voice bounced off the hillsides, but no answer came.
"I don't think anyone's around, Rainbow." Twilight's voice was a little unsteady, but at least it sounded like she was finally tracking. Having caught the pegasus's attention, Twilight ducked her head, ears back in misery. "I am so, so sorry, Rainbow Dash. I… I must have missed something in the spell design, or cast it wrong, or, or something, and now we're both Celestia knows where and I dragged you into it too and I am so sorry…"
"Hey, Twilight, don't sweat it. I wasn't about to let you get hauled in there by yourself! It was my call to not let go of you when you got dragged in." Twilight was still refusing to meet her eyes, so Rainbow hooked a forehoof under the unicorn's chin and dragged her friend's gaze around to meet her own. Tears were welling in the spellcaster's violet eyes. She looks exhausted. Weird. I'm pretty tired too, and I just woke up! "Hey. Buck up, Twilight! Look at it this way; we've got Celestia's prize student, one of the best mages in Canterlot, plus the fastest flier in all Equestria and Ponyville's premier athlete!" Rainbow grinned confidently. Though I do kinda wish Applejack was here to argue that last point. "I couldn't pick a better pair to handle the unknown! We'll be back home in no time!" Rainbow maintained her confident grin as Twilight began to perk up a bit. Inside, though, the cyan pegasus was carefully hiding a set of serious concerns. In spite of her bragging words, she was scared. Really, honestly scared, like she hadn't been in a long time. Twilight was freaked out enough already, though, and Rainbow wasn't about to let her friend down when she needed a confidence boost, so she carefully bottled that fear away deep inside herself, where she would never let anyone see.
It worked. Rainbow could see the gears starting to turn in Twilight's head. "Well, I do need to figure out what went wrong with my portal spell and why. If I can do that, I can figure out where we wound up, and how we can get home, but that'll take me some time…" Twilight gradually shifted to the faraway look she generally assumed when she was thinking hard, while rubbing away the small spatters of vomit clinging to her coat.
Rainbow stifled another relieved sigh. Okay, awesome, I think she's back with me now. "Hey, Twilight, since you're awake and all, I'm gonna fly up and see if I spot any landmarks I recognize, 'kay?"
Twilight nodded absently. "That sounds like a really good idea, Rainbow. If you can figure out where we are, that will help me considerably in figuring out what went wrong. It also might give us a way to get home in case I get stumped!"
"Right! Back in a flash!" Rainbow launched herself off the ground with a powerful leap, wings fanning the air as she pointed herself skyward…
Only to land heavily right back on the ground.
At least I missed those buckin' thorn plants this time, a corner of her mind said, but the rest of her mind was thinking exactly what her mouth was saying. "What the hay?" She shook herself, then gathered her strength again and leapt as hard as she could, beating her wings for all they were worth.
Putting everything she had into the effort, she found herself hovering about two bodylengths up. The instant she stopped flapping her wings, she dropped right back to the ground like a stone, rather than gliding down as she should have.
What's wrong with me? I… I can't even fly? Dash felt the bottle she'd crammed her fear into start to crack as it overfilled. I can't fly, I don't know where we are, I don't know how we're gonna get home, there's nothing to eat out here… wherever here is! No. No, I've gotta fly! Desperately, she launched herself again, straining her wings so hard she was afraid she was going to tear something. Only to, again, find herself hovering a short distance off of the ground.
Surrendering to gravity's pull, Rainbow Dash landed on all four feet, then sat heavily. She was starting to hyperventilate, and she felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. I can't fly. I can't fly! If I can't fly, what the hell good am I? Even mentally, she didn't curse like that often; nopony did. But if this didn't call for it, she couldn't imagine what would.
She realized Twilight was talking to her. "Rainbow! Rainbow! Calm down, it's just magic drain!" Rainbow looked up, meeting her friend's concerned look. Twilight's horn was glowing, but so faintly it was hard to see with the sun overhead.
"What are you talking about, Twilight?" Rainbow asked miserably, "I'm a pegasus, not a unicorn. Pegasi don't get magic drain."
"Not normally. That portal spell was draining magic out of me the whole time, but I think it started draining your magic too, when we were close to it." Rainbow's ears started to lift from where they were lying flat to her skull. "It's hard for me to say for sure, I've got barely any magic left myself to look with, but it looks like it drained most of your inherent magic, too. You use it to make yourself lighter, to walk on clouds, to manipulate the weather…"
Blinking, Rainbow looked inside herself. She was feeling kind of like that time she'd nearly killed herself single-hoofedly breaking up that big tornado that had come roaring out of the Everfree Forest a couple of years ago. It had put up one heckuva fight, and had kept re-forming on her, and though she'd beaten it (of course!)she'd been a pretty lousy flier for a day or so afterward, she recalled, and the memory of the seconds before the spell pulled Twilight into itself resurfaced suddenly. It felt like it was pulling the warmth from my heart…
If that was really what was wrong, she'd be okay in a day or two. The bands fear had wrapped around her chest loosened, and her growing terror suddenly diminished, enough that she was able to shove it back in the bottle where it belonged. Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, she closed her eyes for a moment. "Thanks, Twilight." Her voice was a bit rougher than usual, but she was pleased that it was steady.
"Glad to help, Rainbow Dash." The two shared a slightly shaky smile, and Rainbow saw something out of the corner of her eye that caught her attention.
"Oh, hey, A.J.'s hat!" Grateful for the brief distraction from her problems, Rainbow trotted over to where Applejack's western-style hat had caught on the thorns of one of the scrub-plants. She carefully lifted it clear of the thorns, and plopped it on her head. Pasting a goofy grin on her face, she turned back to Twilight. "Applejack would kill us if we left this here. I'd better hold on to it!"
Instead of the giggle she'd expected, Twilight suddenly looked thoughtful. "Oh, now there's a useful piece of data! You were holding on to me when we came through, but if something came through without touching either of us and wound up in the same place, maybe the portal wasn't as chaotic as I'd initially assumed…" The academic trailed off, clearly thinking hard, and Rainbow started to feel a bit of hope creeping in. Twilight really was remarkable as a spell caster, and if she could figure out what had gone wrong, there was a good chance she could get them home.
Suddenly, both ponies whipped their heads to the side, as their ears caught an odd, skittering, slithering sound.
"What was that?" Twilight asked.
"I was just about to ask you!" Dash replied. She heard the sound again, closer this time. It sounded like something was coming toward them. "Um… Twilight? I'm thinking that maaaaaybe we should get outta here. Like, now."
The unicorn nodded wordlessly, her eyes huge, and started trotting away from the source of the noise. Dash watched her move for a moment, noting that the fatigue she'd seen earlier in Twilight's face was making her friend's movements a little slower and clumsier than normal. Uh oh. If we wind up having to run from something, that could be a major problem. Just as she was thinking that, the skittering sound intensified, and the something they were going to have to run from came around the hill.
Oh, Celestia. The thing looked like it had scuttled straight out of a foal's nightmare. Long and low, it looked like a combination of praying mantis and centipede. It moved forward on flashing legs, too fast and too many to count, as the front part of its body reared up and four long, mantislike claws extended around its head. An uneven collection of numerous eyes stared at her over a wide mouth that, though seemingly toothless, was flanked by at least three sets of hungrily-flexing barbed mandibles. The whole monster was covered in what looked like plates of bony armor, and it was a lot bigger than either pony.
"Twilight! Run!" Dash wanted to freeze in terror, but that was an instinct she'd long ago conquered. Instead, she bolted after her friend as the unicorn lurched into a slightly unsteady gallop, carefully keeping her pace down so she stayed between Twilight and the monster following them. If need be, Dash could fight, but Twilight was basically helpless without her magic. Man, I really don't want to fight that thing, though. Dash kept her attention divided; glancing forward to keep from stumbling over anything (which would probably be fatal) and back to monitor the creature's progress.
Oh, great. She thought, as she saw four more of the hideous creatures skittering along in a line behind the first. This day just keeps getting better and better. Worse yet, she knew they were catching up, and fast. She estimated that she'd be a bit faster than they were if she threw herself into a full-speed gallop, but Twilight couldn't run nearly that fast. Dash bit her lip as she realized she had a decision to make.
Well, not really. There was a less-than-zero chance that she'd leave one of her best friends behind to be torn apart by insectoid horrors, but it was nice to pretend for a moment that she'd get out of this unscathed. "Twilight! Don't stop! Get the heck out of here!"
"Wha- what?" the unicorn panted, then gasped as Dash skidded to a stop and turned around. "Rainbow!"
"Keep going! I'll slow 'em down and catch up to you when I can!" Dash spared a glance over her shoulder, locking gazes with Twilight for a moment. "GO!" The unicorn nodded and kept going, though Dash could hear her sobbing in terror and dismay.
Free of distractions, the blue pegasus focused all her attention on the scuttling horrors as she accelerated toward them. She watched them carefully as she approached, taking in the details of the way they moved, observing the patterns. Okay, long low bodies. They're obviously fast straight-line, but they'll be slow in a turn. Gotta watch those talons, too, they look like serious bad news. Dash had been in a few fights when she was younger, including one or two that had been pretty serious. She'd won every time, too, thanks to a combination of quick reflexes and the tremendous strength, far beyond that of most other pegasi, she'd found she possessed. But mostly, what had won those fights had been her sense of movement and pattern; it was something she'd always had, something that had fuelled her dreams of stunt flying. It was part of the reason that she'd excelled in her physics and applied aerodynamics classes (even when she was failing nearly everything else) and weather-work, and she really, really hoped it would be enough to keep her alive now, but deep down, she doubted that it would.
The distance closed in a flash. The lead horror's mantis-limbs flicked up and back, ready to strike at her. She wasn't able to use her wings for flight, but she was able to use them to generate the extra vector she needed, and flapping them hard, she was able to duck and shoot to her right as the striking limbs flickered forward, almost too fast for her to see. They missed her by a hair's width, and she could feel the wind from one strike sliding along her ribs. That's bad; they're really quick! She struck at the monster's flowing motive legs with a forehoof as she passed, and was rewarded with a series of sickening cracks as several of them broke under the impact. She used the reaction vector imparted by the hit to send herself rolling in a direction perpendicular to its line of travel, and saw with satisfaction that the thing indeed didn't turn well. Called that one. Okay, Rainbow, you need to stay away from the front end and hit 'em in the back. As it slowed and began to haul itself around to attack her again, she darted in on a curving path and hurled herself at the back of the thing. Focusing all her weight into her extended forehooves, she hit the rear left side of the creature's upraised body, hard. She'd never have used that move in a fight with another pony; the force involved was more than sufficient to shatter bone, and the spot she'd aimed it at would either crush a skull or smash a neck. The impact jarred her forelegs and shoulders, and as the creature twisted under the hit she used it as an improvised vaulting pad to hurl herself clear and out of the line of travel of the following creatures.
She landed lightly on all four hooves, and paused for an instant to see what effect her strike had on the creature. The impact had staggered it a bit, and when she leapt off its back she'd shoved it down and forward. Before she'd landed, its upraised forward section had planted in the rocks, and its momentum caused it to skid along the ground on its face. Emitting a low, keening hiss that made Dash shiver, the monster pushed itself back upright, turned and headed toward her again. The armor on the back of its body where she'd hit it was cracked a bit, three of its mandibles were twisted and broken where they'd been introduced to the rocks, and several of the legs on its left side were broken and spasming randomly, but it was a long way from dead. It hadn't even slowed down all that much, and there were still the four other uninjured monsters that were all now headed for Dash.
Oh horseapples, I'm in trouble. She glanced around, eyes flicking from one monster to another, measuring speeds and angles in her head. She saw the one she'd hit angle off to its left, and she thought for a moment it was favoring its injured side, before she realized that it was angling to cut off her retreat. The other four were fanning out from their previous near single-file approach, getting ready to come at her from multiple directions. Serious. Bucking. Trouble. Adrenaline was flushing out the fear, for the moment at least, but having seen how fast the lead monster could strike, and with five of them smart enough to work together to cut her movement options, she kept coming to the same, inescapable conclusion.
Dash was a dead mare.
She couldn't run yet; Twilight hadn't gained nearly enough distance to get away. Without flight, her options for escape once the monsters closed were zero. She could hit them, but not hard enough to do serious damage. Meanwhile, while she didn't know how sharp those mantis-limbs of theirs were, they were able to move the things fast enough that she suspected they'd be able to spear her clean through if they hit. She'd seen a heron do that to a fish once, and she felt a cold shot of terror as she pictured the same thing happening to her. It was going to happen, though; that was pretty much the inevitable conclusion of this fight. She would probably last less than a minute.
She wasn't gonna go down easy, though. I'll make you monsters work for your meal. At least you've forgotten about Twilight. She spared a glance in the direction her friend had gone. The lavender form, trailing her pink-streaked purple tail, was just about to vanish over the crest of one of the smaller hills. Don't look back, Twi. I really don't want you to see this.
Taking a deep breath, Dash hurled herself at the injured monster again, screaming "Bring it!" at the top of her lungs.
The instants blurred together. Dash lunged, struck, retreated, leaped, and spun. She sank into a near-trance, focusing on the way the creatures moved, using it to anticipate where they'd be at any given moment. She dodged strikes so fast she couldn't actually see them. Nothing she did seemed to hurt the creatures, so she stopped trying to hit them, and focused on keeping them busy and tying up their attention. She even got them to trip over each other a couple of times, which gave her a sense of vindictive pride.
She even saw the one she couldn't avoid.
The creature's talon blurred forward, and she knew she wouldn't be able to completely get out of the way. Despite her desperate, last-instant dodge, the claw sliced through her skin along her left shoulder and side, leaving a trail of burning agony behind it. Dash gasped, gritting her teeth in anguish.
Her concentration broken, the near-trance state that had kept her alive fell away. Everything slowed down.
She saw the talon arc away, trailing crimson droplets of her blood and a few fine, cyan hairs.
She saw the creature ready another limb, preparing the strike that would skewer her.
She heard chattering, staccato thunder from somewhere behind her, and heard several somethings too fast to see zip past her ear with a whining buzz like the fastest hornets in existence.
She saw the monster's head explode, splashing away in a spray of yellowish ichor and tissue as whatever had flown past her hammered into it, smashing craters through its armored exoskeleton.
Time snapped back to normal. The creature's decapitated body started to flail, which could have been just as lethal for Dash as its aborted final strike, but another blast of thunder and the whining hornets tore two of its striking limbs away and smashed its twitching corpse to the ground.
Dash gaped in horrified shock at the oozing, mangled ruin in front of her. That moment of shock almost killed her again; she nearly didn't see one of the other monsters striking at her in time. She managed to duck and roll out of the path of the strike, barely, darting out to the beast's side to take advantage of the space the first creature's demise afforded her. The instant she got clear, the thunder chattered again, though she didn't hear the high-pitched zzzzzips this time, and the attacking monster's carapace split and shattered like the last one. It, too, fell to the ground twitching.
Dash managed not to freeze this time, using the separation she'd gained to bolt away from the remaining creatures, and the uncanny concussive noises rang out several more times in short bursts, blasting the remaining three monsters into offal.
She stopped, panting slightly, and blinked.
The five monsters that she had known with absolute certainty were going to kill her were lying on the ground leaking ghastly yellow ichor, their bodies smashed and torn in an appalling display of violence. And she, Rainbow Dash, was still alive.
She was still alive! Sure, she was bleeding some, (Um. Bleeding kind of a lot, actually) and that slice across her shoulder and under her wing hurt like fire, but it didn't look very deep. Her wing moved fine when she tried it, so it must not have hit much muscle. She felt a rush of elation, as strong as when she'd managed to flawlessly pull off some awesome aerial trick, and she let out a light, breathless laugh. She knew she should be horrified at the mangled remains of the monsters that had attacked her, and part of her was, but that was completely eclipsed by the fact that she was still alive!
Shaking off the sense of euphoric glee, she realized she could hear shouting. She didn't recognize the voice, and she looked around to try and find its source.
Dash spotted an odd-shaped moving silhouette at the crest of one of the highest hills she could see. It looked like it was waving, and training her ears toward it, she could make out some of what it was shouting.
"Hey! HEY! Over here, quick! There will be more coming, come on!"
Dash wondered for a second who or what the heck that was, and whether she should trust it or not, but realized that under the circumstances she didn't have a whole lot of options. Besides, she needed to find Twilight, and a tall hill would let her both look for her friend and get a better idea of the lay of the land. Clamping her wing over the laceration in her shoulder to slow the bleeding, she set off for the hill at a light gallop, glancing warily around in case more of those centipede-things were trying to sneak up.
When she reached the spot that she'd seen the silhouette waving from, she found Twilight there waiting for her. The spellcaster was sitting near the crest of the hill, head down and panting heavily, clearly out of breath. Rainbow herself was starting to get a bit winded after the intense activity of her short fight, but she was in way better shape than Twilight to start with, and she suspected the unicorn had been even more badly drained by the spell mishap than she would admit.
The surprise was the creature waiting next to Twilight. It was clearly bipedal, its general body structure similar to Twilight's assistant Spike, but it was a lot bigger than Spike was, with an oddly elongated body shape. Even with it crouched low on one knee, the top of Rainbow's head came about up to its shoulder. Long arms hung from wide-set shoulders, looking oddly threatening compared to the short stubby arms the little dragon sported. In its hands, it cradled a strange-looking long boxy object, with a grip and a protruding flat-ended projection on one end, a large rectangular box attached to the middle, and the end it pointed outward terminated in a slender tube. The whole creature was covered in what looked like non-reflective black metal, and she couldn't even see any eyes, just gogglelike structures on the front of the head panning restlessly about as it watched the horizon.
Rainbow squinted as she approached, trying to figure out if the creature was wearing all that metal, or was actually made out of the stuff. Try as she might, she couldn't see a hint of skin or hair anywhere; the joints were all articulated plates with odd pistons or something embedded in them, and the rest of the creature was just featureless, smooth black metal as far as she could tell. Her nose picked up an unpleasant, sharp smoky odor. As she got within convenient conversational distance, the creature stopped scanning the horizon and focused on her.
"Can you talk?" Rainbow was somewhat taken aback by the curtness of the question. Even the thing's voice sounded metallic, though underneath the weird, buzzing metallic tone it was pitched deep, like that of a male.
"Yeah, I can talk, what's it to you?" Rainbow found a bit of heat seeping into her voice, though she didn't really mean it. She'd just been taken off-guard by the sudden oddity of the question.
"Confirmation." Well, that was a weird answer. The metal figure glanced around the horizon again, and Rainbow took the opportunity to do the same. She saw nothing but low hills in every direction save one; behind the stranger she could see the beginnings of what looked like a small mountain range. Nothing was moving, save dust blown by the wind.
"Hey, were you up here the whole time? Did you see what killed those bug things?" Rainbow wasn't sure whether she wanted to know what had done that or not. On the one hoof, she very definitely owed her life to whatever had killed the monsters. Even half a second later, and she'd either be dead or dying. On the other hoof, the shocking, intense violence of the creatures' deaths had horrified her, and she wasn't at all sure she wanted to meet whatever was capable of that kind of brutality.
"I reached the top of this hill only a short time ago. I killed the murderpedes shortly thereafter." Well, she'd met something that brutal whether she wanted to or not. The flat, uninflected tone of the reply made it even scarier. "Nice hat, by the way." Rainbow was confused for a moment, before she realized belatedly that Applejack's hat was still somehow perched on top of her head. How the hay is that still there? She glanced sidelong at Twilight, hoping her friend would be in shape to take over their end of the conversation. Rainbow wasn't particularly diplomatic on the best of days, which today was definitely not. Unfortunately, while the unicorn was breathing a little easier, it was pretty clear that she wasn't up to taking charge.
"Oh. Well, um, thanks, and thanks for the help. I thought I was in some pretty serious trouble there for a second…" Rainbow trailed off with a nervous chuckle, but the metal thing didn't respond. The silence grew long enough to be uncomfortable. Her shoulder twinged, the feeling of blood still oozing from the long cut reminding her that she probably needed at least a bandage or something. "Hey, metalhead, I don't suppose you've got…"
"Shh!" Rainbow drew her head back in indignation.
"Hey! Don't shush me! I was just asking if you mmph mm mrph!" Metal fingers clamped over her muzzle, muffling her protests. They weren't gripping particularly hard, so it didn't hurt, but it certainly was embarrassing. Rainbow glared at the metal thing, rose-colored eyes furious, but then she heard something. A powerful, low-pitched, warbling cry echoed over the barren hills.
The metal creature grunted, and released Rainbow's mouth. She stepped back, rubbing her face with a forehoof, but before she could say anything, it cut her off. "Thought so. Okay, you two need to listen for a moment, don't interrupt, and don't ask questions." It glanced at both of them as Twilight finally got her breathing under control and lifted her head. Rainbow just glared. Neither pony spoke, and the other evidently took their momentary silence for assent. "There are going to be more predators coming, and much bigger ones. You both need to head that way," it twisted around and extended an arm, one finger pointing to the foothills of the mountains behind it. Rainbow squinted in the direction it indicated, searching the small mountain it was pointing at. "You'll find an open door set into the mountain, under…"
"Yeah, I see it." Rainbow took a perverse pleasure in interrupting the metal thing after it had asked her not to. She really did see the door it was talking about, too, which made it even better.
Annoyingly, though, it didn't even get flustered. "You both need to get to that door as fast as possible." The creature turned to Twilight. "Can you run?" The unicorn nodded, still panting. It then turned to Rainbow, who bit back a scornful reply and also nodded. "Okay. You should both go now. You with the wings, stay close to the ground." Dash bristled and growled a bit, but since she couldn't fly anyway she decided not to say anything. "Bad things happen to anything that flies too high in this place. I'll remain here for a bit and make sure nothing follows. If you find yourselves in danger once you get there, the large red button inside the room to the left of the door will close and lock it; please don't do so unless you're in imminent danger or you're reasonably certain I'm dead, though. I am not sure I'd be able to open it from the outside." Its tone was still kind of creepily flat, especially since it seemed to be suggesting that its life might be at risk.
Twilight turned to head in the indicated direction, but Rainbow hesitated. "Hey, why should we trust you, anyway?" She asked, glaring into its …goggles? Eyes? This thing was weird.
The creature tilted its head slightly. "An excellent question. I could point out that I haven't harmed either of you, or that you in particular owe me your life. I think." It paused for a beat, and Rainbow flushed a bit. She did owe the metal thing, but she didn't particularly like being reminded of it. Especially after it had rudely brushed aside her attempt at thanks. "I could further point out that the creatures you encountered were relatively small, and that some of the ones that are on their way are likely to be quite large, but then you've no reason to believe that, and it's not really a reason for trust anyway. I wouldn't do either of those though," Even though you totally just did both, jerk, she thought grumpily. "Instead, I'll just ask what other options you have?"
Rainbow just continued to glare for a moment, deeply aggravated for some reason that she couldn't come up with a decent counterargument. She suspected it was telling the truth, and that time really was of the essence, but it was seriously rubbing her the wrong way. Something about the metal figure's eerily uninflected tone and slightly disjointed sentences just made her feel weird.
"Are you gonna be behind us, then?"
"Yes. You should go now." With that statement, the creature's face turned away and went back to scanning the horizon. Rainbow waited a couple of seconds more, but that seemed to be all it was going to say. Oh, end of conversation, huh? Jerk.
"You think you can make it okay, Twilight? It's kind of a long way." Rainbow asked her friend in an undertone. It wasn't all that far, really, maybe twenty minutes at a trot, but the unicorn looked utterly exhausted at this point. Twilight nodded, wearily.
"I think so, Rainbow. I don't think I can manage a gallop, but if I pace myself, I think I can do it." She gave the pegasus a wan grin. "I beat you and Applejack that way, after all!" Rainbow returned the smile, but didn't respond.
The two ponies set off toward the mountain at a fast canter, Rainbow Dash taking the lead this time while Twilight trailed behind. Rainbow split her attention between watching warily for more monsters to spring at them and keeping an eye on Twilight. They quickly lost sight of the metal biped, and even when they crossed the occasional hill crest, Rainbow wasn't able to spot it when she looked back.
They did hear it, though. They'd only been moving for four or five minutes when the chattering thunder Rainbow had heard when the monsters died echoed from behind them. Biting her lip, the pegasus urged her friend into a slightly faster pace; she didn't really want to be around the results of that noise again.
They heard the same sound a few more times, at one point overlaid with a chorus of chilling shrieks, but it stopped before they'd gone more than halfway to their destination. Wonder if it's dead, Dash mused. The big metal thing had seemed fairly confident, but…
Dash was seriously worried about Twilight by the time they drew within sight of the door. The unicorn was panting heavily, barely able to keep cantering. Dash herself wasn't in great shape by that point, either. The long slash she'd sustained continued to ooze blood; it was actually seeping out from between the feathers of her left wing by now, dripping down her left foreleg. Her wing was starting to cramp with the effort of keeping it pressed over the wound, too. She really hoped the blood loss slowed soon.
The door, once they finally reached it, wasn't particularly remarkable except for its size. Just an ordinary, rectangular doorway, though if Rainbow had been able to fly, she could have easily hovered through without touching the frame or floor. Set between two large boulders, and under a really big triangular one that pointed to the opening like an arrow, the only reason Rainbow had spotted it from so far away had been the reflective gleam of the light gray walls inside.
Stumbling inside, the two ponies found themselves in a sparse, but clean anteroom with a really high ceiling. Everything inside was made of metal, glass, or an odd dark green fabric. Several chairs sat along one side of the room, with a square table surrounded by more chairs in the corner. The opposite wall contained a series of empty storage racks and a heavy bar running near the ceiling, and a second, closed door stood opposite the open one, with a red light gleaming in the wall above it. Rainbow looked at the open door and saw a green light glowing in the corresponding spot above it. The wall to the right of the open door was occupied by what looked like a window looking out over a panoramic view of the hilly badlands, (Ha! That's what this kind of place is called!) but that was impossible. All a window should have shown was the back of the boulder next to the door!
Not important right now, Rainbow decided. Twilight was so exhausted she was clearly having trouble staying on her hooves, and she was panting heavily. She examined the closed door, but could find nothing like a doorknob, and when she pushed on it, it didn't budge. They both needed water, but there wasn't any in… hey, wait, what's that? Rainbow spotted something that looked like a faucet next to the table in the corner, with a rack of what looked like handleless metal mugs next to it.
"Hey, hold on, Twilight. I think I can get us some water."
"Wa- Water… would… be nice…" Twilight gasped.
Rainbow dragged one of the chairs over next to the spigot so she could reach it; everything in the anteroom was just slightly too large or too high to be comfortable. A bit of experimentation revealed that the small button next to the spigot activated the flow of water, and that the flow stopped as soon as the button was released. She filled one of the mugs, and sniffed the water to see if it was clean. Smells okay. She took a sip to test it, and it surprised her. The water was some of the cleanest she'd ever tasted, and it was pretty cold besides.
Hopping down off of the chair, Rainbow held the mug out to Twilight. "Hey, Twilight, here. Found some water." Twilight's horn glowed dimly, and the mug shuddered, but the unicorn couldn't even muster enough telekinesis to lift it. Instead, she grabbed it with both forehooves and began gulping the water down. "Woah, there, if you drink it too fast you're just gonna make yourself sick again!" Rainbow gently pulled the mug away from her friend's lips. "Gotta drink it slow or it won't do you any good." Twilight didn't speak, but she nodded and followed Rainbow's advice, draining the mug with a series of small sips. Rainbow refilled Twilight's mug and got one herself, wondering as she carefully drained it how long they should wait for their metal acquaintance to show up, and what they were going to do if it didn't. She wanted to ask Twilight, but the unicorn was half-dead from fatigue, and Rainbow suspected she wouldn't be much help.
Rainbow found that some of the cushions could be removed from the oversized chairs, so she piled several in a corner as a makeshift bed for Twilight. The unicorn gave her a grateful look as she finished drinking, staggered over to the pile of cushions and collapsed. She was asleep and snoring faintly in seconds.
*Author's note: When I started this, I'd intended to swap back and forth between Rainbow and Twilight as viewpoint characters with each chapter. However, Rainbow's section kept getting longer and longer, and I realized most of what Twilight would be doing wouldn't actually be all that interesting. It totally wasn't because Dash borrowed Pinkie's Solar Exalt Fourth Wall Breaker Technique and beat me up to make me keep her as viewpoint character. Honest. So anyway, folks, get used to Dash being the viewpoint character from now on.