The time spell deposited Rainbow back on the map, gasping for breath but with the wingblade clutched in her hoof.
“Rainbow, are you all right? What happened?” asked Shining.
Rainbow, in answer, held up the wingblade, grinning. “This should get that trapdoor open.” She rubbed her neck. “Nearly got strangled, but it was totally worth it.”
“You nearly got strangled? By who?”
“Another construct. Different from the one in Starlight’s Town. It snuck up on me. Never mind that, though – I can get out of the lab now, and stop the fire.”
“I- well, do you have a plan to not get strangled by this one?”
“I have the wingblade, and I can get the jump on it this time. I figure if I can get a good hit on it, I can just disable it straight away.”
“Right. Just be careful.”
“’Careful’ is my middle name.” Rainbow queued up the third date.
“I thought it was ‘rapid’?”
“I have a lot of middle names.” Activating the time spell, Rainbow flew back to the past.
Rainbow almost forgot about the construct’s punch, ducking just in time. She made no move against it, and it backed out of the lab, watching her warily.
She was on the move as soon as the lock clicked. Picking up the explosive beaker, she pitched it out the window, ignoring the muffled exclamation of ‘What in Celestia’s name…?’ Rushing to the trapdoor, she slid the wingblade into the gap, this time hearing the satisfying ‘click’ of the latch unlocking.
She lifted the trapdoor and peeked out. Starlight was looking out the window on the far side of the room. Rainbow climbed stealthily out of the trapdoor and snuck out of the room. In the hall, there was a window; Rainbow pushed it open and slipped out.
Taking a moment to reorient herself in respect to the town, Rainbow trotted around behind the row of houses in the east, activating the scanner spellstone. It notified her of a large gathering of ponies outside Starlight’s house, no doubt still investigating the loud noise she’d made. Using the scanner data to judge when she’d put a safe distance between herself and the townsponies, she snuck back into the main street and looked to the north.
The construct – in its pony disguise – was standing in front of the shack with the lantern raised. Crap, it’s faster than I thought. Gotta fly! She leaped into the air and rocketed towards the construct, blade raised.
It reacted with incredible speed, bringing up its free forehoof to strike her in the belly. She curled in on herself, allowing the construct to follow through and throw her into the wall. Right, it’s fast.
Before she could drop down to the ground, the construct drove its elbow into her, keeping her suspended against the wall next to a window.
The voice of the scanner spell chirped to life. “Alert! Large mobile nonliving mass ahead.”
You don’t say, thought the pinned Rainbow sardonically.
“Composition: 98% odd matter, 1% Cloverite, trace quantities of other materials.” Ignoring the voice, Rainbow swiped at the construct’s face with the wingblade. It scored a groove into the fake equine face, which oozed blood momentarily before wavering and disappearing.
Rather than react in any tangible way to the cut, the construct instead raised its other forehoof and shattered the lantern on the shack’s dry porch. The spilled oil spread across the pitted wood, carrying the eager flames with it. The fire pooled around the construct’s hooves, scorching wounds into them that would be horrific and debilitating on a normal pony, but simply vanished from the construct after a few seconds.
Rainbow, although she struggled against the construct’s grip, counted herself lucky that it was holding her up far above the flames. Although she could feel their heat, she was well out of their reach – although this would soon change when the fire started to climb the walls.
There was a ticking noise as a time spell opened and swallowed the impassive construct. Freed from its grip, Rainbow flared her wings and flapped madly to rise above the flames. She had just enough time to think, I’ve got to- before her own time spell opened up and removed her from the growing conflagration.
Rainbow collapsed in a heap on the map table.
“So, did you do it? Did you save them?”
Rainbow looked up to see Shining standing outside of the shield bubble, a hopeful look on his face.
“If I’d done it, you wouldn’t remember any of this.” She sighed wearily. “You were right, the construct was faster and tougher than I expected. And it just healed the only wound I managed to make.”
Shining looked at the floor, downcast. “And there goes the solution I’d been considering.”
“Solution?”
“I was thinking, if the wingblade didn’t do the trick, you could head back to the Castle of the Two Sisters and snag something heavier from their armory. But if the construct can repair itself, you’d need a ballista to so much as slow it down. It would almost take some Iridiine to actually stop the thing, and there’ve been no Iridiine deposits discovered for thousands of years, not to mention the collateral damage it would cause.”
Rainbow nodded, despite having no idea what Iridiine was. “The scanner spell said it was made out of something called odd matter. I have no idea what that is, but I swear I’ve heard it before.” A grin spread across her face as the kernel of an idea began to take root. “Wait here. I’ve got to check something.” She called up the Town on the map control stone again.
“Rainbow, what are…” Shining began, only to be cut off by the time spell activating.
Another punch from the construct. This time, Rainbow activated the scanner spell before it left, and got the scanner’s voice confirming once again that the construct was made almost entirely from ‘odd matter’.
Right. Now to see if I remembered correctly. She trotted over to the experiment table bearing the stone-encased bell jar. Taped to the side of the stone was the sheet of paper she had originally tried to open the trapdoor with. ‘In Situ Neutralisation of Odd Matter: Experiment #42’ read the title, just as she recalled. Yes! Lucky me! Now, with what? Reading down the page, it was largely composed of unreadable abbreviations, like the labels on the chemical vials. Not at all discouraged, she turned to the machine.
The vial plugged into the side of the machine was labelled like the others, likely meaning it was equally unreadable, but Rainbow couldn’t tell because the label faced backward towards the wall. She pulled and twisted at the vial, but it was stuck fast.
Come on, one of these buttons has to be ‘eject’. Remembering which ones she had previously tried, Rainbow tried hitting the other illegibly labelled buttons scattered around the bell jar. The first made a hissing noise, and seemingly did nothing else (the vial still refused to budge). The second caused the alicorn statuette to drop like a stone, coming to rest at the bottom of the bell jar on its side. The third button filled the jar with some kind of dark smoke, while the fourth cleared it out. The fifth levitated the statue again, and the sixth – and final – button produced a slightly sharper hissing noise.
Okay, well, there are only eight buttons on this. Rainbow tugged on the vial again, even bracing her rear hooves against the device, to no avail. She looked out the window to see the construct approaching the shack once again, bearing the oil lamp aloft.
Maybe if I can… she hit the first button, the illegible one she’d tried on her first trip. The vial drained into the device its contents vaporising with a muffled hiss. The statuette twisted and writhed, settling into a ruined mess unrecognisable as either of its previous forms, but Rainbow ignored this, grasping the vial and pulling. This time, it came free without a struggle, and Rainbow, who hadn’t been expecting this, fell backwards with the (almost completely empty) vial in her hooves. It had a small amount of dull yellow fluid sloshing around in its base, but she was immediately assaulted by a foul stench emanating from the vial.
Eurgh! What is this stuff? It smelled like a mixture of cider vinegar, manure, and rotting pond ooze, strongly enough to feel like a physical assault on her senses. The label was completely unhelpful, reading EssEw. Wouldn’t be surprised if that stood for ‘Essence of Ew’, thought Rainbow.
There’s nowhere enough here to deal with the entire construct. I’ll need to find more, and I doubt I’ll be able to find that here. She activated the time spell, and it carried her back to the present. Maybe Shining will know how I’ll be able to track down the stuff.
Shining seemed to be about to say something, only to recoil, his nose crumpling. “Ugh! What is that smell? Where did you go?”
Rainbow showed him the vial. “This stuff destroys odd matter. But this is all there was in Starlight’s lab, and I have no idea where I could get more, or even what the stuff actually is.”
Shining was holding his muzzle with both hooves. “I’b a soldier, nod ad abothecary. I cad’ dell one chebical frob adother.”
“Well, I am neither of those things, so unless you’ve come up with a way to get my hooves on some of that Iridiine stuff you were talking about, I need to find more of this.”
Shining sighed – and then immediately choked on his breath. “Urgh, I cad taste id. Fide, led be dake a closer look.” Rainbow held the foul-smelling vial close to the barrier, and Shining leaned in. There was a moment as he silently held his breath while looking at the label.
His brow furrowed, immediately followed by his eyes widening. He uncovered his nostrils and took a whiff of the smell. “Wow, that’s a blast from the past.”
“So you do know what it is?”
Shining nodded. “It’s way more concentrated than the stuff I’ve seen, but that’s definitely essence of Aetherwort. Exceptionally powerful unicorn foals take watered down doses of it to control magical surges.”
“Wait, this is medicine? Ponies drink this on purpose?”
“Well, I think ‘on purpose’ is a bit of an overstatement. Twily was never exactly willing to take her weekly doses of it. Besides, it was watered down, like a lot. The medicinal stuff never stank quite this bad, that’s why I didn’t make the connection at first.”
“Great, so you know where I can get more?”
“Well, I can’t get you any from here. Even if it didn’t require a prescription, I told you that anything I try to leave on the table gets chucked away as soon as you come back. But, the Castle of the Two Sisters should have an apothecary, and I don’t doubt there’ll be Aetherwort there.”
“Great. I’ll go there and get some, and then I’ll just need to take it and the wingblade back to Starlight’s Town and that’ll be that.” Rainbow activated the map and selected the last date she had yet to visit.
“Good luck.”