That Which Slips Away
“Look alive, snake charmer!” Roarke fired her rockets and dove down at Zytharros at a sharp angle.
The stallion braced himself on the edge of the loading platform and twirled his sword over his glowing horn. With a grunt, he deflected the mare’s sweeping attack and shoved her towards the far end of the spacious cavern. As Roarke toppled backwards in midair, he let loose an angry shout. In response, six glowing serpents flew up at her, fangs glistening.
She gritted her teeth and burned her thrusters, flying out of reach of the summoned monster’s lunging attacks. She skimmed the curved edge of the hangar, galloped upside down across the ceiling, and kicked off before a pair of chaos creatures could bite into her fetlocks. Cutting her engines, she plummeted like a weighted anvil, surging straight towards the platform’s edge where the Xonan warrior was situated.
Zytharros readied for the attack, swinging his bastard sword high.
Roarke opened side panels in her suit and fired two lashing coils of metal. They latched around the edges of Zytharros’ blade, gripping it in place like twin lassos. The two fought at a distance, struggling over dominance of the Xonan’s weapon. At last, the stallion pulled his blade towards him. As a result, Roarke inched closer, reined in by her own coils. Blue light shimmered between them as Zytharros unsheathed a glowing scimitar from his side, preparing to puncture between her eyes.
At the sound of otherworldly shrieks, Roarke glanced behind. Her lenses reflected all six serpents sailing at her. With a grunt, she fired the thrusters on her right horseshoes only. As a result, she spun like a horizontal top in mid-air, causing Zytharros’ blade to spin as well.
Thrown off by his own telekinetic grip, Zytharros collapsed onto the surface of the platform. The serpents, in the meantime, flew into Roarke’s rocketing engines. They tore to bits, flew past her, and splashed all over Zytharros like a puddle of ectoplasmic filth.
Roarke stopped spinning. Seeing Zytharros down for the count, she recoiled her metal cables and flew towards the hilt of the blade, desperate to grab it. Before she could reach it, however, the plates flew apart, spread around her, and rejoined on the other side in the shape of a glowing, grated barrier. The thing flew against her rear, sweeping her downwards in the air and towards Zytharros.
Tumbling in her fall, Roarke glanced upside down to see Zytharros standing up, readying the scimitar in full swing. Instead of accepting her fate, Roarke merely kicked off the armored wall pushing her and flew down at the stallion faster. He gasped and juked to the side, but it didn’t stop her from grazing his shoulder with a merciless swing of her bladed hoof-brace.
“Yaaaaugh!” Zytharros stumbled, hissing as his own juices stained the platform red beneath him. “Grnnngh… Searo’neean trentte!” Growling, he spun and stared daggers at her.
Roarke spun about and hovered at an even level above, panting. She didn’t have any time to relax, as her grimacing face showed. A glowing beacon from below illuminated every tight, worried line in her muzzle.
Combining the effluence of his slain summons, Zytharros swirled the glowing chaotic material into a portal. Emerging with high-pitched shrieks, an enormous viper with dangling tendrils ripped into reality. Its fangs still dripped with the spilled blood of devoured Ledomaritans. With an agile flip, Zytharros mounted the neck of the creature and pulled at a pair of rattling, metal reins. He twirled his sword high and whipped the creature into lunging at Roarke.
The metal mare hissed. “Bring it.” Roarke popped open her rocket launchers… only for them to click with empty chambers. Her eye-lenses retracted. “Then again.”
With a banshee shriek, the enormous snake’s jaws ripped their way towards Roarke.
Roarke held her breath, twirled past the monster’s slicing fangs, and rocketed her way towards the distant exit of the hanger, trailing the exhaust of the Lightning-Bearer’s exit.
Whipping the reins, Zytharros swung his beast around and sent it after her, screaming the entire way via a stream of chaos energy.
“Unnngh!” Basso cried out. The sheer weight of every guard pouncing him was finally too much. He stumbled, limped, and fell to his chest as they all tore him off balance. “Miss Dash!” he squeaked, gritting his teeth and struggling to shout over their hideous exclamations. “I… I-I can’t do it! They’re gonna take us all down--” Just as he said that, a stallion slammed the full telekinetic weight of his polearm against his muzzle, causing him to hack and spit up blood.
“Basso!” Rainbow Dash hissed. She rolled over limply. “Nnngh… N-Nightshade?! Darn it, we’re screwed! Do you have Kera or don’t you?!”
The madame was silent. She backtrotted away from the pile of rubble.
“N-Nightshade!” Rainbow’s voice echoed once more from a distance.
With a cold breath, the mare turned around… and nearly tripped over Kera.
The dirtied foal was staring with a gaping expression. Her eyes swam past Nightshade and fell to the dense pile of rubble, still spitting out clouds of dust and sediment. “You… you…” Her eyes moistened. “You didn’t… save him…?”
“He slipped,” Nightshade droned.
Kera’s green eyes twitched.
The mare held the glowing book tighter under her forelimb. “There was nothing I could do. Now, child, let’s go get Rainbow Dash out of--”
“Liar!” Kera stomped all four hooves. “You let him fall, didn’t you?!”
“Child, we cannot waste time. Rainbow needs us--”
“He had a family!” Kera snarled. “He had ponies he loved and cared about and he was only trying to restore something that was stolen from him!”
Nightshade suddenly growled with flaring eyes. “He was a murderer and a deceiver and he nearly intoxicated you with his venomous stratagem! If anything, dear child, you should be thanking me! By severing him from you forever, I ensured you a better fate!”
“Is that how you protect ponies?!” Kera barked, eyes tearing. “By killing others?!”
“Enough!”
Kera slid forward with a snarl. “Like you’ve murdered hundreds because of how much you ‘love’ your lame brother?!”
Nightshade’s face twitched. She leaned forward and raised the book above Kera’s fragile skull like a gavel. “Do not speak of darling Novus in that manner! My grace has spared him!” She spat. “Just as it has spared so many poor, lost children of the tattooed hoarde--”
Just then, the largest tremor yet rattled through the Hold. The ceiling gave way. Both ponies looked up in time to see a huge chunk of stone falling down. Nightshade merely gasped. Kera…
“Nnnngh!” She fired a blast of telekinesis straight up. The magical bolt impacted the falling stone, causing it to explode with a cloud of crystalline shrapnel. The sheer thunderclap of the blast spread throughout the chamber like flame, knocking the stallions off Basso’s bruised figure. Rainbow Dash grunted as she rolled several feet away, where she writhed in dizziness, blinded by the falling dust.
“Nnngh… crkkk… kaff… Kera…” She gazed weakly into the collapsing cloud. “K-Kera… where… where are you…?”
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Roarke finally out of ammo! Let the hoof kicking begin!
was expecting Roarke to run out anyways. That was like, 10 rockets. This is why I had so much trouble figuring out how to draw her armor, trying to balance flexibility and ammo capacity.
3618265 I would love to see that artwork once your done
As much as I hate everything that Nightshade does - the murders, the foal-napping, the lying, the treachery, the double-talk - the two things I hate most about her are the things that Jesus hated most about the religious leaders of his day - trusting in one's own righteousness and self-justification.
Kera has some powerful magic when angry, kinda like dash
Would be much better if Rourke managed to find a way to short circuit mr I got a lot of unstable chaos energy metal on me.
Judging by the way that characters never seem to die until there is a body in plain sight, I don't think this is the end of our Xonan friend.
Holy update-dump, Batman. Nice thing to find at the end of a shift.
Lots of unprecedented things this chapter. Basso being beaten? Roarke running out of rockets? Fury-fueled fillies fending off falling fragments? What's the world coming to? And to top it all off, Dash continues not to be awesome.
Let her have it, Kera!
Snow White's stitching up your circuit-boards;
Someone's slipping through the hidden door
Run for longest duel of the series: failed.
Immersion-breaker: failed.
Killer chaos snakes of death: failed.
Endless supply of ammo: failed.
Nightshade rolling for deception: failed.
/this chapter.
Gah! Nightshade, you gigantically stupid hypocrite!
...Darn it.
...Darn it.
IIIIIt's Dashie's Evasive Maneuvers Get-Backing Adventure!
And there you go. Kera saved Nightshade. I feel like that'll come back to bite Nightshade later, after this confrontation has settled down...These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
P.S. Two more, let's go!
Rainbow really needs to get away from that book. She's about as useful as a limp noodle when it's around.
Also, good Kera - guilt trip the hell out of Madame Bitchface. Her moral compass needs a serious retuning.
Onward!
3618265 I have to imagine they are very small rockets. almost more like giant guided self-propelled bullets.
3619148 exactly!
Hypocrite Nightshade.
-Spirit
kera, teach nightshade a fucking lesson....teach it hard...i mean
HARD!!!!!!
Nightshade is such a terrible pony, no matter her intentions. It's the same conundrum I have with Shell, seeing as both are villains with hearts of gold . . . kind of. I don't think normal archetypes can truly describe them either.
God, Nightshade's almost on my nerves as much as Khao is with her self-righteous bullshit.
Urgh. I hope Kera doesn't have to do it, but somepony really needs to pony up and kill off Nightshade. I'm all for redemption and second chances, and it's paid off wonderfully for about half the Jury. But it hasn't been taking on her. Just...finish her off already before she murders or pisses off any more potential allies.
Nightshade, the only poison here is you...
6199461
That's what I've been saying. Glad someone's got the common sense to know that Queen Mind-fk here needs the axe. Although the question is ... is there really any death slow and painful enough for her? I mean sure she needs to die. But a quick death would rob her of her chance to see the error of her ways before Tartarus tears her soul to shreds. Cause I know she sure as hay isn't going to Elysium when she kicks the bucket.
Huh, so she doesn't have infinite missiles after all...
If this foal causes thunder simply by using full powered telikenesis, then that Gilly has one hell of a powerful gift.
Sh'll outgun Shell at this rate!
One, twelve is not 'so many'
Two, foalnapping them is not 'sparing them'
Three, what you did to your brother was for yourself, not for him
and Four, will you can it with the 'civilized ponies burden' bullcrap?
09/09/2019
01:36 UTC