By the time Rainbow Dash had taken her third breath, she had already knocked over eight ponies to the ground. A retaliatory wave of angry stallions charged forward, flinging all manner of blunt bric a brac at her feathery appendages. She backflipped, reverse-somersaulted onto her hooves, grabbed a barstool in her mouth, and swung it like a club across three faces in a row. Blood and teeth littered the floor, then rattled in every direction as Rainbow slammed a pony down into the tavern’s foundation with a downswing of the stool.
The bartender leapt onto her backside, screaming bloody murder as he broke a bottle over a nearby table and jabbed the sharp end towards Rainbow’s neck.
She was already flapping her wings, sailing straight up so that her spine flattened the miscreant against the ceiling. The shattered shingles of brittle tile fell, along with the groaning weight of the bartender.
No sooner had Rainbow landed when a fresh wave of angry equines galloped her from the side.
She spun, hissing through clenched teeth as she reared her hooves in readiness.
Just then, a metal prehensile tail whipped through the air, knocking everypony to the floor. Roarke icily stood up, brushing the wooden splinters of a shattered table off her helmet. “Alright,” she murmured. “Time for swampville to enter the nuclear age.” She protruded several missiles at once.
Gasping, Rainbow pounced her and forcefully shoved the projectiles back in. “No!”
Roarke gave her a double-take. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” her voice droned through the helmet.
“For the last dang time, no missiles!” Rainbow frowned. “We don’t have to kill these guys!”
“You weren’t so quick to stop me when we were fighting in Gray Smoke!”
Rainbow spat. “Do these look like a bunch of heartless cultists to you?!”
Zaid stood up, smiling dizzily. “Hey, I’m a cultist!”
Rainbow Dash blindly backhoofed him in the chin. “Shut up, cultist!”
“Get ‘em!” A stallion at the far end stood up and pointed an angry hoof. “Tear them limb from limb!” He and twenty other ponies galloped as one furious herd.
“Well, then, Madame Morality.” Roarke lasso’d Rainbow’s forelimb with her tail and flung her forward. “Looks like you just volunteered your limbs.”
“H-hey!” Rainbow gasped, then fiercely guarded her upper body as she found herself rolling beneath an angry forest of kicks, bucks, and stomping limbs. “Nnnnghh-Hghhh! Quit it! Sonuva--Knock it off!” This last exclamation was accompanied by a wing-flapping uppercut. two ponies were knocked back into the growing mosh pit while four more leapt on Rainbow from behind.
Clenching her teeth, Rainbow spun about in a circle, her blurring body accelerating as she tossed shrieking stallions into walls, windows, tables, and countertops.
From afar, Roarke pretended to not be watching, instead examining a length of scuffed-up armor along her forelimb.
Groaning, Zaid stood up yet again, rubbing her forehead. “Unnngh… Is it just me, or did a blue tornado start doing a cheerleader act in here since I was last under?”
“She does a fair amount of sucking from time to time, if that’s what you mean.” Roarke pointed behind him. “Well, would you look at that? It’s your face in the tabletop!”
“No way!” Zaid spun and grinned into his varnished reflection. “Where?!”
Roarke kicked the back of his skull. He headplanted into the table and slumped to the floor, cold.
“Hmmphh. Breeders.” Roarke wrapped a length of metal cable around him and dragged him out the back of the bar.
In the meantime…
“Haaaaaaaugh!” Rainbow’s voice violently cracked. “This is… why I… gave up… the cider! Nnngh!” Just as she thought she had tossed the last of the cretins off her body, a particularly large stallion gripped her from behind. Two more gripped her limbs while three struggled to hold her wings in place. “Hey! No fair! Gimme back my legs! Grrrgh! I need them for shoving awesomeness down your throats!”
“End of the line, Miss Sass!” A pony approached her, rubbing his bleeding lip. “You don’t come into our town, trying to make us look like idiots!”
Rainbow sneered. “Who says I had to try, doofus?”
“We’ll see how smug you are once you’re using them wings of yours for gruntwork!” He leaned forward with a smirk. “First thing’s first.” He grasped the edge of her pendant. “You need a new collar.” Others chuckled around him.
She gasped. “No! Don’t even friggin’ think about it! That’s the worst idea in the history of the worstest!”
“Like you’re gonna do anything about it.” With that, he yanked the pendant clear off.
Rainbow’s eyes rolled back as a spasm ran through her body. She hissed, writhed her head from side to side, then reopened her sockets with a pulse of red and yellow light.
An overcast sky hung above the village.
One second, the tavern lay still.
The next second…
Kaplow!
Every window, door, vent, drain, and chimney exploded outward. Pony bodies sailed out, flying for at least two dozen feet before splashing into the river or rolling to a painful stop atop the docks. As the dust and debris settled from inside the imploding building, several stallions limped out, leaning on each other for support as they hissed and wheezed in pain. The joined their brethren who were climbing out of the riverwater as they booked it towards the far side of town, running as quickly as their panting lungs could carry them.
A minute later, Rainbow Dash limped out, her mane having exploded into a fuzzy ‘fro, like bolts of colored lightning stretching in every direction. She finished clasping the pendant of loyalty back in place. She sighed, bearing the brunt of her shivers beginning and ending in a blink. Once her eyes stopped glowing, she relaxed, resting back on her haunches as she tried in vain to shake her mane straight.
Just then, a familiar stallion’s voice shrieked through the air.
Rainbow Dash gasped, then spun around. After a few blinks, her face bore a menacing scowl.
“Roarke…”
On heavily plodding hooves, she galloped down the docks and bulleted towards the water mill where the shrieking voice echoed from.
Don't touch the pendant. It's like, The On-Switch of Doom.
Twenty-five pushups, but these are gonna be done SF style. Hands in line with your shoulders, go down until your chest hits the ground, then all the way up til your elbows lock. Keep your back straight, it's supposed to be your CHEST hitting the dirt, not your belly. Make it hurt so good, ):(. Knock 'em out!
Clown hair Rainbow Dash is a lot more deadly and a lot less hilarious than it sounds in this case. Well... more deadly, at least.
...They're alive? That's a little surprising. Rainbow must have more control over her chaos-self than we think.
Though it seems her hair is not something she has control over. What is worse, do we think? Bloody holes where horns grew, or a clown 'fro?
On a completely unrelated note, Rainbow's uptight and paranoid attitude of recent times is starting to get to me. I mean, it's perfectly understandable after Imre's death to be hopelessly concerned about your friends, but as somebody who is permanently mellow, I've been questioning her actions and reactions for everything recently. I wish she would stop ignoring logic, and I really wish she would stop jumping to irrational conclusions.
Excellent idea, removing the Element. At least it stopped the brawl.
Now, what's Roarke most Violent doing to that poor breeder?
Well...
That's one way of sobering up a drunk pony, Roarke.
And that is why you don't try to take other people's things. Because they'll likely summon the power of chaos incarnate and just about kill you all.
i was wondering when she was going to loose her element again...
3347989
the big red button is shaped like a lightning bolt.
They had the upper hoof and still managed to lose. Way to fail, colts.
I didn't know cultists could switch genders midsentence.
Rainbow's a' firin' her lazer!!
3348116
I think its more like a Ullapool caber.
Well, RDs definitely needs some rest and recovery to have problems with getting pined by only 6, and as for the trick with the Element.
Just be glad its Lithium boys, cos it couldve been uranium.
Chaos!Rainbow is best bar-room brawler.
I guess you can't really blame the local yokels for being a measure short of a cocktail.
It's all fun and games until somepony steals the jewelry.
Clearly, the cult only employs the brightest of ponies.
Heh. Boom.
3348341 I-it was the alcohol, okay?
Stay classy, Roarke.
Damn...stop beating up poor Zaid XD I know he was in a cult that tried to kill your friends and kidnapped a foal and stole a book that possessed the power to your ship and tried to coerce you into joining them but...ok I got nothing, but I still maintain he is harmless...mostly...he's drunk and obviously in bad shape mentally having survived being blown out of the sky and dragging a dead body MILES to a bar to get drunk.
That aside...HAHAHA, yeah taking that pendant off...wow. That's just setting up a bomb and standing there and waiting for the pretty explosion XD
Take off pendant=explpsion of awesome
3348082
Yeah, she'd better not be gelding Zaid...
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/2/23/252415__safe_rainbow+dash_reaction+image_-dot-mov_swag-dot-mov.jpg
Also: Rain'fro Dash
3348580 Well, all things considered, Zaid is probably one of the nicer cultists. After all, he did save Kera's life, and it didn't really seem like he was doing it to nab the Harbinger either; he was doing it just 'cause. It was obvious he was worried for her safety as soon as he released her to the Ledomaritans, but it was either that or Shell nuke them all to oblivion... which he did anyways.
The cultists may be fanatical zealots, but I hesitate to consider them evil on a whole. Just very, very misguided, and perhaps extraordinarily desperate.
That's probably the most hilarious rendition of her condition becoming unstable yet. No serious, all comedy, exploding buildings, flying stallions and rainbow-tastic afros. This just keeps getting better and better!
3350339i dunno. I often think that just by doing evil deeds like kidnapping, threatening to kill someone and actually killing someone that is innocent you can't be doing TOO good. Does that make someone evil? Maybe, but I don't think Zaid is, that's for sure. We'll have to wait and see what his story is but I can't imagine him actually committing some of the crimes the other members of the cult have. Hell, he might not be "high ranking" enough to have been allowed to.
3350339 BTW, your icon is cute.
She done something about it. Bad call by the drunk stallion.
Once more a group of poor sinners has been gently advised to return to the path of righteousness.
i.qkme.me/3tmq1o.jpg
Rapebow Dash has done her thing.
A bar fight was expected, and wanted.
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
Again, great fight sequence here. However, Discord's influence here seemed almost comical. I like it! It's certainly a interesting take. I hope Roarke doesn't hit Zaid too hard, though...These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
As soon as that goon removed Dash's pendant, I said aloud, "Ah, buddy, ya done goofed."
Good to know Discord's lethal chaos energy can still come in handy sometimes, although I really wonder how long Rainbow has left before the dizzy spells intensify. At least the long-lost secret of where Mayor Mare got her clown fro has been solved. Add a spritz of chaos to a rainbow pegasus, and bam! Instant clown wig. That's clearly what the cultists are really after.
Well, I've been slower than a gimpy tortoise trying to keep up with this thing lately, so I have a lot to catch up on - onward!
Really bad idea.
-Spirit
Wait... So Rainbow can take on a large squadron of trained soldiers without breaking a sweat, but she has difficulty fighting a bunch of drunkards? I think I'm missing something here. (There's a trope for this... I don't know what it is, but I know there is one. If anyone knows what it is, please tell me.)
It's not a true bar fight until a building is destroyed by chaos energy.
Well, that's one way to look for information indeed.
Oh god, Zaid's killing me
I think I found a new horsebando
You and Josho can share a special place in my heart together
Also, I'm surprised there were survivors and this didn't turn into another Aridstone. I think Roarke must've stepped in.
I laughed more than I should, really...
5992374 and then, Of course, some idiot takes the necklace off.
Famous last words.
You shouldn't have done that.
6187513 i.imgur.com/qwKqx.jpg
Raze this bar, raze this bar, one, two, three four, together we can raze this bar, one, two, three, four!
Once the pendant is removed, Miss Rainbow Dash is not your friend.
Only one out of two, you lack a brain, not a heart.
05/22/2017 20:43 UTC
I really hope Zaid joins the crew. He's friggin' hilarious when sloshed.
You shouldn't have done that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0FKJJclZM
Awesome
This just became ground zero...or Cloud Zero
Shoryuken!
I redact my last comment.