Chapter 5: Blow Me Away
An Icy Existence
Chapter 5: Blow Me Away
By DigitDaemon
Edited (and much much more) by Lord Commander
Rainbow Dash gently flapped her wings, gliding around Ponyville as she waited for the Princesses to finish their meeting with Twilight. A side wind caught her just under her left wing, causing her to flutter about for a moment before regaining control and leveling herself back out. Normally, she wouldn’t be flying on such a dismal day. The entire sky was covered in light grey clouds, and a rogue wind current plagued the skies which was preventing the clouds from gathering into thicker, heavier storm clouds. Rainbow had half a mind to break up the clouds herself, weather schedule be darned, but... she couldn’t just leave Twilight after she was done with the Princesses.
Originally, she had flown off because she was just embarrassed to have been caught swearing with Celestia’s name. In hindsight, it was pretty apparent that the Princess hadn’t taken any offence from it. Now however, she was waiting because she figured that whatever Twilight had wanted to talk about with them, she would want to do so in private.
It was pretty funny to her actually, in an ironic sense. Before meeting Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash had had a pretty ‘devil may care’ attitude. Basically, she had never stressed over anything, just relaxed and enjoyed whatever life decided to give her. However, after making friends with Twilight, Rainbow had picked up on some of her habits. Reading was a big one, but the one that she tried to hide the most was worrying. Sometimes she just sat on a cloud and worried about Twilight. Other times, it was about what Twilight was stressing about, and that was what was happening right now.
Rainbow Dash let out a sigh as she cut up into the cloud layer, her wings slicing out a good chunk of the grey clouds, and she went to work on making a small cloud to lay on. Her thoughts drifted as she made the cloud, a frown began creasing her face as she thought of Twilight. With any luck, maybe Princess Celestia had some solution to her icy problem, some sort of spell or magic thing that could just turn Twilight back into her usual egghead self and not this… other pony.
“I hope you know what you are doing, Twilight,” said Rainbow Dash as she laid down on the cloud and fluffed up the extra bit into a pillow.
“I hope so too, but Dashie, you know Twilight isn’t here, right?”
Rainbow looked around for a moment, tilting over the edge of the cloud to find Pinkie Pie bouncing back up from a trampoline set underneath. “Hi Pinkie.”
“Hiya, want to come see the parade with me?”
Rainbow Dash rolled over the edge of the cloud and dropped like a rock, her wings flared open and bleed her speed off until she landed gently on the ground. She watched as Pinkie bounced a couple of more times, wondering if she was going to have to go in and stop it or something, until Pinkie bounced off and did a few somersaults.
“Tada!” said Pinkie as she threw her hooves into the air, before falling prey to a few giggles.“Hi Dashie!”
“Hi Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash trailed off with a half chuckle. “Again.”
“So want to go see the parade with me?”
“There is a parade today?” Rainbow replied with some confusion.
“Totally,” said Pinkie, as she collapsed the trampoline and hide it behind a nearby bush. “I was upstairs in my room, putting together this big surprise anniversary party for the Cakes, even though they threatened me last year not to do it in their room again during ‘snuggle time’ or else I’d lose my key to the sugar cupboard, and probably the house. So I figured I’d just do it in the front like all my normal parties, and then my tail gets all twitchy-twitch! Pinkie Pie paused just long enough to press her face up against Rainbow Dash’s. “Which means we were having a parade!... or a big fight. So I looked out my window, and I saw a huge group of ponies moving this way.”
“Huge group of ponies? Weird, I didn’t see anything scheduled for today,” Rainbow looked up at the sky. “Wonder why they would want to hold a parade on a day like this? Maybe it’s a circus?”
Pinkie started giggling again as she started going down the road with a bounce. “Well let's find out, silly. Wait, that made sense, so they are silly. Let's go find out why they are being silly, makes sense!”
To her credit, Rainbow Dash only spent a few seconds trying to figure out what Pinkie was trying to say before dropping it, and following her skipping friend down the street towards the outskirts of town. “Better not be something like Flim and Flam showing up again.”
As they got to the edge of town it became increasingly apparent that something was off. The massive group of ponies were all stumbling around, disorganized. It looked like they were just wandering around, but towards Ponyville. As Rainbow Dash got closer, she noticed that there was something off about their coat colors. They were all faded, greyed slightly too as if light hadn’t been on them in a long time, and they hadn’t eaten right in years.
“Oh my gosh, is it nightmare night again already!” Pinkie Pie squealed. “I totally don’t have a costume.
“Uh, Pinkie, it's the middle of November,” said Rainbow Dash.
“Oh, well. I better tell them before they get weird looks in town.” Before Rainbow Dash could stop her, Pinkie bounced off into the mob in the distance.
“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash zoomed towards the group in close pursuit. As she got closer she involuntarily shuddered at the smell of decay that permeated the space around the group. She could easily see a pink blob bounce up and down inside the grey mob as the ghoulish ponies jumped after her with surprising agility. Rainbow Dash was so focused on catching her friend however that she only had a split second to react as one of the shuffling grey ponies jumped up at her.
Rainbow Dash pushed backwards, getting most of her body out of range of the head on attack. The assailant still managed catch the very tip of Dash’s right wing’s largest primary feather though, giving the her a good up close look at the creature.
The skin on its face was pulled so tight that it failed to cover the pony’s gums and the muscles around its eyes. Its teeth were sharp, pointed and set in rows like a shark. Most immediately relevant though, its front hooves had a massive pointed bony protrusions that looked like a twisted perversion of a dragon’s claws, which were sharp enough that as one of them caught her primary feather it cleanly sliced off the tip.
Zombies!
Rainbow Dash’s sudden stop gave the other ghouls around her the opportunity to also jump at her. Despite their un-pony speed, Rainbow Dash was still faster, and she was gone before a single one was two feet off the ground. As she flew forward with renewed energy, Rainbow used the air pocket forming around her as a makeshift shield, pushing the ghouls back as she plowed towards Pinkie Pie. Any other unfortunate ghoul that got in her way was caught in the subsonic pressure wave and thrown back into the ground.
As Pinkie came within range Dash adjusted her speed just a bit, slowing so that she could catch the pink mare at the top of her jump. As soon as Pinkie was right in front of of the blue speedster, Rainbow’s hooves shot forward and grabbed hold of her. A single reversal of her wings, and a hard flap launched the two straight into the sky. Rainbow Dash banked hard and flew as fast as possible while safely carrying Pinkie Pie back to Ponyville.
Just as Dash passed above the roofs’ of the first few houses in town, signalling her arrival in Ponyville proper, she glanced back over her shoulder and blanched at what she saw. The group of undead heading towards the city was even larger than she had thought, numbering well into the hundreds.
In a few short seconds later, Rainbow Dash came to a stop in front of Sugarcube Corner, dropping her energetic cargo.
“Dashie!” Pinkie Pie pouted. “What did you do that for?”
“Did what for?” Dash shot back. “Save our life? Gee, I wonder why I’d do that.”
Pinkie blinked twice and then looked away. “Well who the hay is going to lead them away from Ponyville now!?”
Rainbow Dash jumped back up into the air in sudden panic. “I need to find Twilight. Pinkie, get everypony out of here!”
“Please help!” Rainbow Dash shrieked as she approached the library.
She saw the window as she came up on it, normally it was open. Today however, it was latched shut. At first, Rainbow did a mental check on if she had time to slow down before berating herself, This is too important!
The impact was less severe than she thought it would be, the panel shattered easily beneath her outstretched hooves. As she passed through the window however, she felt the shards of glass still in the pane cut into her skin, leaving lines of red all along her body.
Despite the injuries however, she still managed to stick the landing, coming to a stop on all four hooves in front of a flustered looking Princess Celestia and a very, very angry Twilight Sparkle.
“Zombies are attacking Ponyville”
Twilight let out a furious snort. “Rainbow Dash, I don’t have the bucking patience to deal with your paranoia right now.”
Rainbow Dash for her part only flinched a little. “My paranoia?” she shrieked. “Okay, maybe they aren’t zombies, but there are like, thousands of them right outside town and they tried to kill me and Pinkie Pie!”
Seeing the genuine fear in Rainbows eyes and hearing the panic in her voice seemed to break the veil of rage surrounding Twilight. Her muscles unclenched, her snarl turned into a frown and her eyes seemed to brighten, if only a little.
After a few deep breaths, the princess of magic finally spoke, “Right, I… I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” She looked Rainbow Dash in the eyes and gave her a pleading look. “I… how far away are they?.”
“At best? Maybe five minutes out,” replied Rainbow Dash.
“I’ll get the guard,” said Celestia as she stood up.
Rainbow Dash let out a sigh of relief. “Oh good, and we ca—”
“No!”
Celestia and Rainbow Dash both turned to Twilight and gave her a questioning look.
“It is too late for that. It takes the closest Royal Guard garrison twenty-two minutes to rally and fifteen and minutes to reach Ponyville,” stated Twilight as she levitated a map of Ponyville and the surrounding area over and looked at Rainbow Dash. “You said they were five minutes away?”
“About, I told Pinkie to start evacuating everypony though.”
“Where are they coming from?” asked Twilight. Rainbow shifted over to the map and looked at it, quickly tapping a clearing in the North. “Here, Pinkie Pie noticed them earlier from her window, that’s the way it faces and where we were attacked.”
“There is no way everypony will be clear by the time they get there. I have to stop them.”
“Twilight wait!” Celestia begged, but with a flash of icy-blue magic Twilight Sparkle was gone.
When Twilight reappeared in the market she could already hear screams coming from the direction of the north end of town.
“Hey, sword jerk!” she shouted in her mind. “Are you awake?”
“As if I could sleep.”
Twilight turned and began galloping towards the sounds of fear and destruction. The mob of ponies running away instinctively parted for her, making her journey easy. “I need you to teach me how to fight.”
Frostmourne let out an amused snort. “Impossible, fighting is something that takes even the most basic of warriors a few weeks. There isn’t enough time for you.”
“I thought you said if I died you would too.”
“Well,” replied Frostmourne, his voice full of amusement. “There is another way…”
Twilight shook her head. “No.”
“I promise I won’t hurt you or anypony else. It is the only way, unless you would rather wait for the guards.”
Twilight skidded to a halt, by now she was at the edge of the residential district and only a block or so from where the screams had come from. It seemed like the entire area had evacuated by then. At least, that’s what she hope since anyone left had stopped screaming.
“They will be on us soon,” Frostmourne interjected impatiently. “Will you fight, or run?”
As the ancient general finished, the ground erupted in a shower of earth. Without thinking, the wicked blade appeared before Twilight, manifested out of ice, and speared the spider creature before it had even finished emerging from the ground.
Twilight Sparkle scowled at the freshly re-killed beast. “Looks like we fight.”
A feeling of cold swelled inside her chest. It wasn’t an uncomfortable chill, reminding Twilight more of a cool blanket being pressed to her skin. She took a deep breath, allowing the general more access to her body, feeling his power and being mesh with her own. Upon exhaling, she felt a strange sense of peace and calmness: Determination. The earth shook again and Twilight quickly jumped backwards, placing her sword in the path of the emerging insect and allowed it to impale itself.
As the second creature fell to the ground the icy blade shattered and left cold steel in its place.
“Your conjuration is exquisite,” Frostmourne complimented. “The blade is nearly perfect.”
“Thanks, your reflex aren’t lacking either,” Twilight replied, the sword floating up and slicing deeply into a third spider creature, driving it back.”Even after a thousand years of sleep.”
There was a blood curdling moan immediately followed by an animalistic pony corpse racing around the corner. Twilight grimaced as soon as she saw it. Before, even though it was dead, it was still a pony. Hesitation filled her movements and she heard Frostmourne snarl as control was cut from him. The sword jerked in mid air, aiming too low for a clean kill, and instead lopped the pony’s hind legs off. Despite the somewhat jagged shape of the sword’s blade, and it’s messed up strike, it cut like a hot knife through butter.
“Twilight, these are not the ponies they used to be. They are but corpses enslaved by dark magic,” the general said coldly. “You must put aside regret if you want to save the living.”
Twilight bit her bottom lip and looked over at the ghoul. It was still trying to come after her, the nightmarish thing dug it’s forehooves into the ground and crawled towards her. Twilight brought the sword around and held it before her in defense. As it furiously inched closer to her, Twilight could see more details about the former pony. It had very little skin covering its rotting muscle, and its skull had been damaged enough to leave the tissue exposed. What she at first thought had been pointed teeth, she then realized were fragments of bone that must lodged into its jaw while it had been chewing on other dead.
“Your right, and even if they were,” a single tear fell from the princess’s eye, “it's no way to live.”
Without hesitation she charged forward, and swung the sword.
Celestia stared at the spot Twilight had been standing in silence.
“Um, princess?” Rainbow asked hesitantly.
Celestia shook her head to clear her thoughts, “Sorry Rainbow Dash, I was just struck with an old memory.”
“Yeah, no problem I guess,” The pegasus replied, “What do we do now?”
“I’m sorry Rainbow Dash but there is something I must do and I alone. Maybe this time I will get it right.” With a blinding light and radiating warmth that filled the room, the princess vanished.
The sea of animated corpses were steadily becoming a mountain of bodies as Twilight made short work of the mindless opponents. As she fought her way out of the residential district and back into the outskirts of town, new horrors began making their way through the ranks of the undead. These skeleton warriors were fragile, and not just limited to ponies any more. griffins and few bipedal horrors made up their rank and were armed with rusted swords and spears. This forced Twilight to give more attention to them as she quickly learned that they well trained. But there was more to this undead advance as even more of the spider creatures began to burst from the ground and attack her from behind.
Twilight leaped to the sky and tried to fly towards a clear spot but sudden thump had some sort of sticky residue on her wings, causing her to crash into the dead army below. Twilight scrambled off the dead that had broken her fall, resorting to instinctive kicking, and blindly swinging her sword until she better grasped the situation and instantly threw up a shield, pushing all of the creatures away from her. It was then that she collapsed onto her knees, breathing harshly, and feeling a sticky warmth from her side.
“Are you okay?” asked Frostmourne calmly.
Twilight rolled from her back onto her hooves and stood up.
“I think I’m—” Twilight stopped and brought her sword back up just in time to deflect the oncoming ghoul and dispatch him, “—fine.”
“I have an idea,” replied Frostmourne. “Why don’t you allow me to handle the sword and you can focus on using magic.”
Twilight continued to deflect and take out the attacking undead but her ear twitched in place of her question.
“We can cover twice as much ground and I don’t need your magic to fight.”
Twilight dropped the sword from her telekinetic grasp and instinctively grabbed the hilt in her jaw. The feeling of her body moving without her input was startling at first, but after shaking it off she began to focus on her spellwork. She started with the basic homing magic projectile, but with her head moving to swing the sword, it was impossible to lock a target so she switched to a quick and dirty lightning spell instead. It turned out that lightning made quick work of the brittle bone and starved flesh, turning the hordes of undead into splinters and burnt flesh.
Twilight’s body came to a stop during a momentary lull in the fight and Twilight assumed control again. “Well, that worked.”
“Indeed.”
Just as Twilight reassumed a fighting stance, the ground burst open again and two more spider jumped out. With heightened reflexes she hit them with a bolt of lightning but this one went straight through them and into the ground without causing anything more than a fraction of a seconds pause.
“Guess it doesn’t work for everything.”
Three more spiders emerged from behind, cutting off Twilight's escape and advanced on her. Twilight vanished from the group and appeared on the top of a roof of a nearby building. Focusing as much magic into her horn as she could, she cast a very charged version of a candle light spell, igniting the spiders into a roaring inferno. Just as she began search for a new target, a bolt of green energy hit her squarely in the back knocking her down into a nearby building.
“Come on, get up!” Frostmourne yelled internally as a group of skeletons charged towards the downed alicorn.
Twilight however was too slow in recovering and skeletal soldier were already upon her. Just as their swords were raised, a beam of blindingly bright light shot out, burning a hole through each of them.
Twilight turned her head, mouth falling open at what was looming behind her.
Celestia’s crown was replaced by an ornamental helmet made of bronze with a golden sunburst. She wore golden, plated armor, decorated with stylized sun imagery and rubies. Her wings even had golden frames attached to them, and her feathers had blades tucked into them so that she could use them as additional weapons. But hefted in her magical glow was a giant warhammer that looked more fitting for a minotaur than the royal head of Equestria. Celestia looked like the vengeful avatar of the Sun.
“Princess Celestia,” Twilight said half in awe and half in confusion.
“Hello, Twilight,” replied Celestia with a serene smile. “It just occurred to me that we never covered very much of war in any of our lessons. While I do prefer to end disagreements with kindness and not fighting, that is clearly not an option at this point.”
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It's Hammer Time!
I miss OG Warcraft. So much.
leave it to Celestia to turn an initial assault on ones person into a freaking lesson.
So not to be that one guy, but... update soon?
This made me get my Warcraft 3s out and play them. I'm almost done with them.
6864221 im almost done with the next chapter, it would have been up sooner but I got a cold on vacation and then when I got back I got the flu, which I am just now almost recovered 100% from. I just need to work out one scene and then it will be off to get edited.
I am glad you are enjoying it and thank you very much for saying so!