• Published 16th Sep 2014
  • 7,077 Views, 12,066 Comments

Yaerfaerda - Imploding Colon



Rainbow Dash and the Noble Jury continue to fly east.

  • ...
41
 12,066
 7,077

PreviousChapters Next
Yes, It's That Kind of Hunt

Errant beams of yellow and red plasma erupted from the jagged peaks of the skystone fields.

Booster Spice gnashed his teeth, yanking the controls left and right in a desperate bid to keep Whizzball straight and centered. With each adjustment he made, a gust of wind blew at the glossy sphere from a random angle, upsetting his already tenuous balance. The stallion sweated nervously, so much so that he had to lift his goggles several times to wipe his brow.

“What in God's name is taking them so long...?” He shuddered, leaning tensely forward in the pilot's seat. “That cave can't go on forever.”

As his eyes once again fell upon the fluctuating landscape below, he heard a buzzing from his communications panel. He slapped a hoof over it.

“Yes!” Booster barked. “Josho? EE?! What have you found?”

“Scrkkk! Sorry to disappoint you, Booster. It's Bellesmith.”

“Belle!” Booster smiled despite his strain. “Boy, it's good to hear a friendly voice!”

“I'm sorry to interrupt your operation. I'm calling to let you know—”


“—that we've made it through the perimeter!” Belle said, squatting at the Noble Jury's communications array while Props tweaked the steam valves situated around the engine room's tome. “Rainbow Dash's team successfully distracted the soul sentries long enough for us to pass on through! We're making our way towards Val Roa proper as we speak!”

“Well that's—scrkkkk—hear, Belle! Then I—scrkkkk!—joining Rainbow with—scrkkk—time for the Coronation?

Belle blinked awkwardly.

“Ooooh...” Props glanced over, blue eyes narrow. “That doesn't sound too good.”

“Booster, you're breaking up!” Belle stood before the array. “What's your situation? Is everything okay?”

Scrkkkk—hear you, Belle, there's—Scrkkkk—with the manaconduits of Whizzball. I'm—scrkkkk—elevation, but I want to stay low—scrkkk—when Josho and Eagle Eye try to—scrkkkk!

“Booster, just... just look out for yourself and the others, okay?!” Belle spoke loudly into the rippling static. “Get the three of you—”


“—scrkkkk—safely! We'll rendezvous in—scrkkkk-scrkkkk!

Booster winced, shaking his head. “Belle... Belle!” He leaned his muzzle close to the communications system. “I don't know if you can hear me, but you're impossible to make out! I will be flying here until I get a clear sign of Josho and Eagle Eye! And then I'll be flying us waaaaaay far away from here. Something's making the skystone fields fluctuate with extra energy, and I don't know how much longer Whizzball can take!”

Silence.

“Hello?!”

The communications console had gone dead.

With a sigh, Booster leaned back, hanging onto the controls. “I don't know how much longer I can take...”


The communications array inside the Noble Jury had gone silent. Belle leaned back with a heavy sigh. “We just lost him.”

“Lost him or...” Props gulped, her ears deflating. “Lost lost him?”

Belle shook her head. “Who's to know?” She glanced up. “Booster is resilient enough to fly Whizzball through anything, but from the sound of things, he's all alone up in there.”

“You mean Josho and Adoraface...?”

“Are still investigating the site.” Bell nodded. “Yes.”

“Ohhhhh...” Props pouted, nibbling on the end of a wrench. “Nnnngh...” She opened her mouth again and pointed with the instrument. “I engineered the leylines of our communications system myself. The only thing I can imagine that would disrupt it that badly is a fluctuation of skystone energy!”

“Well, that would make sense, wouldn't it?”

“Yes, but if I only knew what was causing it.”

“Causing what, exactly?”

“Natural skystone deposits tend to fluctuate when they're being harvested.” Props thought out loud. “That, or being drained of energy.”

“You mean, while still situated within their natural reserves?”

“Yup yup yup!”

“But...” Belle blinked. “Who or what could be draining the skystone fields from within?”

“Good question. But what matters is that all three of our guy-friends could soon become die-friends.” Props pouted. “Exposure to that much constant fluctuation can roast the flesh inside out!”

“Spark...” Belle grimaced. “Well, we can't be having that!”

“If the Noble Jury was where Whizzball was, it could withstand the fluctuations better.”

“Yes, but we can't very well go back there now, can we?” Belle stood up and began pacing. “Rainbow Dash needs us in Val Roa. We're all that stands between this nation and the Cartel's battleships. And besides!” Belle spun about. “The perimeter reactivated! The soul sentries would simply blast us out of the sky if we were to fly back the way which we came!”

“Hmmmmm...”

“Nnnngh...” Belle ran a hoof through her dark brown mane. “Just when I thought I was starting to enjoy this whole captain nonsense...” She gulped. “What I wouldn't do for an ace in the hole.”

Props blinked. Props smiled. “I think I might have one for you!”

“Hmmm?” Belle looked up.

“Scooch over, girlfriend!” Props chirped as she slid up to the communications array, spinning several knobs and charging the soundstones. “I've got a call to make!”


Josho's heavy hoofsteps clopped over dank stone. Water splashed, running down into unseen crevices on either side of the rocky platform beneath him. He swung his head left and right in a gentle sweep, illuminating the smooth sloping ceiling above. After several moments of fruitless illumination, his nostrils flared.

Behind him, Eagle Eye's voice echoed. “See anything yet?”

“You're the one with the good vision,” Josho grumbled. “Assuming you're not busy adding pink drapes to this place with your mind.”

Eagle sighed, stepping up beside the larger stallion. His own horn glowed in a thinner, brighter beam. “I can't get over how smooth the rocks are.”

“I know,” Josho droned. “Isn't it a tragedy?”

“I'm serious, old stallion!” Eagle frowned. “It doesn't look natural!”

“I'm certain Rainbow didn't send us here to survey just any hole in the ground.” Josho hopped a thin ravine and landed on a plateau of flat rock across the way. “Something's gotta be here, alright. The entire floor has been level for us the whole way to this point, and it's been gradually ascending.” He sniffed a few times. “Not to mention it's perfectly breathable down here.”

“Speak for yourself.” Eagle hopped over to join him, his muzzle twisted in a wretching expression. “Just what is that stench?

“Unpleasant, that's for sure,” Josho said. “I could do without it.” A beat. His muzzle curved slightly, “And considering whom that's coming from—”

“Heh...” Eagle managed a tiny smirk. “I was about to say the same thing.”

“Beat you to it, sunshine.” Josho tilted his head curiously as the two trotted down a narrowing corridor of dull blue stone. “Although, if you ask me, things are getting a bit...”

“Fouler?”

“Well, yes. But warmer too.” Josho flashed his horn's light straight up. “Could we be getting so high up we're reaching the... err... roots of the skystone?”

“I don't know how that works, to be perfectly honest,” Eagle Eye said, trotting alongside Josho. “But my guess is, if we got too close, we wouldn't be in the mood to chat about it.”

“Hmmm... perhaps not—”

There was a sickeningly loud crunch between them.

The two unicorns froze in place.

Eagle glanced aside at the older pony. “What... the Spark was that?”

“I... uh...” Josho took a deep breath. “I think I just stepped in something.”

What exactly?”

“Shine the light, genius.”

Eagle gulped. He tilted his horn down while Josho lifted his hoof.

They caught the fragments of a glossy black shell. Part of it clung to Josho's fetlock with sticky residue. The rest shattered, flaking off into brittle obsidian bits.

“Well, if that's not a turn off, I don't know what is,” Josho muttered.

“What is that?” Eagle grimaced. “A skull?

“I'm pretty sure are bones are white on the inside.”

“Some kind of... egg, then?”

“No, not quite...” Josho blinked. “Come to think of it, there's something familiar about the texture.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and this stench...” Josho sniffed the air again. “I've smelled it before.”

“Oh y-yeah? Where?”

Josho looked aside. “Stratopolis.”

Eagle Eye shuddered. “Well...” He trotted forward, shining his light around. “...I sure don't like the sound of that.” A gaping changeling's face flashed before his eyes. “GAAH!” He hopped back.

Josho instantly stomped a hoof forward, standing protectively in front of Eagle as he aimed his shotgun level with the changeling.

But the metamorph's skull didn't move. The creature hung there, its eyesockets dim and porous. Dozens of deep fissures ran through its exoskeleton. The webbed spines along its neck and back had whittled away to fibrous silks, dangling in the windless air.

“Why... why...” Eagle Eye shuddered, peaking out from behind the obese stallion, his shield raised. “Why isn't it m-moving?”

“I think because it's dead, princess,” Josho said.

“Dead?”

“Yup.”

“Are you sure?”

Josho gave the skull the lightest of taps with his shotgun barrel. With a grotesque ripping sound, the head rolled right off and fell to the floor, exploding in viscous green pus.

Josho glanced aside. “Pretty sure.”

Eagle Eye was already heaving over, vomiting onto a patch of stone. “Grkkkksllghhtt!”

Josho clenched his teeth. He pivoted about, shining his horn's light across a rock wall covered with hardened black matter. Petrified mucus formed hexagonal structures, within which the empty shells of battered and crushed changelings lingered, their mandables gaping wide in frozen death screams.

“They're all dead,” Josho muttered. “Abandoned here to rot, it seems.” He peered down a corridor as he saw row after row of necrotic hives, all populated with decrepit shells. “The cave must be full of them.”

“Gnnnrkklt... mmmuuuuuu...” Eagle clutched his stomach, shuddering.

Josho sighed, glaring down at the unicorn. “Oh gimme a break. They're just friggin' bug ponies.”

“Oh y-yeah?!” Eagle spat, wiping the bile off his muzzle as he frowned back at him. “Well I happen to be deeply in love with one of those 'friggin' bug ponies!', thank you very much!”

“Oh. Right.” Josho nodded. “That noise.” He stepped forward. “Seriously, how do you both do it? Do you just hang some fly paper on the ceiling and hope that he buzzes by?”

“Old stallionnnnn...” Eagle growled, hobbling after him in a teetering fashion. “What do I have to say to convince you that there are more than one way to love a soul other than pure unbridled—?”

“Shhhh...” Josho pointed at a swath of organic matter. “Bring your horn over, Your Horniness.”

“I swear,” Eagle grumbled. “If we get out of this alive, I'm going to—” He stopped in mid-threat, his eyes set on a patch of razor sharp claw marks set in the petrified muck. “Well, that's unsettling.”

“It might be something unsettling that brought an end to this hive,” Josho said. “And if we're not careful, it might bring an end to us.”

Eagle gulped, looking all around as he shone his light past the dangling insectoid bodies. “So... then what's left for us to see here? We found a hive. That most definitely links Sharp Quill and Fishberry to Chrysalis.”

“I don't think we're quite done here.” Josho motioned ahead. “Check it out?”

Eagle leaned in, squinting. “...is that a light source?”

“Yuppers.” Josho nodded. “And it's getting even warmer as we move towards it.”

With a deep breath, Eagle said, “Well, I don't think anything else could possibly gross me out further.”

“I swear, I live just to see you eat all your words.”

“And throw them back out.”

“Exactly.”

“After you, old stallion.”

“You're the one with the shield.”

“You're the one with the fat ass.”

“Well put.” Josho cocked his shotgun and moved ahead across the necrotic mess. “I'll take point.”

Eagle followed close behind. “Check your corners.”

“Go to hell.”

PreviousChapters Next