East Horse Go Down the Hole
“Are they there, Twilight?” Rainbow stammered, leaning over the Swan Song's port side. “Are they almost to the Shard?”
Nick sighed from where he gripped the ship's rudder. “Rainbow, that's—like—the tenth time you've asked her!”
“Asked who?” Kaji remarked. He and Flare were perched on two separate canoes a few meters away in the Lagoon's placid waters. “Who's she talking to?”
“It's a long story,” Sinrar grumbled. “And you're gonna need a longer brain stem.”
“Hah HAH!” Kaji grinned at Flare. “Oh, how I love it when landwalkers try to insult us.”
“What's the hurry, Miss Dash?” Theanim asked from where he stood with his camera at the ready. “We're talking about Queen Verlaxion's gift to the Nealenders. Let them take their sweet time in reassembling it.”
“How's it even gonna get put back together?” Nick asked.
“Verlaxion's glory shall provide a way,” Flare said.
“Of course, Verlaxion's gl-glory will find a way!” Nick exhaled, smiling nervously.
Sinrar rolled his eyes at him.
“Twiliiiiight...” Rainbow craned her neck, squinting harder and harder into the waters. “Speak to meeee!”
The unicorn in question levitated up out of the depths with a grunt. “Rainbow, patience. I can't go down too far to see any better, after all.”
“But I just wanna know if they've gotten the shard piece back to where it belongs or not—!”
“From what I can tell, Sora and Silver are reaching it just fine,” Twilight said. “But...”
“But what?!” Rainbow's voice cracked.
“I'm not sure. It would appear as though they've reached the spot where the rest of the Shard is, but it almost seems as if they're having trouble.”
“Trouble?!” Rainbow grimaced. “What kind of trouble?!” She made to leap off the edge of the boat. “I'm gonna dive down and see for myself—”
“Miss Dash!” Theanim flinched.
“Harpy!” Sinrar rasped. “Are you out of your mind?!”
“But... but...” Rainbow fidgeted.
“You remember what happened last time, ya pigeon brain?!” Sinrar spat. “Just leave this to the professionals! Bah!”
“No need for you to end up a pool float at the bottom of the coral,” Nick said with a nervous smirk.
“Your friends are right, Rainbow,” Twilight said. “You've done the hard part with Ultimo. Now let's just wait for the Nealenders to do their thing!” She turned and glanced down. Her muzzle brightened. “Oooh! Speaking of which, here comes one of them now!”
“Oh yeah?” Rainbow tilted her head aside. “Who?”
Within seconds, Sora bobbed to the surface. He took a long, gasping breath, then treaded water as his lungs calmed down.
“What, ho, brother?” Kaji paddled his canoe closer. “You seem to be taking quite a while down there.”
“Well, it's hard to tell which end of the shard belongs up or down,” Sora said. “Silver's got some breath left in him. If anypony can lock Verlaxion's gift in place, it's one with magic.”
“Well planned, Sora,” Flare said with a smile. “Seeing the whirlpool back will be a welcome sight.”
“You guys actually swim through that thing?” Nick remarked.
“It's not as wild as it sounds,” said Sora, climbing up onto Kaji's canoe. “Wouldn't be much of a gift if the Queen disrupted our fishing waters completely.”
“If nothing else, it gives us a good place to train our foals in swimming!” Kaji said, grinning. “Plenty of strong currents for muscle building!”
“It's also where we perform our marital dives!” Flare winked at the Swan Song. “You'll see.”
“Yeah! Heeheehee—” Nick's purple eyes crossed. “Wait, wh-what?”
“Oh hey!” Twilight exclaimed, looking straight down. “Here comes Silver!”
“Oh really?” Rainbow remarked.
“Oh really what?” Sora asked.
“It's Silver, guys!” Rainbow said.
“Uhhhhhhhhhh...” Twilight blinked. “He's... h-he's coming up fast.”
“Oh?” Rainbow looked at her. “How fast?”
Twilight lifted her face. She gulped. “Fast fast.”
“Twilight, what—?”
Splissh! A unicorn horn broke the surface, followed by the sputtering Nealender.
“Brother! You're back already!” Sora exclaimed.
“M-move the boats!” Silver wheezed. He floundered in the water from trying too hard to swim towards one of the canoes. “Move them!”
“What's the problem, Silver?” Kaji grinned. “Did Ultimo's mate show up—?”
“Move the boats!” Silver shouted harder while Flare helped him into their raft. “I mean it! It's too strong this time!”
“What's too strong, my good pony?” Theanim remarked.
“The current!” Silver's eyes twitched as he gazed at the rest with a wild expression. “I rotated the shard-piece until it snapped in place! But then the Shard started glowing bright red!”
“Red?!” Kaji gasped. “It's never done that before!”
“And then the whirlpool began! I could barely swim up!” He shook his wet hoof in the air. “What are you wading around here for?! Kick! Stroke! Jet—!”
Just then, the Swan Song dipped. Within seconds, the two canoes rocked in the same direction. Everypony gasped and started muttering in fright, and soon the three crafts began spinning. Kaji and Flare beat their wings. Using sheer featherpower, they were able to shove their rafts out of the counter-clockwise rotation in the nick of time. The Swan Song, however, was not quite so lucky.
“Move! Move!” Sinrar hollered, gripping tightly to the cabin's edge. “Get us out of the drink, imbecile!”
“I'm... grnngh... tr-trying!” Nick sneered, pulling as hard as he could on the rudder. Soon, the lagoon bent downwards just a few meters off the port side, as if a gigantic drain had been opened in the heart of the reef. The surrounding land strips and their foliage became a brown-and-green blur. “Rainbow Dash! I could use some help!”
“Right!” Rainbow Dash planted her body against the stern. She shoved, blurring her wings rapidly. Despite her ample wingpower, she wasn't able to accelerate the vessel over the crest in the gradually-growing whirlpool. “Friggin' A!” She hollered over her shoulder. “We could use a little help here!”
“I don't think they c-can, Rainbow!” Twilight exclaimed. The air filled with splattering water droplets and a moist wind. “If they get any closer, their canoes will shatter under the force!”
“Everypony!” Theanim exclaimed, climbing up towards the edge of the trimaran as the entire vessel began tipping. “Add more weight to the starboard side!”
“R-right!” Sinrar tried crawling over.
“This is nuts!” Nick yelped. “We should have enough force to clear the edge but we're not!”
“I don't understand!” Theanim wheezed as he and Sinrar huddled together. “Is something pulling us in?!”
Rainbow gasped. She tilted her head straight down.
Her Loyalty pendant was pulsating wildly with a ruby glow.
The mare blinked. She turned and looked past the port side.
A vertical tunnel of air had formed in the epicenter of the whirlpool. Down through the undulating liquid throat, she saw a matching strobe of crimson light. But then—if she stared hard enough—she could swear she saw beyond that. Her eyes caught a glint of golden metal, unblemished, pure... and dry.
“Rainbow...?” Twilight leaned in amidst the cyclonic chaos. “What is it?”
“Yaerfaerda...” Rainbow gulped. “It beckons.” Her ears folded back, and she turned towards the stallions on board the imprisoned trimaran. “Guys! Get in the center!”
“Huh?!”
Rainbow hopped onto the ship. She yanked Nick from the rudder and pulled him in. “Hold onto the mast!” She clenched her jaw. “We're going in!”
“Going in?!?” Theanim spat. “Going in where?!”
“Trust me!” Rainbow hollered. By now, the wind was spinning above them like a waterspout, and it took all the ponies' strength just to hear each other. “This is what was meant to happen!”
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about?!” Sinrar hollered.
“I'll explain later!” Rainbow grunted. “After the nonsense!”
“Hold on, Rainbow!” Twilight yelped as the Swan Song began a perilous, ninety degree dive down the whirlpool. “It's pulling us in!”
“Verlaxion's sleet!” Kaji shouted from a distance. “That looks radical!”
“Nooo!” Flare, gritting her teeth, hopped clear off her canoe before Silver could grab her. “My beau!”
“Huh?” Nick looked up and yelped as she flew into him, pressing the stallion against the mast as she held on.
And in a blur, the trimaran shot its way down the tunnel, vanishing beyond the crimson shard with all five ponies (and phantom) in tow.
Just as soon as it began, the whirlpool vanished, and the lagoon was still.
“Whelp...” Kaji leaned back in the canoe, sighed, and cracked his neck. “This is gonna make lobster diving impossible. I just know it.”
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I get the feeling this means that Flare has joined the East Horse team.
Down the rabbit hole we go!
-Spirit (Yeast and Treacle)
So, will giant alien lobsters come out of this hole under the ocean?
So next chapter, RD and friends will be inside the pipelines?
6050151
Pigging the pipe with a pony!
Nice Tiny Toon's reference.
Feeling alright there Rainbow?
And the next piece of the grand puzzle falls into place.
So, RD hasn't been inside the machine world since what, Amulek?
6050124
The Swan Song Crew needs another fighter. RD needs some backup. Plus the unwritten rule of every rag-tag adventure team requires a 50-50 male-female split.
Thats a big boat to go through a small channel.
Its not so much Ice Shard, as Howling Stones.
My Gosh, its full of Stars.
6050228 It looks like the Noble Jury had 5 females and 7 males, actually.
Hooves, hands, or other such grasping appendages up if this line gave you the shivers. I know not how you distill a sense of epicness into three words, but there you have it.
Also, the part with getting in the center and the whirlpool vanishing smacks so much of the Knock-Up Stream from One Piece.
Oh, how I wish for the next chapter. Sometimes I also wish I was back in the times of catching up, where there was always more to read.
Dash turned around to our crew and she said,
"There's a symbol calling me!"
So she plunged ahead, "Into the center we'll get."
Down to the bottom of the sea
Welp, it looks like Theanim's world is about to get a little bigger. At least he brought his camera.
I'm so excited. Tomorrow can't come soon enough.
6050260
I stand corrected.
Farewell, Atoll. Farewell to your ultimo; farewell to your faceless, one-dimensional batch of identical characters; farewell to dozens of chapters of whooping and swimming and fighting in the sea. I doubt many will miss you.
6050260 Well, that depends on how you count EE
6050338 I'll miss it
But at the same time, I won't, because we'll finally be getting to doing something else.
6050346 As a male.
Flare has joined the party.
Achievement unlocked: 50gs. Nealand Atoll, machine layer.
I can't wait to hear what Twi has to say about this.
-Memories given light, ease a lonely flight. Ynanhluutr.
6050346 6050370
Doesn't matter, beause whether or not EE is counted as male or female for the scorecard, Ebon Mane will always be automatically be counted as the opposite gender on the scorecard because ~changeling~!
Did we ever figure out who was top and who was bottom, or did EE and Ebon alternate the roles?
This is it!
This is Sinrar's opportunity to a scavenge a piece of the Machine Layer as his new pimp cane!!!
Tiny Toons reference.
6050124
Everypony who has seen the Machine Layer first hand (and was a named character) has joined Rainbow's Crew, or seriously considered the opportunity.
6050213
In the "gone through the golden doors"-sense, yes.
The beacon in the Grand Choke appeared to be more like an antenna with a control room, or a glorified elevator for the power core to directly fuel itself with ambient magic as an emergency procedure.
6050484
6050196
I have never watched Tiny Toons. Would you kindly familiarize me with the scene in question?
6050579
http://tinytoons.wikia.com/wiki/Henny_Youngman_Day/Transcript
Search for go down the hole.... It starts there...
6050579 Not a very good clip, but the best I could find:
[youtube=eMUd42n0jXc]
Sorry, bald chicks aren't my thing.
So, a nealender swimming away from something fast is akin to a pyrotechnician running away from something fast. Take care to remember that.
Does this count too? I don't think it was what she had in mind.
6050704 Knowing Nealanders, they probably count that.
Well, Dash gets a chance to introduce another group to her quest. It's a good thing mister Mane is there with them, might yet believer out of him with the show of the machine world.
6050677 We can fix that. :D
Love it. Never to be seen again, our intrepid adventurers now journey UNDER the sea.
Wait, is this turning into the little mermaid?!
I didnt see that coming. It really wanted RD bad that's for sure.
And Magic made it all complete.
The beacon beckons beckoningly, like bacon.
Many a freakout will happen soon.
Caught back up.
Let the celebration begin.
Oh geez Oh geezzzz! I can't believe I didn't read this yesterday!
HEEHEHEEHEEHEHEHEEHEHHEEHEHEHEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We're going in!
6050124 I am so freaking okay with this.
6050851
6050704
6050432
SHE KNEW
Did I miss something?
And now no one can doubt Rainbow. Man oh man, Theanim is going to flip when he realizes that he can't deny what's in front of him.
6062082 Yeah, I'm still Excited for the seeing him eat his words part.
XD God I'm gonna miss these guys.
That happened. I don't know what to think.
Well, that sucks. Literally.