Everything Is Coming (Down) Explodey
"Oki doki loki!" Pinkie Pie spun about with a twitchy smile. "It was nice knowing you, girls! Here's hoping our loose spirits find a wicked cool pirate ship to haunt for eternity!"
"Pinkie, hush!" Twilight Sparkle shouted above the deaffening roar of the invasive gale. Flurries of snow and ice flew through her ghostly form. "Rainbow Dash, you've got to get the ponies to the furthest end of the shelter!"
"Everypony!" Rainbow hollered as Nicole, Echo, and several members of Bard's family galloped past her. "Get to the back! Lay low!"
"That won't be of any use and you know it," Remna droned.
"Shut up and put your invulnerable body to good use!" Rainbow retorted.
Remna's violet nostrils flared. "I can't sit on everypony."
"There's hardly any room to hide!" Rarity exclaimed, trembling all over. "Those heartless wraiths could fill this whole niche within a single frozen blink!"
"Well we gotta do somethin'!" Applejack hollered. "I'm fixin' to get Rainbow 'round the world so I can fetch me a new body again! I sure as heck ain't plannin' on spendin' the rest of my ghostly days here, anchored to a popsicle!"
"The windigoes..." Twilight shivered. "They're getting closer!"
"Can we re-seal the cellar entrance?!" Fluttershy squeaked.
"The doors are completely smashed, darling!"
"There's gotta be something magical that can help us out!" Rainbow stammered, squinting into the blistery cold sheets of snow. "Wildcard! Ariel! Look for something!"
The griffon and the pegasus fumbled around through the wrecked supplies.
"What in the hay are ya makin' them search for?!" Applejack cackled.
"Something! Anything!" Rainbow exclaimed. "I know that we don't have Mortuana's spells at our disposal! But if we can seal ourselves off in here like we did before west of Starkiss—"
"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight exclaimed.
Rainbow looked in her direction.
The ghostly unicorn pointed at a stack of wooden crates.
"There!" Rainbow aimed her hoof in the same direction.
Ariel and Wildcard gawked at her. "What?!" Ariel asked.
"Magical conduits," Twilight exclaimed. "Not... n-not sure what exactly—"
"In those crates!" Rainbow pointed once more at the boxes. She flung a nervous look at the farmers huddled against the furthest wall. "Does anypony know what's in them?!"
"Lumiscent crystals!" Nicole exclaimed. "For measuring fivelights!"
"Wait!" Flynn rushed over, breathless. He gnashed his teeth against the sharply dropping temperature. "Are the crystals purified?"
"No!" Kelly spoke up from the corner. "It's all raw mineral extract! They haven't even been enchanted yet!"
"Perrfect!" Kepler's spectacles shimmered in the gray light as he looked across the chamber. "Flynn, arre you thinking what I am thinking?!"
"We'll only have one shot at this!" Flynn's horn glowed brighter as he gestured at Logan. "Big Show! You know what to do!"
"Gang way!" The fat stallion charged the crates, throwing his massive shoulder into the wooden boxes. SMASSSH! They fell apart in a sea of splinters. Dull black shards spilled out—which Kepler and Flynn instantly picked up.
"Wildcard! Ariel! Help me!" Flynn exclaimed, levitating as many dagger-shaped rocks as he could. "We gotta place them around the entrance!"
"Around the entrance?!" Echo exclaimed from where he stood beside Nicole. "Those blizzard bastards are ripping the farm to icicles and you wanna light their way towards us?!"
"It's not about enchanting the crystals to glow," Nicole exclaimed, understanding the situation. "Without being purified, the shards will overload with just the right dosage of magic..."
"Ah jeez..." Echo grimaced. "Always explosions."
"Hurry!" Flynn exclaimed, joined by Wildcard, Kepler, and Ariel as he started placing crystals at the bottom of the stairwell. "Make a solid perimeter!"
"Surrround the entrrance!" Kepler said. "If they arre not close enough, it may not worrk—"
"Wait!" Fluttershy stammered. She pointed a spectral hoof at the very top of the entrance. "Bard and his brother!"
Rainbow looked up.
"Johnny!" Nicole called from a distance.
Perhaps the howling winds blocked out Nicole's voice... or perhaps the Desperado didn't care. In any case, he didn't flinch. The stallion stood at the mouth of the stairwell—high above—with Tim in his grasp.
"Rnnnngh!" Wham! He punched Tim again. Whud! And again. "Grrrr!" Whud!
Tim shook and bled in the stallion's grip. The tips of his ears froze over as the windigoes' hooves streaked lower and lower... closer and closer to the ground.
"Tell me, brother..." Bard snarled. "Once yer buried... who's gonna be left to give a shit." He gnashed his teeth. "Much less flowers?!"
"Quit it, boy!" Blue hollered from below. "Yer killin' him!"
"You can't murder that which ain't ever lived!" Bard shouted from above.
"Rainbow..." Applejack murmured.
"Right. This should have stopped centuries ago." Rainbow Dash galloped further. "Okay, Bard! Out of the murder pool! Your time's up—!" A violet hoof stopped her. Shaking, Rainbow snarled aside: "Axan! For Celestia's sake—!"
"Shhhh..." Remna held the mare at bay. "It must be his decision."
"Huh?!" Rainbow Dash frowned. "What do you mean?!"
"You had your chance back at Frostknife," the mare said calmly. Her eyes turned to green slits once again. "This is now your friend's."
"Rainbow, forget her, darling!" Rarity exclaimed. "This dragon in pony's clothing knows nothing! Now go and drag Bard down here before we lose his body and his conscience!"
But Rainbow didn't move. Nervously, she looked at Wildcard.
The griffon placed down the last of the crystalline shards in his grasp. He glanced back at Rainbow Dash. The lenses of his goggles reflected a pegasus' nervous grimace. Nevertheless, he made no move to stop the other Desperado.
Biting her lip, Rainbow remained in place.
"Okay!" Ariel exclaimed as she and Kepler desposited the last of the crystals around the base of the cellar. "That's the last of them!
"All yourrs, brrotherr!" Kepler gestured at Flynn.
"Bard!" Flynn stepped back, aiming a glowing horn at the array of crystals. "We're only gonna have one shot at this! Are you in or out?!"
Up above, Tim dizzily sputtered as he dangled in Bard's grip. "You... h-heard 'em... ya damned flankhole..." He spat blood and squinted. "You had the balls to go this far. Grkkk... better make yer stinkin' b-bed..."
Bard stared at him, panting. The breaths between them turned to frost in mid-air. His heart pulsed—sending shockwaves up and down his numb system. The shrieks of the windigoes intensified, and he closed his eyes to the bleeding stallion in his grasp. After a momentary shudder, he grumbled: "A cryin' shame that even dyin' wouldn't learn ya nothin'."
"Hrmmm... hckkkk..." Tim gargled on his own fluids, struggling to laugh. "Always... always a stinkin' coward..."
"One final warning, Bard!" Flynn shouted at the top of his lungs as the blizzard's winds reached hurricane force, flooding the cellar with gray snow and noise. "They're on top of us! Gotta fire it up!" His horn pulsed brightly, illuminating the sweat across his bald spot. "Now or never!"
"Maybe yer right about me, Tim," Bard slurred. "But you can learn a thang or two from bein' a coward." He hoisted the mountainous pony up as best as he could. "Join me, shall you?!" The two of them awkwardly plunged back down into the cellar together.
"The windigoes!" Twilight shrieked, her lavender horn bursting with light. "They're here!"
"Look!" Pinkie pointed.
"Bard and Tim!" Fluttershy shouted. "They're coming down!"
Rainbow caught the barest hint of two masculine shadows tumbling down the stairwell. "Now, Flynn!" she yelled. "Do it now!"
"Firing—!" Flynn flung his skull forward. Zaaaaaap! A stream of mana poured into the first of many crystals. Like explosive dominoes, they all burst into flames, one after another. Milliseconds later, a quivering beam of electricity roped through the entire perimeter. The resulting overload popped the eardrums of everypony in attendance.
POWWWW!
The last Rainbow saw of Bard and Tim, they were two carbon black silhouettes against a sea-blue eruption of unbridled mana. Burning plasma flooded the chamber, rippling inward like a blanket of flame.
"Get down!" Kepler shouted, propelling himself.
Ariel shrieked as Wildcard grabbed her and flung them both behind a stack of crates.
Flynn and Logan ducked. Nicole and Echo hugged each other while family members cowered.
Within the next breath, the combined explosions of the fivelight shards caused an enormous earthen chunk of ceiling to collapse directly before the mouth of the stairwell. The glowing eyes of diving windigoes disappeared behind an imploding wall of soil and rocks. Hot pebbles flew like shrapnel—sailing straight for Rainbow's face.
Remna pounced over the pegasus at the last second, shielding her with her equine body as—
THUDDD!
—half of the cellar collapsed entirely, burying the survivors in dust...
...and darkness.
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Okay...now that that issue's been dealt with rather...um..."expediently", we're back to the group being trapped in the cellar with Dumb, Dumber, and a group of very confused, frightened, and emotional ponies.
I just pray that this time everyone's regained enough sense to friggin' talk things out rather than angrily jumping to conclusions, prejudices, and slinging words around....
Well, assuming everyone's okay after that explosion, anyways.
TIMBER.
Next chappie ish revelation chappie, yesh? :3
Though, somehow, I doubt it. We need some time to wait for the dust to settle, sooo....
Meanwhile, in Frostknife...
Holy throne!
I'm thankful for the abolishment of the 200 limit. I don't think I could possibly wait much longer to see what happened there... then again, yeah. We're cutting to Keris next aren't we? Hurray for progression and character building preparation anyways.
Look, I'm all for people taking care of their own battles, or making their own decisions, but can Bard's melodrama wait for a time when it isn't putting other people's lives at risk? Sorry Remna, but you can save the emotional growth choices for a less get-everyone-killed moment.
So, who wants to take any bets on how much breathable air is left in there? Hope somepony is good at digging.
What it is?, a chapter of Utaan, just after another? What kind of dark witchery is this?
Hmm, I really hope Bard is fine, though I can't imagine how could he, between the laser thingy and the ceilling colapsing...
Well, I guess that bit of crazy violence and such has been resolved... kinda. Now they're even more stuck though, but at least the damn windigoes won't be able to get to them. Now though, now it's time for more things to be said, and hopefully in a more calm way.
~SolidFire
Almost seems like he wants to die.
So uh... that sounds like two corpses.
But, we didn't see any bodies.
-Companions are abound, frozen spectres hound. Utaan.
Oh SHIT!
I have to admit, it's nice having daily, reasonable-length chapters of this story again.
So is this the part where our divine Axan bites it somehow to save Rainbow from death?
I didn't realize how much I missed daily updates until last chapter's cliffhanger, when I realized I didn't have to wait a month for a resolution. I think you made the right decision, IC.
I admit, despite being passive and supporting the whole 'longer chapters to 200' thing, I forgot how great it was to wake up in the morning and have a brief dose of easting.
I guess I'll be passively supportive again in the other direction!
Yeah splosions! Also I'm betting on Bard being impaled with some debris. Him or wifepony.
7361848
I got the impression they were simply being backlit by the explosion, not charred.
Great! Now that the Skirts is out, I can finally hit the beach and work on my Utaan. Anyone got any sunscreen?
As long as both are alive, the Windigoes will have a beacon and a fuel supply, keeping the cold coming deeper and deeper.
Well, they had to store the crystals somewher, do they farm them or trade them in?
I won't believe they are dead until I see the bodies.
And short skirts of course
And we're back to square one, this time with more blood
The next time we see this group the situation is going to be crazy intense. It was already pretty intense to begin with.
Best quotes of the day:
7362400 BOO!!! BOOOOOO!!!
Secretly applauding.
OK, they're protected from Windigoes now... But how do they get out when it's over ?
I'm just waiting for the moment when RD finally comes to her senses that she has the power and can FORCE everyone to shut up or get knocked out. I'm pretty sure now is the time for truth, and that everyone is going to be more emotional and make everything just hard enough to where RD feels it's enough of a challenge to step in, sit everyone down, and make them shut up until it's their turn to tell their side of the story. Because no one is making sense, they're all interrupting each other, which makes it practically impossible to get useful information, much less resolve the root issue.
/Junkrat reference here
Perhaps the bunch of them should seek shelter in Tim's head. Seems like there's room enough in there.
7362647 A couple of them actually have less blood now.
I've just caught up for the second time. I was expecting Utaan to be finished when I started reading it while it was up to chapter 180. I suppose giving up the 200 chapter limit is worth consistency.
Well, they're out of immediate peril, but this is far from over.
Explosions? Yes. Good. This pyro is very pleased.
And pleased that Bard at least backed out of the fight when finally needed.
Don't forget Short Skirts, Imploding Colons, Disney Princesses, Blue Harvests, and finally, Just Essays.
After a half hour of treadmill I have a prediction. Amber came to them pregnant because she heard they took care of orphans. Blue, being a guns n religion pony, has no sympathy for single mothers, only innocent babies. Bard falls in love, pissing blue off more as it's not according to plan. This explains why Bard has never said "my daughter" and why Tim called her a whore. As to how she died, where whores go, and where Bard was, remains a mystery
7759234
Thus is my line of thought as well, also considering that he said she was 4 when she died. Bard was, doing, other things which we have little context for which could mean that he had a momentary change of heart for a child that wasn't his. Hence the coward portion of AJ's truth sense.
Even though none of them are wearing a skirt.
Cave-ins! Buy at your local dealership today!
Ah yes, the answer to everything: EXPLOSIONS.
10644661
Makes me wonder how many things short skirts are an answer to...