PONYVERSE

by TopWanted

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

===E8DB

“So are you like a robot, or a cyborg or something?” Rainbow asked as she dodged the robed figure’s attacks in the air. Pinkie seemed to be the only one who could get close enough to him to do some real damage so that’s what she did, kicking and punching him until his body looked crumpled beyond repair. But his tendons would simply repop any bone back into place or wrap around any that were broken to set it. By now the guy looked like he was a little more than half machine.

“I am Detraad! Master Torturer of Lord Darkclyde’s Firepits!”

She dodged another attack. “More like master… poor choice-erer?”

AJ slashed away a tendon with her sword and gave her a deadpan look. “Really?”

“They can’t all be gems.”

“Why won’t you go down!?” Pinkie shouted angrily.

Detraad laughed madly. “You pathetic children! I am a god! I was celebrating my thousandth kill while you were barely a spark in your father’s eye! Do you honestly believe you can defeat me with such petty antics?” As if to answer him, Flutterbat wrapped her wings around his head and grappled onto his back. The tendons tried to react but the others batted them away or kept their attention.

Detraad flailed, trying to swipe at his attacker but each time he did she would pull his neck and he would lose his balance. Rainbow noticed this and smiled as an idea occurred to her. She flew down to the ground and stuck a hoof out in his way. He tripped over it and fell head first. Flutterbat let go of him as his back was now open. With one swift move, AJ slashed all the mechanical tendons from his body. He tried to stand back up but Pinkie held up a hoof and vibrated it before coming down on his neck like a karate chop. It was just enough to rattle his head as his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he slumped to the red dirt, a disgusting grin on his face.

“Icky! Icky! Ew! Ew!” Pinkie cried in disgust as she trotted in place. “I hate dealing with gross ponies like that.”

“Yeah, that guy was a real mason chemist,” Rainbow chuckled.

“Ah think you mean masochist,” Applejack corrected her.

A loud roar cut them off and they turned to the other problem. Matterhorn had managed to vaproize quite a few of the pegademons but there were still plenty flying about and it looked like they had picked up on her weak point. “So what do we do about Smoky?” Rainbow asked.

AJ scanned the landscape and saw something that caught her eye. One of those firepits, Detraad had been talking about. They had seen them from afar, but here up close they were intense. Three hundred hooves in length they seemed like pillars of red hot flame straight into space. “Ah think Ah have an idea, but Ah don’t know if you’re gonna like it, Pinkie.”

Pinkie sighed as she watched Matterhorn nervously. “We’re running out of options fast so as long as it doesn’t kill her I’m all for it.”

AJ nodded. “Well, remember how sturdy those things were to fire?” They nodded. “Think she could handle gettin’ thrown in there?”

They all looked to the firepit that she was pointing at. “Are you serious?” Rainbow asked. “That’s enormous, she’d be ash in a second!”

AJ tapped her head. “Maybe, or her scales could be strong enough to just weaken her. Either way its our best shot.”

Pinkie bit her lip and looked between Matterhorn and the firepit. “Okay, let’s try it.”

“Flutterbat, Ah need you to fly up there and get her attention.” Flutterbat nodded and flew off.

“What about me?” Rainbow asked.

AJ grinned. “You know what you did to that creep just a few moments ago?”

“Yeah?”

“Think you can do that on a bigger scale?”

Rainbow’s eyes widened in realization and she grinned back. “I like a challenge.”

~`(\/)’~

Hello, Rarity. The voice was back. Just tune it out, you did it before, just tune it out. I’m not going anywhere ever again, darling. Its tone was mocking and cruel, but she just swallowed her anger and funneled it. “You hate me,” she muttered under her breath. “Well for this one moment hate this pony more.”

If it will get you out of here all the sooner. She felt an well of power suddenly appear within her. Had she seriously been this restricted before? Surprised? I keep most of the best toys for myself, but I’ll lend them to you this once.

Rarity felt within herself and let the darkness billow from her body, cascading down her limbs and flowing like a river beneath her. “A demon?” Darkclyde mused. “Tied to this child, perhaps? I can offer you freedom. It’s well within my purview to make a creature such as you my vassal.”

Sorry, hot stuff. But I’ve gotten kind of used to her. And she’s going to take me home where I’m my own mare.

“Pity,” he replied with a grim expression.

“You can talk to her?” Rarity asked disbelievingly.

“Nothing lies outside of my sight. This you will learn if you truly wish to fight me.”

Rarity set herself, letting her magic billow around her into dark spikes like a porcupine. “I have a lot of anger right now and I need to unload on somepony. Sorry, but you’re unlucky enough to be the first one I saw.”

Darkclyde didn’t respond to her jibes, merely holding up a hoof in front of her. “Then tremble in fear, demonspawn. For you will have your battle.”

He lifted off the ground without magic or anything, which surprised her. Then it was his speed. He actually flew straight into her, delivering a punch to her spiked defenses that shattered it instantly and threw her back. She slammed into the wall next to Mare Do-Well and blinked confusedly.

“Rarity, let me help you,” she said as she turned to face Darkclyde but Rarity put a hoof in front of her then fixed her glare on her.

“Get out of here.”

“But-”

“Go!”

Mare Do-Well nodded weakly and ran from the balcony, grabbing her hat and jumping off the side. Rarity got up to face Darkclyde once more. “A foolish decision,” he said bluntly.

I have to agree, he’s much stronger than I gave him credit for. She didn’t listen to the voice. “I finally have the power to protect them again,” she muttered. “If you think that I’ll risk their lives for one second when I can fight in their place then you are dead wrong!”

Darkclyde’s stone face erupted in laughter. Rarity fumed at his amusement until he stopped and affixed a glowing red gaze on her. “I am wrong. You are not a fool. You are suicidal.”

Rarity paused, then smiled to herself. Memories of everything that had happened filled her thoughts. Everything since being picked up by the others. It had all gone by at a mile a minute. But there were those slow moments. Moments when she felt close to them. When she understood them. Applejack. Flutterbat. Rainbow. Pinkie. Even Twilight. They had their own share of hardships and they’ve managed to smile, joke, even laugh their way through this. She’d had those moments too.

Rarity breathed slowly taking in this new feeling. “You may have been right once. But now…” She stomped and the darkness surrounding her rose up forming a series of different style swords in the air that splayed out and brandished themselves around her. “I’m all here.” The blades snapped to attention and pointed themselves at Darkclyde as Rarity took a step back like a swordsman. “Come and get me.” Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

<___|=o

Matterhorn roared again as Flutterbat smacked the remaining pegademons into her face one at a time. It took a few tries but she finally took notice and narrowed her eyes at the mare. Applejack and Pinkie were already speeding down the dusty terrain toward the firepit. “You sure this can work?” Pinkie asked.

“Like Ah said. We’re pretty much out of other options.”

“Do you think that thing can take it?”

“One way to find out.” They stopped a few hundred hooves away from the pillar of flame. The heat was almost unbearable before, this close it was like standing in an oven. “Here they come.” Flutterbat had succeeded in getting Matterhorn’s attention and she was heading this way with the enormous dragon in tow. Rainbow flew in place on the opposite side of the firepit from them and gave her a wave to let her know she was ready. Applejack nodded to her and brushed back her hakama to reveal her 3-D device. She positioned herself just right and shot a line into a rock formation a few hooves away. “Pinkie, try to get between us. Maybe seein’ you will make her charge faster.”

“Are you sure that’s smart? You could be pulled in too!”

Applejack frowned, it was true. She had no idea how much weight the device could hold. But there was no turning back now. “Don’t worry about us. Just make sure she gets here.”

Pinkie scowled at her but puffed up her cheeks and moaned in defeat. “You’d better still be alive after this! Everypony is going home!” She disappeared in a blur and ran to the center of AJ and Dash.

“That’s the plan.”

Matterhorn craned her now long neck and snapped her teeth at Flutterbat as she followed, narrowly avoiding her. Suddenly the Pegasus changed course and dove down. Matterhorn followed her descent until Pinkie came into view right in front of the fire pit. The massive dragon seemed to pause in recognition. “Hey Twilight!” Pinkie shouted. “I know you never want me to mention it, but you’re looking a little overweight!” She stuck her tongue out and winked shaking her flank at the dragon.

Matterhorn let out another roar and flew down toward the ground, straight at Pinkie. Her clawed arms were outstretched and bared ready to attack. This was the moment AJ needed. “Now!”

She fired her second cord from the 3-D device and it shot through the air directly in Matterhorn’s way. Rainbow snatched it from the air and pumped her wings as fast as she could in the opposite direction. Matterhorn body collided with the cord, entangling the area between her neck and forearms and pulling taught around her. Applejack felt hooves slide on the dead landscape toward the firepit. She dug her hooves further in and pressed a button to reel the cord attached to the rock back in. The gears in the device ground against each other, straining to fulfill their function as Applejack was pulled apart between a rock and a hard place.

Matterhorn’s descent slowed almost to a halt aas the cord impeded her and slowly yet surely, her momentum forced her backside up and over her head. AJ grinned, the plan was working. Just then she heard a snap and saw the second cord was beginning to break. She managed to grab it before it snapped and held on tight. Then another snap. She instinctively shot out her other hoof and grabbed the other line before it broke. Now she really was getting pulled apart.

Muscles bulged and strained as veins appeared on her forehead. She pulled and pulled but the best she could get was to simply hold the lines together as she hung in midair between the dragon and the rock. She could already feel her insides screaming in pain from the pull.

Then finally Matterhorn’s body flipped over and she went sailing into the firepit. Applejack let go of the cords and fell to the ground just as Pinkie was there to catch her. “You are insane!” Rainbow shouted as she flew down, landing slightly off balance as she looked just as tired as Applejack. Pinkie simply looked at her with concerned expression of justified anger.

“It worked, didn’t it?” she choked out through an incredible pain in her chest.

“Not so sure,” Flutterbat said as she pointed behind them. Everypony turned and saw that while Twilight had fallen into the fire pit, it didn’t seem to be doing much to her. She thrashed around with her tail in the seething sea of flames and roared until she too began to spew fire. The same black fire from before. The dark flames mixed with the red and orange like a drop of dye placed in water. It was like the firepit was taking on the appearance and effect of the flames.

It darkened until the four couldn’t see the dragon inside anymore. Then it was a wall of pitch black heat. A moment passed where nothing happened, the only sound being that of the flames. Pinkie tapped her hoof nervously. “Is she okay in there?”

Applejack leaned herself against Flutterbat, holding her side. “Ah think-”

“What the hell is going on!?” They all turned again to see Mare Do-Well rushing toward them. She looked haggard and extremely out of breath. “I escape to find you guys doing…” she stopped as she looked up at the pillar of black, “what exactly?”

“Um… It’d kind of take a while to explain,” Rainbow summarized.

Mare Do-Well shook her head. “Never mind that! We need to get back and help Rarity!”

Suddenly an enormous boom sounded and something shook below all their hooves. “That didn’t sound good,” Pinkie muttered.

The ground shook once more and the earth by the firepit split. They all stared in disbelief as the split grew slowly, then much quicker as it snaked its way toward them. “I think that’s a cue to exit,” AJ said. Flutterbat and Pinkie grabbed her and hung her arms around their shoulders to support her. The rest of them ran as quickly as possible as spurts of heat and black fire spurted from the sprouting crags behind them.

“Twilight,” Pinkie shouted back as she ran. Applejack hung her head as they ran and bit her lip.

“Ah’m sorry, Pinkie. Ah tried.”

Comments

[Snowkitsune]

Moar please