• Published 4th Jun 2017
  • 14,633 Views, 13,297 Comments

Ofolrodi - Imploding Colon



Rainbow Dash traverses the perils of the Dark Side of the world to reach the Midnight Armory.

  • ...
24
 13,297
 14,633

PreviousChapters Next
Do Not Feed Them

"Jordannnnn!!!" Seraphimus shouted for the umpteenth time. Despite the grimacing expression on her face, the bombastic exclamation wasn't laced with panic—but rather with purpose. She glared Edgeside, staring into the formidable line of pale limbs... stumbling closer and closer.

By the time she had gathered enough breath to holler again...

Swooooooooooooosh!

—a midnight streak of feathers murked towards her. Wildcard scraped to a stop, facing past the line of the camp. Th-Thwkkk! In a heartbeat, he had whipped out Bard's staff and was staring into the distance, breathing heavily.

Seraphimus couldn't help but shudder in her chains. "You've not lost your punctuality."

Wildcard stood still, glaring at the mysterious threat.

Inhaling and exhaling until her tone was considerably calmer, Seraphimus reported: "I first made visual contact about ten minutes ago." She sat up as straight as she could atop the back of the dormant wagon. "They've been charging this way at a consistent speed. Faster than a normal pony. I... can't quite get a count on them. They easily number in the scores. Perhaps over a hundred."

Wildcard's neck muscles tightened under his feathers. His goggles reflected the glint of multiple, multiple sets of razor-sharp claws. He cocked his head slightly to the side, studying the hunched, bounding figures. Several random bodies rose higher than the others in dramatic spurts. Some of them were leaping.

"They have an uneven front line," Seraphimus continued. "Very disorganized. Frenetic. I suspect they don't possess the intelligence needed for a valid strategy of attack." She craned her neck, charcoal eyes narrowing on the mysterious charge. "I can't discern if they're just rabid beasts or starved cretins. There's no telling if they have weapons on them... not without getting closer, at least."

Swoooooooooosh! At last, Rainbow Dash and Ariel flew onto the scene, wheezing for breaths.

"Who?" Rainbow hovered above Wildcard, gazing Edgeside. "Who has weapons?"

"Whoah..." Ariel grimaced. "...the Hell are those things?"

"'Hostile' is the word for it," Seraphimus said. "And I suspect they will be here in minutes."

Frowning, Ariel ignored her. "Wildcard? Got a read?"

The Desperado stood in place, mulling, hesitating.

"Wildcard..." Rainbow Dash floated closer. "Seen anything like them?"

He shook his head.

"They're... coming in awfully fast," Rainbow murmured.

Wildcard gave one nod. He spun around and hand-signed directly to Ariel.

"You sure about that?" Ariel responded.

"Hey!" Rainbow pouted. "I'm here too! You can 'talk' to me as well, y'know—"

"Not right now!" Ariel spurted. "It's crunch-time!"

Rainbow's brow furrowed. "Excuse me?"

Swooooooooooosh! Wildcard soared off towards the pale line of bodies.

"Jordan's going to investigate them closely," Seraphimus droned.

Rainbow did a double-take. "Excuse me?!?"

"He's just scouting them out, Rainbow!" Ariel exclaimed. "I'd say we stay put until he comes back with a full report."

"Oh buck no..." Frowning, Rainbow ascended on rapidly blurring wings. "I can already tell these things are bad news!"

"But—"

"We're on the Dark Side and they're charging at us!" Rainbow's voice cracked. "They're bad news!"

Ariel's ears and tail drooped. "Okay."

Rainbow pointed her hoof Curveside. "Go to Flynn and Kepler! Tell them it's a green light for attaching the floaty rock crap to the wagon!"

"Whoah, seriously?" Ariel arched an eyebrow. "But what about the chaos and—?"

"We need to get this wagon outta here," Rainbow boomed, already flying after Wildcard's distant figure. "I'm not about to sacrifice the entire Herald just because I'm hung-up on a bunch of floating Discord turdlettes! Now go!" Rainbow flew faster, approaching the pale line at breakneck speeds. "There may still be a way for Wildcard and I to salvage this!"

"Ah jeez..." Ariel danced nervously in place for a bit. "Ah jeez Ah jeez—Okay!" In a gray blur, she soared in the opposite direction, skimming uphill.

"And I..." Seraphimus rolled through a somber sigh. "...will just remain here, I suppose." She nevertheless gazed Curveside after Rainbow and Wildcard.

Ariel—in the meantime—passed over the head of a breathless Logan who was stumbling downhill into the camp.

"Hey!" Logan wheezed and stumbled to a stop, leaning on his wagon. "What the hell gives?"

"We gotta fetch Flynn and Keps!" Ariel barked, sailing past. "They'll need help attaching the chaos rocks to the wagon and then we're bugging out of here!"

"Oh you gotta be friggin' kidding me," Logan moaned. Flexing his exhausted muscles, he turned back around and trudged back uphill after her, sweating and heaving.


"Wildcard's up ahead!" Fluttershy pointed as she phased through gusts of chilling wind. "He's keeping a high altitude!"

"Smart fellow!" Rarity said, fanning herself nervously.

"Fluttershy..." Twilight glided along their anchor. "...you sense Wildcard. Can you sense yet what we're dealing with?"

"Yeah..." Applejack nodded. "We're a stone's throw away from the chaos crater by now!"

"I'm afraid I can't sense them!" Fluttershy said, shaking her head. "I mean, they're obviously there!" She pointed at the pale line of sinew and claws. "We can see them. But all I'm sensing is a big dark patch of... n-nothing!"

"Doessssssss that mean they're not alive?" Pinkie asked, voice wavering.

"I... think it's just like with the crater for Twilight and Rarity," Fluttershy said, looking at the others. "When there's a heavy dose of chaos... our senses simply don't work!"

Pinkie cackled. "You mean these creepy thingies are made out of chaos?!"

Rainbow took a deep breath. "There's only one way to be sure..." She angled her wings and glided so that she joined Wildcard's side. The Desperado was hovering in place at this point. "...we gotta get closer to these 'creepy thingies.'"

"But you can't get too close, Rainbow!" Twilight said.

"Twilight's right, sugarcube." Applejack looked over. "If you conk out and topple into this mess, I'm not sure even Wildcard could save yer hide."

Rainbow clenched her jaw muscles. "Guess I gotta be extra careful."

"Do you even know how to define that?!" Twilight barked.

"Quiet, egghead." Rainbow braked in mid-air besides her griffon friend. "Wildcard? What's the sitch?"

The Heraldite gave her one brief glance. Holding Bard's staff under his armpit, he gestured swiftly. Rainbow Dash wasn't in the right frame of mind to interpret that very moment.

"'Back' and 'Safe,'" Twilight read. "Those are all I got."

"Dude, you've got my back enough as it is," Rainbow said. "Time I protected your tail-feathers too."

Wildcard merely tightened his beak. He looked into the sea of surging limbs.

"Just... what in the hay are these things?" Rainbow Dash thought out loud.

The two watched... observed as the gnarled, pale flesh grew closer. Even from their lofty vantage point, they sensed a deep rumbling in the air: the echoes of dozens upon potential hundreds of stampeding legs, limbs, and serrated extensions. All luminescent life had either gone dormant or fled the scene entirely in the wake of the oncoming beserk rush. Beneath the dark shadows of the charging bodies, there were pinprick sparks where countless claws made countless contact with the Dark Side's arid surface. Then—with the flicker of a hundred pairs of beady eyes—the air shattered like glass, serenaded sickly by putrid banshee shrieks... both unearthly and ravenous.

Fluttershy clung to Rarity. Rarity held the pegasus, stroking her mane while worried eyes remained locked on the rabid advance.

"Land's sakes..." Applejack grimaced. "If they ain't right out of a horror show..."

"Are they..." Pinkie gulped. "...p-ponies?"

"Not even remotely," Twilight stammered, wide eyes locked on the creatures. "See how their backs bend? Also... no tails—"

"A lot of them are r-running on just their hind legs," Fluttershy blurted, clinging to Rarity.

"Bipedal..." Twilight blinked. She looked over. "Fluttershy, do you recognize them? Maybe they have distant cousins in the Everfree Forest? Like the Poison Joke?"

Fluttershy slowly shook her head. "I... I can't say that I've seen them before." Her eyes narrowed despite her trembling. "Although..."

"Goblins," Rainbow murmured.

Wildcard glanced aside while gripping Bard's staff at the ready.

"They... almost look like goblins," Rainbow said. "From Val Roa. Only... these things are way bigger... and uglier..." She gnashed her teeth. "Those claws..."

"!!!" Fluttershy gasped. "I remember now!"

"What is it, darling?" Rarity asked.

"The sketches! The sketches that we found down in Darkreach!" Fluttershy looked at the others. "Rainbow recognized one of the creatures as a goblin! But then there were two others!"

"She's right..." Twilight nodded. "These things resembled the really scary hunched-over ones!"

"Jee..." Pinkie raised an eyebrow. "Ya think?!"

"Did... the Emeraldinian Expedition run into these creatures?" Twilight murmured.

"If so, then maybe we finally know what wiped them out," Rarity droned.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Rainbow Dash slowly drifted forward.

"???" Wildcard instantly threw her a look. He swung his staff out, blocking her.

Rainbow didn't fight with it. She merely patted his grip to the staff and hovered in place. "Only because it's worth a try."

"Ah jeez, Dashie..." Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. "You really think so?"

"I'm not going to shake their hooves—claws. Whatever. Just—" She shrugged everything off, cleared her throat, and cupped a pair of hooves around her muzzle. "Hey!" she shouted towards the charging mass far below. "We come in peace! From the Light Side!"

The uneven line didn't stop advancing. The earth shook under their pale limbs as they charged and charged.

Rainbow's brow furrowed. She leaned forward and shouted again: "What is it that you want?! We don't want to fight you! We don't want to fight anyone! If you could just—"

The air lit up with banshee shrieks. Several heads shot up. There was a flickering sea of drooling maws and beady eyes. The front line slowed slightly. Milliseconds later, the muscles in the dead center of the mass shifted upwards.

Applejack gasped. "Darlin'! Look out—!"

Screaming an ear-splitting shriek, one beast hopped off the shoulders of its brethren. It leapt dramatically high—higher than anyone expected—and lunged straight for Rainbow Dash at a startling forty feet.

Her friends shrieked—then flickered out of existence. A goofy dragonequus materialized, scratching his head. "You continue to surprise me, Sparky—" Just as he said this, a beastly biped rippled through him, jaws aimed squarely at Rainbow's throat.

Hresssssssssssh!

Rainbow flinched—

THWACKKKK! Bard's staff sailed down into the monster's skull, crushing it like a tin can.

The beast fell in a wet slump. Discord vanished—and the five ghostly mares returned, shrieking.

"Rainbow!"

"Sugarcube!"

"You okay, darling?"

"I'm fine..." Rainbow—numb—slumped back into the crook of Wildcard's metal arm. "J-just a bit wetter than I was two s-seconds ago."

More beasts charged. More beasts leapt. "H-H-HRESSSH!"

Wildcard yanked the two of them upwards. Claws nipped at Wildcard's lion's tail, and the beasts fell down—only for several more cretins to jump upwards, nimbly bouncing off the falling bodies of their companions. Wildcard and Rainbow Dash ascended before the beasts' assisted jumps could catch up with them. With centimeters to spare, the two outflew the spontaneous leaping attacks and doubled-back towards the camp at breakneck speed.

"Rainbowwwwwwwwww..." Twilight frowned at her as they sailed Curveside. "What did we learn?"

"Oh bite your tongue," Rainbow wheezed, still being "carried" protectively by Wildcard. She looked back forlornly as the creatures continued their frenzied, slobbering pursuit. "Like you wouldn't have gone and tried that yourself!"

Twilight's ears drooped, as did her ghostly spine. "You're not wrong."

"I don't care who's wrong or right!!!" Pinkie shrieked, casting a nervous look at the line of claws and teeth. "Go go go go go go go!"

PreviousChapters Next