Counter Clockwise or Bust
Wildcard stopped flying.
He hadn't reached the topmost floor of Darkreach yet. Far from it; he still had about two stairwell flights left to go.
However...
Upon reaching a long, narrow corridor full of doorways...
...he detected a continuous thumping sound coming from the far end. It turned out that the passage leading to the next set of stairs had been blocked off when the manafeedback rippled through the compound. A door had slammed shut, and a figure shifted in the shadows, habitually banging and slamming against the unexpected barricade.
Th-thunk! Thump! Thud!
Wildcard took a long, cool breath.
Holding the staff under his right wing, he slithered forward on three limbs—careful not to hobble and accidentally make the unmistakable sound of footfall.
Meanwhile, the shadow kept stirring. The noise of banging metal intensified.
At last, Wildcard was within two leaps' distance.
The movement up ahead ceased altogether.
"... ... ..." The Desperado froze in place.
Silence.
Flickering ambiance.
Then...
"You're smarter than this, Jordan..."
Wildcard's headcrest flattened. He reached under his wing with his good talon and gripped the staff.
Meanwhile, a silver figure slid out of the shadows. A pair of magenta eyes narrowed on Wildcard.
"Journeying as you are, the odds are against you," Keris said. "These fools don't know anything about what lies ahead. But me?" He steadied his shivering breaths and continued: "I can get us back to where we need to be. I feel it. I'm stronger now... and you can be strong too."
Wildcard said nothing. He tightened his limbs, aiming the staff at the creature.
Keris exhaled, "Join me, Jordan. Let me take you somewhere that will be s-safe." He swallowed, the shivers increasing. "She... she will be merciful to you. Like she is m-merciful to all of us. I promise you..."
Wildcard didn't budge. He barely even breathed.
"I see..." Keris' hawkeyes flickered a vicious green. "Holding to your principals, I take it? So hollow... hypocritical, even. Have you told your 'friends' the real reason you refuse to speak?"
With a hiss, Wildcard dove forward. He slammed Bard's staff down to crush the creature's skull. WHAM!
But the changeling had split in two. Wildcard's goggles reflected a pair of multi-legged invertebrates. They scuttled around the griffin at breathtaking speed, shimmied up the walls, leapt towards each other, then rejoined in mid-air as a drop-kicking stallion. "HYAAAA!" Bard shouted.
THWACK! Wildcard took the impact to his flank. He slammed into a wall, then blindly blocked with his staff held up behind his skull.
CLANK! He deflected Bard's lunging hoof, then jerked the staff at an angle, throwing off the changeling's balance.
Th-Th-Thwish! Wildcard twirled the staff and faced the doppelganger evenly.
Bard twirled to face him. Taking a seething breath, he reached a hoof out and—schiiiiiing!—etended a full length bo-staff that matched his opponent's. He gripped the metallic extension of himself in both limbs... and in the next second he turned into a dark-feathered griffin with ink-black goggles.
Wildcard's beak opened, mouthing a four-letter word.
SWOOOOOSH! His duplicate charged him, possessing an extra limb in advantage. The two same Desperadoes met in the center of the hallway with a shower of sparks. CLANG! CLACK! CL-CLANG!!!
"Okay... this is what you're going to have to do..." Flynn's voice crackled over the intercom.
"We're listening!" Rainbow's voice cracked as she and Ariel hovered anxiously above the circle of metal podiums.
"For a power surge this intense, you need to clear open the leylines! This means yanking the manual control levers for all six consoles! There are two levers per console! One yellow and one red. For each station, the yellow lever needs to be yanked first... then the red. Finally—once all the levers have been pumped—you must hit the top left green button on all six consoles!"
"Yellow lever then red lever then green button!" Rainbow Dash nodded. "Got it!"
"No, you don't understand. They have to all be done within the span of five seconds! Any longer and the power cycle will cancel itself out and you'll need to wait for about thirty seconds of cooldown!"
Ariel gulped. "Thirty seconds that we don't have."
"So you girls have to be super crazy quick! Once the power cycle's been done, I'll know! We'll all know! Darkreach will go... dark! For legit! Then it'll be up to me to reboot from here!"
"Okay! We read you!" Rainbow turned to face Ariel. "We gotta do it quick and simple, girl."
Ariel nodded. "Somehow, I expected no less from you."
"Remind me to kick your flank after we save Logan's lungs."
"I look forward to it."
Rainbow slapped the intercom again. "We're gonna do it now, Flynn!"
"Hurry! I prefer Big Show alive! He's easier to piss off that way!"
"Alright..." Rainbow Dash flapped her wings. "Counter-clockwise."
Ariel squinted. "What's counter-clockwise?"
"We're gonna fly around all six consoles. You slap the yellow levers. I slap the red. Then we each slap the first three green buttons we come to."
"Is that how we're doing it?"
"You got a better plan?"
"No." Ariel smiled sheepishly. "I just wanted to have the record concrete in my head for my future conscience's sake."
"Okay. On the count of three."
"Right—" Ariel turned to face away from Rainbow—
"COUNTER CLOCKWISE!" Rainbow snarled.
"Right!" Ariel squeaked, turning to face her. "SorrySorrySorrySorry!"
"Okay... after me... on 'go.'" Rainbow took a breath. "One. Two. Three—GO!"
FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH! The pair of pegasi made a virtual blue-and-gray circle. To any outside observer, the yellow levers flipped up in a blur, followed by the red, and then—
Thap! Thap! Thap! Thap! Thap! Thap! The green buttons were pressed, which immediately produced a resounding buzz.
"Woohooo!" Ariel spun to a stop, pumping her hoof and grinning. "What was that?! Three seconds! I think we saved Logan and a half!"
"Shhhhhhh!" Rainbow insisted. She locked in place, eyes darting every which way.
The core of the ventilation system continued buzzing.
"Uhhhhh..." Ariel's ears flattened. "...or did we not—?"
VRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
Console lights flashed.
Brass pipes shook.
And the fans above them spun faster and faster and faster-and-faster-and-fasternadfasterandfasterfasterfasterfasterfasterfaster!
Thw-Thw-Thw-Thw-Thw-Thw-Thwoooooooosh! A cyclonic air current roared through the chambers of Darkreach.
"Guhhh!" Ariel—a total lightweight—had to grip onto one of the levers to keep from being flung off, feathers and all. Rainbow similarly clung to a nearby metal panel while the air around them reached near hurricane status. "Whewwww!" Ariel gnashed her teeth into the artificial gale. "This'll blow a few papers around!"
"Let's just hope it's enough to suck the poison out of there!"
Ariel looked up, eyes twitching. "You mean that poison?"
In the flickering lights, the two mares saw a stream of green mist whipping upwards into a translucent funnel of rotating air.
"Crud!" Rainbow flattened herself against the metal floor. "Get down! Hold your breath—"
But just as she said this...
...the emerald mists were sucked into a series of vents high above. Not long after, sparks flew from the violently rotating fans. Flickering lights strobed through the chambers above and surrounding.
And then—
P-POWWW!
Two of the nearby consoles randomly exploded, followed by a dull bass whine.
—Vmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhh
All of the lights went out. Soon, the air settled... and all was eerily dark and silent.
The only sound was the panting of breath coming from Ariel and Rainbow Dash.
"You... you okay?" Rainbow asked, illuminating the darkness around them with a rub of her pendant.
"Y-yeah..." Ariel sweated in the crimson spotlight. She looked around at the halo of inky nothingess surrounding the two. "And just like that... it got hot in here."
"Maybe if now the juice is all gone, whatever locking the doors in place will have loosened." Rainbow gestured as she began scampering towards the nearest stairwell. "Come on! Let's go check on Big Show! Hopefully Flynn will get the air and everything else up and running by the time we—"
Fluttershy floated directly in front of Rainbow. "He's not there anymore, Rainbow."
Rainbow skidded to a stop. Her heart pounded. "Not there anymore?!"
"Wh-what?!" Ariel's voice cracked.
"Fluttershy..." Rainbow grimaced. Hard. "Is he—?"
"No." Fluttershy nervously smiled. "He's alive. He's just... well..."
Rarity floated into focus, droning, "He's bashed something open. Presumably with his head."
Rainbow's eyelids went flat. "What."
"Grnnngh!"
THUNK!
Logan's axe embedded into a metal surface.
He had finally smashed open the door beneath him, exposing a tall vertical shaft. It was lined with a thin and weak metal... presumably to house a lift of some sort. The shaft was scarcely wide enough for him to fit, but he used it to his advantage. Pressing his sweaty flank to one end, he hammered his axe into the other and then pulled himself up by the grip. By repeating this while sliding his lower hooves up, he was able to gradually shimmy his obese figure in an awkward, ascending motion.
He'd reach the next floor in minutes at that rate.
"Hrnnngh!"
CLANK!
A shower of sparks illuminated his stubbled muzzle in the darkness. He spotted the next doorframe up ahead in the brief, dim flash.
"Well... looks like the gas is gone..."
He panted, writhed, and sweated.
"... ... ...who am I kidding, everything behind me is twice as gaseous now."
The chute echoed to support his claim, and soon he resumed his exercise, ascending the narrow shaft.
CLANK! THUNK! CLUNK!
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...there's something wrong with Wildcard's throat, isn't there?
I wonder if Seraphimus would enjoy seeing some hot Wildcard on Wildcard action?
Oh, and the Changeling knows the secret to Wildcard's silence? Did it watch Suburban Commando too?
Hurricane Dashriel and James Big Show Bond sure get up to some cool shenanigans
Poor Wildcard though, that Changeling just seems impossible to fight
This is not good if it can do this.
Whelp he got himself out anyway. Good job Logan glad to see he will be sticking around for a while longer.
Now we just have to see who wins in the fight between Wildcard and Wildcard. That should be rather intense.
I'm half tempted to suggest that WC might actually be a girl, considering how unisex the name Jordan is.
On the plus side, the Changeling turning into WC with two natural limbs should make it pretty easy to identify as the fake.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
What a sinister turn of events.
8320914 Oh man, I thought I was the only person in the world who's seen that movie.
Well, at least Big Show is alive, now they have one less thing to worry about.
Wait a minute... This means that WC and the super-changeling are now fighting in complete darkness, right? Let's hope that WC is Arya and the 'ling is the Waif in this fight...
And Logan looks to be okay! Wild Card could probably use some backup....
Fastest console dash ever
8320915
I think it could be two small ones, acting as a whole. That would explain how it can split. Just like that group of them that were pretending to be a dragon.
It's gonna be absolute hell when they have entire battalions of these dark side changelings to contend with.
8321086
Yeah it is, hopefully they can either turn this one to their side or at least figure out a plan from what they learn fighting this changeling
Is no one going to mention how much discord likes things being done counter-clockwise in skirts' other chapter-a-day fic?
I'm still worried about Seraphimus. Only the kinda-wussy Kepler is watching her now...
Thirty-five push-ups, ):(. Knock 'em out!
Pfff seeing was overrated anyway
He's actually ashamed of his voice. One day he'll break his silence, and all we'll here will be
8320938
This is rather debatable. Especially in this setting, given that anatomical aspects tend to stick out most of the time (pun intended).
Still, the changeling's choice is interesting. It could have imitated Seraphimus with a somewhat plausible reason for her escape, and yet it chose an option, which makes the fake bluntly obvious to push his buttons.
Were Wildcard and Keris lovers at some point?
8321086
*Stratopolis flashbacks intensify*
You could have said that earlier, Fluttershy. And in a way that didn't cause confusion.
Wooo!!!
*Flails my limbs manically.*
But can she hold her cider better than Dash?
The adventures of Counter Clockwise Horse.
(Although if you're facing north along the ecliptic of the Plane, she's actually more of a Clockwise Horse.)
Tcherngelings are OP.
Did I mention how much I dislike timer puzzles?
Dash, Ariel may be cute and fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure Roarke knew what counterclockwise means. Just saying. You've done better.
I'm glad he made it, this story wouldn't be the same without the fart jokes.
OP plz Nerf.
8322122 she's already proven she can't hold her
lickerliquor.Who wants to wager on how many chapters until the changeling and Seraphimus meet? I bet three.
Glad Big Show's okay, that would have been an unfortunate and unfitting end for the big guy.
8320938
What a twist that would be if true.
8322284
Now that will be an interesting meeting, though it will not be good for Rainbow and Co. The changeling would probably try to free Seraphimus to get her to come with it - which is bad news for everyone.
Houston, we have lost visual of my sides! I repeat, we have lost visual!
I wonder why WC really doesn't speak, now that we have reason to believe that it isn't because of what already has been said.
These lines. I love it.
Oh snaaaaaaaaaaap.
...And how do you expect him to do that?
Is he secretly a chick? ...I'll be in the corner.
Somewhere in Heaven, Pip Bernadotte is looking down in happiness.
I knew it! There was no way some pact with Keris on fighting alongside each other or something could be important enough to give up his voice. I really hope we find out.
**** Indeed.
I wonder if Dopple-Cee will talk?
He doesn't wanna talk about it.
HHHHMMMMMmmmmMmM???