Saros

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Ascent

Myrk panted heavily, trying his best to catch a cooling breath while piercing the airtight tunnels from the ravine behind. The noise of Captain Stellar and his fellow pursuers was drowned out by the solid walls of lunar rock on all sides of him. Gulping, Myrk flapped his wings harder and pressed onward, accelerating towards his destination. He knew that the Mid-Level Highways loomed at the far end of these corridors, and once there he would no longer have the luxury of tight places to hide his escape.

The tunnel wound left and right, making a serpentine pattern as it gradually tilted towards the upper levels. Everything was pure dark, and all that Myrk had to go by was the mental image that his echoing breaths had to occasionally give him. Every so often, he'd let loose a high pitched shriek, and the immediate corridors beyond the surrounding walls would appear in brief blinks of sonar. For the time being, they were empty, and he continued his speedy flight with vigor.

Myrk's ears twitched as he remembered the anger in Captain Pierce Stellar's shouts. Between heartbeats, he recalled that same tone in the guard's voice whenever they would meet over the past few years to discuss routine security. As Captain of the Night Wraiths, Myrk had worked with Stellar on several occasions. It chilled Myrk to realize that the same fury that was fueling Stellar's pursuit of him had been something growing insurmountably over the course of a bitter decade.

Myrk tried to remind himself that he was on a mission to save his liege. He shook the saddlebag on his airborne flank and felt the weight of that which rattled within. In so doing, he heard the ringing noise of the owl pendant clinging to his neck. Myrk held his breath, focusing briefly on the metallic tone, and sooner than he realized it, he was being distracted.

A bright burst of light burned into his tunnel. Myrk grunted, his black eyes clenching shut from the painful strobe. Instinctively, he gave a high-pitched shriek, and his natural sonar illustrated the shape of a unicorn surging in from an adjoining corridor atop a murderous managlider.

"Raaaugh!" the guard shouted as he slammed sideways into Myrk.

"Mffngh!" Myrk bounced off the blue vehicle, bore a vertical ravine into the tunnel, but swiftly kicked off. He sprung back and flung his weight into the flying unicorn.

The guard absorbed the blow through his shoulder plates. Yanking at his crystalline controls, he spun his glider like a huge, blue blade. The wings sliced through the air of the claustrophobic corridor, blowing dust and lunar powder everywhere.

Myrk surged forward and back, dodging the sharp swaths of the wings. He flapped his leather wings harder and shot ahead of the guard and his magically engineered vehicle. Relying on his natural gifts alone, the breathless sarosian accelerated up the vertical shaft.

The guard evened out and trained his sights on the leather-winged target. Squinting one eye, he protruded a shoulder-mounted manarifle and shouted into his runes: "H'rhnum!" His voice echoed off the walls blurring past them as pulse after pulse of bright blue magic shot at Myrk's tail.

Myrk darted in every random direction he could muster. Holes exploded in the cylindrical walls from the unicorn's heated weapons. This madness proceeded for several heated seconds with Myrk skimming the curves of the winding corridor while the Rune Guard's projectiles barely missed him.

Finally, they both came upon a vertical straightaway and Myrk knew he couldn't avoid the guard's shots any longer. So, tightening his muscles, he glided closer to the edge of the tunnel and dug his horsehoes into the walls speeding by. With a frictious grind, Myrk kicked up a huge cloud of dust, sending it spilling onto the pursuer coming up behind him.

The guard gasped and flinched, his sight being overwhelmed by a thick layer of dust. He coughed as the sediment began fogging up his helmet. Soon he was shouting "H'rhnum!" ad nauseum, firing blindly into the tunneled madness ahead.

Myrk knew this was his opportunity. He took a deep breath and flung his wings forward like air brakes. He caught a wall of wind and decelerated.

The guard shook the powder off his helmet in time to see Myrk's cloaked body flying back at him with the force of a leather boulder. He barely had a breath to scream before the sarosian's vicious hooves smashed his face in. The sheer impact shattered the glider to pieces, and it sent the guard's spasming body plummeting like a sack of meat down the long shaft from which he came. With a flap of his wings, Myrk took off and proceeded along the next junction of tunnels.

He wasn't alone for long. With a mutual hum, Captain Stellar and his three remaining allies converged on Myrk's rear from their separate corridors. Stellar blinked and looked behind him, seeing that one of his guards was missing. Cursing under his breath, he shouted to two of his wingponies. "Break off and get to Mid-Level before us! If we don't take him out, prepare to blast him upon exiting!"

"Aye, sir!" Two fliers veered off into separate tunnels while Stellar pointed at a third.

“You!” Stellar shouted at the remaining guard. “With me!” The wingpony gave a stern nod and together they channeled mana bursts into their gliders and rocketed up one shaft directly following Myrk.

As the loud hum of their conjured vehicles filled the tight air, Myrk's ears twitched. He held his breath and flapped his wings faster, darting from side to side as his tunnel suddenly became a labyrinthine web of maintenance corridors. Stellar and the other unicorn zoomed after him in hot pursuit, doing their best to keep on his tail throughout the forest of crudely burrowed chambers. They flew past rusted equipment left their centuries ago during the pioneer days of Imperial lunar engineering. Runes dimmed from ages of neglect flickered and shot past them like comets as they gradually caught up with his billowing tail hairs, and yet still the target was eluding their grasp.

"Soldier!" Captain Stellar shouted above the screaming air around them. "Take point! I'm going to give your glider a boost!"

"Affirmative!" The hissing unicorn's helmet glinted as he flew directly in front of his superior.

Stellar concentrated, his horn pulsing in an alternating rhythm with the two bulbous mana spheres of his shoulder armor. A bolt of sparkling energy eventually surged from his skull and illuminated the Rune Guard's vehicle from its tail to its wingtips. The glider's hum reached a higher pitch, and soon it was surging forward to catch up with Myrk on a stream of burning blue energy.

Myrk was sweating, straining, aching to outrace the advancing Imperialist. He gnashed his fanged teeth and glanced left and right, looking for another exit from the steep corridor he was being chased through. Finally, he saw a thin hole to his left, and he darted towards it.

"Subject's making a lateral detour!" the guard shouted. Keeping Myrk in his sights, he veered left to chase him. "Maintaining accelerated pursuit!"

Stellar saw it. He gasped. "No! Abandon the chase! He's leading you up a mining capillary! Corporal! Pull back this instant—!"

The guard was too far ahead to pay the Captain any heed. He shot straight up the narrow passageway behind Myrk's tail.

"Nnnngh! Luna damn it!" Stellar hissed as he forced himself to take a passage to the right.

In the mining capillary, Myrk was soaring upwards and undaunted. For once he was calm, even as the guard behind him began inching his way up on his flanks.

"That's as far as you go—!" The guard prepared to fire his manarifle when a loud scraping noise filled the sides of his helmet. Breathless, he glanced at the walls blazing past him. "Huh...?"

The very wingtips of his glider were grinding against the lunar surfaces of the corridor. The capillary was easily too small for him to navigate. Soon, a shower of sparks was bathing his runestoned armor.

"Blessed Gultophine..." He squeaked, then yanked at the crystalline controls to decelerate—when he got a face full of leather.

"Haaaugh!" Myrk had dropped down to pounce on him. The guard jerked his body to the side. Myrk grabbed the unicorn's neck, spun about, and held him from behind, attempting to reach over and grab the controls to the magic vehicle. Together, the two ponies struggled as the zooming walls of the mining passage closed in tighter. Centimeters per second, the wings of the managlider crumbled into translucent blue shards. The glow flickered off and on as the shower of sparks became overwhelming.

"Nnnnngh!" the unicorn grunted and head-butted Myrk. He pulsed his horn and swiveled the manarifle on his armor to aim into Myrk's chest at point blank. Before he could shout a command, Myrk flung a hoof over his mouth and clutched his skull in a vice-like grip.

The two struggled with each other in the rumbling, crowded tunnel until Myrk—furious and frowning—flung his mouth wide open in the unicorn's face, shrieking at the top of his sarosian lungs. The unicorn howled in agony. Cracks formed in his helmet and twin trickles of blood fountained from his ears. The glow of his horn strobed like a pulsar, and soon he was yanking the vehicle into a crumbling spin. Dust and crystalline shards filled the corridor as the glider shattered completely.

Before the unicorn's limp body could fall, Myrk bit into the guard's forelimb. Holding the ragdoll body in fanged teeth, Myrk gazed up ahead as a bright pair of lights formed at the end of the tunnel. He flew out into the cavernous expanse of Mid-Level. A pair of Stellar's wingponies were hovering in wait with their manarifles at the ready. But as soon as Myrk exploded out the mouth of the corridor, he flung a face-full of paralyzed guard at the gasping pair.

One unicorn dodged at the last second. The other wasn't so lucky; the guard's body sailed into him like a meteor, shattering the managlider instantly. The two equine shapes flew limply into a sea of lunar powder while Myrk shot up like an onyx lightning bolt towards a complicated array of criss-crossing bridges and platforms stretched across an enormous, glass-paved chamber.

The remaining guard panted, gawking at the fleeing target as Captain Stellar surged past him. "Do not tarry, soldier! Lieutenant Razsaleen will have the blockade ready!"

The soldier gulped and followed as swiftly as he could. "Yes, sir!"

Myrk sailed up through open space, deliciously cooled by the billowing air as he surged past bridge after bridge of roads clustering up the Mid-Level Highways. Ponies pulling glowing hovercarts from lunar township to township stopped to gaze in shock at the peculiar sight of a sarosian fleeing above them. A deep murmur filled the air, a sound that was replaced by a sudden, mutual gasping noise.

At that, Myrk jolted nervously in midair. He pivoted about, launching a sonar barrage in every direction that he could. Just then, he sensed a wall of bodies behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he spotted a phalanx of Rune Guards lining up with mana cannons atop a glossy platform's glowing edge. At the command of Lieutenant Razsaleen, all the unicorns fired in unison.

"H'rhnum!"

Myrk backflipped and dove upside down in a suicidal somersault. As he did so, huge bolts of burning blue mana roared past his figure. Several hairs of his tail were roasted, along with the furthest corners of his brown cloak.

"H'rhnum!"

A second volley came from the Imperial line, and again the air caught aflame with electrical branches of magical fury. Myrk dove through the madness—spinning—until he descended upon a single glass bridge in the dead-center of the steep cavern. Lunar citizens shrieked and abandoned their carts as he dove upon them.

Myrk grunted, flattened his body at the last second and slid beneath the levitating body of a hovercart. Two beams of blue mana flew into the vehicle, bursting it aflame and sending bits and pieces of mercantile wears splattering across the platform. Rocketing out from underneath the explosion, Myrk skimmed over the deck, flaring his wings in a desperate attempt to slow himself. His hooves skidded across the glass platform a few times until managing an awkward gallop as he surged past two cowering unicorns. He prepared to leap off the highway when another blast blew up a wagon full of oats beside him.

The blow landed too close, and the sheer concussion of the blast knocked the former Wraith off his hooves. He tumbled sideways, rolled, and landed in a rough stop with his shoulders against a glossy black stagecoach. Wincing, he opened his eyes in time to hear the whining pitch of a managlider.

Before his black eyes, Captain Stellar dove down, swooped up in a corkscrew, and cut his manastream in midair. The crystalline conjuration disappeared in a blink, and the enraged Captain came down, telekinetically unsheathing a glowing, midnight blue scimitar from his armor. He dropped down on Myrk like a raging comet. "Raaaaaugh!"

Myrk gnashed his teeth and flapped his wings. The burst of air flung him forward in a daring roll.

Stellar came down, swinging the sword in full-force where Myrk's prone body was lying just half a second ago. The abandoned stagecoach exploded in twain, filling the air with a shower of metallic shards. Stellar spun around, leering.

Myrk rolled up onto his hooves and slid in reverse.

Stellar charged in full gallop, thrusting his scimitar like a bayonet ahead of him.

Holding his breath, Myrk rotated the tips of his forward horseshoes, the metal articles extending a fan of razor sharp blades. He reared around his front limbs and blocked Stellar's attack with a shower of sparks. Yanking down at the blade, he attempted throwing Stellar off his balance. But just as he dove in for an attack of his own, Stellar blindly levitated the scimitar behind his back and deflected Myrk's attack. He shoved against the sarosian and swept the scimitar low.

Myrk backflipped and slid to a stop. Before he could grind his hooves and prepare another attack, a huge body sailed through his sonar senses. He ducked low just as the remaining wingpony sliced over him in a vicious dive. The managlider scraped the top of his mane before swiftly pulling back up and continuing down the highway. Myrk saw it arcing around in preparation for another pass, but then Stellar was advancing once more into the sarosian’s sight, swinging and slashing madly with his blade.

Myrk backtrotted, desperately blocking Stellar's offensive moves with his forelimbs. A slash made its way through his defense, and the expert unicorn soldier bloodily grazed Myrk's shoulder. Hissing in pain, Myrk ducked another swing of Stellar's blade, grabbed a loose shard of hovercart debris in his teeth and flung the metal object towards Stellar's helmet. Stellar stepped back to deflect the projectile, giving Myrk time to break into full gallop across the highway and take to the air.

But no sooner were Myrk's wings spread, when the remaining wingpony swooped down low and smacked him in midair. With a grunt, Myrk flew limply into a long, wooden passenger cart on the far end of the bridge. The vehicle crumbled around him, piling a huge weight of lumber over his twitching figure. He grunted and struggled to get free, but his lower limbs refused to budge under the clustered mana crystals of the demolished vehicle's hover engines. Groaning in frustration, Myrk desperately gripped a flank of metal with his teeth in an attempt to pry it off him. For a brief moment, he was shocked that Stellar hadn't sliced his way into the vehicle to decapitate him for good. It was then that he heard a noise in his expert ears from far away.

"H'rhnum!"

Lieutenant Razsaleen's phalanx fired another volley from afar. The air heated up with static energy. A bright blue fury blinded the corners of Myrk's black eyes. He quivered, hissing and struggling with every fiber of his being.

The owl pendant rattled around his sweating neck, and Myrk grimaced as a huge plume of manafire consumed the very platform beneath him.

Comments

[Csquared08]

Dat fight scene.

[WardenPony]

Hmm. Just as with the first Petra arc, I fear that your large action sequences tend to increase the number of errors exponentially. There were a lot in this chapter, more than I would normally expect from your own editing. Still, I read on, awaiting the next section of plot.

[Future Regret]

Wow, Myrk got quite the hair cut in this chapter.

[AppleTank]

Smells like east horse.

[FOXTrot2]

This guy's deserves a metal for all the crazy stuff he's has to put up with.