Even Rainbows Falter

by Pracca

Break the Crown

The gargoyles were drawing up into formation now. They were arranged together, ready to charge at a moment’s notice. Rainbow Dash and her Wonderbolts were opposite them, flaring nostrils and hoofing at the ground, attempting to be as intimidating as possible. Then, Dash heard a teammate whisper in her ears.

“Captain… what the hay do we DO here? Squad’s fresh, we’ve never seen combat.”

“It’s simple.” Dash said back in hushed tones, so that their adversaries could not hear just how hopelessly outclassed the ponies were. “Just like any fight with your brothers, Featherweight. Just don’t hold back. Buck-kicks, wing slashes, anything you need. And don’t be afraid to fight dirty; this is war, they won’t be looking for prisoners.”

She nodded towards the stone creatures. “You’ve got numbers, all of you pile up on the lackeys, one pony distracts and the others go for the kill.”

“What about the big boss?” Featherweight asked.

Rainbow just smiled and leaned in, ready to charge. “Oh, he’s mine.”

She raised her voice and roared, “Spiral pattern, everypony! Ready, GO!”

It sounded like a storm had struck when the Thunderbolts took off. A thick, twirling black cloud of crackling lightning trailed behind them as they flew. They collided with the gargoyles’ cluster, and through the corners of her eyes Rainbow could see her team for brief flashes, colliding with them in violent crashes.

But ultimately, she paid them no mind. She only had one target, and he was going down.

The King didn’t react in time, and took the brunt of Dash’s blow. The two of them flew back a dozen yards from the main scuffle, before Dash let up and flew to a few meters above him. The stone creature seemed unfazed.

He had no more words for her now, and with a flap of his mighty wings ascended. Dash yelped and had to quickly zip away from his outreached claws. He might not have been as agile, but this gargoyle was easily as fast as her.

Agility would be her weapon. She flew down, below the gargoyle before turning round and coming back up with outstretched wings. A flurry of sharp feathers raked the creature’s front, leaving inch-deep marks straight up his chest and on his face.

The royal howled in agony as he clutched at the marks left, backing off long enough for Dash to spin in the air once more, diving and smashing both of her front hooves into his skull. She kept up with the pressure, and they both went hurtling to the ground. The dirt kicked up all around, stinging her eyes as she struggled to focus on the creature, raising her hooves up and clobbering him over and over again.

Then, with talons razor sharp, the gargoyle lashed out. One nail found purchase, and a deep gash went down Rainbow’s left side. She shrieked and kicked off of the gargoyle as hard as she could. It was less flight and more hop, still in such shock, and she fell back to the ground seven or eight feet to her right.

She could feel the hot sensation of blood bubbling up from within her, and pouring down her flank, staining her uniform red. Even in the midst of combat, the sensation dominated her mind. She’d been roughed up as a child, even taken a few legitimate beatings as an adult. Those were just with the kiddie gloves on.

This? This hurt.

As if to further insult her, she watched the gargoyle scrambling to his feet, realizing that no precious red liquids were pouring down his chest. When Princess Celestia had said these things were creatures of stone now, she meant to their core.

That was the reality then. This thing felt pain, but it did not bleed, and there was no guarantee Rainbow Dash could even kill it. So what could she do?

She had no time to think about it, as the gargoyle was already rushing forward again. He came within a foot of her before leaning down, his entire upper body going down to Rainbow’s right and coming up in a shoulder-led smash and rocked the pegasus. Her head snapped away from the blow like a twig, and she went up into the air, where a waiting hand grabbed her by a rear hoof. With as brutal of momentum as could be built, Rainbow Dash was tossed into the dirt and gravel beneath her, face-first.

THWACK

Rainbow could feel the fresh, bitter tears in her eyes from the new pain, and already her vision was clouding on the left edge; she was no expert in combat, but enough crashes over the years told that her eye was swelling up. This was going south, quickly. She needed a game plan.

She needed to get away for a second. She twisted her torso in preparation, and as fast as she could, she spun. Her wings were like automated blades, and immediately cut deep, if ineffective gashes in the gargoyle’s arm. He yowled and groaned in pain, struggling to find some way to pin her down. Ultimately, he was hopeless, and he backed off as she shot into the sky. Rainbow ascended nearly thirty feet this time, looking down on him as she panted heavily. Her left eye was almost entirely enshrouded in darkness now, and what vision she had left was spinning all about from dizziness. She wasn’t able to tell how the fight was going for her team, though she prayed to Celestia that they were faring better than her.

She heard the characteristic flap of those batlike wings, and the gargoyle was in the skies once more. Dash flew further up and back, avoiding another strike, but the creature did a flip mid-air, striking with his legs. Dash dodged that, and slammed herself into his side like a bullet to push him back. He grunted in discomfort, but she was aware that those types of attacks did more damage to her than him. This stone body was proving to be a considerable problem. What was worse was, he was quickly proving that agility became a meaningless term when both parties have such minute control over flight.

A jab, then a slash followed by an uppercut and a bite, of all things. The gargoyle lunged with attack after attack, and Rainbow was getting closer and closer to a gruesome injury with each one. She couldn’t dodge forever, and Princesses knew she couldn’t dare try and block them. Her addled mind tried to think of a way out as she flew above, making another strafe and scratching up his back.

OK, um—whoa! OK, need a weakness, c’mon! Uh… uh… OH CRAP! Too close too close… OK, he’s big. He’s really big. I need to get him somewhere where I can move easy and he can’t.

Her eyes scanned the town below, looking for inspiration as she tried to fly circles around him and avoid a blow. One building called out to her, the town hall. Ceilings high enough for her to maneuver in, but the gargoyle wouldn’t be able to build up any momentum.

Like a pony possessed, she shot from the sky and down below to the hall. The wind stung her fresh wounds, but it was a focus. She used it to remind her of where she was, what he was doing, and why she desperately needed not to get another gash like that.

The front doors burst open as she came flying in, taking a brief moment of respite to land, gasping for breath. She was tired now; too tired. This was getting dicey, and she knew it. She needed a way to end this fast.

Her examination of the main hall came up fruitless. It was a simple room, with a skylight above a statue of the town’s founder, smaller than the one in town square. It still dwarfed any pony though, and even the gargoyles. There were only a few windows, no rafters to collapse… no weapons to be found.

“Aw… crap…” she sputtered out, wishing there was at least some kind of ancestral sword lying about. For good or ill, she had no more time to lament this. The front doors crashed down, and the gargoyle king strode in, cracking his neck and brandishing his claws. One was slicked red. Rainbow recognized her own blood on his hands, and felt both a fury and a deep, primal fear broiling in her stomach. Fight or flight in full effect, but indecision winning the day.

“Is this where you choose your grave to be?” the gargoyle asked, unfurling his wings. Just as Rainbow hoped, his massive wingspan was such that the tips only had inches between themselves and the walls. He could go up, but beyond that his flight was restricted here.

“Heh…n-no.” Rainbow said, popping a grin and trying her best to look confident. “Yours.”

Surprisingly, the gargoyle managed to smile at that. “You’ve earned a favor. I’ll make sure to get your real answer before I kill you; I swear you’ll be buried wherever you choose.”

Rainbow’s body shivered and convulsed in protest as she took a step forward, puffing her body up to look intimidating. “Th-thanks for the offer.” She replied. “But I’m being buried with my wife. And not for a long… long time.”

The gargoyle made an amused grunt. “We shall see.”

At once, the gargoyle ran forward, and Rainbow took to the air once more. The pegasus charged with wild abandon, and at the last possible second…

Her wingbeat faltered.

Her balance off, she wobbled in midair, and the force of her collision was lost. The gargoyle’s, less so. Rainbow swore she could feel a rib snap as his chest collided with her hooves, sending reverberations through her entire body, and she smacked up flat against him as his momentum continued. He furthered the agony by slamming his forehead into her own, knocking it back and sending her sliding across the floor with a fresh bruise, and just the smallest trickle of blood trailing down her face. He approached, slowly, as she struggled to stand.

“Lay down, little pony.” He said simply. “It is over, now let me end your life with as little pain as I can.”

He raised his claws up in preparation. Rainbow Dash was nearly up to her hooves, but for what, she was not sure. Her remaining working eye was screaming in pain, scorched by her own hot blood. Her ears were ringing with such intensity that she could barely hear the words of her foe. And all her snout could smell was blood.

Her senses dulled and incapacitated, all standing would do was show one last act of defiance.

And in the end, she could not accomplish even that. She collapsed, slipping in her own blood pooling at her feet. She did not bother to look up as he came to perform the final deed.

“It is time. Give me your answer, and then you shall go.”

“You first.”

The gargoyle looked up in shock, and even Rainbow’s mangled hearing could make out a fresh voice. Then came the sound of a swift kick, and tipping stone…

The gargoyle king could only grunt in surprise and make a futile attempt at dodging, before the statue of Coalcolt’s founder collapsed on top of him with a colossal crash.

A crater was left, and dust filled the town hall to the brim. Dash coughed and sputtered, recoiling away from the impact before falling over again. She could see a shadow in front of her. She tensed up for another fight, expecting the worse, but was almost instantly loose and passive as a wing gently wiped the blood and sweat away from her eye. A spunky-looking pegasus, not unlike her in her youth, with a pink coat and blue mane marred by dozens of raking scratches was grinning down at her Captain. Dash gave a weary chuckle chuckle and said, “Shoulda known it’d be you, Firefly.”

“You know how I love to steal the show.” The Wonderbolt’s newest hotshot rookie replied. With a nudge, she spurred her Captain up to her feet, and the pair began to walk—in Rainbow’s case, limp and trudge—towards the exit. Rainbow stopped by the crater long enough to point at it and tell the corpse underneath, “I told you this was your grave.”

The two stepped outside, and Rainbow saw 19 other pegasi waiting (along with three very grateful hostages) and staring intently at her. Behind, she could see craters, smashed roofs, and a pile of bodies.

And not a single one belonged to her team. They were roughed up, a few with broken wings and a few with broken pride, but they were all alive, and waiting to see if their Captain could say the same.

She gave a devilish smile at them, and raised a hoof into the air. A cacophony of yells, hollers, and gleeful cheers filled the air.

---

Sometime later, the victors of the battle were in the center of town, surrounded by grateful minerfolk returning to their homes. Rainbow was chatting with Firefly as the blood was cleaned from her hair, and gauze was wrapped around the gash in her side.

“Nah, rookie, you should’ve SEEN the kind of dumb stuff Thunderlane did. We called him Squidbelly for a month, after the incident at last year’s air show!”

The pink pegasus snorted, trying to hold in the fresh sip of water she’d taken moments before. She failed, and water went everywhere as she cracked up. “SQUIDBELLY? Aw c’mon, you’ve gotta tell me about that!”

“Ha, OK, OK, it all started when Soarin ran off to find the concession stand, and—“

Rainbow Dash was jolted out of her story when the team medic patted her side, letting her know the bandages were fully set. Tossing a quick word of thanks to him, she hopped up to her hooves, and immediately felt a muted jolt of pain. It wouldn’t be debilitating, but until she got to a doctor with something besides field medicine, it’d be an annoyance. She could see out of her left eye again, though she was told that the sclera was still bloodshot, and her eyelid was a deeper shade of blue than the rest of her.

“Well, looks like I’m all set.”

“Sure took one heckuva beating there, Captain.” Firefly snarked. “Get beaten up like that too much, your subordinates might start thinking it’s good time for a mutiny.”

“Ha, not on your life rookie!” Rainbow fired right back. “I’d sooner—oh.”

Firefly looked at her CO curiously, but once she followed her gaze understood. She was staring at the hill that overlooked Coaltcolt, behind which the sun was falling. The rookie smiled peacefully, watching the orange glow of the sky mingle with the frigid blue of the winter day. She chuckled and said, “Yeah, winter sunsets can be pretty amazing, huh Captain?”

No response. Firefly looked at her, and saw the growing horror in her eyes. “…Captain?...”

And then it struck the rookie. She’d forgotten in the heat of battle, what Rainbow had missed to help them through the fight. Rainbow finally said in a voice so low it was hardly audible,

“Twilight doesn’t know why I missed the party… and—and I’m this late?!”

She became more active, very quickly shifting back and forth on her hooves. “Oh, horseapples, she’s gonna be furious—I-I gotta go, like, NOW Firefly! Can you guys handle things—“

“Yes, yes, we can!” Firefly assured her, smacking her Captain on the plot to get her moving. “C’mon, you’ve got more important places to be you idiot! GO!”

With a shaky start, Rainbow Dash at last went streaking off into the sky, back towards the falling night over eastern Equestria. All she could think was, how was it that in the moments of her greatest triumph, she could feel like such a failure?

Comments

[Pracca]

Never thought I'd write a bloody action scene for a pony fic... but here we are!

[AkaRainbowDash]

This was quite well written. Although some of the scenes portrayed a horrid (yet badass) panting in my head.
Well done sir.

[TheTranslator]

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