Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

A Mammoth of a Problem XLIX

What was going on?

Rainbow Dash couldn’t remember when, but she had started floating to the top of the Sacred Spring while the water churned and bubbled around her. Her memories were fuzzy. She did remember going into the Sacred Spring in the first place but after that… nothing. And the light show and everything else going on around her now wasn’t helping.

All she knew was that she felt a little different.

A lot different.

She closed her eyes as her head breached the surface of the water and her wings began to automatically flap to carry her up and completely out of the Sacred Spring. The warm water cascaded down her body, giving her a last little taste of pure relaxation and comfort as her mane hung closely to her face and neck. At the same time as she rose entirely out of the water the Spring’s tempestuous behavior stopped and only a few light ripples radiated from where Rainbow Dash had emerged.

What is this? Rainbow Dash thought. She opened her mouth a fraction of an inch and took in a breath, filling up her lungs. I feel so… so… incredible.

Rainbow Dash opened up her eyes as she floated above the Sacred Spring and stared out across the waters to the western shoreline. She saw the Sages and past them Karkona and his army. Oddly she didn’t feel surprised or worried at all that all of Karkona’s forces were already there. Her eyes merely narrowed and a cold frown spread on her face while she slowly flew to the edge of the Spring while water continued to drip off her.

Ollaron and the other Sages all stepped to the side, allowing her to land without any obstruction and giving her a clear view of her adversary. She didn’t say anything to him yet though. Instead Dash just hopped up and down on her hooves a few times, jumping up onto her back hooves she threw out a few experimental punches while the others watched, perplexed at her behavior. Karkona was clearly about to lose his patience but Dash paid him absolutely no mind. She rotated her wings, shook her tail, flexed her muscles, and rocked back and forth on the balls of her hooves.

“This is… this is something else. I can feel it in me. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this awesome in my entire life. I’m so… light. And it’s like I could lift a boulder above my head like nothing.” she said to herself as she tasted the power coursing through her body. “Oh yeah, this is good.”

The Sages were going to step forward to question her but Karkona cut them off.

“So you’re saying you gained the power of the Sacred Spring?” He scoffed. “So what? Even if you have the strength of a mammoth now you’re still just a pony. You can’t do anything to stop me and my ambition.” Karkona snorted and looked over his shoulder, his eyes found two soldiers wearing full sets of plate armor standing in the front row. “You two, go crush that pathetic creature.”

The two nameless soldiers shared an uncertain glance with each other before looking back at Karkona, still not moving to go fight Rainbow Dash like he ordered.

He didn’t care for that kind of attitude.

“Well?!” Veins popped out of Karkona’s forehead as he yelled at the two and they quickly scampered out of line to rush out at Rainbow Dash. Karkona glared at them the whole time they shuffled past him.

Their armor clanked as they took heavy footsteps towards Rainbow Dash and perhaps the fear Karkona put into them morphed into a little bit of courage because they spitefully sneered down at the little pony standing by the edge of the water. What was there to be afraid of when it came to her? They were stupid to get startled just because of the lights and everything from the Sacred Spring. And how dare this pony defile their Spring in the first place! She’d pay for that.

The two of them stopped a trunk’s length away from Rainbow Dash and prepared to obliterate her just like Karkona wanted. Metal caps were affixed to their tusks and segmented armor went down their trunks. Their plate was heavy and chain mail with heavy cloth sat underneath it for extra protection. There was nothing Rainbow Dash could do against two fully armored mammoths.

She didn’t seem to be worried at all though.

Rainbow Dash cracked her neck and grabbed her right shoulder with her left hoof, rotating and stretching her right front leg. As if it was an afterthought she glanced up at the two mammoths. “You guys are really making a mistake right now.”

“Shut up, pony!” The one on the right growled.

“We’re going to make you pay for using our Spring!” The one on the left said.

Rainbow Dash grinned as she flexed the muscles in her legs one last time and put her hooves down. “For real, I’m warning you guys.”

“Ragh!” The left mammoth raised up his trunk and swung it down at her, aiming to smash her into the ground.

She flickered out of existence and his trunk hit nothing but empty ground while his eyes widened in surprise and confusion. The next thing he knew something impacted him in the side, pulverizing the armor plates on his body and smashing into his ribs, breaking them as well and lifting the mammoth off his feet.

He wheezed in pain and shock as Rainbow Dash’s strong kick into his armored body sent him harshly tumbling end over end across the ground, losing broken pieces of armor with each fall, before he finally came to a stop in a crater after tearing a wide trench in the ground. Totally knocked out he looked like a lump of shredded and broken pieces of metal all hanging off a shaggy pile of woolly mammoth fur. The force of Rainbow Dash’s blow was so powerful it hadn’t just knocked him down but made him skip and drag across the ground multiple times before he had finally lost momentum.

After kicking him she landed back on the ground and looked at her back leg that she had used to kick with. It looked and felt totally fine. She hadn’t hurt herself in the slightest by kicking his heavy armor and body.

“Wow, I’m just as strong as I thought,” Dash said.

The other mammoths had no idea what had just happened. She was standing still and then in the next instant she was kicking a fully armored soldier across the ground like he was paper. None of them knew just how fast Rainbow Dash could be when she wanted to be. And now she had the power of the Sacred Spring in her as well. Alok and Murrank looked back and forth from her and the crumpled mess of their soldier, while the other mammoth that had been sent to face her backed away on shaky legs

Only Karkona kept his absolute cool. His eyes were the only ones sharp enough to keep up with Rainbow Dash’s speed. It was no trick she had pulled off, and nothing special in his eyes. So she was a little fast? His trunk was still like a lightning bolt and her speed didn’t scare him.

“And what are you doing?!” Karkona yelled at the other retreating mammoth. “I gave you an order!”

That mammoth was scared of Rainbow Dash, but he was still more scared of Karkona. He gulped and stopped his legs from shaking, stepping back towards Rainbow Dash he curled up his trunk and swung it sideways at her.

Rainbow Dash just stood there and watched his trunk come at her from her right. The huge appendage would’ve effortlessly knocked over even a pony like Big Mac if he just let it hit him like this.

But now Rainbow Dash was so much stronger that this huge trunk swinging at her might as well have been a spindly twig. She held up her hoof and caught the trunk right before it smacked into her, stopping it cold. She didn’t even budge. The mammoth gasped and tried to yank his trunk away, thinking he could either pull or lift her with it. But Rainbow Dash might as well have been bolted to the ground with how solidly she held onto his trunk and kept him from getting free. The grip on his trunk was so strong that it might as well have been trapped under a huge stone block taken from the quarry. Despite Rainbow Dash’s light weight, the strength she now had in her body made her completely unmovable to a mammoth like him.

After seeing that she really could hold him like this for as long as she wanted, Rainbow Dash finally let his trunk go and the mammoth fell over onto his butt at the sudden release. By the time he looked back up at her she was missing from where she had been standing.

“Huh?” The mammoth tilted his head… and then Rainbow Dash’s hoof came down and caved his helmet in.

The mammoth didn’t even make so much as a sound as he slumped forward, limbs splayed wide on the ground with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Two down.

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and lowered herself to the ground where she stretched a few times and rubbed her hooves. “Doesn’t hurt at all… I’m not even trying either. It’s like I’m made of awesomeness right now.” She smiled and turned to look at Karkona and the others. “Okay, so how many of you still haven’t gotten the message yet? That power you wanted from the Sacred Spring? I’ve got it—and oh yeah does it feel good.”

“You won’t have it for much longer,” Karkona sniped. He glanced over to his two closest subordinates now. “Alok, Murrank, deal with her. She’s still nothing more than a weak pony, prove how strong of mammoths you are!”

It was obvious that Alok and Murrank didn’t quite share Karkona’s enthusiasm but what else could they do? Not only did they know what Karkona would do to them if they refused this was a matter of pride to them. They had to fight Rainbow Dash and beat down the creature that dared to stand up to the mammoths. This was the first obstacle they had to returning to their warlike and subjugating ways.

They both grit their teeth and ran at Rainbow Dash, making themselves as determined and fearless as possible. They were a cut above the average thugs Karkona had filled out his army with. The two of them just had to remember that and stay confident while they fought her.

Dash on the other hoof couldn’t help but be bored at how slowly they ran towards her. Even without the super strength the Spring had given her, any fight between her and these mammoths would’ve just been a stalemate since they’d never be able to touch her. The weapons the two of them wielded were hardly threatening either. Although it would at least make the fight with these two a little different.

“Come on then,” Rainbow Dash grinned and beckoned them with her wings.

Murrank got there first and thrust his spear out at her. Now Rainbow Dash could’ve easily gone full speed and ended things in an instant but she wanted to take a little more time with these two. She jumped over the spear right as Alok came in and swung the heavy shield he had at her. Rainbow Dash kicked it away and dented it while the force of the blow also knocked Alok back a little. Murrank lifted his spear in his trunk to try and slice Rainbow Dash with it but as soon as it got in ranged she brought her elbow down hard on the shaft and snapped it. The spearhead went flying and Murrank was left gawking at his now useless weapon.

Rainbow Dash then flew right up to his face and flicked his helmet off. His pupils shrank and he attempted to pull his head back from her but she reached up and grabbed his ear.

“Boo,” Rainbow Dash teased and punched him in the face.

Murrank went down like a sack of bricks, sliding across the ground and coming to an unmoving rest a few feet away. It was just in time for Alok to come from behind and fling out his shield like a discus at Rainbow Dash.

She snorted at how easy that was to avoid, a single flap of her wings carrying her over it. Alok came up right after the thrown shield though and aimed his capped tusks at her. He was trying to gore her before she could react to him.

But these mammoths just couldn’t match her agility and maneuverability. Especially when she was already in the air.

Rainbow Dash twisted and zoomed between his tusks and then flew down between his legs and under his body. She stiffly elbowed him in the gut when she passed and flew back up behind his back, dropping another elbow on him. Alok let out an agonized harrumph as the wind left his lungs and pain lanced up and down his back. His legs buckled and he collapsed onto his knees while his eyes rolled back into his head and his trunk lied limply on the ground. Two more mammoths down and out.

Rainbow Dash flew down between the defeated forms of Murrank and Alok and landed with a yawn on the cold ground. The entire army of Karkona took a fearful step back when she did so.

Karkona though, true to his status and strength, merely glared at her.

“Well?” Rainbow Dash tilted her head and spoke to him, a smug and cocky grin on her face. “Looks like it’s just you and me now.”

Comments

[superfun]

Say your prayers, Karkona

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

[redmar]

Karkona is going to get beaten badly.