Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

The Ice Sentinel II

Rainbow Dash was close to the glacier. It really was a huge slab of white and blue ice that sat between the two mountains, rising from the floor of the valley to more than halfway up their peaks and extending a fair distance to the mountains behind it. She debated whether to just fly over it completely or maybe touch down and walk over it for a bit. See how it was or if there was anything cool about it. The thing looked pretty bumpy on top and she could see a number of cracks and crevasses in it. Thankfully being a pegasus she never had to worry about falling down one of them.

She glanced down at the forest below her to see that the ground steadily sloped up the closer it got to the glacier before stopping, the treeline disappearing for about a hundred feet below that. Her eyes roamed over the bottom of the glacier and the cliffs that made up the mountains of the northern side of the valley but she couldn’t see any easy way up them. Once more she was lucky she didn’t only have to walk or she’d be practically trapped in that valley. The only real way past the glacier seemed to be to climb up it if you were an earth pony or something, and you would need special tools for that.

Rainbow Dash flexed her wings and grinned. “Thank you mom and dad.”

The pegasus continued her glide to the glacier, to her right she saw some birds fly down from the mountain on the glacier’s east. They must’ve had a nest up on the rocks somewhere and were flying down to the forest for food or something else. Her eyes caught the curved beaks and sharp talons of the winter colored birds, birds of prey no doubt. Rainbow Dash knew their behavior just as well as Fluttershy thanks to her familiarity with griffons. They were probably circling for something like mice or squirrels and they would strike from above with the kind of speed and stealth that the poor creature wouldn’t know what happened until it was grasped between those talons.

Nothing could catch her like that though. Her ears were too finely attuned and her reflexes too quick. Not to mention there probably wasn’t any sort of predator that was looking to eat her up here.

“Heh, and if there was I’d show it what a mistake it is to try me!” Rainbow Dash pounded her hooves together.

She flapped her wings once and dove a bit lower to the glacier, planning to land down on it, having made up her mind.

Her right ear then flickered as she picked up a strange sound in the sky. A whistling sound coming from above and behind her. She was about to turn her head to see what it was when a sharp icicle thrown like a spear whizzed right past her head, close enough for her to briefly see the scared reflection of her eyes in its clear surface as time nearly seemed to slow down while the razor icicle brushed against the bangs of her mane. As soon as it passed her by time resumed as normal and the icicle spear flew towards the glacier before disappearing from Rainbow Dash’s sight.

“What the-”

“KRAOOOOOOOOW!”

Rainbow Dash’s head lurched in the direction the spear had been thrown from to see a huge monster made of ice flying down at her. Its wings were folded back so it could divebomb through the air faster while it held its deadly sharp talons open towards her.

“Gah!” Rainbow Dash yelped and quickly fluttered out of its way.

Right as she dodged past it though it opened its wings up and tried to cleave her with them as it flew by, forcing Rainbow to beat her wings hard and barely flip over the glossy ice wing that looked sharper than any sword or knife could possibly be.

“What the hay are you?!” Rainbow yelled as she speedily flapped her wings to gain some altitude and create a little distance between herself and the ice monster.

The creature stopped and turned around in midair, icy skull and strange glowing eyes swinging to lock onto Rainbow Dash once more. If it understood her it gave no indication or answer. Rainbow Dash bit her lip at what she saw, now being able to fully register the ice monster that had attacked her. It was some horrifying skeleton of ice with powerful looking wings and for whatever reason it wanted Rainbow Dash. The gargoyle screeched again and flew towards her.

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes as it approached. If that’s as fast as it can go then I’m way faster…

She prepared her wings to fly circles around her attacker when the ice monster reached a talon up behind its back and yanked off one of the ice spikes that went down its spine. A new spike quickly grew in its place like ice spreading across a cold surface while the monster flung the improvised icicle spear with immense force at Rainbow Dash.

It sailed through the air with ease thanks to its shape and the power behind the throw, much faster than the gargoyle could fly and aimed right at the center of Rainbow Dash’s chest.

Rainbow Dash easily ducked right under it though. Her reactions and speed far greater than any simple thrown javelin. She couldn’t help but smirk, it looked like she could easily handle whatever this thing could dish out. There was no way it could catch her.

But the monster didn’t seem to care about her dodging or whatever other thoughts might be going through the pony’s head. It kept pulling off more spikes and throwing them at Rainbow Dash while it charged through the air with its razor sharp tail whipping around behind it.

Again and again Rainbow Dash dipped, ducked, dived, and dodged each spear thrown at her. Practically laughing at the ease she was having at evading the attacks she almost forgot to fly out of the way of the ice monster itself when it reached her. But even that wasn’t a problem, she plainly buzzed through its talons and flew under its stomach to out behind out, ducking her head under the tail that tried to skewer her on the pass.

The wind had picked up in the meantime and her mane blew about her face, although it did nothing to wipe the cocky grin away.

I could easily just fly away from whatever this thing is, but where’s the fun in that? You wanted a fight? You got one! Rainbow Dash was ecstatic that something like this had come up and she was not about to throw away this chance for fun. This was just part of her adventure! In fact, this was the first really adventurous thing that had happened to her.

“Let’s see what you can do you big ice bird thing!” She yelled and flew towards it.

Meanwhile the ice monster had turned around to meet her again. “KERSHAAWWW!” The grinding and scraping scream of ice it let out sounded so unnatural, no normal creature or animal could reproduce it.

The ice wings of it flapped hard as it flew to attack Rainbow Dash, when it got close enough it swiped out with the pointed claws at the ends of its talons. But Rainbow Dash was able to swiftly avoid them. She flew between its thin, outstretched, arms and aimed right for the ice-carved skull. Rainbow Dash punched the skull as hard as she could while she flew by it, earning herself a satisfying crack and the feeling of ice breaking beneath her hoof. She flew above the dangerous spikes on the monster’s back as the thing twisted around trying to strike her in return and soon Rainbow Dash passed by the monster completely before hooking around to look at her adversary, having just gotten in a solid hit while that thing couldn’t touch her at all.

It was hovering in midair and twitching, like it was stunned or surprised by the blow. Rainbow Dash could see cracks along its skull and beak right below its glowing left eye-socket from where she had punched it.

“Had enough?” The cocky pegasus called out to it.

All at once the thing froze in the air like a statue although somehow it still stayed afloat. To Rainbow Dash’s dismay and with the snapping sound of freezing water the cracks in the ice steadily repaired themselves or frosted over with new ice or something until the monster looked like she had never hit it in the first place.

Rainbow Dash reached up a hoof and nervously scratched her head. “Ohh… maybe this was a bad idea.”

“KRRRRRAAAAAA!” The monster yelled at her with its screeching and cracking ice yowl and curled its wings in front of it like it was trying to shield itself from something.

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow, wondering what it was doing. All it had done before this was fly at her and throw spears.

Her unspoken question was answered when the ice monster threw its wings back open and dozens of the razor thin ice feathers that rested on the appendages detached and flew through the air at Rainbow Dash like a flechette storm. Some of them spun and curved while others shot straight at her through the sky and Rainbow Dash barely had time to gather her wits before the arrows were upon her. Her quick reflexes did a lot of work allowing her to dodge them but there were just so many it was difficult for her to find safe spots that didn’t have any other feathers hurtling through them. She had to fly and snake through them all, even a single one grazing her could cause a deep cut. Rainbow Dash became a rainbow blur as she moved through the sky to expertly avoid them.

Finally the storm of feathers abated and Rainbow Dash grinned. “Heh, didn’t even break a sweat.”

That still left the gargoyle though and once again it was flying straight at her, only this time it was throwing feathers at her with each flap of its wings at the same time.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t backing down whatsoever though. She dodged past each stream of feathers as she flew to meet the monster. Again it tried to strike out at her with its talons but she avoided them and began to fly circles around the beast. She danced around it, hitting it in the wings, the back, the head, the arms, as she dodged its own flailing attacks. The monster kept trying to hit her with its tail and wings but Rainbow Dash deftly avoided it all. The only problem was she wasn’t sure if her attacks were actually doing anything to the ice monster.

Each strike cracked or broke the ice she was hitting but it all just fixed itself a moment later. This was even worse than fighting Archibald, she wasn’t getting anywhere!

And she was getting tired. She didn’t notice it at first thanks to adrenaline and the speed of her punches but each time she struck the ice monster it was far colder than even normal ice was, so much that she felt numbed by even the smallest contact. And it was getting worse and worse and traveling up her hooves the more she actually hit it. But what else could she do? She didn’t have magic, at least not the kind like Twilight, and she didn’t see how pegasus weather magic would help her here, so all she could really do was keep hitting it… Rainbow Dash hadn’t envisioned that she might face a problem up here she couldn’t fix or get through by hitting it.

Running away was out of the question.

Not when this was her first real challenge. Not against her first real obstacle in the True North. If she gave up here, whether she flew south, north, east, or west, wouldn’t that just be proving Archibald right? No way. She couldn’t do that. It was either this thing or her that was going to be getting out of here, not the both of them. One of them would win this fight.

And the other?

Rainbow Dash gulped, she was not losing here. “Hurry up and lose you dumb popsicle!”

She dodged its wing and hit it again right at the joint where the ice bone emerged from its back, but this time she didn’t even hit it with enough force to crack it. Instead a numbness lanced up her hoof and it seized, causing Rainbow Dash to wince and momentarily lose her concentration, slowing down in her flight.

“KREEEOOOOWW!” The ice monster took its chance when it saw Rainbow Dash’s speed drop and it slashed at her with its talon.

“Woah!” Rainbow Dash pushed her wings to fly back from the monster, but it was a split second too late. The icy claws just barely raked across her back right leg, leaving four thin but painful cuts in her that strangely radiated a cold sharpness rather than the hot pain she would’ve expected. “Ow!” The pegasus still cried as she continued to flap her wings and create some distance between her and the slower beast.

She looked down to see blood from the cuts dripping out and falling into the sky while the numb and cold feeling in her extremities continued to worsen. Raising her head back up she watched as the ice monster prepared to charge towards her again.

With no small amount of hesitation, Rainbow Dash turned around and began to fly away.

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

How will this beast be stopped?

We’ll just have to wait and see.

[redmar]

Rainbow's having a little trouble here but I'm sure she'l find a way to deal with this ice monster. She just needs to think of a plan which might tae some time.

[Maud of Sterner Stuff]

Again and again Rainbow Dash dipped, ducked, dived, and dodged each spear thrown at her.

Rainbow's years of playing dodgeball finally pay off!