Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Fighting is Just the Norm Now

“So how exactly are we supposed to fight living suits of armor?” Breakwater asked.

“Uhh… break them?” Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“That works for me,” Daylight Gleam said and grabbed two of them in her magic before smashing them together. The two suits of armor fell to the ground, but were otherwise undamaged and quickly picked themselves up, returning their slow march towards the ones in the center of the room. Daylight frowned. “Okaaayyy, so I’m not strong enough to do that.”

“I think I’ll end up handling most of this,” Rainbow grinned.

“It looks like there’s a lot though,” Gilbert said. “I see more pouring in from the other rooms, coming towards us from down the halls.”

“To be honest I’m very upset that ancient artifacts like these are being used in such a way...” Senax frowned.

“Gotta blame your ancestors then,” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Anyways, I want you, Gilbert, and Breakwater to stay back. Daylight? Cover me, or shield yourself and the others if some of them end up getting too close.”

“Can your hooves break metal armor so easily?” Daylight raised an eyebrow.

“I’m hoping that if I just knock their helmets off the rest will stop.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then I keep knocking other parts off until they stop moving. Easy.”

“You and I have very different definitions of-”

“Instead of the two of you chatting like this could you please possibly take care of the armor now?” Breakwater exasperatedly said to them.

Rainbow blinked and looked at the lumbering suits of armor as they slowly approached. “I mean I think I still have some time, but sure, if you’re that worried about it.” She cracked her neck and flexed her wings, inhaling, and shot at the two suits of armor she was facing.

If these things really had much fighting capacity instead of just being scary, they didn’t get to show it right then as Rainbow Dash kicked the helmets right off the bodies as she flew past. She made a button-hook and looked to see how the armor was acting now without their “heads”. From what she could tell there was no change at all. In fact they didn’t try to attack her in retaliation or anything, they just kept marching forward and left their lost helmets behind. Rainbow Dash frowned, if they didn’t care about retaliating against her then what were they doing? She tried to follow their line of sight, and see where all the other suits were going.

Her eyes narrowed.

Every last suit of armor was walking right for Senax. She could see it that their “faces” were just barely turned more specifically at Senax than just the group of her friends in the middle of the room.

“Okay then,” Rainbow Dash said and flew up towards the ceiling before coming down hard and fast on one of the suits of armor she had just earlier attacked. She stomped down hard on its back with all four hooves and felt it buckle and collapse to the floor, part of the armor plating on its back bending and warping. It didn’t exactly shatter or fall to pieces like she was hoping but she did some damage at least.

But still, she could feel it trying to rise and push itself up. Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue and jumped on it again to smack it back down and then kicked at the joints of the front leg armor where it connected to the body. The front legs fell away from her two well-placed kicks and she flapped up off the armor to see what it would do now.

It flopped about, still trying to stand despite only having its two back legs. But all it did was continuously tip forward and clang against the floor, barely able to push itself. Finally it fell onto its side and couldn’t stand back up—instead inching forward now along the ground. Rainbow looked at the disconnected legs and helmet that were still lying immobile on the floor. At least it seemed like the power that drove these things was concentrated in the body of the armor. So she had an answer for what she could do. The problem was that there were so many coming and they were flat out ignoring her. She wanted them to be concentrated on her, she could fly circles around them, it was more dangerous that they were all making a beeline for Senax. Because of their sturdiness it would take time for her to knock apart every single one and she couldn’t just recklessly fly into them or she’d hurt herself.

Rainbow Dash flew towards the other suit of armor she had knocked the helmet off of and knocked it to the floor, where she kicked the legs of its right side off to hobble it. She then looked to her friends. “Daylight! Forget backing me up or attacking them, just make a shield now!”

“Got it!” Daylight nodded without questioning as the suits of armor continued their approach. A powder blue dome blossomed out of her horn and safely covered the four of them for now.

“I don’t know why but the armor is all going right for Senax, it doesn’t care that I’m attacking it, so just hide out there and let me break them all apart!” Rainbow shouted.

“Me?! Why are they coming after me?” Senax yelled.

“Don’t ask me, but that’s what they’re doing. Don’t worry, we’ll handle it!” Rainbow said and blasted to the two next closest suits of armor.

“It doesn’t make any sense though, if this is some sort of defense mechanism of Merlantis then why would Senax be their target?” Daylight asked.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes as she pushed one set of living armor into another to turn them into a tangled heap on the floor. “How should any of us know?! Just be happy that I can take care of it by myself! Once these things are all broken up we’ll just be able to walk over the trash piles.”

More just kept piling into the room though even as she continued to disable the closest ones. It was impossible to tell how many of them there actually were and Rainbow couldn’t stop them all before they started to reach the shield. While she knocked off the legs of one suit of armor, a few more had started walking into Daylight’s shield and banging against it. They weren’t very smart, not striking it with full force, instead just repeatedly headbutting it. Even then that would eventually wear down on Daylight’s shield.

Rainbow Dash grabbed one of the leg pieces of armor and flew over, whacking away all the slow suits at the shield. She knocked them to the ground and then flapped her wings harder to create a whirlwind and scattered some of the smaller and lighter pieces of armor all around the room. With the mess on the floor now, and the armor’s complete focus on Senax, a lot of the walking suits started to trip and fumble over their fallen brethren. Even then their focus never left the merpony and they still tried to just make a straight line to her. Eventually the room would be completely filled with them if this kept up.

“Is there an end to these things?” Rainbow growled.

“I can’t keep this shield up forever, we’re going to get crushed sooner or later!” Daylight shouted.

“What direction do we need to go in? Maybe we can get away from most of them,” Rainbow asked.

Senax pointed to the northern door. “That way!”

“Okay,” Rainbow nodded. “Daylight, can you move with your shield?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Then do that, I’m going to clear a path for you.” Rainbow dropped to the floor and picked up another leg of armor. From behind her and to her sides was a cacophonous symphony of armor clamoring against each other and falling to the hard floor. In front of her was a steadily approaching column of new armor, coming down the hallway from a so far unknown location. Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Crazy.”

She charged forward at full speed, using the leg as a combination of a weapon and a shield, bashing through the entire line of living armor. Behind her the others followed at a bit of a slower pace as Daylight’s shield pushed away all the armor on the ground. Armor was scattered and thrown into the walls of the hallway by Rainbow Dash, much of it breaking apart and becoming harmless as the suits could no longer move properly. Still, despite the armor not attacking her, it was tiring her out simply because of how heavy each suit was. A lot of it was practically falling on her as well. She wondered if that was the real strategy with these things. They didn’t seem to care about attacking, they just wanted to smother whatever their target was. That’s why they were so single-minded, eventually that entire room back there would’ve been buried by armor all trying to pile over each other.

Rainbow Dash finally pushed through the last suits in the line and came out into a new, much larger, room with a crescent shape. She could see that the living armor was coming from two different stairways to their right and left now. Again she saw no end to what was coming.

Behind her a loud bang came as Daylight and the others pushed out of the hallway, knocking away all the broken armor. They came to a stop right behind Rainbow Dash as more armor was converging on them.

“Now what?” Gilbert asked.

“I dunno,” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Let’s just keep ahead of them—they’re not very fast at least.”

“There’s another door on the other side of this room,” Breakwater pointed ahead to it.

Rainbow Dash looked, he was right, there was a door at the apex of the crescent that they could go through. And at least there wasn’t any armor coming directly from it. There were several pillars along the far wall radiating out from the door, and several empty pedestals, but she saw nothing that could obstruct them as long as the door wasn’t locked.

“Right, let’s go!” Rainbow shouted and knocked over the nearest suits of armor to clear the way for the others.

Behind them the hallway was becoming a crowded mess as seemingly an entire wall of armor was pushing through it to try and reach Senax. Some of the suits in this room bumped into Daylight’s shield and made her wince.

“I think I’m going to have to drop this soon,” Daylight announced.

“That’s fine, it might be better for us to all be able to just run anyways,” Breakwater said.

“I can carry Senax if need be,” Gilbert said.

“Let’s just get out of this room first and get a little distance, then we can figure out how to really deal with all this living armor,” Rainbow Dash said as she kicked the helmets off two more suits. She finished by knocking the armor to the floor and out of their way. “Okay, you’ve got a straight shot to the door now!”

Rainbow flew low and fast while Daylight dropped her shield and wiped a little sweat from her brow, everyone running to the door while the mass of armor poured into the crescent room. Rainbow came to a stop at the door and dropped to the floor, kicking her back legs out to buck the door open. It swung open with almost enough force to smack into the walls on the other side. Instead of rushing in though, Rainbow Dash stood there to shuffle the others through and have their backs. She didn’t want to let any of the living armor in and planned to knock away and dismantle any that were close.

“Go, go, go!” Rainbow waved the others through as first Senax and then the others right behind her ran out of the room. Rainbow Dash then tensed up and got ready to fight the armor off—but found she didn’t need to.

Perhaps it was the moment Senax passed through the doorway that things changed, but the armor was no longer pursuing her. The various suits that were still moving trembled for a moment before straightening up and turning around—walking back to wherever they came from. Rainbow Dash blinked. Did they only have a limited range? She had no idea what sort of magic this was, maybe they couldn’t move through more than a few set rooms?

“Well… that’s fine I guess,” Rainbow shrugged.

“Um, Rainbow Dash?” The wavering voice of Daylight came from behind her.

“What’s up—oh.” Rainbow said as she turned around to join the others in the new room.

What she saw, and what the others were already fearfully looking at, were the six huge stone statues menacingly standing in front of them. Mammoth-sized merpony marble statues holding stone axes and hammers, staring down the interlopers who had entered their chamber. A golden solar with a row of pillars all along the outer walls and a stairway leading up to another floor of the great dome. The statues were right between them and it.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “For the love of...”

Comments

[redmar]

That's annoying but hopefully they cna find a way past the statues.

[RoboRed]

Question: It might be me but maybe these things aren't hostile? They're really fixated on Senax and ignoring everyone else, and the only thing they've done that could be considered an "offensive move" just seems to be running into (headbutting) Daylight's shield, which was in their way. No retaliation from threats that are actively harming/dismembering them like Rainbow. And they just stopped and went away after Senax left the room.

That said, I wouldn't be trusting enough to let them get really close, either.