Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Grand

The five of them walked up the steps of this new large chamber while behind them six smashed statues lied piled up on the floor.

Rainbow Dash’s hooves were sore.

To be fair though, she had mostly used their own weapons against them. Not like she had Blizzard or Karkona’s raw strength after all.

“Let’s hope that’s the end of any fighting we need to do down here,” Daylight said as she walked up the stairs.

“I wouldn’t jinx it if I were you,” Breakwater said.

“No big deal. Armor? Easy. Statues? Easy. If Merlantis decides to throw anything else at us I’ll take care of it all over again,” Rainbow said.

“I still would mostly just like to know why the armor and statues were coming after me though...” Senax said as she looked over her shoulder, down the stairs at the piles of rubble.

Gilbert nodded and looked back as well. “That has me worried too.”

“Yeah… of all of us you’d expect you to be the only one they weren’t coming after...” Daylight said.

“They only started coming when Senax touched that emblem too. Everyone else saw that, right?” Breakwater said.

“It’s like whatever was left to defend Merlantis has been changed somehow. Instead it’s doing the opposite of what it should be doing. Attacking merponies instead of protecting them. Although this could all be some weird sort of “trial” or something. Not like any of us could possibly understand what was going through Ponyseidon’s and the ancient merponies’ heads,” Daylight shrugged. “We still don’t know if these things in Merlantis were always like this or if perhaps they were only triggered when Senax activated the Necklace. Without knowing that it’s impossible to come to a real conclusion.”

“So this could either be some kind of trap for real or it could be some sort of warped way for the reclaimer of the Trident to prove themselves worthy?” Gilbert said.

Daylight nodded. “Pretty much what I was thinking.”

“But we just don’t know,” Breakwater said.

Daylight shook her head. “Nope.”

“Well Senax is definitely worthy of the Trident, she’s proved that more than enough,” Rainbow looked over and grinned at her friend. “Considering how you won’t abuse its power or plan to do anything horrible at all—I’d say you’re even more worthy of it than Ponyseidon was in the first place.”

Senax blushed in appreciation and smiled back at Rainbow Dash. “Thank you… I could certainly use some reassurance right now.”

“To take our mind off things like that, how far away do you think the Trident is now? Are we still going the right way?” Daylight asked.

“We’re going as “right” of a way as we can. It’s close to being on the same level as where we are right now but I can tell there isn’t a straight path to it from here. There might’ve been a different way to go back in the room where all the armor was going into but from here as long as we can go up one more floor I bet we’ll be able to turn around and find a way to get to it.” Senax said. “Right now the Trident is sort of… to our right a little bit. If we could go in a straight line it would be up and through that wall there.” She pointed out the eastern facing wall for emphasis.

“Well that’s not great but it’s not terrible I suppose,” Daylight shrugged.

“I think we can just take this one step at a time—literally—and see what’s at the top of these stairs first,” Breakwater said.

“Excellent pun,” Gilbert gave him a thumbs up.

“If I was trying to be funny I wouldn’t have added “literally” in there,” Breakwater rolled his eyes.

When the group did reach the top of the stairs they found themselves on a terrace that overlooked the great chamber they had just crossed. From here the ceiling went high, higher than in any normal room. The purpose seemed to be to accommodate the much larger than normal door at the back end of the terrace. It was more like the gateway into a castle than a normal door, its wooden form decorated with almost impossibly intricate carvings of ocean waves. Though it looked incredibly heavy they found that they were able to push it open quite easily. In fact, it practically opened on its own, each side of the door flowing open until they stopped at the furthest their hinges could take them.

“Oh hey, more stairs,” Rainbow Dash huffed.

There were indeed more stairs right in front of them but there was also a long hall, similar in size to the great galleria and tower atriums they had been in before, stretching to their left. From what they could see there were many more doors just like this one that all fed into this new chamber. But only one single set of stairs going up.

“I think we might have arrived somewhere fairly important,” Daylight said.

Breakwater nodded. “A lot of traffic flowing through this place would all come right here if it wasn’t abandoned. There must be something special up this staircase.

Senax looked at it and focused, closing her eyes for a brief moment before opening them again. “It’ll take us to above where the Trident is but I’m willing to bet there’s going to be somewhere else to go once we get up there.”

“Okay—well I think we’ve taken enough time so let me speed things up a little bit. Gilbert? If you’d help out?” Rainbow said and immediately flew over to pick up Senax, toss her on her back, and then grab Daylight before the unicorn could complain and zoom up the stairs with them.

Gilbert figured out what she wanted him to do fairly easily. Chuckling awkwardly he shrugged at Breakwater, who frowned but allowed the griffon to carry him up the stairs anyways. Gilbert flew up right behind Rainbow Dash and as soon as they reached the top of the marble stairs they set their passengers down and took a look at where they were now.

Every other room.

Every piece of art seen in Merlantis.

It all paled in comparison.

The size of the room itself was enormous—it shouldn’t even be called a room, the word simply wasn’t grand enough to describe it. Circular in shape like many others, it spread out for hundreds of feet while the domed ceiling itself stretched up another hundred feet. At the top of the ceiling, a great glass dome let one look out into the ocean and see all its wonders. They had seen similar things before in Merlantis but nothing to this scale. The walls going up about twenty feet were sculpted and painted showing merponies swimming, standing proudly among rocks and breaking waves, riding in chariots, holding up golden tridents, and looking down on numerous other creatures who had been carved in the lowly recesses of the walls. Higher than that though, the rest of the wall as it reached up towards the glass dome was all an incredibly deep blue, swirling in different shades and hues like a giant whirlpool with the glass ceiling being its eye. The floor though was just as much a miraculous piece of art as the walls. Not just simple quartz or marble flooring, it was a series of perfectly inlaid ceramic tiles all painted in a variety of colors. Something about it tickled Rainbow Dash’s brain and when she flew up a little bit she figured out what it was—all the thousands of tiles together made a single large “picture” of the entire Grand Ocean. A map of the whole ocean sat there on the floor of this gigantic room.

The level of effort and intricacy that went into this was insane, it must have taken ages to complete.

“Wow—you guys are going to want to see this,” Rainbow said as she flew around a bit, looking at the map.

“Everything about this chamber is already wondrous enough,” Gilbert said as he looked around at the sculpted walls.

“I think-” Daylight said as she walked further onto the floor and looked up at the ceiling. “I think this is the very top of the dome. We’re right in the middle of it, this must be a special sort of convocation chamber or hall, something for huge announcements or ceremonies where a large amount of merponies can be gathered at once.”

“I wonder how thick that glass up there is,” Breakwater said. “That’s a much bigger glass dome than anything we’ve seen so far.”

“Must be strong enough to not break after a thousand years or so,” Rainbow said as she dropped back to the floor.

“Do you have any thoughts on this place, Senax?” Gilbert asked her.

“It’s big,” Senax replied as she looked across the massive room. “I know this place must have been important… I can see the merponies who would’ve been gathered here in the past in my head. So many of them. So many of us.”

“One day you want that to happen again?” Rainbow asked.

“Yes,” Senax nodded. Her eyes then roamed to some of the sculpted walls and the destitute figures of ponies and other creatures on them. “There might be some redecorating to do first though.”

“Hm… I bet the entire population of Ponyville and then some could fit in this room,” Rainbow said. “Actually I can picture Celestia giving a big declaration to all of Canterlot here.”

“From that balcony over there?” Gilbert pointed.

On the south side of the grand chamber was a set of two curving stairways that crawled up the walls and led to a single large balcony in the middle that overlooked the rest of the chamber. On the banisters of the wall were evenly spaced merpony statues and behind the balcony was a series of stone pillars that led back into another part of the dome. It was the only other destination they saw in here aside from the stairs they had entered through. Gilbert was right to think that balcony was the prime place for a leader—Ponyseidon in this case—to stand and speak to his subjects.

“That’s the direction we need to go in too,” Senax said.

“I wonder… looking at Merlantis, this dome, this huge chamber, I wonder if past that balcony is where the royal chambers used to be—where Ponyseidon himself lived,” Daylight said.

“Could be,” Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“Honestly I’d want my own private building if I was going to live anywhere down here. Living in this dome when it has to be the busiest and most crowded place in the city? No thank you,” Breakwater said.

“Well you’re not a king, they have to live in their castle where their subjects can congregate and meet them,” Daylight said. “Orrrr… if they’re a bad king they could stay locked away in their castles like a fortress and just dictate to everyone else.”

“It at least seems like Ponyseidon was good to his people,” Gilbert said.

Senax frowned, a glum expression coming to her face. “About the only good thing I can say about him and my ancestors after learning what I have...”

“I want to say nobody’s perfect but… Ponyseidon definitely wasn’t as great as he seemed to be from what you knew,” Rainbow Dash said. She bit her lip and rubbed the back of her neck, a little ashamed of how unfair it felt to say something like that. “That’s… not important now though. Not anymore. It happened so long ago, what’s important now is you, Senax. Maybe one day this chamber won’t be full of just merponies—but friends of yours from all around the Grand Ocean, and even the rest of the world. You can bring them down here to announce how much nicer merpony civilization will be from here on out. How much friendlier the whole ocean will be.”

“Heh, maybe you could even try and get the Hundred Kingdoms to stop fighting each other too. Really fix this ocean up,” Breakwater said.

“Bosche is gone, it’s already looking a lot better,” Daylight said.

Senax’s frown slightly turned upwards into a small smile. “Well, that all wouldn’t be so bad.”

“It’d require quite the bit of work but after everything we’ve been through to get down here in the first place I could hardly imagine it’d be harder,” Gilbert said.

“One day at a time. Like always,” Senax said, now fully smiling at her friends. “What’s important is I’ve learned to not give up—not let myself become depressed and forget what’s really important—thanks to all of you.”

“So does that mean it’s time to get that Trident?” Rainbow grinned and began to fly over to the balcony.

“Yes it is!” Senax nodded and walked after her. “I can feel it, it will almost be straight ahead through there. We’re very close to it now.”

“Then let’s hope… um, I was about to say let’s hope there aren’t any more traps or anything, but I already did something similar to that. And it probably is a bad idea to jinx us,” Daylight said.

“Very,” Breakwater nodded.

Together the five of them made it up to the balcony, the floor on the middle of which was emblazoned with a giant golden sun, and looked past to the long rows of pillars leading down to what had to have once been the inner sanctum of Merlantis. The marble pillars were painted a seaweed green, while the floor was white and the ceiling blue. They couldn’t see where exactly it ended but it looked to angle down a bit, the ceiling already wasn’t particularly high but the fact Rainbow Dash couldn’t see the far wall told her things had to be sloping a bit. There might have been a ramp or another set of stairs to go down at the back.

Senax though just seemed happy as she stared down the long gallery. She knew if she had the Necklace right now that the beam of light would be shooting dead ahead. She was the first one who started walking from the balcony to their final destination—the others followed close behind.

Comments

[redmar]

THey almost have the Trident but n ow they need to be able to leave with it.