Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

South Pole IV

“Penguins can’t fly!” Rainbow Dash yelled as she was chased through the sky by what were indeed flying penguins. An entire legion had come after her and with them close behind her she was now able to see what horrible monsters they really were. These weren’t ordinary penguins like she had first thought when she flew over them. They were almost some kind of nightmare monster with beaks full of teeth, blood-red eyes, and gigantic bodies that were double the size of any normal penguin at least.

And they were fast. They came at her relentlessly, darting at her and trying to bite and slam her out of the sky.

Rainbow Dash dodged out of the way of another over-sized penguin that dove at her. Scowling, she refused to hit it back at this point. If they were just animals she didn’t want to have to hurt them unless absolutely necessary. And she wasn’t quite sure if they were true monsters or not. They might have just been really weird animals upset with a pegasus flying through their territory.

The red eyes that flashed by her when another penguin attacked kind of hurt that theory, but Rainbow was confident she could get out of here just by flying fast.

Three penguins came from above, screeching loudly while dive-bombing at her with open beaks. Rainbow Dash weaved between them as they came down, having to not just avoid their teeth but their entire bulks as well since they could easily hit her and knock her out of the air. She decided to take a glance over her shoulder and saw that the several thousand flying penguins that had come after her were still hot on her tail. Enough had come up that their black masses blocked out the sky behind her and they weren’t losing speed one bit.

Because of the cold weather and the heavy clothes she was wearing, she couldn’t fly at her usual top speed either. Soon enough the penguins might be able to just fall on her like a wave and there wouldn’t be anything she could do about it.

The way they flew like hummingbirds was also pretty distracting.

Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue and sped up as best she could while penguins shot at her some more. Corkscrews, loops, and sudden turns became her best friends up here as she did everything she could to avoid the ravenous raptors short of beating on them. Every movement she made was still followed closely by the rest of the swarm and it’s not like she could shake them in open air like this. Hopefully they got tired before she did or realized she was too much trouble to chase.

“How in the hay does something like this even happen?” Rainbow shook her head. “Why do I always run into the weirdest stuff? I want awesome—not weird.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, a daring escape from the horde can still count as awesome.”

A penguin came from the right with teeth going for her wing in an attempt to bite it off. Rainbow Dash rolled out of its way just in time to avoid it and then dove down under another penguin coming from above at her head. These things had nothing on her.

Except numbers. And they made that obvious when more and more started to swarm her at once to make avoiding them all almost impossible. A full group of seven came in from her left at an angle and when Rainbow Dash flew away from them she found another group already waiting at the right. With two directions covered she dove down instead and let the penguins come after her. She could take away the vectors they had to attack her with by flying closer to the surface. It might give her less room to maneuver but she was sure it would be worse for them. Let them recklessly dive at her and crash into the ground every time she avoided them.

The penguins squawked and screeched at her as some of them narrowly avoided hitting others in their flock before the ones closest to her regrouped and followed her down to the snow. Quite a few did exactly what Rainbow Dash wanted and sharply dove at her—only to smack right into the snow when she moved out of the way. She kept herself hovering barely a couple of feet above the snow, their bulky bodies would’ve been ill-suited to flying along with her here. Instead the smarter penguins began trying to strafe by her, diving in gently and pulling up as soon as they flew by her while nipping at her wings or body. Rainbow Dash had to watch out and move very minutely to avoid them and the dozens of bites they came at her with.

Quite a few continued trying to land on and crush her, whenever Rainbow flew away from them they created explosions in the snow, kicking up huge clouds of it like dynamite had just gone off. Rainbow flew through all of that chaos while snow peppered her body and more of the sky above her became blotted out by the mass of angry penguins. She chanced another glance up and saw that her situation wasn’t exactly improving.

None of the penguins had slowed down or given up. Even the ones far away at the very back of the flying horde were still chasing her with all their might.

Thousands and thousands still coming at her. And she was the one who had already been flying at high speed for the better part of a day. These things might not get tired like normal animals, depending on how crazy they really were. Rainbow Dash didn’t like to think about it—but she was a little worried that they might never let up. They might chase her down and tear her to pieces before she could actually get away from them. At some point she would have to eat and sleep, these penguins might not be the same.

“Stupid birds that shouldn’t even be flying right now...” Rainbow grumbled. “I’m really doing my best to handle this nonviolently but do you even know that? Huh? Do you even care how I’m trying to help you?”

She turned her attention ahead again to see if maybe there was something she could use to help herself with. Nothing really out here, not close by at least. It was just snow and hills of snow. The penguins had been wandering on a mostly flat and empty part of the south pole. Looking further ahead... the mountains were still there. If she could reach those she might be able to lose the penguins somewhere in them.

Or she could turn and fight now. Outnumbered three-thousand to one wasn’t so bad.

“Fluttershy you better know that I’m only doing this for you...” Rainbow scowled and blasted towards the mountains.

The penguins had no intention of letting her reach those mountains though, the many close above her brayed loudly and came down with their razor beaks and teeth. Rainbow Dash had to double her efforts to get away from the unyielding assault and was rewarded by a number of penguins planting themselves headfirst into the snow. It was still tough going for her though, a lot of them came close to hitting her. Black missiles coming from the sky all aimed right at her.

Rainbow swiftly darted to the left, then the right, then back to left, the penguins exploding the snow around her. It was good they were full of so much bloodlust they could hardly coordinate together.

Until one dive-bombed directly in front of her and she had to sharply pull up—practically right into a crowd of a dozen more penguins ready to devour her.

“Dumb birds!” Rainbow Dash shouted as they all came at her. She twisted her body and blurred by them as penguins came from every direction, some smacking into each other and pushing others out of the way as they all went for the colorful prey in the middle of them. One penguin came up directly in front of her—its beak open wide—and Rainbow Dash vaulted over it, flipping around before coming out and sliding in-between two more penguins.

She had to juke two more before she got out of the big group, now higher in the sky again with penguins crazily swarming around her. The mountains were close though. The icy mountain range seemed fairly big, the individual mountains close together. She knew from experience there would be plenty of ridges, mountain passes, caves, and crevices, and ravines for her to hide or lose the penguins in. Whether she ended up hiding out for the night or continued through as fast as she could and hoping the penguins wouldn’t follow, she wasn’t sure yet. What she was sure of was those mountains were where she needed to go.

And if it came down to a fight, then so be it.

She’d make them regret thinking she was easy prey.

Comments

[ThePeer]

this fic has 700,000 words....
It is nearing one million
This is an insane amount of writing, damn
You must have some real dedication

[Cosmic Potato]

Alrighty that's just completely insane.

[redmar]

Those pinguins can't be normal animals. Hopefully Rainbow can lose them when she reaches the mountains.

[RoboRed]

I'm still kind of exasperated at the appearance, form, and tenacity of these monster penguins. This is just silly what's going on. This is like, near levels of SkiFree yeti/IWBTG environment levels of unexpected BS going on. I know there's been some fantastic and strange beasts that Rainbow's encountered before, but this is just nuts. I entirely blame Grey for this. He must be at "kitchen sink" levels of wanting her gone.