Eris's Riddle

by hahatimeforponies

Speed Chess

"Ugh... think, Twilight, think!"

"What's goin' on out there?"

Twilight sighed, and rubbed her forehead. "I don't know. A lot of things. Something happened with Blueblood and Discord, and I don't know what, and the horde is going to be here any second now..."

"Hm," Rarity mused. "Chaos."

"You could say that. Dammit... alright, I'm making this up as I go, but it's as good a plan as any we have right now. Applejack, Rarity, I'm sure you're worried about Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, so get to the camp and link up with Fluttershy and Derpy. You can work out something from there."

Applejack tipped her hat and nodded. "Don't need to tell us twice."

"Pinkie!" The party pony was as spry as ever, obliviously munching on some candy, likely stashed somewhere from earlier. "I need you to get out there and make a distraction. Anything big and flashy that'll keep attention off us while we try and get a handle on the situation. I'm sure you'll find a way." She nodded and squeaked enthusiastically. "Zecora, you're with me. We need to figure out just what happened with Blueblood, I'll fill you in on the details along the way." The zebra acknowledged with a sage nod. "Shining and Cadence... just sit tight. Shining is stable for now, and this room should be safe until it all starts coming down."

Cadence glared seriously. "I hope you're right about this, Twilight."

"I hope I am too. Now let's go! There's no time to lose!" Applejack nodded again, and kicked away the room's makeshift door in a single blow. Here we go again, Twilight thought to herself.

---

Oh, not again... Rainbow Dash kicked out of the tree at the first sign of trouble at the parley in the distance. Scootaloo and Kalza struggled to keep balance in her wake, but she knew they'd be fine. The ramparts were erupting in light - suitable distraction for her approach. She latched on to a narrow window low down on the wall and hung there, sometimes swinging closer to the scene when she felt it was safe. King Eisen certainly looked irritated about something, but she couldn't t-

Whoosh.

Dash nearly lost her grip when the white form swooped behind her and launched into a glide, circling around. Is that... She gawped incredulously, straining to get a better look. It is! It's Blueblood... what the... She shook her head and returned her focus to the confused gryphon struggling to decide what to do. If only she was armed, she might have a shot at taking care of him there and then... An idea struck. The shapes and sizes of these windows were probably to protect archers, which meant there was probably some inside. She reached a hand in and grabbed at the first thing she could find. It felt promising - a thin shaft of wood. She pulled as hard as she could, and a thunk told her that its owner had made close friends with the wall. The resistance fell away, and she claimed her prize.

This wasn't like any bow she'd ever seen. The bow itself was mounted crossways on a stock, with what looked like one of Applebloom's mechanisms mounted in it. It was holding the arrow back, and seemed to be linked to a switch on the underside. Holding it at arm's length, she hesitantly flicked it. It sprung like a mousetrap, effortlessly slinging the arrow into the horizontal distance. Interesting...

Unfortunately, it distracted her enough that Eisen was well on his way, and she'd just shot her only quarrel into the bushes. Risking peeking her head into the window, she snatched the quiver from the stunned archer behind it, kicked off the wall, and set about pursuing him, keeping herself close to the ground.

---

Losing your balance isn't much of a problem when you have wings. Scootaloo's landing may have been a little harder than Kalza's, but they rejoined the other crusaders unharmed.

Applebloom was impatient for answers. "Where did she go?"

"She said something about 'parley', and then there was this light on the walls, and... she didn't say anything. She just up and left."

Dinky rubbed her chin and paced. "Sounds like something fishy is going on..."

"Well!" Pipsqueak clapped his hands once and cracked a smile. Since last night, he'd taken the makeshift cape and rolled it into a scarf - he felt that was much more his style. "Sounds like an investigation is in order! What d'you think, ladies?"

"Yeah!"

"Alright!"

"Nothing can go wrong with this plan!"

The Crusaders' enthusiasm dropped off when they noticed the tortoise making its steady way across the road in front of them.

"Should we, uh, put him somewhere safe?"

"Probably."

---

Pinkie skipped through the streets, humming merrily to herself. Around her, ponies were running back and forth, in varying states of panic and distress. Gee! They sure could use a party. Maybe this distraction could be a party! But, she doubted a load of featherbrains would be interested in cakes and muffins and stuff. Maybe they don't have cakes in the gryphon kingdoms? That sounds really boring. Imagine that, a life without cakes! How depressing would that be? That explains why they're all so huffy and mean all the time. Maybe they just need a party! But... the last time she threw a party for a gryphon it didn't work out so well.

Lost in her rambling and convoluted train of thought, she was oblivious to potential collision courses. It wasn't long until she bumped into another pony ambling idly around the place, looking lost. Or tired. Or both! It didn't matter a whole heap when they hit, knocking the unfortunate stranger's purple sunglasses flying.

"Hey! Watch where you're going y-" Vinyl Scratch paused when got a good look at the mountain of pink fluff that had just barrelled into her. Her mood instantly lightened. "Oh! I remember you... Pinkie Pie, was it?" The party pony picked her face off the pavement and pouted pensively. Connections were being made, ideas forming in her head. Vinyl couldn't really say that it made her entirely comfortable. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Come on! We've got a party to start!" When Pinkie grabbed her by the wrist and led her away, the unicorn could do little more than go along with it.

---

Eisen seemed to be barking some instructions to his generals, but Rainbow Dash was too far away to make sense of them. It was enough of a task trying to figure out how to load this cross-ways bow... she guessed it was a... cross...bow? It was hard enough trying to figure out how to load this crossbow while keeping up with the gryphon and dodging trees, without trying to interpret his garbled exclamations as well. With the horde looming overhead, she came to a stop at the top of a pine tree. Click. Something triggered in the bow. Did it work? She fired it at the trunk to test it, only for it to lose all its tension, with the bolt barely leaving the bow. She frowned, and tried again, this time giving the bolt a much harder pull back. She wasn't sure if she was breaking it with how far the arms bent back, but she figured that if the worst came to the worst, she could just steal a spear off a gryphon.

Click, thud. The mechanism fired off beautifully, embedding the bolt in the trunk of the tree. She couldn't get that one back, but at least she knew she was on the right track. Loading another bolt, she turned her attention back to the horde above. Eisen was pulling out that hammer he was waving around in Trottingham, and looked like he was getting ready to lead the charge. She wrapped her legs around the branch and hurriedly took aim. There was still a lot of guesswork - what was the wind like? What's the speed on this bow? How soon do these funny half-length metal arrows drop? But there was no time to find out. It was do or die.

Click. The bow triggered perfectly, and she felt the light rush of wind in the wake of the shot.

Thud. The bolt skewered a gryphon through the neck, sending him crashing to the ground. But it wasn't King Eisen - the first wave of the charge had swept in during the split-second it took for the quarrel to close the distance, and an unfortunate raider had taken the shot for his king. Just to make things worse for Rainbow Dash, it also drew the attention of every gryphon in the immediate area. She knew she'd blown it, and kicked off the tree without delay to race back to the city.

Thump, thump thump. She threw a look back at the vanguard chasing her, only to watch them decimated by a hail of arrows. Right in the nick of time - taking advantage of their distraction, she swerved to join up with the other Wonderbolts. Half of them were drawing another round, covering the retreat of the rest - Dash followed Spitfire in the retreat, hastily reloading her crossbow as she went.

"Am I glad to see you! Are Cloudsdale sending reinforcements?"

The captain chuckled nervously. "Hah, no..."

"Oh. Oh."

Spitfire tugged a pair of goggles from her belt, and tossed them at Dash. "Here, you can have these back!"

She was elated, but was back to business as soon as she'd put them back on their perch atop her forehead. "Déjà vu, eh?"

"Heh. Right."

---

Twilight and Zecora worked to keep themselves out of view of the sky. There was no telling where Blueblood might show up, or just what he was capable of. If only Pinkie would hurry up with her diversion! Fearfully sprinting between shadows was getting frustrating.

"... and then he clicked his fingers like Discord would, and suddenly, boom. Wings."

"It sounds to me like he drained his power, to use himself in the darkest hour."

"How can you rhyme at a time like this?"

Crash. A tree fell from the sky without warning, flattening a shack on the opposite side of the street. The pair shared worried glances. "Questions for a later date. We must stop Blueblood before it's too late!" Twilight just quirked a brow, and hurried after the zebra. A few random objects continued to rain down over the city - bits of junk lying around, the occasional rock, and once or twice, even a hapless guard was sent flying.

"I think he's... playing. He's trying out his new powers like toys."

"Intriguing, but highly disturbing... hurry on, before we eat curbing." That was weak, Zecora.

Another noise grabbed their attention. However, it wasn't the sound of things crashing into each other, or panicked screams. It was something else entirely, a guttural, mechanical roar, an eldritch scream, something with a slight... electronic edge to it. Twilight risked poking her head out of cover to investigate. The soft oranges and reds of the dawn were accented with hard lines of green and blue, clipping around wildly and catching on the dust kicked up from Blueblood's antics. Overhead there was the pop of small explosions, raining bright colours down over the whole city. Was that the distraction?

There was a mighty crash as a boulder appeared from thin air over the ramparts, somewhere over the source of the lights, and demolished them. The lights yanked away at the last minute, gave a taunting spin, and carried on, amid the roar of electronic noise and hails of fireworks. Twilight smirked, and started up a ladder to the rooftops. "There's our cue!" Zecora shrugged and followed her up.

From their vantage point, they could see Pinkie Pie and the DJ pony from earlier, making their merry way along the walls, practically carrying a party with them - lights, amplifiers, barrages of fireworks, all strapped to a cart that they were hauling around at an astonishing speed for its weight, and being nimbly lifted out of the way of any obstacles or missiles bound for them. She just had to laugh at that. They also got a good look at what Prince Blueblood was doing. With his new wings, he was hovering over the ramparts, picking things up and throwing them around, mostly in the general direction of the distraction train. "I don't get it... if he has Discord's abilities, why doesn't he just... turn the cart into a cow or something? Something a bit more efficient than tearing off chunks of the city walls and then... missing?"

Zecora frowned, and rubbed her chin. "It could be that he does not understand, the extent of power at his command."

"If that's so... then maybe we can use that against him! I'll bet that even with all of Discord's powers, he still breaks like everypony else." She was a trifle unsettled by just how callous that sounded, and especially by the smirk that crossed her face while she said it, but there was hardly time to reflect on that now. After a couple of mental calculations, she left Zecora confused and alarmed by kicking off the roof and diving head-first toward the ground.

Pamf. Moments before hitting the ground, she vanished in a puff of lilac light, and reappeared somewhere over the ramparts. Her trajectory was carefully plotted so that she'd come to a vertical stall just in front of Blueblood, just in time to lightly slap him across the face, once on each cheek. Suitably enraged, as soon as he figured out what had happened, he snapped his fingers to lift her back up and deal with her... only to grab a mess of roof tiling. Behind the next house over, the slippery little unicorn appeared again, sticking her tongue out in her stationary moment before dropping out of view. Even from her safe landing spot, she could hear his howl of frustration - that was exactly what she was looking for. The chase was on.

Comments

[Rhulain]

pffft Oh Twilight, you so silly

[lightning_ryder]

Double portal bitch slap
I love it