Chapter Seven: Up the Airy Mountain
There was a loud crack as Icy shot her freezing energy into the water coating and seeping into the boulder in front of her once more, the ice expanding just as she had suggested and breaking the cracks open wider once more. Once more, she was struck by how quickly the energy had surged through the water, giving her the beginnings of further thoughts about her nature. However, for the most part, she was just focused on keeping calm and useful as they worked.
“Brilliant,” Sunny said as she stepped up and lit her horn. “I reckon we'll only need one more go before we can shift these things.”
Icy nodded as she stepped back, allowing Sunny to spread her magical aura over the boulder and begin to thaw the ice that had been created. Of course, lacking Icy's special ability when it came to temperature, the process would always take her a few minutes, but that was fine with Icy – while one bit of freezing every so often wouldn't even begin to drain her energy, a number in quick succession might make her start to feel the strain. This might not have been a problem in and of itself, but she wanted to have as much energy in reserve as she could for when they got out of the cave and took the fight to their enemy.
She smiled as she fully registered that it wouldn't be long now. Once that one lower boulder was chipped away enough, they could pull it out of the way, dropping the upper boulder down and giving them enough space to dig their way through the wall of loose stones and rubble behind it. She had no idea how far they would have to dig or how long it would take, but at least they'd be able to make some actual progress towards the cave's exit. And, once they were through, they could...
She blinked as she considered this, thinking for quite a while before speaking up. “Um, I don't mean to be down about things or anything, but once we get through and get out of here... does anypony have any idea what we're going to do? This filly... kinda seems to have the upper hoof with us having to go to her and go up a mountain while she can fire rockets at us?”
Archer shrugged. “Nope, not a clue, but I'm sure we'll think of something. Besides, it's only a small mountain – two or three hundred feet, tops. We'll be fine.”
Icy opened her mouth, ready to question Archer's confidence, when Lance cut her off by shaking his head at Archer. He put a hoof up and brought it down at an angle, indicating a mountain, before drawing it in a flat horizontal line and finally bringing it up sharply. He nodded his head towards the middle of the flat area he'd indicated, referring to the area of open ground between the mountain and the treeline.
It was a testament to Lance's skill with gesture and non-verbal communication that Icy had only just started to question how clearly she'd understood before Archer responded. “Well, a few smoke arrows would give us a clear run to the base of the mountain. Should have time to get there before she can blow the smoke away and once we're there she'll have a trickier time getting a bead on us. Still, it is worth thinking about.” She hummed with a hint of concern. “Course, after seeing the kind of stuff she's able to pull, we might have a difficult time coming up with a plan she can't deal with.”
Icy grimaced as she nodded, seeing what Archer meant. However, she stopped abruptly when Lance hummed, seeming to genuinely consider whether this was true or not before putting his hoof up and waving it from side to side in a “so-so” gesture.
Icy blinked. “Do you have an idea, Lance?”
Lance paused before tilting his head from side to side in a similar way, giving a sense of 'sort of'. After a moment, he paused before turning to Sunny, who was still focused on her thawing spell.
He pointed sharply towards her, then up at the glider above them. He then lowered his hoof slightly while keeping it elevated, drawing along in a swooping motion, clearly referring to how they'd been flying. He then shot his hoof across and a little lower, to an imaginary version of the mountaintop, before sending it shooting back to where he'd indicated they were flying, then bringing his other hoof up and bringing both down hard, indicating the thick curtain of lightning that had forced them to land.
Icy and Archer nodded, not feeling the need to question his recapping of the events of their landing, as his expression indicated it was the equivalent of saying 'You know how we...?'.
After a moment, Lance put his hoof up again, at the height where he'd indicated the glider, before shooting it out to the right, much further than where he'd placed the mountaintop, and tracing a path between the filly and the glider's new position with a questioning expression on his face.
Icy blinked. “Huh. That's a good point. Why didn't she do something about Mom before she got close enough to save us? It's not like she didn't have time between when she found out we were here and when she threw that tornado at us. It can't have taken her that long to set it up, could it?”
Archer shook her head. “I bet not. Seemed like she had a couple sets already made, so all she'd need to do was aim it. And she couldn't do that until she'd spotted where we were... or at least where we'd stopped. So she'd have plenty of time before that to deal with the glider, but she didn't – not until she'd already sent the tornado at us. Only thing I can think of is she didn't see it, but that makes no sense. I mean, after how in tune she seems to be with everything, I'm not thinking she's gonna miss a glider. I mean, your mom's darn good on that thing, Icy, but she's not exactly stealthy.” She paused for a moment before speaking up a little. “No offense, Sunny!”
“None noticed,” Sunny said as she concentrated on her magic.
Archer nodded as she continued, “So, I'm guessing you have an answer about why, Lance.”
Lance nodded slowly, suggesting a suspicion rather than an answer. He pointed a hoof up at where he'd established the mountaintop in his imaginary tableau, then drew it sharply down and forward, towards where the trees would be.
Icy hummed for a moment. “Well, she probably was focusing on us, but would that be enough to stop her noticing Mom?”
“I think so,” Archer said, nodding absently as things seemed to fall into place in her head. “Makes sense – no matter how much information you can get about stuff, you've only got so much attention. Which... I mean, this filly probably has a lot, but if she was focusing hard enough on trying to find us, it makes sense she'd miss something happening in the sky above. Like... if you're concentrating really hard on reading a book while music's playing, then even if you hear the music perfectly, you still might not notice what's happening with it.”
Icy tapped a hoof on the ground as she thought. “Okay, so we can hide things from her if we can get her concentrating on us hard enough. But what can we...” she paused as she realized exactly what was being implied. “Okay, I see where you're going with this.”
As Sunny's horn dimmed, the ice now melted, and Lance and Icy moved up to the boulder, Lance hopping to his hooves to pour more water over it and into its many, many cracks, Icy smiled. “So, how surprised do you think she'll be? And how new do you think that'll be for her? Can't imagine she's used to not seeing something coming.”
It was an out-of-place movement in the corner of her eye that alerted Domino that her period of ease had ended. Had she been thinking about it more – or, rather, able to think at all about something so abstract through the barrage of information constantly pummelling her senses – she might have realized that she would need to keep an eye on the blocked-off cave, in case the trapped ponies managed to find a way through her barricade, as impossible as she'd intended that to be.
Unfortunately, such forethought was beyond her – preparing for certainties was something she found it impossible to avoid doing much of the time, but thinking about the actions of x-factors was something she neither could nor wanted to manage. As such, the first indication that her enemies were free was the sight of something small rushing up towards the rocket she was aiming.
Fortunately, the arrow had long since left contact with the hooves firing it, meaning that, once she'd seen it, she'd already calculated its trajectory before it had moved a further inch. Once that was known, it took barely a moment's thought to kick up a rock near her hindhoof and smack it hard with her forehoof, knocking it hard into the path of the arrow. The impact sent a shock of pain through her leg, but such things were easy to ignore, making it the obvious correct action compared to losing one of her rockets before she could fire it off to renew the wind wall for a while.
As the rocket fired and the arrow got smacked aside, deflected down to shatter against the mountain's face, she looked past it to the cave she'd sealed, just in time to see the tail of one of the young ponies dash into the tree line. A quick look over the pile of rocks told her that they had somehow dislodged one of the boulders and used that to dig a tunnel out that was just about big enough to fit the colt and fillies, but not the adult. The few rocks still tumbling from their exit told her that the adult was staying put for now, presumably trusting the others to deal with her.
Whether that was a smart decision was something Domino neither knew nor wished to think about. True, it would mean there would be no unicorn magic to deal with, but it would also be harder to detect them as they hurried through the forest. Still, that didn't make that much of a difference, as they would undoubtedly be coming for her and, with their aerial apparatus still trapped, they would have to come at her from the ground and up the mountain, giving her plenty of opportunity to take them down before they reached her.
In a strange way, she almost felt grateful as she started unpacking various rockets rapidly. As large as the crate was, she was beginning to run low on wind and rain rockets, which would leave her with only a large number of lightning rockets and a number containing more esoteric weather. She hadn't predicted needing the latter and was planning to simply leave them behind once her main task was completed and she had a nice, predictable flood of wreckage to deal with instead of an inhabited town. Now, however, she'd have an opportunity to put many of the other kinds of weather she had at her hooftips to use.
However, before she started unpacking them, she got out as many lightning rockets as she could spare, carefully arranging them to point towards the northeast, away from Ponyville and further into the Everfree, while wedging them between rocks so they wouldn’t float away. She may not have been able to predict exactly what her enemies would decide or be able to do, but she could account for the possibility that they might overcome her attempts to stop them, no matter how unlikely that might seem. When dealing with living minds, Domino had long since given up on the idea that anything was impossible.
However, that just meant she had to have a backup plan. And even though said plan took up one of her few remaining wind rockets and most of her lightning ones, she was confident that, if they did make it up to her, it would simply be in time to watch their failure.
Icy took deep, gulping breaths as she ran through the forest, blinking heavily and trusting the two in front of her to guide them all on the path they needed to go. Fortunately, they were far more concerned with stealth than speed, so they were going at a pace that Icy could keep up with fairly easily, even if she did have to focus on her breathing a fair bit, as well as keeping her hooves clear of any roots and her wings tight against her side, lest they rustle a tree and give away their position.
That said, the cause of her stress wasn't the physical activity so much as her re-emergence into the pounding rain around her and the slowly trickling water and mud beneath her. Some small part of her felt like it might have been a bit of an advantage, as the continual noise of the rainfall might help hide them, but that didn't feel like much of a comfort.
Thinking back over the conversation she had with her mother, she tried to think of it differently – tried to convince herself that the wild water around her was a friend rather than a foe and that she should flow with it rather than fight against it. The instant she did, however, she both realized it wouldn’t be that easy and instinctively noticed the problems with doing so – the rainfall was sending the water into a frenzy and she was moving gradually uphill, against the flow. Shaking her head, she resolved to leave such reflection for more peaceful times.
Despite this, she did feel a little better than she might otherwise have done for one very simple reason – the tree cover. Not that it reduced the amount of water pouring down around her; it certainly didn't keep her anywhere close to dry. What it did do, however, was break up the curtain of rain above it, allowing only a few thin sprays through whatever gaps there were in the leaves and channelling the rest into a large number of thicker, fast dribbles. This may not have seemed like much of an improvement and, on a purely physical level, Icy supposed, it wasn't – even if her sense for water was totally real, she suspected that the relevant feeling was all in her head.
However, feeling the almost solid mass of water raining down from above, Icy got the sense that being out in it on the open ground would feel incredibly oppressive, as if the weight of that water would push her down and slow her movements to a straining crawl, even though she knew the physical force of the water wouldn't do anything of the sort. Nevertheless, the feeling of the mass of water ramming into the leaves above her reminded her all too intensely of the feeling of being free-floating, far beneath the frozen surface of the water, unable to move or breathe or do anything other than drift passively and wait for...
A drop of mud splashed up onto her face, the thick glob sticking there long enough to bring Icy back to the present moment. It lingered on her cheek for a good ten seconds or so, a fact that helped Icy's state of mind a weirdly massive amount, reminding her that she wasn't being encased by the water above her, no matter how close it felt. That wasn't to say she was entirely comfortable – whenever she ran through one of the streams of water falling from the leaves above, she got an intensely weird feeling that she never experienced long enough to pin down, nor did she want to. Naturally, this happened an awful lot while running through the forest, leading to a rapid-fire series of bizarre sensations. However, as odd as it was, Icy far preferred that to being out in the rain without the cover. At least this way, she could still move and get out of any one of those sensations, even if it was sometimes right into another.
Sadly, though, it seemed it was not to last, as the group soon cantered to a stop a few metres from the edge of the tree line, seeing the base of Mount Foalja rise past the canopy that hid the top of it, preventing them from seeing their target and, more importantly, preventing her from seeing them. However, what Icy could see was the short but imposing wall of rain between her and the mountain, not to mention all the drops that were falling and impacting further up the slope of the mountain.
As Lance held up a hoof to indicate for them to stop, Icy took a deep breath and focused on the water, trying to marshal her thoughts against the obstructive imagery. It's just rain, what's the problem?! You've been out in the rain loads of times, even after the... incident. It's nothing special, nothing scary, why is this time different?
Icy blinked as the full question registered with her. Why was this time different? She'd never really felt more than a mild, if pervasive, sense of discomfort going out into the rain after she'd gained her phobia, and yet, at that moment, it seemed like all she could think about. But how could that be – her sense of the water around her should have been the same, regardless of whether it was real or imagined or how she or her mother thought of it...
As she thought of that, she realized in an instant why it felt so much worse – because she'd been actively thinking about her possible connection and had had her attention drawn to it. As nice and comforting as her mother's story had been at the time and as much as it felt like it had helped her with her anxieties, it nevertheless got her thinking about the source of them.
However, thinking that brought a slight, contemplative frown to Icy's face as she truly thought about it. Despite the instinctual reaction to the suffocating feeling of all that water, the new perspective she'd gained could possibly help her, as it had when her mother had given it. It wasn't certain and it would mean opening herself up to the feelings and sensations she was currently trying desperately to ignore, but it seemed like it was worth a try.
Closing her eyes and swallowing her trepidation, Icy let out a deep breath and focused. She'd often heard of comic book characters with special senses 'reaching out' with them, but she honestly had no idea what that actually meant and she certainly didn't know how to do it herself, so she settled for simply concentrating on the feelings and trying to lessen the amount she noticed from her other senses, attempting to isolate the sensations.
The initial results were as unpleasant as she'd assumed they would be, the constant pounding motion of the water sending a juddering shiver and a wave of nausea through her. She almost opened her eyes simply for a reprieve but, an instant before she could, she thought back to her mother's story, remembering her words and the comforting sound of her voice so clearly as to pierce the oppressive blanket of water.
“Maybe... maybe the feeling that the water wanted you to come in was right, but it didn't want to consume you, just... welcome you.”
Icy sighed. If it did want to welcome her, it wasn't exactly polite about it, seeming more like it wanted to crush her in a bear hug than anything. Then again, that could have been her putting her own assumptions onto what was simply a vague simple impulse, if it could even be called that. Either way, she could feel the impact as the giant, amorphous mass of droplets hit the ground, providing a strange coating on the land in front of her, giving her the odd sensation of knowing the terrain despite not seeing it.
She opened her eyes to see the rain before her. Strangely enough, the experience did help a little. If nothing else, it brought the feeling of the rain around her from a niggling presence at the edge of her mind into the centre of her awareness. Naturally, said awareness didn't exactly feel good and certainly didn't get rid of her anxieties, but it did help her sense of reality and allow her to fully recognize and deal with the fear.
And, oddly enough, it helped with her uncertainty about herself and her feelings in general. She didn't know whether her father was from the land, sea or air, she didn't know if her mother had had a passenger when Icy was conceived, but she was certain, now more than ever, that her sense, her feelings, her connection was real. And that did more to help than she could quantify.
She was broken out of her reflections by Archer's voice. “You think we've taken enough time?”
Icy blinked herself back into awareness of her surroundings, almost shaking her head to clear it before realizing that might have been taken as a 'no'. Instead, she grunted quietly and nodded. “I think so.”
Archer nodded as she looked out past the treeline at the base of the mountain. Humming for a moment, she pulled four arrows out. Three of them she passed to her other hoof, each of them with a speckled grey head, while the fourth she shook her head at and put back, her hoof emerging a moment later with another. This one, she let dangle from her quiver, letting Icy see the rope tied to it – while they'd been working on their escape, in between getting more water, Archer had spent much of her time tying various lengths of rope to arrows to help with the climb ahead of them.
Well, ahead of her, at least, Icy thought as she flared her wings, looking over the mountain. She smiled when she saw how many small rocks and outcroppings there were up its side, which would hopefully give her an easier time performing flap-leaps and glides to make her way up to the top.
As if noticing her eyeline, Archer spoke up again. “'Kay, gonna be using smoke to cover our approach, so I'd get a good eyeful now and plan your route up, far as you can see. Doubt the smoke'll last long, but if we can get up there and start a climb while we're hidden, that should make it harder for her to pick us off for a while.”
Glancing aside, Icy saw Lance give a tiny twitch of a nod, his eyes never leaving the mountain, making it quite clear that he had already thought of that and was in the process of finding the best way up.
Smiling a little thinly, Icy turned back to the mountain, her eyes tracing their way up as far as they could see, hopping from one landing spot to another as she planned her route. She was only able to find three spots before the canopy blocked her view, but each of them seemed quite reachable from the previous one and she figured she'd just have to wing it after that.
Fortunately, she was saved from having to smack herself in the face for the accidental-but-still-overused pun by Archer striding forward, a confident smirk on her face. “Okay, let's do this.”
Lance followed immediately behind while Icy had to take a moment to get her hooves fully under her before following. After a short walk, they were just a few feet away from the edge of the trees.
“Okay,” Archer half-whispered, pointing the bow up at an angle as she pulled the string back, her three arrows aligned one on top of another. “Three... two... one... Go!”
The moment she said this, she let the string loose, sending the three arrows flying. None of them were fired with much force, but they didn't need it as they flew out in varying arcs. One impacted the ground in front of them and burst into a thick, opaque cloud of smoke. A moment later, Icy heard the second burst at the midpoint between the trees and the mountain, while the third burst came a second or two after that, sounding as if it came from just at the base of the mountain.
Of course, as soon as the first one hit, the three were running, even if it took the sounds of the others' hooves slapping through the mud to bring Icy into the moment enough to follow.
But follow, she did, charging into the cloud of smoke without hesitation. Admittedly, that was mostly because she wasn't thinking about it before she acted and, had she done so, she might have taken a moment to properly orient and stabilize herself so that she avoided stumbling a couple of times, unable to see where she was putting her hooves. Fortunately, though the scent was somewhat overpowering, the smoke didn't smell particularly bad or get too in the way of her breathing. Icy wasn't quite sure how that worked, but she had faith that Archer wouldn't have used anything that might choke or hinder them as they went through it, even if said faith was registered a few moments after the decision was made where it mattered.
However, the blinding cloud did have another, somewhat problematic aspect – because she could see, at most, a couple of feet in front of her, she had no idea where her predetermined landing spots were. And even if she had thought to keep focused on them and keep their location in mind before charging headlong into the smoke, which she hadn't, she didn't trust her sense of position and spatial awareness nearly enough to make such a leap blind. She didn't suppose that was as much of a problem for the others, as they would need to get right up to the mountain before they could start climbing, but her method of ascent required a fair bit of distance to cover, meaning she'd have to make her first leap very soon.
She gulped as she ran, not wanting to stop and lose the momentum she'd need to make the jump, but worried about keeping going without knowing what she'd do. She shook her head hard, both to focus herself and to shake off some of the rainwater that was pouring over her face and eyes. It only took a fraction of a second for her to realize what a pointless effort this was, as not only would the rain soon replenish it, but she wouldn't be able to see even if it didn't. Still, it did her mind a bit of good to feel the water get flung off her and fly into the cloud. Of course, she couldn't see it for more than a moment, but she could still feel it as it arced through the air.
Wait, she thought as her hooves picked up in speed, as if anticipating her next thought. Maybe... it might not work, but...
She let out a long, steadying sigh as she focused on the feeling of the water all around her, the only other thing taking her attention being keeping her hooves from locking up or tripping over themselves as the familiar sensation of sickening fear washed through her at the sheer amount of water cascading around her. However, after a moment, she focused on the feelings she was getting in front of her and looked up through the smoke, trying to find a place where a lot of droplets were hitting at the same height and the resulting flow was along something flat.
It didn't take long for her to latch onto an area up and in front of her that felt about right and, flapping her wings before her brain could contemplate what a bad idea this was, she bounded up into the air, quickly rising above the smoke and towards the mountaintop.
To her surprise, she found her first landing spot was more or less exactly where she'd thought it was. More or less because it hadn't been an especially exact feeling in the first place. However, her rough estimation seemed to have been as accurate as it could have been, even seeming to have been exactly where her muzzle had been pointing a moment ago. Any doubt that her senses were a product of her anxious imagination vanished, the idea of it being a coincidence being dismissed before it could fully form, and for the first time in a long while, Icy felt almost good about the presence of a large amount of water in front of her.
Unfortunately, this feeling was so surprising and overwhelming that she almost forgot to open her wings out again, shoving them out sharply after a moment and bringing herself into a glide far later than she'd intended. This meant that she almost missed the outcropping entirely, impacting its side hard with her stomach and having to latch onto it with her forehooves and scrabble her way up the slick surface with her hind legs.
She'd only just made it fully onto the platform when she heard the distinctive sound of rushing ignition that accompanied the firing of a rocket. Before she could even begin to look up, a second sound joined it, creating a strange sort of stereo from one being slightly behind and apart from the other.
Looking up, she saw one rocket heading for the ground below them, into the centre of the smoke cloud, while the other was angled sharply down. For a moment, it seemed to be heading towards her, causing her legs and wings to tense up for another jump. However, another moment's look told her that it was likely to impact the mountain a fair way above her.
There was a split second where she relaxed, confident she wouldn't take a direct hit, before she realized that a rocket filled to bursting with magic hitting the rocks on a mountain was also a problem.
As she bent her legs, she turned her head to shout behind her, reminded as she did of the other rocket streaking towards them. “Incoming!” she called out, remaining still for a moment as the rocket plunged into the smoke, appearing to disappear for a moment before it burst, sending out a massive, chaotic mass of wind. In less than a second, it blew away much of the cloud, leaving only a few wisps that weren't nearly sufficient enough to hide Lance and Archer as they approached the mountain.
Icy was briefly distracted by the small amount of smoke that was blown across her face before another burst sounded from above her, transforming in an instant into a deep, quiet rumble that rapidly built in intensity.
Icy's head whipped above her instinctively. She didn't need to see what was happening to understand it, but she did find it was great motivation to get moving, releasing all the tension in her legs into a huge, only mildly panicked leap. “Avalanche!”
As she bounded away from her platform and twisted herself into a glide, having to bank sharply and spend considerable time turning to get a good trajectory towards her second landing point, she looked downwards at the two ground-bound ponies, both on the off-chance they needed her help and because she was curious how it would turn out that they wouldn't.
She wasn't disappointed. Lance was much further ahead and, for a long time, it looked as if he was simply running headlong into the tumbling rocks, ignoring them completely as if he could simply charge them aside or walk through them like a ghost. Even a few seconds before impact, he didn't change course, making Icy briefly focus, calling some energy into her wings in case she needed it, even though releasing it would screw up her glide.
However, a fraction of a second before a huge boulder made contact with him, he ducked down and shot off to the side, slipping around the rock and continuing forward, not even slowing down. After a moment, another large rock was about to hit him, whereupon he shimmied to the side once more, skimming under the rock so precisely that, from a distance, it almost seemed like he briefly became liquid, flowing around and along the underside of the falling boulder without feeling the impact at all. A number of smaller rocks pelted his head, bouncing off the wide, stiff brim of his hat but not bothering him much. One pebble even landed on the feather sticking out of the hatband, pulling it down for a moment before it got shot off like a miniature catapult.
Blinking in astonishment, Icy's eyes flicked down towards Archer, who had been lagging behind a bit. Though most of her mind was focused on how she'd just seen Lance move, a part of her was curious to see how Archer was avoiding the avalanche. However, as she looked at the outermost part of the avalanche, she didn't see her for a moment.
Confused, she turned her head further, only to be simultaneously encouraged and underwhelmed when she saw the bowfilly simply sitting down a short distance away. It seemed that she figured that the best way to avoid the avalanche was simply to stop where she was and wait for it to finish. Not nearly as impressive as Lance's efforts, but Icy couldn't fault her on the results.
Icy was about to look back at Lance when a rapidly approaching mass in her peripheral vision drew her attention. Looking up, she realized that she was about to reach her next platform. She blinked as she re-established in her mind her place in the situation, reminding herself she was more than an observer. She fiddled around with her hooves for a moment as she prepared for landing, managing to get them into a position where they were under her before she hit the rocky outcropping. Because of this, she only got a little tangled as she slid across the platform, getting a little closer to the edge than she'd have liked, but otherwise making a good landing.
Then again, Icy thought as she remembered her mother's words, any landing you can walk away from...
She took a moment to unravel her hooves from each other before clambering up and trotting back over to the edge, both to locate her next target and to check on the progress of the others.
The avalanche had just finished subsiding as she locked her eyes on the third platform in her route, leaping up as soon as she had it in her sights and looking down as she glided across to it.
It seemed that the now-still rocks had been the cue for both of the others to start their climbing in earnest, with Lance leaping onto a partially buried boulder and kicking off it, vaulting over one of the larger rocks to grab hold of a small hoofhold in the rock face and begin hauling himself up.
Meanwhile, Archer simply seemed to regard the many fallen rocks as a convenient ramp and hopped up from the smaller rocks onto larger and larger ones, looking more like she was just playing a strangely set game of hopscotch than manoeuvring along a rocky gauntlet. After a short trek, she too made contact with the rock wall and began hopping up, her lighter frame and more flexible suit giving her a much easier time of it, at least if her face and posture were any judge.
Fortunately, as it often did, her relaxation proved a little infectious, as Icy lazily looked up again, seeing her destination coming rapidly towards her and swinging her legs down for a landing. This proved to make it a lot easier, or at least that was how it felt, as she glided onto the top of a platform, landing into a short trot as she slowed down, remaining on her hooves the entire time.
However, her serenity proved short-lived as she heard another woosh from far above her, signalling another incoming rocket. Her wings flapped instinctively, sending her flying clumsily into the air, wobbling as she went up and tried to stabilize herself into a glide.
Fortunately, the next platform wasn't far, allowing her to quickly come to a stop, even if she did land in a bit of a heap. However, that wasn't as much of a problem as it could have been, as the short horizontal distance between the two platforms meant she had been able to gain far more height than she might otherwise have managed if she'd had to glide a long way. Plus, the time she spent untangling the snarl that her hooves had been rammed into allowed her to keep an eye on the others' progress below her, even if she was only half sure she'd be able to help them should they need it. Or, indeed, get out of the way should she need help.
As it turned out, she needn't have worried on either count. The rocket streaked down quite a distance away and impacted only a small way above where she had been and below where she was now, meaning she was quite safe. Had she remained where she was, of course, there would have been a problem, as the rocket's burst of wind and snow sent cracks through the mountain's face that dislodged the whole platform and sent it tumbling down the slope. Fortunately, that wasn't a problem as things were, even if Icy didn't feel especially encouraged by that as she saw the huge chunk of rock thunder down the mountain, seeming more like a warning of what could happen to her than a solved problem.
As for the others, they were already moving. Archer, it seemed, had agreed with Icy's unintended strategy of simply getting out of the way of the avalanche, as she had already fired an arrow and rope up the mountain, where it landed and lodged itself into a small wedge in the rock, allowing her to swing out of the way of the plummeting rocks like a true swashbuckler, swaying out of danger just in the nick of time, even if her face suggested she thought she had hours.
As for the actual swashbuckler of the team, Lance wasn't seemingly focused on moving to the side, out of the way of the rockslide, but was vaulting up the mountainside with far more speed and energy than he'd had a moment ago. It seemed as if he was actively rushing to meet the avalanche head-on. After a glance up to locate her next target, Icy flapped up into a glide, keeping her eyes fixed on Lance in case she needed to descend to help him.
However, just before the first boulder came close enough for him to worry about, Lance surged to the side, out of its path and onto the side of one of the platforms she'd previously used. He hung there, clasping onto the sheer side of it as if gravity was taking a moment to appreciate his grace before it took hold of him and pulled him down. However, a moment before that presumably would have happened, he leapt away from it again, just as the lowest large boulder came to his level.
Icy gulped for a moment before it became clear what he was doing. As soon as he was within foreleg's reach of the boulder, he whipped a hoof out and grabbed it, yanking himself up and onto the top of the boulder. He lingered there for only a split second to orient himself before whirling around and leaping off the falling boulder, leaping towards a smaller, though still substantial, rock. He wasn't able to land on that one in the same way, so instead he kicked off it, propelling himself up towards another medium-sized rock. This one, he also vaulted off and onto another large one he could land on and properly jump from.
The avalanche didn't cover a lot of distance vertically, so he was only able to continue leaping between the tumbling rocks for a short distance, but it was still long enough for Icy to become transfixed by the feat of agility and bravery. As he leapt up past the last boulder and rammed his sword into the mountainside, swinging off it as if to add a final bit of punctuation to his stunt, she caught movement in her peripheral vision and looked up just in time to truly enjoy the feeling of landing into an uncontrolled slide on the next outcropping.
Fortunately, her suit took most of the potential friction damage as she came to a halt and, even more fortunately, the motion forced her legs all behind her, meaning she didn't have to spend time rearranging them before she hopped onto them. However, none of that helped the sense of disgruntled humiliation and shame she felt at how ungainly she'd looked.
Still, she was making some pretty fast progress up the mountainside and she didn't let her embarrassment stop her from making the next leap up, looking up and fixing her eyes on the next landing area a moment after she did, just in time to angle her wings properly to glide towards it.
As she approached it, she looked up, seeing a straight path up the next three landing spots. Oddly enough, being focused on that made for a much smoother landing than many of her previous ones. Without having to give a huge amount of attention to the positions of her legs, she found they raised smoothly to meet the rocky surface and immediately fell into a coiled position, ready for the next moment when she sprang up and flapped up, having spent only a second or two on the rock.
She blinked in surprise, the acknowledgement that she hadn't been focused on her landing instantly destroying that state, focusing her completely on her body and sending her into some minor flailing, suddenly unsure of what she was doing. After a moment, she shook her head and whipped her hooves out in all four directions, splaying them out diagonally from her body in an attempt to at least keep track of each one.
Curiously, this seemed to work out almost as well as before, as she landed on the next platform without getting confused or tangled. The wide area of her landing meant it felt somewhat heavy and robbed her of most of her momentum, admittedly, but at least she knew where all her hooves were. Thanks to this, she was able to focus on her next jump almost immediately, drawing her spread-out hooves inwards sharply to bunch up under her belly before ramming them down, springing up as she flapped up, gaining more height than she had on most previous jumps. A slight, nervous smile poked its way up her face as she wondered if she'd found a consistent method for ascension.
That moment of surprise and optimism was suddenly and completely blown apart as another noise came from above, startling her as she made her next landing and making her flap a moment before she'd even come to a complete stop. As she wobbled her way into the air, she looked up, both curious about and disturbed by what she was hearing – not only was the noise louder and more layered, as if sent out in stereo, but she'd also felt it with more than her ears. She wasn't immediately sure what she was feeling it with, only that it sent a juddering shiver through her skin.
Sure enough, two rockets were streaking down from the plateau, neither heading towards her but one still giving her a horrible sensation. She gulped as she stumbled into a landing, one of her hooves slipping on the wet surface of the rock and sending up a small spray of rainwater in front of her.
Icy blinked as the sensation of the splash and the feeling she was getting from the rocket blended into one another, tipping her off that the rocket contained a large amount of water. More, she suspected, than its volume should have allowed, but these rockets were full to the brim with pegasus magic, after all. Presumably, this was one of the rain rockets the filly had been using to try and flood the area, though Icy had no idea why she'd be firing one of those at them.
She whipped her head around, looking below her to where the rockets were going and where her friends were still climbing. She blinked as she realized that the rockets were heading towards the same place Lance was. She began opening her mouth to shout a warning, even though she barely had time to get the first letter out before they hit, and he was in mid-leap anyway, meaning his ability to dodge was limited. Presumably, that had been precisely why the filly had aimed then and there.
Just as Lance landed against the side of a small, jutting area of rock from his long leap, the first rocket hit and, as Icy had suspected, immediately burst into a huge wave of water that sent a wave of nausea through Icy. Of course, it hadn't been aimed at her and Lance didn't seem overly bothered by the sudden drenching.
However, that may have been because he'd barely had time to move a millimetre in reaction before the second rocket impacted the rock face above him, just as the water had reached the outermost point of its explosion, seemingly the microsecond before it would lose momentum and start to fall down the mountainside. This was clearly intentional, as the second rocket burst in a vortex of snow, ice and cold that froze the burst of water solid in a wide, chaotic dome of ice.
Fortunately, it seemed Lance had seen the incoming attack and, though limited in his freedom of movement by being in mid-air, had manoeuvred himself to the outer reaches of the area of effect, as far from the centre as he could. As a result, only slightly less than half of him had been trapped in the ice, leaving his right hooves and, most importantly, his sword free to start chipping away at the frozen bonds.
The twang of a bowstring and the sound of ice being chipped by an arrow informed Icy that Archer was also contributing to freeing Lance, but she wasn't looking Her eyes had lost focus as they gradually rose to look to the mountaintop.
She wasn't entirely sure what it was that had got to her about what had just happened. Maybe it was the vicious, if presumably unintentional, exploitation of her sense of and issues with water. Maybe it was the fact that it had reminded her of that same fear and brought once more into sharp focus just how much water was pouring around her, setting her skin crawling and her teeth on edge. Maybe it was the fact that she was making such good progress up the mountain, far faster than the others, to the point where she was past the halfway point and able to get a much closer look at her opponent's face and the desperate fury on it. Maybe it was the fact that, despite this, this filly thought the others were far more of a threat and should be focused on first.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that this filly had just used her equipment and precision to freeze someone in a block of ice. Icy's enemy was intruding on her schtick.
Whatever the case, she flared her wings out and called a wave of energy, her general anger and tension being released in the form of a surge of power that shot up her wings so hard she could almost feel the impact on the inside of her wingtips. In the back of her mind, she once again thanked À La Mode for her suit's ability to keep every scrap of energy inside her wings until the moment she started firing it.
With a snarl, she screamed up at the filly. “Thanks for the freezing, there, but we’ve got a receipt!” She flapped hard, sending a wide, thick and intense wave of cold flying up the mountainside.
The filly's head shot towards her, her eyes widening in confusion and anger. However, even through the shock on her face, Icy could see her eyes flickering around rapidly as her flank twitched heavily. A fraction of a second later, she dived to the side, twisting her body around to get as much of it back from the ledge as possible. Unfortunately, given that she'd just been leaning over the side a moment before, that wasn't much and the wave caught her rear half as it moved, freezing her hindlegs to the rock below her.
“Well, wouldja look at that?” Archer's voice sounded from a little below Icy, a glance confirming that she was landing on a small platform a short distance under her and firing another arrow into the ice holding Lance. “She can dish it out but she can't take it.”
Icy nodded, an unpleasant smirk beginning to creep onto her face as she crouched down, ready for another vault. However, she was halted in her tracks when something unexpected happened.
“What can't do that makes sense doesn't matter can't stop Mark with ice can't stop me!”
Icy blinked in shock at the fact that the filly above them was speaking at all, let alone in the rapid-fire scream she was babbling in. Despite the filly's general twitchiness, Icy had assumed her to be more the cold and calculating type, given everything she'd shown she could do. And yet, while calculating seemed beyond doubt at this point, it seemed this filly was anything but cold, her words and tone manic to the point of being barely coherent.
Still, any words at all from her could be considered a good sign, since it meant they could, in theory at least, engage in a dialogue with her and talk her down. Or, at the very least get her distracted or hesitant. Admittedly, Icy was pretty doubtful of their ability to fluster her and, given how much anger and fervour there had been behind her words, she rated their chances of settling things peacefully as somewhere between zero and 'hah!', but it was worth a try.
Icy took a deep breath before calling up to her. “Why are you doing this?!” She flapped up once more as she continued. “Why do you want to flood our town? We're just...”
“Go away!” the filly interrupted, screaming. “All go away need to go away ponies minds don't make sense don't fit patterns don't work like things work it hurts stop hurting me!”
Icy blinked in confusion as she landed on her next platform, trying to untangle the amorphous mass of words that had poured over her. After a couple of seconds, she focused on the last few, getting a slight sense of what she meant. “Well, maybe just... tell us how we're hurting you and we can figure out how to stop...”
“Can't!” The filly swung her free hoof into the ice holding her, a rocket with a lit fuse clasped in it. As Icy watched, she saw the rocket burst, the fuse running out at the precise moment it hit. A thick haze of heat exploded from out of the rocket, making a loud noise ring out as the ice around her cracked and splintered. “Can't if you think and do and be minds don't fit in the world could do anything can't tell what you're gonna do you're gonna do everything and nothing and it hurts.” As she talked, she strained her trapped muscles, making the rapid cracking noises build to a rapid crescendo. “Need to stop it stop thinking or stop being GO AWAY!”
With a wrenching crash, the ice around her burst open, sending wet shards flying over the side of the plateau towards Icy. Acting on instinct, she flapped into the air again, surging forward out of the path of the shards, only to see another rocket stream down in front of her, bursting in an explosion of snow on the platform she was heading towards. The snow itself didn't seem to do much, the point was evidently the force of the rocket bursting that slammed into the boulder, dislodging it a little from its moorings on the mountainside.
Icy gulped as she saw the small outcropping begin to tilt further and further, ready to tumble down the mountain. Her mind raced, trying to figure out how to stop it from falling. She needed to fix it in place but, before she could even think about how to do that, she flapped her wings, sending a wave of cold over it and coating half of it in ice.
Of course, the flap also brought her glide to a tumbling halt, but she was close enough that she fell onto the tiny rock, skidding to a stop just before the edge of the rock. She knew I was gonna do that, she thought bitterly, though she soon shook her head. It was more likely the filly had simply seen the most straightforward way up the mountain and was cutting her off from it.
Icy blinked as the thought fully registered with her, making her realize that she needed to move before she got completely cut off from getting to the top at all. However, as she jerked herself to the side, rolling her hooves underneath her ready to get up once more, she heard a cracking noise from far below her. She smiled, happy that, from the sounds of things, Lance was free of his restraints.
A moment later, as Icy rose unsteadily to her hooves, she heard Archer's voice from much closer below her. “Hey, think fast!”
Icy tilted her head as Archer's words registered with her. Or, rather, their tone. Both those words and Archer's normal mannerisms would normally be associated with a glib, slightly mocking timbre, but that wasn't even close to how Archer had said them. Instead, she sounded weirdly questioning and contemplative. It was a tone of curiosity, not confidence, as if she was just about to test a theory. However, as the arrow flew from below the edge of the platform, Icy was at a loss about what theory she was testing, beyond possibly 'Can I shoot you with an arrow?'
If that was Archer's theory, though, the answer was a resounding and uncharacteristic 'no', as the filly's eyes flickered rapidly over the incoming arrow and surrounding area, her flank twitched heavily and she swung her hoof to the side in a backhoofed slap, hitting the arrow just as it got near her and smacking it to the side, reducing it to splinters and knocking it out of the air.
Icy barely had time to be astonished at the skill before Archer called up again, her voice weirdly beseeching, though still somewhat casual. “Listen, lady, I... I think I know what you're going through. I know this may seem like the only option but... we can help you. If I'm right and I know what's up with you, then...”
“NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!” the filly screeched, her face contorted in a furious glare. “I'm not wrong you're wrong you're all wrong everypony's wrong STOP BEING WRONG!”
Icy sighed, shaking her head as it became clear that, as much as this filly needed help, the only way they were going to be able to give it to her was by taking her down. After a moment of appreciating how unfortunate that was, both for her and for them, she looked up, her face falling into determined neutrality as she looked up at the next boulder big enough to support her. Nodding to herself, she leapt up, flapping up into a glide as she rocketed towards it.
However, it seemed as if the filly had been waiting for her next move, as she heard the sound of another rocket being fired. Her head flicked up towards the source of the noise, her wings already gathering energy to freeze this area in place as well, even if the size of this outcropping made that a risky prospect.
To her surprise, however, the streaming rocket was a different colour from the off-white of the previous snow rocket or the other colours she'd seen in use. This one was grey, like the many rain rockets that had been fired off throughout this filly's operation, but a far, far darker one – nearly black in comparison to the lighter grey of the rain rockets.
Icy didn't have time to figure out exactly what sort of weather this rocket contained before it surged down below her eyeline and she heard it burst. Fortunately, she didn't hear any cracking or rumbling noises, so it was unlikely to have disrupted her landing platform.
Unfortunately, this lack of audible danger meant she lowered her head just a fraction too slowly and calmly. Had she either looked down at her platform quicker or not looked up in the first place, she might have had time to focus on her destination platform and lock its location in her mind before the thick, opaque fog that had erupted from where the rocket had hit completely enveloped the area, meaning she had no idea where her landing area was or when and how to land there.
Icy's hooves stiffened in an instant as she flew into the cloud of mist, quickly losing all sense of distance or direction as the thick fog totally blocked her vision. She blinked heavily, having to concentrate hard to suppress her reflex to panic and start flapping her wings to shift herself and look around. With a grunt, she sent a wave of tension through her wing bones – possibly unnecessary, but it seemed to prove a point to her instincts that they needed to stay extended. She had been heading towards the platform before it had become obscured, after all, so it was reasonable to assume that she should continue in the direction she was going.
As she did, though, the next few seconds seeming to stretch out into minutes from her perspective, it truly registered with her just how much care and effort went into even a simple glide that she never noticed while she was doing it. Normally, she'd be making dozens of tiny micro-corrections to her trajectory, her focus, the angles of her wings and the subsequent changes to her speed and angle of descent. It was all instinctive rather than consciously decided, but it would generally happen in the back of her mind as she got closer to her landing spot and saw in more detail how her landing would need to be.
Now, though, she might as well have been flying through an infinite void, so not only was there no landing spot in view to orient herself with, but she barely had any concept of which direction was which and what any given change in her position would mean. The only reason she knew for certain which way was up was because of gravity and the rain falling around her. She almost remembered how she could use the rainwater to sense her surroundings, but her mind was too divided between other things to focus on, so she found herself simply sailing straight forward and praying that that was the right path to take.
It didn't help that, as she dangled her hooves beneath her, she kept expecting them to make some impact on solid ground beneath her or even just brush up against it. And every moment they didn't was not only unpleasant in its lack of the expected, but heightened the anticipation for the next moment that would also go unfulfilled. It was like she was going up a flight of stairs and finding that there was one less than she thought there would be, except that she kept going afterwards and kept expecting more stairs. As a result, when she did finally feel something solid beneath her hooves, it did more to startle her than encourage her.
Admittedly, this wasn't helped by the fact that it was only her back hooves that felt it, despite both her hooves and, to judge by its feeling, the platform itself being level. In fact, after a split second, she realized that this was a far worse problem, as it meant she'd overshot the platform almost completely, a fact only compounded when her hindhooves slipped off the edge.
That was enough to get her panicking a little, her wings wobbling enough to send her glide into a bone-jarring dip. She yelped loudly as she forced her wings out once more, trying to level herself out even though she knew she was now far below where she needed to be and probably too low to even regain her previous place. Still, as she shot out of the fog cloud, now heading away from the mountainside, she did look around and behind her for a good landing spot.
Fortunately, both her searching and her alarm were cut off when she heard Archer call out from below her. “Icy! Catch!”
A moment later, she heard Archer's bowstring fire and, looking over her shoulder, she saw an arrow flying towards her, trailing a rope behind it. She didn't even have time to consider the idea of Archer shooting the arrow into her to pull her back before it shot between her legs, letting her clasp her hooves together around the rope.
A moment later, the rope stretched taut, sending a jolt through Icy's body. This might have been enough to disrupt her concentration and send her plummeting had it not come a split second after she began swinging around, causing her to instinctively angle her wings out into the curve and sending her on a long arc around the mountainside. Looking up towards the centre of the arc, Icy saw Archer holding the rope in one hoof while she clung hard to a jutting rock with the other, providing an anchor point for Icy to turn around and return toward the mountain. Once more, Icy was struck by both Archer's skill and the power of Earth Pony magical strength and she hoped that her nod towards Archer even began to convey her gratitude.
However, she was distracted from that by the sound of another rocket firing. For a moment, she was worried that it was heading towards Archer, to catch her while she was vulnerable. However, Icy's eyes were still lingering on the blue filly, so it only took a moment to realize that she was at an angle that would make such a shot near impossible, the small cliff above her blocking any direct path between her and the mountaintop.
Admittedly, given the skill their opponent had shown, it wasn't impossible that she'd find a way to hit Archer but, by the time Icy had considered that, the sound of the rocket had moved in the opposite direction, assuring her that that wasn't what their enemy was trying.
It did, however, get Icy looking up at where the rocket was firing, just in time to see the bright yellow-white streak disappear into the clouds with a rumble of thunder. A moment later, the cloud in the area the rocket had gone into started crackling with electricity, ready to discharge in a bolt at any moment.
And, though Icy lacked the precise observational skills of Archer or this rocket-wielding filly, she could tell that the spot where the lightning was going to be shot from was just above a point where her arc would take her, so it wasn't hard to extrapolate exactly what the filly was intending to do.
Fortunately, the wide arc Icy was swinging along gave her a few seconds before she reached the area close to where the lightning would strike. This was good because, as she'd been finding recently, the moments just before something happened that could kill or cripple her tended to be when her mind moved fastest and with the most focus.
At that moment, however, she was entirely focused on the problem before her. If she kept going on the arc she was on, she was sure that she'd get struck – even if this filly apparently couldn't predict other ponies, that much could be predicted about her. However, she didn't know the exact path the lightning would take, so she had no idea whether loosening her grip and sliding out into an even wider arc further from the mountain would get her out of the way. She wondered for a split second about pulling herself inwards, but dismissed it after an instant – it wouldn’t be any different from going outward except for the added problem of being impossible due to the force she felt pushing her out as she turned.
She took a sharp breath in as she tried to think of some way to avoid or deflect the lightning. An ice barrier might work, but she doubted she could create one in mid-air, let alone have it in the right place at the exact time the lightning struck without holding it, which would carry its own dangers. Besides, her mother's explanation rang in her ears that that might just provide an even better path for the lightning to... follow...
Her eyes widened as she realized what she could do. “ARCHER!” she yelled, the motion of her flight giving her voice a wavering quality, though fortunately one that didn't affect its volume. “LET GO!”
As she spoke, she was briefly worried that Archer would hesitate or question her command, but the moment she finished, she both remembered and saw that such worries were unfounded, as Archer tossed her end of the rope away with barely a shrug, the sudden cessation of outward force making her swing hard into the rocks she was clinging to and pulling towards. After a moment, she ended up hanging off the wet rock face by one hoof, looking entirely at home in such a position, as if she had just decided to take a quick rest in the middle of pulling herself up.
Still, that all happened in the moment after she'd let go, after which point Icy only had about half an eye on her teammate, the rest of her focused on what she was doing next – throwing her end of the rope as hard as she could up and towards the mountain while simultaneously flapping her wings to send her flying further away. As a result of her flap, she did lose a fair bit of altitude before she could regain her glide, but hopefully, that would just get her further away from the rope. She just hoped she could get far enough away before...
With a deafening crack – almost literally deafening, since Icy was only a few feet away; close enough that the noise sent a sharp shock of pain through her ears and a wave of wobbliness through her balance and her wings – the thunderbolt streaked down to her left, striking the rope just as she'd hoped. The rain-sodden fibres proved a far easier path down than either the air or Icy's body, drawing the lightning off and down the line towards the mountain's face, where it shot off again and into the grounding rock below.
That said, the rope almost immediately burst into flames in a cloud of scraps and steam, but it had served its purpose by then. As such, the blazing line had nothing to do but fall away into the forest as it was reduced to ash, the fire put out by the wind and rain before it even reached the treeline.
Of course, this also meant that Icy was untethered to the mountain and needed to bank her glide to the side to get back there, but the thankfully-not-literal shock of the moment did a good job of focusing her enough to tilt her body into a turn. A sharp ache of protest surged through her wings as she did, making it clear just how sore and sorry she'd be tomorrow morning, but that was fine with Icy as long she'd make it to tomorrow to feel it.
Fortunately, signs were somewhat positive there as she saw a small outcropping she could land on. She hadn't been keeping an eye on either the mountain as she flew or the path she'd already taken as she climbed, so she had no idea if this was one of her previous landing platforms or how easy it would be to resume climbing from it, but she wasn't in any position to care as she swooped down onto it. She skidded slightly on the slick rock, having to widen her stance a little to avoid hitting the mountainside head-on or solidly enough to bounce off and risk knocking herself off the small surface, but she managed to spread the impact around her body enough to diffuse any such force. It didn't do her aching body any favours, but it kept her on the platform and even allowed her enough momentum to flap up again almost immediately, soon alighting on a higher platform very near level to the previous one.
As she landed, she heard Archer's voice, muffled as it was by the horrible, piercing ringing still in her ears. Still, Icy realized this was a good sign – the fact that she'd heard Archer at all when the nimble filly was a fair distance away from and, Icy noted with a touch of annoyance, above her, was a sign that her ears hadn't been permanently damaged by the lightning strike. Or, at least, not too badly. Which was probably due more to it being relatively small, as thunderbolts went, but she still considered herself lucky.
A moment after she nodded to herself at her conclusion, it fully registered in her mind what Archer had actually been saying: “Incoming!”
Icy blinked as the words and the whooshing far above her brought her back into the moment, her head darting up towards where the new rocket was being fired. However, to her surprise, the grey-white streak wasn't heading towards her or, indeed, anywhere on the mountainside, but appeared to be aimed a fair distance off to the side, as if the filly had seen something in the forest below that had completely distracted her from the more imminent threat. From what Icy had heard from this filly, that was a distinct possibility, though Icy couldn't decide whether that was a positive sign or not.
However, after a moment, it became clear this was not the case when the rocket burst in midair at, if Icy had to guess, the exact middle point between where the three of them were spread out, a flurry of powerful hailstones flying forth from the explosion towards them.
“Hold on!” Icy called out on instinct, even as she registered that the others didn't need to be told. Still, it helped orient herself in the moment, as if allowing her body to remember to surge forward and cling to the rock wall in front of her.
She pressed herself up against the mountainside just before the hail reached her. For a moment, she spread her wings out against it, clinging on with all six of her limbs. However, the moment the first few specks of hail reached her, she realized what a mistake was when her wings took a couple of hits from the thick, sharp ice pellets, sending a few jolts of pain through the sensitive flesh and feathers that hinted at the storm of stings that would be coming at her in a moment. As she winced, she reflexively drew in her wings before she could consciously think to do so, wrapping them tightly around her body and pressing herself harder against the wall, trying to get as much of their surface area out of the burst as possible.
It was a good thing she did. Just as she was finishing fixing herself in her position, the full force of the hail rose sharply into being and Icy let out a small whimper as she was pelted with the tiny, rock-hard wads of ice. On the plus side, the force drove her even harder into the rock face in front of her, meaning she was in little danger of slipping or being blown off the ledge. Still, the sheer force of the hailstorm didn't make her feel too appreciative of that as the chunks of ice pummelled into her like a barrage of tiny bullets.
That said, throughout the ordeal, she silently gave thanks once again for the miraculous suit that À La Mode had made for her, as the ridiculously durable material helped diffuse some of the impact from the storm, as well as stopping any particularly sharp hailstones from doing her any real damage. Even her wings were somewhat protected by the broad, vein-like coating that made the suit so helpful for her ice blasts. Of course, this only somewhat reduced the pain – the rapid impacts along her back and legs still pinned her in place with their unceasing sting and the few hailstones that reached her wings sent a wave of dizzying nausea through her.
Still, Icy held firm to the mountainside as the hail continued. She had no idea how long it lasted exactly – it felt like minutes on end, but Icy wouldn't disbelieve one of the others if they said the intense part lasted only fifteen or twenty seconds. However long it did or didn't take, though, it did eventually start fading, the barrage of ice rapidly dwindling as the hail and the Pegasus magic driving it diffused into the air around them, leaving only a few little flecks flinging themselves pitifully against her.
Icy shook her head as she uncurled from the wall, sending a shiver through her body to shake off any lingering hailstones. She frowned in confusion as she spread her wings out once more, trying to figure out exactly what the filly had been trying to do to them with that hailstorm.
After a moment, she looked up towards the mountaintop, her eyes widening. It seemed as though the purpose of the hailstorm was simply to delay them and give the filly time to prepare her next strike. Or, in a sense, her next... massive amount of simultaneous strikes and, Icy had to suspect, the final one.
The filly was not, in fact, on the plateau above them as she had been for all her previous efforts. Instead, she was hovering quite a distance above it, looking down at the three climbing towards her with pained fury. However, it was hard to make out that expression, because gathered in her forehooves around and above her head were... Icy couldn't count how many rockets she’d crammed into her forelegs, but she didn't have to in order to realize just how much power she was preparing to throw down.
And it was obvious she was going to throw them down, even as their fuses burned rapidly down. It was understandable, of course, as she presumably didn't want to fry herself from the flaming streams or get caught up in the blast. However, judging by her eyeline, she wasn't going to send the barrage directly at the three of them either. Instead, her eyes were rapidly scanning over the whole of the mountainside, though lingering mostly at the top.
It didn't take Icy long to figure out what she was intending. She'd made a few avalanches before that had been fairly easily avoided, but this looked like a whole different level. Icy had no idea exactly how much of the mountainside she was intending to or would be able to collapse, but she was sure the filly knew and it wasn't looking to be a small amount.
Icy's eyes flickered up and down, hoping to find one of the others in a position to do something about that, but to no avail. Lance was still a short distance below her and wasn't a long-distance fighter anyway and Archer was in the middle of pulling herself up to a small ledge. She was moving quickly, though Icy wasn't sure whether the sight of the filly's intentions had sped her up or not, but either way she wasn't going to be in a position to shoot until after the rockets had been fired.
With a gulp, Icy flared her wings, taking a few moments to build up as much energy in them as she could. She doubted she could reach her that far in the air, but she didn't see that she had any real choice but to try. If she didn't stop the filly from firing and sending them crashing down with, or possibly underneath, the mountainside, who would?
With a determined glare, Icy flapped, putting every ounce of effort and concentration into tightening the blast of freezing energy, knowing that the target was at the absolute limit of her range and she'd need to focus it as intensely as possible if she was going to reach her. To her surprise and delight, though, the slim bolt shot up towards the filly, staying intensely bright as it flew. Some of the energy did diffuse into the surrounding air and rain, but most of it stayed tightly packed as it shot towards the filly. It was a shot worthy of Archer and Icy considered that the best she could possibly do.
Which was why it was so infuriating when the filly flapped her wings once, almost lazily hopping out of the way of the blast like the most casual sidestep. The previously perfectly aimed shot flew past her, missing her by a good half a metre and carrying on up into the air above, leaving the filly to flap her wings once more and return to her previous position as if she'd never left it.
Icy growled as she cursed internally – not worthy of Archer, then, as she was sure Archer would have timed it correctly to reach the filly as she was about to throw, which would have at least messed up her shot. As it was, Icy could only watch, gathering her energy once more even though she knew her next shot would come much too late.
The filly shot a furious grin down at them, winding up for her throw as she screamed, “GO AWAY!”
Icy grimaced, tensing her wings to flap away from the ledge and the imminently collapsing mountainside, her mind racing as she tried to think of some way either to stop the filly from releasing the rockets or get back up the mountain once she had. Nothing sprung to mind.
Swallowing hard as her mind fell into a panicking spiral, Icy took a deep breath, readying herself to retreat, when salvation came out of nowhere in the form of a white bolt streaking down from the sky straight into the filly's back.
Icy gasped, a smile jabbing itself up in the corner of her mouth. Her mother wasn't a combat spellcaster at the best of times, let alone after using however much magic it took to clear out enough rubble to pull her glider out, so the blast amounted to little more than a moderately forceful shove. However, it seemed that, with not only how precise this filly's actions needed to be but also how tense and tightly wound she was, a shove was all that was needed to send her tumbling in the air and the rockets flying from her hooves.
A moment too late, the filly tried to grab at some of the rockets spinning out of her hooves, unable to catch a single one of them before they were out of her reach. A moment later, the fuses burned out, sending them streaming out in random directions, ensuring that the Everfree would briefly have even wilder weather than usual, but otherwise dealing with the threat quite thoroughly.
Well, a couple of the rockets did impact the mountain below Icy, but after a quick glance down at the white form flipping up the mountainside, she knew that Lance was in no danger.
Smiling, Icy looked back up at the filly, just in time to see a blunted arrow streak up and glance past her side, sending her into a looping fall back down the mountaintop, too stunned by both the arrow and the sudden onslaught of wind from the rockets to bring her fall under control. Glancing to the side, Icy saw Archer loading two more arrows into her bow, a rope between them. Icy tilted her head for a moment, remembering again Archer's explanation of how firing two arrows would reduce the force of each, before the bowmare fired them and Icy saw what she was doing, as the arrows arced over to the plateau just as the filly was landing. And, to judge by the indignant whimper she heard the moment after the arrows thunked into the rock, they'd most likely landed around the filly's body, trapping her beneath the rope.
Of course, with that lack of force, Icy didn't know how long they'd hold this filly, so she flapped hard, going into a long series of leaps up the mountainside, taking only a moment between each to find the next ledge. With their opponent out of commission, however temporarily, it made for a much easier and faster time ascending the mountain.
Icy giggled as she flapped into the final leap, realizing the irony that she was hurrying lazily and that the filly's absence gave her the extra time she needed to rush.
Her giggling only increased when she landed on the plateau and saw the filly, her face twisted in furious confusion, struggling and squirming against the single rope holding her down, attached to two arrows that had barely chipped the rock beneath them, let alone penetrated enough to anchor her down.
However, the thick bodies and metallic veins in the arrows told Icy that they didn't need to.
This was confirmed when she heard somepony land behind her with the softness only Archer could manage. Icy's eyes flicked behind her, unsurprised by the sheer force of Archer's smirk. And, in fact, seeing it probably hadn't been necessary anyway, as her next words had an audible smirk built into them:
“Stick. And. Stay!”
Icy found herself smiling as well, though it was less of a smirk and more of a straight, symmetrical beam. Still, she also flapped her wings, sending a wave of cold over the filly that brought up a thick chunk of ice around her, just in case.
This seemed to break the filly out of her outraged stupor as she grunted and looked down at the ice block around her. With a snort, she tapped her muzzle against the ice experimentally, producing a tiny tink from her teeth impacting it.
Icy's grin faded, a little worried that this filly had some trick up her sleeves that would get her out of the ice. Well, in her mind, anyway – this pony didn't have sleeves unless one counted her fur. Which one possibly could, since a pony's coat, thin as it was, was what made it relatively safe for Icy to freeze somebody without too much danger of them...
The filly jerked her body and a loud crack filled the air, simultaneously bringing Icy out of her tangential reverie and dispelling the worries that had prompted it in the first place, as the inside of the ice cracked a little, but didn't get close to breaking her free.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she heard Lance hop onto the rocky surface behind her. Smiling brightly, she trotted closer to the still-struggling filly. “Sorry about that, Miss... er...” She looked down at the filly's frozen flank, squinting slightly to try and see her cutie mark through the thick, cloudy ice. The task was made harder by the constant shifting of said mark, both due to the filly's overall movement and the continual tiny twitches of her flank specifically that Icy could see even through the ice.
After a moment, though, she was able to get a rough idea of the falling dominoes on her mark. “Miss... Domino? Is that your name? Probably not, but...”
“Course is,” the filly snapped with a sneer, “what else makes sense names should make sense but nopony makes sense so names are wrong don't care but mine isn't so...”
“Yeah, we get the point,” Archer said, though from the sounds of things, her smirk had dimmed somewhat. In fact, Icy was astonished to see when she looked behind her, it had vanished completely, replaced with a look of pained sympathy and discomfort as she approached the indignant filly.
She muttered something and Icy's ear twitched as they struggled to pick it up, only managing to catch a tiny snippet of it. “...grace of...”. The rest was cut off by Domino's growling as she glared up at Archer, seeming to have only been angered further by the sympathy on the bowmare's face.
Archer sighed. “Look, I know you don't think... we'll help you, alright? Not sure how, but we'll figure something out.”
The filly sneered, presumably about to retort with another volley of words and phrases rammed together when the group's attention was drawn to the side, where a large apparatus was landing on the mountaintop, sending Icy galloping towards it and leaping at its driver. “Mom!”
Sunny chuckled as she opened her hooves to receive Icy's flying tackle of a hug. “Hey, Honey,” she said as Icy impacted, barely moving her mother as the two embraced, “how was work?”
Icy didn't say anything in reply, simply nuzzling her head into her mother's chest, as if trying to rub away the collected stresses and fears the day had brought her. Not that Sunny seemed to mind, as Icy felt her continued mild chuckles through her vibrating chest.
To her side, Icy thought she heard Archer give a slight sigh before calling out, “Hey, Lance, could you give me a hoof with some of these ropes? Wanna get a look in this crate, take a count of the rockets left... apart from the obvious ones.”
Looking over slightly – not enough that her head came away from her mother's chest, but enough to see what she was referring to – Icy saw Archer over by a large crate covered by a huge number of ropes. Each rope was stretched over the top of the crate before coming down to the ground, where they were held in place by a peg driven tightly into the rock below. The purpose was clearly to keep the crate from ever coming away from the ground, but it took Icy a moment to realize why – all the concentrated weather magic from the rockets within must have made it so light that there was a danger of it floating away or being picked up by the winds Domino had been creating. Icy had no idea whether the full crate would have been lighter than air, but Domino was clearly taking no chances.
Of course, by now, more than enough rockets had been used up that the crate was back to a more solid weight, but Domino obviously hadn't seen any need to undo any of the ropes. At first, given her demeanour, Icy thought the idea might not have occurred to the insane filly, but a moment's closer examination showed that the crate had been opened a small amount but no more – enough for her to reach in and retrieve whatever rockets she'd needed, but not enough to see into the crate to find them. This, combined with the evidence that she had been able to get whatever rockets she needed out when she needed them made it clear in no uncertain terms that Domino hadn't needed to open the crate any further or to see what she was doing inside it – a prospect that made Icy very glad such a precise opponent was restrained.
While Icy was considering this, her eyes wandered up to Lance, who had, by instinct it seemed, taken up watch over the frozen filly, keeping a very close eye on her despite her restraints, something Icy couldn't really blame him for. However, after Archer cleared her throat, emphasizing her previous request, Lance gave one final glare to the filly before turning and heading over to her, already crouching down to deal with the ropes as swiftly as possible. The moment he did, Domino struggling within her icy bonds intensified massively, though it was clear she was making absolutely no progress.
Icy briefly considered going over to help out herself, only for her mother's head to lower over hers and bring her attention back to the hug. Smiling, she nuzzled her head along the side of Sunny's, raising it up until their foreheads met. However, a moment afterwards, her hair brushed against her mother's horn, resulting in a brief, strained hiss.
Icy's eyes shot wide as she backed up slightly. “Oh, I'm sorry, Mom, I didn't think... I forgot how much you'd... are you alright? I'm really sorry, I...”
“It's okay, Icy,” Sunny assured her, giving an ever-so-slightly pained grin as she waved her hooves placatingly. “It's just a bit sensitive from magical exhaustion, nothing major. Just caught me by surprise a bit, that's all.”
Icy nodded, still caught up in guilt for causing her mother discomfort after everything she'd done for her. “Are you gonna be okay?”
Sunny gave another grin and a chuckle, this one far less ambivalent and more satisfied. “Oh, yeah, it's fine. The horn's gonna be all kinds of sore tomorrow and I probably shouldn't strain myself like that for a few days, but other than that, I'll be okay. And believe me, I'd do it all again. I'd say it's worth it, after all.”
Icy giggled, shaking her head a little. “You can say that again. You did save us, after all.”
Sunny hummed for a moment. “Well, maybe.”
Icy's smile dropped a little as she raised an eyebrow at her mother. “More than maybe, Mom. If you hadn't come in and stopped her, she'd have collapsed the whole side of the mountain. We'd have been taken out for sure.”
Sunny tilted her head from side to side, weighing up the idea. “Eh, I don't know. I'm pretty sure you'd have figured something out. It'll take more than a little mountain falling on you to take you kids out, I can tell you that for certain. Still, I'm just happy you didn't have to find a way to take it.” She looked down and behind her, towards the cave they'd been briefly trapped in. Looking over herself, Icy could just about make out the still-piled stones from where her mother had hastily cleared a path for her and her glider. “Just wish I could have gotten here before the nick of time.”
Icy shook her head. “Please don't. Just be happy you didn't get here after it.”
Sunny sighed into a laugh. “Well, if you insist.”
“If it helps any,” Archer called over as the sound of her and Lance pulling the crate's side fully open rang over the mountaintop, “I think we'd pretty much saved the town by then anyway. Looks like she had to use pretty much all the rockets in the crate on that “bring down the mountain” plan. Including all her rain rockets. So, the town wasn't gonna be flooding.”
Icy breathed a sigh of relief, opening her mouth to reply before Archer cut her off. “One thing I don't understand, though,” she turned to Domino and waved a hoof to the side, where a large row of yellow-white rockets were laid out side-by-side. “Why didn't you use all these lightning rockets for that? Would have been even more effective at smashing rocks and mean you'd have some rain rockets left over to keep going with your plan? What were you planning on using these rockets for anyway?”
Domino growled. “Shoot the mountain and the water smash the mountain bring down the water send it over your town smash it under the water.”
There was a long, awkward pause after the incomprehensible rant before Archer snorted. “Well, I don't know what I was expecting.”
Icy started nodding in agreement before her eyes lingered on Domino just a moment, something seeming to register with them but not with her brain. Shaking her head, she looked intently at the restrained filly, watching her and her movements carefully.
It quickly became clear what was unusual about the sight and it had to do with how Domino was struggling. Naturally, being frozen up to her neck gave her no actual free space to shuffle around in the way a set of manacles might and the small amount of cracks the filly had made on the inside surface of the ice hadn't helped there. However, she was able to move herself a small amount by pressing herself up against one side of her bonds, squeezing her muscles on that side to give herself a bit of space on the other. It didn't seem like it would be enough to do her any good – certainly not even close to enough to wiggle free – but she was still using it to the best of her ability.
However, as Icy watched, she saw that the filly wasn't struggling in the way she would have expected – there was none of the constantly changing, seemingly random movements of someone trying to find a way to move that would free them, at least a little. Admittedly, Icy didn't exactly have a massive amount of experience watching people try and escape her ice blocks – something she wasn't sure if she wanted to change or not – and, on reflection, it probably shouldn't have surprised her that a filly who could aim a bolt of lightning from the ground wasn't moving randomly.
What did puzzle her was the fact that the movements were so small and regular. The filly was moving back and forth within the limited space her prison allowed her with a bizarre, steady rhythm: press against one side, shift over to the other, press against that, shift back, repeat. If Icy didn't know this was a living filly, she could have sworn it was some kind of mechanical movement. Though one glance at the pain but determination on Domino's face quickly dispelled any such notions.
That same look also drew Icy's attention down towards Domino's body, following the insane filly's eyeline and noticing just how intently the filly was looking down at the ice covering her. Or, rather, a closer look made clear, at her body within the ice. Icy couldn't see inside the block through the cloudy ice, so she trotted up curiously, peering in as hard as she could.
As she approached, Domino's struggling became harder and faster, her eyes occasionally flicking up to Icy and making clear that, whatever she was doing, she wanted to be done by the time Icy was there. Still, Icy didn't pay it much mind as she came right up to the filly, looking down into the ice at the trapped filly within.
As soon as she did, her eyes widened. It seemed that the initial breakage Domino had made on the inside of the ice, while not nearly enough to free her, had been large enough to make some very sharp cracks on the inside surface. And, to judge by the spots of blood on many points of her body, many of those cracks were extremely sharp.
Sharp enough, it seemed, to have almost finished cutting through the rope Archer had initially tied her down with. Only a few thin threads remained, the fray edges around it rapidly multiplying as the rope was sawed away. Icy opened her mouth to call out about the problem...
And that's when things started happening very quickly.
First of all, before Icy could even begin forming a word, Domino spat at her hard, a thick, unpleasant glob of saliva flying into Icy's mouth and down her windpipe, sending her into a fit of disgusted coughing. On the plus side, this did succeed in drawing the others' attention. However, it seemed it was a moment too late as the rope under the ice snapped completely.
The instant it did, the filly started screaming so loud that Icy had to cover her ears with her wings, wincing as her continued coughing made it difficult to muffle the sounds effectively. However, it wasn't the kind of guttural, rasping scream one might have expected from that level of volume, but a higher-pitched wail. It was closer to a baby's cry than any noise an older child or adult might make, but even louder and more unpleasant. However, it quickly became clear what the purpose behind it was as a loud cracking started to accompany it for a moment, just noticeable despite being dwarfed by Domino's high-pitched howling. The cracking built to a rapid crescendo over about a second before the ice around the filly suddenly exploded.
On some level, Icy was impressed – she'd heard of being able to shatter glass with enough noise, but she'd always heard most ponies couldn't manage it. Though, if she had to guess, the filly presumably being able to find exactly the right pitch almost certainly helped. However, most of her thought processes were overwhelmed by the cloud of mist and sharp ice shards that flew into her. Fortunately, none of the edges that hit her were sharp enough to do any damage – either Domino hadn't been able to aim the explosion at her to do so or hadn't bothered to and Icy had no idea which was more likely at this point – but it did stun her, helped by her body still being in the middle of coughing and her wings still being over her ears and unable to block the mist from getting in her face.
As she stumbled back, she saw Domino spin her back legs around, smacking several of the shards as they went before they rammed down hard enough to jolt her to her hooves. The shards she hit, meanwhile, were flung towards Archer, Lance and Sunny, a few with their sharpest edge leading.
Fortunately, their attention had been on Domino, so they were attentive enough to be able to move.
Sunny, both being much bigger than either of them and having been less ready, was only able to move her head out of the way of the sharpest of the ice shrapnel, a few smaller, blunt chunks still slamming into her horn and both knocking away her magic and making her gasp in pain. Archer and Lance, meanwhile, were able to move completely out of the way of the incoming shards, though the suddenness of the movement sent them tumbling slightly along the ground, keeping them occupied for a few moments.
However, it seemed a few moments were all Domino needed, as she didn't remain still – the instant she was back on her hooves, she was sprinting towards the bank of lightning rockets, picking up her lighter as she went. Before anyone could begin to move to stop her, she swept the lighter across the fuses, lighting each one incredibly close to the ends where they met the rockets as well as using the end of the lighter to adjust their positions.
That done, she dashed towards the final remaining wind rocket. By this time, Archer had got her balance enough to unhook her bow from her back, beginning to load up an arrow to intercept the filly. It looked as if she might manage it, too – however close the filly lit the fuse, it would most likely take a second or two to burn down, giving Archer time to fire and knock the filly away.
Unfortunately, it seemed that Domino recognized this too as, once she'd grabbed a firm hold of the rocket's body, she instead slammed the lighter directly into the back of the rocket, instantly setting it alight and sending a stream of fire out over the hoof. Icy couldn't imagine how painful it must have been, but it was undeniably effective, as the rocket fired off the mountaintop, carrying the filly away at incredible speeds – fast enough that Archer's arrow missed it completely, thunking into the rocky ground like a child stamping its hoof.
A moment later, Archer snorted a little and, while she didn't stamp her hoof, she did kick it against the ground a little in mild frustration. Icy had no idea whether this was because the filly had gotten away and could be a problem in the future or simply because Archer had missed. She was about to ask about that when she was distracted by the lightning rockets firing.
She whirled her head around, watching as the yellow-white streaks shot off into the distance, soon climbing into the clouds and out of sight. Despite the noise startling her, though, Icy didn't quite see why she should be worried about it, as the rockets were heading away from Ponyville and deeper into the forest. Icy was a little confused by this since Domino's efforts had seemed to be focused squarely on flooding Ponyville, but she was fairly certain that, whatever the purpose of those rockets was, it couldn't have anything to do with that, which suited her just fine.
“Oh no... Oh no no no no...”
Apparently, her mother disagreed.
Icy turned to her, tilting her head a little. “What's the problem?”
Sunny gulped loudly. “Those rockets are heading towards Rongbuck pool. And I'm guessing that's not an accident.”
Icy turned back to where the rockets had fired from, looking up into the clouds at the rapidly building, brightly visible build-up of energy gathering from where they'd burst. However, looking down at the ground it was located above, Icy could only see another row of mountains. “So, is it on the other side of those...”
“No,” Sunny interrupted sharply, though clearly more out of tension than annoyance. “It's in those mountains,” she said, her speech accelerating enough to rival Alula at her most focused, “a high-altitude pool formed by melting snow, more than enough to overwhelm our flood defences if-”
She was cut off by an almost blinding flash as a massive cluster of thick, powerful bolts of lightning slammed down into the mountains they were looking at. It took a few seconds for Icy to blink the stars out of her vision, at which point the deep, rumbling thump of the thunder slammed into her ears, loud enough to hurt even from several miles away.
Shaking her head to regain her focus, Icy peered out at the mountains in the distance, briefly wondering if she'd be able to see the pool her mother had been talking about. As it turned out, though, she didn't need to look that hard, as there was now a thin film pouring through the cracks that the thunderbolts had made in the rocks as they struck.
Cracks that, though it could have been her imagination, Icy could have sworn were slowly growing and spreading, the water seeping through them gradually growing and giving increasingly menacing hints at what would happen if the rocky dam burst.
And, with a rapidly sinking feeling, Icy remembered who had set up the rockets and amending that 'if' to a 'when'. And she doubted the 'when' would be far off. After a moment, she spoke, mirroring the general feeling.
“Oh poop!”
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