Re:Harmony

by starcross7

100 - Threads and Arrows

Chapter 100 - Threads and Arrows

In the brutal agoge of her youth, Rainbow Dash had the dubious pleasure of riding in one of Pegasopolis's many Dizzitron machines, a training instrument designed to test a filly or a colt's ability to recover from an abrupt spin-out. It had only one speed: deadly. About eighty-percent of the children survived its dangerous ride. The rest either fell to their deaths or suffered permanent brain damage.

It was a longshot, but Dash managed to land on one of the massive blades of the windtunnel fan. Just as she suspected, it spun at the same speed, perhaps slightly slower. Yet even an awesome pegasus such as herself could only hold on to the fan blade before she would pass out from the centrifi-whatsit forces. She needed a little more time, because she had only one chance to pull this off.

Her feathers tingled. She pumped her wings full of trace Atmos Particles. She loosened her grip on the blades and allowed the windtunnel fan to fling her back into the chamber. The world spun all around her with blurs, but her eyes trailed towards the light green blur at the other end of the windtunnel. Finally, she made her awesome ten-millisecond landing on the wall. That ten-milliseconds was enough to spot Lightning Dust and then launch towards her before she made her attack.

"Atmos Arts," cried Dash, "Rainbow Bullet Punch!"

She concentrated the strength of a Sonic Rainboom in her right front hoof, and forced it onto the surface of Lightning Dust's torso. The sheer power tore apart Dust's suit and expelled all the fluids from her fur and feathers. The Shadowbolts’ captain coughed out a mix of saliva and blood before she blacked out and fell limp.

Dash defeated her finally, but she grabbed hold of her opponent's hoof just in time as she latched onto the freestanding control panel with her other hoof. The windtunnel fan continued roaring and spinning, and no pegasi present was in shape to outfly it. All Dash needed to do was turn it off. She had all the time in the world.

But she didn't. Lightning Dust quickly recovered from the devastating blow, but instead of praise in her eyes, she had utter disgust. The pride in her heart made her lunge over and bite hard onto Dash's hoof, forcing Dash to let go of her rival at the worst possible moment. Lightning Dust showed no fear as the windtunnel devoured her.

Dash turned off the windtunnel too late, and the slowing fan regurgitated a plume of light green feathers onto the floor. Damn it. She did not want it to end this way. As much as Lightning Dust was a bully in their youth, Dash respected her, and thought that one day she would fly alongside her as a Chroma Pirate instead as a soldier of Pegasopolis. All that was left of her were feathers.

Just feathers. Dash observed the windtunnel fan gradually making a full stop. Its blades were full of rust, but there were no traces of blood next to it. If Dash herself could survive, Dust could too. She knew then that it was not over, but if they should encounter one another again, the outcome would certainly turn fatal.

She had no time to think of that now. Her body was tired, and her wing burned with pain. Dash's legs shook as she stumbled her way out of the windtunnel and back into the Factory's steel halls. She broke into a viewing deck and rummaged through the lockers to find a medical kit she used to bandage her wounded wing.

Then suddenly, one of her tele-orbs rumbled out from underneath her mane, and out from it popped out a rolled up note freshly written for her.

---

Twilight and her friends had always told her to only use her magic except in an emergency. If she used her magic, the spell would become undone, and her horn would be revealed. Well, this was an emergency. The abrupt explosion dirtied her mane and fur, and had shifted the color of her eyeshadow by a few millimeters. It was a miracle none of her hairs had been singed.

A lady always came prepared for situations like these. Spike had generously provided her and the girls numerous tele-orbs created from this excess scales, though she herself, by her selfish admittance, received more than her fair share than necessary. It was not enough to simply have one or two. Six was the minimum number for her to craft a bead necklace of these orbs that she graciously wrapped around her neck, but she chose to outfit herself with eight since eight was a lucky number for faraway cultures. A lady should possess no shame to hide her accessories underneath her mane or tail, pardon her present lewdness.

One tele-orb contained her makeup. One tele-orb contained her brushes and combs. Another tele-orb contained her lotion, and another contained her perfume. A simple press of a button caused her tools to materialize out of compressed magical space, and she lay them all out on a silken handkerchief that she popped out from another tele-orb. Ordinarily she would spend thirty minutes or so brushing herself and reapplying her perfume and makeup. Being that they were deep into enemy territory, she prettied herself in a quick ten minutes.

Shame that she could not use her makeup on the unconscious pegasus guards that lay strewn all around her. Not that she had any eyeshadow to spare, but she neither had the time nor the inkling that these fallen soldiers would mind having makeup painted upon them while they were knocked out. That would be rude, even if she found it mildly amusing to learn that her own little sister played a prank on her while she was asleep back in the Crystal Empire.

The remaining tele-orbs contained pencil and paper and her sparkling azure scarf, the latter she released upon her command. The halls of the Factory felt nippy, but certainly not as cold as the blizzards of the North. However she could not feel that it could only become colder from here. She was not used to the weather of the lands outside of the Empire, but she kept on hearing that it was unusually cold for an autumn. An omen perhaps? Indeed it could be, because she herself carried one of the legendary Elements of Creation on her neck, and she covered it with the azure scarf that she placed over her shoulders.

She did her best to carefully tiptoe from one clean spot to a mostly clean spot as she began her search for her friends. Rarity suppressed all temptations to use a pegasus soldier's Galea helmet as a makeshift broom, because doing so would be sacrilegious to Pegasopolis's fashion integrity. They might be merciless warriors, but even the enemy's uniform must be shown respect as much as possible.

She could only keep her hooves clean for so long, and Rarity became aghast to see her right front one slightly stained with gunpowder. She did not bring enough wipes to clean it, and she could not use anything as a substitute slipper or a sock. This dreaded Factory should have a washroom somewhere. Rarity bit her lip as she suffered a few more steps of walking the cold and dusty steel. She could not read pegasese, but she willingly followed the arrows on the signs that eventually lead her to some armory of some sort.

To be frank, the armory's organization amazed her. It did not measure up to the Crystal Empire's, but each rack towered four stallions high. Up and down the rows the racks contained about a hundred stands each that held the armor and the accompanying armaments in pristine condition. There were not much variety in styles, and Rarity assumed that this was designated for a specific unit. The captain's armor had a red cape with gold lining that drew the Diamond Princess in.

Her horn tingled. Rarity stepped back as an arrow blew past her muzzle and tore through the cape. No other arrow came her way, but she could feel a strong breeze manifest and dissipate in a single moment. In the distance she could hear the sound of an arrow bounce off the metal of armor, floor, and ceiling. In her peripheral gaze, the shimmer of the arrowhead rapidly closed in on her, and it bounced off more armor until it vanished from her sight.

Then she felt the strong breeze again. Rarity took one galloping thrust forward, and the lone arrow severed a few strands of hair off her tail.

Good lord. That infernal arrow continued to bounce everywhere, and no amount of magic could stop or slow its stubborn speed. It had come down to her activating her Element of Empowerment. Her golden necklace glowed as it warmed, and in a flash, it transformed itself into a diamond-shaped empowerment halo that hovered behind her protectively. Rarity directed her attention at the closest surface that the killer arrow might bounce off of, which was a shield, and empowered it with the arcane magic of the ancients.

To her luck, the arrow struck the shield, but instead of bouncing off, it became lodged. She never expected enhancing the shield's stiffness would make it so brittle that would crack and trap the arrow. Hopefully, that was the only projectile the invisible sniper possessed.

Yet the arrow stirred as if it had a life of its own, and after a few jolts, it shot out as if it came from its bow. It flew past Rarity, but instead of bouncing off the surface, it curved midair and dove back down towards the Diamond Princess. In a panic, Rarity magicked another shield in front of her and used her Element's Enhancement ability just in time.

The killer arrow, however, pierced the shield as if were nothing, and narrowly missed Rarity. It then, spun around midair and shot back towards her. She lost a few more hairs when she ducked once more.

At this rate, that arrow was going to make her bald as the Crystal Empire's clerics. She galloped down the armor racks as fast as she could, but the arrow kept on pursuing her tail. This was too much exercise for a lady, but she could not let up. She needed to locate the sniper in time, despite knowing that if she should encounter him, he would not go down without a fight. All she had to do was keep running in circles, hoping to outrun the arrow.

Eventually, she felt the cold breeze die down. Rarity slid to a halt, sweating and breathing heavily like a crystal miner, and she turned around to see the arrow suspended in midair. The chilly air began to catch up to her, and she almost wished that she had her sparkling azure scarf with her.

"My arrow," a voice muttered. "You witch! What did you do to it?"

She heard his voice echo from close by, but the movement in the shadows finally allowed her to locate the assailant. The sniper pegasus stood on top of the third row armor rack, straining to beat his orange wings while his front hoof held onto his black bow.

"I hope you are happy, mister," said Rarity. "You forced my hoof by sacrificing my azure silk scarf that was woven by the ice beetles of my homeland. I attached a thread at the tail end knowing that it will chase me to kingdom come, and now I have restrained its wings. You sir, are defeated."

"I am Sniper Sagittarius of the Shadowbolts Stealth Division," said the pegasus stallion in black. "My arrows will punish all who oppose the Empress."

Sagittarius had one more arrow in his quiver, and one more was too much for a lady to handle in one day. Before he could pull it out with this wing, Rarity, without hesitation, pulled down the nigh-invisible thread created by the unwinding of her azure silk scarf. This was a special thread, however. Rarity enhanced it tenfold by her Element's powers, and with that pull, the thread trap she created cleanly cut through all through armor and armor racks. Sniper Sagittarius screamed as he anticipated being sliced to pieces by Rarity's thread, but she would not stoop down to barbarity. The Crystal Empire had prided itself in ending the death penalty almost eight hundred years ago, and Rarity stopped the cutting power of her enhanced thread right above Sagittarius's skin. With one last "pull", Rarity restrained Sniper Sagittarius and his wings, and he fell off the armor rack. She quickly galloped over to him and knocked him out with a twin buck of her hind legs.

Ow. Rarity rested on her haunches to massage her hind legs due to the soreness from all the running and bucking, and she wiped two drops sweat before it could run down her face. Her brief respite had ended, and she unwound the thread from Sniper Sagittarius's body and gathered it into a yarn ball upon that she planned to stuff into her one of her tele-orbs.

Her neck felt unusually lighter. All the running distracted her from discovering that Sniper Sagittarius had sniped a deep gash in each of her tele-orbs that she lay out on the ground. That barbarian! The tele-orb contents had a spilled a trail around the armory, and that stallion also had the nerve to cut through all the emergency scarves, dresses, makeup, and lotion bottles all over the floor. Not only that, she could not message her friends back with her pencil and paper. Could this day get any worse?

A big explosion reverberated nearby, and it nearly threw Rarity off balance and toppled over the remaining armor racks. A normal pony would naturally flee from such danger, but a heavy worry for her friends overwhelmed her heart. From there, Rarity "borrowed" two undamaged captain capes from their respective stands, which were surprisingly comfortable given the brutish nature of pegasi in Pegasopolis. Then she immediately galloped over towards the source of the explosion.

Comments

[Aatxe360]

It's hard to tell whose viewpoint in the second partition. I had to keep reading until Rarity became the subject even though Spike and a little sister was mentioned. You have the habit of bringing 'almost' random ponies out from nowhere in your story.

[Silentwoodfire]

There we go, finally caught back up after starting over at the beginning. I wonder who is next

[GMZ_Casper]

Clever (and, not surprising, risky) move on Dash's part. Sad to see how mess up Lightning is, to be so willing to give up her own life for blind loyalty to someone who most likely doesn't even truly cared about her subjects. As for Rarity...yep, classic Rarity at her finest. Including the fact that you should never underestimated that fashion-loving drama queen.

Oh, and congrats on reaching the 100th chapter.

C&Cs will be PM.

[starcross7]

6599430
All fixed!

[Satto Kez]

amazing as always!
Hope I read more soon!

[Reeve]

Well, it took ages, but I'm finally caught up. Now that I have I can give my assessment... meh
This started out so good, like, incredibly good, but as it's gone on... the story itself remains good, although so much of the latter half is buried beneath crap, like horribly forced references to fan stuff or the actual show, or just how unrealistic all the dialogue has become, with character's spouting their entire life story at the slightest provocation, even in the most insane situations, or when characters invoke the age old art of making shit up on the spot and generally being so powerful you have to wonder why there's any conflict whatsoever.
The writing is my biggest gripe though, it was always a little clunky with mistakes and errors scattered about, but I forgave it because I figured the author was just starting out or something and that they would improve over time... that didn't happen, if anything the writing has been gradually decreasing in quality throughout the duration of the story (occasionally picking up like a human heart being jump started). The fact that I read the whole thing in a relatively short space of time meant it was very easy to notice, I'm guessing the reason for this is that the author is getting (if not already) bored of writing the story, which I can sympathise with, I wouldn't want to be writing anything for two years, ESPECIALLY since it's obvious the author has been making it up as they go rather than having the whole plot planned from the beginning (or at least early on).
Of course I still like the story, the last few chapters in particular have picked up significantly, and I still plan on following for a while yet, but it's depressing to see something start out so strong only decrease steadily over time

[Scarheart]

Not a fan of jumping around from perspective to perspective. It makes sense with your main characters Twilight and Applejack, but not with the others. They don't feel anything more than support players in this story.

[Misty Spell]

6646365 I left that comment 13 weeks ago. By that point any sane individual would have long since stopped caring.

[Greeny3003]

Don't read if you haven't watched the Season 5 finale.
In the season 5 finale I would think that they took at least a little inspiration for the King Sombra timeline scene from this fiction. It reminded me right away of Re:Harmony. *Thumbs Up*