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5

“So, There’s supposed to be six of these?” Dash asked over the bustle of working ponies.

“Yea,” Twilight answered staring at the three orbs around Luna’s statue. With all the construction going on, Twilight feared the Elements could get damaged or misplaced. She was already down one. She didn’t need to have the problem of another going missing.

How to move them was the big question. Shining had touched one without consequence, but she did not want to take chances. Twilight turned to look at the work materials that had been brought, to see if she could build something to pick them up with. “Maybe we could make a-”

“”So where do you want me to take these?” Dash asked. Picking up one of the orbs.

Twilight winced, but nothing happened. “Oh. Well, I guess that makes that easier. Take them to the top of the east tower,” Twilight pointed to the castle turret visible through the glass ceiling. She had expected her to whine about the seven-story climb. But, she just gripped the stone ball between her wings and headed off in a trot.

Rainbow Dash had been far more help than she had thought. She was lazy and cocky, but when she took something seriously she was unstoppable. Though, her habit of using the castle spires as racing pylons still bothered Twilight. More than one window had become victim to a ‘misjudged turn’.

Slowly pacing the arboretum Twilight inspected the work of the dozen ponies that had volunteered. She was watching a pony repair a damaged section of stone when a somepony cleared their throat behind her.

“Pardon me Priestess. But, I’m here to replace the tapestries. Where my I find a room to store my fabric and work?”

Twilight turned to the voice a found a white unicorn with a purple mane. “Oh, thanks,” Twilight said. “Spike!” she called. Looking around for her little dragon, she saw Dash heading out with another stone on her back; lathered in sweat, but grinning.

“Spike!” she called again. She knew she had just seen him.

“Coming,” Spikes voice echoed from the far end of the room.

Spike scurried across the room, stopping a few meters from Twilight and the new mare, who had a coat of alabaster and hair of amethyst. Her every motion was controlled and her gaze was searching. His heart made strange thumps in his chest and his head swam. “Gerr, waa. Ugh, Hi.”

“Spike this is... I’m sorry I forgot to ask your name.”

“Rarity. It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she said with a slight bow.

“This is Rarity she will be making us curtains. Thank you for offering your help by the way,” Twilight said. “Spike will you help her find a room on the third floor. Whichever room works best.”

“I’ll help carry her bags up too!”

“OK,” Twilight laughed.

As the two walked away a rainbow streak caught Twilight’s eye. Dash had flown out the window of the east tower and was flying around to the side entrance of the arboretum. It was a bitterly cold day. She wondered how the pegasus took the chill so casually.

“Woo! Feels good!” Dash shouted as the side door flung open. “Those steps are the best cardio I’ve had in months.” Closing the door she strode past Twilight, towards the statues and the remaining orbs in the center of the room. “What ya want me to do after this?”

“Shining had your personal trunk delivered this morning. You should take the rest of the day to set up your room.”

“Sweet,” Dash said, lifting the next element unto her back. With it nestled between her wings, she began her trot back to the tower.

Twilight walked over to check on the earth ponies that had volunteered to help replant the flora in the arboretum. A stallion named Mac had been voted forpony over the project by the other earth ponies. She found him currently struggling with a mass of old roots that he was tearing out. “How’s the clearing going?” she asked.

Letting go of the roots, “Slow,” he said. The laconic pony chewed his tongue for a moment, Twilight thought he would expand his report, but before he had spoken a shadow rolled across the room.

Everypony looked up in unison at the disturbance, gasps and shrieks soon followed. Above the glass roof, a white figure circle. Looking down at the gathered ponies it regarded them with hungry eyes. “Windigo,” Mac mumbled.

Twilight shivered, she had chased off mantacors and timberwolfs as a matter of course, but this was the first windigo she had ever seen. She had read enough to know this was not a creature that could simple be scared away. Neither wholly physical or ethereal, they fed on pony’s souls. “Everypony find a room to lock yourselves in, get out of here!” she yelled.

Snapped from their stupor, panic found the ponies as they scrambled to get into the castle proper. “Go, go, go!” Mac yelled over the din. Herding the fleeing ponies to the door, he ushered them away from the danger, doing his best to keep the panic from descending into all-out riot.

Mac looked back, and found the priestess standing in the center of the room, looking up at the monster as if daring it to attack. “Miss you need-” Mac’s shout was cut short by the sound of breaking glass. Drawn by the sudden movement or the smell of fear, the windigo was no longer content to watch from outside. The glass rained down and shattered against a lavender aura that the priestess projected. A quiver in her haunch betrayed her fear, but she stood her ground, even as the monster attacked the magic wall that held it at bay. “Well, I misjudged that one,” he mused, guiding the last few ponies through the door.

A second smashing of glass sounded, and a rainbow streak impacted the windigo, crashing it to the ground. The pegasus guard found her hooves faster than the windigo and jumped back to the priestess’s side. Still facing the downed windigo, Dash looked at him with one eye. “Go see to the others, this is my burden,” she told him. His conscience nagged him for leaving the two alone, but she was right. It was her place to fight, his place to tend.

The thud of the stallion barring the door from the other side, told Twilight they were alone with the monster now. Her mind raced through the spells she knew, looking for something the would help. Offencive magic was something she had yet to dabble in, past the minor spells. Rainbow Dash with neither armor or weapon moved between her and the windigo. “Stand back,” Dash warned just as the windigo scrambled to it’s hooves. In a chromatic blur, Dash bucked the monster in the head, sending it wheeling to the ground again. This time the creature vanished into a plume of fog and ice.

The two mares relaxed with a collective sigh. Dash strode over to the frosted ground that marked the death spot, before looking back to Twilight, “Glad that’s o- shit.”

Twilight followed Dash’s gaze up to the crown of the room, a herd of windigos circled above building’s arches. With one mind the hive drove down upon them, laying waste to the glass that stood in their way. By reflex her magic formed a barrier that encompassed her and Dash, the spell solidifying just before the first windigo smashed against it.

Dash winced when the windigos hit the translucent dome, the abrupt stop doing little to phase them as they immediately took to circling just outside the spell. The windigos thrashed against the magic barrier, swirling above them like a storm. Each assault rang the dome and incited a flinch in the unicorn, Twilight was not going to be able to hold this for long. It didn’t matter anyway, they couldn’t play defensive forever. “Twilight, This is a one-way type shield right?”

Twilight nodded with a grunt, too focused on the spell to talk.

“Whatever you do, don’t drop the spell,” Dash told her before leaping through the maelstrom of windigos.

“No!” Twilight blurted, the spell flickering from the distraction.

“Keep the shield up!” Dash yelled back at her. No sooner had she spoken than she became the center of attention for the windigos.

Dash leapt back from the onslaught, they were a clumsy mass, but they were fast and dangerous. She cursed her laziness, she should have kept her spear with her. One of the windigos lunged forward, its teeth catching her in the shoulder. Numbing frost crept into her veins, but not before the retorted with a blow of her own. Cracking the beast in the jaw it released its grip and flew back into the swirling mass.

Dash again leapt away, putting distance between them. This time landing with a wince, the frost bite had lamed her worse than she thought, she needed a weapon. Looking around the room she found the statue of Luna, and the iron-shafted spear she held. Moving across the room in a rainbow blur, she left the windigos alone and confused.

Landing atop the statue, she grasped the spear and pulled it up through the stony grasp of the goddess. “Sorry Luna, I need this for a bit,” she said as the spear pulled free. She was surprised to find it an actual weapon, expecting nothing more that an spear-shaped iron bar. But, this had a good balance and was made of fine steel. Testing its feel, Dash searched for her foe, the simple minded brutes had returned to thrashing against Twilight’s shield.

“Over here frost brains!” she taunted, leaping to the ground. The wound protested the exertion, but she paid it no mind. “Come get some!” The windigos took the offer and left the shielded unicorn for the pegasus.

Twilight watched the phantom equines again leave off attacking her to torment Rainbow Dash, the wound on her left shoulder was plain even through the rippling shield and distance. The spear flashed as the windigos neared, she could see them reel from the blows, but their ethereal nature protected them from much of the weapons wrath.

Ethereal or not the blur of steel and rainbow was thinning the herd; she had seen a windigo vanish in a puff of frost, but she saw blood too. Dash was in there, taking as much as she was giving, Twilight didn’t know how much more she could take.

Dash rolled the spear around her wings and drove its point into the head of another windigo. The frost of the dispatched beast blinded her for a moment. She tried to pull a clearing flourish, but one of the monsters found an opening. The nip at her wing was answered with a hard buck. That one had been close, any more damage to her wings and she would be grounded till she healed. She shivered at the thought of getting grounded, and Luna must have heard her. High above the cathedral a cloud parted and the full moon shined down on her. Her wings twitched, she could escape this death thrall, fly out the broken window and let the monsters do what they will.

‘No,’ she told herself, ‘I will protect at all coast.’

Something shattered behind Dash in a burst of orange light. She wanted to look back, but that was an amateur's mistake, her enemy was in front of her. Her spear found the chest of a windigo, and she cursed as it slid through the vapor, leaving little trace of its assault. Hooves and magic did more against windigos than spears, at least the spear kept them at a distance.

Twilight dropped the spell, her jaw slack as one of the Elements explode in a ball of light. The stone replaced with an orange gem set in a collar of gold. Animated by it’s own will, the collar launched itself at Rainbow Dash, and attached to her neck. The guard yelped in surprise, faltering for a moment. Twilight winced, expecting the windigos to seize her while she was off guard, yet the monsters were more distressed by the amulet than Dash was. Their disorientation was not lost on Dash, finding her wits she lunged with the spear. The weapon crackled with arcs of orange magic and where it had done little before, it devastated now. Dash’s face went from surprise to a death's-head grin.

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Fyran

Fyran #1 · Jul 31st, 2013 · · ·

Damn. T.T Where's the rest at?

Churchy

Churchy #2 · Jul 31st, 2013 · · ·

Interesting concept... I suppose I will track it.

sopchoppy

sopchoppy #3 · Jul 31st, 2013 · 3 · ·

Very intriguing, looking forward to more. The language in parts comes off as a bit generic and you have a few spelling errors here and there. Find someone that will do some editing and I think you will really have something.