Where Wolf, there wolf, Air Wolf.
The NoPony:Rainbow Dashed
"Split up she said, we each have our own trial she said, sheesh Twilight, this place would make Daring Do think twice", Rainbow Dash muttered to herself as she unsnagged her wing, before hauling her body up through a particularly obnoxius convoluted passageway, twisting right round before popping out of the small hole at the far end and landing flat on her face on the floor. Picking herself up and dusting herself off, Dash looked round at the large hexagonal chamber. On each of the walls was a large circular door, each with a number from one to six on it, made up of lots of varying sized protrusions. In middle of each door, far higher than standing height for such a little pony, was a large spoked wheel. Dash humphed as she looked round. "Dont tell me, what I seek lies behind one of these doors. Now, what else did Twilight say? When six have turned around, so shall the flyer, or lose? No way am I losing to any dumb test." Dash flew up to the wheel in the centre of the door marked six, placed her hooves on it, and heaved. Nothing happening, she used her wings to try and turn it, first one way, then the other. Frustrated, she tried kicking, then flydrop kicking it. Flying backwards holding her aching hoof, Dash glared at the non moving obstacle. "Fine, if thats the way you want it." She backed right up to give herself a good run up, and bumped into the wheel on the next door over, the one marked one. It slipped round under her impact, making her drop almost to the floor. Dash whirled round, then slowly climbed back to the height of the wheel, glaring at it. "You mean to tell me, that I have to open ALL SIX doors? Oh come on. thats going to take ages. fine then, be that way." Dash grabbed hold of the wheel, and turned it hoof over hoof.
Slowly, as she turned the wheel, Dash noticed the noises coming from all around the chamber, clicks and pings,humming and rumbling, as various parts on all the other doors moved, the numbers on them dissolving slightly further with each turn. Finally, after six full rotations of the central wheel, the numeral one on Dashs door stands upside down, the wheel refusing to turn any further. Grumbling, Dash looked round to the next door, only to see that the numeral 2 on it was now unrecognisable. Heading over, she gave the centre wheel a quick test, then whacked it with her hoof when it refused to turn. "Now wha? Oh, you have got to be kidding me." She groaned as she glanced at the next door along, which origionally had the numeral three on it, and now had the numeral two. Sighing heavily, Dash flew over to the now door number two, and started spinning the central wheel. Again, there were various noises of complex machinery moving, but glancing over, she noticed the first door number was no longer moving, even though portions continued to alter. Finishing with the second door, she looked round, then flew accross to door number five, now displaying the numeral three, worked the mechanism steadily, before moving to the next door, now displaying the numeral four, back accross the room to the origional second door, now with the numeral five formed on its face, finally reaching the door on the opposite side to her start position, with the numeral six on it. "This, had really, really be worth it." Dash spat on her hooves, and started spinning the wheel. Very quickly she noticed that this door was behaving differently, as it slowly rotated as a whole, the numeral six turning upside down to form a numeral nine, as beams of light pierced through openings forming in four of the other doors, picking out certain points on the door, to create a pattern, an image. Panting slightly as she finished the absolute final turn with a flourish, Dash hovered backwards slowly to look at the image forming in front of her, first the head and jaws of a timberwolf, gaping wide, either side a set of wings that seemed to change from bat to dragon to dragonfly as she moved her head, the fluffyness on its head ignored at first, until she realised it was a headdress, a sheep. At this moment, as she backed up through the exact centre of the room, light shone in through the now open number one door behind her, and illuminated the eyes of the image, making them glow red.
Dash hurridly looked round as her ears picked up the sudden sound of a whumph, whumph, echoing through the room, and darted out through the now open door one, down a short passageway, coming out onto a balcony halfway up a giant cavern. High above, she could see light coming in through a gap in the top wall, and followed it with her gaze down to the cavern floor. There, right in the centre of the illumination, stood a timberwolf. It took but instants for Dash to realise there was something seriously wrong. The timberwolf glistened in the sun, the light reflecting off its metal form. The dragonfly wings on its back were moving, flapping up and down, steadily getting faster and faster, making the sound Dash had heard previously, but without increasing much in volume. As Dash gulped at a sudden horrible thought, a red glow appeared on the wall of the cavern that the wolfs head was pointing at, as if it had suddenly opened it great glaring red eyes, its wings rapidly increasing their speed, until a ghostly scream echoed through the space. Dashs eyes opened wide as the wolf jumped into the air with a clunk, its legs folding up beneath it, steadily climbing until it reached the level of the balcony, rotating slowly as it climbed, its baleful red gaze coming to a halt on Dash. "Um, hi?" Dash waved uncertainly at the giant mechanical wolf hovering with extreme finality in front of her, then gulped as the jaws gaped wide, and a flicker of light started to form deep in its throat. "Uh Oh." Dash shot upwards as fast as she could as the fireball erupted from the wolfs jaws, shot right down the passageway she had just come from, reflected from the room beyond, and just hit the underside of the wolf as it climbed rapidly out of the way. Dash looped over and back down, coming to a halt just in front of the Wolfs nose. "Hey, give a pony some warning enxt time," and she held herself in the air with her wings as she rapidly kicked out with her hind hooves, the drumming impacts ringing through the cavern. With a last backflip, she caught the wolf just under its front edge, making it rear back slightly, before spinning round it vertically a few times, then heading for the way out. Turning quickly as it climbed, the wolf closed it jaws, and started sending much smaller fireballs rapidly after the dodging and weaving Dash, following her steadily upwards towards the exit.
Dash erupted from the concealed mouth of the cave, shortly followed by the wolf machine, which then proceeded to easily follow Dash through her first attempts to throw it off, diving right down to the canyon floor, dodging trees and rocks, sliding hooves along the top of the water. Dash relaxed a little as she twisted hard in her low level flight through a narrow corner in the canyon, turning over onto her back so she could watch behind. Her eyes widened in shock as the wolf also flew through the narrow gap, its wings ponting stright up and down, its hard claws gouging long score marks in the rocky wall, before bouncing the underside of its body off an outcrop, sending dust and rocks tumbling to the valley floor. "Yikes", Dash managed to get out, as she flipped round and shot off as fast as she could down the next section of canyon, the wolfs metal teeth just snipping the very end of her tail. Opening its jaws again, the wolf started to spit small fireballs rapidly after Dash, creating dotted lines to and fro across the canyon floor and walls as its speed quickly picked up once more. Dash easily moved out the way, and grinned as she spotted a split in the canyon up ahead, one side wide with long sweeping curves, the other narrow and overhanging, filled with fallen trees and boulders. Without hesitation she aimed for the wide branch, then pulled hard round in a complex curve. As she entered the narrow chasm, Dash flicked rapidly from side to side, impacting on the lower part of two large piles of boulders and a precariously tilted tree, causing them to slowly collapse behind her. The wolf reached out with its jaws to try and bite her once more but got caught in her vortex, and spun rapidly round, its tail hitting the canyon wall, more rocks falling, bouncing off the metal pipes forming its body, before it managed to recover, and follow after Dash in a long low sweeping curve, with two barrel rolls and a simple bump to avoid the falling debris, the low ghostly thrumming of its wings echoing and amplifying in the narrow twisting canyon.
"Lets see you handle this, you pile of scrap metal you", Dash called over her shoulder as she gloried in swooping round the various obstacles encountered as she flew down the deadly chasm. The wolf machine didnt even slow down as it entered the obstacle course after Dash, manouvering not quite as fast or as much, just brushing against more surfaces due to its much greater size, but slowly starting to gain on Dash as she thought she had it easy. Dash Yiped in suprise as she looped vertically around one giant treetrunk jammed right across the canyon, threading through gaps far too small for the wolf to follow, and came upside down face to face with the gaping fire filled jaws of the wolf, which rapidly fired off three huge fireballs at the obstacle, leaving Dash little choice but to keep going down and around, under the massive tree even as it started to shatter and collapse around her, leaving a gaping hole large enough for the wolf to move through. Moving a lot faster now, Dash twisted and turned, as the wolf switched between rapid small fireballs and larger, slower and far more destructive fireballs that collapsed trees and rock stacks, throwing up clouds of dust and steam as they hit the stream and canyon floor, making Dash hold her leg in front of her face to try and keep the grit out of her eyes. Up ahead, Dash just made out a covered rail bridge spanning the canyon halfway up, from tunnel to tunnel, with ledges and rock folds either side. Grinning as wide as she could, Dash zoomed tightly up one rock wall, flipped up and over into one end of the bridge just as the wolf started its climb after her, then sticking close to the track then rock she shot through the bridge, out the far side, then climbed rapidly high into the air following a tiny rock chimney. As the metal wolf eased onto the ledge, then edged into the bridge to scan its roof and structure for its target, Dash zoomed out of the top of the rock fault, curved slowly over high up, then accelerated downwards as hard as she could to impact on the very centre of the bridge roof with a Sonic Rainboom. Out of the rainbow mushroom cloud and exapnding ball of metal and wood debris, Dash zoomed down almost to the canyon floor before pulling up to head for the end at a more leisurely pace, before switching back to extreme acrobatics once more as small fireballs erupted around her as the flying machine tumbled out of the debris field and started firing at her even while is straightend out. With a last set of rapid switchbacks, Dash managed to just avoid getting hit by the collapse of a sequence of five interlocking side stacks brought down by a combination of direct hits by large fireballs and the increasing vibration in the canyon as the bridge destruction caused multiple falls, and streaked out into the circular tree filled valley beyond, trailing smoke and dust from the giant cloud totally obscuring the end of the canyon.
Dash hugged the giant tree tightly as she carefully watched the airborne wolf machine emerge at speed from the massive dust cloud, then followed its path up and up as it climbed and slowed, until it was hovering steadily over the very centre of the valley. As the machine slowly started to rotate on the spot, as if looking round the entire valley, Dash stayed on the ground, and slowly slipped from tree to tree, trying to sneak back under and around behind the destructive device above. "Which adventure was it that Daring Do had to deal with an unstoppable fire throwing flying mechanical monster?" Dash muttered to herself, then clapped her hooves to her mouth as there was a blast of wind behind her, a dull thunk as of a particularly giant fireball heading towards its target, and a sudden wash of light and flame as she dove forward and rolled again and again to throw off the bits of leaves and twigs that pattered all around burning gently. Groaning lightly and panting somewhat as she rested against another tree, Dash looked up to see the wolf hovering much lower now, its glaring red eyes sending beams into the tree tops, glinting off the forest floor. Once again, she tried moving off, wincing each time the device above spat small fireballs into the forest, sending showers of leaves and branches around, occasionally brushing her wings or tail as she barely got out of the way in time. It wasnt very long before Dash found herself back at the giant tree, and realised that the wolf in the air had been herding her the entire time, even as it settled down to hover in the mainly cleared area the far side of the trunk, the tongues of flame being beaten down by the draught, the light flickering off the harsh metal tubular structure. Dash took a deep breath, drew herself up to fly like never before, then threw herself to the ground, curled up tight, as the entire forest in front of her disintegrated under the impossibly relentless storm of miniature fireballs spewing from the monsters jaws the other side of the giant tree, which shuddered constantly under the onslaught. Her ears ringing from the din, it took Dash a few moments to realise that the cacophany had ceased, and she looked up carefully, firstly at the remains of trees and leaves and branches ahead of her, then edging her head round the giant trunk that had sheltered her, at the gaping, fire laden jaws of the monster that was well along in its preparations to totally destroy her sheltering guardian. Even as the giant fireball was leaving the machines jaws, Dash was almost screaming for the entrance to the canyon, the smoke there clearing slowly. She didnt see as the fireball lifted the tree out of the ground, causing it to topple towards the wolf, which only barely managed to spin and dodge out of the way, the outlaying branches striking it on the back, its tail digging into the ground, its back legs pushing down hard to lift it back into the air, staggering for a moment before straightening out and heading rapidly once more after the horrified pegasus pony.
Dash squeezed the tears from her eyes as the cloud of dust she streaked through irritated them, racing down the narrow twisted canyon as the nightmare machine behind her slowly started to gain even with its manouvering, it having destroyed all obstacles on the way in. Reaching the canyon junction, she swooped right round from one side of the canyon to the other, and started heading up the other branch, steadily increasing her speed. "Lets see you handle a Sonic Rainboom, junkheap." she called over her shoulder, her eyes narrowing as the machine roared out of the other canyon, went completely upside down as it looped round, and straightened out not only in flight, but also in form, its legs stretching out for and aft, just like Dash had done, its neck extending, its head lowering, forming a claw tipped point, aimed directly at her. Dash snapped her head back round, and accelerated hard along the canyon, the shockwave already starting to form ahead of her outstretched front hooves. Slowly swinging from side to side to follow the long curves of the canyon walls, her speed increasing almost to the point of forming the Rainboom, she closed her eyes at the sudden horrendous prolonged howl of the hunter behind her, accompanied with the multicoloured ring flare of its own sonic fireboom reflecting blindingly off the canyons many coloured walls, making it appear as if she was barreling down a tunnel of flame, even as her own Sonic Rainboom occured and she left the flame behind her. Risking a quick glance behind her, Dash gulped, and pushed herself even harder than before, slowly increasing the gap that had almost closed completely between her and the now burning claws behind. Straining to get round a near complete loop in the canyon, her vision narrowed, the colours flickering in and out, the erie howl of the hunting beast behind getting slowly louder once more as it echoed off the walls, clouds of dust filling the chasm behind. Ahead, Dash barely had time to see the canyon opening up into another giant circular arena, filled with dense forest, befoe she was pulling up desperatly to avoid even the thinnest of tree tops. Behind her, the wolfs passing flattened a tapering path through the trees as it also pulled up, following Dash high into the air.
Dash ached, Celestia how she ached, her body ached, her tail ached, her wings really ached even as she pushed herself ever harder, faster, higher, here hooves ached so much she could almost see the smoke starting to stream from the edges. She blinked, with great difficulty, her speed making her eyes tear up constantly, as she realised her hooves were smoking, as her vision grew more and more constrained and uncoloured, her bright body draining from hooves to outstretched tail, just as the mechanical hunter caught up, its colours also draining, as a huge double grey boom flashed out accross the sky from them both. Dash closed her eyes tightly as she thought of loosing the race, of loosing her freinds, her speed dropping rapidly as exhaustion overtook her far more rapidly than the identically coloured machine now tracing her climb high into the heavens. Above, the Grey Boom shock halted as it brushed up against the daytime sun on one side, then to the shock of many ponies far accross Equestria, the moon as it also appeared in the day sky. Missing the greatest event staged by Celestia and Luna by slipping further into tiredness and unconciousness as her speed continued to take her higher, Dash never saw the total solar eclipse against which she was protected from the full heat of the sun, never saw the flare of light from the diamond ring around the moon that spread beams of colour accross the sky, returning her colour to her body, mane and tail, striking the machine, its glaring red eyes fading to brilliant white, its grey green body turning to a brilliant yellow. Dash fell, plummeting from the ultimate heights, down, down, her body back first, legs, head, mane, tail all trailing after. The wolf remained pinned in place by the rapidly increasing light from the sun, as the moon pulled away once more and stately made its way back accross the sky to rest for its night time duties. Only after Dash had landed in the trees, the dust had settled, things were once more quiet, was the machine, now stripped of its destruction, but still with its senses, dropped out of the sky, until it recovered its flight, slowing down eventually to hover and then fly slowly accross the tree tops.
The beams of white light stabbed down to the forest floor, flickering as leaves and twigs fluttered in the draught, pausing on a likely object, before moving a short distance to the next, following the trail of damage left by Dash as she dropped through the trees to the densly carpeted forest floor. Slowly, the machine wolf lowered itself down in the clearing, as close to the edge in which Dash was draped over a tree trunk, a branch accross her back, as it could get, then carefully padded forwards. Reaching its neck forward, the giant jaws closed steadily on one end of the branch, and slowly bit through, letting the branch lift clear of Dashs unconcious form. Shaking its head to remove various bits, the mechanism carefully pushed its nose under Dashs head, then bounced her streadily off the tree trunk, over its head, along its nexk, until she was draped accross its back, behind its wings. Backing up gently, the machine made extra sure it was clear all round, before slowly moving its wings, faster and faster, until it once more lifted into the air, turning to fly back down the canyon, back towards its lair, towards Dashs freinds, towards the gigantic thunderstorm that was rapidly forming from the fires and the dust and the various booms and the completely unique eclipse, from the magic gone wild and wanting to settle things. The thunderstorm grumbled angrily as it grew and grew, following the tortured sign of magic abused, following the narrow canyon just before the slowly flying machine appeared in the wider branch, sucking up the small loose debris on the way up, before rotating and tightening in the closed fire filled valley at the end, sucking up far more debris, some not quite so loose as it moved more rapidly back down towards the junction. The machine paused at the narrow twisting gap through which it had flown so precipitously not all that long before, then settled to the ground, and edged through on paw, its tail brushing against the side and dissapearing from sight just as the now annoyed thunderstorm bounced out of the narrow canyon, around the junction a few times, then set off down the other wider branch, dissapearing into the distance, moving far faster, but growing more slowly.
On the far side of the narrow defile, the machine checked its passenger, carefully took to the air, and once more proceeded along the canyon slowly, rising up partway to scan for entrances to the labyrinths below. At the moment the machine spotted a place high up on the side with an area large enough to land on, clear enough for it to land safely, the thunderstorm hit the valley at the far end of the wide canyon, and the intense magical field left twisted and distorted there, and sucked it, and several trees up, before returning with a vengence down the canyon, picking up dust and water only in passing, gaining speed with every passing moment. The machine landed on the ledge carefully, then padded towards the small tunnel at the back, gently sliding Dash off its back, along its neck, over its head, and behind a protective outcrop of rock to the side. Dash groaned as awoke to a pounding headache, sore ribs, hot hooves, and other assorted aches and pains associated with pushing herself far further than she should have. Glancing up, her eyes widened, then narrowed as she tried unsucessfully to climb to her hooves. "Go ahead, just chomp me already, if you can. I might not have won, but I drew, and you know it." She called out defiantly. The mechanical wolf, as always, said nothing, but opened its jaws. Dash threw her front leg up in front of her eyes, and waited for immolation, not noticing the wind rapidly picking up around them, then slowly, after a few moments, lowered it, and looked up at the quietly waiting wolf. In its mouth she saw a medal, a rainbow ribbon, an octagonal flat disc of diamond crystal, with her head, a large numeral one, and the words, The Greatest Flyer, Loyal And True. Along the bottom edge was the cryptic number 47805. Dash, incredulous, unsteadily reached out, and picked up the medal on the second try. Blearily she looked more carefully at it, seeing her freinds faces spaced around the side. "Thats it? After trying to kill me I dont know how many times, thats it? All this was just a stupid test? Get out of here, and take this lousy Medal with you." Dash threw the medal at the wolfs head, where it left a gouge as it bounced off and landed back in the tunnel behind her, the wolf slowly backing up, its wings starting to move rapidly once more, ready to take off. As Dash dragged herself onto her feet, she was blown back off them first by a sudden gust of wind from the side, then back towards the tunnel by the wolf leaping into the air.
The thunderstorm howled in triumph as it finally caught up with its prey, the abuse of magic that was causing it so much discomfort from picked up materials, wind shears, massive rapid lightning discharges, reflected, aimed back at the machine that was still only moving slowly away from the wall. Dash ducked behind a large rock as fat bolts of white hot lightning struck the wall arund her, crawling along the wall, then accross the space betweent the canyon walls, trying to catch the flying wolf in a web of light. Dash was pushed back to the tunnel mouth as the entire top of a tree filled her vision with leaves for only a moment before being torn away again by the rapidly increasing wind, then blinked as she couldnt see anything due to the dust and rocks and leaves streaming by. Slowly crawling her way to the edge of the entrance, Dash did her best to look over the rocks at the edge of the cliff at the scene below. The wolf machine barely appeared through the clouds and fog as it dodged and wove and spun and rose and fell, showing off an agility far beyond its size. As it slowly moved its way further away from Dash, she slowly regained her breath, then her strength, then realising the difference between the storm and the machine changed from cheering for the machine getting hurt by the storm, to cheering for the machine surviving the storm. Just as she thought it had finally managed to get away, diving down to the valley floor in a clear spot, a vast cloud of fog and lightning closed around it. Blinded by an immense lightning bolt from within the fog, Dash held her hooves to her ears at the stupendous clap of thunder, then lowered them slowly as a tortured howl echoed through the entrance, ended by a sickening crunching sound, a short pause, then a dull thump, and a large fireball slowly climbing up the far wall for only a short distance before being shreaded without mercy by the winds.
Dash held on to the rocks as the thunderstorm, its magic now dissapating, slowly grumbled and rumbled to itself in satisfaction, zapping a few small tress with several last lightning bolts. As things calmed down enough for her to look down, to make sure she hadnt heard what she had, the fog and clouds and dust swirled, letting her see a single weak blue-white light brightening and dimming irregularly. On the rocks and trees surrounding its broken form, shadows seemed to gather, hissing and clawing, but fled as the shadow of a pony flickered into existance. Dash stared, then rubbed her eyes, yes, she was sure there was a shadow, but there was no pony there to make the shadow. As she blinked and squinted through the swirling fog, the shadow approached the downed machine, and seemed to rest a hoof on the remaining light. For a few moments, the light grew brighter and brighter, a pure blue, to the point where Dash was sure she saw a pony where no pony stood, before suddenly going out. For a few moments, everything was still, then, an agonised howl like nothing she had ever heard before rose and rose louder and louder, echoing and building between the canyon walls. Dash ran. She didnt even remember picking up the medal as she raced faster than her feet had ever carried her before, down into the labyrinths, away from what she didnt want to know behind her, towards her freinds. After a while, as she finally slowed to a walk, she looked at the medal, and finally slipped the ribbon over her head.
"It was just a machine."
"It"
"Was"
"Just"
"A"
"Stupid"
"Machine."
"So why am I crying."
Author's Note
I got the idea for this, on asking the simple question.
How would the fastest, most agile pegasus in Equestria, fare again the fastest, most agile battlecopter on Earth.
First completed 20120813. Fluttershy and The Golden Condor partially wrote, Rarity and Twilight sketched out, Applejack psychological, and Pinkie is probably playing with portals.