Bronze Tiara

Chapter twenty-four

‘So… what was step two!?’ Bronze asked herself as the wings reciprocated against the wind, trying to determine if the heat coming her way was from the thermal vents below, or the fire it wielded. ‘Fire!’ the smell of her scorched hairs told her that much, and the mare banked letting the rest of the gust of flames pass by.

Most of the DDR in this part was made up from what gave that mine its sweltering temperatures. Vents bellowed up steam from what little water managed to enter from nearby Aquaphor’s. While amongst the various cracks and crevasses that dotted around her, resided magma flows that trickled out and created their own crust across the lands of the dogs.

They were known for their ore after all, and that all had to come from somewhere in the end… and while the dogs might have called it home, Bronze could think of a few better words to describe it.

‘Yes Patches, by all means, ban me from coming to this hellhole,’ she thought how that could even be considered a punishment, ‘This is the exact reason why no creature, save you mutts, can stand this place!’

Seeing from the corner of her eye the tell tail glow of its eyes not far off from her. Both herself and her creation glared at one another, as the energy trail leeched out. Puncturing the sauna like air, and leaving clear holes in the haze from vaporizing the humidity.

Rising higher away from the vents, even after only climbing a dozen feet or so, Bronze could feel the air temperature drop degree by degree. Between those clouds that held aloft over the fiery terrain, both fliers punched through puffs of moisture that were allowed to build up. Each one putting distance between, as the nimbler of the two used those moments of secrecy to bend, dodge, and weave her way out of sight enough to buy herself some time.

Stopping inside a lone cloud, the wisps of humidity licked away most of the heat that built up from being in the mines, and the flight over literal lava. A welcome sensation for sure, and while the cooler air this high up met the steam that was given off from below in places, any clouds that might had dissipated from their disturbance quickly reformed. Giving both the ground shade, and the mare cover from her pursuer.

Panting from strained breaths, the cooler air helped quell her sweltering lungs, and give her the moment she needed. ‘Three… no, four shots,’ she checked over from the launcher across her back, slung right next to the rifle still. Though the latter would do next to nothing to her creation unless she got close, ‘and with its extra plating… would this even be enough?’

A gust of wind cleared some of the cloud cover she harbored in, exposing her back to the metallic dragon. Instantly, before it could get a bead on her, with a locking of her wings the entire body weight of the mare dropped down. Watching as the hollow air she resided in seconds before, went up in flames from its gullet.

Fanning her wings out, Bronze got closer to the ground. Dodging between some of the stone pillars, her creation crashed through them as if they were a stack of dishes. Sections of stone landed around her, some super-heated from the ground below and broke apart on contact. Showering the mare in secondary shrapnel that caked and blocked her vision.

Never letting her see the next stone block that had come into view.

“Arrgh!” Bronze nearly bit through the lining of her lips, feeling the reverberation of metal against stone twist something out of place in the joint, and what held it to her shoulder. Skipping across the hot stones didn’t help matters, and as she slowly rose back to her limbs. The wing dropped down to her side.

With her creation overshooting its mark from her sudden halt, the mare took a second to look it over as it tried to turn around. ‘Twisted joint… not destroyed, but not something I can take care of now,’ her eyes snapped too, watching the dragon do a strafing run against where she resided. Blanketing parts of the ground in flames that matched the molten stone below the surface.

And not too far below it was.

Even through metal limbs, the heat still carried itself up to her chest faster than she’d expected. Making the mare wonder just how thin this plate of hardened lava actually was. A measurement she didn’t want to find out the hard way, ‘though I can’t fight this damned thing grounded…’ she looked around for anything to give her an advantage, before leveling on one of those stone columns that struck her.

If she couldn’t fly, she’d just have to ground it as well.

Tucking her wings to her side, Bronze galloped across the surface towards one of those very pillars that still resided upright. With a leap, the mare found herself at least a few feet off from the base, and with her talons dug in to the stone. She started making her way up along its face to the top.

All the while, the mare kept a close eye as her creation turned back towards her, and started flapping ever faster. Eying the stone she resided on, Bronze watched it get closer, as its broad shoulder collided with its surface. Scattering both rock and a single pony in the air.

As if by reflex, said pony reached out, and grasped on to the first thing she could. In her talons, she saw one of the plate edges that lined its whole body… a place right where she needed to be. Putting one talon over the other, Bronze picked her way from its center back up to the shoulder blades.

And the joints that held its wings.

“I said, heel!” she whipped the rifle out from her back, and lodged the muzzle in to the joint she crafted all those moons ago.

One round wouldn’t have done much, a full clip would barely make a dent. Though with the trained talons of the mare at the trigger, several full loads went in to the hinge. Each one that followed doing more damage than the last, and in time something finally gave way in her favor. Hearing the pop of its rivets, followed by many more, Bronze held on as the joint itself released. Throwing not only its wing off its rhythm, but also causing the two of them to drop back upon the ground.

Skipping over the surface like a stone, the mare snapped her attention to the one that fell with her. Sure enough, without the tightness of the rivet holding it down, the wing was allowed to dangle along its chest. Slowly the dragons’ head turned from its injury, back to the mare responsible, and even she couldn’t help but smirk at her creation. If it could growl, she imagined it would have roared by now.

Though with each step that it took in ever growing anger, something else happened that made Bronze cock her head. From its massive claws digging in to the crust beneath, she watched in places cracks begin to form as wisps of smoke trailed their way between the broken seal. The surface was far thinner than she imagined.

Giving her an idea…

“So… this is where it led…” the mare knew it had to understand somethings she was saying, especially after all the work she had done. Although if it could lay some sort of trap by collapsing the tunnel behind them, and get fed up enough to chase her alone. Taunting had to amount to something, especially if it was part of her own soul she was fighting, “The creator looking upon their creation, with nothing but regrets…”

Envious beams leeched from its eyes, as the automaton arched its head up along to where the mare was. Scampering out of the way, Bronze watched as it kept burning in to the crust, kicking up sections along with it. Yet, even with her dodge, it didn’t let up until another few seconds later.

‘Can it not see when it does that?’ she asked, putting that in her back pocket for later, “You’re nothing but a monument to my mistakes,” Spat the mare, hoping to bring another lash of anger from it.

To which the dragon did, using the same ray spell to sweep even further out around where the mare once stood. This time Bronze had more of a run for her money, as even its random trails that it left broke apart sections of the crust exposing the super-heated air below. One vent washed across her exposed stomach, burning off part of her coat and certainly scorching her underbelly.

Bronze forced herself to clench nearly every muscle in her body to stifle a grunt, not wanting to give it any sense of where she might be in the maze of rock. Readying the launcher, a pillar just near enough to her target fell through her sights. With a squeeze of the trigger, the rounds chemical reaction took over, sending it streaking through towards the stone.

The dragon might have watched it pass by itself as the ray cut off, but after it did, its eyes turned once again towards the mare. Never catching the intended target behind. Blowing out a chunk of stone, the rock face fell towards the crust, and the drake underneath. With the combined weight of all its metal, plus a stone hammer smacking upon it. Much of the crust below gave way, dropping the dragon down a few feet as even more vents opened up.

Bronze grinned to no one but herself for the point she struck on the scoreboard, as she kept an eye out for the next one. Before feeling another jet of heated air run across her flank. Leaping up with a yelp from her throat, the mare turned back and looked as part of her leg remained now already laden with singed hairs and boils from where it went. Leaving a section of her cutie mark torched off from the gasses.

Turning to, her yelp garnished attention from the other, and sure enough its own gust of flames raced upon her. Ducking back behind another column, Bronze watched as duel spouts of fire broke along the sides of her, cut in half from the stone. Even through the rushing sound of its attack, the steady rumbling under her talons still vibrated up to her chest, and with every second they were getting bigger.

Opening up the breach, a new round was loaded up in the launcher, as Bronze slung it across her shoulder once more and faced the rock. Grabbing hold to what she could, steadily she scurried her way up along and leaping up to the top. Landing upon the flattened surface, she looked down to see her very creation having moved closer to the pillar with every second of breath it laid upon her.

Just as she saw it, it saw her and shut its maw. By that point though, the mare was already in the air falling towards it, and just behind her she let the next rocket loose from its tube. With its attention to the mare landing upon its back. The column fell towards the dragon, neatly smacking it across its armored skull and causing the crust below to fall apart ever more.

As the stone passed from hitting its face, the next hit to come was the crumbling ground below. Having already broken a bit from the weight of the creation, and the stone before falling. This was the straw that broke the ponies back. Crashing next to its claws, the column punctured through the even now weakened base, causing a jarring shake to be felt by both Bronze and the construct she still stood on top of.

Already she could feel the sinking, and with another mighty crack, the crust gave way.

Her construct fell a few feet before finally hitting the molten stone that flowed below. Wildly it started thrashing its own claws around, trying desperately to get hold of the outer edge. Yet with its sheer weight alone, all it got in return were handfuls of crumbling stone. With nothing to pull itself free, the bulk of the automaton weighed it down further forcing it to sink in to the flow. Bronze galloped along its spine, trailing down to its tail that just barely started to go over the edge and join the rest of the body.

Wishing she had her wings right about now, the mare leapt, holding out her talons and smacking against the ledge of broken crust. Looking down to it, the dragons claws scrapped deep into the sides of the crevasse. Only the lighter figure of the mare kept herself from the same fate, as she watched its skull soon hit the lava, and they passed one another a glare. She could hear it wanting to screech from the pain it imagined, but all the mare could do was sigh and hold her talons tight.

Leaving it to sink below the surface.

After breathing a sigh of relief, Bronze pulled the rest of herself up and over the edge as it scraped against her tender belly. Stumbling to her hooves, and just barely able to stand after breathing in the noxious fumes. She’d managed to get a few dozen feet from the hole that opened up. Nearly tripping over herself like a drunken sailor, the mare fell flat on her back. Ignoring the heat that pulsed through her body from the contact, that sense of everything in her body feeling wrong told the mare one thing…

She was alive.

“Huh… hehe… ha… hahahahaha!” maybe it was the fumes of the sulfur getting to her system, or she saw just how far she’d come in the matter of a few months, but no matter the case. Bronze found herself nearly hysterical, ignoring the burning that came from her back and the rock underneath.

Hotter tears fell down her face, as the smoke around went to work on her ducts. Yet even with that, it wasn’t what brought her back to reality. A furious cough leapt out of her throat, causing the mare to nearly wrench up half her lung in the process. Instead, a thick black wad of saliva was cast from her lips as she laid back on the ground.

“… I need a vacation…” Bronze groaned once.

Before the plate where she rested broke up from beneath her.

Scrambling up to her hooves, the talons dug in to the softer crust and helped push her along its surface. Behind her more gave way in to the flow just under its shell, and along her sides Bronze could see the still molten sections of lava thrown about as they landed against the ground and started to darken from cooling.

One splattered a bit too close, peppering a side of her torso and neck in bee sized pellets of the taffy like stone. “Motherbucker…!” she grinded her teeth together.

Opting to take one of her talons and pluck off some of the pellets that already hardened to her coat. Bronze looked over the stone, knowing they’d have to be cut out, and not looking forward to the healing it would take to patch her up.

Yet that would be the least of her concerns.

The crunching of the surface nearby garnished her eyes to look towards where the crust had broken apart, and there her creation crawled out from the depths of Tartarus. Its former glory of the golden plates long gone, now replaced with charred sections that looked like over tempered steel. Segments of it were missing, broken off from where the rivets that held them on gave way.

Even parts of its original body didn’t escape the intense heat from the flows. As a few claws of its own were left missing or mangled beyond repair. An eye had dislodged somewhere along in its swim. While its lower jaw having been held on with similar rivets, just bigger, didn’t fare any better. The weight pulled it down off the rest of its skull, only to join those sections lost to the trickery of the mare.

A true hollow suit, compared to what she originally created.

“What do you want from me!” Bronze threw her talons up towards the sky, hoping for some answer, before moving away from the path of its single ray attack that shot from its eye.

Instantly the launcher was taken from her shoulder and pointed not towards it, but the ground below. Hoping for the same outcome, and that one more dip in the lava lake would finish it off. The mare let loose the trigger, perfectly aiming it along the crust… only to have it get swatted out of the air by a claw from the beast.

The dragon held it steady, letting the propellant run out, as the warhead itself went off in its grasp. Those digits that held on, now were tattered even more from the heat damaging them. Yet, by the dull expression on its face, it could have cared less. The only thing that filled it’s one eye was the mare before it.

Bronze saw inside its throat start to glow, and already started beating her legs against the surface, putting any distance she could away from the flames it spewed. At the same time, the launcher was loaded up with another round… her last one.

‘Better make it count,’ she thought looking at her creation for something, anything to give her an advantage.

And there she saw it.

It wasn’t just the dragons’ limbs and jaw that suffered the effects of the heat. Part of its chest had also fallen apart. The massive weight it had packed on to act as an extra level of defense playing against it, and leaving part of it exposed.

Just like the diamonds in its chest that gave it life.

Bronze knew it wasn’t hot enough down there to melt the purest of stones, but it sure was enough to do something to it and the housing, maybe enough to make this matter. Turning her heels, instead of going away from it. To the beasts’ surprise, the mare started darting straight at it. Leeching out from its one eye, the ray traced ahead in her path.

Like a dancer, she twisted around it, and leveled the launcher up on her shoulder. Bronze knew she had to get in closer to it to prevent any block, and as she approached its spell died down, exposing her once more to its gaze. Coiling its hind, the tail flailed along towards her path, before finally breaking off of its own junctions and hurtling to her. As it slid across the surface scattering sections of crust, the mare leapt up and over, feeling the heat radiate off the metal.

And in one move she saw its neck line up with her, as the rubies in its gaping maw once again charged up, giving her an opening.

Like the trained talons of those gryphons she’d fought besides, Bronze lined the launcher up and let loose the munition. Just as its gems opened the spell, the rocket went down its gullet and past them. Square in to the stones that acted as its heart. Diamond might have been tough, and its melting point was far more than any pony could have hoped to create.

But enough heat damaged all things.

Lurching back against its claws, the drake looked down towards its exposed chest as the smoke of the warhead faded, and saw something that made even Bronze picture the fear in its eye. Cracks formed over parts of the stones inside it, failing from the pent-up heat it had endured, and continued to cook the rock as its metal shell acted as if an oven. Smaller sections of the stone broke off from every movement it took, leaving it to fall from its breast like broken glass. As even the housing that once held them all together as one… finally gave out.

Swiping its damaged limbs too and froe, Bronze tucked and rolled as best she could to avoid the wild swings that it threw in pure vexation. Already seeing full sections of the diamond give way and come breaking off from the cluster. With every motion it took, they got more erratic and slower. Before finally something gave way.

With a resounding pop that echoed through the crackling of lava, the flash from its chest sent an eruption of light washing over the mare beneath. Clenching its failing chest, it fell to the ground. Cracking against the surface with a resounding thud of mangled metal.

As it laid there, the one eye that functioned rested on that which had brought it down. Holding a damaged claw up, the dragon steadily tried to scrape itself against the crust towards its creator. Though as the energy fizzled out, the limb and its head dropped to the ground, mere feet from where she herself barely stood.

Bronze saw the eye still glowing, staring aimlessly at her. It didn’t have a soul to call its own, but even from its charred face, she could see the anguish it wore. One that only a creation could feel for being betrayed by its creator.

Kneeling down to its maw, Bronze held back a tear for its pain, pain that she helped give it. “Easy there…” like the soothing sound of a mother, the words fell off her tongue, “you can rest now.”

Her own tentative talon reached out, just like it had all those moons ago, and as she rubbed the bridge of its muzzle. Bronze swore she could feel it struggle to fight on, though just like she did back then. The mare leaned in and planted her lips on its bridge. Whatever movement it had left inside started to lock up, and that struggle was replaced instead with contempt, as the monstrosity of a spiteful mare surrendered.

Bronze gently broke away from the tender moment with her creation, and watched its subside, “good boy,” from that any fidget or motion of her creation halted… and the last remaining ember in the emerald fizzled out.

Joining it, the mare flopped alongside her downed mistake, and took in all the work she had put into it. Only to be the one that brought it down in the end. ‘Poetic… ain’t it,’ she thought and let gravity take over her eye lids, ‘I’m sorry… boy…’

***

Bronze didn’t know how long she had laid there. What felt like a few minutes could have been hours given the sheer number of fumes she had been inhaling, but the beating of wings from above brought her attention to the skies. There over top of her was a chariot, guided by a few gryphons in the harnesses keeping it aloft.

“So… this is hell?” it was a fair guess to be made for sure, given what she’d done in her life.

Though one thing told her that it wasn’t quite the end just yet, a familiar face, “You look like-” Bronze cut Freefall off with a raising of her talon, as he stepped off his ride while it landed beside her.

“Just get me out of this place… please,” she tried to get to her feet, but soon found her shoulders to be far heavier than she remembered.

Nearly eating dirt, Bronzes’ weight was held up by a wing wrapping around her torso, and there to her side was another she recognized. Frostfire didn’t even return the gaze at first, her eyes were too preoccupied with the remains ahead of them. “Is it…” the Sargent started off, but a question like that didn’t even need to be finished.

“This time… yes,” Bronze answered, as she was brought limping back to the chariot and up on its base.

There might not have been a medic to look after her wounds, but with this kind of transportation, the mare doubted it’d be far away. That left the weary mare to rest her head against something a bit cooler than the surface of a lava field.

In her serenity of the wind passing over top and breezing around, a lone hoof rest on her shoulder. When her eyes opened, she found the Sargent there with probably the first smile she’d ever seen on the mares’ face. “Congrats…” Frostfire about teared up, knowing it wasn’t all for nothing, “you made up for it…”

“To some…” her eyes turned up towards the broken Pegasus that joined them, as Free kept his eyes forwards. This being the closest he’s been to a true Pegasus in a while, “But I got a long way to go.”