The River Rising (Iota Force Issue #7)

Chapters

Chapter One: And the Rain Came Tumbling Down
Chapter Two: Slipping Under, Punching Through
Chapter Three: Hot, Cold and Wet Pursuit
Chapter Four: Crossing the Streams
Chapter Five: Thunder from Above, Fire from Below
Chapter Six: Icy Flight's Wild Flight
Chapter Seven: Buried Memories
Chapter Seven: Up the Airy Mountain
Chapter Eight: Down the Rushy Glen
Chapter Eight-Point-Nine: We Daren't Go A-Hunting
Epilogue: Depths
Prologue: Solid Facts and Liquid Ambitions

Chapter One: And the Rain Came Tumbling Down

You can always tell that it's going to be an interesting day when the thing that wakes you up is a thunderclap.

As Icy rose to consciousness, squeezing her closed eyes tighter in an ill-considered attempt to recapture sleep by expending more energy and feeling more pressure, she considered why this was. After all, most ponies lived in houses that either weren't at risk from a lightning strike or had lightning rods, so hearing thunder wasn't all that dangerous unless you were camping or didn't have a lightning rod on your house. Or possibly if you did, but your house was made of metal, which would mean your house was a lightning rod.

It could have been a racial-memory thing, she thought as she grudgingly opened her eyes, but that seemed a bit of a stretch. Particularly since it wasn't hard at all to sleep through a thunderstorm – if it was, there wouldn't be so many scheduled at night. Although that did bring up the fact that not all thunder served as an unwanted alarm clock. In fact, it usually didn't, as most were part of larger storms, meaning there was also pouring rain and howling winds to add to the cacophony. In theory, this may have made it even harder to sleep, but in reality it would invariably all blend into a largely amorphous soundscape and quickly fade to the background.

If anything, Icy had always found the pouring rain outside helped her sleep a little, since the fact that she could see it coming down but knew she was totally safe from it lent her a great sense of security. This hadn't even changed after her little... incident at the beginning of the year – a memory that made her shudder herself to consciousness even now. She was mostly fine with water coming down in reasonable amounts, she just didn't like seeing it when it pooled too deep.

Still, she refocused on her previous tangent – lightning didn't wake you up if it was part of a storm. Which, in turn, meant that any lightning that did wake you up must have happened when the weather was otherwise mild. This quite neatly answered the question of why being woken by thunder was such a mark of an interesting day – because a lightning strike on a clear day was an unusual event in and of itself.

Icy's eyes shot open as she realized that there had been a lightning strike on a clear day and that said day was going to be interesting. Interesting was not necessarily bad, but it was a possibility. Still, the thunder hadn't been loud enough to shock her upright immediately, so the strike must have been either moderate or far away. The sound of a massive bolt of lightning nearby would be a sign of a very bad day. Or, if it was close enough, a very short one.

Still, she trotted over to the window and stuck her head through, looking to the side to see what, if anything, she could see.

It seemed she was far from the only one concerned, as there were many other heads poking out of windows along her street and, in the cracks between the houses, she could see even more on other streets. Furthermore, everyone who had been walking down the road had turned to Icy's right. She could never remember what compass point that aligned to, but she knew that it was in the direction of the nearest edge of the town, where the Everfree began.

Turning to look in that direction, she couldn't see much – understandable considering that lightning was, by definition, as fast as lightning and the sound would have reached her long after the strike. Still, straining her eyes to see in the distance, she did see the top of a faint cloud of... something hovering above an area she knew was in the forest.

Squinting in confusion, she pulled her head back into her room and turned to the door. “Mom?” She called out, trotting into the corridor. “Mom, did you hear that?”

“Up here, Sweetie!” Icy heard her mother's voice from the other end of the corridor, where an open door showed the steep, spiral staircase that led to the attic.

Sighing a little, Icy walked over and began climbing the tall stairs one at a time. “Do you know what that was?”

“Afraid not,” Sunny Flight replied as Icy rose through the house. “Obviously a lightning strike – and a big one too, if we could hear it that loud from all the way in the Everfree – but I wasn't at a window when it happened. Didn't see the bolt... but I can sure see the result.

“Result?” Icy asked as she pulled herself up to the top of the stairs, silently wondering why her mother had been so insistent that their house have such a high attic.

Still, her stringent specifications had their advantage, as she had also insisted that the attic needed windows pointing in every direction, which was what was now allowing Sunny to look out in the direction the thunder had come from with a pair of binoculars.

“Uh huh.” She said, not taking the lenses away from her eyes. “See, the sound isn't the only reason I know it was big. You know Mount Foalja?”

“Um...” Icy thought – she knew she had heard the name, but couldn't place it.

“It was a small mountain in the Everfree.” Sunny looked away from the binoculars for a moment to give Icy a smiling, knowing glance before returning to looking out of the open window. “Key word: was. Looks like it's now the Foalja Plateau.”

Icy blinked for a moment, unsure how to parse that sentence. “Wait, what?” She trotted up to her mother and held a hoof out, silently asking for the binoculars.

Sunny nodded and passed them over, though she kept a hoof on them and, as Icy put them to her eyes, she guided their trajectory to point where she had been looking. “Looks like that strike completely blew off the top of the mountain.”

Icy's eyes widened as she saw that, indeed, the massive, slanted stone column she was looking at came to a head a little before it could reach its peak and instead stopped at a somewhat flat surface. Even now, minutes after the strike, there was a faint hint of stone dust in the air around where the summit used to be.

Icy took her eyes away from the binoculars, her mouth hanging open slightly. “Can... That can happen?”

Sunny looked out at the shortened mountain. “No. No, it can't, not even in the Everfree.”

There was a short silence between them as they contemplated the implications behind that.

Then, without warning, Sunny turned and began marching towards the stairs. “Honey, will you be okay on your own for a while? I'm heading to Town Hall for a bit... and maybe making another stop afterwards.”

Icy hurried to catch up to her mother. “You're going into the Everfree?” she asked, catching her mother's implication. “I thought you were retired.”

“Oh, I am and I don't know that I will,” Sunny replied as she began descending the stairs. “I'll decide that once I've talked it over with the relevant authorities – after something like that, you can bet that everyone with any authority or knowledge'll be there as well. I'm not looking to go out there, but we'll have to see.”

Icy nodded to herself as she bumped her way down the stairs behind her mother. “Okay, but if you do, be careful. I know you've got a lot of experience, but still, the Everfree's a dangerous place. Although,” she looked to her mother's rear half as it went out into the corridor below and focused on the stylized wing Marked on her flank, “I guess you wouldn't be walking through it anyway, huh?”

Sunny looked over her shoulder at her daughter, lighting her horn to begin gathering her things in the hallway below. “No, but not all threats come from my eye level. Would have thought you of all ponies would know that.”

Icy smiled as the two made their way down the main stairway of the house. “I guess.”

Sunny nodded. “Still, it may not be quite the most dangerous place on the planet, but it's certainly no pleasure walk.” As she came down to the ground floor, she began levitating over her various bags and accoutrements. “I'm not looking forward to going in there and if I do, I'll be careful, I promise.”

Icy giggled at how much her mother was sounding like the daughter in their relationship. “Okay, well then, have fun and be sure to be back by seven,” she said with mock worry.

“I will!” Sunny assured her as she opened the door. “See you later!”

As the door closed, Icy's eyes remained resting on it, her mind a curious combination of happy for her mother, amused at pretending to be the one who should worry and actually worrying a tiny amount.

Still, she soon dismissed the whole thing with a shake of her head and went to make breakfast.

She smiled as she hopped up onto the counter, reaching up to open the cereal cupboard. Her mother wouldn't be around this morning, so she took down the box of Wheatyblox.

Not that this was exclusive to times she was eating alone – while not the most flavorful of cereals, it was perfectly palatable and she had it sometimes even when her mother was there. What was different was that she then trotted over to another cupboard and pulled down a big bag of sugar.

On some level, Icy was sure her mother knew when she drowned her breakfast in sugar – her career had drilled into her to keep a close eye on one's supplies after all and it couldn’t have escaped her notice that the bag became somewhat emptier every time Icy made breakfast unsupervised. Presumably, she simply didn't begrudge Icy the extra energy, even if it did invariably only serve to fuel her frequent flights of fantasy. However, that didn't change that little feeling of naughtiness and secrecy Icy felt every time she poured a thick stream of sweetness onto the solid blocks in her bowl.

This morning, however, the feeling was interrupted by another boom coming from the window. It wasn't nearly as loud as the previous thunderstrike, but it was still enough to make Icy start and nearly upend the entire sugar packet over the countertop.

Shaking her head, she put the bag aside and went to get the milk. She looked out of the window as she passed it, but the sound had come from an angle where she doubted she could see anything and, indeed, the scene outside seemed fine.

She returned to her bowl and began pouring the milk. However, a moment after she did, she pulled it back, hearing droplets splashing everywhere.

She blinked in confusion as the flow of milk stopped but the sound remained. Looking up, she tilted her head when she saw what was making the sound – it had started to rain outside. This was a little odd; Icy didn't always keep up with the weather schedule, but she did know it was supposed to be sunny today – Winter Wrap-Up had only happened a week-and-a-half ago, so it wasn't nearly time for the real spring showers to start.

Still, she shrugged as she resumed pouring. It wasn't unknown for the schedule to change at short notice, even discounting the possibility of wild weather from the Everfree.

She frowned a little as she began to eat her breakfast. While she wasn't a suspicious pony by nature, a sudden weather change immediately after an impossibly big thunderbolt seemed like a bit of a coincidence. It didn't help that, as she ate, the sounds of the rain outside began to increase rapidly, soon becoming a full-on downpour.

Still, Icy's mind soon wandered off, thinking about the strike that had seemingly precipitated this precipitation. She'd heard of some incredible weather events, both real and fictional, but the idea of a lightning bolt big enough to blow the top off a mountain was something else entirely. What must it have been like? Was it thicker than normal, a wide guillotine of electricity slamming down on the mountain's head? Was it brighter than normal, carrying more volts or amps or whatever it was that made electricity more powerful, filling the rock with so much energy that it burst like a balloon? Was it simply faster than normal, smashing into the rock like a bullet and impacting hard enough to turn the summit into a crater?

By the time she was finished and washed up, she had an image of all three in her head and was hurrying up the stairs before she registered that she was, heading straight for her desk and the drawing supplies laid out on it.

She hopped into her chair and swooped one wing over the work surface, picking up her pencil as the other straightened the paper and held it down for her hoof to take the pencil to start drawing on it.

First, she made a rough sketch of a mountain – she didn't know Mount Foalja nearly well enough to specifically represent it and didn't feel like going up to the attic again to look at it, so a generic mountain would have to do – then covered the top with an explosion, drawing a few stray bolts of lightning around it to make clear what kind of explosion it was. Then, she drew her pencil down sharply to outline a bolt as thick as the mountaintop would have been, slamming down into the summit. She drew a few rough shapes around the explosion to represent where the rocks that had been sent flying would be. That completed the rough layout of the picture, meaning she had only to draw the thing in detail now.

Although, she did take a moment to sketch out the form of a pony floating above the bolt as well, giving the rough form the distinctive bucket-esque helmet of Magnetron and resolving to do the armour and cape later. Admittedly, she had no idea whether being the Master of Magnetism also extended to controlling and creating electricity, but then neither did most of the ponies writing him, so she wasn't that bothered by it. Besides, he was one of her favourite villains, so she figured there was nothing wrong with giving him a cameo.

Not wasting a moment more, she began to draw the mountain in earnest, as that was by far the most labour-intensive part of the picture. Time began to blur as she filled in the huge space with big boulders, jutting outcroppings and angular spines of rock. She even took the time to carefully rub her pencil over a few areas at differing pressures, creating depictions of gravel that were... passable, at least.

Still, she didn't pause to appreciate it as she began filling in the details of the explosion next, diligently embellishing every curve of smoke, fork of lighting and flying stone. Next came the bolt itself – a much simpler task, though she did take the time to shade it somewhat, making the fill thickest in the centre of the bolt before fading it out as it widened, giving a rather nice effect to it. Finally, she gave the hovering figure a few more details, small as he was, before putting down her pencils.

She took a moment to look over the picture, nodding in satisfaction. She was no Check Curvy or Steam Ditty, but she was decently proud of her efforts.

However, that same moment also brought her out of her state of focus just a little – enough to hear the constant sound that had been filling the backdrop throughout her entire drawing session. Looking up, she saw that the rain had increased even more in the – she checked her bedside clock and started slightly at the time given – hour and a half since her mother had left. It was now heavy enough that she was having difficulty seeing through it, resembling a monsoon more than the ordinary rainfall of a small town like Ponyville.

The sight sent a slight wave of nausea through her for a moment before she jerked her head to the side, looking away from it and squeezing her eyes shut. Since her near-drowning a couple of months ago, she had made some great strides in dealing with her aquaphobia... or so her mother and her therapist had said – she had a hard time feeling like she was any better off. Still, she knew on an intellectual level that she was doing better – she could stay in the bath for a short while, it just felt bad to.

Normal rain, of course, didn't bother her – it was only solid bodies of water that set off her anxieties. However, the sheer volume of the rain was just peeking over the edge of her phobia, ready to send her fleeing or collapsing in terror as soon as the multitudinous droplets were thick enough to merge. And that wasn't considering the flow of water down the street – something she was rather eager to not consider. She knew she wouldn't like to be out in that kind of weather... and then she remembered that her mother was or, at least, would most likely have to go out into it sooner or later. And she didn't have her wet weather gear.

Icy gulped as she realized what the right thing to do would be – gather said gear and bring it to her mother at the Town Hall. She took a deep breath, centring herself for a moment as she weighed her options.

She certainly didn't want to go out into the deluge if she could at all help it, as she was sure most ponies wouldn't. On the other hoof, that also applied to her mother, who couldn't even prepare for it. But then again, Icy did have more reason than most to stay inside and out of the water... she could certainly justify staying where she was. She was sure no one would judge her for it... except, that is, herself.

When she had first realized her little problem, she had sworn to herself that she wouldn't give in to it – she would find a way to overcome it and push through it. She wouldn't allow it to destroy her life in any way. Refusing to go out simply because something almost set her off would be both selfish and self-sabotaging at the same time. Half a year ago, she would have gone out there without a second thought. Well, she wouldn't have rushed out there, she'd have put on her own protective clothing first...

A thought flashed through her as she realized that she had something that might help. Rushing over to her wardrobe, she threw it open and pulled down her costume – a thick, heatproof, hooded bodysuit that, she had no doubt, was entirely waterproof among the many other protective enchantments layered onto it by Iota Force's resident costumier, À La Mode.

She silently thanked the tiny mare as she slipped the suit on. Not that it would matter – even if Mode could hear her, she was apparently still banging her head against a wall trying to figure out how to insert a deployable set of ice skates into the suit. The crash course Pinkie had given Icy up in the Crystal Empire meant that keeping a set of skates ready to be deployed was a worthwhile enterprise, but inserting a whole pair of ice skates into a suit was... a little tricky, to say the least. As such, for the moment, the suit simply had a tiny pack attached to its back containing a set.

Fortunately, that same pack had enough room for Icy to put her mother's waterproofs, as she gathered them all up from the garage and shoved them into the backpack. It took her a few minutes to find and stow everything, but soon enough she was at the door, stepping into her rain boots, taking a deep breath and opening the door.

To her slightly pleasant surprise, the rain had lessened somewhat in the minutes since she'd resolved to go out in it. Icy assumed that was the work of the weather team and, while that would seem to confirm that this rain wasn't their doing, it did help her peace of mind somewhat to know that there were professionals on the job.

Still, Icy took the tassels around the suit's neck and pulled them tightly, constricting the hood around her muzzle and reducing her field of view massively – she still wanted to see as little of what was going on as she could, so a little self-induced tunnel vision would definitely help.

She trudged out into the torrent, bracing herself for the unpleasant quivering that went through her limbs once the water started hitting her back. Fortunately, while she still definitely felt the impact of each drop, she felt neither the wetness nor the temperature drop, so it was only slightly different from being in a rain of sand or sleet. Which, admittedly, weren't things she was eager to go out in either, but it did help.

She moved slowly – while being unable to see much of the ground helped deal with her fears, it did mean she had to move carefully if she wanted to avoid tripping or slipping, either of which would send her plummeting into the very flow that she was trying to avoid looking at. This did mean that she would be out in the rain for longer, but she was still sure that the total anxiety she'd be feeling would be far less in the long run.

Of course, she couldn't be sure. Even if “feeling bad” was something that could be measured and quantified, Icy had never had the best sense of time and had absolutely no clue how long it would take her to get to Town Hall from her house. Still, she knew she'd get there sooner or later and, as she strode forcefully through the deluge, she thanked whoever was listening that there was no rush.

However, it seemed that whoever was listening resented not being thanked by name, as a loud sound made itself known through the continuous thumps of the rain – the loud, low, long ringing of a bell.

Icy started, looking up through the pouring water – even though she couldn't see the bell that had made that noise, the tone and direction told her that it was coming from her very destination. And that was a problem – when the town hall bell rang, it was the signal for an emergency.

Now, this was a problem on its own – by definition, every emergency is a problem, even if not every problem was an emergency. However, it also meant that the townsfolk were to gather at Town Hall, both for their protection and so they could be given whatever tasks would be needed to help. And while Icy was going in that direction anyway, the bell also implied that ponies should come as quickly as possible, something Icy wasn't planning on doing.

As she heard ponies hurrying out of their homes, fumbling and rustling with raincoats and boots, she also realized that she'd need to have a better view of things to avoid getting caught unawares by the rush. Which in turn meant loosening her hood and getting a fuller view of the rainstorm.

Icy snorted and stomped a quivering hoof in frustration. She stood stock still, not wanting to risk tripping over her own hooves when the sight hit her eyes. She reached a hoof up to her hood, ready to pull it back.

However, just before she touched the fur lining with her muddy hoof, a voice called down from above her:

“Icy! Would you like a lift?”

Icy raised her head as she heard Dinky's voice. Admittedly, it didn't help much considering her limited field of view, but it helped bring her back into the moment a little quicker. “Er, sure?” She said, a little confused about how Dinky could give her “a lift”. The little filly was skilled at manipulating time, sure, but she wasn't nearly strong enough to lift another pony, physically or magically. Then again, she did hear the voice coming from above her, so presumably...

Her thoughts were cut off as she felt an adult hoof wrap around her and pull her off the ground. Looking to the side, she saw Dinky held in a grey hoof, her tiny legs held out to the side as, even in the pouring rain, she was clearly enjoying the feeling of flight.

Icy couldn't exactly blame her for that, of course. However, it didn't take a genius to figure out who was carrying them, which made flight seem like a slightly less appealing prospect.

“Er, Dinky?” Icy asked, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the movement and the weather, even if she wasn't sure she wanted their carrier to hear her. “Are you sure it's safe for your mom to be carrying us? I mean, with this weather and everything...” she trailed off, hoping she didn't sound too derogatory.

Dinky, however, just giggled. “Oh, don't worry – Mommy flies me around all the time and I've never gotten hurt. That's kind of her thing – in her hooves is pretty much the safest place we could ever be!”

Icy frowned a little in confusion, having been in Ponyville long enough to know about Ditzy Doo's well-deserved reputation for destruction.

“I know, I kinda break things a lot,” Ditzy said from above them, surprising Icy a little since she couldn't see the older mare's face through her hood. Still, her tone suggested a slightly melancholy, but genuine smile. “But only the things I'm not protecting.

“That's her Special Talent,” Dinky added, giving her mother a proud look. “If she's trying to keep something safe, then she will. She could carry a bubble across Equestria and it wouldn’t pop..”

Icy's eyes widened a little at this new information about the infamously clumsy mailmare. Though this would explain how she'd kept her job for so long.

Her eyes then immediately slammed shut as she saw a hanging wooden sign rushing to meet her. She braced herself for the impact, only to hear Ditzy's hoof smash through the sign, but not feel a thing other than a few splinters brushing past her.

She opened her eyes again and looked down at the hoof and herself. Neither seemed in any way changed from a moment ago.

“Huh,” she said simply as the three of them came down for a landing next to Town Hall.

As they skidded to a halt outside the doors, Icy saw a pair of pegasus ponies hovering next to the building and heard them talking, raising their voices slightly to be heard.

“...sure you'll be okay?” the yellow pony Icy could see asked, pushing her bright blue mane out of her eyes. Icy recognized her as Raindrops, the deputy weather manager for the town, currently in charge while Rainbow Dash was away.

“Relax, chief, we'll be fine,” the other mare said, though Icy couldn't recall her name. “I mean, this ain't exactly a picnic, but we can keep things in hoof around here for a while. You go in and help set things up.”

Raindrops sighed. “It's not things around here I'm worried about, it's things in the Everfree. That's what we need to do something about.”

“And since we can't get there right now, the best way you can help with that is to get in there and figure out how, right?” the other mare pointed out.

A large part of Icy wanted to stay put and listen further – if nothing else, it confirmed that whatever was causing this weather was in the Everfree – but she'd finished picking herself up by then and couldn't justify staying around without it transitioning fully into eavesdropping.

Shaking her head, she trotted into the building, swallowing a little nervously as she saw just how many ponies were gathered in the space that had previously seemed so massive.

It seemed that the call for everypony in town to gather wasn't just taken extremely seriously by the townsfolk, but was either critical enough that everyone had dropped everything to come or common enough that they'd gotten efficient at gathering there when there was an emergency. For that matter, both might have been true. Either way, it seemed that almost everypony in town had packed themselves into the space and the few who had yet to do so were just trickling in.

Now, while Icy wasn't overly enamoured with crowds, she wasn't repulsed by them. The crowd being mostly adults certainly didn't help, as it meant it would be difficult to see anything that was going on, but it didn't make the situation too intimidating. The problem was that that difficulty seeing anything would make it nearly impossible to find her mother. She needed a vantage point if she was going to join her.

Fortunately, her eyes soon alighted on one of the many balconies dotted around the walls of the room. Unfortunately, they were just as packed as the ground floor, meaning it would take a long time to get up to the railing of them from the stairs, if it were possible at all.

She turned back behind her, hoping to ask Ditzy to give her a lift, but found that she and Dinky had already wandered off into the crowd.

Icy grunted in annoyance. Dang it! She pulled her hood down with a wing before covering her face with the other. Where am I gonna find another pegasus willing to...

Her thoughts trailed off as her eyes opened, staring at the wing over her face that she otherwise would have forgotten about. Oh. Right.

Blushing furiously despite no one else being privy to her thought process, she sidled out to the edges of the crowd, just about finding the space to spread out her wings and give a single flap. The force she was putting behind them made her wings ache slightly, but it was enough to allow her to leap up and into a glide.

Fortunately, there weren't too many other pegasi in the air – most were presumably either on the ground or out helping fight the rain – so she was able to reach the nearest balcony without incident.

As she approached, she angled her wings up sharply, both to slow her down and to tilt her body back so she could grab the railing's posts with all four hooves.

As she clambered roughly up onto the top of the railing, she caught a faint movement in one of the nearby faces and turned to see Lance looking at her, an eyebrow raised.

“Oh, hi there!” Icy chirped as she clambered over the railing onto the ground behind. “Sorry about that, just need to get up high to look for someone.” Her eyes flicked down to the fencing mask and large hat held under the mute colt's hoof and the suit covering his body. “Oh, did you bring your suit cause it's waterproof too?”

Lance's mouth went to the side before nodding slightly, though his head also tilted somewhat as he did.

“Oh, so what was the main reason?” Icy asked before the thought occurred to her that, if he was already at the front of the balcony, then either he'd forced his way into a vantage position or he was one of the first to get here when the emergency meeting was called. Or possibly even before. Furthermore, the rapier resting in the scabbard at his hip gave a fairly clear idea of why he'd be in costume.

Before Lance could give her a silent explanation, Icy shook her head. “Okay, silly question. Sorry.” She turned and looked over the crowd, scanning for her mother's coat and mane. “Less silly question: have you seen my mom anywhere?”

She looked to the side at Lance, only to see him looking back with a slightly confused expression. He waved a hoof in the direction of the front of the room.

“Huh? On stage?” Icy asked as she turned to look. “You sure? She... huh...”

She blinked as she saw, among the gathered ponies on the stage, Sunny Flight was indeed standing there, talking to Time Turner about something. Even more curiously, the group included Princess Twilight, Alula and Pinkie Pie. This was in addition to the mayor, who was currently stepping up to the microphone.

“Stallions and gentlemares, may I have your attention please?” Her clear, authoritative voice rang out over the hall, making all movement and conversation peter out.

The mayor smiled out at the assembled ponies, though Icy didn't know her well enough to know whether she was more pleased because the ponies of her town were so attentive or because she was able to wield such authority. And that was assuming both wasn't an option.

However, after a moment to make sure everyone was paying attention, the mayor continued.

“Now, the extreme weather we are currently experiencing is, as I'm sure you've guessed, not something the weather team had any hoof in creating. However, it pains me to inform you all that it is not a natural or chance event, but is, as far as we can tell, an active attack against our town.”

That got the ponies' attention, sending a ripple of commotion through the crowd before the mayor cleared her throat, signalling there was more to say and bringing the focus back onto her.

“It seems that somepony – we do not know exactly who currently – stole a large supply of weather rockets from a recent shipment to the Crystal Empire and is using them to create this extreme rainfall. And, unfortunately, there is an even worse aspect: as bad as the rainfall is in town, it is even worse in the surrounding Everfree Forest and our weather team cannot ameliorate it there.” She paused for a moment, letting that sink in before continuing. “We do not know who this pony is, why they are doing this or what their ultimate intentions are, but we do know what the result would be:

“If we do not act quickly and capably, the entire town will be devastated by a flash flood.

“However,” the mayor said immediately, before anyone could begin to panic, “that is an impossible if. Because I've been mayor of this town for a long time – I understand how we work, I've seen how we respond to crises and I know, for an absolute fact, that we will act quickly and capably.”

Icy blinked, a little surprised at how inspired she felt, even though she didn't know the mayor well. Through a combination of authority and seeming sincerity, she was skillfully keeping a lid on the populace's panic and steeling their resolve. It helped that she now understood why her mother was on the stage and how much she could help.

“Now, myself and my team,” she indicated the ponies behind her, her hoof lingering on Princess Twilight for a moment longer than the others to emphasize her help, “have made a duty roster for everyone in town. Each of you has been assigned a role suited to your talents and experiences. Most of you will be contributing to building a flood barrier along the river, but many others will be assigned more support-oriented roles. The lists are-”

“Hold on just one moment!” a voice called out from the crowd. Nearly the entire town sneered and rolled their eyes as they recognized the voice of Spoiled Rich – no doubt she had some pointless objection just to be contrary or to give her a chance to listen to her own voice.

“If this dreadful weather is being caused by some filthy ruffian,” she asked, “then may I ask why we are not sending ponies to stop them?”

The crowd, including Icy, paused in their eye roll as they considered the question.

Icy blinked. Huh, she may be more of a pile of things to hate than a pony, but she's got a point.

Fortunately, the mayor didn't miss a beat. “That has been considered, Mrs Rich, and I assure you we are working on it. Unfortunately, a direct route to the attacker is impossible. In addition to creating this rainfall, it seems our enemy has used more rockets to create a wind wall one hundred metres thick between us and her, along the entirety of the Everfree border.”

Raindrops stepped up to the microphone, the mayor stepping aside to allow her to speak. “We have no idea how they're doing it – that kind of precision shouldn't normally be possible. Either they're using some other kind of magic to help them or they've got some incredible ability.”

“Regardless,” the mayor spoke up again, giving Raindrops a nod of thanks as she stepped back to the microphone, “the wind and magical disruption means it's impossible to fly or teleport through the wall and the ground is far too treacherous to go by hoof. Now, as I said, we do have a couple of other solutions to get ponies on the other side – that is what the carpentry team will be working on. However a large force is presently unfeasible, so we are dedicating our resources to defending the town from this side.”

“Hmph,” Spoiled said loudly, refusing to let a little thing like a reasonable counter-argument interfere with her indignation. “I hardly see why a half-competent pegasus should let a little wind stop them.”

At this, everypony completed their eye roll. There was the Spoiled Rich they all knew and, as far as she was concerned, loved.

Nodding as the statement was silently dismissed, the mayor continued. “Now, your assignments have all been posted around the walls of the hall, separated alphabetically. Some of you may notice that you have not been assigned to a specific duty. This means you will remain here for the time being. However, this does not mean you will not be helping out, nor does it mean you won't be expected to. It simply means that you don't have a specific task you will be immediately assigned, but rather you will form a pool from which all the other teams can draw should they find themselves short-hoofed. Otherwise, the bulletins will tell you what team you have been assigned, who your team leader is and where you will be meeting them. If you have any questions, pleas-”

“We're being led by Pinkie Pie?!” A shocked voice cried out from next to one of the bulletins.

The mayor sighed. “Like that, for instance, please ask us. Yes, Pinkie Pie is in charge of the carpentry team, as she both had the idea and made the calculations they will be using.”

Clearing her throat a little awkwardly, Princess Twilight stepped up behind the mayor, prompting her to step aside and allow the alicorn up to the microphone.

“Please don't worry,” she said, giving an understanding smile in the direction the voice had come from. “I looked over her plans myself and while her idea is certainly... unorthodox, the principle is sound and the calculations are correct. It may seem like a strange plan, but barring any unforeseen issues, it should work.”

A short silence fell over the crowd, the beginnings of terror at having to rely on Pinkie for sound judgement being assuaged by the assurances – while the town was all fully aware of the Princess's own irrational tendencies, there wasn't anyone who doubted her abilities when it can to calculations and analytics.

The mayor stepped back up to the front of the stage. “Indeed. If there are no other questions, then please, in an orderly fashion, check the bulletins for your assignments and go to your meeting places.” She took off her glasses, giving the crowd a serious look. “I'm not going to lie to you, my little ponies – this is going to be tough, and we're going to have to put everything we've got into this if we're going to get through this. But I know that we will put everything we've got into it and more besides and I know we can get through this. So,” she put her glasses back on and gave the smile that won her her position, “let's do this.”

The murmuring beginnings of a cheer spread through the crowd before they started moving, looking for the bulletin that would hold their name.

Icy shook her head as she looked around, the mayor no longer clasping her attention like a magnet, allowing her to fully appreciate how everyone was rallying around her command. Crowds were simultaneously forming and dispersing around each of the massive posters, with each pony getting close enough to read their names before heading off to their duties without complaint.

Icy couldn't help but feel her heart surge at the sight – ponies may have been a sometimes skittish bunch when things came out of nowhere and their herd instincts spread the panic, but that same herding impulse meant that, when they were in the right mindset and put their collective minds to it, they could work together to achieve incredible things. Icy chuckled – there was no way this town would lose to a little... flood...

The smile melted off her face as her pupils shrank and the full weight of what had been said in the speech slammed down on her, without the encouraging words or calm, comforting command of the mayor to soften it or keep Icy from being lost in terror.

She tried her hardest not to imagine the water rushing over the town, sweeping away ponies, trees and small buildings alike, smashing through doors and walls and crushing anything within under tons of water, pummelling the largest structures over and over with crashing waves until they crumbled, tumbled into the depth where they...

She yelped when she felt a hoof on her shoulder, the sudden influx of air from her gasp letting her know just how hard she'd been hyperventilating. Looking up, she saw Lance giving her a firm look – not disapproving, but rigid; a look that said you can trust us – we'll protect you firmly enough to cling to.

Icy swallowed, nodding nervously. Having another pony there in and of itself was a little comforting, as was the conviction on his face, but it wasn't enough to banish the fear by a long shot. Still, it did allow her to move her legs enough to follow him downstairs, through the rapidly thinning crowds to the bulletins containing everyone's duties.

As they approached the 'I, J and K' board, Lance gave a questioning look.

Icy nodded. “Yeah, I'll... I'll be alright,” she assured him. It wasn't a lie exactly – she'd be alright enough to look at the board, she'd be more alright than she might otherwise have been and, though she couldn't quite convince her instincts of it, she intellectually knew she'd probably be alright in the long run. Still, it felt very weird and a little disingenuous to use the word ‘alright’ about her current state without adding the words ‘not’, ‘no’ or ‘are you kidding?!’.

Still, as Lance trotted off to the nearby 'L' board, Icy walked up to her own and looked for her name. It didn't take long – the 'Ic...' beginning meant it was right at the top of the list, allowing her to appreciate the two empty columns under 'team leader' and 'meeting place' and the big 'Unassigned' in the second column without comparing it to both the rows above and below it. On some level, she was thankful for that, but the fact it was the first thing the board listed still made it feel like it was specifically calling her out for her uselessness as a top priority.

Of course, she couldn't exactly argue with that. Her aquaphobia would probably make her less than useless – an active hindrance the moment the water level started rising. She gave a shamed, self-pitying groan as she trotted away from the poster, lamenting how her stupid mind wouldn't let her help save the town she was supposed to be protecting. She was part of Iota Force, the town's young crime-fighting team, and if what the mayor said was right, this was one heck of a crime that needed fighting.

Still, she doubted the perpetrator was as young as they were, meaning it wasn't really in their jurisdiction. Plus, she had seen that Key Lime, another filly her age, was also unassigned, so she knew it was more likely that the town's colts and fillies were unassigned to keep them out of danger.

Unfortunately, no sooner had she thought that than she saw Lance marching towards the stage. This theoretically could have meant he was going to ask why he was unassigned, but she doubted it – he didn't look as if he objected to what he had been assigned, but was in fact doing what the board had told him to. A glance at the top of the “L” board confirmed her suspicion – it told him he was on “special duty” and that he needed to report to the stage to be told about it.

She shook her head, her shame at being unassigned only increasing, even though it was still likely that he was a special case. Still, she trotted in the direction of the stage as well, curious what his duties would entail.

Fortunately, she turned her head forward a moment later, preventing her from walking right into Truffle Shuffle as he walked in front of her. Still, she stumbled a little as she stopped, shaking her head before mumbling an apology.

Truffle barely seemed to notice, however, as he gave her a confident smile. “Ah, Icy! Where are you going off to?”

Icy sighed. “Er, nowhere, I'm... I'm unassigned.”

Truffle nodded, his smile not diminishing. “Ah, right. Well, remember what the mayor said – that doesn't mean you're useless, it just means you'll be best used to fill whatever role's needed.”

Icy nodded, not wanting to tell him she was unlikely to volunteer for anything but still wincing at the fact. “Were, um... were you also unassigned?” She asked, hoping but not expecting him to say yes – he had said ‘you'll be best used’ after all.

Indeed, he shook his head as Scootaloo came up behind him. “Nope, I'm on sandbagging duty. Team 7. Shame,” he gave a slightly theatrical sigh, “I was hoping I'd be helping Mom and Dad keep everyone fed. Still, least this way I might be able to get some of Twist's caramel.” He turned away and continued on with a dreamy hum.

Sighing, Icy turned to Scootaloo. “How about you?”

“Messaging duty,” the filly replied, pulling her scooter off her back. “Makes sense – keeping everyone in contact's gonna be important, so of course you'd want the second fastest pony in town on communications.”

Icy nodded, though a thought occurred to her. “Hey, isn't Rainbow Dash away right now? Doesn't that mean you're the fastes-”

“Second fastest!” Scootaloo snapped with a brief frown before sighing into a chuckle at her own impulse to insist on that. Still, she didn't feel the need to correct herself.

A slight smile came onto Icy's face for a moment as she looked down at Scootaloo's transportation before vanishing as a thought occurred to her. “But, are you sure you'll be able to stay that fast? I mean, things are probably gonna get really muddy – will your wheels be able to keep turning?”

Scootaloo smirked, however. “Who said anything about wheels?”

She picked her scooter up again and opened a small panel on its surface, revealing a thin compartment within its body. “Apple Bloom wasn't able to come up with anything I could just press a button and send out, but this'll do pretty well.”

From out of the compartment, she slid what looked like four very short skis. And, as she slapped them over the wheels of the scooter and clicked them into place in the small latches around each wheel, Icy saw that that was exactly what they were – skis held underneath the wheel and, for the front ones, able to turn with them.

Throwing the scooter over her shoulder, she smiled at Icy as she started towards the doors. “Course, they haven't been totally tested yet, but hey, I'd say this is a pretty good time for it. Sink or swim, am I right?”

Icy watched her go for a second, briefly considering trying to argue with her philosophy before shaking it off and scrambling to follow Lance.

As she approached the stage, she saw that the rest of the team, including Pip, was also gathered around, Alula approaching them from further back on the stage. The group was slightly separated from the ponies on either side of them, who were presumably being briefed on their own special duties. Of course, it didn’t quite feel like a team meeting – not only were Scootaloo and Truffle already gone, but Icy and Lance were the only ones in costume, and she always got the impression that Lance would probably suit up if he saw somepony shoot a spitball. Still, Alula's ever-level face, along with her position on the small stage, gave the meeting the same sense of importance.

That said, Alula's eyebrows did raise a little as she saw Icy trot up. “Icy? You weren't assigned anything yet, were you?”

Icy shook her head. “I know, but I was curious what you all were going to be doing. I hope you don't mind me being here.”

Alula pursed her lips dispassionately and shrugged. “Not at all – you are a member of the team, after all. It's not unreasonable for you to know what's going on.”

Icy frowned a little, puzzled. She thought the mayor had already explained what was going on and it didn't seem to have anything to do with the team. “Is... is there something else about what's happening we need to know?”

Alula sighed. “Yes, but before we get to that, there are a couple of special duties that are independent of it that I suggested for you. Dinky,” she turned to the little chronomancer, “your duty is obvious – using your temporal magic to help speed up the flood preparations wherever it's needed.”

Dinky's eyes widened and she flinched back a little at the expectation. “Um, obvious? I... I can't... you know I can do stuff that big. I could maybe speed up one or two at a time and of course I'll do what I can, but I'll get drained pretty quickly, so...”

“Indeed,” Alula interrupted with a placating wave. “I'm aware of your... limitations, but that...”

“That, I suspect, is where I come in.”

The assembled children instinctively went into a bow when they heard the new voice, even as they looked up to see that, indeed, Princess Twilight was standing over them.

The Princess, however, just waved them up with a slightly uncomfortable look on her face. “Please, everypony, this is no time to stand on formality. Now, Dinky?”

Dinky swallowed as she smiled, dipping a little as she stopped herself from bowing again. “Er, yes, your highness?”

Twilight giggled, clearly endeared by Dinky's politeness. “I understand that the problem is that, while you have some considerable skill with time magic, you currently lack the power to apply it on a wide scale, is that right?”

Dinky nodded, her eyes avoiding Twilight's. “Er, yes, that's right. I'm really sorry.”

Twilight shook her head. “No need to be sorry. You shouldn't be anyway, of course, as it's in no way your fault, but as it happens, there is a solution to this problem. You see, while I have some knowledge and experience with time magic, I do lack your flair for it.” One side of her mouth quirked up into a slight smirk. “However, I just so happen to have magical power in abundance.”

Dinky blinked, astonished at the implication. “You mean...”

Princess Twilight nodded. “Exactly – if we link our horns, then together, we could apply your skills on a grand scale.”

Dinky rubbed her hooves together. “Oh... well, I'm honoured, Your Majesty, but I...” she trailed off, understandably uncomfortable with the idea – while two unicorns linking their magic wasn't exactly an intimate gesture, it certainly wasn't the sort of thing generally done between casual acquaintances.

Twilight hopped down from the stage, lowering herself down to Dinky's eye level. “I know, it's kind of a lot to ask, but this could mean the difference between saving the town and losing it. Do you think you'll be able to do it?”

Dinky squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before they opened sharply into a determined glare. “I'll try!”

Twilight beamed at her as she sat down. Slowly and gently, she laid her horn over Dinky's head, crossing it with the tiny nub of a horn nestled in her springy hair. A few tiny sparks started flicking between them, belying the deep, powerful bond they were forming.

Turning away from the spectacle, Alula cleared her throat. “Excellent. Now that that's sorted, we have the other local assignment to deal with. Pip?” There was a pause as Alula looked at the piebald colt. “Pipsqueak!”

“Huh?!” Pip blurted out as he whipped his head around, having been staring intently at Dinky as she let her magic flow. He shook his head a little, as if trying to shake off the massive blush on his face. “You... you have a job for me?”

Alula raised an eyebrow. “That is what the bulletin said, isn't it?”

Pip gulped and rubbed the back of his neck, his blush lightening slightly but not abating. “Well, yeah, but... that can't be right, can it? I don't have the kinds of powers or talents you all do – I'm just...”

“...just our liaison with Canterlot and a very good one,” Alula finished. “That's why you were chosen – to act as a liaison of a different sort. You see, this situation is going to require the efforts of nearly everyone in the Ponyville area. I say “everyone” because it's not just ponies and “the Ponyville area” because it won't just be those in Ponyville who will need to help, but those below it as well.

Pipsqueak let out a small “ah” of breath as he realized what she meant. “You mean Skrik?”

“Indeed. He and his little rat army could be immensely helpful. However, while Miss Syrup has made some inroads with him...”

Icy felt herself nodding along with Alula – since Iota Force's encounter with the feral, sewer-dwelling colt a few months ago, the psychiatric specialist sent from Canterlot had been working with him, getting the team's help every so often as she did. Still, it was clear that, whatever had happened to him to make him as he was – Miss Soothe Syrup still hadn't been able to find out what – it would take a lot longer to fix, in as much as it could be.

Pipsqueak also nodded. “I know, he's still pretty uncomfortable 'round grownups.” He finished the thought.

“Exactly. That's why you'll be working with her to liaise with and coordinate him and his many rat friends.”

Icy briefly considered offering to help him, but soon thought better of it. Her feelings towards Skrik were mixed – their encounter was directly responsible for her aquaphobia, but he had also saved her. If not for him, she would have almost immediately lost her phobia on account of being dead, so her regard for him definitely averaged out as positive. However, that same phobia was what made her reconsider – in a potential flooding situation, the last place she wanted to be was in an underground tunnel already partially filled with water.

Unaware of Icy's deliberations, Pip raised his head, his stance firming. “You can count on me!”

Alula smiled a thin smile, pleasant but without excitement. “I know. And that brings us to you two.” She turned to Lance and Archer.

Archer nodded, a confident smile coming onto her face. “Yeah, sounds to me like you got a mission for us.”

Alula raised an eyebrow. “Well, yes, as does the whole town.”

“Nuh uh, they're part of a town that's preparing, they've got assignments and duties,” Archer pointed out. “We're part of Iota Force; we've got a mission.”

Icy nodded, a little confused at how Alula could get the two mixed up.

Alula just sighed. “Well, in any case, you are quite correct – you two have an assi- a mission that takes you out of town.”

Lance jerked his head out in the rough direction of the Everfree Forest, a questioning look on his face.

“Exactly, you'll be charged with trying to stop the pony responsible for this,” Alula explained.

Icy raised a hoof, feeling a little awkward at speaking when she wasn't technically involved in the task being given. “Um, are we sure it's a pony?”

Alula turned to her patiently. “Actually, yes. That was part of this situation that we felt it prudent to leave out of the mayor's speech.”

“O... kay?” Icy tilted her head, trying to think why that might have been decided. “Because it would have made everypony panic?”

“Quite the reverse, actually,” Alula explained. “You see, after the lightning strike on Mount Foalja, a local stallion by the name of Comet Tail was watching the newly shortened mountain and, shortly before the first rain rocket was fired, he saw a pony climb on top of it. And, though it was difficult to tell through a telescope,” she locked eyes with the others, “it seemed to be a very small pony. About our size, in fact.”

“Huh,” Archer seemed more impressed than startled by this information. “You mean it's a kid doing all this?”

“It would seem so.” Alula too didn't seem shocked, though she had presumably found out a while ago.

Icy, on the other hoof, felt her eyes widen and they didn't seem like they'd be narrowing again any time soon. “I guess that explains why the team's being sent to deal with them.”

“Actually, it doesn't,” Alula replied. “This opponent being in our jurisdiction is, at most, a very minor reason you two are being sent. And, in fact, if Pinkie's plan pans out, we hope to be sending you some adult reinforcements. No, the reason children need to be sent is that they're the only ones who can get to the other side of the wind wall.”

Archer hummed for a moment. “Thought you said no one could fly or walk through it.” She didn't sound skeptical at the idea that she'd be able to get through it when nopony else could, just curious about how.

Alula nodded. “Indeed. The wall is far too high to go over and far too powerful to go through. So that leaves us with only one option, doesn't it?”

It took less than a second for Icy to realize what she was implying. “Going under it?”

“Exactly.” Alula looked a little proud at Icy.

“So...” Icy thought for a moment. “So we dig a tunnel? Won't that take ages? Plus, would it be safe with the ground being wet?”

Alula's proud look dimmed a little, though a smidgen of it remained, presumably since Icy saw why her thought wouldn't work. “Indeed, that would be ridiculously impractical. Fortunately, it won't be necessary.”

She turned her head behind her and lit her horn, levitating a rolled-up paper off a nearby table and over to her. Turning back to the others, she laid the paper on the stage in front of her and rolled it open with her hooves, revealing it to be a geological map. “As it happens, the Haynes cave system runs under much of the Everfree Forest, deep enough to be traversable in this weather... and is connected to a small cave in the Ponyville area.”

Looking at the map, Icy saw, indeed, the extensive web of caves stretched out to all sorts of areas in the Everfree. And, at the end of one of these winding corridors, there was a tiny little tunnel stretching out of the Everfree borders.

“Unfortunately,” Alula continued, “said connection is extremely narrow and, while it may be possible for an expert caver to get through with a lot of time and effort, it would be more efficient to send ponies small enough that they could get through with minimal difficulty.”

Archer smirked. “Guess that's why Truffle wasn't assigned this mission.”

Alula nodded. “That is correct.”

Icy giggled, not feeling bad about the joke since she knew for a fact that, if he were here, Truffle would have made it himself.

“Unfortunately,” Alula said after a moment, letting the joke subside, even if Icy was the only one laughing at it – Archer had made it and wasn't so obnoxious as to laugh at her own joke, Alula tended to keep any laughter out of her face and voice and Lance… may have laughed once or twice in his life, probably during foalhood, “this will mean that, once you're past the wind wall, you'll be cut off – first, the walls of the cave, and then the magic in the wind wall are going to interfere with the magical waves with which our badges communicate. Of course, if we can get anypony else past the wind, they will contact you, but otherwise, you'll be on your own.”

“But, hold on,” Icy piped up, frowning a little at the idea of sending the two of them out into the Everfree and then leaving them stranded, “there must be some way of getting somepony else through the caves. Could we get a unicorn to teleport through this crack or... maybe shrink themselves or something?”

Alula sighed, though it didn't seem to be directed at Icy so much as the situation. “Sadly, no. There isn't a straight sightline through the connecting tunnel, meaning they'd be teleporting blind – an exercise that becomes exponentially more dangerous the more solid matter there is in the target area. And since this would be done in a cave, the chances of materializing inside a rock wall would be ridiculously high.”

Icy grimaced at the idea. She had no idea what would happen if someone did that, but she could imagine several possibilities, none of them good.

“As for shrinking spells,” Alula rocked her head a little in consideration, “interesting idea in theory, but impractical – the only pony in town who both might know such spells and would be powerful enough to cast them without being completely drained and useless afterwards is Princess Twilight, and she's needed here. It might be possible for her to shrink somepony else down, but, again, the lack of a sightline through the tunnel would mean she wouldn't be able to see them and unshrink them once they reached the other side. That means they'd have to stay shrunken, in which case we may as well just send somepony who's already that small and used to operating at such a size.”

Icy sighed, filling in the gap where Alula wasn't judging her for her substandard ideas with her own self-reproach. “Guess I should have figured you'd thought of everything, huh?”

Alula frowned slightly. “No, you absolutely shouldn't. If you think of a problem or alternative to a proposed idea, you should always bring it up – even if it isn't valid, there's still the possibility that it could have been and it certainly can't hurt.”

Icy smiled a little, looking up to see Archer also giving her an encouraging look. “Yeah. I mean, if Alula came up with the idea, she's probably thought of everything, but no reason not to make sure.”

Alula shook her head. “The point does stand but, while I'm flattered by your assumption, Archer, this actually wasn't my initial idea.”

Archer tilted her head a little. “Huh? Then whose was it?”

Alula smiled, her eyes briefly flicking to Icy. “Well, actually...”

“Actually,” a new voice spoke up from behind Alula, “it was mine.”

The ponies in front of the stage looked up to see Sunny Flight trotting up to them.

“Miss Flight?!” Archer said, eyes widening at the newcomer.

Alula sighed. “You know, one day, I'm going to be able to explain someone else's contributions to an operation without them interrupting to do it themselves.”

“You came up with this plan?” Archer asked Sunny, entirely ignoring Alula's remark.

Sunny shrugged. “I may not be with the BoCEaGS anymore, but I still know my way around a map.” She looked to Icy with a smile of pride on her face. “I was thinking about ways to magic somepony through the tunnel for a while, too – didn't think about shrinking them. Good thought, even if it didn't pan out.”

“The... bow-keags?” Archer asked, her face screwing up slightly in confusion at the bizarre word.

Alula turned to her. “The Bureau of Cartography, Exploration and Geographical Survey. As I myself only recently learned, Sunny Flight was one of its most experienced and commended members.”

“Cartography, exploration and...” Archer trailed off for a moment before turning to Icy, her usual relaxation edging onto being a little impressed and astonished. “Your mom's an explorer, Icy?”

“Was an explorer,” Icy insisted, reciting her mother's statement instinctively. “She's retired.”

“Besides, I don't know if I'd call myself an explorer – I did go to all kinds of places for the Bureau, but I didn't do much of the actual discovery or map-making,” Sunny explained in a tone somewhere between humility and pedantry. “My job was just to get the ponies who did where they needed to go in terms of area and vantage point.”

“And she could get them pretty much anywhere,” Icy continued, enjoying the chance to talk up her mother's abilities. “Deserts, jungles, frozen fields...”

“Which means,” Alula interrupted firmly, not wanting to get off-topic, “that she has immense experience with survival and dealing with inhospitable conditions of both climate and weather. As such, she is helping us plan out how to get through this crisis.”

“Was thinking I'd go out into the forest to take a look at what's going on myself,” Sunny added, picking up the explanation, “but the wind wall put paid to that. Then I saw those caves on the geological map of the area and saw a way through. Like I said, I was trying to think of some way to get myself through a gap that small before I remembered about you and your friends.” She turned to Icy with a smile before looking at Lance and Archer. “Of course, most of your team was needed back here, so I'm hoping you two will be okay to deal with this on your own.”

Archer snorted with a smirk. “Oh, please – it's no problem. Wouldn't be surprised if I could do it solo... not that I'm not grateful for having you along, Lance.”

Lance's eyes flicked to her, but his expression remained unmoving.

However, Icy's mind was only half paying attention, as her mother's wording had sent her down a thought process that she desperately wished she could unthink. It definitely wasn't something she wanted to pursue but, nevertheless, she felt compelled to ask:

“What about me?”

Sunny turned to her, almost, but not quite, managing to hide the worry on her face as she asked. “Er, how do you mean, Sweetie?”

Icy sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. “You... you know what I mean, Mom. Why...?” She took a deep breath and rammed her eyes open, spurting the words out before she had a chance to think about them. “Why didn't you assign me to go as well?”

Sunny flinched back slightly before exhaling, a tiny hint of a growl creeping into her breath. “Is this a trick question?! We're talking about sending ponies into the source of this rain and the place where the flood's going to start. How are you going to be able t-” She stopped herself abruptly, taking a moment to calm herself down before continuing. “I'm not going to put you through that. Not with your phobia. I know you've made some progress on it but I... you're not ready and I... I can't let you experience that.”

Icy took a shaky breath in, blinking away the beginnings of tears. Her mother certainly had a point and the idea of heading towards the source of any oncoming water made her feel like her knees had turned to ice water themselves. And yet even the fear couldn't even begin to eclipse the sharp pain in her emotions, as if her mother's words were the tail of a massive scorpion that had skewered her and filled her blood with the venom of her lack of faith in her daughter.

She looked down at herself and focused, as if pooling her freezing energies to solidify her wobbly legs. She felt her entire body screaming at her to accept it, accept her faults and accept her mother's offer... well, her demand to stay put. She knew that her mother wouldn't judge her for it and neither would her friends. Only one pony would judge her.

She closed her eyes and pushed her thoughts forward against the opposing pressure of fear. She thought about her friends, about Lance and Archer travelling through the maelstrom alone. She flicked her eyes open briefly to look at them and confirm that, yes, she would be thinking about that for almost the entire time she'd be waiting in town. She imagined herself sitting there and tried to think of a way she could spend her time in protection without worrying about what was happening to them and what would happen to her. She wasn't able to come up with anything. The only other thing she could imagine doing was berating herself over her inability to handle her problem.

Gripping the ground with a hoof, she opened her eyes again. “I'm going. I have to go.”

“No, you don't!” Sunny snapped, her own eyes quivering slightly. “You have nothing to prove, to me or anyone! You shouldn't have to go through this and you don't have to!”

“Yes, I do!” Icy insisted. “I know it'll be terrible, I'm not stupid! But... but it'll be worse for me if I stay. If I stay, I won't be able to stop imagining what's happening out there. I'll be just as scared and I'll also be hating myself for being a coward.”

Sunny wiped at her eyes hard. “You're... you're not a coward, Icy! You've just got a... a problem, that doesn't make you broken. And even if you are scared while you're here, at least you'll be safe! You won't be in danger from the flood.”

“But...” Icy paused, trying to marshal her thoughts to make a rational point. “But the whole point of sending anyone is to stop there from being a flood. And, well...” she raised her wings, both to make a point and to stop herself from wrapping them around herself, “it seems like having someone who can make a load of water... stop being water could be really important for that. And I... I just can't put my friends at risk just to keep myself safe!”

Sunny opened her mouth, her face telegraphing a retort before she paused, her eyes moving rapidly as she thought about what Icy had said. She closed her mouth and swallowed hard, her expression not showing any change.

However, it was Alula who stepped in. “Not that I'm necessarily saying you shouldn't go, Icy, but are you sure you'll be able to entirely function? Regardless of how important a task is, fear can cause problems and it may make you more a hindrance than a help.”

Icy jerked back as the solid point landed. She scuffed a hoof on the ground in agitation as she thought about it. It was true that the idea of that much water had pretty much paralyzed her in the past, be it when she first found she had it or when she'd been shown an illusion of it up in the Crystal Empire.

However, that latter memory also brought up the conversation afterwards, when Alula herself had assured her that, given time, she would have broken through the illusion of her fear. As indeed had the oracular Aura Gaze and, just to make it certain, Princess Cadance herself.

She raised her head and locked eyes with Alula, unable to shake the heavy doubt in her mind but just about able to keep her resolve stable through the faith of three ponies who always seemed to know everything. “Yes. Yes, I'm sure.”

Alula thought for a moment before nodding. “In which case, I see no reason not to let you go.”

Sunny's mouth hung open as she stared at Icy. “Are... are you six kinds of crazy?! You...” She stomped, seemingly focusing her frustration into her hoof to release it. She looked at Icy, her eyes pleading. “You don't have to do this.”

Icy held her mother's gaze, even as nearly every muscle in her face seemed to be trying to force her to break eye contact. “I... I know. I don't have to.” She took a deep breath before finishing. “But I should.”

There was a long, tense silence. Neither Sunny nor Icy knew whether, as her mother, Sunny had the power to overrule Icy's decision and, while one of the others probably knew, none of them seemed willing to speak up.

After around fifteen seconds, Sunny sighed, looking away. “Well, I guess that settles it. I... Even if I can stop you, it...” She closed her eyes, a minuscule pinprick of water leaking onto the edge of them. “It'd do a lot more harm than good, I can see that. But...” she took a long breath in before her eyes flew open, staring at Icy with implacable resolve. “But I swear on my life, Icy, that I will find some way to join you, sooner or later. You can... maybe you can do this, maybe you can't. But you won't do it alone.”

Icy nodded. “I... thank you.”

Archer cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, don’t wanna spoil the moment or anything, but I need to go get my gear if we're gonna do this and I'm not looking to waste any time. You coming, Icy?”

Icy nodded silently and, after one last thin smile at her mother, turned away to join Archer in heading towards the door.

As they walked, Icy prayed that she wasn't making the worst or the last mistake of her life.

Chapter Two: Slipping Under, Punching Through

“Are you really sure about this?” Sunny asked as she and Icy approached the mouth of the cave.

Icy swallowed hard, forcefully suppressing the sigh at being asked that for what must have been the tenth time. It wasn't that she didn't think it was worth a sigh, she just wasn't sure what she should be sighing at, so it would feel weird to do so. She thought it was most likely that her mother wasn't repeating the question intentionally and was simply letting her worry about her daughter overwhelm her. This would be worth a slight sigh of exasperation, but she couldn't blame Sunny for it.

However, there was a tiny part of her that refused to be silenced that told her that her mother was repeating the question on purpose because she already knew the answer – Icy wasn't in the least sure about what she was doing and, no matter how much she told herself it was probably the best course of action, she couldn't accept that fact with any degree of certainty.

Whatever the case, she did suppress her sigh and turned to her mother, having to twist her body around a little to do so – the hood drawn tightly around her head cut off her peripheral vision, so she needed to look head-on at her. “I need to go, Mom. Archer and Lance might need my help and it's not like you'd let me help if I stayed here.”

Sunny opened her mouth to retort, but no sound came out. After a moment, she shook her head. “Touché,” she said, raising her voice a little to be heard over the rain. “Still, I meant what I said – I'm going to find some way to join you.”

Icy hummed for a moment as she stepped into the cave, keeping her hood drawn and her hooves standing near the wall, trying desperately to ignore the sound of water flowing down the descending cave. “I... I know you will and I really want to say thank you. But... if it's okay, I want you to promise me something.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow as they walked into the cave and she lowered her hood to look fully at her daughter. “Oh?” she said, clearly amused by the request. “Well, I hope you're not planning on demanding it, but depending on what the promise is, I'll think about it.”

Icy nodded, steeling herself to say what she knew she needed. “I know you're gonna be worrying about me while I'm out there. It's probably good that you will be but, just... promise me you won't spend all your time worrying about me. Or,” she said immediately, cutting off any comment, “on looking for a way to come help. If there is one, you should probably use it but... Alula was right – you're experienced with this kinda thing and the town needs your help, probably more than I do. Please promise me that until you find a way through the wind wall, you'll focus on helping the town instead of wishing you could help me.”

Sunny blinked, astonished at what Icy had just said. Icy wasn't sure if she was just realizing that, had Icy not said that, she probably would have spent her time fretting or if she already knew and was just surprised at Icy's insight.

Either way, after a moment, she let out a chuckle. “Wow, you know me well, Sweetie.”

Icy giggled. “Well, I have kinda known you for my whole life.”

Sunny nodded. “Well, yes, but this is kind of a new case – it's not like I had a problem with you fighting with your friends before – it's just because... you know...”

Icy nodded, grimacing – she appreciated her mother not drawing attention to how the situation played directly to her phobia. “I know and it's... it feels really good for you to care about me so much but... I don't think it is good, in a way... kinda... sorry, I'm not sure how to explain it.”

Sunny shook her head with a smile. “It's okay, Sweetie, I know – you're not the only one who needs my help. Still,” she looked out into the rainstorm – presumably symbolically, since nopony could see more than a few dozen metres through it, “no reason I can't keep tabs on Pinkie's project.

Icy nodded instinctively before it occurred to her to ask. “What is she working on, anyway?”

“I don't know,” Sunny replied, not looking away from the rain. “She didn't show all of us, only Princess Twilight. Apparently, she needed her to check the calculations and the physics of it and, well,” her eyes rose to stare wistfully up into the sky, “I know a bit of physics, but it's fairly specialized and I never really calculated it with numbers anyway.”

Icy frowned slightly, trying to reconcile her image of Pinkie Pie with the idea of careful scientific calculation. Normally, she'd have dismissed the combination as little more than the hyperactive mare insisting that 'Party power equals fun over time', but if the Princess agreed with her...

After a moment, she just sighed. “Is there anything Pinkie can't do?”

Sunny shrugged. “Fail to surprise you? There probably are things, but I'm not even going to try to figure out what.”

Icy nodded in agreement before a movement in the rain caught her attention. Squinting a little, she could just about make out the shape of a pony, though any further details eluded her for a few seconds.

As it turned out, that wasn't just due to the rainfall – as the form approached, Icy was able to see how Archer's dark blue suit helped camouflage her among the darkened day.

“Hey there!” Archer called out as she neared the two. “Sorry I took so long!”

“Huh? We've only been waiting five minutes! Maybe less.” Icy replied as Archer walked into the cave mouth, not seeming bothered by how sodden her hair and tail had gotten as she walked.

Archer shrugged. “Yeah, but that's still five or less minutes we could be going in. I just needed to put on my suit and get my quiver and my good bow.”

Sunny tilted her head slightly. “Your... good bow?”

Archer smiled as she wrung out her hair. “Well, I mean, I always carry a folding bow and a couple arrows around, but it's nowhere near as good – turns out, making a bow all fold-up kinda messes with how it bends. Who knew? Still,” she jerked her head to the filly-sized longbow strapped across her back, “long as the proper one's available, ain't a problem.”

Icy looked out into the rain. “So, we're just waiting for Lance? Although, wasn't he already equipped?”

Archer nodded. “Yep, and if I know Lance – and I do – he'll have gone on ahead and be waiting down in the cave. Which means we got no time to waste. Let's go.” And with that, she turned and began trotting down the tunnel.

Icy blinked for a moment before starting after her, putting a little more force than necessary into her hooves to move quickly and not give herself time to think about things.

After a moment, though, she turned around to give her waiting mother a meaningful look.

Sunny raised her hooves placatingly. “Okay, okay, message received. Just... be careful, sweetie.”

Icy gulped. “I will. I promise.”

That done, Icy turned and followed Archer deeper into the cave, trying to give as little thought about where she was going as she could.

“What was that about?” Archer asked as Icy caught up with her.

“Just making sure she'd be doing what she had to,” Icy explained as she slowed down alongside her teammate.

Archer chuckled. “From what I've seen, it's amazing how often kids need to be parents to their parents, huh?”

Icy thought for a moment. “I guess, maybe? I mean, I think friends do it as well – when you care about somepony, you have to look out for them, right?”

“Hey, no argument here,” Archer shrugged. “I mean, how often have we had to stop Scoots from dashing off and getting herself into trouble.”

Icy blinked for a moment, Archer's ever-level tone making it hard to tell if she'd intended the pun in “dashing off”, before dismissing the thought. “I guess a couple of times. I mean, we're a team, so we help each other out, right?”

“Right,” Archer nodded. “I help all of you out and, if I ever get into trouble, you help me out.” She was smiling, but her tone suggested that she didn't anticipate ever getting into enough trouble that she'd need help.

Still, Icy sighed wistfully. “But you are kinda right – parents look after us, but sometimes we need to look after them, right?”

Archer shrugged. “I wouldn't know personally, but the ones I’ve seen need that, yeah.”

Icy nodded automatically for a moment before what Archer had said truly registered. “Wait, wh- do... do you not have...?”

“Nope,” Archer replied casually. “'Fraid not.” She gave Icy a slight smirk. “Wish I could say it's cause they'd just slow me down buuut Miss Herder's still in charge of me and the others and she does a good enough job of that anyway.”

Icy swallowed hard, trying to reconcile this new information with how nonchalantly Archer had told her. “Oh, well... I'm sorry, I didn't realize...”

“Hey, it's fine,” Archer replied, enough force behind her words to make clear she didn't want Icy to apologize, but not enough to seem offended. “If it was that big of a deal, I'da told you ages ago. Doesn't bother me, so I don't want it to bother you, got it?”

“I... I guess.” Icy rubbed the back of her neck with a wing. “Still... I'm sorry if I can't stop thinking about it for a while.”

Archer sighed. “It's fine, I get it. Still, I think you might be forgetting... well, let's just say you might have other things to think about in a bit.

Icy was about to ask what she meant when the two of them came to a fork in the tunnels, turning to the left and rising slightly. She might not have noticed at all had it not been for the small, steady stream of water that had been flowing down the cave that, of course, wasn't going down the tunnel they were now heading down.

She looked down at her hooves, still wet but no longer splashing in the shallow water, and felt herself relax a little, a bit of the tension that had been poking at the back of her mind abating. It was a pleasant feeling, but it, along with Archer's words, also served as a reminder that she'd soon be facing far, far more water.

She gulped loudly. “I see what you mean.”

The two continued down the winding passage in silence for a while, rapidly going deeper and deeper into the earth. After a short while, Archer took out a small, blocky badge and gave it to Icy. Before Icy could ask what it was, Archer was clipping another to her own costume's chest and clicking a small button on the side, causing the front of the block to start casting a bright light into the tunnel before them. Shrugging, Icy clicked the button on her own flashlight, both happy that they had them and a little unnerved that they needed them.

After a few more minutes of walking, they turned the corner and saw the distinctive white form of Lance in his full gear, standing next to a large crack in the cave wall. He gave them a nod as they approached, the mask pushed up onto his head dipping down weightily.

“Hey, sorry about the delay,” Archer said as they came up to him, “you all ready?”

Lance turned his head towards her, blinking a little in puzzlement.

“Right, right, stupid question,” Archer said as she looked into the crack, humming a little as she did so.

Peering into it herself, Icy saw that Sunny hadn't been kidding that an adult would have trouble fitting through the passage – despite starting with an expansive gap in the wall, the tunnel quickly narrowed to the point where a fully grown pony would have to squeeze themselves hard just to be able to move their hooves and, as the passage turned past where she could see, it seemed to begin narrowing even further.

“Are we sure we'll be able to make it through here?” she asked, spreading a wing out in front of the gap to get a feel for the airflow, which only confirmed how long and thin the tunnel got.

Lance shrugged – there was only one way to find out.

Icy started nodding in agreement, only to stop when Lance started stepping forward, ready to head into the tunnel. “Hey, what are you doing?” she asked as she stepped back in surprise.

Lance turned to her and tilted his head, waving a hoof sharply down the tunnel.

Icy nodded. “I know you're going down the... I mean, are you sure you should be going first?”

Lance nodded sharply. He jerked his head towards the tunnel, indicating that they didn't know what was down there.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Archer replied to his silently-spoken point. “But I'm with Icy – with all your gear on, you're not exactly the thinnest, right?”

Lance sighed, before waving his hooves along his side, then doing the same to the other two.

“Yeah, if you can fit down there, we'll know we can,” Archer translated, “but if you can't? If you get stuck? We'll have to pull you out and pull back to a point we can switch over.”

Lance took a purposeful step towards the tunnel, indicating that was a risk he was willing to take.

Icy swallowed. “Um, okay but, well... if you do get stuck or we do have to squeeze or help you, how will you tell us?

Lance raised a hoof before freezing as he considered this. After a moment, he grunted and took a step back.

Icy nodded. “It's okay – my wings'll be able to tell if you can fit, plus I can make ice on the walls if we need to slip through anywhere. It makes sense if I go first.”

Not waiting for an answer, Icy turned and began walking into the crack, wishing once again that her logic was strong enough to convince her instincts.

However, before she could pass fully into it, she felt something thin wrap around the top of her left hindleg. She began whipping her head around, only to have to stop for a moment to prevent herself from smacking it into the wall.

Leaning to the side, she carefully twisted her head until she could see Archer in her peripheral vision, doing something. “What was that?”

“Just a bit of insurance,” Archer answered, stepping back a little and picking one end of a rope, the other end of which was presumably tied around her leg. “Tied something onto you so we can pull you back if you get stuck.”

Icy hummed for a moment, turning forward again and walking into the tunnel even as her face remained in a frown of confusion. “Couldn't you just grab me by the leg, then?”

“Depends,” Archer replied from a short distance behind her, moving along with her down into the crack in the earth. “Might be able to, but if you're really stuck, probably wouldn't be room to get a good grip on you. Besides, then only one of us could pull – if a bit's thin enough for you to get stuck in, it's probably thin enough that I could only just get close and Lance couldn't at all. This way, we can both pull you out if we need to.

Icy nodded, though she doubted the others could see. “Alright, that makes sense.” She didn't like the idea of being yanked out like that, but it was good to be safe.

As she thought of that, she smiled. “Well, I just hope you're not joking with me. I'd hate to think I'm safe but then find out you're just... pulling my l-Ah!” She nearly stumbled forward as the rope yanked backwards suddenly. “Hey! What was that for, Archer?”

“Wasn't me. That one was Lance,” Archer replied. “Think he wanted to stop you making a bad joke. I stand by his decision.” Icy could almost feel the wind from Lance's decisive nod.

Sighing, Icy continued, soon becoming used to the feeling of the rope pulling slightly against her and shifting up and down her leg, the knot rubbing up against her costume.

As she noticed that, she had a thought. “Hey, Archer, were you ever in the filly scouts?”

“For a little while,” she heard Archer say. “Why?”

“Just realized you tied a knot with your hooves. Was never able to figure out how scouts did that – could you tell me?”

“Well, you just...” Archer paused and Icy could feel a slight movement in the rope as the filly holding it raised her hoof, presumably looking at it. “It's... kinda hard to explain. Maybe I could show you later. Once everything's over, I mean.”

Icy smiled. “Sure, that sounds good. Maybe you could even teach me?”

“Not sure about that – like I said, wasn't in the scouts long, so I only know the basics,” Archer told her, more as a factual correction than any kind of shameful admission. “Besides, couldn't you just use your wings? Seems like they'd be a lot better with fiddly stuff than your hooves – Pegasus instead of Earth Pony and all that.”

Icy blinked as she shifted her wings against her sides, embarrassed at having not thought of that. “I guess. Although, if you don't mind me asking, why'd you leave the scouts? Didn't you like it?”

“Eh, it was fine, wasn't like I wasn't having fun but,” she gave a short, low chuckle, “let's just say I had a damn good reason not to want to get to the part where they gave us knives.” There was a short, awkward pause before she continued. “Besides, I learned all the stuff I needed on my own, so it's fine.”

Despite that assurance, Icy got the slight sense that it would be best not to pursue the topic further. Swallowing hard, she refocused on the tunnel in front of her, puffing her wings out to the side a little to give her a sense of exactly how narrow the tunnel got.

She hadn't walked for ten more metres before she encountered the first part that worried her.

“Okay, think we might have a problem,” she called back quietly. After a moment, she felt the rope tense slightly, causing her to shake her head. “It's okay, Lance, I'm not stuck and me and Archer should be able to get through here if we squeeze, but I'm not sure about you with all your padding.”

There was a hum from just behind as Archer approached a little closer. “Hmm, see what you mean. Might have to sling my bow and quiver under me, but I think I can make it. But, yeah, Lance, I'm not sure...”

She was interrupted by the sound of ripping velcro, letting both of the fillies know what was happening behind them – Lance was stripping off his fencing gear to slim down. The sound had come from a little way back down the tunnel, a moment's recollection informing Icy that that was the nearest place with enough elbow room to allow him to disrobe and disarm.

She and Archer waited for a while as the sounds of velcro, zippers and shifting fabric echoed down the tunnel. It was a little awkward, though not because of what Lance was doing – Icy couldn't imagine why anypony would have a problem with being seen removing their clothes. Admittedly, she had heard that it could be a little weird, as it would reveal a pony's body but, while Lance's physique was certainly impressive, Icy doubted there'd be any reason to look. Instead, the reason it was awkward was that the twisting tunnel turned fairly sharply along the next five metres of the cave, meaning she was spending the time staring at a rock wall.

From behind her, she heard Archer snicker. “Lance taking his clothes off right behind us – bet half the fillies in school wish they were here right now.”

Icy blinked, more confused at the statement than inclined to re-evaluate her previous assessment. “Huh? If... if you say so. Why'd they...?”

She was cut off when she felt a tug on the rope around her leg. “What was...”

“He tied the clothes bundle to the rope so you could pull it – good thinking,” Archer explained.

Icy exhaled sharply, unsure how to feel about being unknowingly hitched to cargo like that. Still, as she pulled her leg forward to continue, she was relieved to find that the burden wasn't enough to interfere with her movements – just a small bit of extra weight.

Still, she did give that leg a small, sharp tug as she started forward again, feeling how the rope shifted as the clothes attached to it popped out of Lance's hooves. She couldn't see him but sensed the slight surprise in his silence and smiled.

That done, she started forward again, pressing her wings into her sides to fit through the narrow space. A few seconds later, she heard a quiet scraping from behind her as Lance forced himself through, the space not sounding comfortable in the least, but also not sounding like he'd have too much difficulty getting through.

Of course, that did mean Archer was making her way without difficulty, but that was no surprise for the lithe filly, given she lacked either wings or width. Admittedly, the latter might have seemed counterintuitive to some, as she had told Icy once that it took considerable strength to use a longbow with the power and range she did, so if one knew that, it might seem odd she was so slim. However, this was easily explained due to her being an Earth Pony, meaning she didn't just gain strength from her muscles, but from her magic and Talent as well.

For that matter, Icy wasn't sure what sort of pony would be aware of the intricacies of bow use but unaware of how the most populous of the pony tribes worked. Then again, it didn't have to be a pony – griffons and minotaurs could easily use bows and Archer herself proved that a hooved race could also make use of them. For that matter, dragons could theoretically use them, even if Icy had no idea why they'd ever need to. Still, the idea of a hundred-metre-tall dragon using a bow and arrow to hit a bullseye the size of a wagon wheel did amuse her.

A low point in the ceiling knocked her out of her reverie almost literally, forcing her to duck her head sharply to avoid smacking it against the jutting bit of rock. She let out an “ungh!” of surprise before calling back, “Careful of your head there.”

“Got it,” Archer replied, making Icy's eyes dart to the side, looking as far back as she could without turning her head. As she did, though, she noticed that the tunnel had begun to widen again, allowing her to relax her wings as she continued, turning around a small bend.

That said, the long, straight section of more tunnel didn't exactly make her feel that gratified.

“How long is this tunnel, anyway?” Icy asked, not with the expectation of an answer, but not rhetorically either – she'd have liked to know, but she didn't need to in order to think the question was worth asking.

Fortunately, Archer replied. “If the map's right, about a mile and a bit.”

Icy nearly stumbled, her wings beginning to flare out for a moment before the rock walls on either side of her blocked them off. “A mile and...”

“We're not just going down the street here, Icy,” Archer pointed out, clearly not bothered by the prospect. “We're going deep into the Everfree forest. And forests tend to be kinda big. Heck, even when we're past this tunnel, there's still a whole cave system to get through.”

Icy sighed. “I guess. Sorry, it just felt like...”

“...like every turn might end up showing you the end?” Archer suggested. “Yeah, I get that, but don't worry, it's not like we're in any danger. We can get through this easy.”

There was a sharp exhale from behind her.

“You and me can get through this easy,” she amended.

Icy sighed but nodded as she continued on. She almost asked Archer how much distance they'd covered so far, but she didn't want to seem whiny. Besides, she was afraid Archer would be able to tell her.

For that matter, she wasn't sure how anyone had known how long this tunnel was in the first place – her mother had been right that no ordinary adult would be able to fit down here to measure it. It was possible they just looked at where the tunnel started and ended and figured out the distance between them, but considering how much the passage twisted and turned, that wouldn't be a very good measurement – certainly not good enough to put on an official map.

On the other hoof, since they could fit down here, it was obviously possible to get down here, though Icy had never heard of any filly cartographers. That said, she hadn't heard of that many cartographers at all – only a few that her mother had worked with and she hadn't usually gone into how old they were. Besides, Sunny Flight wasn't the Bureau's go-to when it came to caves – not enough space, vertical or horizontal, for her to really show her stuff.

Of course, as Icy had been reminded when she first got her costume and met À La Mode, not all small ponies were children. For that matter, it was possible that a unicorn could have shrunk themselves or somepony else to explore down here, but that seemed like a lot of effort to go to just to look into a crack in the stone. Then again, if there were no time constraints, why not?

And all of that was assuming the mapmaker had been a pony. Granted, most of the races of the world capable of drawing maps were pony-sized or larger and Icy hadn't heard of any Breezies being employed in such capacities. However, if a pony was good enough with animals, they might have been able to coordinate with some smaller ones to get a good enough idea of how it worked to make a rough map.

The thought made Icy's eyes widen a little as she realized that, though unlikely, there might have already been some varieties of animal or creature that made their home in this tunnel. After all, the narrowness of it would make it an ideal place to stay safe from any larger predators and, while that did imply that any such creatures wouldn't be at the top of the food chain, that didn't mean they couldn't be dangerous. The entire reason Icy and her friends were down there, after all, was because it was connected to the Everfree and even the prey there didn't tend to be the sorts of things to take lightly.

The realization sent a tension into Icy's front legs and wings, almost reaching her waist before she clamped down on it – if her back legs started tensing up, Archer would doubtlessly sense it and Icy didn't want to worry her.

Well, she didn't want to make her think there was anything wrong, at any rate – Icy wasn't sure anything less than a crashing meteor could worry Archer.

Still, she pricked her ears up as she walked, listening intently for any troubling sounds from the tunnel ahead of her. Not that she or the others could likely do anything about whatever was down there, given there was neither room to rear up nor extend her wings, but it would at least give them some warning.

She knew that, in all likelihood, she'd hear any inhabitants before she saw them, though sadly that didn't apply in reverse – the light being given off from her chest-mounted flashlight would give away their presence long before they got into the actual sight-line of anything. Icy just hoped that the light would startle the creatures enough to make a sound so they could both realize each other's presence around the same time.

Admittedly, Icy wasn't entirely sure how light going down a bendy tunnel worked, but it was still a danger. Obviously, Icy knew roughly how light worked – shooting along a beam from wherever it started. But she also knew that it didn't have to go in a straight line even if what she knew about it suggested it should. After all, if it couldn't go around things, then how come a pony's shadow wasn't pitch black, even if it was from a single light source?

No sooner had she thought this than the light from her torch went strange. Icy blinked for a moment before realizing what had changed: there was a small gap in the rock in front of her, about twenty metres ahead. It wasn't fully visible, as there was a slight curve to the tunnel, but it looked very much like an exit.

Smiling, Icy picked up the pace a little, striding down the tunnel as the gap grew until, at last, she passed out of the cramped corridor and into an open, expansive cavern.

Spreading her wings in relief, Icy trotted in place as the others joined her. It wasn't much of an achievement, but they'd managed to get through a mile of tunnel without experiencing any real problems from the space, any inhabitants or the rain outside...

Icy's hooves locked up for a split second, bringing her happy trot to a halt as she was reminded why they had to come this way in the first place. The easy-but-still-extant challenge of the tunnel had done a good job distracting her from the plummeting mass of water far above their heads. She couldn't hear it, of course, which might have been a good sign, but now she had remembered, she thought she could feel it.

Still, she turned back to her friends, hoping to be able to distract herself again.

Fortunately, she was saved the trouble as her trotting and turning had quite thoroughly tangled the rope tied to her around her legs and, as she tried to face her friends, she found her legs being pulled together and her body toppling over like a chopped-down tree, plummeting towards the ground.

She impacted the ground softly and let out a grunt, both out of discomfort and embarrassment. A snort of repressed laughter told her that Archer had been watching the whole thing and had little reason to interfere.

Fortunately, Lance was a little more physically responsive as he walked up to her. Admittedly, his face only spared her a momentary glance of sympathy before he focused on the rope, but Icy appreciated it nonetheless. From Lance, even a fleeting display of sentiment was noteworthy.

However, he was clearly more concerned with dealing with the problem than sympathizing with it and, before Icy even had a chance to try and turn her head down enough to see exactly what he was doing, he had unwoven the tangled rope from around her legs and undone the knot that had been tied to her in the first place.

Guess he was a scout for a lot longer, Icy thought as he coiled up the rope for storage. Though it'd make sense if he didn’t have a problem with being given a knife.

Once he'd gathered the rope into a loop, Lance nodded over to Archer before picking up the bundle of thick cloth Icy had been pulling and retreating into the crack to change.

Feeling a little awkward watching him go, Icy turned to Archer. “So, where do we go from here?”

Archer looked up, having just finished rearranging her bow and quiver to rest on her back again rather than under her barrel. “Hm? Oh, hang on!”

She reached to the side of her quiver, where a waterproof plastic tube was tied. Popping the top off, she pulled out a rolled-up piece of laminated paper and placed it on the floor, unravelling it to reveal a map.

“Hmm, looks like we need to go that way,” she said, not looking up as she pointed forward and to the right of them.”

“Um, Archer?” Icy said as she followed Archer’s hoof.

“Hm?” Archer looked up at Icy for a moment before following her eyeline and turning to look where she was pointing. “Ah.”

As it turned out, the crack had come out onto a large rocky shelf in a huge cavern. The ground was firm and the area wasn't small, but it still ended a short distance away, meaning that Archer seemed to be pointing over the edge of a chasm. Icy didn’t know what was below it, but she wasn't sure she was keen on finding out.

Archer hummed for a moment more before a smile poked its way onto her face. “Ah, hold on, look up there.” She angled her hoof up a little and, following it, Icy saw an exit to the cavern on a smaller and higher outcropping.

Icy gulped. “You're sure that's where we have to go?” she asked, hoping for even a hint of doubt in Archer's reply.

Unfortunately, she was left wanting. “Yep, fits the angle on the map perfectly. Besides, if there was more than one way out in that direction, the map'd say. Still, if it is the wrong way, won't have to take it for long before we realize the map stops working. Then we can just come back and take whatever way we should do.”

“Oh, okay,” Icy replied, swallowing hard and decidedly not bringing up that she had hoped they wouldn't have to get up there in the first place.

Still, Archer did hum a little as she evaluated the distance, horizontal and vertical, to be traversed. And, while she didn't seem that intimidated, she at least seemed to acknowledge that it was a barrier to be overcome.

After a moment's thought, though, she went over to the coiled-up rope and picked it up, carrying it up to the edge. “Well, me and Lance can take a rope up there, what about you? Can you climb or fly up there?”

Icy shook her head. “Well, I can't fly up... I can't really fly,” she amended, “but you know that. I can sort of leap and glide, but not that high or far.”

“Yeah, how does that work, anyway?” Archer asked, her tone speaking of nothing but innocent curiosity. “I mean, it's all flapping and holding, isn't it?”

Icy rocked a hoof side-to-side. “Kind of, but my wings are very weak.” She spread out her right wing for emphasis, even if she didn't know if what she was talking about was visible. “I can flap them hard and I can hold them out to glide but it takes a lot of effort and I can't do both at the same time, which you need to do if you want to actually climb and properly fly. Besides, even if I can, I don't know how to direct the flap so it gets me up that high. So, I need something solid underneath it if I want to get any height out of it.”

Archer hummed. “And rope-climbing?”

Icy gulped. “Um, I don't know. I've never really tried it and, well...”

Archer nodded, her eyes scanning over the distance between their location and their destination. “Yeah, I get it – not exactly the best place to try and find out. And you reckon that's higher than you can jump? By how much, do you think?”

Icy looked up at the exit, squinting a little as she thought. “Well, it's not quite twice as high, but probably pretty close.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, embarrassed that she was holding the group up even before they'd got out into the main part of their mission. “I'm sorry, I...”

“No, it's fine,” Archer said, barely seeming to register the possibility that this was a problem. “So, if you could get a second jump in after your first one, you could make it?”

Icy tilted her head, confused for a moment. “Er, why would a second jump get highe-'' she stopped as she saw Archer turning to her, her mouth opening and her hoof raising to explain. However, before she had the chance, Icy realized what she meant. “Oh, you mean, like, in the air, at the top of the first jump?” At Archer's nod, she frowned a little. “I mean, probably, yeah, but I don't know how. There'd need to be a bit of ground up there, right?”

Archer smiled as she turned her head, looking towards the wall that stretched out between them and the outcropping. “Maybe not. You reckon you could launch off a wall as well as a floor?”

Icy's eyes widened as she thought about the possibility. “Huh. I mean, maybe. It'd be hard, need to flap hard or more carefully to... you know... the angle...” she waved a hoof vaguely, understanding what she wanted to say but not having the words to do so.

Still, Archer seemed to nod in understanding. “But you think you could do it if you had somewhere to land?” She readied her bow and pulled a thick, grey arrow covered in metallic veins out of her quiver.

Icy put a hoof up before Archer could load the arrow, however, and spoke quickly. “Yeah, but an arrow wouldn't do it.”

“Oh, don't need to worry about your weight,” Archer said, though she did pause in her nocking of the arrow. “It's a special kind of arrow that...”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Icy interjected, a little awkwardly. “What I mean is that an arrow's too small for me to land on enough. I wouldn't be able to get my hooves under me and stay stable enough to angle my wings right – I'd be too busy trying to get a grip and not fall.”

Archer remained still for a moment before relaxing, her shoulders slumping slightly as she sighed. “Oh. Makes sense.” She put the arrow back into the quiver. “Shame, I was hoping to try out the new trick arrow.”

“Oh, is it new?” Icy asked, hoping to distract Archer from her disappointment. “What does it do?”

Fortunately, it seemed to work as Archer smiled. “New little gadget Cue came up with to improve on my sucker arrows – Post Impact Immovability.”

Icy raised an eyebrow – she hadn't had the chance to meet Zyracue, the resident weaponsmith and artificer of the subsect of the Night Guard that Iota Force belonged to, colloquially referred to as the Weirdness Patrol. Still, she got the impression he was rather fond of the technical names he came up with. “P-I-Is?”

Archer shrugged. “Maybe. I just call 'em Stick-n-Stays. Basically, once they hit the target, they lock in place – not on whatever they hit, but in the air too. Once they're in place, they'll stay exactly where they are and nothing short of Big Mac's biggest buck'll move ‘em. Pretty useful, huh?”

Icy nodded. “Yeah, sounds good. Sorry I can't-”

“It's fine,” Archer interrupted, waving off her apology. “If it wouldn't work, it wouldn't work. 'Sides, only got a few, so probably best not to waste 'em. Still, does mean we need to figure out a way to get you something to land on. Pity Cue hasn't figured out those platform arrows yet.”

Icy didn't give the allusion much attention as she thought – what could they use to make a big enough platform for her?

Something brushed against her wings, sending a shiver through them and causing Icy to whirl around with a start. Her wings flared out as she saw Lance, now fully dressed in his fencing gear, standing there with his hoof out. She waited for a moment for him to lower his hoof, only to see that he was purposely holding it up, pointing at her wings.

It only took a moment for her to understand his meaning and she only stopped herself slapping a hoof against her forehead because she was unsure of his suggestion. “My ice?” She looked up once more at the distance she needed to cover. “I dunno – I don't think I can make a platform tall enough to get the height.” She looked at the ground beneath them. “Maybe if I had a whole long while, but I guess we don't...”

Her attention was drawn back up by Lance shaking his head. Raising her head again, she saw him point to the wall of the cavern, in between the two rocky shelves.

Icy's mouth went to the side as she thought. “Make one on the wall? That... that could work, but it'd need something under it, I think. Otherwise, I couldn't make it wide enough to land on. Hmm...” She looked over the wall, hoping to find a small outcropping she could use to build a platform.

After a moment, Archer spoke up. “What about if you filled in that crack right there?”

Icy turned towards Archer, expecting to see her holding a hoof out to point to where she was talking about, only to find her simply looking at it.

Icy turned to where she was looking, hoping in vain to follow her sightline. “Where?”

There was a twang and an arrow flew out and into the wall in question, straight into the centre of a moderately-sized crack in the wall, disappearing into it up to its fletching. “That one,” Archer replied the instant it hit.

Icy nodded. “Yeah, that'd work. Although... hey, could you maybe get a longer arrow in there?”

Archer smiled. “Sure thing,” She reached into her quiver and started pulling out another arrow. However, unlike when she normally did so, she had to pull it out as far as her leg would go and then flick her hoof down to a lower point on the shaft, pulling it the rest of the way out and revealing an arrow over half the length of Archer herself.

Icy blinked in surprise at the huge piece of ammunition as Archer carefully loaded it into her bow, having to lean back considerably to keep from overbalancing. “Huh,” Icy said after a moment, “I know I asked if you had one, but I don't think I should have expected you to.”

Archer shrugged as she pulled back the string, pointing the bow up at a sharper angle than before. “Hey, never know when you might need an emergency pole,” she said simply before letting the arrow fly, the massive shaft's higher weight making it arc a lot more in the air before landing in the crack, over half its length protruding from the wall.

Icy smiled and flapped her wings the instant it hit – she didn't know if or when it might fall out of the crack, so she didn't give it the chance, sending a bolt of freezing energy out at it and encasing the arrow in a thin layer of ice. That done, she took a moment to gather a lot more energy in her wings before she began flapping harder, thickening the ice until it had filled up the crack and created a platform large enough for her to land on.

That said, the image of her landing brought up the one slight problem with her plan – ice tended to be just a little bit slippery and she didn't want to fall off the platform if she could avoid it.

She hummed for a moment, looking at the platform she'd made. She'd be coming at it from opposite the wall, so she didn't have to worry about slipping off the front or back. However, she didn't have enough control over how she froze things to create a level landing surface, meaning the platform was curved on its top and she might be in danger of slipping off the side without something to stop her.

However, as soon as she thought of that, she clopped a hoof on the ground as she realized what she could do. “Hey, Archer, could you maybe fire a couple of arrows into the wall on either side of it, a little higher than the middle of i-”

Icy was cut off by two twangs in rapid succession, followed by the thunk of two arrows embedding themselves in the wall.

“Sure,” Archer replied. “Why?”

“Just for safety,” Icy said as she started flapping her wings again, coating the two arrows in enough ice to act as makeshift railings.

“Cool,” Archer said over the sound of the wind. “Need any more?”

Icy shook her head as she relaxed her wings, reasonably proud of the job she'd done. “Nope, that should be it.” Icy rested her wings for a moment before she heard Archer pull another arrow out of her quiver. It was an odd sort of sound – very quiet, so much so that there needed to be no other sounds for it to be audible, but distinct: like the sound of somepony sucking in breath but reversed without being turned into a breath out.

Shaking her head out of her consideration of how she thought she knew what that sounded like, she turned to see that Archer had already tied the rope around the arrow's tail and was pulling it back in the bow, pointing its grappling hook head up at the platform they were heading towards.

After a moment, she fired, sending the arrow flying with the rope trailing behind. After a couple of seconds in the air, the arrow flew over a small pair of close-together rocks on the edge of the opposite shelf, the weight of the rope soon pulling it down and back, latching the head firmly onto the rocks.

Nodding in satisfaction, Archer picked up the other end of the rope and began looping it around a much larger rock. “Well, looks like we've got our ways up. We going or what?”

Icy turned to the chasm, beginning to nod before an unpleasant thought occurred to her as she looked into the darkness. Bending down a little, she picked up a small rock and tossed it over the side, listening intently to what happened next.

After a second or two, she heard it impact the ground with a tiny splash and smiled – she didn't think there would be any real water down there, but she didn't want to be either distracted by the possibility or startled by it if there was any and if her flashlight happened to illuminate it. Fortunately, it was clear from the sound that there wasn’t anything but a couple of small puddles down there at most.

That done, she nodded firmly and flapped her wings hard, shooting up into the air before she had a chance to reconsider. Once she'd reached the peak of her jump, she flared her wings out into a glide, heading straight for the ice platform she'd made.

It took a few seconds for her to reach the jutting shard of ice, but it was enough time to get a closer look and appreciate how slick and reflective it was, making a slight jolt of apprehension shoot through her. However, by the time it had fully registered, she was already coming in for a landing, her rear half lowering and her wings angling down, making her tail fly up and tickle her belly.

Wait, my tail!

Thinking quickly, she shifted her tail a moment before she reached the platform so that she landed on it. She still slid worryingly forward and to the side but the thick, curly hair of her tail provided just enough friction that, even without the safety barriers she'd made, she wouldn't have slid off.

A fraction of a second later, she had stopped, bringing her full weight onto the ice. There was a quiet but deep cracking sound that seemed to be echoed in her chest as her heart felt like it was fracturing. However, after a moment, the sound faded, replaced by a slight groaning – the ice was holding, for the moment at least.

Fortunately, her tail-first landing had given Icy enough stability that a moment was all she needed before she straightened up, turned around and angled her wings down and back. With another flap, she rocketed off the ice with another, louder crack. However, as the ice left her peripheral vision, she didn't see it shatter or even have any significant pieces fall off. As she flew, she couldn't hear any further cracking either, which implied that it was a lot stronger than she'd given it credit for.

However, she didn't have time to think about it as she was soon approaching the rocky shelf she was aiming for. It looked like she was going to make it, but only just, reaching only the lip of it.

Frowning, Icy leant to the side a little. She didn't have enough strength in her wings to truly turn reliably, but she was able to slightly shift her trajectory so that she'd be landing next to the rope Archer had lodged there, able to grab it if she needed to.

Fortunately, that proved unnecessary as she reached the ledge just before she would have descended below it, her hooves skidding along the rock the instant they got over it and her body coming to a stop with her back legs still hanging over the precipice.

She dragged herself forward, breathing heavily but otherwise relieved. “Okay, I made it!” she said, more to herself than anyone else.

She then realized that she really should say it to someone else, and turned around, ready to tell Archer... only to see her just beginning to shimmy her way up the rope.

Still, she called out to her. “Okay, I'm over. Let me know if you need me to do anything over here!”

“Will do!” Archer replied, continuing to make her way slowly up.

There was a long pause as Icy sat down, watching Archer easily-but-gradually climbing. She trusted that, if Archer needed any help, she'd say so, but that didn't make it feel any less awkward to just sit there while the agile filly slowly traversed the distance. She didn't know if Lance felt the same, as he was standing with his usual stoicism next to the other end of the rope, ready to intervene if anything went wrong, but she wouldn’t have been surprised.

Eventually, she decided to speak up. “So...” she trailed off for a moment, grasping for a conversation thread before something from what Archer had said earlier occurred to her, “you said Cue was working on... platform arrows? What, um... what are those?”

“Little idea I had,” Archer called back, clearly not having any trouble climbing and talking at the same time. “Basically, making an arrow that, once it hits, it'd make a little platform out of force magic. Thought it'd help with climbing and falling. Heck, if you could combine it with a stick-n-stay, you could have a platform hanging anywhere there's something solid to hit. Figured that'd have some uses.”

“I guess,” Icy replied, understanding how it could be a good thing to have, but unable to shake the feeling that it would be a rather niche tool. “But you said he hadn't figured out how to make them, right? That makes sense – how do you fit that much magic in an arrow?”

“Oh, no, that's the easy part,” Archer assured her, now beginning to close the distance between them. “I mean, it wouldn't be cheap, for sure, but Cue knows his stuff and he could do it. No, the problem is making sure the platform's level. See, if the platform's set to come out of one bit of the arrow's… circular outside thing, then that bit needs to be facing perfectly up or down for the platform to be level. And, I mean, I'm one of the best with a bow in the whole Night Guard,” she stated with neither doubt as to her skill nor any real admiration or vanity about it, “but even I'd have trouble making sure an arrow’s always facing up with how they spin when you shoot ‘em, and no one else'd even have a chance. So any platforms we make'd be at least diagonal.”

Icy tilted her head as Archer approached. “Would that be a problem? The diagonal one, I mean.”

Archer chuckled. “Well, force magic ain't exactly known for friction. Anything more than a slight angle, you'd be sliding off before you could even get your hooves under you. And all that's assuming you can get the arrow itself totally level. Which, if you're in a situation where you need a platform, ain't too likely.”

Icy nodded as Archer climbed up onto the ledge. “So, probably not seeing them any time soon?”

“Nope,” Archer said with a tiny amount of strain as she pulled herself fully up to Icy's level. “Still, I'm sure we'll manage somehow, huh?” She jerked her head back at the rope.

Icy giggled. “I guess so.”

Smiling, Archer turned back to the chasm, looking out over at Lance. “Ready when you are, Lan-” she cut herself off, looking a little confused and, when Icy looked over herself, she could see why.

Rather than beginning to climb up the rope as Archer had done, Lance had untied it from around the boulder that was holding that end in place and was pulling it away from the edge a little, the tip grasped in his teeth. His mask was hanging on a hook on his belt, but his hat was still firmly atop his head.

“Hey, Lance,” Archer called, though her tone made it clear she was more curious than worried. “You gonna be okay getting over he-”

Without seeming to acknowledge Archer's question, Lance yanked the rope in his teeth back until it was taut, then took off at a full sprint towards the cave wall. He swung round, keeping the rope stretched as he approached the wall before leaping up onto it.

“Well, ask a bonehead question...” Archer muttered with a smile.

The instant Lance impacted the wall, he began running along it with three of his legs, keeping his body at a sharp angle against it, while the other leg and his mouth kept hold of the rope, pulling it in towards himself as he travelled along the wall, making sure it was always taut enough to keep him steady and stop him descending along the wall.

He travelled like this for a good five seconds before he reached Icy's platform. His trajectory had taken him a little bit over it, but once he was on top of it, he hopped off the wall, letting the rope in his jaw slacken a little.

He impacted it with a resounding crack, bending his knees as the massive fracture spread through the ice before leaping off just as the whole thing collapsed. However, the surface had given him enough of a jumping-off point that he was able to get even higher and further along the wall. Icy swallowed quickly – it didn't look like he'd be able to resume his wall run from the angle he was going.

Fortunately, it seemed he didn't have to, as he shot his hooves out in front of him and launched himself off the wall and over the chasm. However, as he did, he opened his mouth to allow the rope to run through it, travelling up along it until he'd reached the top of his jump's arc. The instant he got there, he clamped his teeth down onto the rope again and fell into a swing, travelling perpendicular to the edge of the platform Icy and Archer were on.

This meant that, after he had fallen briefly out of sight, he came up again on the other side of them, the force behind his descent sending him swinging almost to the lip of the platform. Once he was there, he flashed his sword out of his scabbard and thrust it into the rock next to him. Letting the rope drop from his teeth, he swung on his new hoofhold until he could flip up onto the platform, landing on his hindhooves with his hooves out in a balancing posture that just happened to somewhat resemble a 'ta-da!' one.

As he bent down to retrieve his sword, Icy leaned over to Archer and whispered, “So, do you think he meant to show off just then?”

Archer shook his head as she retrieved the rope. “No, and I wouldn't suggest telling him he was unless you like getting glared at for months. I'm pretty sure he just thought that was the quickest and most efficient way up here.”

Icy considered this for a moment. “Well, I mean, he wasn't wrong.”

Archer nodded with a chuckle as she started coiling the rope. “Yeah, it's amazing how many of his 'efficient methods' involve him being flashy while he’s sneering at the idea.” She shrugged. “Chalk it up to the general weirdness of the group, I'd say.”

Lance looked over as he sheathed his sword once more, giving a firm nod as he saw Archer finish with the rope. That done, he began walking purposefully down the tunnel out of the cavern.

Archer gave Icy a knowing glance as she started following him. “See what I mean, being flashy and being direct don't make each other impossible. Or being rude, I guess.”

Icy nodded for a moment as she pondered the idea. After a few seconds, though, she hopped to her hooves with a start at realizing she was lagging behind, hurrying to catch up with the others.

Sunny Flight strode her way through Sweet Apple Acres, planting her hooves hard on every step across the muddy ground and keeping her eyes locked forward, peering through the water deluging in front of her and pouring down her waterproof hood.

Eventually, she saw her destination – a barn on the edge of the orchard, near the border to the Everfree. Pinkie and her group had been using it as their base of operations for her project and she was heading over to check the progress of it, as well as learn what it actually was.

Sunny chuckled as she thought about how long it had taken before she had a chance to come out here. She wished it was because she had heeded Icy's advice and dedicated herself to her role in organizing the town's flood defences and while, in a sense, she had, it wasn't due to any decision or virtue on her part. Instead, it was simply that a huge number of things had started happening all at once almost the moment Icy and her friends had left her sight which all meant she and the rest of the organizing committee had been swamped dealing with it. So, while she hadn't spent her time worrying about her daughter, it was only because she hadn't had a chance to, which she supposed was a blessing of a sort.

Still, now that there was a momentary reprieve, she'd volunteered to check the progress of Pinkie's team and, as she walked up to the barn doors, she braced herself for what sort of weirdness she was about to see and hoped it would provide her a way to get to Icy.

As she pushed the door open, she wasn't disappointed by the first but was doubtful of the second.

In the centre of the barn, with ponies working all around it, was a huge, multi-stranded shaft of wood. The back of it, from her perspective, was near the ground, but the front was raised up on huge, stable legs and what looked like the shaft of a massive, horizontal bow was just being attached to it.

Sunny blinked as she stood there, taking in the sight of it. She barely even noticed when Pinkie dashed up to her side and threw a hoof around her shoulders.

“Hey there, Sunny! You here to help us out, to tell us the news, to get the news from us or just to bring us more food? The last batch only has seven donuts...” There was a brief cessation of pressure on Sunny's shoulder and a whoosh of air next to her before Pinkie's hoof reasserted itself, “six donuts left!”

Sunny swallowed, entirely ignoring Pinkie's question as she stared at the colossal contraption. “Pinkie? Is this a ballista?”

“Yepperoonio!” Pinkie chirped, hopping in front of her to wave her hooves over the machine like a model over a racing chariot. “See, when I heard about the wind wall that was stopping anyone walking, flying or teleporting into the forest, I thought it was such a shame that Rainbow Dash was all the way on the other side of Equestria, since a rainboom might have given her enough speed and force to power through the wall but then I realized that all we need to do to get somepony through is give them enough force, so we'd need a machine to fire them through.”

She leaned an elbow on the ballista's side, eliciting a sigh from the carpenter who had just finished working on that part half a second earlier. “It was this or a cannon and I figured this'd be easier to make on short notice. I'm gonna ask the mayor if we can always keep a non-party cannon on standby for if this happens again, though.”

Sunny found herself nodding, even if she wasn't sure exactly why. “And you're sure that this'll have enough power to send a pony through... and not enough to be a danger to them?”

Pinkie opened her mouth to answer when a small voice from behind interrupted her.

“Consarnit!” Apple Bloom snapped as her head popped out from under the body of the ballista. “It might work if I can get this frickin' head mounted right!”

Pinkie gave the little filly a frown. “Language, Bloomie! What'd Applejack say if she heard you talking like that?”

Apple Bloom frowned, a little confused. “Erm, this goldarn head mounted right?”

Pinkie nodded firmly. “That's better!”

Sunny watched this all with a nonplussed expression. While Apple Bloom was on her own rather than with the rest of the Crusaders, meaning the chances of disaster were significantly reduced, she was still hesitant to take her word that things wouldn't go wrong.

Still, she had been assured that Princess Twilight herself had looked over the forces involved, so there was reason to be optimistic. Although...

“Hmm, I take it you have a plan to stop it getting rain-soaked and ruined before it has a chance to fire?”

“Uh huh!” Pinkie assured her, taking a pencil out of her mane and marking a couple of points on the body of the ballista. “We've got Lyra, Minuette, Amethyst Star and Sea Swirl on call to provide a force umbrella that should keep it dry. Though, if you wanted to help out, that'd make it even better – you're pretty good with force magic, aren't ya?”

Sunny nodded, not questioning how Pinkie knew that. “Well, yes, but that wasn't quite how I was thinking I could help.”

“Oh?” Pinkie stepped forward, allowing Pokey Pierce to step up behind her and start making holes where she'd marked. “How's that, then? I'm always open to new ideas.

That much is obvious, Sunny thought before shaking her head. “Tell me something. If whoever was riding the bolt from this thing could keep a windbreaker shield up in front of it, would that make it easier to fire it through the wall?”

Pinkie thought for a moment. “Well, I mean... it would, but nopony could keep a shield like that up.”

Sunny lit her horn up, a smirk starting to appear on her face. “Nopony?”

“Nopony!” Pinkie shook her head vigorously. “Cause of all the spinning.”

Sunny's smirk died half-formed. “Spinning?”

“Uh huh! See, once the bolt's fired,” Pinkie waved a hoof at the long cylinders in the corner being sanded down, “it'll start spinning around cos of all the forces involved. Even if a unicorn could keep their magic going through all that spinning, they couldn't keep the shield at the same angle. It'd start spinning around too and just mess up the aerodynamics worse. It was hard enough just to account for the weight of the pony themselves messing it up - Twilight's gonna need to cast some weird magical thingy on them and the bolt to deal with that.”

Sunny blinked as she saw what Pinkie meant, for the first time realizing that the erratic mare had thought things through more than she had. “Oh. I see.”

“Still, you can keep a shield next to the bolt until it's out of your range, that'd still help a whole heap of a lot! That way you could...”

“Out of the question!” Sunny declared, staring Pinkie dead in the eye. “See, I'm not going to be staying back here long enough to do that. When you've got this thing finished, then let me assure you, I'm going to be the first one to use it.” She turned to stare at the massive machine, a grim smile coming to her mouth. “This thing has a chance of getting me to my daughter and I'll be damned if I don't take it!”

Chapter Three: Hot, Cold and Wet Pursuit

Icy, Archer and Lance traversed the massive cave system in a silence that bordered on uncomfortable without fully crossing over into it. It wasn't that anypony was looking for things to say and coming up empty or even that there was a sense there should have been any conversation. It was simply that none of them had anything to say, whether verbally or in Lance's usual method of silent communication. However, it was prevented from being a comfortable silence by the fact that they were heading towards danger, even if they had a long way to go before they reached it.

Archer was in the front of the group, occasionally looking at the laminated map she'd brought with and using it to direct the group along the maze of winding passages, while Lance took up the rear. It had been agreed that, while most of the more unpleasant inhabitants of the Everfree would be far closer to the surface, if they were in these caves at all, there was no sense taking chances. As a result, Lance was keeping up a vigilant rear guard in case they ran across any, trusting Archer's reflexes to handle any head-on threats. This possibility was another reason they kept quiet, since any sound too loud would echo down every cave for quite a distance.

This unfortunately left Icy in the middle, fully protected but unable to contribute much to the journey or do anything to distract herself from her thoughts. There wasn't even much to look at – only what their chest-mounted flashlights illuminated, which consisted mostly of plain, round walls. The lack of anything real to look at or think about left her imagination to run wild and, at that moment, her imagination was firmly fixated on the deluge far above their heads, the rushing water that was flowing along the ground and into the raging river and her inevitable terror at it.

It was a curious feeling, being terrified because of the inevitability of the fear itself rather than what you were going to be afraid of, but Icy wasn't in a frame of mind to appreciate it at the time. She wondered once again if this had been a terrible idea – a thought she'd had so much it had never felt like the hundredth, thousandth or millionth time she'd thought it, just that it was one of a never-ending, amorphous sea of such thoughts, which was an image that certainly didn't help her anxieties.

It was certainly possible that her phobia wouldn't interfere with the mission. After all, while the water piling up and flowing along the ground would certainly set her highly on edge, it probably wouldn't paralyse her and, if she could keep any massive bodies of water out of sight, she could probably just about manage. And, if the worst came to the worst, she could simply find some high ground, far above where any floodwater would reach, and wait while the others confronted the pony responsible. It would probably be fine. And yet...

And yet she couldn't shake the image of herself, shaking so hard and fast that she was drilling herself into the muddy ground, as if to submerge herself and provide a physical reason not to move, as the water rose around her and her teammates struggled in vain to force her forward, both verbally and physically. The thought that they might be busy dealing with her stupid phobia instead of what they had come for, let alone the possibility of her dragging them down into the depths with her, was enough to bring the suggestion that she go back unbidden to her throat, even if it wasn't hard to clamp her mouth shut and stop it from escaping.

Thankfully, after a long while of such thinking, a click roused her from her thoughts. Looking up, she saw that Archer had turned off her flashlight, making Icy blink in confusion. She opened her mouth to ask about this when it registered that, despite that light source being gone, she could still see Archer and the area in front of her clearly, the shadows having failed to swallow up the area her own light didn't reach.

Looking around, she quickly saw why – dotted all around the cave walls were small points of softly glowing white light. At first glance, they looked like oddly shaped light bulbs that had been melted onto the wall. However, after a moment, she realized that they looked closer to some sort of fungus, with little bumps and mushroom-like protrusions covering them.

“What are these?” Icy asked, keeping her voice down even in her astonishment.

“Glow-mold,” Archer replied as she looked around. “They tend to grow in some caves, 'specially in areas with a lot of wild magic. They're one of the nicer things in the Everfree – they'll only kill you if you lick 'em. So, yeah, be careful with your mouth around 'em, but otherwise, they're nothing to worry about.” She began walking on again. “Well, as long as they're white.”

Icy looked up after turning her light off, puzzled at Archer's amendment. “Huh? Why only if they're white?”

As Icy trotted to catch up, Archer looked over her shoulder. “Yeah, if you see any that glow green instead of white, you wanna keep as far away as you can. Those are Radiashrooms and they are not nice.”

Icy blinked, the word bringing to mind some of the heroes and villains of her comics. She didn't know much about radiation (though to be fair, she often wondered if the writers did either), but she knew it was a tricky thing to deal with and not to be taken lightly, whether or not you could get superpowers from it.

Not that we'd need to, a small voice in the back of her mind said, its confidence providing a sharp contrast to the rest of her thoughts and, in doing so, sounding less like Icy herself at that moment and more like Archer or Scootaloo. Still, it got her to flex her wings, reminding herself that, whatever tried to assault them, be it solid, liquid or energy, there was a better-than-even chance she could freeze it or block it with ice.

Her self-assurance lasted for about another fifteen seconds of their walk before a quiet rushing sound started echoing towards them, sending an instinctive shiver through her even before her ears had fully registered the sound of flowing water. Her wings flopped back against her sides as she continued, taking a deep breath as she tried to keep her composure.

Fortunately, it wasn't long before they saw what was making the noise. Icy wouldn't have thought that would be a good thing but, as it turned out, the fact that they only heard it once they were so near it was an indication that it wasn't nearly as large or intimidating as she feared.

In fact, it was simply a small stream of water flowing across their path, from one of the exits of a rough five-way intersection to another, with a few splashes creeping into the other exits, but nothing major. The tunnels the water was flowing from and to were significantly steeper than the others around it, so the water was simply following gravity.

Still, while it certainly wasn't any kind of danger, the presence of enough water to flow so smoothly did make the tension creeping through Icy's body freeze in place, making her feel somehow stiff and wobbly at the same time.

However, she wasn't so overcome with anxiety that she failed to notice how the tunnel didn't look like a regular stream. She didn't know much about lakes and rivers, for what she would consider obvious reasons, but she knew that water tended to make the ground under it wear away. That was how river valleys were formed – even if a flow of water started on relatively level ground, it would make itself a river if it continued hard or long enough.

“Should this be here?” she whispered, causing Archer to look back languidly and pull the rolled-up map from a pocket on her quiver.

Flicking it open, she studied it for a moment before giving an “ah” of understanding. “Well, it's not anything unnatural, if that's what you mean, but it's not normally here. See that tunnel?” She pointed down towards the source of the stream before stepping back towards Icy, her voice lowering even further. “Leads to a big open area just underneath Carte Canyon. The ground above it's pretty thin, so the rain'll be soaking through and flowing down. On the upside, the Canyon's one of the branches of the Everfree Ravine, which means we're close to the exit.”

“Uh huh,” Icy replied, unsure whether that truly was good news. However, that thought was somewhat subsumed when she looked along the stream's course, seeing the water disappearing down into the depths of the cave system. “Um, where's the water going, do you know? I mean, I know it's probably not going to be enough to fill the caves, but...” she trailed off, leaving unspoken the unshakable image of the tunnels flooding completely and cutting off their only connection back to Ponyville. She knew it was a silly idea, but that didn't stop it from sticking in her mind.

“Hmm, hold on,” Archer replied, holding the map up to a nearby chunk of glow-mold to get a better look at it. After a moment, she nodded firmly and rolled the map up again. “No worries – that tunnel goes down towards an underground river – it'll all just join up to a bigger flow.”

Icy hummed in thanks, only the slight quaver in it any indication that she wished Archer hadn't finished with that exact wording.

After waiting a moment for Archer to stow the map again, the three walked through the shallow water. Icy felt her breath freeze in her lungs as she walked, having to plant her hooves down firmly to stop herself instinctively walking on her hooftips to keep the parts of her hooves that could actually feel the water out of it. Oddly enough, though, she found that the parts that were submerged felt slightly better than the parts just above the water – it felt like she could feel the water with her whole body, but the submerged part at least had the feeling more concrete and understandable.

Still, that didn't mean she wasn't immensely thankful once they had passed beyond the stream. She shook the water off her hooves as they walked away from it, trying desperately not to think of how hard the rest of their journey would be.

Fortunately, she was distracted from such thoughts a short while later when Archer suddenly stopped and held a hoof up sharply, bringing the group to a halt. Icy opened her mouth to ask what was up when Archer pressed her other forehoof against her lips, silencing her.

Coming back to all fours, Archer pointed downwards, indicating for the others to stay here, then scurried silently forward and around a corner.

Icy turned to Lance, a questioning look on her face. She knew that, as counter-intuitive as it sounded, Archer was rather better when it came to stealth than the mute Lance. Not only was Archer's clothing lighter and less bulky but, while Lance was incapable of speaking, he had a way of drawing attention with his actions.

However, her look wasn't returned or even acknowledged, as Lance was gazing intently down the corridor, his ears twitching as they tried to pick up sounds from ahead of them. Curious, Icy also tried listening hard. For a few seconds, she didn't hear anything of note but, after picking apart the general noises of the cave – the wind rushing and the occasional drop of water that sent a tiny jolt through her heart – she could just about make out something else. It was hard to pin down, but it sounded almost like some kind of growling.

Before she had a chance to listen or think further, Archer came back around the corner, waving a hoof forward to indicate for them to go back down the tunnel. Fortunately, she wasn't sprinting, meaning there probably wasn't anything chasing her, but it was still worrying.

After the group had retreated a fair distance down the tunnel, Archer stopped them and waved the others towards her. Putting her head forward, she formed the three of them into a huddle, their head right next to each other before whispering, “Timberwolves. There's a pack of ‘em between us and the exit.”

Icy frowned, perturbed at this news. While she'd never personally encountered timberwolves, she'd heard plenty about them and knew of both how deadly and how vicious they were. “Do,” she began in a hushed voice before a mild glare from Lance brought it down even further. “Do they normally live in caves?”

Archer shook her head. “Not as far as I know. Guess they're as spooked by this weather as we are. Still, gonna have to deal with them – the nearest other exit's practically halfway back towards Ponyville.”

Lance tilted his head and tapped the frog of his hoof three times in rapid succession.

“Ten of 'em, I counted,” Archer answered. “Seven adults, three cubs. Not that it makes a difference with timberwolves – all it does is change how big the claws they're ripping you apart with are.”

Icy winced at the image. “Well, it might make them easier to deal with, right?”

Archer sighed. “Yeah, would if they didn't reassemble themselves after they're smashed. And that's if you're lucky – they might just combine to make a King. That’d block up the tunnel something awful. Oh, and it’d kill us easier.”

Icy nodded as she thought. “Is there anything that can stop them from putting themselves back together?”

Archer thought for a moment. “Well, fire can if it's big enough – one thing I know that scares 'em. Trouble is, I got nothing that can make a fire big enough to worry 'em.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Would do, but the guard still won't give me fire arrows. Figures.”

Icy tilted her head. She knew that Archer wasn't allowed explosive arrows, so it made a kind of sense that she wouldn't be given incendiary ones, but still, it seemed odd. “They don't trust you?” If they were talking about one of the Crusaders, she could maybe understand it, but she didn't think Archer was that irresponsible.

“Guess not, not enough to let me play with fire like that.” Archer sighed before shaking her head. “But enough about my problems, we need something to deal with the wolves.”

Icy scratched her forehead with the tip of her hoof, trying to think about what resources they had. “Well, what kinds of arrows do you have?”

That got a smirk from Archer. “Well, it's not like I'm wanting for choice. Got normal, impact, smoke, flashbangs, snares, stick-n-stays, grapple-headed, blade-headed, blunt-headed...”

“Okay, okay,” Icy waved the list down, satisfied that they had considerable resources. One of the items twigged a thought, though. “The flashbang arrows? Do they have any...”

Archer shook her head. “Don't have any kind of fire in 'em, no. It's all magic, just makes light and noise – you don't use fire for that.”

“I know, I know,” Icy replied – she was just checking there wasn't a little bit of fire involved. She knew that the flash and the bang themselves weren't caused by an explosion. Although...

She smiled. “I know that, but they won't.”

Lance's head turned sharply towards her in query.

“Well, they live in the wild, right?” Icy explained. “So, when they see a flash and hear a bang, especially in a storm, what are they going to think?”

There was a pause before Archer nodded. “Hmm, I see what you mean – could make 'em back off a bit. Trouble is, it'd only work once or twice – wolves ain't stupid, they'll figure it out soon enough – and only for a moment. Might help, but it's not gonna be enough to scare 'em away.”

Icy exhaled, a little deflated but still encouraged by the idea. “Well, I could maybe freeze one or two long enough to get past them, but not all ten of them.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Archer replied, though not with any kind of snideness – she'd simply already thought about the idea and evaluated its use. She looked up briefly to see Lance's stance. “Yeah, and you could probably hold off one or two. Three if it's the cubs, but even then, that's only half. And even without making 'em run, I could maybe stun some with a flashbang – they've got real sensitive hearing, that's why we're whispering – but that still won't get all of 'em.”

Icy nodded along as she thought about the problem. “What we need is to get rid of some of them.” She paused for a moment but opened her mouth quickly as it registered how obvious that statement sounded, cutting off any reply. “I mean separate them, break some of them off so we can deal with less of them at the entrance.”

Archer nodded, her mouth closing as, presumably, any snark died on her tongue. “Yeah, a distraction could work, but what?”

Icy hummed for a second before an idea struck her. She breathed in sharply, remembering that they were whispering a fraction of a second before she made an exclamation that could have echoed all the way to the wolves. “Could you maybe send a flashbang down the opposite tunnel from where we're coming from – get some of them to investigate?”

Archer shook her head. “Nice idea, but no. I mean, I'm good, but even I can't steer an arrow in midair to go along the tunnel path. That means I'd need to be close to 'em to do it, so they'd hear the bowstring before they heard the arrow hit. Besides, I could only send the arrow a little ways down the other tunnel, so the ones that break off'll still be nearby. Heck, they'll have us in a pincer movement if we do that.”

Icy wilted a little. “Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Sorry.”

Archer shook her head. “Oh, nothing to be sorry for – you've got the right idea.” She looked down the tunnels, a smile coming to her face. “In fact, I reckon we don't need to get any closer to 'em to thin the pack. Come on!”

Without another warning, Archer suddenly dashed off back down the tunnel, moving as quickly as she could while keeping her hoof steps silent.

A moment later, Lance followed, leaving Icy to take a moment to register what was happening before hurrying after them.

When the three had reached a small intersection, where another tunnel joined the way they were going to form a Y-junction, but ended in a dead end a short distance away. Archer pointed down the new tunnel. “Wait down there, I'll be back in a bit,” she whispered, unslinging her bow from her back.

She was just about to rush off again when Icy managed to hiss out. “Hey, wait a moment!”

Archer started slightly, as if genuinely surprised someone wasn't just going along with whatever she was doing. “What?”

Icy sighed. “Could you maybe tell us what you're planning to do? You know, so we can be prepared to do... whatever we need to do when we have to do it?”

She could see Lance nodding firmly in her peripheral vision. She didn't know whether it was one or both of them that seemed to get through to Archer as she gave the matter a moment's thought.

“Fair point,” she whispered back. “Sorry. See, I was gonna send a flashbang down into the cavern down there,” she pointed down the way they had originally come, “make a noise they'll hear. With any luck, a few of them'll break off to investigate. Once they do, we can hide down that tunnel, then slip back behind 'em while they're sniffing around the cavern. If it works, it might reduce the number at the entrance enough that we can get through.”

Nodding in satisfaction at her explanation, Archer turned to walk off again. However, something Archer had said gave Icy an unpleasant thought that cast doubt on the idea. “Hang on, don't wolves have a really good sense of smell?”

Archer turned back to her, a slight bit of confusion on her face. “Er, yeah, but what does...” she trailed off as her face fell slightly, though less into despair than into contemplation. “Oh, I see what you mean – they'll probably smell us. Hmm...”

There was a long moment of silence between the three teammates. Or, at least, the two fillies, since Lance was usually silent anyway.

Which made it odd that he was the one to clop a hoof lightly against the ground in realization. Catching the others' eyes, he mimed a burst with his hooves, then waved his hooves slightly as they went outward.

Archer smiled. “Good thinking – a smoke arrow should cover our scent enough they'll miss us.” She pulled an arrow with a thick, blunt head covered in grey markings from her quiver.

“Are you sure that won't scare them off?” Icy asked, feeling a little guilty that she kept finding potential problems with the plan.

Still, Archer didn't appear to mind. “Nope – this smoke's nothing like the stuff you get from fire, doubt it'll send 'em packing. Though if it does, hey, maybe it'll get 'em out of a cave after all.”

Icy thought about this for a moment, nodding at Archer's logic.

Archer smiled as she grabbed the arrowhead in both hooves. “Okay, I'm just gonna pop this. When I do, Icy, I'll need you to flap up enough of a wind to thin it and send it down the tunnels – don't want them to catch wind of it before we're ready, huh? Can you do that?”

Icy nodded, satisfied that they'd dealt with all the obvious problems with the plan.

Smiling, Archer pressed her hooves on either side of the arrow's head, applying enough force that it quickly started bulging outwards before bursting completely. Without being fired and impacting something, the popping noise was surprisingly quiet, further muffled by her hooves. However, there was little time to consider that as Archer's form got near-instantly subsumed by the rapidly expanding cloud of smoke.

Flaring her wings, Icy began flapping hard, halting the cloud's progress towards them and sending it spreading twice as fast down the tunnel. After about a minute's flapping, the cloud had thinned enough that she could see down the tunnel again, though it quickly curved away from them, meaning she couldn't see Archer anymore.

As she and Lance scampered down the opposite tunnel to hide, the amusing possibility that Archer had used that whole idea as an excuse to run away from the mission in a variant of the “smoke bomb and run” trick flickered briefly through Icy's mind. However, she just as quickly dismissed it – Archer would never do that, if only because she'd never acknowledge that a situation was enough of a threat to worry about her safety.

Unlike you, a nasty little voice hissed from the back of her mind as she was briefly reminded of exactly what they were there to stop.

Fortunately, a boom from down the tunnel distracted her from those thoughts and, a few moments later, Archer came racing silently around the corner, managing a dead sprint towards them while keeping completely quiet.

She waved her hoof forwards as she came up to them, urging them further back down the tunnel even as she smiled to let them know of a job well done.

The three scurried back down the tunnel until they could only just see the junction they'd come from. Once there, Lance slashed a few spots of glow-mold off the walls around them and flicked them far behind them, plunging the spot they were in into shadow. A glance at his silhouette-of-a-face told her of his reasoning – no sense in taking chances.

Nodding in agreement, Icy flapped her wings towards the now-loose mold, sending it tumbling further back until it was around the corner and out of sight.

That done, the three crouched down to the ground. Archer was the furthest forward, her sharp eyes making her the best lookout amongst them and her dark-blue outfit providing the most camouflage in the darkness. Icy was next, her pale blue blending adequately into the shadows and the rock walls and her wings giving her a good way to shield the bright white of Lance's fencing outfit should she need to. As such, Lance was in the back, his wide-brimmed hat held in his hooves to shrink his silhouette as much as possible.

The three of them all had their eyes firmly locked down the tunnel before them and sat there, waiting in total silence.

Icy took a long swallow, trying to stretch the process out to both keep it as quiet as possible and to give herself something to focus on other than the sharp tension in the shadowed air. She had no idea if the timberwolves had any interest in such a sound down the tunnels or how quickly they would move to investigate. Come to think of it, she didn't know anything about timberwolves besides what they looked like, and that was because she had seen a picture in a book. For that matter, it was entirely possible that said picture was exaggerated or inaccurate, so they could look like anything. For example...

A sound caught Icy's attention before she had a chance to go off on a mental tangent – something she would be the first to admit was quite a feat. Looking up, she saw a shape moving across the end of the tunnel far in front of them. It was hard to tell due to them being silhouetted by the lights in the tunnel, as well as Archer being in the way, but it certainly looked like the picture she had seen.

Raising herself slightly to see above Archer, though not enough to be in danger of being seen past her, she saw several more shapes joining the first. She counted four of them, all roughly the same size, moving with a distinct sense of purpose past their hiding spot.

The instant the last of them had passed out of sight, Archer waved the group forward gently and started leading the way. She moved quickly and carefully, her limbs darting quickly through the air before slowing down the instant they came near the ground. As a result, she soon outpaced Icy, who had less experience with such motion, and Lance, who was wearing clothing that made such movement difficult and required a slightly slower pace.

However, they did catch up to her after she stopped at the end of the tunnel, peering out at a sharp angle and clearly ready to dart back into cover the instant one of the wolves started to turn around.

Icy almost opened her mouth, but quickly clamped down on the impulse to ask what was going on. This did make the next few moments rather awkward as she waited for any sign, positive or negative, from Archer.

A moment later, however, such a sign came as she smirked and pulled back slightly. She turned to the others and gave them a silent nod before holding up a hoof. Her eyes went up as she held her position, clearly waiting for something, though Icy had no idea what.

A splashing sound suddenly echoed down the tunnel, sending an unpleasant chill through Icy's wings – far colder and nastier than the kind she consciously channelled. However, that was clearly what Archer was waiting for as her hoof dropped in sync with it. A moment later, another splash sounded, followed by a whole cluster more of them.

Icy took a deep breath, understanding what was happening – the wolves were going up the passageway where the water was flowing – and tried to channel that understanding into her body to unclench it from its tension. It wasn't totally effective, but it did seem to free her up enough that, when Archer started moving forward along the path the wolves had taken, she was able to follow without too much difficulty.

Of course, the instant she moved out into the corridor, there was another thing she had to worry about. As she threw a hoof across her muzzle in a desperate, but fortunately successful, attempt to suppress a disgusted cough, she recalled that she had heard something else about timberwolves, albeit in a slightly roundabout way.

Apparently, when Spike had talked about a certain somepony's morning breath stinking like a timberwolf's, it was most definitely not a compliment.

Still, she managed to keep her mouth closed and her eyes from watering enough to interfere with her vision as she and the others pushed through the stench.

They made their way down the tunnels, following Archer's lead in regards to their speed, as she had been the one to scout out the area. When she sped up slightly, once they were far enough away from the group that passed them by that the slight extra noise wouldn't endanger them, they matched her speed, and when she slowed down as they neared the exit, they slowed down with her.

And when she stopped completely, pressing her back against the wall just before a corner, Icy and Lance darted to the wall as well, crouching down while Archer peeked briefly past the corner. The stink had intensified, indicating that they were worryingly close to the pack.

After a second, Archer turned back to them and put her hoof out. She moved it sideways, lowering it slightly three times as if patting the heads of three creatures, then lowered it further to half its previous position and repeated the gesture.

Fortunately, while Archer wasn't quite on Lance's level when it came to silent communication, she was no slouch and managed to get her meaning across well – there were three adults and three cubs.

In her peripheral vision, Icy could see Lance nodding. As she turned toward him, she saw him slowly and silently draw his sword before slashing it gently along the lower height that Archer had indicated – he would take the cubs.

Once he had got that across, he adjusted his grip on his blade and crouched down lower, ready to spring up and into a fighting stance at any moment.

Turning back to Archer, Icy saw that she had already drawn her bow and an arrow with a thick head, the angled point of it a different material from the thick cylinder attached to the shaft.

She looked to the others and tapped her hoof against her foreleg three times, indicating that they could move on the count of three. Icy nodded, flaring her wings and beginning to gather her energy as Archer turned back and reared onto her hindhooves. Once ready, she began tapping her left hindhoof silently against the ground.

One... Two... THREE!

Archer's hoof hit the ground for the third time, but rather than giving it a light, silent tap as she had the previous two, she drove it hard into the ground, creating a loud, deep thump and driving her forward out of hiding. Fortunately, Icy was focused enough that she was able to follow almost instantly, with Lance leaping out behind her. Archer, it seemed, had made allowances for this by leaping far past the point where she would become visible so that the others had room to come out behind her without having to bunch up or awkwardly move around her, even if it meant she had further to move and would act slightly later.

However, she was still fast enough that, by the time Icy had turned around and readied her wings, the thick-headed arrow was already flying towards one of the timberwolves – the one just past the closest one.

It impacted the wolf's upper torso just as it was getting to its paws, showing the purpose behind its construction – the instant the tip of the arrow met the wood of the wolf's hide, the material that made up the point shattered. This left only the blunt head of the arrow to smack into the wood, meaning the impact didn't penetrate the wood, but knocked the wolf aside as if it had been punched hard, but without having sacrificed much of the arrow's aerodynamics as an ordinary blunt head would have.

All this occurred in the back of Icy's mind, to be called to the front and analyzed later. In the moment, she was far more focused on gathering her energy and, seeing the opportunity when the wolf Archer had hit was knocked into the wall, sent a wave of freezing energy over the nearest wolf, hoping to catch both it and the arrow-struck wolf behind it in one ice block.

It worked partially – the nearest wolf, having been looking away from them when they revealed themselves, still had its back to them as it was just getting to its feet, so it got frozen from its head down to the top of its hind legs.

The other wolf, however, was far more on-the-ball, even after having been knocked off-balance by the arrow. It darted backwards, its reflexes as sharp as its fangs, able to get all but one of its paws out before the energy impacted the wall. Still, that one paw getting frozen was enough to halt its backwards momentum.

Growling, the wolf abruptly swung its free front leg towards the ice to smash it, only for a two-pronged arrow to envelop it and knock it up and aside the ice, pinning it to the wall. The wolf began to flex its muscles, pulling the arrow slightly out of the wall. However, before it could free itself, another blast from Icy impacted it, freezing its entire front half in place.

Icy didn't have time to appreciate the victory, however, as a thick flash of movement pulled her gaze in front of her again to the final adult wolf barrelling towards the group, liquid sap and visibly putrid breath from its mouth streaming out behind it.

However, just before it reached them, Lance darted out in front, ready to intercept. As the wolf landed for a final leap at them, the white-clad colt whipped his hat from his head and threw it up into the air in front of him, sending the thick brim spinning along its axis like a buzzsaw. However, the purpose wasn't to cut, as the brim wasn't even a little sharp, let alone enough to cut through a timberwolf's hide. Instead, he had spun it to keep it hovering in the air long enough for him to swing his sword into the side of it, driving it forward to impact the wolf with the full width of it.

To someone who didn't know Lance, the hat, like his scarf, might have seemed just for show – a little bit of style to compliment his image as a dashing swordstallion. However, one couldn't know Lance for long without getting a sense of just how little he wanted to do with that sort of frivolity or, for that matter, anything that might get in the way of his job of protecting others. As such, just as his scarf was intended for use as a whip or rope in a pinch, his hat was magically treated to be usable as a shield should he need it.

This meant that, when his sword-pushed hat hit the wolf in mid-leap, it impacted hard and deflected its jump completely, driving it into the currently-unfrozen wall of the cave.

However, it didn't remain so for long, as Lance gave the wolf one slash to stun it a little longer and twist it onto its back a little, then waved his hoof at the creature, indicating for Icy to freeze it. Icy wasn't sure if she needed the command, but appreciated it anyway and certainly didn't need to be told twice. With one heavy flap, she froze the wolf with its back to the corner of the floor and the wall. Its legs were free but pointed up into the air to wave uselessly.

Another, slightly less uniform movement drew Icy's attention back towards the mouth of the cave. The whole attack on the adults had taken about six-to-ten seconds – Icy had neither the time, the ability nor the inclination to tell exactly. However, as impressive as that was, it had given the three cubs enough time to get to their feet and rally themselves for a charge. Fortunately, Icy's heart was already racing from the combat, so she wasn't really surprised and neither of the others seemed bothered by it.

On the contrary, Lance charged forward to meet them, tossing his sword forward to run on all fours before leaping to his hindhooves a fraction of a second before they reached each other. Snatching his sword out of the air, he swung it in a wide, backhoofed arc, impacting the side of the leftmost wolf and driving it to the right, straight into the side of the middle one and sending them both into the right wall.

The rightmost wolf, though, had enough time to see what was happening and leap up as it charged, managing to sail over the sideways movement of its fellows, coming at Lance with its claws outstretched. However, before it could get close enough to impale him, an impact arrow struck it under the chin, bursting into a flash of light as it did. As always, the arrow did very little damage but sent enough pain through the wolf's jaw to stun it and send its leap tumbling slightly, allowing Lance to get his hat between them and catch it on the brim. Spinning around from the impact, Lance carried the momentum of the wolf's landing around before turning it back to the side, throwing the wolf off and into the other two, where they landed in a tangle of jagged limbs.

The instant the wolf left his shield, Lance flicked his tail forward hard, commanding the others to run past him while the cubs were stunned. Had Icy been alone, she might have spent a second too long appreciating what had just happened, but seeing Archer dash forward spurred her hooves to move even as her mind remained fixed on the situation.

She briefly wondered why Lance hadn't told her to freeze the cubs before a loud crack from behind her reminded her that freezing the adults had been a distinctly temporary measure, not to mention how they didn't know when the wolves they'd sent on a wild goose chase deeper into the cave would return and she wasn't confident she wouldn't catch Lance in the blast. It was obvious that the less time they spent in the cave, the better. Besides that, taking out the timberwolves had never been their objective, just to get past them. If nothing else, the fact that they were hiding in the cave in the first place suggested that they didn't want to go out into the rain.

That thought briefly reminded Icy that she didn't either as they charged past the wolves, Lance lingering slightly to make sure the cubs wouldn't be able to intercept them before sprinting to catch up with the others.

Fortunately, Icy's fear took a moment to reach her hooves, during which time the group reached the mouth of the cave and burst out into the open air. Had their position been the only factor, Icy might have been shocked into slowing down, which might have allowed the wolves to regroup and catch her, plus the others if they stayed to help.

However, both that possibility and the additional fear caused by her realizing it were dispelled by one simple fact – they were now not only in the open air, but in the fresh air. The close quarters of the cave had meant that the collective breath of the timberwolf pack had been concentrated into a small area and, while Icy had been distracted enough to get used to the stench, as well as her slightly watering eyes, it had still been horrific.

Now, however, the sheer impact that the not-completely-rotten smell of the forest and rainwater had on her senses was blissful. As they ran out into the forest, she took a deep breath and felt a surge of energy rush through her hooves as they carried her far away from the cave.

This was very fortunate because, just before the impulse to slow down and appreciate the sensation finished being formed, she heard a loud snap from behind the group and felt that good feeling suddenly dim somewhat.

“Are they...” she began, focusing that newfound energy in her hooves into accelerating her running.

“Following us? Looks like it!” Archer replied, turning her head only slightly, enough to see their pursuers in her peripheral vision. “Just the cubs, though. Guess they're not as scared of the rain as we thought.”

“So what do we do?” Icy asked, swallowing hard and focusing, keeping her hooves from tripping over themselves when she heard another couple of snaps.

“What else?” Archer asked, smiling even as she ran. “We lose 'em!”

At that moment, Icy desperately wished she wasn't running for her life, not only because that would mean safety and rest, but so that she could give a proper hum and sigh to fully encapsulate her skepticism at Archer's statement. Of course, if she wasn’t, she wouldn't need to, but...

A thick root brushed against the underside of her hoof, not hard enough to trip her up, but solidly enough to provide some friction and resistance and to knock her out of her thoughts before they started. It did bring to mind something else to mind, though.

“Problem,” she said in between breaths, “they know the area better. They'll be better at dodging trees and stuff.”

Archer's shoulder moved a little oddly as she shrugged into her hoofbeats. “Then let's get out of the trees.”

Without warning, she veered to her left in Icy's direction, forcing her and Lance to turn with her to avoid running into her. The group turned slowly, keeping their momentum but still allowing the pounding paws behind them to get a little closer, sounding a little louder over the rain.

It didn't take long for Archer's meaning to become clear as the edge of the treeline came into view. At first, while the sight was still slightly obscured by the falling water, it looked like a huge clearing in the trees. However, as they approached it, it became clear why the trees stopped – about five metres after they did, the ground dropped away into a sharp cliff – no doubt the Everfree Ravine they would have to follow.

Admittedly, Icy was a little hesitant to run along the cliffside in a rainstorm, but there looked to be enough space between trees and canyon for them to stay safe and stable.

Of course, as they turned back to run along the clear path outside the trees, the ever-louder pounding noises behind them brought that into question, the ponies' changing trajectories having allowed them to catch up a little.

Lance appeared to notice this too as he turned to the others and jerked his head back, silently asking if anyone had any ideas what to do about that.

“Sure thing, one sec,” Archer replied before shifting her shoulders slightly as she ran. A moment later, as one hoof hit the ground to continue propelling her forward, she shoved it backwards hard, both increasing her speed for a fraction of a second and sending the hoof to her lower back, where she swiftly pulled her bow down, the hoof then going forward to place the bow in her mouth before returning to its running duties.

Her other forehoof, however, picked up off the ground, leaving her to run three-legged, her other hooves speeding up to compensate. Her free hoof, however, quickly pulled an arrow from her quiver and loaded it into the bow. Pulling back sharply, the arrow fired up and in front of the group at a very steep angle.

Icy swallowed hard between breaths before asking, “How was that supposed to...”

“Wait for it,” Archer replied as her free hoof re-slung her bow before returning to the ground.

Icy spent a good few seconds 'waiting for it', unsure exactly what 'it' was or why Archer thought it was okay to wait. However, the sound of something falling behind her just about managed to be heard over the rain and the hoofbeats. Icy had just had the thought that she might want to turn around to see it when a colossal bang sounded from the ground behind her, with a burning white light flashing in her peripheral vision and making her very glad she hadn't turned around.

A brief, high-pitched whimper could be heard tailing off a moment after the bang, along with the skidding of clawed feet coming to a stop.

Icy smiled slightly as she turned to Archer. “Flashbang?”

“Flashbang!” Archer smirked, seemingly more satisfied with the idea of using one to scare the wolves than the incredible calculation that would have been necessary to fire so the ponies would overtake it, but the wolves wouldn't. Still, the loud howling behind them suggested that it had just given them more of a lead rather than scaring their pursuers off.

It seemed the others realized this as well, as Archer jerked her head back towards the wolves. “Anyone got any other ideas?”

Lance thought for a moment before pointing his muzzle towards his sword, suggesting he could hold them off while the others got away.

Archer rolled her eyes. “Anyone got any good ideas? You could maybe keep one of 'em occupied, the rest'd just run past you and keep on us. We'd be in the same boat and down one of you – ain't happening. Anything else?”

Icy thought about the situation, finding the rain pouring onto her muzzle an oddly helpful presence, as it also kept her nerves just on edge enough to ensure she kept focused.

Thanks to Archer, they had a good lead on the wolves, but only for now. The wolves were barely faster than them, but they were a tiny fraction faster, so in a straight-line chase, they would catch the group sooner or later. Icy could only feel grateful it was only the cubs chasing them – she wouldn't like to imagine how short this chase would have been if the adults had joined in.

Still, the speed of the wolves did present a problem, as did their familiarity with the terrain – while they might be able to use the woodlands to their advantage somehow, the wolves would undoubtedly be better at it. Plus, the cliff beside them was a consideration as it stretched out before them. The group was far enough from the edge that they couldn't see down to the bottom and Icy thanked heaven for that – she wasn't notably scared of heights, but it still couldn't do her nerves any good.

Looking ahead, she saw that their escape track was limited anyway, as the cliff started turning a couple of hundred metres ahead of them, sweeping around to block off their escape. Or, at least, turn it into a different kind of escape – an unpleasantly vertical one.

Icy shook her head, not particularly enamoured with the idea of jumping off a cliff to escape her pursuers. Not that it would be much of a danger to her, as she could probably glide to safety, but she didn't know how the ones in the chase without wings could...

Wait a second... that could work...

“Guys,” she said, swallowing to gather her breath for a moment before continuing, “I've got an idea, but we'll need to come right at the cliff edge to do it! Does the cliff curve around enough to do that?”

There was a pause before Archer grinned at her.

“I think I see where you're going with this and I like it. It sure does, but we'd need to head back into the trees to get to a good position. That'd mean another swerve, so we'd need another way to delay 'em. Anyone got any ideas?”

Icy thought over the resources they had, quickly coming back to the list she'd heard Archer give... well, start, at least, of her arrows. “Could you use one of your snare arrows?”

Archer shook her head. “Not on all three while they're running – they'd be able to dodge. Maybe if they were in midair, though.” She thought for a moment before nodding. “Either of you able to make 'em jump?”

Icy didn't have long to think about ways to do this before she saw Lance nod firmly to her side.

Archer gave a single, brief chuckle before nodding back. “Alright, then. Let's do this!”

The instant she finished saying that, the group turned and darted back into the trees, far more in unison than the previous time they'd changed courses. Icy smiled to herself through her breaths, both at being attentive enough to move with the others and at the slight sounds of surprised and off-rhythm steps behind her, indicating that the wolves were caught by surprise and would take a moment to readjust themselves.

However, the sounds soon started to get closer to the group as they again adjusted their trajectory, the snapping of jaws beginning to get worryingly close.

However, that was when Lance went into action, accelerating his pace to pull a little in front of the others. Turning his head towards a pair of adjacent trees just to the left of the path he was taking, he shifted his run to leap at the slightly further tree head-on. A moment before he collided with it, he leapt, one forehoof darting to his scabbard while the rest of his hooves braced for impact.

As they made contact with the trunk, his hooves grasped the bark of the tree for a moment as his legs bunched up before springing backwards off that tree and into the one just behind it, twisting his body round in midair to spring off of that one too.

As he hit the tree and drew his sword, he moved his left hooves outwards, making him land against the tree at more of an angle and allowing him to leap out and into the path again. Icy briefly wondered what the purpose of this was before his sword swung through the base of a large branch just above him, shearing easily through it and causing the branch to begin to fall before a kick from his hind leg as he sailed past sent it flying at the wolves.

Icy chanced a look behind her to see that, as Lance had predicted, the three wolves were already landing into a crouch in order to leap over the wide projectile. However, as her head was turned over her shoulder, she could also see Archer whirl around, readying her bow once more and pulling three arrows out of her quiver.

As she nocked the first two simultaneously, Icy was reminded of something Archer had once told her – that the oft-fictionally-repeated idea of firing two or more arrows at the same time was, while not technically impossible, usually rather pointless. Not only was it difficult, even for her, to aim two arrows loaded like this and almost impossible to aim three or more, but the force from the bowstring remained the same no matter how many arrows were loaded into it. That meant that if you fired two arrows at the same time, this force would be divided between them and each arrow would fire half as fast and as hard, meaning they were far easier to dodge and wouldn't penetrate anything or impact with any real force.

However, it soon became evident that this wasn't a problem with the arrows she fired – not only was she aiming at creatures in mid-leap, meaning they couldn’t really dodge, but the head of the arrows splitting in midair into a set of bolas made clear that penetration or impact weren't priorities. The only important thing was that they went fast enough to wrap tightly around whatever they hit, which they clearly would.

Of course, the aim issue was still relevant, but as Icy could almost imagine her saying, this was Archer she was talking about. So one of the arrows hit home, wrapping a wolf's front paws together and sending it tumbling through the air for a rough landing, and while the other did miss one front paw of another wolf, it caught the other paw and, because it only had to wrap around one leg, went far enough to catch the back paw on the same side and tie those two together, making for a heck of a consolation prize.

After this, it seemed barely notable when Archer, skidding back through the mud on her rear hooves, loaded the remaining snare arrow and hit the last wolf just as it landed, making it tumble forward and sending its face crashing into the mud.

Icy smiled as her teammates re-sheathed their weapons and rejoined her, pulling away from the disoriented and bound wolves. She almost had to stop herself from turning around and freezing the wolves in place in the hopes of stopping them then and there and making her whole plan unnecessary. However, she didn't trust herself to be able to freeze all three of them thick enough that they wouldn't break out easily.

The brief sight she saw as she turned back to the front – the wolves reaching their hindlegs or free forelegs forward to slash through the bola wires only validated her decision. Besides, it was probably best she didn't remind them of what she could do.

Whatever the case, they had gained some considerable distance from the wolves by the time they had freed themselves to resume the chase, giving Icy confidence that they could keep out of their reach long enough to reach the cliff edge.

As she thought about this, she looked at the others. “Okay, so you probably know... what you need to do,” she said between breaths, “but when I say “now”... you jump up into the branches. Okay?”

“You got it!” Archer replied with an easy smile, echoed by Lance's nod.

Icy turned one exhale into a slight chuckle. “Okay. And Archer? Need you to tell me... when we're getting close to the...”

“Yeah, will do, but we got a few hundred metres left before then,” Archer replied, her eyes firmly forward and her voice not betraying enough fatigue to hinder her observational skills.

Icy nodded before another thought occurred to her.

“Hey, do you think you could use another flashbang to blind them?”

Archer hummed as she kept her eyes forward. “Well, couldn't do it like I did before.” She jerked her head up towards the forest canopy. “Tree cover'd block it. Could maybe use my hoof to strike one hard enough to set it off, but it'd be tricky while running and risk blinding us too. ‘Sides, they may be animals, but they ain't stupid and they'll probably see it coming.”

Icy frowned, putting aside how impressed she was at Archer being able to say all that while running as she tried to think of another way of stopping the wolves from seeing her plan coming.

However, a movement from her other side drew her attention back to Lance, whose hoof briefly pointed towards himself before resuming running.

“You're sure you could?” Icy asked, though mostly as a formality – she knew Lance wouldn't have suggested that he could do something to blind them if he wasn't fully able and confident to.

Sure enough, Lance nodded before jerking his head back towards the wolves. Once he'd indicated he was talking about them, he tilted his head towards them before jerking it forward.

Icy gulped hard. “You're sure they need to be closer?” She thought for a moment, fighting past the fatigue that was beginning to blanket her thoughts in fog. “I guess that'd make it easier to pull this on them anyway, so sure.”

She kept her eyes on Lance as the group began to slow down a little – not so much as to seem suspicious to the wolves, but enough that the pounding paws and snapping jaws behind them started getting very loud and, while it could have been Icy's imagination, the sharp chomping seemed to be getting more rapid too. It would make sense, of course – if they did notice the group slowing down, they'd probably attribute it to them getting tired, meaning the chase would soon be over. And that was assuming they didn't realize they were heading for a cliff and think that that would mean their quarry would be cornered.

A smile managed to poke slightly onto her muzzle just as Archer called. “Okay, getting close now, get ready!”

Looking up, Icy could just about see the edge of the trees coming up just ahead. Nodding, she drew in a long breath to speak.

“Okay, Lance, when I tell you, blind them. After that, when I say “now”, you grab a branch and get up into the trees, okay?”

She saw movement to either side of her and knew her teammates enough to know they were nods. She took a deep breath – this was the moment of truth.

“Okay, Lance, do it!”

To her side, Lance flashed a hoof to his side, still running with the other three, and pulled out his sword. However, rather than twirling it around into a ready position or raising it to hit something, he swung it down and across his body until it lightly struck the ground next to him. Once there, he pressed it slightly into the ground as he ran along it, carving a slight gash into it and, more importantly, sending a huge spray of mud out behind him.

The spluttering and confused whimpering behind them told Icy that, even if the wolves weren't blinded by the spray, they were certainly disoriented enough that they would be unprepared for what came next. Icy flared out her wings and began gathering energy as she cried, “NOW!”

Lance and Archer both leapt up on her cue, grabbing onto overhanging branches and swinging up. Icy didn't get a chance to see any more as she passed them a moment later, but she had faith they would be safe. Besides, she had other priorities.

As the cliff edge came rapidly towards her, she flapped her wings hard, angling them down and in front of her. This did have the effect of massively slowing her forward momentum, but also lifted her high enough into the air that she was in no danger from the wolves. And, more importantly, froze a wide path up to the precipice that the wolves would be far too bewildered to avoid.

Sure enough, as she looked behind her at her pursuers, she saw them just beginning to shake off the mud and their confusion as they pounded onto the ice, their confusion rapidly returning as their paws slid out from under them and they found themselves hurtling forward with no control.

One of the wolves swiped a paw across its face, throwing off the mud completely and getting a look at exactly what was happening. Unfortunately, by the time it had, it was almost to the edge and had only the time to change its expression.

While Icy was by no means an expert on the expressions and feelings of animals and magical creatures, she got a distinct, gratifying sense that it was going “Eep!”

A moment later, the trio of wolves plunged off the cliff, a helpless whine sounding out from them and fading slightly as they fell. Icy followed their path down as she glided, tracing their trajectory down to the river belo-

“AH!” Icy's body locked up as she caught sight of the pounding rapids. The adrenaline of the chase, combined with the constant fall of rain around her, had meant that she hadn't especially noticed the feeling of the rushing water far below her, but the sudden sight of it sent a wave of panic through her limbs, including her wings.

Her glide quickly tailed off as her wings started folding and quivering, sending her into a tumble that soon had the rest of her limbs flailing and her body as a whole plummeting. She started scream-babbling, the fear and her helplessness forming a vicious cycle that soon eclipsed her mind completely. She caught a brief sight of the cliff edge coming up towards her position – though enough to the side that she would miss it completely, and had a brief extra surge of panic before she suddenly felt something wrap around her midsection,

Looking down as her fall stabilized and the wrapping yanked her backwards hard and far, she saw a thick wire attached to a set of bolas clinging tightly around her, the pulling from behind telling her that the wires were attached to a long line – a literal lifeline, currently.

As she fell, she started swinging down towards the treeline, the force pulling her back and up never reducing. As the river was blocked from view by the cliff edge, she just about regained control of her mind enough to note how that must mean the thing on the other end was pulling the line in as she was falling. However, she had little time to consider this further as she swung down, missing the ground by centimetres, before swinging back up into the treetops, where a hoof grabbed her and yanked her onto a thick branch.

“Icy! You okay?” Archer asked, holding Icy firmly by the shoulders and pointing her head into eye contact. “You're safe now, don't worry.”

Icy swallowed hard, trying desperately to convince her shaking limbs to believe Archer. “I... I was... sorry.” She looked away briefly, only for a shake of her shoulders to bring her back to looking at Archer.

“It's okay, don't worry about it. You wanna take a moment to rest and find your hooves again?”

As she felt Lance climb onto their branch, Icy felt herself nodding a pathetic nod, a wave of shame running through her as she did.

“Yep, that's it!” Sunny said with a smile as she looked over the ponies building that section of the sandbag wall. “Stack them like that and it should keep the water at bay. You need anything else?”

At the ponies' collective shaking of heads, Sunny turned around to return to the centre of town, only to see Princess Twilight galloping towards her, waving a wing to get her attention while her magic formed an umbrella of force to keep her mostly dry.

“-nny!” she began to hear as the Princess approached close enough to be heard over the rain. Humming a little in curiosity, Sunny trotted up to meet her.

“Prince- er, Twilight!” she called back as she approached, remembering the alicorn's insistence that she be referred to by her name and not her title. “Need me for something?”

“You could say that,” Twilight replied as she reached Sunny. “I was wondering if I could have a word about something.” She paused for a moment before adding, “In private.”

Sunny frowned slightly as she tried to think what such a talk could be about, but shrugged after a moment. “If you like.” She pushed up the hood of her waterproofs to look for a good, out-of-the-way spot to talk in, soon hitting upon a small alley between two houses. She nodded over towards it and, once Twilight nodded back, they began walking over there.

As her hood began to droop again, Sunny noticed the Princess's bare back and tilted her head slightly. “Where's Dinky?” Sunny couldn't help noticing Twilight's instinctive smile at the name any more than she could help getting one of her own.

“She's just resting for a while,” Twilight replied, looking over to her back, where the little filly had been perched not too long ago. “I was giving her power, but she still had to craft and cast her spells, so she got a bit tired and she... Well, it was decided that she should rest.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow at the conspicuous use of the passive voice. She always thought a Princess would, or at least should, be good at hiding things and talking around things they didn't want to say, but she supposed Twilight was still learning. Still, she felt compelled to say, “She didn't want to stop and rest, did she?”

Twilight gave an endeared chuckle. “I spent half an hour while we were working convincing her. I was worried I might have to put my hoof down, but she relented... eventually. Still, I can't really blame her.”

Sunny nodded. “She's a little trooper, that one. Then again, so's most of the town from what I've seen. I mean, considering Ponyville's reputation for disaster, I guess I shouldn't be surprised how well everypony's taking to these preparations, but still, it's amazing how prepared they all were to drop everything and put their all into it, not to mention how effective it's all been.”

“I know,” Twilight replied as the two entered the alley. Once inside, Twilight brought the two of them to a halt before lighting an extra corona around her horn. The wide umbrella above her quickly expanded out and downwards, covering the two of them in a cone of force. Another brief flare of magic sent a wave of dark grey through the shield, making it a far more muted purple. Curious, Sunny lit her own horn and performed a quick scan of the magic around her. She wasn't nearly experienced enough to discern the intricacies of the spell that had just been cast, but it seemed to be designed to stop any sound from penetrating or escaping their little bubble.

A moment later, Twilight's corona diminished again and she turned back to Sunny with a smirk. “I hope you'll forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, Sunny, but I'm guessing that even you haven't encountered anypony who, when presented with a barrier, would think to fire somepony through it with a ballista.”

Sunny started slightly at the reference before she remembered. “Oh, right – Pinkie brought the idea to you first, didn't she? You still think it's going to work?” she asked, a touch worried by the fact that Twilight was bringing it up.

Her worry didn't abate even as Twilight nodded, as her expression remained serious. “Well, I've just come back from checking it over and, well, unless something major changes or comes up, I think it'll still work. However,” she fixed Sunny with a stern glare, “Pinkie also shared another little tidbit with me. She told me you'd requested to be the first pony sent through.”

Sunny hummed as she met Twilight's eyes without flinching. She'd locked eyes with polar bears, tigers three times her size and all the heads of a hydra, she wasn't about to back down or look abashed now. Particularly if the Princess was going where Sunny was afraid she was going.

“Well, you say ‘requested’... I'd say I told her I was going and I'm not about to change my mind on that. Why? Is there a problem with that?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Well, that depends. How much weather magic do you know?”

Sunny blinked at the apparent non-sequitur. “Er, what? What does that...?”

“Please, just tell me,” Twilight interjected.

After a moment, Sunny shrugged. “A little, not much. Mostly to do with making or deflecting wind. Why?”

Twilight shook her head. “In that case, no, you're not going through first.”

Sunny scowled at the princess, a slight growl forming in her throat before she suppressed it. “And just why not?”

Twilight sighed, not rising to match Sunny's glare but instead giving her a sad look. “Because whoever goes first needs to be able to do something to deal with the weather over there. That's the whole point of sending someone through.”

“Is it now?” Sunny said, unable to keep a sneer from flashing onto her face for an instant. “And here I thought that helping Ic- helping to take care of the source of this whole thing might be a worthwhile thing to try.”

Twilight sighed. “Well, of course, that's something we should do if we can, but it's a secondary priority – not only have we already got some ponies working on that as you well know, but taking out the pony responsible won't do anything to stop the weather that's already been unleashed. Whoever gets sent through has to be able to do something about that.”

Sunny exhaled sharply, trying to calm herself down or, at least, stop herself from getting any more agitated. “You're talking as if we'll only be able to send one pony through! Obviously more can come after me, it's not like I'm gonna smash the thing on my way out!”

“But we don't know that for sure,” Twilight replied, remaining infuriatingly calm and soft-spoken. “I mean, we might not even be able to send one pony through – and if that happens and they can't get through the wind wall, it'll need to be a pegasus just so they can ride it out to the end – but if we can, we don't know if we'll be able to send a second.”

Sunny scoffed. “And just what do you think is going to happen, huh? One shot and the whole thing breaks?”

Twilight grimaced as she answered. “I don't know, but just because we don't know what can go wrong doesn't mean nothing can. There's always a chance something will go wrong and I'm not willing to risk the town by ignoring that chance.” She reached a hoof forward to put on Sunny's shoulder, only for her to jerk away.

“And if it breaks after that pony goes through?” Sunny asked, still meeting eyes with the Princess. “If no one else can go through after them? What then?”

“Then they'll have a chance of dealing with the wind wall and allowing others to come through normally,” Twilight replied without missing a beat. “And if that fails, they can try and deal with the rain and if that fails, then they can help deal with the instigator.”

Sunny sputtered for a second before shaking her head slightly. “But you don't know that they'll... it might not work – you can't know for sure...”

“No,” Twilight interrupted gently, “but the chances are far greater than if we sent you through first.”

“But... but...” Sunny swallowed, finally finding herself looking away from Twilight. “But my little filly's out there... probably scared out of her mind...”

Twilight sighed and, again, put a hoof on Sunny's shoulder, this time without Sunny recoiling. “I know. Believe me, I know. For what it's worth, I don't like the idea of leaving them out there alone either – I even looked into the possibility of sending two ponies through at once.”

Sunny blinked in surprise, though how much was because Twilight had seriously considered that and how much was because she cared enough to spend time calculating it, even Sunny didn't know. “Really?” she asked, looking back up at Twilight, though with far less force than a moment before.

Twilight nodded. “Yeah. It didn't pan out, but I tried. Listen, I know you're worried about Icy...”

Sunny snorted. “Worried? That's...”

“Putting it mildly, I know,” Twilight finished for her, her hoof still resting on her shoulder. “But, from what little I've seen of her, I think she can handle herself.”

“Of course she can,” Sunny interjected with a soft sharpness. “But that doesn't mean she should have to.”

Twilight smiled at her. “Well put. But... well, obviously I don't know her nearly as well as you do, but I've talked to her a bit and, well...” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, clearly not relishing what she was about to say. “Tell me something: what do you think she would say if she found out that you'd risked the town to help her?”

Sunny's mouth flapped open and closed a couple of times as she desperately searched for a satisfactory answer and came up empty.

With a sigh, she nodded. “You're right, Princ- Twilight.” She kicked a hoof against the ground in frustration.

Grimacing a little, Twilight finally took her hoof from Sunny's shoulder. “I'm sorry.”

Sunny shook her head sharply. “Don't be. Like you said, if we can send one through, we'll probably be able to send another. Not fond of relying on “probably”, but it is the best choice. Besides,” she gave Twilight a slight smirk, “you shouldn't feel sorry for showing the Princess of Ponyville is actually pretty dang good at the whole leadership thing.”

Twilight chuckled awkwardly. “Well, I'd say I'm competent at best, but thanks.” She rubbed the back of her neck as she thought of something. “Although, considering what you've probably heard about me, I guess that would be a big step up.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow at that – she had been implying the contrast between Twilight's actions and her reputation, but only a little. “So, you know...”

Twilight nodded as she smiled the joyless smile of somepony who hated something, but had long since accepted that she was helpless to do anything about it. “Yes, I'm perfectly well aware that I have a reputation for being... irrational.”

Sunny's eyebrow remained raised as she breathed out a slight chuckle at the wording. “That's one way of putting it,” she said, thinking about some of the words she'd heard to describe Twilight, few of which were kind or delicate.

Still, Twilight chuckled as well, albeit without any real humour. “Again, putting it mildly. And, well, sadly that reputation is... not without basis. Much as I'd like to say ‘you start one magically-induced town riot over a doll and people think you're a lunatic’ but, well,” she shrugged, “yeah, can't really blame them, can I?”

Sunny nodded, suppressing the urge to ask her to elaborate – it was clearly a pretty sensitive topic.

Still, Twilight straightened up. “However, just because it has some basis in reality doesn't mean it's accurate. There have been some... incidents, certainly, but they've also been emphasized and distorted by time and retelling. And, while I obviously can't judge myself with complete objectivity, I'd say that my reputation, while understandable, is hardly fair.

“Rest assured,” Twilight gave a mildly melancholic smirk, “no matter what you've heard, I don't go insane at the drop of a hat.” She thought for a moment before the smile became more genuine, if sardonic. “Unless it's Trixie's hat, but that doesn't count – she's so annoying I think anypony would go insane.”

Sunny laughed at the image, unfamiliar with the name but appreciating the feeling. “I'll take your word for it.” She looked behind herself at the field of magic surrounding the two and pulled her hood down again. “Anyway, should probably get back on top of things. I'm guessing we've wasted enough time with my own... issues.”

“Not at all,” Twilight replied as she drew in her magic to form a personal umbrella once more. “I factored a good half hour into the schedule for intra-administrative arguments. We've got plenty of time.”

Sunny turned around and gave Twilight a questioning look.

Twilight, however, just shrugged with a smile. “I did say that my reputation for neurosis has some basis in reality.” Laughing a little, she joined Sunny in exiting the alley. “Still, don’t worry. I think we'll be able to send you through with plenty of time to spare.”

Sunny nodded firmly – if whoever was doing all this thought that a snag like this would stop her, then they had another thing coming.

Chapter Four: Crossing the Streams

It took a good ten minutes for Icy to calm down after her shock. Admittedly, that was only partially because of the inherent terror in the sight and slightly because of how much it had caught her by surprise – as lacking in situational awareness as Icy knew she could be at times, even she wasn't going to claim that seeing a river running through a ravine was some stunning revelation.

No, what truly shook her was how the sight of it brought the whole situation crashing through her eyes and into her brain, wrecking her thoughts like the tsunami she couldn’t stop imagining. Before that moment, she'd been so distracted by the activity and not being eaten by timberwolves that she hadn't consciously noticed the water streaming down around her and flowing beneath her hooves. However, that didn't mean the deluge wasn't weighing on her. Even had she closed her eyes, covered her ears and hid under shelter, she'd have still felt the falling of the water all around – another reason it took so long for her to recover.

However, what had mainly happened was that the moment she caught sight of the river rushing far below her, all that tension and ever-present weight around her had snapped into sharp focus, like a stretched rubber band with a wrecking ball inside. The instant it all registered, the band snapped back and the wrecking ball... wrecked.

Whatever the case, Icy spent far longer than she felt comfortable with lying on a tree branch, feeling more sorry for herself than she thought was reasonable for anyone.

To their immense credit, Archer and Lance both seemed perfectly understanding of the situation – they neither objected to Icy taking whatever time they needed to get her bearings nor did they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to hurry or forcibly console her with “it's okay”s or “there, there”s. Instead, they seemed to understand that she simply needed some time to herself to find her hooves again and flush her fear out of her system, so limited their interactions to sympathetic looks and an unspoken implication that, if Icy needed anything from them, they'd be happy to help.

Other than that, they simply busied themselves with keeping a lookout, both among and below the tree branches, to watch for any threats, and towards the sky, to keep track of the progress of the storm. Oddly enough, Icy felt thankful for that most of all, as it made it feel less like anypony was watching and judging her little exercise in helpless self-pity.

Eventually, however, she managed to get herself under control enough that she was able to rise to her hooves. Admittedly, she was a little shaky, but that was partly because of the simple fact that they were perched on a branch – a thick, sturdy one, of course, but a branch nonetheless.

Still, after a moment to regain her balance, physically and mentally, she spoke up. “Okay, sorry about that, I'm... I think I'm okay now.”

Archer turned an eye towards her languidly. “You sure?” She asked, though she nodded as soon as she saw Icy's expression, continuing before she could give a verbal response. “Okay, cool. Let’s go.”

She swung down from the branch, a movement Icy saw mirrored in her peripheral vision by Lance. Lacking their grace, to put it mildly, Icy elected to simply glide down at a steep angle and felt more satisfaction than she thought appropriate when she suppressed a shudder from the splash of water she made as she landed.

Still, she managed to keep her voice under control as she asked, “So, where are we going now?”

Archer started walking along the path of the ravine, close enough to keep the edge in view but far enough that the group wouldn't be able to see down to the bottom of it, something Icy wasn't sure was intentional or for her benefit, but that she appreciated nonetheless.

As she walked, Archer jerked her head towards the ravine. “Well, we're gonna have to cross over the ravine to get to the path to Mount Foalja.”

Icy gulped – the only reason she hadn't been afraid that that was what Archer was going to say was that she hadn't thought of it. “Oh. Right, um... so, do we need to cut down a tree to cross? Because I'm not sure...”

“Nah, don't worry, no trees'll be harmed in the making of this mission,” Archer smirked. “Take a long time to find one tall enough and it’d be a pain getting it stable enough to cross.”

After a moment, she shrugged and waved a hoof in the direction they were walking. “There's a bridge about half a klick that way, we can cross over there.”

Icy blinked in confusion. “A click? Like... of fingers, like the time it takes to click them? Cause that'd be right next to us, plus we don't have fingers. Though I could maybe snap my feathers, but I've never really tried...”

She trailed off as she heard Archer's chuckle – not a mocking laugh, but still amused at Icy's tangent. Which, in fairness, Icy couldn't blame her for – she'd long since gotten used to that reaction to her thought process and could usually understand it... a few minutes later when she realized how strange her line of reasoning had become.

“Nah, klick with a k,” Archer informed her before looking briefly contemplative. “Well, a k at the beginning instead of a c, obviously it has a k at the end. Anyway,” she shook her head as she ended her tangent with far more efficiency than Icy ever managed, “it's Guard slang for a kilometre.”

Icy nodded, even as she replied, “Huh, seems a little weird. I mean, I can kind of see the K-L thing, but why not just say ‘kilometre’?”

Archer laughed. “Well, from what I heard, it started as a joke in the Wonderbolts that, at the speed they went, by the time you've said “in a kilometre”, you've already passed it. Then it got turned into 'Bolt slang, then got taken up by the guard. Plus, it just rolls off the tongue better. 'Klick.'”

Icy giggled. “I guess so. Although, if the K-L comes from “kilo”, does that mean a metre would just be an “ick”?

“Depends how many of them I have to run,” Archer replied as she turned a little towards the edge of the ravine.

There was a long pause before Archer spoke up again. “Though, right now, I'm feeling like giving a few.”

Tilting her head, Icy waited for a few moments for her to elaborate, but nothing came – Archer simply kept looking down into the valley, clearly in deep thought.

A moment later, Lance trotted up next to her to see and, though his body language made it clear there was a problem, it wasn't especially helpful in determining exactly what it was.

Swallowing hard, she steeled herself before walking up alongside them and following their eyelines.

She was inordinately proud that she kept herself from flinching when she saw the rushing river below. As it turned out, it wasn't nearly as terrifying a sight when it wasn't catching her unawares. Partially, this was because of the fact they were far above it and standing on relatively solid ground, but mostly it seemed like the water she could feel all around her was both keeping her at a relatively stable level of anxiety and providing a slight barrier between her and the more solid body of water below.

This momentarily struck her as odd – she had never really given much thought to how water felt to her and had always assumed that it was all in her head – a feeling she got when she saw or heard water, made far worse by her near-drowning a few months prior but present long before then. However, while she was unquestionably more scared of bodies of water than before, it didn't seem, now she had her attention drawn to it, as if that feeling that she could sense the water was any more intense. Nor, indeed, had the sense that it was eager for her to come into it increased, it was just that the prospect of doing so was more frightening.

However, all thoughts of that fled her as she spotted what the others were looking at and her fear was briefly subsumed by a feeling of disappointment, worry and a tiny touch of relief that she didn't wish to acknowledge.

A couple of hundred metres in front of them was, as Archer had predicted, a rope bridge. And, contrary to her expectations, it was mostly intact. The problem was that it seemed ‘mostly’ wasn’t quite enough.

About a third of the way across the bridge from their side, it seemed one of the lower ropes on one side had snapped, causing all the planks between there and the cliffside to come away, along with a fair number of them on the other side of the breakage, up until the length of remaining rope was long enough that the plank merely hung worryingly loose. Fortunately, it seemed that the rope on the other side was both strong and firmly woven enough that the planks hadn’t fallen into the river below, instead hanging down vertically, but that still didn’t make it remotely practical to walk on them.

Archer shook her head. “You know, just once,” she said, sounding more amused at their misfortune than annoyed, “I'd like to find a bridge in a creepy forest or the like that was made of, like, metal or solid wood or, you know, something that doesn't sway in the breeze and break when a leaf falls on it.”

Lance looked at her with a “Really?” expression before waving a hoof to indicate the forest around him.

Archer rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know where we are, Lance. I said I'd like to find one, not that I expected to.”

“So what do we do?” Icy asked, clamping down on the small part of her hoping that this meant they couldn't continue. Even if they couldn't do anything about the bridge, she knew there'd be other ways to cover the gap and she was going to have to cross over the valley sooner or later. “Do we use a tree after all?”

Archer shook her head. “We'll keep it in reserve, but don’t think we’ll need to. Most of the bridge’s fine, just a question of getting there.”

Icy nodded for a moment before blinking rapidly. “I mean, I guess, but… well it’d still ‘just be a question of getting there’ if there wasn’t a bridge at all, wouldn’t it?”

Archer chuckled. “Huh, guess you got a point, but at least there’s more to work with in getting there. Come on, let’s take a closer look.”

After another moment's thought, she began walking again, keeping closer to the edge this time. Lance almost immediately joined her while Icy took a moment to register what was happening before trotting to catch up, making sure to go off to the side a little to obscure the ravine's bottom.

Feeling the need to say something, largely to distract herself from her worries, Icy asked, “So, do you think you could… put the planks back up, one at a time as you cross?” She paused for a moment before her choice of words caught up with her thoughts. “Or, we could?” she finished in a mumble

“Maybe I could,” Archer replied, her level tone not making it clear whether she just hadn’t noticed Icy’s correction or was actively ignoring it for her sake, “if there was something stable to attach it to. Trouble is, without a rope on the other side, not much of a way to do that.”

Icy nodded, feeling a little silly for the suggestion. She hummed as the group reached the broken bridge, taking a few more steps away from the edge now that she could see the whole thing without looking at the river below it.

“Well, we do have a lot of rope,” she said, not thinking about how she was going to continue or end her sentence, “so that’s a start, but we can’t really use it to hold up the planks just from our side, can we?

“Nope,” Archer replied, trotting over to Icy and standing next to her, their sides touching enough that Icy could get a slight sense of stability from the contact. “Need something to anchor it on the other side.”

Icy nodded for a moment, before pausing, Archer’s wording catching on a thought at the edge of her mind. As she watched Lance move up to the bridge and experimentally pull at one of the planks, she concentrated, leaning slightly into Archer as if keeping herself grounded. Need something to anchor it… anchor…

She clapped a hoof against the ground suddenly, sending a spray of mud and water up against her belly and a subsequent shiver through her body, but it wasn’t enough to distract from her idea. “Hey, could we use one of your… post… impact…? Your Stick-and-Stays?”

Archer let out a hum, not seeming to notice the shudder. “Hey, now there’s a thought.” She looked up at the bridge, her eyes darting around it rapidly. Icy wasn’t sure exactly what she was thinking, but she could tell Archer was doing some sort of rough calculation – while the easy-going bowmare would be the first to admit she wasn’t the most cerebral of ponies, she had a good head for the practicality and mechanics of this sort of thing – a consequence of her Special Talent, Icy supposed, needing an inherent knowledge of physical and ballistic factors.

Unfortunately, that meant that when Archer shook her head and said, “Doesn’t quite work, though,” Icy felt no need to doubt her.

Still, she did want to clarify. “Oh, would the arrow not work? Or not be stable enough or…?” she trailed off, not wanting to pre-empt Archer’s answer.

Fortunately, it seemed that wouldn’t have been a problem, as Archer’s slight chuckle would have brought her question to a halt anyway. “No, actually, the opposite – it’d be too stable.”

“Huh?!” Icy flinched slightly in confusion and even Lance looked askance at Archer over his shoulder.

Archer laughed a little more before shaking her head. “See, the problem is that a Stick-n-Stay doesn’t just attach to whatever it hits. Fact, it doesn’t attach to anything at all, ‘less you count the air. Once it hits, it stays exactly where it is, even if the thing it hit in the first place moves.”

Icy nodded, though her confused expression didn’t let up. “Okay, but… isn’t that kinda what we’d want?”

“Oh, yeah, totally would be… if the bridge was anywhere near as stable. But, well, in this weather,” she pointed a hoof at the bridge, moving it slightly to emphasise the structure swaying in the wind, “well, the wind’s pulling the bridge this way and that, but the stuck arrow’d stay right where it is, ‘long with any planks attached to it. All it’d take is one big gust and the other rope’d snap, and with both gone… well, down goes the bridge.”

It took a few moments of thought as Icy pictured what Archer had described, but she soon saw what she was describing, making her shrink a little into herself. “Oh, I guess you’re right.”

“Still,” Archer said as soon as Icy finished, letting the word hang in the air for a moment and cutting off Icy’s self-reproach, “that kinda arrow might not work, but I reckon you’re onto something with the idea. Getting an arrow over there might let us set up a rope.” She flashed an encouraging smile at Icy before wincing, drawing in a hissing breath. “Trouble is, I don’t trust wood that wet to be able to hold an arrow too long, ‘specially if it needs to take the weight of all those planks. And my glue-goop arrows wouldn’t be able to set…” She let out a hard exhale as she thought. “What we need is some kinda way to attach our rope to that one from over here.”

There was a lengthy pause after that as the two thought over the problem. However, before too long, a clearing of the throat reminded Icy that it wasn’t just the two of them there. Looking up, she saw Lance giving her a meaningful look, although precisely what meaning it had she couldn’t tell.

After a few seconds of looking at each other, it seemed to occur to Lance that he needed to be more specific, so he lifted a hoof and pointed over Icy’s shoulder. Squinting in confusion, Icy looked behind her, seeing nothing but the forest fading into rain and darkness.

She looked back at Lance, only to find him shaking his head and moving to the side. After a moment, he pointed again, but this time at Icy’s side.

“Oh, I get it!” Archer said from her other side. “Your wings – you could freeze it in place. Nice idea, but…” Icy looked over to the other filly, thankful for a reason not to think about how she’d twice forgotten the only ability she had. Archer, meanwhile, was looking out over the ravine, apparently evaluating it, “Well, sending out a blast through this rain… could probably get it there, but not as tight as we’d need it. And that’s if you could even hit it and I’m really not sure your aim’s that good. Er, no offense,” she added suddenly, apparently only now realizing the potential for it.

Fortunately, Icy understood that feeling very well. “Oh, none taken… though I think I maybe might have if there wasn’t so much other stuff going on. Still, if I can’t freeze it from over… here…”

She trailed off as the obvious solution occurred to her and she desperately wished it hadn’t.

From the looks on their faces, it seemed the others realized this too, and didn’t look any happier about it. Still, Archer swung her quiver over her shoulder and began spooling out rope.

Looking up, she gave Icy a smile. “Up to you, Icy. We can probably figure something else out if we need to, you don’t gotta do anything you’re not willing to. But I remember what your mom said and we’re not gonna stand in your way either.”

Icy swallowed hard and nodded, returning the smile without any of the certainty. It didn’t help that, while she could tell Archer was sincere in not wanting to pressure her, her words did feel a little like they were guilting her into going over, though she had no idea whether that was on Archer’s accidental implication or Icy’s own interpretation.

Either way, she shook her head, trying to will herself to be as confident as she needed to be. “No, this is the best way. I mean, even if there is a better one, we’d just be using up time trying to think of it.” She took in a shaky breath and stood up straight, forcing her eyes and ears forward and towards her nightmare.

She raised a hoof to step forward before a firm hoof on her shoulder stopped her. She blinked in surprise, looking over at Lance. “I thought you said you weren’t…” She was cut off when she felt hooves lightly encircling her barrel. For a moment, she was confused before she felt the movement of rope over her fur. “Oh, right. Yeah, that makes sense – easier if I take it over there, right?”

“For me? No,” Archer replied as she tied the rope securely around her. “For you? I’m thinking a bit of extra safety can’t hurt.” She stepped back. “Now, remember, don’t land on the first few planks you reach – too much slack in the ropes on the broken side. You can secure ‘em once you’re on stable ground.”

Icy nodded, trying to focus on the advice instead of her task, but the roar she heard and the force she felt below her quickly subsumed her thoughts once Archer finished speaking. She closed her eyes and tensed her body, trying to give herself a sense of firmness and stability to contrast and stand firm against the roiling chaos of the river. As she stood there, she tried her best to open her senses and take in as much as she could, preparing herself to truly face the raging torrent. She felt her legs weaken and her stomach twist as she felt the power, the turmoil and the hunger of the water beneath, but she stayed upright, the feeling of the rope around her and the friends beside her giving her just enough strength to keep facing forward.

She took a deep, quivering breath before wrenching her eyes open and surging forward, putting every ounce of force she could muster into her movements to try and overwhelm any hesitation or weakness. She flared her wings out and slammed them down through the air, sending a powerful burst of air against the ground and rocketing her into the air. With a rush of energy, she spread her wings out and held them firm, going to a glide just as she came over the edge and face-to-face with her fear.

To her immense surprise, the sight of the pounding river didn’t worsen things nearly as she expected, only sending her stomach leaping up into her chest rather than up through her throat and out of her mouth. She did feel her wings tremble, but it felt as if the sight wasn’t increasing her fear, but just sharpening it slightly, bringing it into more vivid focus. It still felt awful, but wasn’t as much of a shock as she expected. If anything, the lack of shock was itself a great surprise, but one she had an easier time working with, managing to channel it enough to focus on keeping herself level. She looked down at the bridge below her and the water below both, feeling it grasping for her even as it continually failed to reach her.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for her to reach the intact part of the bridge, even if it still felt like minutes on end. Smiling shakily, more to encourage herself than anything, she slowly and arduously angled her wings down, sharpening her angle of descent and bringing her in for a landing. It seemed as if she’d overdone her initial leap, as she still overshot her target by at least a dozen planks, but, as it turned out, that was a very good thing as the planks didn’t make for an especially solid landing point, catching her legs between them and bring her to a sudden, jarring halt.

The instant change, impact and feeling of empty, unmoving air beneath her hooves drew a sharp, terrified yelp from Icy and sent her into a brief flurry of panicked flailing. Luckily, it seemed the planks were close enough together that she was in absolutely no danger of falling between them, and her landing point was far enough away from the broken end of the rope that they were as stable as any rope bridge. Which still wasn’t stable enough for Icy to get her thoughts together for a good while, but enough that she eventually managed to calm down enough to stop thrashing around and take a breath.

She stood up slowly, shifting her hooves and weight around as much as she dared to test out the planks beneath her. There was a slight groan that did little to help her anxiety, but no real movement as far as she could tell. Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, she nodded to herself before turning around. She reached a hoof out in front of her, placing it on the next plank along and giving it a tiny prod. When that produced no movement, she pushed harder, then harder once again, increasing her force until she felt confident stepping onto the plank. Forcing herself to breathe as regularly as she could, she took another step and started the process over again.

Her progress was painfully slow and she tried her best to ignore the part of her that was berating herself for her cowardice, but eventually, that part was silenced when one of the planks gave a little under one of her harder prods, confirming that she shouldn’t have stepped on it. She stopped and looked up towards the cliffside, equal parts hating the rain she saw and thanking it for obscuring the faces of her friends, which she couldn’t imagine as anything other than bored and impatient.

With a shaky hoof, Icy reached up to her chest and pressed her badge. “Okay, I think this is where we need to start.” She reached a hoof up to the knot in the rope around her, only to spend a few seconds fumbling with it, unsure how to even begin undoing it. “Er, Archer? How do I untie this?”

“You don’t,” the reply came, feeling a little surreal since she could see Archer’s mouth start to move a fraction of a second before the sound came out of her badge. “I got another one ready. Hold on two seconds.”

It seemed that, intentionally or not, Archer was being entirely literal, since within two seconds she had grabbed, nocked and fired an arrow into the plank in front of Icy, landing it exactly in the inside of the hole where the original rope passed through.

Icy looked down, seeing what Archer meant about the wet wood – the arrow wasn’t going to fall out immediately, but it was vibrating far more than it should have from the impact of the rain. Looking up for a moment, she pressed her badge once again. “Okay, freezing it in place now.”

She leaned down and placed a wingtip against the wood. Taking a breath to steady herself, she sent a wave of freezing energy down to set it in place.

KRRRHGK

Icy stumbled back in shock as a huge chunk of ice burst into being around the arrow, her movement being the only thing that stopped half her entire wing from getting caught and encased in the massive block. After a moment, she stumbled, her haunch colliding with the wood below her as she stared in astonishment at what she’d done. The hunk of ice reached halfway up to the top rope of the bridge and had gone even further horizontally, encasing almost the entire plank in a curved layer of ice, rising gradually along its length before rapidly surging upwards when it reached the end.

After a moment, a crackle came from her badge. “Whoa, little too much juice there, ace!”

Icy shook her head, not caring if no one could see it, before tapping her badge. “No, it… I didn’t…”

“Hey, no worries,” Archer interrupted her calmly, “I get it, you’re on edge, put a bit too much oomph in, it happens.”

“No, that’s…” Icy paused, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. “That’s the thing, I… yeah, I am on edge, but that’s not why… I didn’t put anywhere near that much energy in, I know I didn’t. It shouldn’t have made nearly that much.”

“Wait, really?” Archer replied, more curious than skeptical. “Huh, that’s weird. Well, in either case, not sure you’re gonna be able to get to the next plank too easy with that lot under you, so you should probably come back. Better if we can all help anyway now the rope’s… real secure.”

Icy nodded absently and flapped up into a leap, her eyes fixed on the anomalous ice. Her head turned to keep it in sight even as she went into a glide, utterly baffled as to what happened. In fact, she was so focused on it that she didn’t even notice that she was again gliding over open water until she was almost at the cliffside.

And, as it happened, she didn’t have much time to register that before she landed without looking where she was going, making her tumble head-over-hooves along the ground, skidding a good few metres through the mud and slowing down until she almost-gently bumped into a tree. She lay there, upside down against the trunk with her legs hanging down over her face, not moving as Archer approached her.

“Y’okay there, filly?” She asked as she began untying the rope around her. “I mean, any less than normal right now?”

Icy just gave her a brief, empty glance, the many emotions of the past minute all mixing and fuzzing into each other to create a general, cloying sense of misery.

Fortunately, she was soon pulled out of it – quite literally, as Archer took Icy’s hoof in one of hers and grabbed her unmoving body with the other, using just enough force to offer to help her up without imposing it. With a sigh, Icy allowed it, coming awkwardly to her hooves before scraping a few of the larger bits of mud off her suit.

Archer gave her a sympathetic grimace. “Well, you think you’ll be okay to help with the bridge?”

Icy tensed her right hoof for a second, trying to will herself back into the moment. She wasn’t entirely sure it worked completely, but she at least felt aware enough to nod and set off toward the bridge.

As they approached, Lance looked up and nodded, pulling out his sword and reaching it gently down over the edge of the cliff. It took a moment to realize what he was doing, but when Icy got close enough, she saw he was using it to hook the hanging plank in front of them and raise it to the point where hooves could grab it. As soon as it was somewhat horizontal, he held it there, letting it rest on the outstretched rapier.

Once they came level with him, Archer crouched down and took the plank in her hooves, manoeuvring it so it lay on top of the rope she’d fired over.

“Okay, Icy, freeze it. With, er, maybe less than you used last time?” She gave Icy a gentle smirk, no doubt hoping to lighten the mood a little.

Icy didn't feel like it worked, but did feel confident enough to reach a wing down and send a tiny jolt of energy down onto the wood.

It seemed that the initial burst wasn’t an isolated incident, as even that small amount created a substantial block of ice around the plank and rope. Icy frowned, confused at what was happening, before Archer’s voice brought her out of it.

“Okay, so we go one plank at a time, repeat this process. Bridge’s wide enough shouldn’t be a problem. Ready?”

Icy nodded absently, catching Lance’s more firm affirmation in her peripheral vision. The three stepped onto the now-stable plank one at a time, not even drawing a groan from the ice, giving Icy enough of a sense of security to keep going without issue.

As the three worked, Icy paid close attention to the feeling when she froze the wood in place. It was… odd. It didn’t feel as if the energy was any more powerful, but more that it came out a lot easier and quicker. It was like the difference between pushing an object along the ground and putting it on wheels and pushing it then – the act of pushing was the same, but not only did it have much more effect, but the sensory feedback the push gave was massively lesser.

As she froze the final plank they needed to fix, Archer spoke up, “Okay, I think I see what’s happening?”

“Hm?” Icy turned to her, only now remembering the ponies alongside her.

“It’s the water in the wood,” Archer said as she stepped back, allowing Lance to begin chipping away at the oversized block of ice she’d initially made. “The way it freezes – it goes right through the wood way quicker than normal, but once that’s frozen, the rest goes like it usually does with you.”

Icy blinked, tilting her head as she thought. “O… kay?”

Archer chuckled. “Yeah, I know, ‘water freezes better than air’, not exactly Fig Newton and the apple tree, but I figured I'd say.”

“No, it’s not that,” Icy took a moment, trying to think of exactly what it was she was thinking. “It’s… like, that makes sense, but it doesn’t… it didn’t just feel like that. It was… different. Something was… I dunno, it just felt like there was something… something helping more than normal.”

Archer nodded even as she tapped her head in thought. “Huh. Well, if you say so. In the meantime, fancy a little shaved ice?” she said with a shrug and a smile, gesturing to the now-far smaller block of ice Lance was whittling down.

The stoic colt looked over her shoulder, an unamused eyebrow raise coming through his wire mask, before he turned back, taking out a few more chips before finally sheathing his sword, having made it far easier to cross that plank. Icy smiled slightly, stepping carefully over the slippery plank, finally feeling as if things might start getting back to a normal level of unpleasantness.

The sudden, sharp burst of wind that shot through the ravine almost literally blew that notion away. The bridge was shoved hard to the side, sending Icy plummeting to the surface beneath her to hold on for dear life. Even as she did, she heard a sound she was desperately hoping not to hear – the groaning of the many blocks of ice she’d made – as well as a sound it hadn’t even occurred to her to be terrified of – the strained stretching of a rope under just slightly more weight and force than it was designed for.

Icy let out a long squeal through her clenched teeth, not caring how pathetic it sounded, and squeezed her eyes shut as the full reality of her situation caught up with her – the precarious bridge, the wild weather, the rushing river…

After a moment, she felt a hoof on her cheek, gently encouraging it to look up. For a couple of seconds, she resisted, her neck muscles refusing to move, before the gentle but unyielding pressure finally overcame her nerves. She looked up, her eyelids raising along with her head, to look up along Lance’s body. Once her gaze reached his chin, she saw he’d removed his fencing mask, confusing her for a moment. However, when she finally got a look at his face, she let out a small gasp as she saw the look he was giving her.

It wasn't a look that could be identified as any one emotion and, indeed, didn't seem to betray any emotion at all. What it got across was stability and immovability, both in his face and in her gaze. His bright red eyes held her sight in a vice grip such that it honestly felt as if she couldn't look away if she tried and his mouth was utterly without expression or tension, presenting an image of someone who held no opinion or judgment on what was happening, simply a determination to help with it.

It wasn't a perfect distraction, of course, as she could still feel the water falling all around them and speeding past below them, but it held her attention enough that, when Lance tilted his head ever so slightly, indicating they should continue crossing, Icy found herself nodding in agreement and, when he began walking slowly backwards across the bridge, she found her hooves cooperative enough that she could slowly follow him and was able to ignore the little voice in the back of her mind screaming at her what a terrible idea this was.

Of course, it wasn't a perfect solution, as she did find herself tensing up considerably as she stepped out across the next plank, not helped by how carefully she had to move, feeling out every step before making it to make sure she was on a solid surface. However, Lance's gaze held her steady and, every time she had to stop to either stabilize herself or simply gather her strength, he would patiently pause and wait until she was ready to continue.

From behind her, she heard Archer's hoofsteps make their way across as well and tried to convince her jittery hooves that the creaking came from stepping onto the individual planks and not from the bridge as a whole.

It took a short while, of course, but they managed to make it to what felt like the middle of the bridge, where the planks reached their lowest point, and past it to where they started rising. However, they hadn't made it much farther before another huge gust blew along the ravine, sending the bridge swaying dangerously.

With a yelp, Icy slammed her eyes shut again and wrapped her hooves tightly around the rope on the side of the bridge. She felt her hooves turning white as she squeezed, the effect of Lance's gaze now gone as she held her eyes closed, as if she could somehow will the world around her away. It didn't help – the water around her was still ramming its presence into her mind – yet she couldn't bring herself to open them.

After a few moments, she felt a pressure on her hooves, grasping them gently. Unable to stop herself, she opened her eyes. She had intended to do so only briefly, but when she saw Lance's face before her and his hoof over hers, she found herself able to keep them open.

This time, Lance wasn't expressionless, but sympathetic, the smile on his lips thin but definite, letting her know that it was okay; that he didn't blame her. However, his eyes held that same firmness as before that allowed him to take Icy's hoof and lead her along the bridge once more.

Icy exhaled as the two moved, a little slower even than before since each was using one hoof to hold the other. And yet, to Icy's astonishment, in seemingly a fraction of the time it had taken before, she found her hooves landing on solid ground once more as they moved past the bridge.

That done, Lance gave a firm nod and looked away, satisfied with their progress.

Icy looked back at the bridge, a little confused about what had just happened, and found that it was no less terrifying to look at, even knowing she didn't have to cross it again. Frowning a little in puzzlement, she turned back to Lance. “How did you do that?”

Lance just shrugged with a distinct look of apathy on his face – he didn't know or care how he had helped her stay calm, only that he did.

“I got no idea either – force of personality, I guess,” Archer said as she stepped onto the cliffside behind them. “But it's a real good thing he did. I wouldn't want us to be on that bridge any longer than we had to be. And not just to stop you going crazy, either, Icy.”

Icy nodded. “Yeah, it... probably wasn't safe, even if my... issues made it seem even less.” She breathed a sigh of relief at the mild validation.

Archer nodded. “Definitely not, but not for the reason you're thinking of.”

Icy's face fell a little. “What do you mean?”

Archer indicated up and along the ridge, into the treeline. “Normally, the trees block the line of sight from the bridge to Mount Foalja, but when that second gust hit, it swung us... or at least me, into a position where I could see the top of it. And if I could see it, that means it could see me.”

Icy's eyes widened. “You mean the pony up there knows we're coming?”

Archer thought for a moment. “Hmm, I don't think so. They could have spotted us, definitely, but if they did, they'd have probably sent a few gusts or lightning bolts our way by now. That means either they're not that observant, which really doesn't square with what we know they can do or...”

There was a pause as Archer held the tension and Icy tried to think of alternatives. After a moment, though, she prompted, “Or?”

Archer looked out along the sightline from Mount Foalja. “Or there's something else that's got their attention right now. Which, I mean, could be good, for us at least, but...”

There was another pause, but this time it wasn't because no one had anything to say, but because they heard a strange sound from deeper in the forest – a combination of several rushing rockets and a strange sort of wind.

Domino let out a growl as she looked through the spyglass, her whirling thoughts and the information pounding into her brain through her senses all focused on what she was seeing.

Far in the distance, past the wind wall she'd so painstakingly set up and that she'd been making sure to top up every so often, the ponies were in motion, just in front of where the forest began. Her growl was as much in pain as in anger, as seeing so many unpredictable ponies was tortuous, and yet she needed to see them to see what they were doing, which, in turn, was the source of her anger.

They appeared to be setting up some sort of giant crossbow, with several carrying a thick bolt with small restraints tied around it, clearly meant for the pegasus donning goggles just next to the device. It only took one look for Domino to see and understand every force involved in the contraption's operation and know that it could get any passengers past the wall unless the ponies operating it did something bizarre and insanely stupid.

Admittedly, the very nature of ponies' free will meant she couldn't rule out that possibility, a fact that, despite being to her benefit, only amplified the pain she felt not knowing what the ponies would do at any given moment and what effects that would have on the otherwise-consistent world around them.

Still, the thought managed to rise to the top of the maelstrom in her mind that it would be terrible for her if somepony managed to get out into the forest and, spurred on by that realization, a rare coherent sentence drifted through her mind: Soon see about that!

With a snort, she lowered the telescope and stowed it in her pack before turning back to the crate containing her weather rockets. She'd had to tie it down at first to stop it being swept up by the wind – the pegasus magic packed into the rockets made each one significantly lighter than air, meaning the crate as a whole was ridiculously light for its size. So far, though, she'd used around half the rockets, meaning it was far more stable and in far less danger of leaving the ground. She still kept it tied down, though, as it would take fifteen seconds to release it and she had far better uses for that time.

Plus, the crate's weight wasn't necessarily on a solid downward trend, as she reached in through the crack she'd opened and pulled out three large rockets, each one having a fair weight to them. This was not because they had less pegasus magic in them, but rather the opposite – the magic and weather energy were so densely packed within them that they were much heavier than air, in the same way that a canister of pressurized helium didn't become more likely to float away.

It was this level of energy that had caused Domino to set them aside, along with a few others, for if she needed them. It was also what had inspired her to tie the three rockets together with strong twine, forming a rough triangle that she took to the side of the mountaintop and placed on the ground.

She looked up, her eyes briefly glancing over the strange winds around the forest ravine – huh, temperatures weird, lot of cold, probably some creature – before she fixed her gaze on the town far in the distance, the path between it and her, and the forest surrounding it, and she opened her senses fully. It was a painful process, but necessary if she was going to get this right. After three seconds of looking, she nodded and reached down to the rockets in front of her. The one closest to her, she moved ten centimetres and turned thirty-seven degrees, the second seven-point-four and forty-one and the third only naught-point-nine and three.

Nodding to herself, she took the fuses for the latter two and placed them together, such that she would be able to light both simultaneously, and pulled out her lighter, placing the nozzle over the first rocket's fuse. Waiting for exactly the right moment, both such that the wind would be perfect once the rocket fired and the rain wouldn't interfere with the electric arc from the waterproof lighter, she clicked the lighter on, setting the fuse alight.

She then waited exactly four-point-one-nine-five seconds – this manoeuvre needed timing literally down to the millisecond – before she lit the other two fuses and stood back to watch the show.

“Okay, Thunderlane, do you understand what you need to do?” Raindrops asked the stallion as he suited up to ride the most bizarre ride Sunny had ever seen – and there'd been some competition.

Thunderlane nodded with a smirk. “First priority's to interfere with the wind rockets this pony's been using to keep up the wind wall, that should let it dissipate and let more through. Other than that, do what I can to reduce the rain and get rid of the wind wall faster.”

Raindrops nodded, though she didn't look entirely satisfied. “Any idea how?”

Thunderlane shook his head. “Not a clue – can't get one till I'm there, can I? But don't worry, I'll figure something out.”

His smile dipped somewhat when Raindrops gave him a light smack on the forehead with a wing. “Little less of that ego. That stuff may fly at the Academy, but unlike Rainbow Dash, you're not in charge around here, so keep it under control, got that?”

As the two began talking over the specifics of dealing with the extreme weather Thunderlane would encounter, Sunny strolled over towards Princess Twilight, who was standing with the unicorns projecting a force umbrella over the area and looking out into the forest. Sunny took a deep breath, a little annoyed at her impulse to quibble, but still asking, “Are you sure he'll be able to do anything once he's through?”

To her credit, Twilight responded with only an encouraging smile. “Oh, definitely. Remember, to create this wall, the rockets have to be aimed and fired with a frankly ridiculous level of precision.” She shook her head. “I still have no idea how this pony's able to do that, but anyway, even a small change in the surrounding air that Thunderlane can provide should completely ruin that precision. Most likely, the rockets should just create a small area of wild winds while the rest of the wall fizzles out.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow. “Most likely?” She echoed, having been somewhat comforted before Twilight said those words.

Twilight shrugged. “I mean, there's always the possibility something weird will happen, but..."

"But it shouldn't be a problem," Pinkie piped up, looking up from the work she and a few other Earth Ponies were doing securing the balista to the ground, having to drive the pegs very deep into the muddy ground to make sure it would be stable enough to fire properly. "This pony's had to fire off a new rocket every ten minutes or so to keep the wall up, so Thunderlane can just wait until the next one.”

Sunny sighed, actively trying to suppress the urge to search for a flaw in this plan. Not that that was generally a bad idea, but she didn't trust herself in her current state of mind to not drown Twilight in false positives. “How long ago was the last one?”

“About four minutes,” Twilight replied, looking out towards the forest again. “Once he's all set up and been fired through, he should have a minute or so before the next rocket fires, whe-”

A whooshing noise, louder even than the previous rockets, came from the forest, causing Sunny to turn her head towards where Twilight's eyeline was pointing. “You were sayi-'' she cut her remark off when she saw that this rocket was not going along the same path as previous ones. “That's... Is that heading towards us?!”

“Yes,” Twilight said quickly, “but the wind wall should sto-”

Once again, the conversation was cut off as two more rockets burst into life next to the first, both attached to it and travelling along with it.

“What in Equestria...?” Sunny began as the three rockets started moving around each other. It took a moment, but soon, they were spinning in a clean, perfect circle, exactly parallel to the ground far below them.

“That's impossible,” Twilight said, her eyes wide in astonishment. “Getting them spinning like that would take such calculation that... and why would they even want t- Oh no!”

Sunny swallowed, not having to ask what Twilight was talking about, as she was seeing the same thing – the wind magic packed into the rockets was moving and sucking in the air around them and, since the rockets were spinning in a long spiral towards them, the wind began moving in that same spiral, drawing in more and more and becoming more and more visible, such that it was obvious what was being created.

Twilight lit her horn, encasing her mouth and throat in purple light before calling out, in a magically-amplified voice. “TORNADO! ALL AVAILABLE PEGASI TO SWEET APPLE ACRES, EAST BORDER!”

She then turned back to Sunny and the other unicorns with an apologetic smile that they were only able to see once they'd let their winces fade, having been right next to her announcement. “Sorry. Luna keeps offering to teach me the Royal Canterlot Voice, but we never seem to get around to it. That was the best I could do. Anyway,” she lit her horn, her face falling into a determined neutrality, “we're going to need you all to help in stopping the tornado.”

“But what about the umbrella?” Amythest Star replied, waving up to the huge sheltering construct she and the others were making. “Won't everything get wet if we...”

“It won't matter if we don't stop this whirlwind,” Twilight replied, turning towards the incoming rockets as they became obscured by the wind. “That comes first.”

“Besides, it's heading for the ballista!” Sunny shouted, lighting her own horn. “We need to stop it before it can hit it.”

She heard Twilight gulp loudly even as the umbrella vanished and the rain cascaded down around them again. “I, er... I don't think we'll be able to – the wind wall will block our magic until it's too late.”

“What?!” Sunny blurted out, whirling around on Twilight. “But...”

“I'm sorry,” Twilight said, giving her a stern look out of the corner of her eye, “but we can stop it from destroying any more of the town.”

“But...” Sunny paused, trying to think of an alternative. “But one of us could put a protective bubble over it, we can...”

“Then we may not have enough force to stop it destroying even more and I doubt it'd be strong enough anyway. Please, Sunny...”

Sunny squeezed her eyes shut before jerking her head back towards the tornado and lighting her horn. “Dammit!”

As the Tornado burst through the barrier the wind had made, blending with it for a while before coming out without disrupting it at all, the various unicorns shot out a coruscating beam, the colours of all their magic blending and shifting into one another, though the purple of Twilight's magic tinted the whole thing towards her aura.

The beam hit the tornado, creating a barrier in the middle of the wind's circuit in the hopes of diminishing it. The instant the wind hit it, every unicorn in the group winced as they felt the impact, followed by the continual pushing on their magic as it moved forward, their construct keeping pace with it through colossal effort from everypony there.

At the same time, the four pegasi who had been close enough to get to it at that point began flying around it as hard as they could in the opposite direction, pouring every ounce of magic they could into the counter-spiral in the hopes of dispelling it. Sunny could feel just how much of an effect they were having – far more than even the combined magical might of the unicorns. Anypony who thought Sunny and her tribe had a monopoly on magical power didn't know the first thing about Ponykind.

Unfortunately, as much of an immediate effect as they had on the tornado, they weren't fast enough to stop the ballista from being picked up and flung into the maelstrom, the pegs that had stopped them from moving it away ripped easily from the wet soil by the sheer power of the whirlwind. They had positioned the contraption as close to the wind wall as they could, after all, to make sure it had the best chance of penetrating it. That had seemed like the best solution, but it meant there was no chance to stop it from being caught in the wind.

On the upside, it did soon impact one of the rockets, making it burst into a literal cloud of magic and making the other two fly out of the tornado. Sadly, most of the pegasus magic in them had already been used up, so it didn't do much to stop or hinder the tornado, but it at least meant they wouldn't be bolstering it any further.

Twilight groaned as the aura around her horn increased from a double corona to a triple before a blast of magic shot out, striking the ballista just before it would have had a chance to hit one of the pegasi and knocking it up and out of the tornado.

Sunny growled, knowing full well that, while that had protected one or two of the pegasi, it wasn't going to do anything to save the ballista, and the sickening, splintered crunch from behind her only drove that point home. However, she resisted the urge to turn around, instead pouring even more magic into trying to interfere with the whirlwind.

Soon, a few more pegasi flew in and joined in with the counter-rotation, further weakening the tornado. However, it was still getting worryingly close to the barn where they had been building the ballista. If they didn't find some way to speed up dispelling the whirlwind, the barn's walls would be smashed to pieces. Sunny groaned as she tried to think of something, but what...

A sudden stream of water suddenly burst past her head, pounding forward and into the hurricane. It was such a bizarre and unexpected thing to happen that it almost got Sunny to lose focus on her magic, but she was experienced enough with the unexpected to just about keep pouring magic into it.

She did manage to get a look behind her to see that Pinkie and a couple of others had gotten a hosepipe and were blasting water at the hurricane. It took Sunny a moment to realize what the point of this was – by cooling down the air within the whirlwind, it would make the whole thing a little less strong and, hopefully, easier to dispel.

It felt touch-and-go for a moment, but, just as the tornado looked as if it was about to get in range to start damaging the barn, it visibly began to fade. A few moments later, one more pegasus joined the effort and within a few, strenuous seconds, the tornado eventually petered out into nothing, the water, dirt and wood chips that had been caught up in it flung off by the cessation of movement.

There was a long, tense pause as everyone caught their breaths and thanked whichever cosmic forces were listening that they were able to stop it from doing any more damage.

However, the moment was eventually broken by Sunny's astonished words.

“They threw a tornado at us.” She paused and took a deep breath before restating, “They threw a bucking tornado at us!”

“Sunny, language!” Twilight replied, though the chastisement in her tone was mollified by her shock.

Sunny let out a small growl as she glared at the Princess. “I don't care!” she snapped. “I'll use whatever bucking language I like and you know why? Because my daughter isn't around to hear it! She's out there!” She waved in the direction of the Everfree and the heart of the rainstorm. “Probably terrified out of her mind,” she glanced over to where she'd heard the ballista land, her eyes lingering there for only a fraction of a second to confirm the pile of shards and splinters it had become before returning to Twilight, “and I. Can't. Get to her!”

Twilight sighed, looking unsure about her words. “We... we can build another. And maybe I can figure out some way to hide it so it won't get...”

“And how long will that take, huh?” Sunny interrupted, throwing up her hooves in exasperation. “By the time we're done with that, the town'll have been flooded and Icy'll probably be...” She cut herself off sharply, not wanting to say or think about any more of that sentence.

After a moment, she shook her head. “There's gotta be some other way through. You're sure no one can make it through the wind wall on hoof?”

“Positive,” Twilight replied, a sympathetic look on her face. “Listen, Sunny, I think you're just going to have to trust Icy to stay safe.”

Sunny snorted. “Why does everypony assume I don't trust her? I mean, I'm scared for her, sure, but I know she'll probably be okay. I just don't want her to have to keep herself safe. I don't want her to go through this alone.”

Twilight looked out towards the forest. “She's not alone.”

Sunny sighed. “I know, but I also don't want her to go through this period. But if I can't walk through and I can't fly through, I guess...” She trailed off as she wilted.

“I know,” Twilight said, shaking her lowered head. “But with the magic running through the wind wall, a pegasus wouldn't be able to keep themselves in the air, let alone a passenger.”

Sunny nodded. “I know, I just thou-”

Her head snapped up suddenly, her eyes wide. “Say that again.”

Twilight frowned in confusion. “Er... with the magic running through the wind wall...”

“That's the problem?” Sunny interjected. “Pegasi can't fly through because their magic gets messed up?”

Twilight paused before nodding slowly, having no clue where Sunny was going with this. “Well, I mean, the wind would still make it incredibly difficult, but it's the wild pegasus magic that's making it impossible, yes.”

“All this time...” Sunny paused in astonishment, though Twilight had no idea at what. “All this time, it was just pegasus magic that got screwed up.”

Twilight looked to the side awkwardly. “Er, the magic that lets them fly in the first place, yes.”

There was a long, tense pause as Sunny stared breathlessly at the forest and Twilight stared uncomfortably at Sunny, the rainfall around them providing a thick, low background noise as the tableau went on.

Then, without warning, Sunny turned sharply on her hooves and started marching back towards town, her walk making it clear that she wouldn't be stopping for anything short of the end of the world.

“Sunny?” Twilight called, running after her a little. “Where are you going?”

“Where do you think?” Sunny replied without looking behind her, steel in her voice. Her eyes were locked firmly at a point in town.

“I'm going to get my baby!”

Chapter Five: Thunder from Above, Fire from Below

“Holy... did you see that?”

Icy's eyes flicked up to Archer when she heard that, though the rest of her face didn't move for a while, as if the corners of her mouth were still attached to the ground even as she raised the rest of her head.

After nearly having a heart attack getting over the bridge and being constantly assailed by rain, she'd just been forced to dive down into the mud to grab something when she saw the whirlwind, only to find out that it wasn't even coming near them, so such drastic measures hadn't been necessary. For that matter, she didn't know if, had it passed directly over them, her hanging on would have helped. But she didn't even have time to wonder that before she realized that, if it wasn't aimed at them, the whirlwind would most likely have been sent at the town, making even her drenched, mud-spattered safety feel like something to be guilty over.

She was, all in all, thoroughly miserable, so she felt quite justified in responding to Archer's question with, “See what? You mean the gigantic, rocket-powered tornado? Nope, didn't notice anything like that! Maybe you were seeing things.”

For a moment, Icy wondered what Alula would say in regards to her sarcasm – whether she'd be proud of Icy, tell her it needed work and give her some tips or simply insist she leave it to the professionals. In any case, it helped her mood only marginally when Archer chuckled at her observation.

“Fair enough,” she said, sounding less bothered by the aggression than Icy would have liked, but she hadn't expected it to truly get to her, “but I was more talking about how this pony made it. The “rocket-powered” part.”

“What about it?” Icy asked, still far too miffed to admit that it was any kind of clever.

Still, it seemed Archer didn't have such compunctions. “Well, the whole ‘tying rockets into a circle’ thing... No way that should have worked. Just tying them together, either they'd start bouncing every which way or, even if you could get 'em spinning, you couldn’t get 'em level enough to make a tornado. Using 'em like they did... that's some dang impressive precision right there!”

Icy was spared having to glare at Archer when Lance gave her a disapproving look, less severe than Icy's would have been but, she thought, carrying far more meaning.

Archer put her hooves up placatingly. “Hey, I didn't say impressive was a good thing.” She thought for a moment before shrugging and beginning to walk onwards towards the mountain. “Or a bad thing, really. It just is.”

Icy rolled her eyes and snorted as she and Lance followed. “I'm happy you find the town getting wrecked “impressive”. Er, it was going towards the town, right?” she asked, her irritated tone letting up slightly as she realized she hadn't got confirmation of that and was turned around enough in the forest that she had no idea which direction the town lay in.

Still, Archer nodded. “Yeah, but don't worry. I don't know much about weather, but that didn't seem too strong.” She paused for a split second before raising a hoof to cut off any interjection and spoke rapidly, “By tornado standards, I mean. Point is, the weather pegasi should be able to counter-spin it without a problem before long – won't do any real damage.”

Icy was a little torn for a moment between trusting Archer's instincts and being annoyed at how casually she was treating the possibility. After a moment of trying to decide, she settled on only a slightly snide tone as she asked. “Well, I don't know much about weather either, but I know that even if it only lasts a few seconds, a tornado's gonna do some real damage to what it does hit.”

Archer nodded, her face indicating that she took the point, but still replied, “Yeah, but it was heading towards Sweet Apple Acres. Not much to damage there – a few apple trees, maybe, but nothing important.”

Back in Ponyville, Applejack paused for a moment as she stacked sandbags, her eye twitching for reasons she wasn't sure of.

“Trust me, they'll be fine,” Archer finished.

For a moment, Icy found herself nodding in agreement before she saw Lance tilting his head sharply, asking a question before jerking his head in the direction the tornado had gone.

Both Icy and Archer thought for a moment.

“That's... a really good question,” Archer said after a moment. “Why did they send it at the Acres?”

Icy swallowed hard, both happy and worried at having thought of the probable answer. “Well, the whole town was involved in preparing for the flood. Maybe there was something important there that this pony wanted to wreck.”

Archer nodded, her fading smile giving Icy a tiny, unpleasant sort of satisfaction. “Can't think what there'd be there, but you've got a point.” She looked up towards the treeline, to where Mount Foalja rose past it. “I mean, we can't rule out that they're just crazy and did it out of random insanity – trying to flood a town with weather rockets ain't exactly the sign of a stable mind, you know – but they may have been trying to screw things up for the town.”

Icy gulped and it was apparently loud enough for Archer to hear her and turn around, giving her an encouraging smile. “Thing is, though,” she said, her head turned so she could both look at Icy and keep their path in her peripheral vision, “the “don't worry” still applies. Even if they did try to stop the town getting themselves ready, it won't do 'em any good – they'll still manage it, trust me.”

Icy's expression didn't lose its doubt, but she did give a hesitant nod.

With a smirk, Archer turned back to the front. “See, Ponyville may be full of total loonies, but we know how to handle a crisis. Got the experience with 'em, if nothing else.”

Icy frowned in puzzlement at her words. “Um, wasn't there a mare in the town square talking about ‘the horror’ of Sugarcube Corner being out of cupcakes last week?”

Archer nodded but didn't seem bothered. “Yeah, but that wasn’t a crisis, was it? I’m talking about when the chips are really down, you know? Besides, I said Ponyville was good in a crisis, not the ponies in it.”

Icy's frown and confusion deepened. “What's the difference? Like the land is...?” She trailed off as Archer shook her head.

“Nah, I mean when we work together. Whole is greater, that kinda thing.”

Icy was about to question this further when Lance nodded in agreement, before raising a hoof to the top of his head and running it along the front, miming out a crown.

At that, Icy nodded, understanding what they were implying. “So, good leadership can make a difference. I guess they'll be okay, then, since they've got Mayor Mare and Princess Tw-”

“Anyway!” Archer suddenly blurted out, her eyes snapping open wide and looking sharply back at Icy, almost entirely knocking her out of her bad mood in surprise. As consistent as Archer's perpetual relaxation usually was, there had been one or two instances when she'd gotten angry or agitated in the time Icy had known her. However, she had never once actually snapped like that or gotten startled, so it caught Icy completely off-guard.

Still, it only lasted a moment before she relaxed again and continued. “Anyway, it's not like we can go back and help them. Best thing we can do to make things easier for the town is take out the pony trying to destroy it.”

Icy nodded, though a hint of worry edged back into her consciousness as she did. “Uh huh, we've just got to take out a pony who can throw around tornados.”

Archer gave a grim chuckle at that. “Yeah. Probably better if we we avoid anything that could give away that we're here, lik-”

She was cut off when a massive thunderclap sounded just above them, a bolt of electricity surging through a nearby tree and making much of its bark explode.

Before anyone could say anything, a sudden crash came from above them and a huge shape plummeted through the canopy, twisting for a moment before it hit the ground and carved a deep gash in it, sending mud flying up along its path.

“Like that, f’rexample,” Archer said without missing a beat.

She whipped her bow off her back in an instant, Lance drawing his sword at the same time. Icy felt a little inadequate next to that as she flared her wings a good couple of seconds later. However, as the mud fell back to the ground and revealed what the falling shape had been, that suddenly didn't feel as important as the fact she got them up at all.

Lying there at the end of the furrow was a huge lion with the wings of a bat and a scorpion's tail. Icy had seen pictures of manticores before – and of course had read that issue where Captain Equestria fought the Manticore, even if they had been mostly equine and using the name – but seeing one firsthoof was a whole different experience. Even as it lay there, heaving and covered in dirt, it managed to send a shiver of intimidation through her.

The tableau stayed static for a couple of seconds as the manticore remained still, the only change coming as the rain fell and washed away the mud covering its body. As it did, it soon became clear why it had fallen out of the sky – nearly the entire left side of its body was covered in a huge, blackened burn, along with its left wing looking ragged and bleeding slightly from hitting the branches on the way down. Even some of the majestic mane around its head had been burned away, though it still retained more than enough to give it its trademark menacing silhouette.

A moment later, it planted its right forepaw firmly into the ground and rose shakily to its feet. Looking down, Icy could see more blood being washed off its legs along with the mud. She couldn't see any large or open wounds from the angle she was looking, but as it got its paws under it, she saw that its left forepaw had been twisted into an unpleasant-looking angle and, even as the thing realigned it into a more natural stance, it was notably shaky on it.

However, all of this didn't stop the thing from whipping its head up and growling at the ponies, its eyes making it very clear that they were to stay away. The fact that it held its needle-sharp tail out in front of it only served to emphasize that point, the wicked point glinting slightly in the rain and sending enough fear through Icy that she couldn't stop her wings from wilting.

Still, it seemed she was the only one so scared, as Archer held her free hoof up placatingly. “Whoa, whoa, easy, big guy! We're not gonna hurt you!”

The manticores growled again in response, obviously not convinced. However, a moment later, there was a loud fluttering from all around the area and it turned its head away from them, clearly finding whatever was landing a greater threat.

Icy wasn't sure why, though, as the sound appeared to be coming from a flock of small, black birds coming down and landing on the branches of the surrounding trees, forming a rough circle around the manticore and ponies. Icy wasn't nearly experienced enough in animal care or bird watching to tell exactly what species of bird they were – crows, ravens, blackbirds and rooks all looked the same to her, though she always wondered if she could tell the latter because they only moved in straight, non-diagonal lines.

Fortunately, Archer was more on the ball, it seemed, as she reached slowly for an arrow. “Well, that explains it – storm crows!”

Icy tilted her head slightly. “Storm crows? Oh, because they come out in storms like this one?” She hadn't heard of them before, but that seemed to make sense. “Are they dangerous?”

Archer opened her mouth to respond before it was cut off by a roar from the manticore, clearly aimed at the crows to try and scare them off.

However, in response, the three crows directly in its line of sight hopped closer together. Icy was about to ask why when, suddenly, their long, yellow beaks began glowing. Within a fraction of a second, they were radiating light like a torch and, a moment later, electricity began to crackle along their beaks.

As Icy looked on, astonished, the electricity leapt off the tips of their beaks in unison, forming small bolts of lightning, each going into the same point in the air in front of them. For an instant, that point had a bright, static ball of electricity hanging there before it surged forward, the three jolts combining into a larger bolt that impacted the ground with a clap of thunder.

Icy swallowed and nodded. “Right. Okay. Storm crows!” she muttered. It was easy, at least for her, to forget, what with the constant rainfall, the huge amounts of flowing water around and the constant, niggling threat of full flooding, that they were in the middle of the Everfree Forest, a place that was constantly coming up with new and more powerful threats even when dry.

A long, tense silence settled over the scene after the crows and the manticore had made their threats. There was movement from both sides, but never anything loud and sudden – the manticore turned slowly around to keep its eyes on its opponents and, occasionally, one of the crows would flap to a different position, but it was clear neither side was going to make the first move until there was an opening.

However, what made it even more tense for Icy was that it was beginning to seem like those weren't the only sides in this situation.

“Er, guys,” she stage-whispered, feeling it more important to keep her words calm and non-threatening than quiet, “is it just me or are the crows looking at us, too?”

“Yep,” Archer replied, slowly nocking her arrow, though not pulling the string back yet. “Probably think we're easy pickings. Shows what they know.”

Icy gulped, wishing, not for the first time, that she had Archer's ever-present confidence. Still, she focused on the situation at hoof and what could be done about it. “Should we get ready to run again?” She wasn't sure which answer she was hoping for – she wasn't looking forward to another chase so soon after the timber wolves, but neither did she like the idea of fighting these things.

However, she realized the chase would have been preferable only as Lance shook his head that they wouldn't be doing that.

“Yeah, no point,” Archer added to his silent denial. “Doubt we could outpace 'em, plus they've got range on us they can use in flight. And the big guy might distract a fair few of 'em, but there'd still be plenty to chase us down.”

Lance turned and gave Archer a long frown at the idea of leaving the manticore to fend for itself.

Archer simply rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know we're not gonna. I wasn't saying we would or we should, just that it wouldn't help even if we did.”

Icy scuffed a hoof against the muddy ground in agitation. “So, if they attack, we're gonna have to fight?” Her eyes darted around, the quiet tension of the situation proving impossible to get used to, instead only getting more stressful with each passing minute.

Archer nodded. “Probably. Could maybe try scaring 'em off, but anything loud enough to do that'd give us away to the pony upstairs.” She jerked her head up towards where Mount Foalja sat above the canopy. “Plus, if a manticore can't do that, not sure what we’d do to get 'em running.”

Lance tilted his head slightly at Archer's words, questioning why the crows didn’t seem scared of the giant beast.

“Huh, good question,” Archer said after a moment, still keeping her voice low but without the same kind of strain as before as she thought about it. “Storm crows wouldn't normally be this aggressive or brave, especially after the first few got taken out.”

“Are we sure they did?” Icy asked, happy for even the slight distraction from the silent battle of wills happening in front of and all around them. “Maybe they caught the manticore by surprise?”

“Nah,” Archer replied, “There was blood on its claws and tail as it fell, before it tore its wing. It took out a fair chunk of 'em, I'd say.”

Icy hummed, trusting Archer's eyes but not sure what else could have made the crows bolder. After all, even if she didn't take Archer's word for it, the fact she hadn't seen or heard them coming near or into Ponyville ever suggested they weren't the Everfree's apex predators.

However, a drop of rain falling splashing up off her muzzle, under her hood and into her eye gave her a thought.

“Maybe the weather's making them stronger. I mean, they are storm crows, not thunder crows.”

Archer nodded. “Maybe. Dangit, where's Fluttershy or Zecora when you need 'em? Or even Zat?”

Icy frowned in confusion. “Zatrathan?” Of course, she remembered the zebra they had met a couple of weeks ago in the Crystal Empire and, while Archer had become firm friends and pen pals with him, Icy wasn't sure what the young spellsword had to do with the situation. “Does he know stuff about animals too?”

Archer smiled a little too wide as she thought of him. “Nah, but when it comes to things zapping other things, he's an expert.”

Icy hummed uncertainly – while he had demonstrated quite a skill with channelling electricity through his sword, she wasn't sure how he could help. If anything, it seemed like Archer just wanted him around in general, though Icy didn't know why.

However, she was brought out of her thoughts about that when a sudden jerk of movement in her peripheral vision drew her attention back to the manticore, giving her just enough time to ready her wings before things started happening rapidly.

The Manticore, still slowly moving around to keep an eye on as many of the birds around it as possible, took a step that was just a little poorly angled, its face making clear that it knew it as soon as its paw made contact with the ground, but it had too much momentum to stop. As a result, its leg buckled a little and knocked the whole creature down slightly, stunning it slightly and making it whimper in pain for an instant as it tried to right itself.

It wasn't much, but it was enough for one of the birds to see an opening and dart off the branch it had been sitting on, seeming to move almost as quickly as the electricity gathering on its beak.

Fortunately, it wasn't the only thing that could move rapidly, as Lance darted between the two and whipped his broad-brimmed hat off his head, its form stiffening as it became an effective shield and blocked the bolt from the bird's beak.

However, that was enough to break the tension and send the rest of the birds up into the air, flying around the land-bound creatures and charging their beaks.

Icy backed off a step towards the centre and tried to count how many there were as she sent a blast of cold out into the whirling mass of feathers and thunder, catching a couple with a glancing hit that nevertheless froze their wings in solid ice blocks and sent them into a crash landing, knocking them out completely. Still, it didn't seem like much of a victory to Icy, who estimated there to be at least fifty of the birds.

Fortunately, they weren't all attacking simultaneously, presumably for fear of interfering with one another – not a good thing when you were throwing lightning around. Instead, a few at a time would break off from the circle and swoop over them, sending out blasts as they passed.

As intimidating as this was, it did make things a little more manageable, since it gave them a bit of forewarning about when a blast would come. However, as Icy stepped back, just about avoiding the blast that impacted next to her hooves but still came close enough for her to feel the heat from the small bolt, she didn't feel all that comforted.

Another step back made her bump into Archer. Risking a momentary glance over her shoulder, Icy met her eyes and got an encouraging smirk for her trouble as Archer fired a steady stream of arrows into the horde, catching most of those that were heading towards her. Just before Icy turned away, she saw a group of three break off and fly towards Archer, giving Icy a momentary concern.

Archer, however, barely seemed to acknowledge the problem as she sent an impact arrow into the central crow, knocking it to the side and out of the air, such that it deflected one of its fellows and the arrow knocked into and deflected the other.

Icy blinked but, after a moment, subconsciously thanked her lucky stars that she was beginning to get used to Archer's skill, as it meant she was able to focus back in front of her just in time to see the storm crow flying straight at her, its beak crackling menacingly. Flapping her wings wildly, she managed to send a rough wave of cold at it. She was briefly afraid when it didn't fully freeze the crow, but simply made a layer of frost on its wings.

However, it seemed that was enough, as the sudden icing up of the wings stopped them from working properly, sending the crow crashing into the ground and making its electricity discharge through the earth, sending up a small explosion of mud and grass. When it settled, the bird was unconscious.

Icy blinked, a little astonished that that had worked as well as it did. However, she soon nodded to herself as she realized that this made things a little easier – she didn't have to totally freeze the birds, just give them enough of a coating that they couldn't fly. Flaring her wings, she began gathering her energy for a much wider and less intense blast.

However, after a moment, she realized the slight problem with this – she wasn't entirely sure how to make such a blast. For as long as she'd known of her abilities – which hadn't been all that long, relatively speaking – she'd always had to focus her blasts as much as she could to make them as effective as possible. Even after she'd gotten a suit that helped increase her blasts' power, she'd still always focused on keeping her energy tight and controlled. As such, while she knew roughly the movements to create a weaker, more widespread gust, she wasn't entirely clear on how to spread her energy through it.

Still, she didn't let the stop her from trying, pulling her wings much further back from normal and shoving them forward sharply before stopping them before they got too close together as they went forward. As she did, she focused on the energy in her wings, trying to call it up a little more gently than normal and spread it out through her feathers much more evenly – she'd never really noticed before how much her energy naturally pooled at her wingtips and wasn't sure whether that was due to the nature of the energy or simply how she instinctively wielded it.

Either way, the attempt was a moderate success, sending out a wave of energy that was certainly much wider than normal, but that she could see as soon as it left her wings wouldn't go nearly as far. It did, immensely fortunately, catch both the crows that had presumably noticed her state of focus and come at her to exploit her seeming vulnerability, sending them crashing to the ground. However, the distance between her and the circling birds, combined with the many raindrops that got between her and them, drawing in the cold and getting frozen, meant that only one other crow was iced up enough to plummet, and that one only because it had been flying a lot nearer to her as it passed.

Icy hummed a little in disappointment, resolving to practice this once they were home. In the meantime, however, she took a few shaky steps closer to the feather-filled perimeter, hoping she could catch a few more in her next wave.

As she started gathering energy once more, keeping tense and ready for any incoming bolts, she heard Archer over her shoulder call out, “Lance, eight o'clock! Wants you to put your sword up!”

Icy turned her head towards Lance, only to see a crow flying at her from between him and her. Letting her wings flap on instinct, she managed to ice it up and bring it down as she turned around, catching two more behind it as well.

As she finished turning around, she got a full look at Lance and the manticore, both of whom were extremely active in the fight. The manticore was clumsily swiping its claws and stabbing its tail at every crow that came near, occasionally shifting its wings slightly, as if its instincts told it to take flight for the fraction of a second it took for its charred wings and hurt legs to remind it why that was a bad idea. Still, as obvious as it was that its injuries were preventing it from operating at its full capacity, it was still pretty effective at smacking and skewering any crows that got near it.

That said, few did, as Lance was doing an immensely effective job protecting the beast, darting around and slashing all comers out of the air, creating a small flash each time as his sword's stunning enchantment knocked them silly. For a brief moment, Icy wondered how much of Lance's fervour in protecting the manticore was for its benefit and how much was for the birds'.

Either way, she soon spotted what Archer had meant – a single crow was hovering just behind and to the side of Lance, keeping high enough that neither he nor the manticore could reach it. Icy wouldn't have thought these birds capable of hovering, but it was just about managing it, electricity crackling along its wings as it flapped them into a blur like a hummingbird. It was waiting for something, but Icy was briefly unsure what.

A flash of movement to her side drew her attention away as a bird flew at her from the side. She flapped a blast at it just in time, freezing it in a block of ice a moment before the lightning fired from its beak. The lightning did blast the ice into a cloud of chunks and vapour, but the explosion still served to knock the crow out completely, so it didn't make much of a difference.

Turning back, Icy just about caught the bird descending for a moment before retreating up high, in some sort of false start for whatever it was trying to do. However, the fact that it coincided with Lance raising his sword slightly and then lowering it again gave Icy an idea of what Archer had meant. Lance was, for the most part, keeping his sword low and close except for the appropriately lightning-quick slashes to deflect incoming birds. Presumably, he was aware of the dangers of swinging a lightning rod around in this situation, and the crow was waiting for him to raise it enough to take advantage of that.

However, it seemed that Lance's raising of the sword had been a test of his own, as he nodded as soon as the bird backed off. After taking care of another crow, he let out a long grunt of seeming displeasure as, conspicuously, from Icy's perspective at least, he kept his sword up for a long moment.

It seemed that the hovering crow didn't find this as suspicious, though, as it descended and charged its beak for a bolt. Icy was briefly worried as the tableau remained roughly static for a moment as the charge built up into a blast.

However, an instant before it did, Lance sprung into action, whipping the sword up vertically and throwing it into the air, where it hung for a moment as the thunderbolt flew from the bird's beak and struck the blade, visibly charging it with electricity.

Lance, however, didn't keep himself upright to catch the blade, instead falling as if onto his back as soon as it left his hoof, a moment later kicking his hindhooves up into a backwards cartwheel. As his hindlegs flew up and he stood on his forehooves, he straightened himself up for a split second before falling back, bringing one of his knees sharply forward to ram into his sword's hilt, his thick, protective clothing stopping the charge from going into him.

As such, the sword remained charged when it was driven into the hovering crow's chest, the flash of the impact stunning it enough that it didn't resist as both continued back, ramming the bird into a tree. As soon as the bird made contact with the bark, the electricity surged out of the sword and into the tree, using the bird as a bridge and exposing it to the full force of the lightning. Icy had no idea how much of the bird's subsequent unconsciousness was because of the sword's stunning effect and how much was because of the electricity, but either way, its wings flopped down and its body dropped like a stone, out of the fight.

Once this had happened, Lance leapt up towards the tree, grabbing the now-safe sword's hilt before twisting his hindhooves forward to leapt back off the tree and towards the manticore again, landing just in time to swipe another bird out of the air before it could fire.

Icy chuckled a little. She didn't know if she'd ever cease to be amazed at Lance's talent for finding the most direct and effective route to achieving his goals that nevertheless looked incredibly flashy and made him into an unintentional show-off. However, she certainly hoped she wouldn't stop noticing it – it was part of what made her job so fun.

That said, it did occasionally have its problematic moments, such as when that very same sense of fun meant she wasn't paying full attention to her surroundings.

“Icy! Seven o'clock!”

Icy blinked as her focus was yanked back into the present situation. However, it took her a moment to parse what Archer had called out, picturing a clock's hands at seven and working out where she was referring to in relation to where Icy was. Thinking in retrospect later, Icy would think it would have probably been a lot easier and more efficient to just say “Behind you!” but she would then suppose that Archer was used to giving precise orders and that Icy simply needed to get used to her method of alerting others.

In the moment, however, she simply yelped when she finally turned around to see the storm crow diving towards her, its near-pitch-black eyes unusually clear from the metre-distance it was at, helped by being lit up by the thunderbolt streaking from its beak.

Fortunately, her startled reflexes were sharp enough for her to yank her forehooves back from the ground an instant before it was struck by the bolt, but the force of the mud kicked up and the intense heat still sent a jolt up through her legs. It only lasted a moment, but it was enough to stop her from arresting her movement, sending her leaping back from the crow. As she rose, she flapped her wings on instinct, sending a non-freezing gust forward and propelling her backwards, as well as stunning the crow enough for Archer to nail it with an arrow. Not that she probably needed it to be stunned, but it didn't hurt.

Icy, however, was a little more concerned with her impromptu leap, twisting her body around to face forward so she could both see where she was going and, if necessary, go into a glide. However, any hopes of the latter went out of the window when she saw that she was heading straight for another one of the crows. The bird in question was just turning its head towards the incoming filly, its beak already sparking with electricity to blast at her.

Icy's eyes widened as her attempts to straighten out her flight overshot the mark and sent her twisting too far and ending up just as uncontrolled. She stopped herself from spiralling any further, but that didn't stop her from heading straight along the crow's line of fire.

Half out of an actual, if vague, idea and half out of blind panic, Icy flapped her wings once more, directing the force of the gust behind her and speeding her even faster towards the crow. If nothing else, that seemed to startle and confuse it, setting its rapidly beating wings off-rhythm and making it dip slightly in the air.

Icy wasn't sure how or why, but the sight of the crow being surprised helped clear her head a little, focusing her thoughts and perceptions enough that, an instant before the crow blasted her, she thought to reach her hooves out and grab it by its body, yanking it aside and making the bolt miss her by nearly half a metre.

Of course, once she had a hold of the bird, the issues with that arrangement became somewhat more clear, as her momentum, combined with the wild flapping of her wings and the force of its own wingbeats – which would have been solidly focused in one direction had her weight not been pulling it around all over the place, making them effectively as random as her flapping wings – sent the two into a bizarre, spiralling spin that had disoriented both of them, which in turn only intensified the wild flailing and making the nauseating ride worse.

However, even in her confusion, Icy thought to pull the crow's body up to her and force it to turn, so its beak was facing away from her. This, it turned out, was a very good move, as it quickly began firing off small bolts at high speed, clearly panicking as much as Icy had been.

In fact, through the world's tumbling, Icy could just about see that one of these bolts struck another one of the crows and, though she couldn’t make out the image of exactly what happened, she was able to see and hear the electrical explosion that resulted from it and get the distinct impression that that particular crow was out of the fight. And also that, once it recovered, it would probably have some choice words, or perhaps caws, for the crow she was grappling.

However, after what could have been a few moments or a few minutes from Icy's perspective, gravity seemed to finally get its act together and reassert itself on the pair. This didn't stop their wild spinning, simply giving their occasional, momentary horizontal position a good view of the approaching ground.

Icy yelped as she let go of the crow and kicked it away with an elbow, a move that she realized was a good idea about a second after she did it, as the crow let off one final, desperate bolt. Evidently, it was putting everything it had into it without really thinking about how it would help, as was proved when the bolt impacted the ground a few centimetres below it, sending up another substantial explosion of mud and dirt and knocking the crow unconscious. Had Icy not let go, there was a good chance she'd have been knocked for a loop by said explosion as well.

Groaning a little even as she thanked her lucky stars for her unintentionally good judgement, she rose to her hooves and looked up to see Archer's smirk, which felt a little irritating even as it was attempting to be encouraging.

“Nice moves there, Icy!” she said as she let off another arrow, barely looking at its path but still getting the squawk of a hit. “Took out two of 'em.”

Icy sighed. “I wasn't trying to...”

“I know,” Archer interrupted with an infuriatingly casual shrug. “Was still cool.”

Icy sighed into a chuckle as she straightened her wings up, getting ready to gather her energy and contribute to the fight once more. At least, in a way where she was trying to.

“Still,” Archer continued as she fired off another shot, “wish I'd known they were vulnerable to their own lightning earlier – could have taken out two or three at a time with a few shock arrows before they got this thin.”

Looking around, Icy took in the situation and saw that, indeed, the flock had thinned out massively since the fight had begun. Thanks to the steady whittling down of their numbers in between the few times a chunk had been taken out at once, there couldn't have been more than fifteen left. Still, that wasn't to say that they weren't in danger, as Icy recalled the force she'd felt even on the edge of one bolt. She tensed to dodge any more that were incoming.

However, no sooner had she registered this thought than the crows circling them started to rise higher in the air, a few beginning to congregate in a tight ring above them, just above the point any of them could reach. As more and more began joining the ring, their beaks all began to crackle at once and it didn't take a genius to figure out what they were intending to do – combine all their blasts into one massive thunderbolt.

Their positioning suggested that they were aiming primarily for the manticore but, with the size of the bolt they'd no doubt produce, Icy didn't suppose it mattered. Though the manticore had been twisting around decently well to take out any crows that came close, it was only able to do so by totally favouring one front leg and it was obvious that it wouldn't be able to move away fast enough to escape the bolt. Meanwhile, the only way for the ponies to avoid it was to leave the manticore to its fate and one glance at Lance's masked face told her, in no uncertain terms, that that wasn't happening.

Icy's mind raced as she tried to think of what they could do about it. A lightning rod of some sort might protect them from the first bolt, but anything she could think of that would reach high enough would be destroyed by said bolt, after which the crows could simply make another one. Some sort of explosion or area attack would be able to take them all out at once, but she knew Archer wasn't allowed explosive arrows, as the filly had sometimes semi-bitterly noted, and she couldn't think of any other such abilities they had.

A drop of rain landing on a particularly sensitive bit of her wing did remind her that she had one ability with something of a wide area of effect, but she doubted her waves of cold would do anything more than make them shiver at the distance she was at, and that wasn't taking into account how she'd only just started learning the skill. She could focus enough of a blast to freeze one of them, maybe two if they were particularly close together, but that was assuming she could even hit one, which was by no means a certain proposition.

Still, she thought as she watched the circle of birds move to the side in a spiral, keeping themselves above the manticore's limping steps, it might be her best option. Maybe if she was lucky, the frozen bird would stay in the air long enough to disrupt their flight patterns. She thought back over the encounter so far to think about what had happened before when she'd frozen them – most had simply plummeted, so she doubted they could stay up for any length of time, although the one that had been in mid-blast had simply made the ice explode, so...

Her eyes widened and she tapped a hoof on the ground in realization. Admittedly, it wasn't nearly as satisfying as normal since it simply produced a splash of mud rather than the normal satisfying clop and she momentarily wished she had fingers to snap before shaking the thought off. She looked up at the birds and flared her wings as she evaluated the situation.

Admittedly, she was no Archer, but she could get a rough idea of what would happen if she sent up a block of ice. If she got one of the birds as it fired, the explosion would take a few out – maybe a little less than half if she was lucky and sent a particularly big block up there. She didn't know if that would be enough, but it was something at least. Of course, sending up a lot of energy would make it much harder to aim, so her chances of hitting a rapidly moving target were slim, but she had to try.

However, as soon as she began gathering up her energy, taking much longer than normal so as to almost saturate her wings with cold, she saw the birds finally beginning to pour their electrical energies into the centre of the ring and another idea flashed into her mind – a block of ice in the centre could well take them all out.

She was briefly worried when she realized that she'd need something solid there to freeze – she wasn't yet skilled enough to make ice in thin air, even if she ever could be. However, she was still focused enough on the idea to call out, “Can you get something into the centre of them?”

“You got it!” Archer replied, having already been aiming a shot up at the ring. Shifting her aim slightly, she let loose an arrow before immediately loading another, this one thicker and covered in shiny, copper-like veins.

Firing this new arrow up into the air, Icy followed its path up towards the birds, where the first arrow had just struck one of them, knocking it out of the ring and out of the sky. Icy was briefly confused about how this helped them in any meaningful way before the arrow, having bounced off the bird, fell into the central nimbus of electricity. It immediately caught fire, of course, but an instant before it was reduced completely to ash, the second arrow struck it, sending out a spray of burning wood chips that were quickly quenched by the rain around them.

However, before Icy could wonder about the purpose of this, she saw that not only was the second arrow staying mostly unharmed by the lightning around it, but it was also staying firmly in place, as if lodged in some invisible structure.

It only took a moment for Icy to realize what it was and she smiled with a nod. “Heh, course. Stick-n-Stays!” she muttered as she flapped her wings hard, having to put every ounce of her strength into keeping them moving and firm, to try and focus the massive amount of energy she'd built up.

It was quite an effort, but it seemed to have the desired effect, flash-freezing a massive chunk of ice around the hanging arrow, thick enough to cover the area from the centre of the ring to halfway towards the circling birds and encase the ball of electricity they had been building up. If nothing else, it would almost certainly protect them from the lightning itself, which would have been enough for Icy.

However, a moment later, the crackling of both thunder and ice rose to a crescendo before a series of deep cracks rushed through the ice block in an instant and the whole thing burst into a cloud of ice chunks, water vapour and occasional puffs of steam.

For about a tenth of a second, Icy was a little disappointed and worried, since it didn't look like the release of energy – it would be an exaggeration to call it an explosion – would be enough to take out all the crows. Maybe one or two might have been in the wrong position and taken enough of a hit to knock them out of the air, but it probably wouldn't be enough to end the problem.

However, after that brief moment of doubt, it became clear that where the burst had failed, the flying ice chunks would easily pick up the slack, sailing out from the chunk and ramming into the circle of birds, with only a few being quick or well-positioned enough to dodge them. This was only helped by the fact that, even if the burst of energy and vapour wasn't enough to hurt the crows, it certainly stunned them for long enough that the flying ice could knock them out of the air.

Of course, Icy only had a fraction of a second to appreciate this before her attention was drawn to the many chunks that had been sent shooting down towards her and her allies. Before her mind could even fully register this, her wings were already flapping down, sending a wave of energy along the ground in front of her, before pulling up and forming a small, thick umbrella of ice that would shield her from the falling debris.

For a moment, she felt a little guilty that her reflexes, seemingly more intelligent than her mind, had only thought to protect herself rather than her friends. However, as she looked out to the side, she realized she needn't have bothered: Archer was easily dodging the rain of shards, even taking a moment to fire a couple of shots up into the birds, presumably to take out a couple that had avoided getting hit before; Lance was keeping his sword up, dodging almost as nimbly and easily slashing the few ice fragments he couldn't avoid out of the air; and the manticore simply took the falling chunks on its back, grunting loudly in pain but trusting in its thick hide to protect it from the brunt of the damage.

Once the rain of ice had subsided, Icy peeked out and up, curious to see what, if anything, was left of the attacking force. A smile blossomed on her face as she saw that the only crows who weren't coming in for a crash landing were instead flying off into the distance, obviously retreating and, while Icy couldn't be sure and doubted it, she liked to imagine they were whimpering incessantly, whining about how their “easy prey” had turned out to be dangerous after all.

Huh, she thought as the cockiness of that thought fully registered with her. I wonder if this is how Archer feels... all the time.

Sure enough, Archer was striding up to the manticore, giving it a smile before putting a hoof on its shoulder. “There we go! Not such a problem, huh, big guy?”

The manticore gave a small growl, not enough to be intimidating, simply to raise the idea of intimidation should it be needed. It was clear that, while it had certainly noticed that the ponies had protected it and were certainly on its side against the storm crows, it didn't trust them enough not to let them know that it was still a massive slab of fur, claws and predation.

Archer rolled her eyes. “Hey, alright, fine! You gonna be okay from here?”

It was unclear whether the manticore understood her words or was simply acting on its own impulses, but took a purposeful step towards the edge of the clearing, signifying that it was leaving. Icy got the impression that it wasn't actively against them following, but that it wasn't looking for it either. It limped forward a few steps, its hurt leg slowing it down a little and giving it a wobbly gait, but not truly immobilizing it.

However, a moment later, it became clear that it probably should have, as it landed on its leg at a bad angle and its knee buckled, sending it hurtling hard towards the ground.

Fortunately, before its torso could hit the ground and send it sprawling, Lance dived underneath it and caught it, though the strain in his muscles showed that he had barely managed to both keep his grip and stop himself from getting crushed.

Still, he was able to keep his balance and posture enough to glare up at the others, both in protest at them not joining him and to ask if they’d challenge his decision. Icy tilted her head, a little surprised, but still trotted up to join him in pulling the manticore back to its feet. Admittedly, Icy was neither an earth pony nor particularly strong, so she doubted she would help much, but she was happy to lend what little aid she could.

Archer, on the other hoof, scoffed even as she too came up to join him. “Oh, come on, Lance! He'll be fine – this can't be the first time he's gotten hurt like this. He lives in the Everfree, for crying out loud,” she said. There wasn't much aggression behind her words, though how much was because of her normal easy-going nature and how much was because she didn't mind enough to argue the point with any degree of passion, Icy couldn't say.

Still, Lance remained firm, shaking his head once at Archer and, even once the manticore had regained its stability, stayed very close to it as they went forward in the direction of Mount Foalja, ready to catch it again if needed.

Icy lingered a moment before following, just long enough to hear Archer mutter, “I get it, but some things don't need protecting,” before she too followed behind, pulling the map out of her quiver.

As she joined the others around the manticore, she spoke up, this time loud enough to be heard by everyone. “You're lucky – there's a rocky overhang about a klick in this direction, we can leave him there for now – should be safe enough.”

Lance gave her a long look before nodding and shrugging, the combination of the movements indicating that he appreciated being told and was glad of it, but if there was no such area, that wouldn't have stopped him from helping the creature.

Archer sighed heavily before shaking her head and smiling. “Alright, okay, fine. Let's go, then.”

Icy tilted her head a little at Archer's acceptance, having had similar doubts herself, even if she didn't want to raise them. “Are you sure? I don't want us to put the town at risk – are we sure we'll have time to do this?”

Lance gave her a level look and nodded.

At this, Archer regained her characteristic smirk as she took up position on the manticore's other side.

“Oh, we will, believe me.”

Icy pursed her lips for a moment, unsure, but soon shrugged and hurried a little to catch up to the others as they lapsed into the silence of vigilance.

Fortunately, the manticore's size and overall strength meant that, even while limping heavily, it was able to move at a decent pace, even more so with an earth pony on either side of it to stabilize it should it stumble. While Icy was sure that it was slowing them down, it wasn't doing so nearly as much as she feared and, far sooner than she'd expected and before she'd allowed herself to get used to the situation, the group had arrived at the overhang Archer had been guiding them towards.

As quickly as they'd made it, however, it took a considerable time afterwards for Lance, their resident non-verbal communication expert, to get across in gestures that it should stay there and wait, and that once the weather cleared up, they'd send someone to help it. Even then, while the manticore did sit down with the seeming intention to stay there, Icy had no idea how much of that was because it had understood, how much was because it simply trusted that they wouldn't leave it helpless for long and how much was simply because it was in no state to move anyway.

However, once that was done and the group started to turn away, a gentle growl stopped them - clearly not to scare them, just to get their attention. When they turned around, they saw that the manticore had already begun chewing on an oddly coloured plant - green with striations of blue, red and yellow - that covered a good portion of the ground.

As soon as the group was facing it, the manticore slashed its massive claws through a patch of the thick leaves, cutting them away from their roots, before nodding towards them encouragingly.

“Huh. Well, appreciate the thought, big guy,” Archer said as she picked up the offered leaves. “Hope we won’t need ‘em, but can’t hurt to have ‘em in reserve.”

“What are they?” Icy asked as Archer put them in her quiver.

“Rainbowsellia,” Archer replied, giving the manticore a wave before turning and leading the group away. “Natural painkiller. Pretty useful stuff, even if we got way more than we’d even need.”

“Really?” Icy asked, happy for the distracting conversation.

“Yeah, I guess he was thinking on manticore scale. Someone our size, one or two leaves’d be our max. Even for a grown-up, you wouldn’t want more than three. This much?” She indicated the dozens of leaves in her quiver. “Be a one-way ticket to Pukesville, if you’re lucky.”

Icy winced, immediately deciding to change the subject in the hopes of dispelling that image. “So, we're sure we'll have time to stop this pony before... you know...”

Archer gave her a smile and a nod. “Oh, yeah, no problem. Flooding a town ain't a quick job, no matter how many weather rockets you got,” she assured her. “Besides, like I said, the town's pretty good when it comes to preparing for a disaster. They'll be able to hold things together until we can take care of the problem.

Icy looked up at the sky as if to remind herself of the reason she was feeling as tense and nervous as she was. “Er, if you're sure.”

Archer nodded firmly. “Oh, I am. I mean, we shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves and think we've already won or anything, but we can take a little detour here and there.”

Icy raised an eyebrow, a little confused at Archer's seeming change in attitude towards the manticore. “Really? Cause you seemed... kind of against helping it before. Was that not about wanting to hurry up?”

Archer shook her head, a slightly abashed smile on her face. “Oh, no, I definitely wanted to get along quicker, it just had nothing to do with worrying about the town.”

Icy tilted her head sharply. “It wasn't? But then why...?”

Archer sighed into a single chuckle. “I admit, it's not a great reason. I'm just eager to get there, is all. I wanna get a real look at the kid that's doing this, wanna see what they’re like, what their deal is and maybe,” she pushed her muzzle up with a hoof to imitate a cartoonishly posh posture and said, in a mockery of an upper-class accent, “if the opportunity presents itself,” she dropped her muzzle and finished in her normal, loose accent, “stick an arrow up their plot.”

Despite herself and the situation, Icy giggled at Archer's tone and slightly off-colour wording. “Okay, I guess I can understand that.”

“Geez, I sure hope not,” Archer replied, her smile turning sardonic. “It's a pretty silly reason and it's kinda based on my own... thing. I've just seen so many almost-good shots to the mountaintop through the trees, it was kinda bugging me not getting a good one.”

There was a long pause before Icy spoke again. “Huh. I mean, we've been a long way from Mount Foalja, and there's been all this wind and rain too.”

“I know,” Archer said with a totally straight face. “That's why I said they were almost good – I'd need a bigger bow, longer legs and clearer weather to get an arrow all the way there. Doesn't mean I can't see that I could if I did.”

Icy's brow remained thoroughly furrowed for a moment, not quite seeing what Archer meant before shrugging it off. “I guess. Well, you should have your chance pretty soon, right? We're almost there, so we- ah!”

Icy was cut off when Archer grabbed her tail and stopped, yanking Icy back with a bit of pain and a lot of shock. Icy hadn't even really noticed that she'd been pulling slightly ahead of Archer and Lance, the tension pervading her body making her steps slightly quicker even as the conversation helped distract her mind from it. She whipped her head around as her hooves scrabbled on the muddy ground to remain upright, seeing Archer's mouth clamped firmly around Icy's tail hair and her hoof in front of Lance, stopping him without nearly so much discomfort.

Fortunately, Archer's grip on Icy's tail remained firm, allowing Icy to find her stability after a moment, even if it was rather unpleasant. Once the group had safely stopped, Archer spat out the tail hair and, after a moment working her tongue to banish the taste, which Icy couldn't imagine had been pleasant, she pointed ahead of them.

“Almost there, yeah, but we got another little detour. See that big patch of blue flowers over there?”

Icy turned forward again, squinting slightly to see through the pouring rain and cloud-and-canopy-dimmed lighting of the forest. Her eyes weren't nearly as sharp as Archer's, as high a bar as that was, and she would have believed Archer that there was something there even if she had seen nothing at all. However, after a moment, she was able to parse the somewhat muted-looking colours of the area to see, indeed, a huge area of the ground covered in a blue that would, in normal weather, be bright, vibrant and easily spotted. She couldn't make out much more than the general colour, but it made sense that it was a flower patch, even if blue grass wasn't out of the question when dealing with a place like the Everfree.

Still, she nodded, not quite seeing what the deal was. “Uh huh? What is it?”

“Poison Joke,” Archer replied.

“O... kay?” Icy frowned, trying to think if she'd heard the name before. She'd certainly heard of poison oak, but after a few seconds, she couldn't remember ever hearing of Poison Joke before. Although, just by hearing the name, she concluded that it sounded like the sort of thing that would be in the Everfree.

Well, that or the name of a D-list supervillain – The Poison Joke.

Still, after a moment, she shook her head, both to refocus on the subject and to remind herself that not everything in the Everfree wanted ponies dead, otherwise it would be impossible to take a single step without the ground swallowing you or the grass reaching up to throttle you or the air punching you in the lungs from the inside.

Shivering a little at the image, which only served to expose her to more rain and make things worse, she just decided to ask, “So, is Poison Joke dangerous?”

There was a long pause while all three of them blinked at what Icy had just said.

“Well,” Archer began after a while, “I mean, it’s...”

“Poisonous, yeah, I know, realized just after I said it,” Icy assured her, looking to the side in embarrassment. Still, after a second she thought about it further and realized there was something to her question after all. “But, I mean, poison can mean a lot of different things. Is it only dangerous if you eat it, do you just have to smell it...?”

Archer shook her head. “Nah, it just has to touch you to hit you with its thing. Mind you, it usually takes a while to affect you and it's not like it's deadly or anything, but I'm still not looking to deal with it right now.” As soon as she finished, she jerked her head to the side in an indication of the way they would be going before she started moving to the side, in a large circle that kept the flower patch at a safe distance.

Icy and Lance joined her a moment later, Icy a little confused as she asked, “So what does it do, then?”

Archer snorted, unamused but acknowledging the theoretical possibility of amusement that she was denying. “Well, on paper, it plays a kind of magical joke on you. Trouble is, the stuff's got a messed up sense of humour. Mostly, it screws around with your body – shrinking or growing you, making your horn, wings, hooves or hair useless or crazy, changing your voice... not sure there's a limit on nasty little pranks it's got in store for ponies that step in it.”

“Huh,” Icy said after a moment, somewhat nonplussed at such a thing, even in the Everfree – it seemed simultaneously too harmless and too actively mean-spirited for such a place. Still, she had no reason to disbelieve Archer and it was certainly possible in that forest. “Fair enough – I guess it'd be better if we avoid getting cursed,” she said with a slight chuckle.

Archer, on the other hand, just rolled her eyes with a slight sneer. “It's not a curse, Icy, there's no such thing as curses.”

“It's not?” Icy replied.

Archer sighed. “Of course not. It's just a powerful, targeted magical change to somepony's body, mind or life that's bound to them for a long time or until they do something special to dispel it. Nothing at all like a curse.”

Even Lance looked at Archer a little askance at her pedantry on the matter, while Icy's mouth stretched to one side unsurely. “If you say so.”

“Oh, I definitely do,” Archer replied, though with less force than she'd used to establish her skepticism. “And it only takes one touch to get joked, so keep your eye out. We may be at a distance, but the wind could send a few petals at us if we're not careful.”

Icy was about to question whether their being careful would in any way affect whether petals got sent in their direction, as opposed to simply whether they would be able to avoid them, when a flash of movement from Lance drew her attention to her side, where his sword was slapping a blue leaf out of the air.

After another second, it fully registered with Icy what Lance had just saved her from and her breath hitched, even as she gave him a grateful nod. In response, he simply nodded back, making it clear she was welcome.

“Yeah, sorry,” Archer said a moment later, “shouldn't have gotten that close. Got so busy explaining it I wasn't keeping an eye out – should have shot it out of the air long before it got that close.” She took her bow from her back and held it in one hoof while the other three continued walking. “You can relax if you want, guys, I'll take out any that come.”

Lance snorted slightly – just because he could relax didn't mean he thought he should or would.

After a moment of thinking about it, Icy saw his point too. “Well, I mean, we should still be careful, right? What if more than one gets blown towards us at a time? Seems like a thing that could happen.”

Archer nodded, lips pursed slightly as she considered the point. “Yeah, it could, but it'd have to be a heck of a lot of them coming at us at once if I couldn't take care of all of them before they get here. I mean, it's not like I'd need them to even leave the patch before I could knock 'em away.”

Icy's eyes widened a little at the claim as she considered how fast and unpredictably the petals moved on the wind. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah, easy,” Archer replied before indicating a spot above the patch with her muzzle. “See that petal there? Just past the big y-shaped branch?”

Following the line Archer was pointing, Icy could indeed see a petal just beginning to make its way out of the area of the patch and towards them, high up in the tree line.

In fact, it was because she was following Archer's sightline up that when she heard the pulling back of the bowstring, she realized what was about to happen. “No, wait, don't...!

Her words came a second too late as the bowstring twanged and an arrow shot past her, heading up and into the treeline.

To Archer's immense credit, it did indeed hit the petal and, in a flash of impact magic, knocked it down to be caught in the canopy.

To her immense discredit, however, a petal wasn't nearly enough to stop the arrow's movement, meaning it continued up past the treetops, shaking the leaves as it passed by and, unless they were inconceivably lucky, alerting the pony on the mountaintop to their presence.

There was a long, oppressively tense pause before Archer gulped.

“That was a very dumb thing I just did.”

Domino blinked as she watched the arrow fall back into the trees again. She had been keeping something of an eye in that direction after the manticore and the storm crows had landed further out there, but only as much of an eye as she could without being debilitated by the irritation. The presence of so many living creatures in the area made it painfully impossible to tell what was or would be happening there. She could only tell a few basic things about it, like the number and size of the things involved, but everything else was agonizingly uncertain. Even the explosion of ice only told her something was freezing something but no more.

An arrow, on the other hoof? That was quite unmistakable – only sapient creatures could make, fletch and fire arrows. And a quick look at the angles suggested it was firing with one hoof and a mouth by a pony of some kind, about her size. And, though it was obviously either not aimed at her or aimed badly at her, it seemed likely that, whoever these small ponies were and however they'd gotten past her wind wall, they were going to try to stop her.

Sneering in disgust at the problem, she trotted over to the crate of rockets and retrieved another set of tied-together wind rockets, placing them on the ground to calculate how to get them spinning towards the interlopers.

Author's Note

Incidentally, won't be uploading a chapter next Monday, for what I would consider obvious reasons. Should have one the Monday after, though.

Chapter Six: Icy Flight's Wild Flight

Icy's legs burned as she ran at a full sprint through the forest, trying desperately to keep up with Lance and Archer as they ran and wishing fervently that she'd gotten around to asking her mother about joining her when she exercised.

Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she recalled her mother telling her about proper breathing technique while running, but the exact details escaped her – she could remember that she was supposed to use her mouth for one part of the breath and her nose for the other, but had no idea which was which. Besides, even the small part of her that remembered this was aware that the urgency she was moving would prevent her from properly implementing whatever technique was correct.

Not to mention that anything even resembling rational and methodical procedure seemed nearly impossible while she was running through the pouring rain that had been pulling and scratching at the edge of her consciousness like a cat playing with piano strings. Ever since she'd reached the surface, it had been keeping her painfully on edge and now that she was once again sprinting through it and hitting every drop in her path, after spending so long immersed in the stress of it, her mind was tumbling in a chaotic mass of emotions and noise, with only the occasional snatch of coherent thought showing one of its frayed edges.

Fortunately, it seemed neither of her teammates was so hampered, as Lance raised his head to indicate he had something to “say”, then jerked it towards the mountain and gave it a small spin.

“No, of course, we... don't know they'll... send a tornado,” Archer said between her far more ordered breaths, “but they know we're... here and they'll... want to stop us. If they don't... send a tornado... that just means... they've got worse... for us.”

Even through her internal hysteria, the idea that whoever was responsible for her misery could have even worse prepared than what they'd already seen managed to penetrate, driving Icy to growl and put every scrap of her rapidly dwindling energy into her legs, pumping them hard and lengthening her strides as if she hoped she could outrun the pain and fear.

In retrospect, that was probably a mistake, as it meant she was paying even less attention to where she was going than before and, when her forehoof rammed into a particularly high root, she was sent lurching forward, her stomach seeming to rise and press against the roof of her mouth as she was catapulted over. She grimaced as the ground rushed up as if to punch her.

In her peripheral vision, she could just about make out Lance moving towards her, as if to catch her, but he wasn't close enough to make it. Instead, he quickly went completely out of her sightline as she tumbled end over end, the muddy ground providing a smooth but slippery path for her to roll along until she could barely imagine what up and down were, let alone which was which.

After a good few seconds, she eventually came to a stop and, miraculously, ended up the right way up. That said, it would be inaccurate to call her truly vertical, as she ended up splayed across the ground, her limbs tangled and slightly embedded beneath her and her wings sagging into the mud. Her mind took a much longer time to come to rest, but in the meantime, she was treated to the general feeling of being wet, exhausted, scared and generally unhappy.

As she lay there, breathing heavily in an attempt to suppress the urge to retch, she heard Archer give a tiny, almost imperceptible chuckle as she turned to her. “Well, that's one way of asking for a rest.”

Icy looked up to her, pouring her final scraps of energy into a glare.

It did seem to have some effect, as Archer nodded. “Yeah, I know, sorry.” Icy knew it was petty, but she did get a small jolt of satisfaction when she noticed that even the ever-confident Archer was panting slightly, her knees bent a little as she got her breath back.

For some reason, as her thoughts finally reassembled themselves into an almost-coherent order, Icy thought of Spike and the one time she'd seen him truly tired. It had been when she'd gone round to his house after he'd been working all day in the castle – technically the same building, but Icy tended to think of them as distinct – due to Princess Twilight having “had an idea”. She remembered thinking how odd it was that, to recover from his fatigue, he'd bent over and put his hands on his knees. She had no idea how that helped him recuperate – if he'd gone to all fours to spread his weight over more limbs, that would make sense, but he was still putting the same weight on his legs, so she didn't think it should have helped, but apparently, it did.

Unfortunately, however it worked, it wasn't an option for a quadruped, so ponies had to find other ways of helping themselves recover after massive exertion. The easiest way was to lean against something, but there wasn't always anything suitable around. As such, while it was hardly a common sight, it wasn't unknown for a pony to simply sit down on the ground after a long hard run or a bit of heavy lifting. Failing that, there were ways ponies could bend their legs to keep themselves stable so that they didn't have to put as much effort into keeping upright, since they'd be somewhat balanced against each other.

Come to think of it, that might have been how Spike's thing worked too. Still, she didn't regret thinking otherwise, as the moment she'd looked down and offered to help him search for whatever he had bent over to look for had been a very funny moment for the two of them. Well, for him at the time and for her in hindsight.

Icy sighed a little, relieved that she was at least able to think clearly enough to remember such a moment. Swallowing hard, she refocused on the situation. “Are we safe now?”

“Should be,” Archer replied as she and Lance went over to a large tree near them. “We're out of the line of fire if they send something to where we were and, if they could keep track of us through the trees, they'd probably have launched something at us by now. We should be fine,” she finished as she and Lance leaned their torsos against the tree, sending a silent, minuscule vibration through its upper branches.

Domino breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the tree vibrate in just the wrong way, instantly deducing that two filly-sized bodies were leaning against it. She didn't smile, as the whole experience of tracking their movements, such as she even could, had been hard, painful and exhausting.

Watching and trying to keep track of and predict living creatures, ponies especially, was tortuous at the best of times, and she'd had to not only focus all her attention on the area she'd seen the arrow come from, followed by the path she saw her quarry taking by way of the occasional disturbed branch or wrongly-moving leaf, but she'd also had to actively push her mind and Talent to keep track of all the different factors involved, lest she mistake some other creature's movement for theirs. The constant flood of information and calculation her cutie mark deluged her mind with had increased from heavy and sharp to almost smothering.

However, after a couple of seconds to identify that the group of ponies had stopped moving for at least a few seconds, she looked down at the trio of tethered-together rockets at her hooves. Fortunately, the one advantage of having to keep her overactive perceptions focused was that she could let her hooves and Talent work on their own, shifting the rockets along with the moving ponies, keeping them in the rough path of the eventual whirlwind. This was alongside shifting the knots on the tethers to lengthen the gap between rockets – she was having to take out ponies who were small but quick, after all, so sacrificing much of the hurricane's power to increase its area was the most effective use of her resources

Of course, even her Talent wasn't enough to perfectly arrange the rockets to create such a hurricane without any real effort, so she took a deep breath and focused her attention once more, this time on the rockets in front of her. This was far easier and less unpleasant though. All it took was a tiny turn to each one, a quick adjustment to how the tethers and fuses were lying and a quick gust from her wings along the ground to clear the initial flight path and get the wind moving in just the right way. Nothing to worry about at all.

Allowing herself a tiny nod, she brought the lighter to the fuses in turn, carefully measuring the time between lighting them until all three were burning down.

Her shoulders sagged as she finally allowed her perceptions to return to normal, relaxing as much as she was able. Which wasn’t much.

After a moment to centre herself, she turned back towards Ponyville. The whole business of keeping track and taking care of the interlopers had taken up all her attention, such that she hadn't been able to keep up her rainy assault on the town. Not that she was worried, of course – she had done enough to work towards its flooding beforehoof that she could afford a short hiatus in the onslaught. However, she did have to get back to it soon, otherwise, the weather would start to lessen, which could lose her considerable progress.

However, before she could even begin to calculate what rockets would be needed next, she stopped, her mouth hanging open as she saw something utterly baffling in the sky. She was so confused and shocked that, for the first time in days, actual words tumbled out of her mouth.

“What the...?”

Icy closed her eyes for a long while as she focused on recovering her energy. She had, by this point, remembered her mother's advice on proper breathing technique and was focused primarily on maintaining it, even if she wasn't entirely clear on exactly why it would help.

After about ten seconds, she opened her eyes again, seeing that the others hadn't moved much for that period either, both of the much fitter ponies also having to recover. Sadly, Icy was too focused on her fatigue to feel any more satisfaction at this.

Well, it certainly felt sad at first, but Icy soon realized it was probably a good thing, as it meant she had her attention in the right place. Besides, she didn't honestly think it was right to feel that sort of... whatever-the-germane-word-for-getting-enjoyment-from-others'-misfortune-was about her teammates.

She shook her head to end the mental tangent, happy that it only ached slightly as she did. Looking up, she saw Archer looking in the direction of Mount Foalja, even though she obviously couldn't see it through the tree line. The sharp-eyed filly had an uncharacteristically pensive, calculating look on her face and Icy couldn't tell how much of that was because she was focused on their mission and how much was out of shame for having endangered it. After a moment, Icy gave up trying to work it out, figuring it would be both more sensible and kinder to focus on the task at hoof herself.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked, drawing Archer's eyes back towards her and Lance.

“Now?” Archer replied before pausing for a moment in thought. “Well, the mission's not changed or anything – we still need to get to this pony and stop them. Trouble is, even if she's lost us, she knows we're out here somewhere, so we're gonna have to be real careful not to get spotted.”

Lance nodded, giving Archer an unsure look.

Archer returned the nod. “Yeah, I know, but it's not like you can't do stealth, Lance. You're just not too experienced with it, that's all. Besides, you do kinda have a natural advantage, don'tcha?”

Lance raised an eyebrow, leaving it quite ambiguous whether he was perturbed at the joke itself, the irrelevance of it or simply the fact Archer was making one.

Still, Archer didn't seem bothered. “Plus, we've got distance going for us, so it's not like we're gonna have to be whisper-quiet for a while. What about you, Icy? You up for a good old “Solid Skunk” mission?”

Icy allowed herself a slight giggle, her throat still aching too much for any more. Still, as she made a mental note to lend Archer the comics she'd referred to, she did feel the need to correct her. “Sure, but it's Solid Sn-”

“Whatever, some animal that isn't liquid or gas,” Archer replied with a playful smile. After a moment, though, she turned back and her expression became a little unreadable. “Anyway, we better be going. Who knows what this pony'll throw at us if they know… we're...”

She trailed off as the sound of a rocket rang through the sky like a funeral bell, joined a few seconds later by the sound of two more rockets and the rapidly building sound of wind. And all of it sounded as if it was heading straight towards them.

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me!” Archer hissed as she strained her eyes to see through the small gaps in the canopy.

Not that it needed eyes as sharp as hers to see, as Icy only needed to glance up beyond the leaves to see the massive cylinder of seemingly solid wind rapidly swirling into existence and rising into the sky. Icy gulped hard, suddenly missing the situation where Archer would need to tell her what she was seeing. As it turned out, being able to see the problem herself didn't always feel great either.

It didn't help that the view of the tornado was also giving her a heavy dose of perspective. When they'd seen the previous tornado, it had been quite a distance away from them and moving sideways from their perspective, meaning they could only really gauge its movement relative to its size, making it seem to move at a weirdly sedate pace. With this whirlwind, however, not only was it bigger, seeming to them more of a curved wall of moving wind than a funnel, but it was advancing on them like an impossibly huge juggernaut, meaning they were judging its speed through the distance it was eating up between them.

As a result, it was practically sprinting towards them, gobbling up leaves, branches and small trees like a combine harvester and roaring ever louder as it approached.

Icy's hooves started moving rapidly, trotting in place as they tried to get her to run, even as her mind assured her that it wouldn't help – with the size and speed of the whirlwind, there was no way she'd escape it in time. Even the time it took to get her hooves under control was enough for it to get significantly closer.

“Grab something!” Archer called out, drawing Icy's attention to the side to see her running towards a large tree. “Big branch, root, grass, anything!”

Icy wished she could say that she didn't need to be told twice, but the fact that, a fraction of a second later, Lance's head jerk was what truly snapped her out of her shock suggested otherwise.

Still, she could at least not say she was suicidally oblivious, as her head whipped around to look for a solid anchor point. A moment later, she locked her gaze on a thick, low-hanging branch on one of the larger trees in the area. Running over, she grabbed onto it with both her forehooves and pulled herself close to it, taking a moment to wrap her wings tightly around her torso. Her sensitive feathers were already beginning to feel the effects of the encroaching wind, reminding her just how dangerous it would be to effectively have two sails attached to her back in a windstorm.

She looked up from the branch and immediately regretted it as her eyes burned, the wind, debris and soil kicked up getting slammed into them for a moment before she reflexively squinted and her eyes filled with water, blurring her vision as she looked behind her.

Fortunately, the colours of her companions stood out distinctly, the white of Lance's fencing gear showing him like a beacon against the dark background while the even darker blue that covered Archer's suit, coat and mane made her a solid blob of colour even through Icy's watering eyes.

A moment later, she managed to blink her eyes clear enough to see what they were doing. Lance had wedged himself between two branches, pressing all four hooves out around him as he grasped them, fixing himself firmly in place. Meanwhile, Archer was, to Icy's surprise, only holding onto the root she'd gone for with one hoof while the other wrapped a rope around her midsection, tying it off before feeding it under the root, presumably to attach herself fully to the ground and ensure she remained there.

Icy winced, this time out of uncertainty – while it would be very effective if it worked, she wasn't sure Archer had time to fully attach herself before the tornado was upon her. Still, she swallowed hard and shook her head – while she was no expert at estimating... well, anything, really, it was certainly possible that she could get it done and she trusted Archer's eyes enough to think she could probably manage it.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, even the best eyes have their limitations, including that they can only see things that are visible. And, as it turned out, tornados weren't only dangerous when you were in the central funnel.

A sharp gust slammed into Icy, causing her to let out a squeak as she clung harder to the tree. Or rather, the gust seemed sharp for a split second before it continued, making it clear that it wasn't fading anytime soon and they'd better get used to it. Icy wasn't sure she'd be able to, as the powerful wind drove into her, jabbing under her tightly clasped wings and into every slightest corner of her body, trying to bulldoze her off of her branch. However, through a combination of a firmly prepared grasp and adrenaline, she managed to hold on.

To her immense credit, Archer also managed to keep a hold on her root, even with only one hoof. She was blown back by the gust, but just about kept herself stable, even as her back hooves slid along the ground to hang just on it like an almost-airborne wind sock. Still, for that moment, it seemed as though she wouldn't get pulled into the vortex.

Unfortunately, the rope she'd attached to herself was not so fortunate, getting yanked easily away from the root that she had intended to tie it around and up into the buffeting cyclone.

It could have been the wind – it was difficult to tell with how overpowering the noise was from the tornado at that point – but Icy could have sworn that she heard Archer yelp as the rope extended out behind her, yanking her sharply. Her one stable hoof remained firm as the thing she'd intended to ensure she stayed grounded was now providing one more force to pull her into the air, but it was clearly a temporary arrangement.

With a shaking grip, Archer tried to pull herself forward to get her other hoof in front of her. For a moment, it seemed like an even bet whether she'd get a second hoof onto the root before the first one gave way. Icy had known Archer long enough to think that, given an extra hoofhold, she could probably ride out the storm.

However, the moment before she could make it, there was a crack as the tree she was attached to was knocked hard by a large rock, ramming it into a slight slant and causing the root to jerk slightly out of the ground. It was a relatively tiny movement, but it was enough to shake Archer's grip when it was already as fragile as a thread.

With her face registering only mild shock, Archer was ripped off the root and up into the cyclone.

Icy almost reached a hoof out towards her, symbolically rather than out of any hope of doing anything to help her, before the feeling of the bark beneath her hoof reminded her of the need to keep her own grip.

Still, as she turned away, praying that Archer would be alright, she did just about catch the filly grabbing a piece of flying debris and leaping off it, launching herself higher into the whirlwind, above the tree line and out of sight.

Icy didn't have any time to question this, however, as the moment she was facing into the wind again, she immediately gave her own yelp.

Fortunately, the large chunk of wooden chips and debris that was heading towards her was still a fair distance off, but at the speeds the wind was driving then, that still didn't give her long. However, she might have been able to do something to avoid or brace for them.

Unfortunately, the realization that they were there started a terrible domino effect, as her yelp opened her mouth wide enough that the copious flying dust and dirt in the air shot in through her lips, scraped painfully over her tongue before ramming itself with the force of a bullet into the back of her throat. She instinctively gasped at the pain, not even having time to think about the fact that in doing so, she was simply letting it force itself down her windpipe and into her lungs, causing her considerable pain and sending her into a series of painful hacking coughs.

Through some miracle of biology or willpower, she managed to keep a grip on her branch throughout the coughing. Sadly, though, it turned out it didn't matter since, as soon as she caught sight once more of the incoming debris, she didn't have the time or wherewithal to think about her response and simply flared her wings, ready to bring them forward to shield her face.

She never got close, of course. The instant her wings were away from her body, the wind picked them up and yanked them backwards hard, sending a powerful jolt of pain into her shoulder joints. She didn't have any time to dwell on that, though, as the seemingly doubled force of the wind on her wrenched her grip away from the branch in less than a second, twisting her forelegs painfully and sending her flying off and into the whirlwind.

The force of the wind soon had her spinning wildly, sending the world into a blurry mass of greens and browns that she couldn't begin to make out even if she wasn't busy coughing out the rest of the dust and trying to get her limbs back under some sort of control. However, as she passed above a big blur of white that she vaguely registered as Lance, she saw it move up towards her, reaching out something – presumably a hoof or possibly a blade handle – towards her. It did no good, of course, as she passed far above its reach and, as Icy finally managed to clear her throat enough that she wouldn't have to cough until she next breathed, she realized that that would almost certainly mean he would get sucked up too, bringing them all into the cyclone together. For some reason, Icy did not find this togetherness encouraging.

She barely had a second to dwell on it, however, as she suddenly found out why Archer had climbed so quickly – being caught in a tornado was dangerous enough in any situation, but they were in the middle of a forest, meaning that she was being hurtled at incredible speeds in a space thick with trees. Or rather, as it seemed from her perspective, the trees had started moving around with the speed of a pegasus and the size of a medium dragon, which gave them the power of a falling boulder. Icy had no idea how accurate that was and, indeed, how accurate it would stay if she impacted one, but she was neither contemplative nor interested enough to want to find out.

Instead, as one such tree came at her like a jouster, she flapped as hard as she could in its direction. The force of the winds around her felt almost solid, as if she was trying to sharply jam her wings through a block of tar, but it seemed to have some effect as her body shifted trajectory suddenly. What's more, through some combination of luck and instinct that she'd never be able to figure out, she'd flapped her wings roughly downwards, sending her leaping up above the treetops.

From there, she seemed relatively safe for a moment, at least in the sense of not being imminently in mortal danger. The whole experience was still awful, but she didn't seem in any danger of being splattered against a solid object as she continued to rise into the wind. The updraft had seemingly combined with the momentum of her flap to bring her higher and send her spinning in an entirely new direction. Still, in the occasional moments where she'd be looking downwards, the ground got further and further away, as well as being more and more obscured by the dust and debris. Still, Icy got the impression that, in at least the very short term, higher was better.

Of course, that certainly didn't mean she was out of danger, even ignoring the obvious fact of “tornado”. The flash and the loud strike of thunder that sounded from... some direction, she couldn't tell which, was enough to remind her of that. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she wondered what the thunder was for, since there wasn't any thunder naturally in the rainstorm and it was sounding from a long distance away – close enough that they could hear it clearly and almost immediately, but far enough that it probably hadn't been intended for them. Of course, the fact that they were facing someone who could, from what she could see, aim a lightning bolt was intimidating on its own, but she had other matters occupying her mind.

Still, she blinked heavily, trying in what small way she could to clear her vision enough that she could see if there was anything that might come at her. It was no easy task, as not only was the dust only slightly less dense at her higher altitude than it had been on the ground, but the fact that the wind would often, as she spun, be flying directly into her eyes made the task even more arduous.

In the tiny part of her mind that was, even in this overwhelming and critical situation, still thinking about trivialities, she realized that she now knew why the Wonderbolts wore goggles when they were flying and she briefly wondered if that was also why Misty Freeze and Captain Cryo from the AC universe wore those goggles too. If so, she resolved to get a pair herself as soon as this was over. If she was able to afterwards, of course.

Fortunately, most of her mind was focused on the situation at hoof, not that that was saying much, either for her attentiveness or for how much she could actually do about it. Being picked up like a leaf didn't exactly make her feel like she had any control over her fate. In fact, as the beginnings of pressure in her stomach and throat suggested, simply being able to stop spinning would be an achievement worthy of celebration.

Still, she did what she could, forcing her shaking wings out, hoping that tensing them up as much as she could might arrest her spinning. It took a few seconds even to spread them out fully, considering how much air was flowing over them, and once out they quivered like water after a boulder had fallen into it, taking all her effort just to hold them in place. Angling them to level herself out was completely out of the question, let alone managing to escape the whirlwind. Once more, she cursed how weak her wings were and wondered why she couldn't have the power most pegasi had in every feather.

It didn't help that her wings were one of the few parts of her body that were exposed to the raging elements. Not only was the wind a constant force trying to squeeze and twist her wings and almost succeeding, but it also gave its force to the massive amount of dust and particles in the air, sending them scraping along every inch of her exposed coat and feathers, scratching them painfully like millions of tiny, blunt teeth. Vaguely, it registered that the rain had actually helped slightly, as dry particles would be even sharper and could probably strip flesh if given long enough, but she didn't feel that lucky as all the dust grated along her sensitive wings.

However, despite the pain, she did partially achieve her goal, as her nauseating spinning soon slowed and her stomach settled down to the normal level of nausea one can expect when in an incredibly harrowing and perilous situation. It was still a factor in her sensations, but it was simply uncomfortable as opposed to imminently vomitous. She was still turning around in the air, of course, but it was far more gradual and manageable, like hanging on a rope rather than being strapped to a gyroscope. It was still unpleasant and made it difficult to get her bearings, but at that moment, Icy wasn't in any mood to be picky. She tried to let out a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, that only brought to her attention another problem with her current situation – she couldn't breathe. Not wanting to get another mouthful of dirt, she tried to breathe out through her nose, only for the sheer force of the wind in her face to not-so-politely inform her that there was quite enough air out there, thank you, and that her breath was going to stay exactly where it was. Her throat contracted a couple of times in some impotent attempt at coughing as the used-up air in her lungs was forced down even harder, making her chest and her limbs begin to burn.

She tried to turn her head to the side, hoping to relieve some of the pressure in her face, but it was no good – unless she could turn her head one hundred and eighty degrees, there was no way to stop the wind from sliding hard into her nostrils, so it didn't look like she'd be able to take a breath until she was facing wholly away from the direction of the wind. Which, thanks to the mild success she'd had at slowing her rotation, wouldn't be for a little while. Still, her turned-away face did have one advantage – the hood drawn tightly around the rear half of her head blocked a bit more of the onslaught of dust, reducing the amount of scratching she was being exposed to. Through the rapidly increasing weight of her thoughts, she thanked the wondrous material of her costume for protecting most of her body. If only it could have covered her face, she could...

Her eyes widened as she realized what she could do and stayed wide even as the dust slammed into them, though they did tear up for the second it took for her to grab her hood and yank it forward, covering her face as much as she could before pressing it tightly around her nose and mouth and forcing her chest down to breathe out into the small pocket of relatively unmoving air.

It still wasn't easy – the force of the air around her pressed hard against the loose material, pushing it into her as if trying to force it up her nose to mould the inside of her nostrils. However, with what felt like more strength than even her wings had taken, she managed to force the air out of her lungs before letting the seal she had around her muzzle relax for a moment, letting out the used air and letting in a dust-coated but still welcome breath of relatively-fresh air.

Before she could even begin to feel either thankful for the breath or miserable about the scratching of her nose, mouth and throat that came with it, a massive thunderclap blasted into her eardrums, driving her into a heavy flinch and almost sending her into another bout of mad spinning. She flared her wings once more, only getting them a little off of her back but enough to keep her stable, as she let the hood drop around her face so she could look where she'd heard the noise coming from.

It wasn't easy – this time, the bolt had seemed to come much closer to them, the sound echoing from just outside the wind funnel. Icy wasn't sure what, if anything, it was being aimed at, but she dearly hoped it wasn't anything either important or vulnerable. She darted her blurring vision around, hoping to find the others still inside the maelstrom rather than having been picked off in midair.

Fortunately, Archer's blue ensemble stood out fairly well from a short distance away and she was very much alive and unfried. While Icy obviously couldn't get a clear picture of her face, she got the impression from her posture and movement that Archer wasn't all that bothered by being tossed around in a tornado like a pebble in a blender.

Lance took another short while to find, his white being a little less bold against the pastel background the wind and dust were creating, but she did eventually spot him when she looked down and behind her. It helped that, in a similar manner to her wings, he was holding out his broad-brimmed hat to the side to slow himself down and keep himself level.

Worryingly, however, it seemed to work a little too well as, barely a second after Icy had caught a glimpse of him, he slid out into the outer edge of the cyclone before being flung off completely, flying out of Icy's vision.

The sight sent a wave of panic through Icy, causing her wings to flap in agitation, sending her spinning once more. It was hard to tell exactly how high they were, but she wasn't naïve enough to assume Lance could get flung out of a tornado and fall however far it was to the ground without getting at least injured.

However, as soon as she started picturing his fall and impact, some of that terror vanished with a strange certainty, purely because she found it literally impossible to imagine him not twisting himself into the perfect falling position and directing himself to hit the absolute maximum possible amount of branches to break his fall before he landed. Of course, that wouldn't stop him from being severely wounded in the fall and, in the Everfree, that could also be a death sentence, but Icy at least had reason to believe he could be alright. At that point, she'd take what she could get.

Blinking heavily and swiping a hoof across her eyes in an almost effective effort to clear her vision for a moment, Icy scanned her surroundings as she continued her uncontrolled spin. She knew it wouldn't take long for the wind and flying dirt to choke her vision again, but she hoped that she was spinning quickly enough to get a glimpse of Archer before that happened.

Fortunately, Archer's colours stood out just as boldly as before and Icy caught sight of her a moment later. Of course, she then rotated past her, too quick for her to even turn her head to keep the other filly in sight. Still, she at least knew roughly which direction she wanted to end up facing when she arrested her whirling.

Of course, knowing which way you want to face and actually getting yourself to face there were two very different things, as was proved by the next twenty-or-so seconds of Icy holding her shaking wings out, trying to slow her spinning down enough that she could stop herself at the angle she needed to, while not going slow enough that, once she overshot it, she would need to wait an inordinately long time for that position to come around again.

However, with a lot of effort and no small amount of pain, she managed to arrange herself so she was looking directly at Archer. Once she did, she found that Archer was having the same problem in trying to twist herself around in the air to get into a position she wanted to be in, though what position that was, Icy couldn't say.

Furthermore, Archer lacked wings like Icy's, even if it didn't always seem like it given how acrobatic the earth pony could be when she felt like it. Which was rather often. However, that skill didn't help that much in terms of mid-air transportation, so she was resorting to the alternate method of firing her bow and using the recoil to push her and twist her as she flew along the wind's path. Icy was more than a little surprised that a bow had recoil at all, but she couldn't argue with the results. Or at least, how effective the results were at moving Archer.

What she definitely could argue with was Archer's apparent decision to manoeuvre herself so she was flying right next to the trio of rockets encircling the tornado's eye. Not only was she getting dangerously close to the inside edge of the more powerful winds, risking falling into the eye and down to the ground, but Icy wasn't sure being next to such powerful sources of magic was a wise idea.

However, it seemed to be what Archer was looking to do and, despite the lapse in judgment that had led to this situation to begin with, Icy had faith Archer knew what she was doing. She tried to catch Archer's eye to give her some non-verbal encouragement but, through her own rapidly clouding vision, she could see that Archer's eyes were forced into a heavy squint, open enough that she would just be able to see certain shapes while remaining closed enough that her eyelashes would be able to block most of the dust going into her eyes.

Realizing that this was a far better solution to the problem than simply letting her vision fade painfully and cursing how large a pony's eyes were, Icy rubbed her eyes with a hoof once more, making sure to use the inner part that wouldn’t be quite as dirty, and squinted as well.

In the brief window of clear sight, she saw something somewhat surprising – Archer wasn't just unconcerned by her position, she was out-and-out smiling.

Not that this was by any means an out-of-place expression on Archer's face. Her confidence was an absolute constant for all the time Icy had known her and a self-assured smirk was almost her default look at times. However, that particular grin usually meant that either she had just done something impressive – even if she didn't seem especially impressed, instead just clearly having fun with her abilities – or that she was about to.

Icy was briefly confused by this before she saw the massive branch twirling through the air behind her, looking as if it were about to catch her unawares and hit her hard enough to knock her out of action, maybe even break something. However, Icy knew better, almost immediately realizing that Archer wouldn't have put herself in the branch's path without some kind of reason.

Indeed, a moment before it hit her, she shot her hooves out in front of her and grabbed the huge chunk of wood, her legs bending hard to diffuse the impact. Once she had a grip on it, she hauled herself up on top of it and turned, using the spinning surface as a platform to orient herself into a vaguely vertical position.

She turned to face the centre of the whirlwind and raised her forehooves slightly off of the branch. Her head briefly turned towards Icy and, though it was impossible to tell clearly due to Archer's squint and her own blurred vision, Icy could have sworn she saw Archer wink at her.

However, there was no time to dwell on that as Archer launched herself with her rear hooves, leaping off the branch and pushing it down below her as her forehooves pulled an arrow out of her magic quiver and aimed her bow, pointing it a seemingly random direction as she nocked the arrow and fired.

It quickly became apparent, however, that the direction was far from random, as the force of the wind that slammed into the arrow as soon as it was fired altered its trajectory until, after a flight of, at most, five to ten metres, it was driven hard into the side of one of the rockets, piercing the thickened paper of its shell.

As soon as it did, the rocket started erupting, every ounce of wind magic within it seeming to burst out of the newly-made hole as the whole structure of it was ripped into scraps. A massive, whirling tangle of wind flew out of it in a miniature explosion, sending a small shockwave through the air that even Icy could feel at the further distance she was.

Of course, Archer was right next to that explosion and, though she didn't seem hurt by it, it did knock her away at high speeds. And though Icy thought she should have been focusing on the other two rockets coming loose from the circle they were in and flying out of the tornado, as she could hear they were doing, she couldn't tear her eyes away from Archer as she was flung away and totally out of the tornado, until her image completely faded away into the solid wall of wind and dust.

This time, Icy managed to keep herself still enough not to send herself into another spin, though not without considerable effort. The suddenness of the explosion of wind hadn't given her any real time to prepare, so the same surge of alarm went through her, but that same suddenness also brought the situation into sharp focus, giving her just enough wherewithal to keep herself stable.

Still, that didn't stop the dread from settling over her as she realized she was now entirely alone in the tornado and, though there wasn't anything the presence of the others had done to help her situation, it still took her fear to a new level to know that there was no one around. She was on her own against the full force that nature and magic were able to create and that made her feel incredibly, horribly small.

She slammed her eyes shut, as if she could shut out the problem, and tried to call up the image of the others, only for the constant motion around her to ensure that, when she did, she was imagining them falling into the forest and smashing into the ground. From there, it was only a short jump to seeing herself plummeting as well, though without anything near the level of grace she associated with Lance and Archer.

Fortunately, that same image helped remind her of something, as the image of her falling with her wings unmoving against her sides seemed so unnatural that the presence of those wings was brought to the forefront of her mind, letting her remember that she had, at least theoretically, the ability to glide and soften her fall. She wasn't entirely sure of her ability to do so, considering both the force she'd probably be flung off with and how much the flurry of rough, scratchy dust was hurting her wings, but it was at least possible and she had to stop herself from instinctively flaring her wings as she imagined it.

Of course, as she calmed down a little – or, at least, as much as one can when inside a whirlwind – she couldn't help but ask the question of what would happen afterwards. Even if she could land without any kind of injury at all, which she doubted, she'd still be alone in the Everfree Forest and would still have the job of taking down the pony creating this extreme weather, only now she would have to do so single-hoofed.

She gulped as she realized that she'd never really had to fight on her own before. For that matter, she couldn't at that moment think of anything she'd really achieved on her own, at least in terms of stuff the team needed to do. She'd always had at least a couple of the others to work with and, though she liked to think she'd... sometimes contributed to a given task, she wasn't at all sure of her ability to handle things alone.

She briefly considered finding Lance and Archer as soon as she landed, assuming she was even able to. However, she quickly remembered that they were unlikely to be in any shape to help her, or possibly do anything much. Except that just brought to mind a quandary: should her priority be to find them and help them first, getting them at least to a place or state where they'd be able to survive until the crisis was over? Or should she focus on the main task at hoof, going to stop the pony at the head of the problem before dealing with the fallout from it? Which was more time-sensitive and who was more in danger from her leaving it? Should she prioritize the safety of the town as a whole or the lives of her friends? Was it better to focus on the needs of the many who it would take more to help or the few who it would take less?

Icy blinked her eyes open as it suddenly occurred to her that these were oddly contemplative and coherent thoughts to be having in the middle of the hurricane. As she looked around, she realized that her vision was a little less blurry, her breathing a little easier and her motion a little less nauseating. It was an incredibly small change, but in that situation, she was hypersensitive to tiny improvements and it did seem as if the cyclone was beginning to calm a little. It would take quite a while to die down completely, but it seemed that at least a somewhat safe end was in sight.

Still, as she turned her head into her hood to take a deep breath, she knew she wasn't nearly out of the woods yet. Well, technically she was above the woods and, as she'd learned as soon as she'd left the ground, that was the better place to be when being tossed around like a sock in a washing machine, but she was still in danger.

“Ic...”

Icy jerked as the crackling sound of Archer's voice suddenly came, barely audible, out of her badge. Icy stared down at the thing in shock for a second before her ears relaxed from being tightly pressed against her head, a motion she didn't remember doing but that made sense to have done instinctively when the deafening roar of the wind around her started pounding against her eardrums and the dust swirled and scratched around the sensitive insides of her ears.

Still, it allowed her to hear a little more of what Archer was saying, even if it wasn't even close to enough to understand her.

“...t's... ...ka... ...ur m... he... sh... ...tch y....”

Icy's face scrunched as she tried to work out what Archer could be saying. She didn't sound like she was too badly hurt, so that at least was encouraging. Although, knowing Archer, Icy wasn't sure she'd sound pained if she was being torn apart by wild monkeys.

Still, whatever the case, Archer was presumably saying something important, so Icy blinked heavily, trying to assemble the tiny snatches of words she'd heard into any kind of distinct sentence. After a moment, she shook her head – it was no good. She'd need to listen closer if she had any hope of understanding it.

Unfortunately, she didn't trust her ability to keep a hold of her badge if she took it off and the suit it was attached to was designed to cling to her skin tightly, though not with any real pressure. Nevertheless, as she grabbed the fabric around the badge and tried to pull it up towards her face, she did wish it was just a touch looser or more stretchable.

After a few moments, she leaned her head down, trying to twist her head so her ears were as close to the badge as possible. Unfortunately, as she couldn't either turn it more than ninety degrees or transpose it to the side of her neck, this wasn't much, but she did get a little closer as she squeezed her eyes shut tight to deal with the discomfort.

“Sorry!” she yelled as she opened her eyes again. “What did you... AH!”

The sight of the huge branch flying at her from behind at face-breaking speeds shocked out of her contortion and spurred her wings into a heavy, instinctual flap that sent her tumbling gracelessly through the air and out of the whirlwind.

For a single, infinitesimal fraction of an instant, Icy was overcome by a bizarre feeling of serenity as she sailed through the air, the sudden cessation of buffeting, curving wind, abrasive particles and all-consuming noise making her straight, simple, stable trajectory seem like a pleasant glide by comparison.

Unfortunately, it was not to last, as the raindrops she barrelled through quickly built up into a thin layer of moisture in front of her that reminded her of how much water was both around and beneath her, setting her on edge again. It was like her very soul had been lightly brushed by an unwanted hoof. On some level, she realized that was very odd – the tornado, for as rough as it had felt, wasn't exactly dry. It had drawn in plenty of droplets itself and yet Icy hadn't felt nearly so uneasy about that. Then again, the overarching problem of the tornado itself might have overwhelmed those feelings, but the surrounding water should have at least sharpened the fear a little, providing the rotten cherry on the sundae of skin-crawling scariness. The only other difference she could think of between then and now was that, while she was in the cyclone, the water was flowing in the same direction she was and just as much at the mercy of the winds.

However, all this was very much in the back of her mind as the droplets she rammed into sent a wave of anxiety through her that brought her predicament into a much sharper focus. She tried moving her limbs, hoping to affect how she was tumbling a little, enough that she could get her wings out into a gliding position. However, it almost instantly became clear that, while her mildly coordinated flailing was definitely having an effect, she had no idea how to control that effect and alter her movement enough to get it under control. Given enough time, she could maybe figure out how to level herself off, but she knew such time was extremely limited.

In desperation, she tried simply flaring her wings out and hoping that would stop her unsteady twirling. Unfortunately, they weren't nearly strong enough to withstand the sharp wind around her and were wrenched painfully around her body, drawing a slight whimper from her that seemed to hang in the air behind her as she sailed away from it.

Icy closed her eyes tight, hoping to keep herself in the dark, literally and figuratively, about how and when she'd hit the ground, or whatever came between it and her. She had been fully aware that her only hope of surviving or, at the very least, avoiding terrible injury had been to glide and, with that option denied to her, she could only wait for whatever would happen to happen. She tried to suppress the image of herself splatting against the ground, only to find that the only other things she could think of were the other relevant parts of what was happening.

They had failed. Archer and Lance, if both were still alive, would remain stranded and injured, the pony who had caused all this would continue with impunity, the town would be flooded and wrecked and everyone would be...

Urk!

Icy flinched as she suddenly found herself jerking in the air, her uncontrolled flight suddenly turning at a sharp angle and slowing down massively. Icy frowned through her closed eyes, unwilling to open them if she was still going to have to watch her doom coming towards her.

However, after a moment, she realized that not only was she no longer curving down into a freefall, but she wasn't moving vertically at all. The wind rushing past her was moving in one direction across her body and, as her sense of balance stabilized and figured out which directions up and down were, she found that she was moving in neither.

She blinked her eyes open in confusion, finding the world to be suddenly, measurably brighter than it had been a few seconds ago. Sure enough, she was flying far above the trees, not descending even though her wings weren’t spread.

Looking around, Icy quickly saw the slight wobbling in the air around her that told her what was happening and that, sadly, she hadn't somehow figured out how to winglessly levitate. Or rather, she had, but only because somepony else was providing the levitation – a unicorn to be specific. However, the fact that the aura around her didn't seem to be flooding her vision with one colour but rather lightening all others meant the magic holding her was white and the only unicorn she could remember with a white corona was...

Icy looked around for a moment, her peripheral vision soon letting her know that there was something above her. Twisting her head around as she found herself being pulled upwards, her heart swelled as she saw the massive, wing-like wedge above her, its triangular surface marked with dark, multicoloured markings that made it look like some huge, inert-yet-moving butterfly.

And looking down from beneath it, her hooves wrapped firmly around the lower bar of the hang glider, was her mother. Sunny Flight grinned down at her daughter as her horn glowed brightly, drawing Icy up towards the harness hanging from the bar below her.

“Hey, sweetie. How's your day been?”

“Mom?” Icy found herself saying, raising her voice before she consciously realized she'd need to. As she slid into the harness and felt it closing and fastening itself around her, she said the only thing she could think of in this situation. “I thought you were retired!”

Sunny gave a loud, ecstatic laugh with only a small touch of mania. “Oh, well, you know what they say, honey: You can take the filly outta the sky, but you can't take the sky outtaaaAAAA!” She trailed off with a howl of joy as a sharp wind buffeted the glider from the side, her horn lighting up a moment later to deflect it a little as she pulled the glider to the side and into a huge, looping roll that had them rising and falling along the edge of a huge cylinder.

As they came down again, Icy heard a voice from her left. “Icy! Why didn't you tell us your mom was this awesome?!” Looking over, Icy saw Archer hanging from another harness attached to the left half of the surface above them, her smile ever-so-slightly wider than normal, signifying that she was having almost as much fun as Sunny was.

Well, somewhere close, at least. Icy wasn't sure that even many pegasi had as much fun in the air as her mother.

Still, she shook her head as she thought. “I... thought I had. Maybe I... kinda underdid it? I didn't mean to, but...”

“But it seems like it,” Archer replied. “I tell ya, I do not plan on letting Scoots know she missed out on this.”

Icy was about to hum in agreement when she heard a sharp burst of static from her badge and saw Archer shift her head to look past her. Turning to see what she was looking at, she saw Lance hanging from the other side, perfectly positioned to balance the weight out along the hang glider's surface. He took his hoof away from his badge now that his tap had got everyone's attention and pointed to the wing above her before miming a jagged path downwards in the air in front of him.

“Nah, don't worry,” Sunny replied to his silent query. “Even if lightning did hit, the harnesses and hoofholds are all kinds of insulated. You're acting like I've never flown in a thunderstorm before.”

Lance thought for a moment before nodding firmly – yes, he was acting like that.

Sunny shook her head. “Don't worry. Most that'd happen is the glider'd get charred, we're not getting zapped,” she called out, eliciting a slightly concerned head tilt from Lance at how casually she had said that. Still, she continued, “Still, may not come to that – this pony's not thrown anything at me after the first couple of bolts. I'm almost insulted.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Archer replied. As Icy turned back to her, she saw that the hanging filly's eyes were focused intently on the distant mountain. “Looks like she's been preparing us a special surprise.”

“Can't wait,” Sunny said without a hint of sarcasm.

“Stupid... living... thinking... stinking...”

Domino muttered to herself with a furious sneer as she finished tying the tethers to another batch of wind rockets, moving as quickly and precisely as she could, which was saying something. She'd only had two sets of tornado spinners ready, thinking she was unlikely to need any more and that, should she need them, she'd almost certainly have enough time to make another. But trust ponies to find the ridiculously unlikely option and force her to make one in a hurry.

Still, she managed it just as the hang glider turned towards her again. She was using five rockets this time – overkill, perhaps, but she wanted this cyclone as large and as powerful as possible. How much this was out of a practical desire to stop these interlopers and how much was simply out of anger was impossible to say and she wasn't feeling anywhere near self-reflective enough to try.

Still, after a few moments, she had the rockets properly arranged and aligned. However, she waited a while before she lit the first one. One good thing, from her perspective, about her enemies using a hang glider was that it limited their motion, the size and momentum of the apparatus making it difficult to perform any kind of complex steering and impossible to move as freely as a pony walking or flying with wings could. That didn't make them any less painful to look at, as the mere movement of their bodies as well as the tiny course corrections that could be made still sent all the factors of the world around them into a horribly uncertain flux, but it at least made them easier to deal with.

Once the glider's motion towards her straightened out and would make it next to impossible to avoid her whirlwind, she lit the fuses and backed off. While there was a certain, very small part of her that wanted to simply sit back and watch, she quickly dismissed the idea. Not only would keeping more than a single, occasional eye on her opponents prove far more arduous than it was worth, but she also needed to prepare for the possibility, however small, that they might manage to get through to her.

She scurried over to the crate full of weather rockets and started rummaging through it, pulling out the largest yellow rockets she could find, already calculating all the variables for how and where to fire them for maximum effect.

Living minds may think that being unpredictable made them impossible to deal with, but she knew better. Just because she couldn't see what path they would take didn't mean she couldn't take those paths into account. And it certainly didn't mean she couldn't close them off.

“Er, Mom?” Icy called as the rockets streaked out from the mountaintop.

“I see it,” Sunny replied, eyes locked forward.

“Those'll make a...”

“I know.”

“Shouldn't we get out of the...”

“Not if we want to get there any time soon,” Sunny shook her head with a slight smile as the whirlwind became visible. “Wind in a tornado isn't just limited to the funnel. Right now, we'd still get swept up and with a heck of a lot less control than if we take it head on.”

Lance thumped a hoof against his badge, drawing the others' eyes to him as he pulled his head back and waved a hoof forward, sharply questioning whether Sunny thought she could keep the glider under control in a hurricane.

Sunny thought for a moment. “No idea. Let's find out!” And with a loud, excited yell that transitioned into a laugh that could be heard even over the noise of the wind, she twisted the glider to the side, turning straight towards the heart of the wind funnel.

As Sunny had stated, the wind started buffeting at them quite a distance before they made it to the tornado proper. For a moment, as the glider started shaking and starting to roll, Icy was convinced that they were about to be picked up like a leaf and tossed around the area uncontrollably.

However, a moment later, a pale white construct flashed into life before the glider's front edge, shifting along with the wind to stabilize them considerably, reminding Icy that this was her mother's Special Talent after all. And while Sunny had never explained to her daughter the exact circumstances that led her to know for certain that she could outmanoeuvre even a fair number of pegasi, she had no reason not to take her word on the matter.

It helped that, in this case, Sunny had a bit more control over the exact weight distribution of the glider thanks to the two young ponies dangling from harnesses to either side of her. The glider was designed so that passengers could be strapped to the wings, but because the weight of those passengers would vary from journey to journey, the harnesses could slide along them horizontally, enabling the pilot to place the ponies at the exact right points to balance each other out. And, as Sunny had explained once, that actually gave her a lot more control over her glider if she ever needed it, since she could grab the harnesses mid-flight and shift them to alter the glider's centre of gravity freely.

Admittedly, she had said that the passengers strapped into said harnesses didn't always appreciate being shoved around in the middle of dangerous weather, but as long as they kept themselves from panicking and flailing, that didn't matter so much. And, while Icy didn't know if her mother was actively thinking about it, she knew that of the passengers this time, one couldn't verbally complain, one could but wouldn't, and neither would allow themselves to panic.

Whether or not she knew just how perfect they were for it, Sunny's magic was also focused on Archer and Lance's harnesses, pushing them back and forth along the wings almost continually, making dozens of tiny micro-corrections to the weight distribution as the winds necessitated it.

However, as they approached the wind funnel, the turbulent air around them sending juddering shakes through the glider, she pushed both the harnesses towards the same side and twisted the bar she held in the same direction. The whole apparatus swung sideways, seeming for a moment like it was going to go into a roll along its central axis. However, a moment before they hit the central column of wind, it stabilized into an almost vertical alignment that almost immediately got sucked into the whirlwind.

The shuddering that ran through the glider increased massively as they entered the maelstrom, sending horrible vibrations through Icy, as if her bones were knocking against each other and the flesh around them. She gave a small yelp that even she couldn't hear, the wind pounding into her ears and seeming to fill them so utterly that no other sound could fit. The shaking rattled her lungs, making it hard to keep her breath in long enough to do anything. This wasn't helped by the fact that, while the wind wasn't in her face as much as last time, given they were facing the same direction it was spinning, it was still blowing heavily across her muzzle, making it difficult to breathe out and sending dust into her vision, blurring it with tears.

She started reaching a hoof up to wipe her eyes, only to find it was much harder than normal, her leg seeming to get heavier with each passing second. As she registered this, she also realized she was getting pressed, harder and harder, down against her harness, as if somepony had grabbed her and was trying to pull her away from the glider. She quickly realized what was happening – the force of their rotation was trying to pull the glider out towards the edge of the circle, but Sunny had positioned it so that it would stay relatively stable in its shaking orbit. Icy had no idea how she managed that – whether it was careful calculation and precision, a trick to flying a glider she didn't know about or simple magic – but it didn't confer the same benefits to the glider's occupants, as found herself being pulled harder and harder against the harness, the breath being forced out of her as the weight on her chest intensified.

And yet, through all that discomfort, motion and noise, she did just about manage to hear Archer yell, “Can you get us closer to the middle?”

Icy blinked hard, only a little to clear her vision. She wasn't that surprised that Archer hadn't sounded remotely concerned in her shout, instead sounding like she had just seen a friend from across a large plaza and was yelling to greet them and get their attention. However, she was more than a little concerned that she wanted to get even deeper into the raging winds. She briefly wondered if she planned to get all the way into the tornado's eye, but quickly dismissed it – even if they could get into the centre, they would only be safe as long as they stayed there, remaining in the exact centre of the tornado as it moved slowly across the landscape. And as good as her mother was, Icy very much doubted that she was able to make a hang glider hover.

However, she was good enough that she only needed a small adjustment to get the glider's angle to shift, pointing it at a sharper angle and pulling it closer to the centre. As their speed increased, Icy put all her energy into pulling her hoof up to her face, letting out a long, strained grunt as she took what might have been her last opportunity for a while to clear her vision. She pressed her leg across her eyes, the force of their spinning preventing her from applying more than light pressure to her face, and managed to sweep away most of the dust and water. That done, she relaxed her leg again, only to be shocked as it was yanked hard out again, driving the breath out of her once more as she was rammed into the harness.

Still, she had managed to clear her vision enough to look down and see what Archer was doing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she had drawn her bow and was aiming an arrow down into the cyclone. Oddly enough, not only was she similarly being forced down in her harness, but she was also pressing her hooves up and against the rear structural bar of the glider, even as she visibly struggled to keep her grip there. If Icy had to guess, that was to stabilize herself for her shot, but she didn't know nearly enough about marksponyship to say for certain. Whatever the case, Archer was taking a long time aiming her shot, suggesting that either she needed to wait for exactly the right moment or that, even for her, this was difficult.

Actually, Icy thought as she blinked her vision clear again, it's probably both.

As the image cleared up in her eyes, Icy noticed the arrow that Archer was using. Or, well, she supposed it was still technically called an arrow, even though it wasn't arrow-shaped. Instead, at the end of the shaft was what appeared to be a small, broad guillotine blade, its wickedly sharp edge slanted between its two sides, both of which curved slightly at the front corners. Icy could only assume that was for its aerodynamics, which seemed limited enough as it was. However, it did seem as though, assuming the arrow was for cutting things, it would do the job perfectly well.

Icy didn't have time to wonder exactly what Archer was intending to cut before she fired, apparently at a point where she could hit what she needed to despite Icy seeing no real difference from one moment to the next. However, as the arrow flew down, the wind buffeting it to the side as it fell, she could at least see that it was heading in the direction of the ring of rotation rockets.

For a second, Icy was a little confused about why Archer had used a slashing arrow when a normal, pointed one had worked perfectly well previously. However, when the arrow reached the ring, it didn't hit any of the rockets. Rather, as Icy saw in the split second before it hit its target, it fell between them and flew right into the tether that was holding them together, slicing through it without difficulty before plummeting past them.

The moment that one leash was cut, however, things changed as the force pulling one of the rockets into the circle vanished, sending it flying out of the circle and pulling all the rockets attached behind it along with it, forming a rough procession of them hurtling out of the tornado and out towards the mountaintop. And, though it was hard to see, both because of the whirlwind in the way and the smaller amount of air involved, Icy could just make out the stream of gale-force wind that went along with it.

From above her – or was it to her side, it was hard to tell – Icy heard her mother give a whoop of excitement. “Nice thinking! Now hold on tight,” she called, despite the others having nothing really to hold on to, as she guided the glider along another loop of the cyclone, her eyes locked on the massive wind channel, “it's gonna be a heck of a ride!”

With that, she flared her horn, three coronas blazing into life as she formed a huge, flat construct in front of them, driving the wind up into the very tip of the glider and pushing it out sharply towards the edge of the tornado, a movement aided by her magic grabbing onto seemingly the whole apparatus and wrenching it to the side.

The force of the turn pressed Icy sharply into her harness, drawing a wince from her as it dug into her skin and forced her breath out once more. However, after a moment, it relented as Sunny grabbed the others' harnesses and relocated them to a more balanced position, bringing the glider level as it flew out of the cyclone and along the long current of wind. Sunny let out a bellowing laugh as they rocketed forward, heading at an incredible speed towards their mountaintop destination.

Sadly, it quickly became clear from their trajectory that they wouldn't pass directly over it but they were definitely heading in that direction and would pass close by the flattened peak. If nothing else, if Archer's still-firm stance and new arrow were any indication, they'd be passing within range for her to get a shot off.

Indeed, within a minute, they were closing in on the area, looking to just about fly onto the edge of the area they would be able to safely dismount and land without injury. For a split second, Icy anticipated the three foals on the glider leaping down – or gliding down in her case – and taking the fight directly to their opponent.

Then she got a close enough look at said opponent to get a clearer view of both their face and what was about to happen. It was a filly, looking a little older than her but not by much, with a pale white coat and a close-cropped black mane. The filly was facing her, so she wasn't able to see her cutie mark, but she did get a fair idea of her eyes – a grey so dark the iris almost seemed to blend with her pupils and her mane.

However, the reason she was able to ascertain this was that the filly's eyes were locked on the incoming glider as her hooves adjusted a large rocket with a green stripe painted along it, the light on its fuse about to reach it.

“Sunny, incoming!” Archer called out. “It's a wind ro-”

“I see it,” Sunny replied as she banked the glider hard, just about getting it out of the path of the rocket as it streaked past them, exploding into a burst of air just behind them that drove them forward, locking them on the path they'd been diverted onto - a path that wouldn't take them near enough to their target to safely dismount.

However, it did bring them close enough that Archer was able to quickly load an impact arrow and, after a moment to firm up her grip on the glider around her, fire it just as the filly was turning her body towards them. It was, naturally, a perfect shot, heading straight for the base of her neck, where it met her chest and left a small gap in the bone where the impact would be felt most. The filly's motion meant that not only would she meet the arrow's path there, but that her momentum wouldn't allow her to dodge much, if at all, and the arrow would definitely catch her.

Which was why it was so disheartening when her forehoof flicked up as she moved, sending a large rock flying into the air right in front of her, directly in the path of the arrow. Not only did that block the shot but, when the arrow hit it, it was at an angle where it got deflected to one side of the filly and the rock got knocked to the other side, allowing the young pony to continue her turn unhindered. Had she not had to move to kick up the rock, it would have seemed like she hadn't noticed the attack at all.

As the glider rocketed past the mountaintop, Icy could hear Archer sigh even over the rushing air. “Really?!” she said, as if critiquing a bad joke rather than complaining about a perfect shot getting ruined.

“Can't win 'em all,” Sunny said, shrugging as she started to turn the glider around, the momentum it had gained making that a slow process.

Archer shook her head. “Oh, I can, I just didn't.” She looked behind her. “Though maybe you can, cause she's got a few lightning rockets for you.”

“More?” Sunny asked, not sounding worried. “How many?”

“Er,” Archer said as she looked down between her legs at the still-retreating mountaintop. “Can't really tell at this distance, but I'm thinking... all of them.”

That got Sunny's attention, her head whipping around to Archer as the glider reached the halfway point in its turning circle, the flat surface blocking any view of the problem. “You sure?”

“Nope,” Archer shrugged in her harness, though her face didn't show much doubt. “But it seems like it, cause there were a heck of a lot of 'em.”

Sunny hummed as she faced forward again, preparing to try and see them herself as soon as they came into view.

As it turned out, however, that wasn't necessary. As soon as they could see the mountain again, so close to that moment that it might have been planned, the rockets were fired, streaking up into the sky in front of them on trails of fire.

Like Archer, Icy could see there were an awful lot of them. And whether it was due to her pegasus magic, her knowledge of their opponent's skill or simple pessimism, she got the distinct impression that even Sunny wouldn't be able to dodge the sheer amount of lightning that was about to be unleashed on them.

It seemed like Sunny agreed, as she called out. “Anypony see somewhere safe I can set her down? I mean, safe enough,” she amended, casting a worried glance up at the sky. Not that she needed to look, Icy thought, as the rumbling coming from all directions in the sky around them, climbing to a crescendo ridiculously fast, was enough of an indication of what was about to happen.

There was a short pause as Archer and Lance searched the ground beneath them. A moment later, just as Icy realized that she should probably take a look too, Lance tapped his badge and pointed down at the side of a smaller mountain to their left.

“I see it, ten o'clock!” Archer called out, translating Lance's gesture so that Sunny didn't have to look away from her navigation. “Don't think it's big enough to take the glider, though.”

“Well,” Sunny said, her voice giving away that her smile had returned, just a little, “we won't know until we try, will we?”

Icy wasn't entirely sure of the validity of her mother's sentiment but quickly had the thought knocked out of her head as the glider swerved to the left, sending her stomach spinning a little but quickly realigning their flight path in the direction Archer had told them.

Icy looked up at the rumbling clouds above, seeing the rapidly building electricity crackling through them as they looked ready to disgorge it into the air and ponies below.

“Mom!” Icy called up, her mouth pulled back in a grimace.

“I know,” Sunny replied. “Hold on!”

Icy had neither the time to hold on to anything nor to point out to her mother that, given that she was hanging off the glider by a harness, there wasn't anything to hold on to before she felt the scaffolding about her beginning to move. After a split second's consideration, she settled on clasping onto the harness as hard as she could and trusting it to remain attached.

She grasped it just in time as, a moment before she heard the clouds above her beginning to break open, Sunny went into a near-vertical dive, plummeting down towards the treetops as if determined to beat the thunderbolts down there, or possibly kill them all before the lightning had a chance to.

A terrified whine started building up at the back of Icy's throat, quickly rising to become audible, to her at least, and beginning to edge into a scream. Before it could fully transition, though, the clouds above them exploded, ripping the exclamation from her in a pitiful yelp.

Despite the lightning moving as fast as, well, lightning, Icy could have sworn that she could see every stage in its motion as a collection of thunderbolts so dense they seemed almost solid ripped their way out of the cloud cover and streaked towards the crowd, crisscrossing and combining as they streaked down in a Gordian knot of electricity.

Her eyes flicked upwards towards the glider, just in time to see the bolts charging down at them, and she didn't even have time to close her eyes before they hit. However, to her surprise, every single one of the bolts that came near them arced right into the metal pole on the rear edge of the wing, with none of them going past it to strike either the unlying scaffold, the harnesses or the ponies attached to either. Instead, it all surged into the highest point of metal – a sort of extra-wide lightning rod, Icy supposed – and ran through it before emerging from the tip of the glider and continuing down towards the ground. And, true to Sunny's word, the insulation protecting the underslung parts of the glider held firm, with only a lot of smoke around the points the electricity would otherwise have surged through to signify its efforts.

That said, the lightning did set fire to several parts of the glider's fabric – no mean feat, Icy knew, considering how strong it was and how protected it was against catching fire – but Sunny's horn soon lit up and snuffed out the flames, even as her hooves guided the glider back onto a more horizontal path.

They weren't out of danger yet, of course. The initial outburst of lightning had only been the beginning, the clouds above continually belching out further bolts, though now only a few at a time in a rapid, unpredictable rhythm. However, the fact that there was space between them, both physically and temporally, gave Sunny the chance to avoid them by swerving and slaloming the glider around as much as its bulky construction and her Special Talent would allow. And that averaged out to a considerable amount.

Still, she was being careful to keep her distance from any bolts until, as they neared the edge of the area, they heard a rumble above them and, looking up, Icy saw a gathering of electricity that it didn't look like Sunny could dodge.

No sooner had Icy realized this, however, than she further realized that, even if her mother couldn't avoid the bolts, it would feel much safer if she were to try, rather than simply ploughing forward as if she hadn't even noticed it, as Sunny was appearing to.

Icy was about to point out what was about to happen when she saw a flash of white to her side and, looking over, saw a large magical construct form, slanting over the path the glider was taking and just about positioned to block the lightning that had just started spewing down from the cloud. Icy began to gulp, unsure if her mother's magic could begin to block a lightning bolt this big, particularly as she could see her mother beginning to sweat and wince in her peripheral vision, clearly showing the immense strain of her frequent magical exertion during the flight. Before Icy's gulp could even get halfway down her throat, the glider passed under the construct and she heard the bolt fire down towards them.

To her surprise, however, as her eyes flicked to the side at the edge of the construct that just peeked into view past the wing, the bolt didn't break through the magic but instead seemed to travel along it like water along a slanted roof. A moment later, the construct still burst from the power, drawing a pained yelp from her mother, but by that time, the bolt had safely passed down to the ground.

Icy looked up at her mother. “How...” she started shouting, cutting herself off a moment later as she realized this probably wasn't the best time to ask about the mechanics of a thunderstorm.

To her credit, however, Sunny looked down at her daughter and gave her a smile as she blinked the tears out of her eyes. “Helps to know how lightning works. It's kinda lazy and always takes the easiest path. Just gotta make sure that's not through you.” She looked up and shook her head a little, banishing the last of the water from her eyes and setting her face in a determined frown. “We're not taking the easy path, though – hold on!”

Icy barely had time to turn forward again and register that they were skimming over the treeline towards the cave mouth before she felt her harness fall a little. A shock of worry ran through her before the motion stopped and she found herself being lifted up, realizing that her harness had simply been detached. She didn't have time to question why before she was lifted onto Sunny's back and had to devote her reflexes to grabbing on tight.

A moment later, as the glider passed the edge of the treeline, Sunny's horn lit up, shoving both Archer and Lance to the right and drawing a mildly startled grunt from both. As she did this, she yanked herself forward and up with her forehooves, bringing her body, as well as Icy's, to a higher position within the underslung scaffold where she could land all four hooves on top of the bar and hold on, balancing as if on a beam while simultaneously wrenching it to the right as hard as she could.

The reason for all this soon became apparent as the glider swung to the side, with its left tip surging forward just in time to slot into the mouth of the cave, the glider continuing to turn as it went into the cave until its back edge was fully parallel to the way the cave went into the mountainside. At that point, the tip of the front impacted the side wall of the cave, grinding along it and producing a deafening screech, along with a torrent of sparks pouring forth from the friction between the two. Seemingly no sooner had that happened than the control bar made contact with the ground, bringing the thunderous grinding into a weird kind of stereo and slowing down the glider even further.

A second or two later, a third grinding joined them as the cave narrowed to the point where the back edge of the wings scraped against the opposite wall of the cave. Fortunately, this meant that the friction was coming from both sides of the wing, bringing the whole glider to a stop a moment later.

As soon as their motion had ceased, Sunny hopped off the control bar, levitating Icy off her back before going into a short series of trotting hops, trying to diffuse the heat that Icy could now see beginning to darken the metal of the scaffolding.

“Geez,” Archer said as she quickly undid her harness, falling to the cave floor and looking at Sunny with a breezy kind of respect, “now that's what I call a landing.”

Sunny smiled as her agitated trotting started to slow down. “Well, any landing you can walk away from...” she began before bringing all four hooves back down to earth. Her eyes twitched inwards in the faintest hint of a wince before relaxing again – evidently, her hooves were a little sore, but far from burnt or damaged.

Still, she raised her right forehoof and examined it with a deadpan smile. “Mind you, that's a Yak saying and they can walk away from most things, so maybe that's not a great standard.”

Archer shrugged as she trotted towards the cave mouth, Lance falling to the ground gracefully behind her. “Well, I'm not complaining. Least we got out of there without getting hurt. How soon do you reckon you can get back in the air?”

Sunny looked up at the glider, humming for a moment. “Well, I want to look over it first – I think I took care of all the fires before they could do too much damage, but can't be too careful. Plus the time it'll take to pull it out of here.”

Archer nodded as she looked out into the forest. “Might have time for that – looks like the lightning's staying around for a while,” she said, not bothered by how redundant the statement was considering the flashes and thunder that continued to make themselves evident even where they were in the cave. “Plus anything else she migh- Incoming!”

Icy's head whirled around to see Archer sprinting back down the cave. A moment later, she heard the distinctive sound of a weather rocket coming towards them. She was about to turn and run deeper into the cave, hoping but not sure that her mother would be willing to leave her glider behind in the face of imminent danger, when she heard the rocket impact far above the cave, sounding as if it had hit about halfway up the mountain.

She blinked as she heard the explosion of wind. “Huh? Why'd she send it up there, why didn't sh- er...”

She looked around at the others, seeing her own realization mirrored in their faces as the sounds above them didn't fade, but instead transitioned to a loud, deep rumble that shook the ground under their hooves.

With a resigned slowness, the group turned towards the cave mouth just in time to see the rocks begin to fall in front of it, the largest coming down to jam it up first before an absolute flood of smaller rocks and gravel poured down over them, totally blocking off the entrance of the cave and plunging them into darkness.

Domino smiled. It had taken a long time – by her standards, meaning a good ten seconds – and a lot of effort and mental pain to calculate the exact point to hit the mountain to block off the cave her enemies had taken refuge in, but it was worth it. With the combination of rocks she'd sent down over them, they would be unable to either dig their way out or push the blockade away. While the very existence of their minds made it impossible to say for certain that they were out of the picture, she was reasonably confident they wouldn't be a problem any more.

And even if they were, at least she had removed their access to that infernal glider. It was bad enough that its pilot had managed to dodge her initial bolts and saved the others from her tornado, not to mention forcing her to make and waste another set of tornado spinners. But to manage to find the only way to avoid all the lightning she'd sent at it? That was enough to make her shake with rage, as well as pain.

Still, it wasn't a danger now and, while she would have preferred to destroy it, she supposed sealing it away was fine too. Either way, she could now fully turn her attention back to the town.

Chapter Seven: Buried Memories

“Everypony okay?” Sunny's voice asked in the now-complete darkness of the cave.

Icy blinked heavily as she readjusted to the lack of motion, her eyes seeing little difference between being closed and open. “Yeah, I think so.”

A moment later, she heard an “Uh huh,” from Archer and an affirmative grunt from Lance and breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, a moment later, when she breathed in again, she had to ram her mouth closed to keep her coughing quiet as part of the massive cloud of dust kicked up by the rockslide slipped into her lungs, but she still considered herself relatively okay.

“Right,” Sunny said after a second. “Well, give me a moment and I'll get a light up.”

“No need, save the magic,” Archer replied before there was a sudden sound of a bowstring. A split second later, there was a thunk further to the left before the cave lit up suddenly, an arrow lodged into the wall glowing with a powerful white light. Icy instinctively raised a hoof to shield her eyes, familiar enough with Archer's magic arrows to assume it was designed to blind or disorient enemies, only to find that even looking directly at it wasn't painful – the light was extremely gentle, despite lighting up the cave very effectively. Something to do with the magic, Icy supposed.

Still, she felt the need to ask, “So, how useful is an arrow that just lights up a place?”

Archer raised an eyebrow with a smile. “Pretty darn if you're one of us poor saps who needs to see something to shoot it.” She paused as she thought for a moment. “Sometimes, anyway. So let's see the damage.”

Icy turned to follow Archer's sightline, with Lance and Sunny also looking out towards the cave's exit. Or, at least, what had been the exit a moment ago.

Now, however, the entire mouth of the cave seemed to be buried in rock and gravel, the mass of stones forming a steep slope from the top of the mouth to around three metres in, with the right tip of the hang glider's wing poking at a larger bit of rock that was otherwise completely buried.

Icy sighed, careful to close her mouth afterwards lest she inhale another lungful of powdered stone. “So, how long do you think it'll take us to dig our way out?”

In her peripheral vision, she saw her mother open her mouth to answer as she began disconnecting the glider's crossbar but, as Icy turned to her, Archer cut her off. “Well, the digging ain't the problem. I saw about four or five massive boulders fall before most of the slide and... well, didn't have time to get a good look at 'em, but they looked pretty carefully stacked. And if that's any indication,” she pointed up at where the hang glider was touching the buried stone, “we might have some trouble pulling 'em outta the way. And if we can't get past 'em, well...” She trailed off with a shrug of powerlessness.

A moment later, however, Lance gave a very different shrug – one of being unconcerned. He walked forward and began digging down through the gravel, giving them an expression of having nothing better to do. After all, he indicated with a wave towards the inner depths of the mound, whatever they could or couldn't do with the big rocks, they'd need to get to them in the first place to either do anything or know that they couldn't.

Archer nodded. “Fair point. Still,” She turned away from the cave mouth, peering into the darkness of the descending passage, “might be an idea if I explore deeper in the cave. See if there's another way out. Doubt it, but you never know.”

Icy nodded, while Sunny hummed a little, clearly unsure. “You sure it's safe? If you run into any trouble...”

“Yeah, don't worry about it,” Archer replied, drawing another light arrow from her quiver and hitting it hard against the wall, activating it so she could hold it in front of herself like a lantern. “If there is something I can't handle,” she continued, her tone making clear exactly how unlikely she thought that possibility was, “I'll come back and we can get taken out together, being boxed in and all.”

As Archer walked off into the depths, Sunny sighed with a slight smile and shake of the head. “That is one confident filly.” She said as she laid the crossbar to the side, giving everypony more room to move.

Icy nodded, acutely aware of how that confidence and reflexive cockiness had gotten the group rumbled by their target in the first place. “Yeah, she is that.”

With a shrug, she turned back to the pile of stone, trotting up to start helping Lance with digging it away. As she did, she noticed Sunny joining her, prompting her to turn to her mother with a raised wing. “It's okay, Mom, you don't have to help for a little while. I know you used up a heck of a lot of magic just now, so you should probably rest your horn for a bit.”

Sunny chuckled. “Hey, who said anything about my horn, sweetie?” As she reached the mound, she began scraping away the stone with her forehooves, her larger body making the process a lot more efficient than Lance's efforts, even if it would still take her quite a while. “I may not have as much Earth Pony blood as some, but I've got no problem working with my hooves.”

Icy hummed uncertainly but did turn away to begin aiding the excavation herself, in her own small way. “Alright, as long as it won't tire you out more,” she said, unsure of exactly where a unicorn's magic being drained ended and where their body being tired began.

Sunny laughed as she continued to scoop away hooffuls of rock. “Is it weird to sarcastically say “yes, mom!” to your daughter? It feels like that'd be weird.”

Icy giggled. “Little bit, yeah, but I get the point. Sorry.”

Sunny waved off the apology. “It's fine. For a lot of unicorns, even if being magically spent doesn't make them physically tired, it helps to take it easy while they recharge. Me, though?” She sent another clump of rocks flying a little harder than normal to emphasize the point. “Guess I'm just conditioned to keep working when my horn's dry.”

“Conditioned?” Icy asked, not quite understanding how the term applied in that context.

Sunny nodded. “Yeah. Generally, if I've used up most of my magic, that means I've had to use it all up, which means I've just been in a situation where I really couldn't afford to stop and rest. And once my horn's dry, then either I'm still in a sticky situation, which means I need to do what I can with my hooves to stay safe, or I'm not in immediate danger, but I've only just stopped being, meaning I need to do something to make sure the danger doesn't come back or some new danger doesn't come in and blindside me. So, when I'm out of magic, I've just gotten used to working. Think I'd feel weird just sitting around to recharge. 'Specially when there's an obstacle right in front of me that needs dealing with.

Icy bobbed her head to the side as she considered this before nodding, letting the conversation fall away as all three focused on their digging efforts.

A short while later, they heard hoofsteps trotting up behind them, Archer's voice speaking up a moment later.

“Well, good news, we're not gonna be running out of air anytime soon – there's a decent-sized cavern down there. Bad news, couldn't see any other way out of it. Might have been one underwater, but I couldn't see it if there was. Plus, no way to know if one like that'd come out of the water quick enough for us to swim it anyway.”

Icy gulped hard at the image, casting an unnerved glance down the cave towards the cavern Archer had mentioned, silently praying that she wouldn't have to go near it.

To her side, her mother hummed as she continued to shovel away rocks. “Well, if this exit's a total no-go, I might have a look myself, but we'll keep it in reserve.”

“Yeah, that's what I was thinking,” Archer replied as she joined the others in digging away at the sloping wall of stones, humming to herself as she did.

Icy wasn't sure if it was the addition of music, such as it was, that made the task seem to go faster, whether the fourth set of hooves had sped them up massively or if they had simply been close to it when Archer joined, but they soon had one of the large boulders uncovered on the upper left of the stack. Unfortunately, what they saw wasn't encouraging.

“Wow, she really jammed these things in here, didn't she?” Icy said as she looked closely at the area where the boulder was pressed against both the cave walls and ceiling and the other boulders. The top and left of the boulder were firmly wedged behind areas where the cave shrank slightly into small bumps, not large enough to be considered stalactites, but substantial enough to entirely block the boulder from being pulled back. On its bottom and right side, it was pressed hard against the boulders next to it, enough that Icy doubted they could move it at all and knew they couldn't pull it down enough to dislodge it. It was clear that the only direction it could move was away from them, and that given the huge mound of rock and gravel behind it.

Sunny sighed from next to her. “Seems like it. Well, she started the rockslide so it'd jam them in there with the weight of the rock, but same difference.” She tapped the rock with a hoof. “Hmm, not the hardest stone in the world, but not soft enough to be able to pull it in. And the stuff behind it'll stop us pushing it forward... hmmm....”

“Well, there are a few gaps between it and the other boulders,” Archer pointed out. “Could you maybe levitate through a few rocks at a time and give us a bit of space to push it? It'd take a while, but it'd at least give us a bit of room to play with.”

Sunny shook her head. “Doubt it. Levitating stuff you can't see's tricky at the best of times. Can't make a field inside a solid object, so you need to feel out the area around the thing to figure out how to shape the field. And since there's basically no free space in that area...” she trailed off, letting the implication hang for a moment.

Icy let out a slightly growling sigh at the situation. It seemed like the kind of thing where there'd be something they could do. It wasn't some complex barricade or cleverly trapped security system. It was just a really big rock. There had to be some kind of procedure for dealing with really big rocks. Or at least some way to stop them from being really big rocks.

The thought made Icy blink as it occurred to her. She hesitated for a moment before saying it, but soon realized that there wasn't any downside beyond maybe looking a bit silly if the idea was terrible. And she was pretty sure that, after the day she'd been having, the 'looking silly' boat had long since sailed.

“Could we just, like... smash it? Or at least break it a little?”

To her mild surprise, no one looked at her with any incredulity, instead simply looking the rock up and down in evaluation. And, frankly, actually having her idea considered was enough of a victory for her, even if they declared it futile.

After a few moments, Sunny nodded. “Maybe. Stone's... relatively soft, so maybe we could crack them with a bit of effort. Not sure we can shatter them enough to get them out of the way, but it's worth a try.

Lance held a hoof up, indicating a problem, before flashing his sword out of his scabbard and jabbing it hard up towards the boulder. There was a loud ting as the tip bounced off the solid stone, breaking no more than a tiny chip off the larger boulder. That done, Lance sheathed the blade again and waved a hoof at the boulder, silently asking what they'd use to crack the boulders.

Sunny, however, just waved the concern off. “Oh, don't worry, I've got you covered there. Figured you might need some mountaineering equipment, so I brought some along.” She swung off her saddlebags and opened them up, peering down at the contents. “I mean, I thought I could probably fly you up there, but one of the first rules of survival is to never rely on 'probably' if you can help it.”

Archer smirked and nodded her agreement with the sentiment as Sunny pulled a pickaxe out of the bag – a bag that was not even remotely big enough to contain said pickaxe without massively deforming it and weighing its bearer down.

Now, normally this wouldn't be weird to Icy, as the Bottomless Bag spell, while neither simple to learn nor easy to perform, was a known quantity in pony society and many families had at least one bag that had had the spell infused into it. Such containers weren't cheap, by any means, but were often a very worthwhile investment.

What surprised Icy was that she knew the saddlebags in question and they were not infused with the spell. In fact, if she recalled correctly, they were the bags Sunny had taken to the Town Hall that morning, as distant as that seemed at that moment. That meant that she most likely used the first bags she had to hoof when she’d determined to come and help them, suggesting she was in an understandable hurry. Still, it also meant that the short-term version of the spell – relatively speaking, in that it lasted only a few days – must have been cast on it. And she doubted her mother would have asked anyone else to spend their magical power on such a thing when...

Shaking her head, she realized both that she'd been staring at the bag for quite a while, getting a puzzled look from her mother, and that she could simply say, “I didn't know you knew that spell, Mom.”

Sunny smiled, clearly proud that she'd surprised and slightly impressed her daughter. “Oh yeah. Didn't during my first few expeditions, just used a pre-made one. But let me tell you,” she went back to join others in excavating the rest of the boulders, Icy doing the same a moment later, “after the first time you lose that bag in a swamp and have to start foraging and keeping supplies in an ordinary saddlebag, you learn how useful it is to be able to make backups. Like I said, you don't rely on 'probably.” She chuckled. “Took a heck of a lot of effort to learn, but the BB spell's worth it.”

She hummed for a moment before continuing, obviously just letting her mouth run wild as her hooves worked. “Course, that's a misnomer. Doesn't do anything to the bag itself, let alone make it bottomless. Plus, an actual bottomless bag'd make it impossible to actually retrieve anything from it. It just sets up a field around the bag's opening that shrinks any object that gets put in it, so it gets set to the proportions inside it instead of out. But “Bottomless Bag” rolls off the tongue way better than the spell's actual name.”

“What's that?” Archer asked with mild interest.

“Transmutative Aperture, Reducing Dimensions to Interior Scale,” Sunny remarked with a slight chuckle at the ridiculousness of the name, which Icy couldn't help but join in on.

After that, the group lapsed back into silence as they continued to dig away at the stone, soon revealing the whole of the upper two stones and much of the lower two. As with the first, they were quite thoroughly wedged into the cave walls, such that pulling them through would be impossible. Icy briefly considered the idea of using the bag's magic to shrink them, before realizing that wouldn't work – they'd need to fit through the bag's opening for the magic to affect them, if it even could affect that size of object. And, while it might theoretically have been possible to shrink them without using the bag, her mother's magical exhaustion notwithstanding, she didn't know enough about magic to say that it was the same thing. Given the spell was cast specifically on a container, that probably had something to do with it. Besides, she was sure Sunny would have thought of that if it were an option.

A slight twinge in her left forehoof knocked Icy out of her contemplation, making her blink heavily as she realized just how tired the excavation was making her. Admittedly, it was also likely worsened by the stress and activity the day had already dragged out of her, but it was still notable. She took a brief pause to centre herself and shake out her legs, trying to loosen the slight aches and get a bit more energy into them.

Archer flicked an eye towards her. “You alright there, Icy?” she asked, continuing to dig away at the rapidly dwindling slope of stones.

Icy nodded, a little too hard for comfort. “Uh huh, just a little tired, that's all.”

Sunny looked over, an understanding look on her face. “Okay, sweetie, why don't you rest for a little while? We're almost done with this part anyway.”

Icy shook her head, unable to help feeling a little patronized, even though she knew her mother had no such intentions. “No, I'm okay, might as well get it done, huh?”

Sunny opened her mouth, looking about to accept Icy's sentiment before Archer pre-empted her. “Yeah, but we're gonna need all the energy we can get once we're through this,” she pointed out, not appearing to comprehend the unspoken 'if we're through this'. “Take a break and when these boulders are dealt with, you can put more effort into digging through the rest.

Icy felt her mouth being pushed to the side as she thought about this. As much as she disliked the thought of giving in to her fatigue, she couldn't argue with that point – if they did get through the boulders, it would be a good idea to be relatively fresh when they continued past them and if they didn't, there was no point wasting her energy on this in the first place.

Still, as she backed off, slowly stepping backwards across the thick carpet of rubble they'd displaced with their digging, she did give an “I guess,” to at least feel like she still had her dignity, even if she intellectually knew that was a long-lost cause.

As she sat down, though, she did remember the pledge she'd made weeks ago, only to forget due to having other concerns at the time. “By the way, Mom, I was wondering if I could maybe start joining you when you exercise?”

“Sure thing, honey,” Sunny replied, glancing back at Icy with a proud smile. “We can start whenever you like. And I'll try to go easy on you to start with.”

Icy nodded, taking a few moments’ pause to breathe before responding. “Okay, as long as you think you should. I do want to get a bit more in shape if I'm gonna be on this team. Don't want, well... this to happen again.”

Archer shrugged. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure we're all getting a bit bushed right now. We just got more experience dealing with it. Give it a few more missions and you'll be fine.”

Lance gave a nod of agreement, making Icy begin to open her mouth to thank them both. However, before she could even begin to form the words, Archer continued without seeming to think about it.

“Yeah, not gonna be fun when we get back out there.”

The reminder of what was out there knocked the words out of Icy's mind as the huge presence of water on the other side of the suddenly-not-thick-enough rock wall was brought back to the forefront of her mind. The breath that had been gathering in her throat burst out in a quiet yelp as she slammed her eyes shut, trying to shut the thought out and refocus herself on anything else. She desperately hoped that no one had heard her.

No such luck, it seemed, as she heard her mother's voice a moment later. “What was... oh!” Icy opened her eyes to see Sunny looking at her with intense sympathy, something Icy did appreciate even as she hated the fact it was necessary. “I'm sorry, I forgot... we've been spending all this time and effort trying to get back out there, I guess we kind of... forgot that maybe you weren't so eager, huh?” She shrugged with a slight smile, clearly hoping to lighten the mood with a bit of almost-humour.

Icy sighed and shook her head. “I am... okay, maybe I'm not eager, but I do want to get out of here. I mean, yeah, I'm not gonna say it's not scary out there, cause... it really is.” She felt a shiver go through her as if to punctuate the point. “But that doesn't mean I don't want to get out there and deal with it. It doesn't mean that I'd rather be buried in a cave for the rest of my life. And it really doesn't mean I'm gonna stay here and hide while some maniac destroys the town.” She swallowed hard and fixed her mother with a determined stare. “I'm afraid, yeah, but I'm still gonna fight!”

A full, unironic smile blossomed onto Sunny's face. “Wow. You honestly have no idea how proud it makes me to hear how I've raised such a brave and... heroic daughter.”

Icy's face scrunched a little, her confusion over the first description dampening the pride she might otherwise have gained from the second. “Huh? Brave? I just told you how scared I am.”

Sunny nodded. “And you're going to do what you need to do anyway. That's bravery!”

Icy blinked, still unsure what she meant. Still, after a moment, she shrugged. “If you say so... I guess?” She shook her head and looked to the side. “Not like staying in here would make it better anyway.”

Sunny nodded in understanding. “Fair enough. I guess even if you can't see or hear what's scaring you, you still know something is, so you're going to feel just as bad for not helping as you would if you did.”

Icy shook her head. “No... well, yeah, kind of, but that's not what I meant.” She indicated the stone blockade, prompting Sunny to begin turning back, rearing up to start digging again. “I just meant that even with all that stone there, I can still feel the water.”

Sunny stopped halfway through turning around, standing weirdly still for a moment with one hoof in midair before she turned her head back towards Icy. “Huh?”

Icy shrugged. “Well, I can... I can feel it outside. I can feel it all falling and running,” she said, unsure how else to explain it. “Like... it's just there, you know?”

Archer glanced behind her at Icy. “No, we don't know. Could you be a little more specific?”

Sunny shot a momentary glare at Archer. “If you feel up to it – whatever it is, it's probably not something you want to think about too much.”

Little late for that, Icy thought – now that her attention had been drawn to the feeling, it was difficult to ignore it. “Well, I don't think it'll make things worse, I'm just not sure how to describe it. It's like... you know how you don't need to look at your legs and body to know where they are, you just kind of... know?”

“Proprioception?” Sunny asked, prompting a shrug from Icy.

“Probably, if that's what it's called? Well, anyway, it's like that, but a lot less powerful.” She shot an uneasy glance at and through the barricade. “Well, most of the time – when I'm right in the middle of it, it can feel like that. Though it's not totally the same, since I can still tell my body apart from it, but it's a similar kind of thing... I think?” She gave another shrug to get across just how little she understood it or how to put it into words.

To their credit, none of the others looked especially annoyed at Icy's inability to adequately explain her feeling. Archer did give her a raised eyebrow, though it seemed more doubtful than disapproving.

After a moment of silence, she just pursed her lips to the side, her hoof tapping the bottom of the bow on her back as she thought. “And you're sure this... “feeling” is real? You're sure it's not all just in your head?”

Icy hummed as she thought about that, her brow furrowing as she quickly reached her conclusion. “No, no I'm not sure of that at all. Maybe it is all in my head, that's totally possible. But, well... if it is, how would I know? I mean, if it is in my head, well... so am I.”

Archer frowned a little, her mouth pressing into a thin line as she considered this. After a couple of seconds, she sighed. “Fair point, I guess, and even if it is, that doesn't make it any less of a problem for you – sorry if I seemed like I was saying it was.”

Icy shook her head. “It's okay – it is kinda weird, I know that.”

Archer nodded. “Yep, either way it is. Though, well, I'm not sure about you having some sixth sense specifically for water, but, hey, doesn't make much of a difference right now, I guess,” she finished before turning back to the rock pile.

Sunny's gaze lingered on Archer for a few seconds, not angry or objecting to her sentiment, but still not looking entirely approving of how she was talking about it. Still, after a short while, she too turned back to the task at hoof. “Well, yeah, it is more likely that it's psychosomatic – I've never heard of trauma and gaining a phobia giving someone an actual sense for their fear – but I'm not going to say it's impossible either.”

“Oh, no, it wasn't started by that,” Icy said without thinking, “I had a weird sense for it way before the time I almost...” she trailed off, having not even registered the reference to her near-drowning until she thought about it.

However, she was soon thankfully distracted from that memory by her mother freezing in place once more. “What... what do you mean?”

Icy looked up, a little startled by her mother's tone. “I, uh... well, I've always gotten kind of a... bad feeling from water. It didn't make me...” she felt a shiver go through her, “yeah before, but it always weirded me out.

Sunny stayed frozen for a few seconds, one hoof in the midst of digging away a swath of rubble. After that, she blinked a few times as her hoof finished sweeping it away, clearly without her thinking about it. She turned to Lance and Archer, jerking her head slightly towards the pile, silently asking them if they could handle it without her. Both nodded, Archer with a pleasantly unconcerned shrug and Lance with only a brief look away from his digging efforts.

Nodding back gratefully, Sunny turned towards Icy and began walking up to her, a gentle smile on her face. “Is that why you always put off learning to swim?”

Icy nodded, looking away a little in embarrassment. “Yeah, kind of. Sorry I never told you, it just... it never seemed important. I mean, it wasn't a really big thing or anything. I mean, it didn't stop me going near water or anything, just gave me a weird sense when I did. And it wasn't for little things – I mean, you know I could still have baths and drink from glasses, it was just for big... er...”

“...bodies of water?” Sunny suggested.

Icy nodded, even as her eyebrows lowered as she considered the phrase – if a lake or a big river was a “body” of water, did that mean a small stream or creek would be a limb of water, a pond would be an organ of water or a puddle would be an appendix of water?

However, she was soon brought out of her mental tangent by the feeling of her mother sitting down alongside her, not quite hugging her, but still pressed lightly against her and able to give her either a neck hug or a full enveloping hug at a moment's notice.

“It's okay if you don't want to think about it, sweetie, but... do you think you can tell me exactly how it made you feel?”

Icy nodded into her mother's coat, the physical contact helping keep her grounded as she tried her best to think of the feeling she used to get from water without confusing it with the fear she felt now at those memories.

It took a good minute or so for her to fully parse her feelings, but eventually, she swallowed before beginning to speak.

“Well, it wasn't really how it made me feel... I mean, it did make me feel something, but, well, not like it was putting the feeling in my head, it just... felt like it was something and that made me kind of uneasy. It always just felt kind of, well, the best way I can explain it is it felt like it was... hungry.”

“Hungry?” Sunny asked, her eyebrows raising sharply.

Icy bobbed her head from side to side for a moment. “Kinda. That's the best word I can think of for it. It was like it... like it wanted me to come into it. Like there was some empty space in it that it wanted me to fill. Like it wasn't trying to grab me or suck me in, but it was still... trying to get me to dive in. It just... kinda creeped me out.” She let out a short, barking laugh without any kind of humour. “I don't know why it felt like that... or I felt like it did, I just did.”

She chanced a look up to her mother, curious how she would be taking her daughter explaining how screwed up she might be. However, as it turned out, Sunny wasn't even looking at her, instead simply staring ahead with her eyes wide, as if she'd just realized something monumental.

Icy opened her mouth to ask about this, but Sunny beat her to it as she said, a little distantly, “No. No, I don't suppose you would, would you?”

Icy frowned, unsure what her mother meant but getting an uneasy feeling from her. “Mom? Do you... know something about this?”

Sunny gulped, suddenly looking intensely uncomfortable. “Well, no, I wouldn't say I know anything about it, not for certain. But, well, now you've told me about this I... do have some suspicions.”

“Suspicions?” Icy asked, getting the distinct sense from her mother's tone that there was more to whatever she was thinking than a random guess.

Sunny nodded. “Yeah, it... well, you having a... sense for water kind of... gives a bit more credence to a possibility I've always dismissed. See, it's...” she looked off to the side. “Well, it's kind of a long story.”

Icy raised an eyebrow as she looked over to the others. Lance was finishing sweeping away the final clumps of rocks near the ground while Archer was picking up the pickaxe, weighing and swinging it experimentally. Nodding to herself at her thought, Icy turned back to her mother. “We've got a long time.”

Sunny sighed as she closed her eyes a moment, as if willing herself to accept that fact. “I suppose. It's just, well... I never told you much about your father, did I?”

Icy's head jerked back a little in surprise at her mother willingly bringing it up. “Er, no, not really. I mean, I remember I asked you once and you did tell me you met him on one of your expeditions, but you looked really sad and hurt when you did, so I decided not to ask any more. I always figured he must have really hurt you somehow.”

Sunny let out a single, humourless laugh. “Oh, no, nothing like that. At least, not directly – he was a perfect... Well, it's just that despite how much we... it's all around a period that I... don't really like remembering.”

Icy shifted slightly to press herself a little tighter against her mother's side, and nuzzled under her chin, silently offering her sympathies.

Sunny returned the nuzzle with a melancholy smile. “I know, but I think it... may help. You see, it all started during an expedition into the frozen north.”

“Near the Crystal Empire?” Icy asked before blinking as she realized the time frame involved. “Or, well, where the Empire was going to come back?”

Sunny shook her head gently, so as not to disrupt Icy's place against her neck. “Oh, no, a fair bit further north and a lot further east. Out where there's pretty much nothing but miles upon miles upon miles of empty ice and snow. One of the villages near the outskirts of the wastes had reported some weird weather patterns and so an expedition had been set up to see if there was anything wrong. It sounded like it could be fun and interesting, so I went to join.”

“Was it?” Icy asked, knowing that her mother had some fairly good instincts when it came to choosing when and where to travel on her expeditions. Neither she nor her mother questioned whether a journey into a potentially lethally cold climate could be considered 'fun'.

Sunny let out a long, slow sigh. “In theory, yeah, it probably should have been but... well, you see, there are a lot of things to take into account when you're planning a journey and one of the ones that... well, you only learn when you fail is whether the others you'll be travelling with are really the sort of ponies. or other races, that you want to spend a long, long time alone with. You pick travel partners you don't get on with and a simple trek can turn into a nightmare.” She let out a small snort of detached amusement. “Thought I'd already learned that lesson, but I guess I needed a refresher course.”

Icy looked up to her mother, a little astonished at her having made such a mistake, let alone admitting it so freely. “Oh, were the others... really nasty or something?”

Sunny's mouth began to move even as her eyes were still going back to Icy, clearly still parsing the question as her lips began forming the 'y' of 'yeah...'. However, before she could start speaking, she shook her head sharply. “No, no I guess not, not really. It's just that they kinda... rubbed me the wrong way.” She gave another snort, though this one was a little more exasperated at the memory. “The leader of the expedition was a fastidious little guy who just wouldn't let up about keeping things neat and counted. I mean, don't get me wrong, I know just how important it is to be efficient and keep track of things – attention to detail's important when you're out in the wilds – but I'm honestly surprised he didn't keep count of how many bits of toilet roll we used or limit how many chews we could eat our rations with.

“On the other hoof, we had a pretty young weather pegasus with us, part of a team of them, and she was right on the other side of the curve – so impulsive we had to keep literally holding her back from darting off and getting herself lost. The times I had to grab that little airhead by the tail... might not have been so bad if it was possible to keep your tail clean and washed when you're out in the wastes, but that's the gig, I guess. And then there was Bora...”

Icy blinked, shocked at the venom with which Sunny hissed out the name. “Bora?”

Sunny nodded, taking a moment to let out a slow breath and calm her recollected emotions. “Bora Breeze. She was a local and like me, she was there to help guide the others through the tundra. Now that's fine, I'm not going to get territorial about my job – I know perfectly well that having two guides working together can be a real boon, plus her knowing that specific area meant she should have been a great help if we worked together. Trouble is, I guess she didn't think so.

“See, she seemed to think that since I wasn't from around there and I'd spent time in cities, that I must have been some naïve, presumptuous windbag who thought I knew everything about the world cause I'd read a book once. No matter how much I showed how useful I could be or how I helped, she'd always look at me with the same pitying contempt and make sure everyone knew how she totally could have done it herself, even when she plainly couldn't. Basically, she was an arrogant, patronizing bi- er, bit-more-than-obnoxious jerk,” Sunny finished, coughing slightly as she veered the conversation sharply.

Icy wasn't focusing on that, however. “Wow, that sounds... really bad.”

Sunny growled quietly, though she sounded more annoyed at her own words than the remembered events. “Yeah, I know, they always do when I say them to myself. But... I don't actually think they were that bad.”

“Huh?” Icy scowled in confusion at Sunny's seeming one-eighty. “What do you mean?”

“Well, yeah, they had their annoying points and quirks and I think they would grate on most ponies' nerves but... I mean, they weren't total jerks.” Sunny paused for a second. “Okay, so Bora was a pretty big jerk, but even she wasn't the worst pony I've ever met. Other than her, though, the other two could get obnoxious, sure, but it wasn't constant and they were fine a lot of the time, and all the other ponies on the expedition were totally fine – no matter how hard I look back, I can't see any issues I could have taken with them. And, well, I'm not going to say that I'm above equine emotions or anything, but I like to think I'm professional enough to deal with one pain in the neck and a couple of occasional irritants without losing my cool. I'd done it before, after all. And yet, even though I can see with hindsight that things weren't that bad, when I think of that time, all I can remember is getting irritated beyond belief.”

Icy blinked, trying in vain to see some reason for her mother to have felt like that. “So, what was different? Why'd you get so angry that time?”

Sunny threw up the hoof Icy wasn't next to. “I wish I knew, believe me. Best I can figure, I was just having an off week. Happens to the best of us, I guess. Whatever the reason, I was just getting more and more huffy and irritable with every day that passed as we travelled. Every little annoyance seemed like the most offensive thing and every moment that passed without one just gave me time to stew on the ones there had already been. Even the others in the party started to get on my nerves, simply because they didn't seem to react to the things that annoyed me, not to mention they kept their distance from me. Though looking back, I can't really blame them, considering how snippy I was getting. Still, it didn't help.”

Icy gulped hard, more than a little disturbed at hearing about her mother behaving like this. Admittedly, a large part of it was that she found it extremely difficult to imagine her caring, upbeat, gregarious mother ever acting so antisocial, and yet the honesty and detail in her words didn't give Icy much of a choice, resulting in an intensely unsettling image. She knew it wouldn't come close to overwhelming how she knew her mother to be after Icy's whole life's experience, but it was a disconcerting thing to juxtapose with it.

Sunny seemed to notice Icy's discomfort, as she pressed herself a little harder into her side to comfort her, even as she sighed. “Eventually, things all came to a head,” she continued, her look of pain and embarrassment increasing. “One morning, while I was getting up, I heard one of the weather pegasi... not the one I had a problem with, one I hadn't really thought anything negative about at that point, which might be why it stung so badly. Anyway, I heard him sneering at me and my Talent – that I was a unicorn who was brought for her skill at flying. He was scoffing at me being brought along with the weather team and talking about how a hang glider could never come close to a 'proper' pair of wings and how I was just some arrogant pretender.

“Of course, I'd later learn he was just letting his own frustration boil over after I'd insisted on taking my glider with me – even disassembled, it's no small amount of kit and meant everypony else carrying more stuff so I'd have room for it in my gear. Still, at the time, it was the last straw. You can insult me all you like, but nopony, but nopony, makes fun of my baby!” Sunny snorted as she looked between the glider and Icy. “Either of you.”

Even with how unnerving the story was, Icy found herself smiling for a moment, her heart warmed by the determination in her mother's tone.

After a moment of smiling back, Sunny's face fell as she went on. “So, I stepped away from the camp a little, rammed together my glider and, well, I kind of... stormed off. I just took off and flew away. I did fly over the camp – the wind was in the right direction, I think, though I don't think I was exactly sad that I was letting them know I was done with them. A couple of pegasi, the guy I'd overheard included, did try and catch up to me. I don't know if they wanted to bring me back or just ask what I was doing, but I didn't care. Didn't make a difference anyway – they couldn't chase me for long before they had to go back to camp or else risk getting lost. Which makes sense, since that was exactly what I was doing.”

Sunny gave a short, sharp exhale that suggested a heavily suppressed laugh. “Felt one heck of a lot of satisfaction over how I outpaced and outmanoeuvred every one of them, though. Still feel kind of good about it, even if I'm... kind of ashamed I do.”

Icy nodded, understanding and almost wishing she didn't. “So, where did you go?”

“Well, while I was flying, I wasn't really 'going' anywhere,” Sunny answered, shaking her head in disappointment at her past self. “I was just flying, just moving. Didn't matter where, as long as it was away from them, away from anypony... from anyone. I mean, you'd think, you'd really think that when you're flying above the clouds in a frozen wasteland, with nothing to look at and your clothes the only thing keeping you from freezing solid, that maybe your head might clear a little, you might give things some thought and re-evaluate your choices a little, but nope! I just kept flying forward, not thinking about anything except putting distance between me and anyone who could come and bother me.

“Eventually, though, I started getting too cold even for me to tolerate. Fortunately, I saw a cave in a nearby mountain and diverted my flight in that direction. Was a big one, too. Was easier fitting my glider in there than it was in here, let me tell you.” Sunny chuckled as she looked around the cave she was currently in. “Plus, it just seemed like the best place to just sit and stay, away from anyone else who could piss me off. Just the perfect place to be totally, one-hundred-percent alone.”

Icy took a shaking breath in, unnerved by the steel in her mother's tone, obviously remembered from how her emotions had been at the time. If anything, it suggested that, back then, she was even more determined to isolate herself completely than she sounded while recounting the story.

Sunny stared ahead hard as she talked, as if afraid that looking away or relaxing her gaze would break her composure completely. “After that things get... hazy. I remember some stuff, but the exact details just... didn't seem to register and I can't really remember much of a timeline. All I can remember of what happened next was that I went into that cave and just... sat there. For... maybe a couple of days, I just sat and fumed. I don't know what I was going to do after that. I don't even think I knew back then. I honestly think I might have just sat there until I either froze or ran out of food and starved. Probably the former – I think I might have even had a bit of frost on my coat after a while, but starvation was also an option. That is, if Jet hadn't found me.”

At her mother's slightly brightened tone, Icy looked up, a smile poking its way onto her face. “Jet? Was he my dad?”

Sunny nodded. “Jet Stream.”

“Oh!” Icy interjected before her mother could continue. “Was he a pegasus? Is that why I'm...” She ruffled her wings to illustrate them.

Sunny frowned slightly in contemplation. “I don't think so. I do remember seeing some wings on him, but they did not look like pegasus wings.”

Icy returned the frown, confused. “So, was he a batpony? A changeling? A breezie?!”

Sunny laughed, her smile brightening at the idea. “Well, I'm pretty sure he wasn't a breezie, since I wasn't in danger of stepping on him, and if he was a changeling, how would I know?” She thought for a moment. “As for a batpony... no, I didn't get a good look at his wings, but I remember his coat and he wasn't nearly the right sort of shade for a batpony. In fact, he was pale-coated even for a pony.”

“You... didn't see his wings?” Icy asked, still unclear why that would be.

Sunny's laugh died down to a chuckle. “Well, the first time I saw him was when I'd just woken up, with his face right next to mine, looking at me with pretty obvious curiosity, so it was his face that really made an impact on me.”

Icy's eyebrows let up slightly but remained somewhat furrowed as her confusion simply switched subjects. “Why was he curious about you? He’d never seen somepony like you before?”

Sunny shrugged. “Maybe, but I just assumed he was wondering what I was doing sleeping in a cave in the middle of nowhere.” She gulped, the tension in her body and discomfort on her face returning. “Course, I didn't really give him a chance to explain himself, as I tore into him pretty much as soon as I opened my eyes. I was still pretty pissed off from everything, so I just...” she took in a deep breath to steady herself, “I called him creepy for just looking at a stranger while they were sleeping and told him to just... go away,” she said the words carefully, making it clear that that wasn't the phrase she'd said at the time, “and leave me alone.

“He was shocked and scared. I mean, I can't really blame him – I was a total stranger and I was yelling at him like everything in the world was his fault. And even then, I could tell he was a skittish little thing. But... as horrible as it feels to say it, I'm kind of glad he was so frightened and... saddened. Because that – that expression; that look of hurt, surprise and fear on his face... let me tell you, 'puppy-dog eyes' doesn't even begin to cover it. Anything less, and I'd probably have stayed angry, but with that look, I just... I don't know how, when nothing else would, but it got through to me. And before he could run away – and that didn't give me much time, I could tell – I calmed down and apologized. Wasn't gushing or begging for forgiveness, even if maybe I should have, but I did say sorry. I told him I was just having a bad few weeks and... well, he was still scared, I could tell, but he... he asked me what was wrong and I... I just let it all out.”

Icy blinked in astonishment at the term. “You mean you... cried?” she asked, unable to remember a time when her mother had shed a tear in front of her.

Sunny laughed bitterly. “If only – that would have been a much healthier response. No, I exploded, venting about every tiny little annoyance and frustration I'd felt for the last few weeks and then even further back. I spewed such a torrent of vitriol I'm surprised he didn't drown. But he didn't. And he didn't run away either, even if I could tell he was scared by how angry I was. He stayed until I just kind of ran dry of rage and just told him... told him to go away again. And he refused and told me he wouldn't leave me alone.

“I asked him why and... and I'll never forget what he said to me. And even more, I won't forget how he said it – the gentle determination in his tone and the way he stared at me, his eyes filled with such sympathy, but with a fire behind them as he looked into my eyes and said:

“Because you needed that… and I can tell you need more. So I’m staying to provide whatever I can. Maybe just an ear to listen, maybe someone to talk to, maybe even… hopefully… a friend.”

Sunny got a slightly dreamy smile on her face even as she sighed. “If I hadn't been so wrapped up in my anger, I honestly think I'd have fallen in love with him then and there.”

After a moment, her smile faded. “But I was, so I didn't. Still, that wonderful moment did cut me off from insisting I didn't need anything or anypony and that we weren't friends. Instead, I just mumbled some thanks and lay down – all that ranting had tired me out, I guess. And when I woke up, he was still there, laying his head on his hooves as he dozed. Even as angry as I still was, I didn't have the heart to wake him.

“Still, he did wake up himself after a while and didn't even call me a hypocrite for watching him sleep. Wasn't thinking clearly enough to recognize that at the time, of course, but I appreciate that in hindsight.

“We had breakfast together... I think – didn't exactly have the greatest idea of the time in a cave. I remember he had kelp while I had my ration packs. And we got to talking. He asked me all kinds of questions – who I was, why I was there, where I'd come from, what my home was like and what all the places I'd been were like and...” Sunny trailed off a little, shaking her head. “The questions never seemed to end and yet... yet I can't honestly say I got tired of them. I was... pretty brusque and guarded at first, but he didn't take it personally and I... well, I loosened up pretty well over the next couple of days. He was just so... sincere.”

Sunny's dreamy smile returned, this time in full force. “He had this earnest curiosity about him. Not only did he want to know everything about me and my... my world, I guess you could say, but he honestly seemed to know how little he knew and never presumed anything or jumped to any conclusions or judgements about events or me. When he asked me a question, I could tell it was because he honestly wanted to know the answer, never because he already had an idea and wanted to confirm or deny it. And he had the most adorable little head tilt whenever he was confused by something, it was just so...”

She blinked as she realized just how off-topic and gushy she was getting. “Sorry, that's not...”

“It's okay,” Icy assured her, nuzzling under her chin a little. “It's actually really nice to hear about him. Did you learn anything about him and where he came from?”

Sunny shook her head. “Not a lot, no. Oh, not because I couldn't have – looking back, I'm pretty sure he would have told me all about it if I'd asked. It's just that...” she gave an uncomfortable smile that told of how she knew she should be ashamed but couldn't bring herself to feel bad about it, “well, by the time I was open enough to be curious, we'd moved on from talking just about me to, well... pretty much everything. Some things were relevant and real and a lot weren't.”

She smiled down at her daughter. “I always assumed that he was where you got your imagination from. He had these wonderful little flights of fantasy that just...” she trailed off into a small laugh, somewhere between a gentle chuckle and a lovestruck giggle.

Icy raised her eyebrows as she considered this. “Thanks... I think?” She knew, probably more than most, how much of a double-edged sword her imagination was and while she was definitely thankful for its ability to entertain and enrich her, she did wish it was a little less expansive so she wouldn't get lost in it so often.

However, Sunny nodded, making it clear it had been a compliment. “I did learn a few things as we meandered our way through conversation. I remember him telling me he was an explorer too and the reason he was so imaginative was because most of the places he went didn't have much to look at, so he needed to entertain himself. I figured that he must go to a lot of snowy wastelands like the one we were in. He said that he was currently travelling very, very far from home.” She gave a slightly more abashed chuckle at that. “Thinking about it, that would probably have been the ideal time to ask him about where he came from, but I got a bit... distracted.

“See, he told me how he had only planned to take a quick look into the cave to see if there was anything notable in there. But then he saw me.” Her face lit up, practically luminescent with her blush. “He said he'd never seen anyone like me before and was fascinated by seeing someone who looked like me.” She shrugged, her eyes darting to the side in embarrassment. “I just figured he must be from some remote village and had never seen a unicorn before. It's not as farfetched as you'd think. I certainly didn't assume he was captivated by my beauty – I'd been travelling through the tundra and living in a cave for weeks, I wasn't gonna be winning any pageants, let alone be pretty enough to catch the attention of someone like him.”

She shook her head, her smile rising gently. “Didn't have time to question it, though, as he started rambling about how that was just what first drew him to me and how, once he got talking to me, I was the most fascinating and charming pony he'd ever met.” The corners of her mouth shot up into a full-on beam. “Course, he didn't seem to realize he'd called me charming until afterwards, since he started instinctively trying to walk it back before realizing that might sound bad and babbling how I was charming and beautiful and then just realizing he'd called me beautiful and getting even more flustered and, well...” she let out a dreamy sigh. “It was for his benefit as much as mine when I kissed him.”

Icy let out a short, surprised breath. On some level, she knew that was what her mother was leading up to, but it still felt weird to think of her in that context.

It wasn't helped when Sunny went on, “I still remember the feeling of his lips on mine. He had an oddly long muzzle – closer to a Saddle Arabian than any pony I'd ever met, but much thinner and more elegant. And his mouth was... wet and tasted very salty. Probably from the kelp he'd been eating, I thought. Still, I wouldn't have traded the feeling or the taste for the world. It was just...”

Icy nudged her mother. “Erm, I'm sure it was, but is it really... like, do we need to...”

Sunny raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “As you wish. But, well, it is important. See, it started as just a quick kiss, but things quickly got... more intense. More... intimate.”

Icy jerked her head back in surprise. Admittedly, she didn't know the exact details of the kinds of things Sunny was alluding to, but she knew the basic gist of it and that it was much more advanced than kissing. And also that it was where babies came from which, now that she thought about it, meant she shouldn't have been that surprised, but there she was. “Isn't that... a little bit quick?”

Sunny's eyebrow remained firmly raised. “That depends on who you ask, but I wouldn't worry about it. We'd been talking for... about a week, I'd reckon, and I'm fairly certain we'd both fallen in love long before the kiss made it official. Plus... well, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly given... well, I did still need an outlet.”

Icy blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Sunny gulped loudly, looking intensely embarrassed and a little disturbed. “Well, you'd think... you really think that once I'd opened up, got talking to someone I like and out-and-out fallen in love... that all that anger would go away, right?” She shook her head before Icy could even think to answer. “But no. It was the weirdest thing. It was like... the anger didn't go away or even shrink. It remained just as big and nasty as always, it was just that everything else – the happiness, curiosity, affection – all grew bigger and bigger until it dwarfed the anger. But even then, it wasn't enough to allow me to ignore it.

“After a while, I started to feel like I was...” she gave an amused snort. “Like I was a Strange Case of Mr Jackal and Dr Hide. Like there were two different, totally separate sides of me. I occasionally snapped at him when I shouldn't, but he seemed to take it well, if a little alarmed at points, but I did always manage to apologize and calm him down. And fortunately, most of the time, either my anger was too busy fuming to bother the rest of me or the rest of me was having too good a time to notice.” She thought for a moment. “Or both. Both's always an option.”

There was a pause as both Sunny and Icy seemed to take a moment to be unnerved by the concept.

“Wow,” Icy said after a moment. “That's... weird.”

“You're telling me,” Sunny replied before shaking her head. “Anyway, I'm pretty sure the tension and agitation were driving my actions as well as my affection since I got... pretty vigorous. Not that he minded – he was with me every step of the way, believe me. Heck, he might have been even more energetic about it. We...”

Icy cleared her throat sharply, making it clear just how little she wanted to hear the intimate details of this.

Sunny paused, looking to the side as her face lit up again, this time in embarrassment. “Oh, sorry, I didn't think... It's just that remembering was...” She swallowed hard and shrugged with a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”

Icy sighed. “It's okay, Mom, I get that it's important, but... could we maybe skip the… you know?”

Sunny nodded. “Yeah, that's probably for the best. Besides, the next important part of the story didn't happen till we were... all done with that. Because once we were just... finishing,” she frowned slightly, clearly disturbed by the memory, “that's when things got... weird.”

“Weird?” Icy asked. If she was honest, she'd have used that word to describe the entire situation her mother was relating, but she got the distinct impression from her tone that this was on a different level. “How?”

Sunny shrugged. “To be honest, I can't really remember it that clearly. But when things got to a... got to their most intense point, there was a kind of... the only word I can think of for it is “explosion”, though I honestly can't say how much of it was in my head and how much was real. But it felt like some kind of incredible blast. But I think something happened in the real world, at least, because I remember there was a massive noise and... and I remember Jet's face.

“He was... scared. Terrified, even. It didn't seem to be directed at me, but whatever was happening spooked him. Badly. I remember his head turning away as he ran and... well, that was about all I remember for a while. Next thing I knew, I was waking up on the cave floor. I was pretty groggy, but honestly, I felt better than I had in weeks. My head was clear and I was thinking straight again. It was like waking up after a horrible, immersive dream. But, well, the only thing that put a damper on that was that Jet, the one part of the metaphorical dream that had been good, that had kept me sane and stable during the nightmare... he was gone.”

Icy wiped at her eyes, trying to dry their sudden moistness on her fur. “Didn't he come back for you?”

Sunny sighed. “Well, not for a day, at least. He did say he'd found the cave at random, so I figure that maybe he ran far enough that he got lost and couldn't find it again.” She gave a short, macabre laugh. “I hope that's the case, anyway.” She closed her eyes and took in a deep, shaking breath, dabbing at her own eyes with a hoof. “Of course, he could probably have found his way back eventually but... I couldn't stay.

“I wanted to!” she added hastily, as if defending herself from some phantom accusation that she ran away herself. “I wanted to wait for days, weeks, however long it took. But... well, my rations were running low, I knew there wasn't anything around I could really forage and if I didn't leave then, there was no way I'd have enough supplies and energy to make it back to civilization.”

She shook her head. “It was obvious. The choice was between leaving and surviving or waiting and almost certainly dying there. I knew in my head what I had to do. But...” she gulped hard, “but it was still the hardest choice I've ever had to make in my entire life.”

Icy pressed herself harder into her mother's side and nuzzled her chest, trying to both provide comfort and wipe away her own tears. “You did the right thing, Mom. It sounds like he really loved you and if he did, he wouldn't have wanted you to wait around if it meant you'd probably die there.”

Sunny nodded, her chin lightly brushing against the top of Icy's head. “I suppose. It doesn't make me feel any better, but I guess I'll just have to keep telling myself that. Although,” a hint of her normal, more playful tone edged onto her voice, “given that if I hadn't, I never would have had you, I'm not sure we can say you're totally unbiased on the matter.”

Icy giggled into her mother's coat. “So what happened next?”

Sunny shrugged. “Not much of note. I made my way back to civilization, tried to get in contact with the rest of the party and, once I learned they'd been searching for me pretty much non-stop, managed to call them back and assure them I was okay. Happy to say I made up with them and apologized for being so... I mean, I can't think of a better word than ‘childish’ about things. They were just happy I was okay and, I'll be honest, I think I made better friends with them then than I did for the weeks I'd known them before.”

She got a slight smile as she said, “Even Bora Breeze wasn't... too obnoxious. She was still pretty clear in her belief she was better than me, but she was impressed that I'd managed to survive on my own out there for so long. Didn't feel like telling her I had a bit of help with that.” Her smile briefly shot up to a smirk before dimming again. “Still, it was something. Nice to know she cared at least a little.”

Icy nodded. “Sounds like they cared more than a little if they'd spent all that time looking for you.”

Sunny bobbed her head to the side, silently moderating the sentiment a little. “Well, it helped that the weird weather we'd been sent to investigate had cleared up. Still not sure what was up with that, come to think of it. But yeah, it did feel nice. Almost enough to dampen the feeling of what I'd left behind. Of course,” she smiled down at her daughter, “a few weeks later, I found out I'd have something to remember him by. Or rather, someone. And let me tell you, Sweetie,” she ruffled Icy's hair with her chin, “you're the best souvenir I could have ever asked for.”

Icy giggled, a beaming smile on her face. There was a moment of silence between the two as Icy absorbed the feeling of love she was getting from her mother, the two relaxing into the half-hug they had going, neither wanting to move even enough to make it into a full hug.

A moment later, the sense of connection dimmed just enough that the repeated sounds of a pickaxe striking stone registered with Icy and she remembered where they were and what they were doing.

With the realization came a question. “So, that was a really nice story but, um... what does it have to do with...” she took a moment to work backwards along the conversation to remind herself how it started, “with my being able to feel water?”

Sunny's eyes widened a little, making it clear she'd gotten as caught up in the story as Icy had. “Oh, right. Well, there are a couple of things about my time with Jet that... well, I wasn't really thinking straight enough to notice at the time, but I realized looking back. For one thing, I can remember his face like it was still in front of me – his bright green eyes, his pale blue fur and dark green mane, all shiny and clumping together, the elegant curve of his muzzle that... ahem,” she shook her head briefly to refocus herself, “anyway, I can remember all of that, but I don't have the first clue what his Cutie Mark was.”

Icy flinched back in shock. “You... you were... that close with someone you hadn't even seen the Mark of?!” That was like falling in love with someone whom you'd never made eye contact with.

Sunny nodded uncomfortably. “Seems that way. Only way I can think that makes sense is if he didn't have one.”

Icy thought for a moment. “You mean he was Saddle Arabian?”

“That's what I thought too,” Sunny said, though the discomfort still on her face suggested she wasn't entirely convinced. “But then I realized that I had no idea what his entire back half looked like, marked or not. And then there was the other thing. You see, when I finally left the cave, I found that, though I hadn't really remembered doing it, I'd buried the whole of the entrance in snow. Must have taken me a heck of a long time, but I did it. And, unless I was very much mistaken... it didn't seem like anyone had moved the snow since I'd put it down. And there wasn’t any other way into the cave that a pony could have used.

Icy scowled in confusion as she tried to parse this information. “So... you think he was a ghost?”

Sunny rolled her eyes in amusement at the idea. “I doubt it. And, well, there are ways he could have gotten in or out without disturbing the snow – teleportation, phasing spells, some magically hidden entrance or portal – but I'm positive he didn't have a horn. And, well, I remembered there was one other possible way in and out of the cave. See, thing is,” she took a lengthy pause as she built up to her ultimate conclusion, “a big part of the cave was underwater. And any other exit would be, too. And unless I was really off my game, I don't think there was any air in that direction. Pretty sure it led out to sea eventually.”

Icy raised an eyebrow as she collated all the information in her mind, trying to see what her mother was getting at. A pony with a rear half that wasn't normal, that didn't have to breathe, that could swim for a long time and that had some home or vessel on or near the sea. Or possibly just lived in the sea, but she didn't think anypony could...

Her eyes widened. No way...

“You...” Icy could hardly bring herself to say it, it sounded so ridiculous and yet... so strangely, sincerely believable. “You think he was a... a sea p-”

“I don't know,” Sunny interrupted, as if she couldn't stop the uncertainty from bursting out of her. “I always figured it was silly, that there was no way he could have been...” she shook her head. “I assumed he must have had some other way in and out of the cave or... just that he was able to hold his breath long enough to swim it... and avoid freezing... somehow. But, well... I did always wonder. I mean, it's not like anyone's ever shown evidence or reason why they definitely don't exist, just that no one's ever seen one. And if you do have some kind of sense for water... Well, now I'm wondering a lot more, is all.”

Icy gulped, feeling rather unnerved by the idea, even if it took her a moment to understand why – her fear of water made the prospect of having some inescapable connection to it terrifying on principle. She knew that that was probably irrational... but then, so was the phobia itself, but that didn't make it any less debilitating. So, even if the connection was in some way positive, it didn't feel like it. Although that did raise another question.

“But, if it's some... some real connection,” Icy began after a moment's thought, “why did it always feel so... so weird? Why'd the water always feel so hungry?”

Sunny shook her head. “Your guess is as good as mine. Actually, since you've experienced this feeling firsthoof, your guess is probably better. Maybe it's something to do with only being part... maybe-aquatic. Maybe the sense itself isn't necessarily a good thing. Or...” she paused and looked to the side for a moment, her mouth pulling back to broadcast her hesitation in saying what she said next. “Or maybe... it's just a matter of perspective. Maybe it's because you didn't have context for the feeling and it was kind of intimidating. 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.”

There was a pause as both considered this, Icy trying to push past her revulsion at the prospect to analyse the feeling that she'd always taken for granted and tried to avoid thinking about. It was difficult overcoming both her more recently-gained terror and the disturbance she'd always felt but, at the very least, she couldn't say for certain that her mother's speculation was impossible.

After a few seconds, she was brought out of her contemplation by her mother shrugging. “Or maybe that's a load of nonsense. I don't know. I don't even know how your ice powers work, let alone anything else.”

Icy nodded before a thought occurred. “Hey, you don't think that maybe this... this has something to do with my powers, do you?”

Sunny hummed as she thought about it. “I mean, it's not impossible, but I doubt it. I mean, water and ice... yeah, they're technically the same substance, but I don't see what water has to do with freezing things. Not much of a connection there as far as I can see. If anything, maybe it had something to do with being, um... conceived in the frozen north, but I doubt he had that much to do with it.”

“Yeah, about that...”

Sunny and Icy both whipped their heads up in surprise at Archer speaking. She was looking over at them as she thumped away at the rock with the pickaxe held in her front hooves. Next to her, Lance was standing stiffly for her to lean against and balance, looking more like a statue than a colt.

Archer's eyes flicked to Sunny and Icy. “Yeah, sorry,” she said, even if she didn't sound very apologetic, “couldn't help but overhear – you weren't exactly whispering. Still, it's a good story but... well, I got some thoughts.”

Sunny and Icy looked at each other before shrugging. “Please,” Sunny said after a moment, “go ahead. Although, if it's about the idea of him being...”

“Nah, don't worry,” Archer shook her head as she climbed onto Lance's back to reach the upper boulders, the cracks in them letting on that she'd already done so a number of times. “I mean, yeah, it seems like a pretty big stretch, but you knew that already. Not impossible, but I'm not sure I'd buy it without some pretty good evidence. Nah, I was thinking there might have been a third... thing involved in the... in the whole thing.”

Sunny narrowed her eyes at Archer, clearly unamused at the suggestion. “Well, I certainly didn't notice anypony.”

Archer nodded. “Yeah, I could tell that but... weird question, but the bit of the north you went to... did it happen to be in the area the Founders of Equestria came from.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow at the apparent non-sequitur. “Er, well, can't really say for certain since, well, nopony knows where they originally came from. If they did, forget empty fields, you wouldn't be able to move for Archaeologists. But, I mean... I guess it's not impossible. Why?”

Archer sighed. “Well, you know how you said that while you were travelling, you started getting really angry and nasty and stopped thinking straight?”

Sunny took a deep breath, obviously not happy with being reminded. “Yes?”

“Well,” Archer continued as she began chipping away at the upper boulder, “maybe it's just my own hang-ups talking, but to me, that sounded a lot like someone was messing with your mind.”

Sunny reared back a little as the idea struck her. “Well... I mean, it would explain... I guess it's possible, but who would have been doing that? None of the others in the party would have had any reason t-” She stopped abruptly before scowling, looking directly at Archer with a snort. “If you're about to suggest that Jet was manipulating me...”

“No, no, take it easy,” Archer twisted round and held her hooves up placatingly, earning a small grunt from Lance below her. “You said yourself he didn't have a horn on him and if he was a sea pony,” she paused and closed her eyes, as if having to restrain herself from rolling them, “then he couldn't have come inland far enough to reach you. If you were getting your brain prodded, he wasn't the pony who did it. Fact, I don't think it was a pony.”

“Huh?” Icy said before her mother could respond. “What do you mean?”

Archer took a deep breath in, clearly not relishing having to bring up what she was about to. “Tell me something. When you were at your worst, the angriest you got with the ponies around you... did you hate them?”

Sunny's hoof began shaking in agitation at the memory as she remained silent for a long time, occasionally opening her mouth for a moment before closing it again sharply. This went on for a good ten or fifteen seconds before she eventually said in a pained whisper, “Yes.”

Archer nodded. “Right, sorry about that, it's just... well, something was making you hate and the daughter you got after everything has ice powers. So, can you think of any kind of creature that wants ponies... needs ponies to hate and can freeze things? Like three whole tribes?”

Icy's eyes widened as she stared at Archer, feeling her mother stop still as well. “A windigo?!”

“Bingo!” Archer said as she began working at the rock again.

“But... but that doesn't...” Icy began as she tried to think through why that might not be the case. “Can Windigos make ponies hate? I mean, we know they feed off it, but...”

“Well, there's a lot of scholarly debate on that subject,” Sunny said, her voice still somewhat distant as she considered the possibility, “which is academic code for 'no one has the first clue' and no one's ever actually been able to study one to find out. If it could, it wouldn't force hate onto somepony, just take whatever negative emotions they had and amplify them - grow them like a crop. Although... I did have plenty of those emotions...”

She shook her head hard. “But then why didn't it affect the others as much? And why would it follow me?”

“Well, from how you described it,” Archer began as she climbed down from Lance's back, “with the hate being part of you but like a separate pony... sounded like a case of Partial Possession to me. And, yeah, no record of them being able to possess ponies either, but it could be some ability they have in reserve or got in the centuries since we last heard from 'em.”

Icy's mouth pursed as she frowned at Archer, finding it strange how knowledgeably she was talking about mind alteration.

At Icy's look, Archer shrugged. “Hey, I’ve told you before – just cause I hate this stuff doesn't mean I'm stupid about it. I've done my homework when it comes to mind control sh- stuff.” She snorted as she turned away. “How else am I supposed to defend against it? Wouldn't be surprised if I knew more about it than some ponies who do it by now.”

“Well, it's not impossible, I guess,” Sunny said, cutting off any further inquiry into Archer's knowledge. “But still, it seems a little... I mean, if that's the case, why doesn't Icy have any kind of affinity for hatred? Shouldn't she... what would have gotten rid of that?”

Icy considered this for a moment before something occurred to her. “That might make sense. When you, um...” she hesitated, unwilling to think too hard about her mother's intimate activities. “You said you felt an outburst when you and him... do you remember if there was any wind? Or cold?”

Sunny frowned in concentration before nodding. “Now that you mention it... I think there was. I... I remember a lot of wind and... I was pretty frozen when I came to. I thought it was just because I'd been on the ground for a while.”

Icy nodded. “I think that would be what did it. That got rid of it.”

Sunny hummed for a moment, clearly open to the idea even as she asked, “What makes you say that?”

Icy shrugged. “Well, it just kinda makes sense. A monster of cold hate... got destroyed by love, leaving only the cold. It just... sounds right, you know?”

Sunny chuckled, a warm smile coming onto her face for the first time in a while. “Well, it's a poetic idea if nothing else. And, well, weird as it is, it does sound plausible. I just hope...”

Icy tilted her head at her mother trailing off. “Hope what?”

Sunny shook her head. “I hope this doesn't make you feel like some kind of freak.”

Icy's brow furrowed as she thought about this seriously. After a moment, however, she relaxed with a giggle. “Nah, it doesn't. Well, not any more than I already did.”

Sunny breathed a sigh of relief, either not noticing or not worrying about the qualifier. “Thank goodness.” She nuzzled her daughter's head. “I mean, I always knew you were special, Icy. I guess I just never realized how amazing... how special. You're more special than I ever thought possible.”

Icy blinked as she considered this, pausing a second before letting slip a simple, “No.”

Sunny jerked her head back a little in surprise. “No? What do you mean?”

Icy snorted a little as she smiled. “I mean...” she paused once more to try and put her feeling into words. “I mean, yeah, this... it does make me... special?” She said, feeling a little weird using that term on herself – that was how parents thought of their kids, not how she was supposed to feel herself. “But... but no, it doesn't make me more special. I mean, no more than anypony... anyone else. Cause... yeah, every pony has just as much special about them.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow. “Well, yes, possibly, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't embrace this.”

“Oh, I know!” Icy assured her. “This is part of what makes me... 'special', so I'm not gonna try and ignore it. But... well, a year ago, I might have thought this makes me more special... more powerful than other ponies but... no. This does make me powerful but... so what? Ponies are powerful.”

She smiled as her thoughts wandered back over the past few months. “Since I joined this team, I've seen so many strange, strong ponies in so many ways. I've seen a colt of rock and fire, a living comic book character, a kid mastermind, a king of the sewer, a fold-out thief, a mini master of illusion and a filly who could aim an avalanche. I've seen ponies who can make minions out of rats, lava, light and paper. I've fought ponies my age because they were simple, because they were spoiled, because they were sporting or because they just wanted someone to notice them. I've met an earth pony who can heal with a song, a unicorn who can see with a horn, a zebra who can shoot lightning with a blade and a minotaur who can make you pee yourself with a glance.”

That got a chuckle from her mother, which she joined in on. “I mean, look at this team! We've got a filly who can shapeshift anything except a head big enough for her brain, a unicorn who can stop time with her horn or her puppy-dog eyes, a filly who can go faster on wheels than almost anyone can on wings and a colt who could charge his way through half an army and eat his way through the other half.” She shot a smile up at Archer and Lance. “Plus a colt who can give speeches through a sword and a filly who can hit bullseyes blindfolded.”

She giggled as a final example occurred to her. “And, well... it's pretty outrageous, I don't know if I believe it, but I have heard there's this mare around here who can fly a hang glider through a hurricane.” She smiled as this drew a chuckle from Sunny.

Icy ruffled her wings as she finished up her little speech. “This? This is really weird, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't make me any more special, more powerful... more amazing than anypony else. Everyone in this world is amazing. It's just a question of how.”

There was a long pause as everyone took a moment to absorb Icy's words.

After a while, Archer gave a couple of quiet claps. “Wow, that was... really inspiring, Icy. Nice speech,” she added without any irony whatsoever, causing Lance to nod hard in agreement.

Icy rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, I mean, it wasn't that good, it just sort of... came to me.”

“Not that good?!” Sunny replied, shaking her head. “It was amazing. My little girl's grown up so much. I'm so proud of you.”

“So, Archer!” Icy blurted out, cutting off any further praise. “How are you doing on the rock? You doing good? You're probably doing good!”

Archer sighed as she looked over her shoulder. “Well, got plenty of cracks in it, but it'll be a while before we can properly break through, if we even can.”

Icy returned the sigh, looking past Archer at the rocks covering up the entrance. As she did, she was briefly reminded of her mother's story. Glancing up at her, she said with a humourless smile. “I guess you can’t use whatever you did to clear the snow out of the cave's opening here as well?”

Sunny chuckled a little as she shook her head. “Afraid not. Back then, I just melted it all. Don't think that'd work here.”

Icy frowned slightly as she thought about this. “All of it? I mean, you said it was big enough to take the glider. Must have taken a lot of work to thaw all that.”

Sunny shrugged. “Not as much as you’d think. Remember how much water expands when it freezes.”

“Right, of course,” Icy said, clopping a hoof on the ground in a combination of realization and annoyance. “Sorry, I remembered how it worked with potholes, but not there.”

“Potholes?” Archer asked as she turned back to the boulder, sounding like she simply expected some pleasant background explanation while she worked.

“Yeah, it was a problem we had all the time back in Flanchorage,” Icy replied, thinking back to the frequent maintenance that was needed on the roads in her old town. “Water would get into all the cracks in the ground and freeze, which meant it grew and cracked them more. The town council was always having to come and fix the cracks in... the... rock...”

She trailed off as everyone looked at each other in realization.

“Mom!” Icy asked after a few seconds, whirling around towards Sunny. “Could we use that to break the rocks?”

Sunny rubbed her chin for a moment. “Maybe, but I don't know if one batch of freezing would do it. We'd need to wait for it to thaw afterwards unless we had some way to make it...” she paused, her eyes crossing as she looked up to her horn. “Right, okay, that could work, but we'd need water t-”

“No problem,” Archer said as she swung her quiver off her back. “There's loads of water deeper into the cave. The cavern I told you about. Can that bag of yours…?”

“Not really bottomless, remember,” Sunny said even as she reached into it. “Can’t apply the shrinking effect to water, so it can’t hold that much. Of course,” she smirked as she pulled a few canteens out and then reached in again, “doesn’t mean it can’t hold some stuff that can.”

Icy blinked as she looked at the rapidly growing pile of canteens, flasks and waterskins in front of her mother. “How many do you have?

“Enough - never know what’ll happen. Okay,” Sunny started pacing slightly as she thought. “Archer, you get the water here, Lance pours it, Icy freezes it, I thaw it... I think that could work.”

As Archer ran off down the cave and Sunny approached the boulders to examine them, Icy found herself smiling.

Get ready, weather-filly. We're not out of the game yet!

Author's Note

Hoo boy, was I worried about this one.

For reference, I first decided on the origin of Icy's powers long before both actual seaponies appeared and the windigos came back. Still, I don't think there's much that's actively contradicted by the show. With the obvious exception of the idea of possession, but that was already not supported by canon and I'm thinking was a brief developmental offshoot that probably didn't last long, since it made them more vulnerable. Plus, well, the windigos having some mind-affecting abilities would line up with a bit of headcanon I've had for a long time, but that's irrelevant.

Regardless, I realize that the idea's pretty damn outlandish and, coupled with the already noted focus this first batch of stories has had on Icy, may make her, at the very least, get uncomfortably close to a certain dreaded fanfiction archetype with a hyphenated name. I really, really hope it doesn't, but I suppose there's only one way to find out. Still, hopefully it's not too much of a problem and I'm sorry if it is.

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. “...the 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!”

Chapter Eight: Down the Rushy Glen

With a grimace, Icy turned to the others. “What do we do?!”

Sadly, she got no immediate answer, as she could see they were all thinking. Lance was tapping his hoof on the ground rapidly, his body and head stiff and focused squarely on Ponyville, his mouth the only other part of his body to move as it fidgeted, as if mouthing out ideas he couldn't and wouldn't say out loud. Archer's eyes, meanwhile, were focused on the distant mountains, agitated, flicking all over and searching for some hint as to how to deal with this problem. And Sunny didn't seem to be looking at anything, her eyes blinking rapidly and remaining pointed at the sky. Icy knew her mother enough to know that she was focused entirely on her own thoughts as she tried to come up with some idea before it was too late.

Icy swallowed hard, feeling a little awkward as she realized she was looking at the others rather than at the problem. She shook her head, deciding to focus her attention on where it was needed, but another glance between her teammates made her suddenly question where that was. As if to split the difference between the threat and Ponyville, she looked out to the side, into the forest between them.

However, she blinked as she did. “Wait, how'll the water get to Ponyville?”

“Through the ravine,” Sunny answered without even thinking about it. “It'll join the river at the bottom and make it big enough to flood the town easily.”

Icy nodded absently before the image fully registered in her mind, at which point the solution suddenly seemed obvious. “Could we just block up the ravine with something?”

Lance glanced over to her and raised a hoof, rolling it in front of him to indicate for Icy to go on and tell them what to block it with. However, Icy had barely begun to realize she didn't have an immediate answer before her mother cut her off.

“Doesn't matter anyway,” she said in response to Lance's gesture. “Even if we blocked the river completely, the water wouldn't go anywhere. It'd just stay there until whatever dam we made went away or broke. We'd just be delaying things.”

Icy sighed as she silently nodded. That was the trouble with the obvious solution – the flaws with it were usually just as obvious, otherwise it'd mean there wasn't a problem in the first place.

However, now that her mind had fully imagined the scenario, she found she was having a difficult time letting go of it. This was partially because she'd already spent so much effort conjuring up the image, partially because it still seemed like it could work, or at least help, and partially because she didn't even have the beginnings of another idea.

Either way, she shook her head. “Well, could we maybe move the water out of the... dammed-up bit?”

“Where to?” Archer asked, shrugging. “Plus, we'd have to pull it all the way up and out of it. If we had somewhere to drain it to... don't s'pose there are any caves in the ravine?”

Sunny sighed. “A few, but none big or deep enough to take that much water. We'd need a big cave system to properly drain that much water away.”

Icy began nodding before the mention of cave systems twigged her memory. “Hey, what about the caves we came through? Didn't you say there was a bit where they came up under the ravine, Archer?”

Archer shrugged, her mouth opening to answer, but slowly enough that Sunny was able to pre-empt her. “No, there's a bit where it almost comes up, where a cavern comes up to just below one of the offshoot canyons. We could build up the water there, but it's not enough. We'd need an actual entrance to that cavern to drain the water away.

Icy sighed, nodding as she acknowledged the problems with her idea. With a depressed sigh, she started to dismiss the image, ready to try, and most likely fail, to come up with something else.

However, just before she could, Archer spoke up. “So, if there isn't an entrance or a hole... why don't we just make one?”

There was a pause as everyone turned to Archer, Icy feeling torn between questioning her about what she intended to use to make a hole and questioning herself about why she didn't think of that.

And, while the latter question would forever go tragically unanswered, the former was immediately satisfied by Archer's confident stride towards the crate of weather rockets, which had already demonstrated that they had enough force behind their bursts to damage rock.

Icy nodded, glancing over her shoulder at the ravine. “You sure you'll be able to do it?”

Archer scoffed with a good-natured eye-roll. “Oh, please. I may not be able to aim a thundercloud from the ground, but when it comes to straight-up shooting, I doubt even Little Miss Calculator can match me. And it's a pretty straight shot down to Carte Canyon, so it's fine.”

Icy giggled for a moment. “Would you need one?”

Archer shrugged. “Nope, but it can't hurt.”

Sunny gave an awkward kind of groaning grunt, clearly uncomfortable with having to interject and ruin the hope they'd built up. “Nice idea, but that still doesn't help when we don't have anything to block up the main river flow. Without that, a bit of water'd go down your hole, but not even close to enough to make a difference. And it's not like we can just use branches and scraps of wood or rocks or forest bits or...” she cut herself off with a sharp throat-clearing. “Even if we could get enough stuff like that down there and fit together so it doesn't just fall apart, it wouldn't be solid enough to actually stop the water.”

Archer sighed, her hoof frozen in the middle of reaching for the crate as she thought about it. “You got a point,” she said, a little grudgingly. “We'd need to put something down there big and solid enough to block it off.”

“We couldn't,” Icy answered immediately as she brought the image to mind. “Anything that big and solid, we couldn't move down there without a lot of work. Plus I'm pretty sure there's nothing like that around. If we wanted something like that, we'd have to make it while we’re down there. But what can we make that's solid like that?” A shiver of doubt ran through her, ruffling her wings noisily against her side.

Wait... my wings...

She looked up, only to meet her mother's eyes, seeing immediately that she'd come to the same conclusion Icy had. However, the rest of her expression made it clear that her reaction to the idea was very different.

“No...” Sunny began, a little distantly before shaking her head hard. “No! You can't!”

Icy gulped, not feeling particularly good about the idea herself, but shook her head. “I don't think we have any...”

“Doesn't matter!” Sunny interrupted. “I mean you literally can't! Even if I did let you go down there, onto the river and in the path of a wave like that when you're still not even comfortable in the bath... I've seen you in action, Icy, and I've seen you practice. And even with your suit, you don't have enough power in your gusts to freeze the whole pass. You might make a little speed bump at most but...” Sunny gulped, tears poking out at the edge of her eyes. “I'm sorry, I really am, but I'm not letting you throw yourself into that kind of danger for something so futile!”

Icy closed her eyes, feeling her own tears begin to well up slightly at both her mother's tone, understandable as it was, and at her own feeling of helplessness. Even as she did, though, her hooves were trembling at the reminder of all that water down there, as well as the still-massive amounts pouring from the sky all around her. She took a shaking breath in, half-wishing that her mother hadn't called attention to it and brought the feeling she got from all that water into sharp focus and half-wishing Icy herself hadn't forced her to. However, after a moment, she shook it off – the feeling was already there, whether or not she happened to be distracted from it.

However, when she realized that, she couldn't help but focus even more on the feeling, almost as if she was extending her senses into it. And, after a moment, her mother's words back in the cave echoed in her head, bringing to mind that there was something to the water. That memory immediately sent a wave of sickening fear over her, but she held on, trying to push past her terrified instincts and feel what was actually there. She didn't know why she was doing so for a moment before she realized she was also focusing on her wings and the veins of cold she'd been unconsciously trailing along them as she thought about what they could do. As she did, a couple of other recent memories surfaced - one of the wet wood she’d frozen on the bridge, the other of how they’d broken up the boulder in the cave. Both times, the water had taken her energy… weirdly well.

Only half thinking consciously about what she was doing, she reached a wing out, waiting a split second for the rain to build up on the feather and start sliding off. Once a good flow had started, she twitched her wing muscles, not trying to channel the cold into her feathers and from there into the wind as she normally did, but simply letting a tiny spark of freezing energy drip out of her wing.

The effect was immediate, the water solidifying in an instant into a solid mass of ice that tumbled off her wing and shattered onto the ground. But what struck Icy so much about what she'd just done wasn't the result, as it was only a little bit of water, so freezing it wouldn't have been hard. What she noticed was just how effortless it was and how the cold flowed along the water, as if the liquid itself was helping it along. Now that she was paying attention, Icy could feel just how easily her cold energy flowed through the rainwater and, as she opened her eyes, she realized what she needed to do.

“I can't make enough ice from my gusts,” she said, repeating her mother's words a little absently. “But I don't think I have to. I think... I think I can use the water itself. The water in the river and...” she gulped, doing her best to push down the fresh wave of fear, “maybe even the water in the wave.”

Sunny spluttered for a moment, her jaw dropping in appalled disbelief. “Are you six kinds of crazy?! I don't even think you should go down to the river before the wave gets there, you're talking about putting yourself right in the way of it?! No! A million times no! Even if you... use the water... even if your connection...” Her eyes widened, most likely remembering her previous talk with Icy and regretting it if she was. “Even if you can, do you really think you can make something big enough to stop that much water?!”

Icy swallowed hard as she considered this. Her idea had been a matter of her instincts after all and she wasn't stupid enough to assume her instincts had to be right. Still, she shook her head after a moment. “I don't know, maybe I can't... but I have to try!”

Sunny let out a shaky sigh, looking at Icy with intense sympathy. “No. You don't. You don't have to do this to yourself. I know how much this is going to scare you and I'm truly sorry I have to keep reminding you and... no one is saying you have to put yourself through that. There might still be another...” She paused for a moment before shaking her head. “And even if this is the only way, that doesn't mean it's a good one and it doesn't mean it'll work. You don't have to do this.”

Icy nodded, grimacing as her mother's words rang true. For a moment, she wanted to blame Sunny for using her phobia against her like that, but she quickly shook it off – the fear would happen one way or another and it made sense to bring it up as a factor. And she did give serious consideration to her sentiment, thinking about what would happen if she didn't go and if they didn't stop the flood.

She thought about their own house, the walls getting smashed by the force of the water. She thought of Pinkie and Sugarcube Corner being brought to ruin, every scrap of their food and their livelihood getting swallowed up by the water, dissolving into nothing. She thought about Fluttershy and all the animals that would be either carried away or made homeless in the rushing water. She thought about Skrik, their ever-reclusive, sewer-dwelling friend and all the rats he loved and cared for, getting forced out of their underground home, out into the open air – something Icy knew frightened him more than any water could ever frighten her. She thought of Spike, with his room full of comics he'd spent so long and so much collecting, building up so much of a collection and a treasury of stories that he loved so much... all reduced to wet scraps in the flood.

She thought of all the ponies in town – all the acquaintances, all the strangers and all her friends. And she came to a decision.

“I... I do have to and... Mom, I want to!” She said, meeting Sunny's gaze with as much determination as she could muster. “Because... I mean, I'm not gonna lie, that... I'm frightened. I'm terrified. But as much as...” she jerked her head towards the mountains where the rock holding back the water was still splitting apart, giving Icy a new view of how close it was to releasing and how much water she was dealing with, “as much as that scares me… if I don't do this, the whole town gets destroyed and that...”

She took a deep breath and straightened herself up, staring intently into Sunny's eyes. “That scares me more.”

There was a moment of tension as mother and daughter stared each other down, making Icy swear she could feel sparks as their wills pushed against each other, both feeling the impact of the other's determination.

After a moment, though, Sunny jerked her head back slightly, her gaze buckling for a moment before crumpling completely, making her look off to the side.

“Dammit!” she said bitterly. “Damn it all to Tartarus, why...?”

She shook her head with a humourless chuckle before looking back at Icy, more tears beginning to make themselves visible even through the rain. She looked at her daughter for a moment, her face a mixture of sorrow, fear and pride, even as her tail whipped lightly against her own flank, hinting at a heavy feeling of anger directed purely at herself.

She gave Icy a thin but genuine smile. “Why did I have to raise you to be so damn brave?”

Without another word, Sunny turned around and walked over towards her glider, keeping her head held high as if she didn't want to insult Icy's decision by showing further hesitation.

Icy, on the other hoof, didn't see any reason to hide her fear as she followed her mother, not backing down on her commitment but also not shy about how much it terrified her. After a moment, though, she was distracted when she saw white come into the corner of her eye and, turning around, saw that Lance had joined her, marching alongside her as if it was the most natural and obvious thing in the world to do. He didn't look at her as he walked, but didn't need to, his every step broadcasting his intention of coming with her.

Icy wasn't so certain about that. “Er, Lance, are you sure about this? You really don't have to come with us.”

Lance nodded twice in quick succession – yes, he was sure, and yes, he didn't have to join her – but didn't so much as slow down. He was going to anyway.

“Hey, Icy!”

Icy blinked and turned around, just in time to catch the little bag Archer had tossed to her, though it took a few moments of fumbling to get it steady and see inside it to the multicoloured leaves within. She nodded in understanding as she recognized the plant they’d received from the Manticore.

“Rainbowsellia? Good thinking!” Sunny said as Icy turned back and trotted toward her. “Analgesic without anaesthetic. Should help you if you overtax yourself without knocking you out. Just remember…”

“I know, one leaf, two at most,” Icy assured her as she lined herself up beside her mother.

After a moment, the three of them had arranged themselves along the underslung control bar of the glider, Icy and Lance having to squeeze slightly to fit on either side of Sunny. Lance nodded firmly, looking down at his hooves and visibly checking that he'd be able to let go and descend from his perch whenever he needed to. After a moment, he nodded and looked to the others, signalling with another nod that he was ready.

Icy, on the other hoof, was taking the time to strap herself onto the bar with one of the harnesses Sunny had brought along. It wasn't that she didn't trust herself to hold onto the glider as it went – while she was neither as strong nor as skilled as her mother or Lance, she'd ridden alongside her mother enough times when she was younger to be relatively secure. Besides, even if she did fall, she trusted her wings just enough to glide her to safety. Instead, she was using the harness simply so she'd have all four hooves free to prepare for when she went down there.

Once she was strapped in, she swung the tiny bag containing her ice skates down from her back and, just to be safe, tied one of the straps around the glider's scaffold as well. One of the first things she'd learned from Pinkie was that, strangely enough, ice skates didn't just help you move on ice, but also made it a lot easier to stand still thanks to having four different straight, focused areas on the ice that she could angle enough to give herself a relatively stable stance.

Once the bag was attached, she turned to her mother and nodded as well, signalling that she was... well, as ready as she was ever going to be.

The moment she did, Sunny surged to her hooves, raising the bar above the ground enough that both Icy and Lance were picked up completely. Neither of them were able to get their hooves back onto the ground before Sunny was running, sprinting fast enough that, despite the massive weight and resistance of the glider, the two smaller ponies were trailing their hooves in the air behind them even before they truly took off.

It didn't take long for them to do so, however, as Sunny leapt from the edge of the mountaintop and the glider surged forward, the force driving Sunny's rear hooves too to trail straight behind her, as if she'd started jumping and simply never stopped.

Icy quickly shook her head and pulled her focus away from her mother, however, because she had other things to be concerned over, because she didn't trust her mother to avoid displaying enough skill to strike her paralysed with awe and because she really didn't trust herself not to be struck.

Instead, she focused on the bag below her, plunging her hoof down into the tiny thing and fiddling around as she got a grip on one of the skates for her rear hooves. She smiled shakily, thankful for possibly the hundredth time today for À La Mode's skill at making apparel. While the eccentric mare hadn't figured out how to fully integrate the skates with her suit, she did know enough that the skates didn't need to have attached boots and laces, instead simply consisting of normal horseshoes with blades attached below them that would simply adhere to her via magic when placed on the correct hoof. This was a tremendous help, not only because she wasn't confident in her ability to pull up and firmly lace a set of boots while in midair, but also because it meant the skates themselves were small enough that she could keep with on her back without a bag big enough to interfere with her wings, even with the shrinking spell on the inside of it.

Either way, she took a moment to ensure she had a firm grip on the skate before pulling it out, preparing for it to expand in size the instant it left the bag so that she didn't either get startled or lose her hold on it and drop it down into the forest flying by below.

That said, once she'd fully got it out, it was difficult getting her rear hoof up to a point where she could reach it at all, let alone attach it as firmly as she needed to. The force of the wind resistance was pushing her hooves back with immense force and it took a long time for her to force one hoof forward to the point she could reach it with her forehoof. However, with a lot of effort and no small amount of pain, she just about managed to get to a position where she could clamp the skating horseshoe there before letting it jerk back to its trailing position with a mildly sickening jolt.

Shaking her head, Icy began to repeat the process with her other hindhoof. It wasn't any easier, but she did eventually manage it and, fortunately, strapping the shoes to her forehooves was far easier, taking only a few seconds. However, by the time she was done with the whole process, the glider was just beginning to fly over Everfree Ravine, drawing her attention down below them and sending a new wave of nausea through her.

The water below them was rushing through the ravine with a chaotic force she could feel from all the way up in the sky above the clifftops, surging through the bottom of the gorge as if trying to escape the constant barrage of rain. There was no river bank down there; the water went from wall to wall with only the occasional boulder sticking out into the river providing any kind of even vaguely horizontal surface, and not even one of them was both big and level enough to provide a comfortable place to stand.

And, while she hadn't taken note of its level the first time she'd crossed the gorge – in fact, she’d taken great pains to try not to notice anything like that – and she was positive it was her imagination, but she could have sworn the water was much higher than it had been before. Before she could think to stop them, her eyes flicked up and over to her left, seeing the thin but wide spray of water spilling out through the cracks in the rocks around Rongbuck pool. The flow had increased considerably since the last time she'd looked which, in addition to the rainfall, would explain the higher water level if it were true.

She shook her head, tearing her eyes away from the distant mountains before she could start imagining what would happen when the rocks inevitably burst. Instead, she focused on her task. As much as the sight and the feeling of all that water made her stomach feel like it was trying to push its way out of her body and her limbs so shaky that she would have been flung off the glider in a moment were she not strapped in and her eyes tear up and her mouth dry instantly even as a whine came to her throat...

She grunted as she focused. As much as she didn't like this, she had to do it. The whole town was counting on her and she tried to keep them in mind, hoping that she could convince herself this was okay as much as she'd convinced her mother.

It was a good thing she'd thought about this when she did, as Sunny chose that moment to dive sharply down into the ravine, sending the glider plummeting down towards the pounding river. The sight of all that raging water rushing up towards them sent a shock of panic through Icy, but her focus allowed her to at least suppress the scream that built up in her throat in an instant, keeping it down to a quiet whimper that was lost to the wind. It might have gotten worse after a while, but fortunately Sunny soon levelled the glider off around five metres above the water.

That said, this didn't diminish the urge to scream particularly, just stopped it from getting worse. The proximity to water was practically blanketing Icy's mind and senses, grabbing her attention forcefully and drawing it in, forcing her to stare with a horrified fascination.

It was only a flash of movement to her side that managed to distract her for a moment, making her look to the side for an instant to see Lance leap from the glider and fall gracefully down into the ravine, tilting his body to guide it alongside one of the cliff walls. This didn't stop Icy from getting scared, a bit of her scream leaking out in a call as she saw her friend and one of her only lifelines fall towards the water. Her body instinctively rammed itself downward to try and go after him, stopped by the harness around her and the bar below her, so she succeeded only in sending a minor vibration through the glider's scaffold.

Before she could think on this, however, she saw Lance flip himself around as he fell, causing Icy to crane her neck around to keep him in view as she and the glider went away from him.

After a moment, Lance's hoof darted down to his side before whipping out his rapier and twirling it in his hoof until held straight. From there, the blade flashed up until it was horizontal and pointing towards the rock wall next to him. A moment later, a split second before Lance would impact a protruding rock below him, he slammed the point of the sword into the cliffside, slowing to a stop in an instant until he was simply hanging off it like a gymnastic ring. Once he'd come to a complete stop, he lowered his hindhooves down to the boulder below him and planted them into the corner where it joined the wall, wedging himself firmly in until it seemed that nothing could move him from that spot if he didn't wish it.

That done, he glanced at her over his shoulder and beckoned her over, holding out his hoof to indicate he would catch her. Icy wasn't sure how much each helped, but the combination of his invitation, the unshakable confidence and stability in his stance and the fact that he was actually managing to stand up while hanging off the cliff's surface rather than simply dangling there like a dead fish gave Icy a boost of confidence that almost managed to overcome the nausea she was feeling.

Of course, this was quickly weakened when the glider jerked upwards, sending Lance out of her eyeline as she and Sunny rose above the top of the ravine, then the treeline, but it didn't go away entirely. This was fortunate since her rising altitude didn't help her overall anxiety, as the glider was turning even before it got past the canopy, going into a wide, mostly vertical arc that telegraphed that it would be falling again long before it did. After a few seconds, they were going back down into the ravine, having turned around so they were heading towards Lance once more.

Before Icy could register this, she felt the harness around her getting undone and, looking down, saw a white magical aura working on the straps. She looked up at her mother, who was giving her an intense look, both questioning and hopeful. “Are you ready, Sweetie?”

For a brief, endless second, Icy considered what would happen if she said 'no'; if she abandoned her whole plan then and there. She could just stay strapped into the glider – she was positive her mother would never force her out of her harness and would take her to safety the moment she asked her to. They could pick up Lance again, if they even needed to, as opposed to him simply climbing the cliff himself, and within minutes be back up the mountain, out of the way of the incoming flood that would sweep down the gorge and into town...

“Let's go!” Icy snapped, abruptly ripping off the harness and spreading her wings, the force and speed of her movements doing a good job of outpacing her ability to think about what she was doing. As soon as her wings fully spread, she seemed to rocket backwards from the glider, the quivering running through her feathers not reducing their ability to slow her down and let the glider fly on without her. Still, the force of her deceleration sent a sharp ache through her sensitive wing muscles and she closed her eyes as she focused on keeping them rigid through the pain.

After another few seconds that felt like minutes, her speed reduced to the point where she was only having to worry about her weight pulling her down. This still wasn't exactly comfortable due to the aches remaining fresh, but she was at least able to remain aloft without having to push herself forward. She breathed out a small sigh of relief, revelling in the feeling of flying blind and not being able to worry about anything happening around her.

Of course, thinking that immediately brought her attention to the roiling mass of water below her, both destroying her peaceful feeling and reminding her that she needed to focus on what she was doing.

As she opened her eyes, she was also reminded why it usually helped to be able to see where you were flying, as she saw Lance just below her – too far and too sharply below her for her to be able to get his help landing. After a moment, her head was past him and she began trying to think of how to get back to him – she wouldn't be able to keep aloft long enough to circle around, so how was she supposed to...

Fortunately, her head was already turning to look below and behind her as she felt a hoof grab her rear leg, meaning she was able to see him move as it did and realize that he was simply catching her. As a result, she was able to keep her surprise to a minimum and her scream easily contained when the hoof yanked slightly and her flight abruptly halted.

A moment later, when her forward motion was gone and she began falling towards the water below her, however, she gave a scream worthy of two such surprises, slamming her eyes shut as her body locked up, too scared even to start flailing in panic.

In retrospect, that was a very good thing, as it meant Lance was able to keep a hold of her as she swung down, swaying back and forth a couple of times before eventually coming to a rest, almost completely dry. Droplets of water sprayed across her face, but the rest of her body remained untouched.

Shakily, Icy opened one eye, as if she wasn't sure if her dry skin and ability to breathe were reliable indicators that she hadn't gone into the water. For a moment, she still wasn't sure as she saw the surging water in front of her. After a moment, though, she was able to orient herself and realize that it was the surface of the water she was looking at, meaning she was above it, even if only by a few inches.

She looked up, past her vertical body and her legs and wings – both of which were still pointing up, having apparently realized the need to keep out of the water before her brain did – to Lance, who was still wedged comfortably against the cliffside, his hoof firmly clamped around her rear ankle and giving no indication that he was in any danger of dropping her.

Icy gave a shaky, unconvincing smile. “Sorry... I think?” In all honesty, she wasn't sure whether she should apologize to him for almost missing him, for forcing him to hold her up like this, for doubting his ability to, or if he should apologize to her for the brief moment of terror and the undignified position – even as scared as she was, she felt a bit of humiliation at hanging off of him like an old coat in a cloakroom.

Still, to his credit, he did give her a grimace of apology before nodding down at the water, as if Icy needed reminding of its presence.

It did remind her that she had a job to do, though, so after returning the nod, she took a deep breath and relaxed her head again Her neck swung down until she was facing the water, her stomach surging as she did.

She stared at the water, her eyes quivering as she let out a growling grunt, as if trying to will both the water and the danger into submission. The water remained unmoved, but Icy did feel a little better as she gradually lowered one wing, carefully closing the distance between it and the river surface while putting off as much as she could the time when they touched.

However, this was both helped and hindered by the sheer force with which the water was barrelling past her, as it caused huge amounts of spray that splashed against her wing, both sending freshly sick streaks of sensation through her stomach and making the wing feel almost submerged long before it touched the water. Soon, though, it did make contact and Icy had to send a surge of tension into it to keep it from being swept aside.

Icy took a few seconds to breathe, trying to get used to the feel of her wingtip being submerged in the rushing water and almost getting close to managing it. That done, she considered how she was going to do what she needed to. She was still sure she could use her connection with the water to help her in freezing it, even as the thought sickened her, but she was only just realizing that she had no idea how. Experimentally, she called up a small amount of her energy, sending it out along her wings until it reached her primary feathers, where she let it flow out and into the water.

The effect was immediate and she not only saw the block of ice materialize in an instant but also felt the energy surge out of her wings and into the surrounding water. And not only did she feel the energy as it went along her feathers, but she seemed to keep enough of a connection to it that she could feel how it was diffusing into the water, surging along every direction she'd released it in until the extremely mild force she'd put behind it ran out and it came to a stop, the forming ice ending where it did.

Of course, a moment later, the ice block was carried away by the river's current, streaking down along it before being driven into the side of the ravine and smashed, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that Icy knew she could do this and, what's more, knew how she could.

Carefully, she lowered the same wing back down to the water, soon joined by the other wing before she once again focused on bringing up some energy. This time, however, she didn't simply let it flow out naturally along her feathers and diffuse into the water. Instead, she kept it as tightly bound as she could and tried to focus it into a straight line, from the base of her wings to the tips of her outermost feathers. It was a little difficult, the wild energy pushing against the constraints within her wings she was keeping it in, but after a moment, she felt it build up in her wingtips and let it off.

To her delight, the bolt of freezing energy fired down through the water like a laser, streaking right down to the riverbed in an instant and remaining just as focused, causing a thin column of ice to spring into existence.

However, Icy wasn't satisfied with that and kept pouring the energy out, feeling it flowing along and down the ice pillar until it diffused into the water around it and thickened the column. With a slight grunt of exertion – though more because she wasn't used to this kind of sustained flow of energy than because she was incapable of it – she kept it going. After about five seconds, the pillar had reached about four feet in diameter, both strengthening it considerably and providing enough of a platform for Icy to stand on.

She looked up and gave Lance a nod before turning back down and reaching out with her forehooves. After a moment, the blades below her hooves made contact with the frozen ground beneath her, forcing her to take a moment to balance herself on the ice skates. Pinkie's lessons hadn't quite reached the point where she was comfortable with bipedal skating, let alone on her front hooves, but she was competent enough that she could at least get a rough equilibrium with them.

A moment later, she felt the grip around her hindleg release, making her spread her wings out on instinct to slow her fall. The force of the wind drove her forward a little, but a quick turning of her forehooves' blade inward slowed it enough that, by the time she had all four hooves on what was passing for the ground, she hadn't careened straight off the side of the pillar.

Still, she came uncomfortably close, so the moment she landed, she shot her wings forward and down, crouching down to let them plunge into the water. The top of the pillar was only an inch or two above the surface of the river, so a lot of splashes and waves were flowing over it, but none so powerful as to upset her balance.

Once her wingtips were submerged, she sent a bolt of energy forward, not as tightly focused as the one she'd used to make her pillar, but still heavily directional. The energy surged through the water, so fast the current didn't even have an opportunity to push any of it back, resulting in a nearly perfectly straight path of ice between her and the opposite side of the river, joining up with the far cliffside to create a platform. Still, Icy kept the energy flowing a moment longer, catching not only more of the water flowing under the path to thicken it but also any that was flooding over it, raising the surface above the top of the water. After a few seconds, it too was a few inches higher than the river's surface.

Of course, the force of the river's flow made itself known even before she'd finished making the path, a slight groaning making itself heard from all along the ice, telling her in no uncertain terms that this path wouldn't last long without reinforcement.

Icy gulped before turning around, keeping slightly crouched and putting her wings into the water on the other side of the pillar. Fortunately, this edge was much closer to the rock wall, so she only had to send a short burst of energy into the water to join the overall path to it. That done, she turned back towards the centre of the river.

She gave a tiny whimper as she slowly, carefully made her way forward along the ice path, putting every ounce of energy she had into keeping her trembling to a minimum. Both Pinkie's instructions and her encouragements rang in her ears as she pushed herself along, but even her remembered boisterousness couldn't shout down the feeling of the water rushing a few inches below her, as well as lapping up along the ground below her hooves, never enough to even move her a millimetre, let alone sweep her away, but always enough to keep her aware that it theoretically could.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, clamping down her thoughts to stop them flying off on their own about what could happen if she did get swept off, down the river, pulled below until...

No!

She shook her head as she opened her eyes, not giving any thought to the tears that were flung out of them as she did. She was safe, she was on solid ground and she could feel the ice beneath her. Taking a shaking breath in, she tried to focus on that, on the feeling of the solidified water she was safe on rather than the rushing liquid around it... that even now she could feel begin to wear the ice down, a micrometre at a time.

Still, she pushed herself forward, spurred on by the ever-present knowledge that it wouldn't even last long enough to be worn down if she didn't reinforce it. With a painfully hard swallow, she made her way to the centre of the long platform before dipping down, spreading her wings so that one was dipping into the water below on either side of the path.

A yelp escaped her as she plunged her wings deeper than before, enough to feel the full force of the water barrelling forward. Well, she knew it wasn't the full force, both because she could feel the momentum of the whole river below her and because she knew that the full force would be enough to either yank her off the ice with barely any effect or, failing that, probably rip her wings out of their sockets and carry them away. She had no proof of that, nor any knowledge of how firmly her wings were attached, but she was fairly sure of it. And if she didn't have her wings, then...

She smacked herself on the forehead with a hoof. Focus, dammit!

With a snort of anguish and frustration, she called up her energy and sent it flowing down her wings once more. She was again trying to keep the stream focused, a task made even more difficult by the fact her wings were both bent, meaning she had to curve the streaks of energy around while keeping their momentum. After a moment's focus, though, she brought the energy to her wingtips. However, she didn't send it straight down this time, instead focusing the beams towards each other so they met in the middle, right under the centre of the ice below her, and formed another column right underneath the ice.

After a few seconds, she felt the expanding column reach her wingtips and attach to the platform, signalling that it was now supporting the whole width of the path and allowing her to relax slightly. Well, relax her wings physically; she doubted there was a platform solid or wide enough to uncurl the massive knot of petrified tension engulfing her stomach, not without completely removing the river from the equation. Which, come to think of it, was exactly what she wished she could do, so she guessed...

With a grunt, she smacked her head against the ice below her to bring herself back into the moment. This, oddly enough, did help her state of mind a little, as the lack of any real cracking noises from the impact gave her a sense that, for the moment, at least, the ice below her was stable and in little danger of breaking. However, the quieter-but-still-noticeable groaning from in front of her made it clear that that wasn't the case further along, so, with a whimpering groan, she raised herself up again and pushed onward.

She silently thanked her lucky stars – whichever they were, she was never certain – that the point she'd been dropped off at had been at a narrow point in the ravine, so the river wasn't nearly as wide as it was further up and down. This not only meant it would be easier to make and reinforce her dam – still not necessarily possible, her stomach reminded her with a sickening jab, but easier if she could – but also meant she didn't have nearly as long to skate to get across her current platform. This, in turn, meant she didn't have to do the rote-but-still-finicky process of gradually speeding up and changing the angle she was pushing against the ice with her skates and the amount of time she was gliding. Instead, she just had to turn two hooves' blades horizontally to push herself forward while letting the other hooves stay relatively stable and simply drift forward.

Of course, it also made it far easier to stop, turning her skates inward to stand pigeon-toed – an odd phrase, she thought, as pigeons lacked the hard toe that a pony had around the front and sides of their hooves. Wouldn't 'pigeon-taloned' make more sense, though maybe pigeons didn't have...

One of her skates slipped slightly, turning a little more sharply than she'd intended and twisting her foreleg painfully. She stumbled for a moment before slipping completely onto her belly, her other forehoof and hindhooves pushing down to try and keep her sliding to a minimum. She grunted as she came to a stop before rolling her shoulder experimentally. It certainly ached a little, but luckily the force behind her movements hadn't been enough to do any lasting damage.

As she sighed and lowered her wings into the water once more, she resolved to try and keep her tendency to get lost in her thoughts suppressed. Though, as she called up her energy and sent it flowing down into the water once more, she wondered why she would have to in the first place – she'd be the first to admit, plus the second, third and fourth if she got distracted between admissions, that she was hardly the most focused and situationally aware filly in the world, but she'd have thought even she would have the base-level common sense to remain focused in a situation that was life and death for both her and for countless others. Plus, if that didn't keep her mind on task, she'd have expected the fear of her position to do so.

However, once the ice column below her expanded to the sides of the bridge she was standing on and she relaxed, she felt her wing get rammed hard into the newly-formed pillar by the force of the current, producing another jolt of pain, another wave of nauseating fright and an answer – her mind wasn't thinking of tangents because it wasn't bothered by the situation. It was trying to distract her from the fact that she was literally millimetres-deep and figuratively hip-deep in what had to be her ultimate fear.

With a growl, she smacked a hoof against the ground, turned so the blade of the skate didn't make contact. For some reason, knowing why she was having trouble felt like it helped, as she rocketed to her hooves with an intense scowl, determined then and there to push past her own fear and her own nature.

She skated forward with long, forceful strides, as if trying to shove away her thoughts, before sliding to a halt once more and lowering herself carefully, placing her wings into the water once more to create a fourth column.

By the time that was done, the groaning sound had completely vanished, at least to Icy's ears. It was still obvious the bridge wouldn't exactly last for weeks, but at least it didn't seem in any danger of collapsing any second. Still, Icy knew that it had to hold up to a lot more force than it was currently under once the full flood came and that any weak area would almost guarantee a collapse, so she rose and gave one final burst of speed, getting almost to the other side of the gorge before stopping and creating a fifth and final column.

That done, she took a deep breath, steeling herself before looking down, at the ice platform and down into the river around it, into the dark, roiling depths. With a strangled whimper, she kept her eyes firmly trained on the water, both flowing against, under and, most importantly, over the ice. She'd intended to use the very rush of the incoming water to make the main body of the dam and increase its height to as high as it was needed. However, it was clear that it would need a little bit of height first to build up against. As it was, there were only splashes coming up and over the bridge, too thin even to use as a starting point for raising the ice.

With a shake of her head, Icy looked up once more, trying to think of how she could use the water below her to make ice next to her before quickly dismissing the idea. It seemed like if she wanted ice there, she was going to have to make it herself.

She turned to the side, sliding up to the rock wall ahead of her before coming to a stop right next to it. She had plenty of experience with sending her freezing bolts on gusts of wind, but that required a fair bit of effort, though mostly from her wings. And she now knew she could transmit the energy through water a bit more easily, though still taking a little bit of a push in addition to the concentration and constraint needed to properly guide the ice formation. However, as she thought, she reached forward with a wing, placing it gently against the ice as she called up a big influx of energy, wondering if having no transmission medium at all would mean...

The ice sprang up before she could even finish the thought, barely giving her enough time for her reflexes, heightened even as they were by her quivering tension, to kick in and pull her wing away before it got encased in ice and attached to the now-frozen cliffside.

Icy blinked in astonishment as she reached forward with her muzzle, poking the inches-wide block of ice in front of her gently and finding it relatively solid. It wasn't quite as dense as the ice beneath her hooves, but it was certainly substantial enough to at least hold up for a little while against the inevitable torrent. The oncoming flood would likely rise over it before it smashed it, as it was only around a metre tall, but that was something Icy could deal with.

A shaky smile came to her lips before she looked back across the river, her mouth falling again as she recognized that she still had a lot of width to cover if she wanted to complete the lowest part of the dam. Still, she didn't allow her lips to fall into a pout or a grimace, instead fixing them into a firm line as she placed her wingtips against the ice and focused, concentrating on pulling her energy up but not on channelling it, simply letting it flow up along her wings and pour out naturally.

The ice before her surged forward, forcing her to push herself backwards on her skates to avoid getting caught up in it. This time she had to shove herself back hard, moving a good metre or so away from the ice as it rapidly sprang up around where she had been a moment ago. For a moment, the idea of simply freezing herself solid to keep safe from the water around her flicked across her mind, before she dismissed it with a sneering shake of the head. It wouldn't work and it would mean abandoning her duty and her friends and she desperately tried to convince herself that the latter was more of a factor in her rejection of surrender than the former.

Still, she didn't dwell on it long, instead reaching forward with her wings once more. This time, however, she only brought up her energy in her right wing, while her left simply remained pressed against the ice wall in front of her until the moment the energy was released from her other wing. The instant it did, her left wing pushed hard against the ice, sending Icy scooting back away from the edge. As she moved, her right wing continued to pour out energy, drawing the torrent of cold backwards as the ice formed along its trail, making the wall expand even faster than before.

Her hooves kept fairly rigid, making sure that the blades on her skates all remained straight, pointing right at the expanding wall in front of her to keep her glide smooth and stable for as long as possible. After a few moments, she slid to a stop, the wall now considerably wider.

Icy took a moment to look at her work before giving a nod of satisfaction at the technique. Her smile returned for a moment before dipping back down as she placed her wings against the ice once more, this time calling her energy to her left wing.

Once more, she pushed away, this time with her right wing and, while the force she applied was only slightly less, she did so a lot slower and gentler, giving her a smoother movement backwards. As she did, she released the energy built up in her left wing a little more gradually too, feeling even less strain and giving her a lot more of a sense of how much she had left. As soon as it was almost done, as she was beginning to skate to a stop, she called up more energy to her right wing before waiting a moment. After a split second, her motion and the ice formation in front of her ceased, her left wingtip resting gently on the ice. As soon as it did, she pushed forward with her left wing while bringing up her right once more to start releasing its energy.

Once that movement ran out, she switched back to her left wing again, repeating the process until, by the time she'd pushed herself four or five times, she'd gotten into a perfect-feeling rhythm, dragging a frozen blockade across the length of the river. Strangely enough, she found the whole process relaxing in how simple and satisfying it was. No guesswork, no uncertainty, just push, release, glide, stop, push, release, glide, stop, push...

For some reason, her occasional bouts of drawing came to her mind, the feeling being oddly similar despite the two actions seeming to have almost nothing in common. Still, there was the same sense of contentment she often felt when she'd planned out the whole drawing in her head, mapped out all the stages she'd need to do in order and only had to carry out her plans, with the freedom to do as she wished at each stage and no need to worry about what would happen in the next one.

Of course, while she technically had the freedom to do as she wished with this construction, she knew it would be a bad idea. Still, the simplicity and certainty of what she was doing proved very fulfilling and the easy rhythm of it gave her a calm that felt almost surreal given how she'd been feeling a few moments ago. Idly, she wondered if this was the sort of thing some ponies felt when they meditated. She had no idea, having never felt the desire to do so herself, but she thought the fact that she could have such thoughts at that point had to be a good sign.

Similarly, when all thoughts were slammed out of her head by a colossal boom sounding from nearby, she instinctively assumed that to be a terrible sign, even if any such coherent thought was beyond her at that moment. Her hooves and skates started slipping every which way, making her move like she was doing a bizarre sliding tap dance for a second before falling onto her belly. Around her, the cliffs and the ice seemed to rumble. Nothing shattered and she took a grateful sigh of relief at that, but a lot of pebbles and small rocks fell down the sides of the ravine, many of them bouncing off the top of the slanted front of the dam. Fortunately, none of them were big or fast enough to make any substantial breaks in it, just making a few small cracks and chips, but it still gave Icy an uneasy feeling.

Still, a moment later, that feeling was supplanted by an even worse one – that the rocks holding the water back had started to give way earlier than expected, sending the flood towards her before she was ready so it would overwhelm her barrier and catch her up and...

Another noise slid its way into her ears, disproving her theory and pulling her out of her rapidly spiralling panic, such that, even when it was followed by another boom, it encouraged Icy rather than demoralizing her.

It was the sound of a rocket streaming down from high up and impacting the ground and, now that she was in a mental state to place it, she realized it was coming from very near her; from the canyon a short distance – by river standards, at least – before her dam.

Shaking her head, Icy turned to look behind her, only to find she was just a few feet from the cliffside, her barricade having almost completely spanned the river. She hadn't been moving especially fast, yet hadn't noticed the process taking all that much time at all. She blinked in astonishment at either the efficiency of her method and powers or simply her ability to lose track of time.

Either way, she shrugged a moment later and turned back to the ice wall, continuing to expand it until, within half a minute at most, it had reached the cliffside, meaning she just had to send a small bolt of energy into the tiny remaining air gap to make what she was pretty sure would be a watertight seal.

Dipping her wings into the water behind her, she sent a small wave of energy out to create a larger platform for herself behind the barrier, the sudden feeling of being even a little in the water causing a lot of her muscles to lock up, smashing her sense of serenity. That moment of immersion made the tiny platform she made feel like more of a strain than the metres-long barrier she'd just erected. Still, after a moment she yanked her wings out of the water, stepping back on her skates to take a look at her work. She was already mentally preparing to smile at what she saw.

Once she was calm enough to truly analyse what she was looking at, though, that smile died before it could even begin. On a technical level, it was an impressive piece of craftwork and, were the imminent flood less mind-shakingly massive, it would be perfectly sufficient. And yet, as looked at and through the ice and felt the water bumping up against the bottom of it, already beginning to rise slightly against the dam and press forward against it, she came to one inescapable conclusion.

“It's a bit too thin!” she said, her hoof pressing on her badge as she did even though she neither expected nor especially desired any response. She just wanted to say it and be heard.

She lifted her wings, feeling a tiny, but oddly deep and disturbing twinge run through them as she did. Her muscles and feathers all felt fine and yet, she felt a noticeable weakness beginning to seep through them. Presumably, this was the sign that she was beginning to drain her stores of energy, similar to her mother's earlier magical exhaustion. Still, she shook her head and focused – there would be time to rest and recover when everyone, including her, was safe.

“I'm going to try to make it thicker!” she called over her badge once more, taking a moment to pull up a bit of energy, though it was a bit more noticeable of an effort. “I don't know how much I can – I'm starting to feel a bit tired, the energy's not coming as easy and making ice in the air's way harder than doing it in the water – but I've got to try, I guess.”

Fzt fzt.

Icy blinked in surprise at the interjection and looked up at the still-hanging form of Lance, unsure why he'd tapped his badge twice for 'no'.

Lance waited a moment, hanging still until he caught Icy's eye and nodded, now sure she was fully looking at him. Shifting his grip on his sword to hold on one-hoofed, he pointed the other at the ice wall below him. After a moment of lingering there, he swept his hoof down in a diagonal line into the water behind the dam, before giving three more diagonal strokes further down and back, through the water. He then repeated the motion a couple more times, pointing at areas of the dam further away, but Icy had already got his meaning.

She looked down at the river flowing away behind her, taking a moment to allow her skin to finish the nauseating quiver that ran through her neck and head before she tried to figure out the best way of carrying out Lance's suggestion. After a moment, she let out a whimpering hum and dipped her wingtips in the water once again. There was a brief moment where the force of the water took her by surprise, but much of the force of the river's surface seemed to have been broken by the dam behind her, meaning it didn't push at her wings with nearly as much force and only barely elicited a yelp from her.

After a moment of letting her wing and her stomach settle, she sent a short bolt of cold out along the surface. The forming ice didn't get much distance, fading out after around a couple of metres but creating a thick, flat-topped path for her to shakily skate her way along. Once she'd gotten about a metre along it, she turned back to the dam and looked to the top of it, finding to her satisfaction that the length of the path was roughly equal to the dam's height, though she’d need to shorten the path a little to create a proper forty-five-degree angle between the two tips.

That established, she turned back around again and gave a kick to the ice in front of her. Or, at least, she tried to – her tenuous stability on her skates and her absolute terror at the possibility of kicking too hard and breaking the ice beneath her resulted in her hoof giving a truly pathetic tap that the thick ice barely seemed to notice.

With a pained, embarrassed grimace, she opened her mouth to ask for help, only to be cut off by a rapier flying down from the side, landing point-first in the ice in front of her and sending a thick crack through the ice path. She stepped back instinctively, just in time for white to fill her vision as a body fell onto the platform in front of her, not even giving time for her eyes to resolve it into the shape of Lance before he grabbed the sword and leapt back, twisting the embedded blade as he went to wrench the end of the track away before he rose high enough to need to pull the blade out, flipping over Icy's head as he went.

Icy blinked for a moment as she watched the part of the ice she had been trying to separate flow down the river like a torpedo. “Er, thanks?” She said, barely turning her head to indicate who she was talking to while her eyes remained sharply focused on the now-jagged end of the shortened path.

Stepping forward, she bent down and braced herself before plunging her wings into the river, a fair bit deeper than before. Fortunately, her mental preparation seemed to work, as the greater force this exerted on her wings didn't cause any more anxiety than before. It also didn't cause less, but Icy was still immensely thankful for small mercies.

Still, she didn't allow her mind to think too much about it, instead focusing on building up her energy and taking the time to figure out her aim, both in the position of her wings and in how to fire off the energy. After a few moments, she felt as confident as she was likely to and fired off another bolt, creating another vertical pillar in the river.

This time, however, she didn't simply leave it at that, instead raising her wings slightly a moment later so they didn't get caught up in the column, shifting them around slightly and firing another bot, this one aimed more diagonally. She had to put more force behind this one – while she hadn't learned the details of Python Gears' Theorem, she knew that diagonal was generally longer than straight down. Still, the ice spear shot out of her wings, merging with the top of the vertical pillar and firing down into the riverbed a short distance away.

Still, though, she didn't stop, raising her wings once more and sending off one more, even more forceful bolt at a shallower angle, creating a triplet of pillars, all joined at the top before reaching out towards the bottom of the river at various angles. A shaky smile almost managed to totally encompass her lips before she turned around and was reminded of the one thing she had left to do.

She doubted she could bridge the gap between the pillars and the top of the dam by releasing her cold through touch as she had when extending the barrier – even if she could reach that high easily while still keeping her energy flowing, she certainly couldn’t do so while remaining on all fours.

Instead, she gulped and crouched down, spreading her hooves out to the side so she could lie with her stomach on the ice. She felt herself begin to dry heave a little as she felt the tiny waves lapping up over the platform and against her belly, her skintight suit only barely softening the sickening caress of the water.

Still, after a couple of deep breaths, she placed her wings on the ice, just in front of the point where the pillars all joined together, and pushed more energy out of her wings, hoping desperately that the ice was as good at channelling her energy and maintaining her aim as the water was.

To her immense relief and unpleasantly-massive surprise, it seemed it was even better, as a thick column of ice started growing, following the directions her muscles and mind were giving it to gradually extend up towards the ice wall behind her. It was neither quick nor easy, since she was once again having to make ice in the air rather than the water, but after nearly a minute, she looked behind her to find the thick, rough cylinder of ice joining up with the back of the wall.

Her previous smile returned, still shaky but this time managing to overtake her mouth completely as she looked up and down its length, from the top of the dam down to the river's edge and then down, at varying degrees, towards the solid bed below. She was no engineer, by any means, but she thought she'd made quite an effective brace for the wall that would, hopefully, provide a lot more strength against the smashing wave that would be coming.

Still, she didn't allow herself to rest just yet, as a single brace near the edge of the dam wouldn't exactly be a foolproof failsafe – it may keep that area of the dam stable, but the rest was still fair game. So, ignoring the pain in her wings, she swooped a wing down, swiping it through the water as if physically throwing the bolt of cold she sent through it to the opposite bank. The path it created wasn't as strong as it could have been, but Icy knew she didn't have the time to do more before she raced off along the river's width.

She stopped once she reached roughly the middle of the river. Ideally, she wanted at least five buttresses, but she figured it was better to get the important ones in the centre and on either end done first. She skidded to a stop before plunging her wings in once more, not giving herself time to feel the panic before firing off her pillars and pulling her wings out again. She pressed her wings hard against the now-more-stable path and focused once more, making another column reaching up towards the dam.

That done, she paused for a moment before firing a quick bolt horizontally towards the dam, joining it to the three pillars in another way. She didn't know if or how it would help, but it felt like it would. A moment later, she dashed off towards the riverbank, this time not even waiting until she'd fully stopped before plunging her wings in and firing. However, just as she was pulling them out again, she heard a sound that made her body freeze, her stomach drop and her throat retch.

It was distant, quiet in that way that made you know for sure that, if you were closer to it, it would be deafening. As it was, she could hear it over the rushing roar of the river around her, but not by much. Still, it was both clear and sharp enough that she had no trouble identifying it, much as she wished she did.

It was a deep, level, splashing boom – not the sound of an explosion, but of something exploding or, rather, bursting. The rumbling before and during it and the series of distant thudding impacts told her it was a large mass of rock that had burst and the wide, high-pitched slosh of flying, spattering liquid that contrasted it told her of the water that had finally punched through to flow fast and free, a fact underpinned by the gushing roar she could just about make out in the distance.

The lake had finally let loose and a wall of water was making its way towards her at a horrifying pace and with a sickening certainty.

Icy shook her head, only now registering how she'd fallen onto her stomach and pressed her head to the ground, her wings halfway to covering it as if she could somehow hide from the oncoming flood. With a swallow that felt like she was trying to force what little moisture she still had in her mouth through a brick wall, she reached her shuddering wing out in front of her. After an unpleasantly slow second, she had extended them fully forward and pushed them down, pressing them with far more force than she'd consciously intended. Still, she didn't feel the need to let up, finding the firmness of the pressure weirdly comforting, even if it only reduced her overall anxiety by a tiny amount.

She took a faltering breath in and tried to push out her energy to join these columns up to the dam, only to find that not only was she having trouble focusing enough to do so, but it was also much harder to reach into her stores, drained as they had already been. She winced – she hadn't even gotten to the main part where she was going to expend her energy and already she felt like she was starting to run dry.

Come on! she snapped at herself in her head. Get over it! You know the water's not a danger. You know this whole thing started because you've got some connection with it, so what are you worried about?

She sighed, another thought replying as if in a debate with the first and wanting to cut it off. Except even an actual Seapony wouldn't want to get in the way of something like this. It’s not like Earth Ponies are immune to rockslides. This isn't some phobia thing, this is really dangerous.

Any more than half the things I've gone up against the last few months? the first, more determined part of her asked.

Oh, yes! her more anxious thoughts responded without missing a beat. This is enough to wreck the town, how am I...

I have to! she finally thought to herself, the thought taking hold of her whole mind. Because it will wreck the town and hurt everyone there if I don't. Everyone's counting on me! My friends, my teammates... my mom... they believe in me. They trust me. I can feel the love and I'll be damned if I let that love be for nothing. I'll do this, I'll... her thoughts cut off when she heard a strange groaning from in front of her, opening the eyes she hadn't realized she'd closed to see something amazing.

The bridging shaft she'd been struggling to make a few moments before was now solid before her, thicker than even the previous ones had been and looking like it could take even more force before buckling. She looked down at her wings in astonishment, pulling them back with a painful twinge. It was clear that she hadn't increased the amount of energy she was capable of calling up, but had found it easier to access for some reason.

She didn't pause for long, though, as the slowly increasing roar of the distant torrent growing rapidly closer wormed its way into her ears once more, sending her skin crawling and her forehoof surging forward. She kicked off of the column in front of her as her other hooves pivoted, turning her into a sliding dash back towards the centre of the river. As she did, she tried to recall exactly what had happened a moment before – how she'd managed to pull so hard yet easily on her reserves of energy.

And yet, she honestly couldn't recall, having not been focusing on her wings at that moment, but rather on the feeling she had invoked in herself – the feelings of friendship, camaraderie and love that she had tried to huddle under like a blanket to hide from the fear.

Blinking in puzzlement, she skidded to a halt around halfway between her previous pillar and the one in the centre and ducked her wings down into the water again. Frowning a little, her face making clear how weird she found the idea and how unsure of it she was, she tried calling up those feelings again as she fired off three quick bolts into the water almost tentatively.

This time she was focusing a little on her wings, so she truly felt and registered the jolt of dull, sickly pain that shot through them as her energy surged out. But even that couldn't overwhelm the bizarre feeling of ease with which she created three more columns. She had managed it even quicker than she had any of the previous times and, while she didn't doubt that the rush of terror was contributing to that, it still seemed to show that thinking about that – or possibly of simply anything else – did help immensely.

I guess friendship really is magic. Even my magic.

Taking a breath in that felt more stable and loose than any she'd taken in the last ten minutes, she placed her wings against the surface of the platform and let loose once more, pushing past her wings' complaints with images of all the ponies in town – those she knew well, those she'd talked to a little or those that she'd just seen in the background once or twice. All of the ponies and others were people in their own right and deserved to be protected.

She latched onto that thought like a limpet as she finished the shaft and hopped over it, kicking off it with a hindhoof to surge forward towards the opposite bank. The sound of the rushing water was getting much louder now and she reckoned she'd have time for one more brace, if that.

Of course, she'd need to put it between the centre strut and the right-hoof one, meaning she'd have to get past the centre strut, but a quick flap against the ground soon had her leaping over it into a glide. Weirdly enough, that use of her wings didn't cause that much pain or discomfort, making it clear that it was her internal stores of energy that were being exhausted, not her wings themselves. This was a little encouraging, but since her wings weren't strong enough to fly her out of there if this didn't work, it didn't exactly dispel her worries.

It did, however, give her an extra store of confidence to bolster her efforts as she shot her columns down through the water before pouring her energy onto the ice in front of her, an involuntary, pained groan seeping out of her mouth as she pushed the energy up into the final buttress.

That done, she flapped once more, gliding over to the centre before landing on the platform she'd formed underneath the brace, taking up a position just behind her ice wall to stand and wait.

From the volume of the noise she was hearing from the other side of the wall, it didn't seem like she'd have to wait long, but as she trotted on her skates, trying to find a position where her suddenly-jellified legs could remain stable, it became clear any time at all would be too long.

Still, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she carefully angled the blades beneath her hooves, nearly sweating with the concentration needed to keep them steady and under control. Gradually, carefully, she put a hoof onto her back and pulled one of the leaves from the bag she’d got, placing it hesitantly in her mouth. After a moment’s chewing, she gulped it down, her throat feeling like she was trying to swallow a tennis ball, as she gradually got her hooves into a position where she was unlikely to either slip or collapse.

That done, she reluctantly opened her eyes and reached forward with her wings, leaning against the wall in front of her, the ache lessened but still there. There was a brief moment of juddering shock as her wings nearly collapsed under her, forcing her to rebalance herself on her hooves clumsily for a moment before she could force enough rigidity into them to keep herself upright. She knew that, theoretically, she didn't actually need to put her weight on the wall, but she knew her own mind and her own fears, even if there were split-second-brief flashes where she wished she didn't.

She couldn't afford to let up once the water reached her and even a momentary, instinctive backing away could destroy everything she, the team and the town had worked for.

Shaking her head, she focused her eyes and ears forward, having to force them there like there were physical barriers stopping them, and then focus on keeping them there as they tried to wander off, almost feeling magnetically repelled from looking at the river beyond. She couldn't see anything yet, as the ravine turned a corner a few hundred metres in front of her, but she still didn't want to stop looking there when the incoming wave did show itself.

This wasn't helped by the sounds she could hear almost surreally clearly, getting louder with every passing second. It was hard to even think about time passing through the noise – not that the volume alone was loud enough that she couldn't hear herself think, but that what the noise was of, the gushing, splashing, flowing, bursting gush, hammered against her ears and her mind, making every thought feel like it was having to push forward through a hail of boulders, every millisecond bringing a new impact trying to ram her mind backwards and off-balance.

She growled, putting every ounce of physical energy she could muster into keeping her body and mind focused forward, ready for when the water would come.

Except, even though she could hear it approaching and could have sworn it would arrive any second, it didn't. Every moment she remained focused, the noise increased and she was positive that the wave would come crashing around the corner now! And every moment, it failed to, instead just growing louder again after another moment that seemed to stretch out to infinity, every tiny sensation and twitching anxiety drawn out and brought into sharp focus in Icy's mind. Every moment the water failed to arrive, she found herself jarred by the lack of it, instead being driven further down into her tension like a spring being pressed down until each loop was deformed by the ones above and below it.

And yet somehow, when the huge, surging wall of water slammed its way around the river bend, smacking boulders off the cliffside like dust off of shelves, it still managed to catch her off guard, taking the coiled spring and wrenching it out into a stretched, tangled twist of metal. She felt her whole body lock up even as the command to turn and sprint away flew unbidden from her brain and bounced around inside her limbs like a ricocheting bullet. Tears formed in her eyes as she desperately tried to keep them open. She felt her lungs and stomach squeeze tightly as she began to gasp between dry heaves and her skin had a shiver sent through it that flew through her whole body before bouncing off the end of it and wandering all over her at random.

Still, through all this, the wave held her attention, stabbing itself like a fish hook into her mind and pulling with all its might, forcing her to stare helplessly into the vast, yawning, churning maelstrom within, yanking her sharply-yet-continually into it. A long, pitiful whine seeped out of her lips as she remained frozen, her eyes widening as if trying to keep all of the massive wave in her sight as it got closer and closer, unstoppable, unavoidable, unknowing, uncaring, unaware of how and when it would crash into her and break her bones and slam her down into the water below and press her and hold her and squeeze her until she burst and died and was carried along and down the river and through the town and...

Her squeal came to an end in a sharp, whining groan as her teeth clenched, both to bring her round and keep her stomach from discharging anything up. She focused on her wings as the wave neared her and her barrier, reaching in as deep and hard as she could for as much energy as she could muster. It was hard enough to focus enough to find any at all, and there wasn't much readily available, it seemed, so she growled, one eye squinting in concentration as she reached even deeper. She reached into her wings and past them, through the bones and the shoulder joints and into her core, her torso, her heart. There still wasn't nearly as much as she wished there was, though she didn't know if there was any amount that would make her feel confident, but either way, she grabbed as much of the energy as she could and pulled it with all her might out into her wings.

The surge of energy that shot along her feathers did a lot to shock her mind back into the moment, not in any way dispelling or reducing the terror that was suffusing every cell in her body, but at least allowing her to rise above the tide of panic, enough to tread water for a few moments, at least.

And a few moments were all she needed and all she had, as the wave closed in on her, growing close enough to blanket her entire view, wide enough to obscure the cliffs on both sides and high enough that she could barely see the dim sky above her. For a moment, all hope vanished as the sheer altitude of the wave made itself clear to her - high enough to dwarf her and her dam, so much so that it would barely have to step over it to get past it.

However, a flash of movement at the very bottom of her vision drew her attention mercifully downwards, only to see the water beyond the ice, forming a sharply-edged blob against the half-transparent barrier, slowly beginning to rise towards the top of the small barrier.

She let out a strangled sigh, taking another look at the incoming wave. And, in front of the huge, curling crest of water was a long, far more gradual slope and several smaller waves that drew up towards the main wall of water. It still reached a peak far higher than her barricade, but at least there would be some build-up to when it would overwhelm the obstruction. And that build-up was all Icy needed.

At least, she desperately hoped so.

However, she didn't have long to hope or worry as the front of the wave dashed up and, as Icy fought down one more surge of nausea bashing against the back of her throat, it slammed against the wall of ice in front of it.

There was a sickening, skin-crawling crack that rang out and echoed around the ravine, clearly audible even over the deafening storm of water. Fractures, both large and small, sprang up all over the dam, a few spurts of water even managing to slip their way through.

And yet, that was all that got through as, for that single, brief, wonderful, horrible moment, the barrier held.

It was clear that it wouldn't last long, but Icy didn't need it to. All she needed was that single second for her to register that she wasn't being swept up and away and under and that that massive, looming volume of water was being held just away from her.

As soon as that became clear, the gathered, tense energy in her wings fired, her feathers shifting to direct it out in a wide arc. She could feel the energy rushing through the ice, occasionally getting hung up for a millisecond in freezing the tiny streams flowing through the cracks.

However, that didn't last long before the majority of the energy had reached the other side of the ice barrier and, as soon as it came out into the water, froze it instantaneously, the weight of the water that had a moment before been trying to break through the ice now attached to it and aiding in its thickness and stability. Not to mention providing an extension to the path the energy was taking, allowing it to leapfrog through the newly frozen area and into the water behind it to continue expanding.

For a moment, it seemed like everything would work out fine, but that moment proved fleeting as two other factors made themselves known. Firstly, the energy she'd spent so long building up had almost completely run out and secondly, even though the water was freezing quickly forward, the full height of the main wave was closing in on the dam and a thick cascade was already beginning to flow up towards the top of the dam, ready to fall over the top and on top of her and down the river once more and...

Icy gave a long, whimpering groan as she shifted her wings, focusing her energy up towards the top of the dam, causing all the water above it to freeze and add to its height. After a moment, she remembered clearly that that had been her plan all along – freeze any water that got above the dam until it was high enough that she wouldn't have to. However, that only increased the dulled ache in her wings and sent a stomach-turning doubt seeping into her thoughts.

Icy scowled through her tears as she focused inwards, allowing her wings to settle in place as she put every effort she could, physical and mental, into drawing up as much energy as possible, trying to use the momentum she'd already built up in the flow to keep it coming up and pumping out. The stinging ache in her wings grew rapidly, soon overwhelming the painkillers’ effects. It blurred her vision and squeezed her stomach, but she tried to ignore the pain as she dove inside herself.

‘Ponies are powerful’. That was what she had told her mother. All ponies had incredible power within them, it was just a question of what they chose to do with it. What they could do with it. At that moment, she didn't have a choice, but she had the power and she knew, on the deepest possible level, that she had to put all of it into this one moment.

A crash came from above her as the peak of the wave flew over the top of the dam, a few drops gushing over and onto her back, almost disrupting her concentration. Still, she held firm, trying to channel the rush of terror into a force to drive her even deeper into her well of energy. It seemed to work too, somehow, as the pale-blue-white energy surged out of her, continuing to fly through the ice and burst out of the top, catching the now-feet-thick layer of water atop it.

It took about a couple of seconds to freeze completely, during which time a thick curtain of water continued to fall over her, sending such a wave of goosebumps through her it felt like her skin was trying to pull off of her body. She felt herself retch and didn't even bother trying to suppress it, focusing all her attention on her wings and her energy. She even felt the water that fell onto her wings freeze over, coating them in ice and attaching them to the wall in front of them, but she didn't let that stop her. She’d let them freeze solid if that meant the water would too.

Fortunately, her tension and focus were so intense that she didn't find herself relieved once the wave had finished hitting, as that moment barely lasted a millisecond before more water surged up and over the top of the dam. The water barrelling towards her wasn't just a single, thin wave, after all, and the continued flow made the water level fire up like a climbing pegasus and every second saw another thick layer of water clamber over the top only to be flash-frozen by the torrent of energy flowing up through the ice.

Sweat poured from Icy's body, flowing down underneath her suit to pour out of her cuffs and splash onto the ice below her, along with some getting close enough to her wings to freeze to her skin. Her wings were screaming in agony now, the muscles tightening into iron-hard lumps as they begged for the force and the energy to stop, but Icy shook her head, instead reaching further down, attempting to double down on the outpouring of energy. However, even that was a tremendous struggle – she could practically feel the insides of her stores being sucked up towards her wings as she pulled on the last vestiges of her energy and tried to search out any more, somehow-hidden pools of it.

To her side, a loud gurgling rose up above the deafening roar of water, loud enough to register even through the thick barrier of concentration and pain that was consuming almost all of Icy's senses. It took a moment to pin down what the noise was and establish that it wasn't just her hearing things – it was coming from her left, down into the canyon Archer had fired into, so it was probably the sound of the water flowing down into the underground caves, meaning she hopefully wouldn't need to keep at this for much longer.

Icy closed her eyes, squeezing out the tears and compressing the pain, as she threw herself forward, pushing out one last, long thrust of energy. Everyone was counting on her, everyone needed her, she couldn't stop. Even the all-consuming agony and effort didn't compare to the possibility of letting them down now, when they needed her the most. She let out a long scream of pain and defiance as she forced the energy out.

“GrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

The deep, guttural howl went on and on, not letting up as she put everything she had into thrusting out her energy, sending the ice climbing up and past the angle where she could easily see it, even as the water level's rise slowed over the seconds. She craned her neck upwards as much as she could without taking her wings away from the ice, just able to barely see the peak of the dam through the difficult angle and her swimming vision.

However, despite that, it seemed like the water had come to a halt, well below the height that the barrier was now reaching, and the gurgling from the canyon had risen to a loud steady volume. With what little conscious thought she was capable of, Icy desperately hoped it wasn't her imagination, but she wasn't about to take chances. So, even as her yell trailed off and she gradually let go of her efforts to push out her energy, she kept her wings firmly on the ice in front of her. Thankfully, the ice still coating them made that take little effort, but she still made sure not to let up.

The last remaining energy surged up towards the top of the dam as she cut it off, freezing some extra height into the air above it. It wasn't nearly as much as if it had gone into the water, but it did give her a bit more of a sense of security – either it would prevent most splashes from leaping over the top or it would give her a bit of breathing room if the level started to rise again and she needed to extend the wall once more.

She was just about to consider what an impossibility that appeared to be, with her floppy wings and the painful draining inside her, when her badge crackled to life. “Honey, you did it! The water's draining off!”

Icy blinked heavily at her mother's voice coming from her chest, trying for a moment to see what she was talking about from her angle far below the dammed-up water's surface before giving up and focusing on the more easily asked question. “Mom? How... badge...?”

“I'm using Archer's,” Sunny replied, apparently finding it easy to parse Icy's exhausted fraction of a sentence. “She's riding with me and we're just coming to pick you up. But yeah, the water's beginning to lower and that blockade should easily last until it's back to normal. You can relax now.”

Icy nodded, not even considering how pointless a gesture that would be to someone she was talking with over her badge. “Okay, yeah, gonna... I'll just...”

She began to step back, only for the combination of the ice around her wings yanking her forward, the small surface area with which her skates were touching the ice below her and her tripping over her own exhausted hooves to all result in her stumbling over. Fortunately, the ice coating her wings was thin enough to shatter the instant her weight was directed into tumbling away, but she still found herself falling over towards the edge of the ice, not even having the energy to feel the terror of plummeting towards the water, regardless of whether she had the momentum to actually fall in.

Fortunately, she was saved from having to find out by a firm pair of hooves diving below her and catching her sagging body. She blinked up towards the blurry white form, smiling loosely at what could only be Lance. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that he didn't seem to have ever climbed up to safety, despite being just as much in the wave's path as she had been. He'd had absolute faith in her.

Well, nice that one pony did.The thought managed to float to the top of her soupy mind as she vaguely registered a rope falling next to them. After a moment, Lance grabbed the dangling line and tightened his grip around Icy a moment before the two were pulled off the ice and into the air.

Icy smiled as she looked up at the distinctive silhouette of her mother's glider. She let out a happy, satisfied groan as her eyes fluttered close, taking comfort in just how much everypony had her back.
I guess even when I'm all out of everything, she thought before slipping out of consciousness, I can count on them to help me stay strong.

Chapter Eight-Point-Nine: We Daren't Go A-Hunting

Domino groaned as she limped through the forest, making sure to use only three of her legs while keeping the one she'd burned during her escape elevated and resting. Her progress wasn't exactly quick, but at least she was able to make it. It had taken a lot of effort and calculation but, after the rocket she'd been riding had burst in the air, she'd managed to guide her fall into the treeline and soften it enough that she only broke three ribs and the shoulder she already wasn't using.

Fortunately, she was more than used to pain and knew she just had to get somewhere safe where she could tend her wounds in peace. Or as much as the world was capable of giving her, at least. She had no idea where she'd find such a place, but she was sure something would come along.

However, she wasn't expecting to find a sign of such a thing in its literal form – a huge arrow pointing west made out of a small, thin tree. After her mind informed her of every step that had been involved in making the arrow, her eyes followed it to a small cave nearby. Tilting her head, Domino hobbled towards it.

As she approached, her confusion only intensified as she observed that the cave was one hundred percent artificial. Furthermore, she could feel the shape of its insides from the wind gently blowing in and out of it, but she still gradually made her way inside to check.

After a few minutes, she'd gotten inside and down the short corridor before the cave opened up into a small, plain cavern. The walls were all solid rock, without a single crack or area of dirt among them, and were bizarrely smooth. Looking to her side, she saw a large rock standing by the exit that would be easy to roll in front of it. It wouldn't form a perfect seal, of course, though she did see that it would eventually be possible to fix that and keep out all forms of life without cutting off the air supply. Regardless, for the moment, it would do as a quiet place of isolation.

After she'd finished blocking up the exit, having had to push with her body while her three good legs drove it forward, her attention turned to the only other feature this cave had – a small note sitting in the middle of the floor. Domino hobbled over to it, her mind telling her the details of the pony who had written it long before she was close enough to actually read it. The pony had been close to her size, given the small scratches in the rock around that showed it had been written on the ground without difficulty, the pen strokes suggested their muzzle was that of a colt, the weight behind the pen suggested a well-built earth pony or maybe a crystal pony, which would mean...

After about half a minute of such considerations, she finally got her racing mind to a place where she could read the note:

Domino,

Sorry about how those interfering babies screwed up your plan – could have been great.

Couldn't help but overhear how you just wanted to make everypony “go away” and, well, that's, Domino could tell that he had paused a long time before continuing to write, kind of what I'm after too, even if I'm hoping to be a bit more, another pause, direct about it. Either way, I'm thinking that it might be worth working together in the future.

A worried hum seeped out of Domino at the prospect of working with another pony, but she kept reading. Of course, that won't be for a long, long time. You've got to heal and I've got to come up with a plan, plus maybe find some other, another, even longer pause had been taken before the colt had written resources. And I've got to do it all without attracting the attention of those self-righteous little snoops Until then, I figured a little present couldn't hurt, so I'm giving you this cave. No way anything's going to bother you in here. You can rest and relax until I've got something for you. And I promise that I'll never barge in on you. I'll give you a warning when I want to come in and talk to you and you can either brace yourself or just say no – your choice. Either way, I'll see you later.

Domino frowned. Despite his assurances, the possibility of someone coming in, or even just asking to, gave the cavern an underlying discomfort of unpredictability. That, plus the fact there was still plenty of substance to the barren walls to give her mind plenty to do and calculate, meant it was quite as peaceful as she wished, but at least it was something.

Still, that, plus whatever she'd need to do to live there long term, could wait. For the moment, she just curled up on the stone floor and gradually fell into a light, fitful sleep.

Epilogue: Depths

Icy shuffled uncomfortably on the hospital bed, waiting for Nursery Rhyme to look up from the chart she was looking over and speak. She gave a glance up to her mother, who was sitting off to the side and giving her an encouraging smile.

Outside, the sounds filtered in of ponies dismantling the various flood defences that had been set up and fixing whatever minor damage the heavy rainfall had caused. Though she was still pretty groggy when her mother and the team had told Princess Twilight and the rest of the committee in charge about their success, she remembered that, while there had been many congratulations, the general attitude was that it would be best to sort the town out before throwing any major celebrations. This suited Icy just fine, as that would take them at least through the next morning, giving her and Sunny time to rest up.

Of course, getting checked up at the hospital was a necessary part of that, hence why Icy had to see Nursery Rhyme, something she would otherwise hesitate to do.

Finally, the filly looked up from the chart with a slightly more sour expression than usual. “Right, Icy, do you want the good news first or the bad news?”

Icy thought for a moment. “Um, the bad news, I guess?”

Rhyme nodded for a moment. “I see, I see. Well, too bad – after how hard I had to dig to find some good news, I'm not letting you put it off just cause you want to soften a self-inflicted blow.”

“O... kay?” Icy said after a moment, more confused and unnerved than disappointed.

Rhyme tapped the chart. “Well, the good news is that you don't seem to have done any permanent damage to yourself or your abilities. That's about it.” She paused before something occurred to her. “Oh, also, you got to swoon in Lance's hooves and I reckon half the fillies in class would go through twice what you did for that opportunity.”

Icy's face scrunched up a little, her confusion deepening. “Huh, why?”

Rhyme sighed. “As satisfying as it might be to destroy your innocence, probably best to wait till you're at an age where you'll understand. That said, ask him to show you his Hearts and Hooves card collection sometime.” She paused, thinking for a moment. “Actually, scratch that, don't – it'd probably fall on you and crush you. Which means I'd have to deal with that too. Damn Hippocampic Oath!”

“My heart bleeds for you,” Sunny said with a sardonic eyebrow raised, a little nonplussed at Rhyme's demeanour, having previously only encountered her without injuries of her own.

Rhyme turned and glared at Sunny. “Oh, believe you me, I'd make sure it would if I wasn't only assigned to treat Icy as part of her team. You have no idea how lucky you were to get looked at by one of the grownups around here – none of them have anywhere near the guts to tell you how badly you bucked up!”

Sunny's eyebrow remained firmly raised. “Well, they did tell me...”

“Not enough!” Rhyme interrupted, whirling around to fully face the grown mare. “I mean, you managed to reach level three magical exhaustion and strain your horn enough to almost damage the magical vein. Do you have any idea what could have happened if you'd pushed just a little harder?”

“Of course I do,” Sunny replied, rolling her eyes. “You're talking like it'd be the first time I've gone through burnout. All it'd mean is that I couldn't use magic for a few weeks or, at worst, months. It'd heal eventually.”

Rhyme's mouth flapped silently for a moment before she shook her head. “That's... I don't even know how you miss the point that badly. Yes, it'd heal eventually, but that's not the point. I could shove a butcher's knife through your leg and it'd heal eventually, that doesn't mean it's something you should be okay with me doing. Even if I am half-tempted to.”

“Despite the oath?” Sunny responded, smirking a little despite Rhyme's vitriol.

“I did say half-tempted,” Rhyme replied, clearly not appreciating the observation. “The point is that you still could have done serious long-term damage to yourself that would have caused you a whole lot of problems. And – and I can't believe I have to say this to a grown mare – that's probably something you should avoid!”

Icy gulped, hesitant to draw attention back to herself but unable to contain her worry. “Is that what happened to me?”

Rhyme turned back to her, her grumpy demeanour diminishing slightly but still remaining. “Yep, pretty much. Fortunately, the damage to the magical pathways isn't nearly as bad as the exhaustion... we think.” She glanced down at the chart in her hoof with a look of annoyed bafflement. “We have no idea how your... weird-ice-cold-whatever-energy works in the first place, so we've been having a real difficult time trying to convert our system of diagnosis for magic onto it.”

“Well, we think it might be Windigo magic,” Icy pointed out, “with maybe some Sea Pony magic in there as well.”

Rhyme snorted. “I know, Archer told me what you said and it's still one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. And no,” she shot a look up to Sunny and Icy, “that's not me saying it's definitely wrong. Maybe it is true, but if it is, it in no way invalidates my statement.”

There was a pause as that sank in and Icy, as well as presumably Sunny, realized they couldn't argue with that.

After a moment, Rhyme gave another snort and a shake of the head. “Anyway, hard to convert the normal scale, if a scale can even apply at all, but we reckon you got all the way to level five exhaustion. That's near-complete draining of all magic, by the way, and in case you were wondering, yes, it's pretty damn bad. You're lucky you didn't permanently lose your ability to use that magic.”

Icy's head flinched back at the idea. “That can happen?”

Rhyme grimaced a little, clearly unnerved by the idea herself. “Not normally, no – a normal pony wouldn't permanently lose their magic, or even stay totally drained for long, despite all the damage level five would do. But, like I said, we don't have the first damn clue what this kind of magic is or how it works, plus how it'd interact with a raw magical analgesic like Rainbowsellia, so for all we know, that could be a danger and it's probably best not to take the chance, huh? Still, looks like you got lucky and that's not the case,” she finished, her tone making clear just how much of a bullet she thought Icy had dodged.

Icy tapped a hoof on the bed in front of her in agitation. “Okay, so... how long do you think it'll be before I can use my powers again?”

Rhyme glared at her for a moment, not appreciating Icy moving on from how badly she'd screwed herself up, before sighing. “Well, in terms of your energy, can't really say. It's already starting to recover, but the best I can give is a barely-educated guess of a week and a bit. Your wings, though? Well, Doctor Horse's scans show they're already beginning to repair themselves, but it's gonna take a while – we reckon three weeks of not moving them at all to get to the point where you can safely use them a little, but even then, you should avoid straining them for a week, preferably more. Not that you're going to, so just understand that you'll get no sympathy from me if you screw them up again.”

Well, that'll make a change, Icy thought, though she kept the sarcasm out of her mouth and off her face to avoid another tongue-lashing. “Well, I'll try. And I won't move them until then, promise!”

Rhyme's mouth pursed to the side. “Yeah, that's a real nice promise, but I don't buy it for a second. That's why I'm gonna be putting casts and braces on 'em – I'm taking no chances in case you decide to do something even dumber than usual.”

Icy flinched back a little at the jab, a brief, futile impulse to ruffle her wings firing through her only to fizzle against the still-floppy appendages. Just as well, she thought, as it might only seem to validate Rhyme's point. Still, she spoke up to defend herself.

“Well, I mean, I wasn't planning on taking any risks like that.”

Rhyme raised an eyebrow sharply. “Really? Because you seemed awfully eager to put yourself right in the path of a sun-damned tsunami a few hours ago!”

Icy flinched once again, her face screwing up in aversion to the memory. “That was different – I didn't have a choice!”

“Really?” Rhyme replied, her mouth stretching to the side in the beginning of a sneer. “Cause it seemed to me like you put your life and wellbeing at severe risk to save, what? Some buildings, some possessions... objects. Seems like you chose to prioritize them above yourself.”

Icy shook her head. “What are you...? It would have flooded the whole town. A lot of ponies could have gotten hurt!”

Rhyme rolled her eyes. “Could have, but weren't likely to with how much we were preparing and certainly not in ways that couldn't be dealt with. Besides, you did get hurt. Badly. Self-inflicted, yes, but still. So, I can only conclude that you did what you did to save a few buildings and possessions.”

“A few?!” Icy scowled in confusion. “We're talking about the whole town – that's more than a few things.”

“Yes, but things nonetheless.” Rhyme gave a heavy sigh. “And you'll have to forgive me if I think that your life is worth a lot more than a bunch of inanimate objects, no matter how many of them there are.”

Icy thought about this hard for a moment. “Well... yeah, I guess I can understand that but... that doesn't mean they're not valuable at all, does it? I mean, if I hadn't stopped that wave, a whole bunch of ponies could become homeless and lost everything they had. You can't tell me that's nothing!”

Rhyme paused, seeming to give serious consideration to Icy's viewpoint for the first time in that discussion. “I suppose not. But that doesn't change the fact that they are just objects. Possessions can be replaced. Homes can be replaced. Ponies can't.”

Icy hummed as she considered this, her eyes losing focus and her face scrunching up a little in focus. She spent a good ten or fifteen seconds considering all the implications, during which time Rhyme either gave her space to think things through out of consideration or simply assumed she'd won the argument and moved on with her thoughts.

However, after a while, Icy spoke up again. “Okay, I see what you mean by that... but it's totally wrong.”

Rhyme's head whipped up in shock. “Oh, is it now?”

Icy nodded, a slight grimace coming onto her face at the unpleasant subject matter. “Yeah, see... Yes, you can replace things, but that doesn't mean that you didn't lose them, does it? Like, if you lose a book, then sure, you can get another book, but that book doesn't magically become the first book. You still lost the first book and getting it replaced doesn't change that, even if the second book is another copy of that book. And if the first book's really important to you, then getting another book isn't going to fix that.”

Rhyme squinted at her, clearly baffled as to where she was going with this. “I... guess so?”

Icy took a deep breath as she braced herself for her next statement. “Well, if that's right, then technically... yeah, you can replace ponies.”

Rhyme's head jerked back in surprise and revulsion at the notion. “Wha...?”

Icy cut her off, though. “I mean, if you... 'lose' somepony, then you could technically find another pony to do the same things, to fit into that place, to replace the lost pony.” She gulped hard before continuing. “But it wouldn't be the same, would it? They wouldn't make losing that pony any less horrible. It might even make losing them feel even worse, cause you're always getting reminded of them. You can replace ponies, but it doesn't help.”

She straightened herself up and locked eyes with Rhyme, signalling without any room for misinterpretation that she meant her next statement completely and would fight any attempt to dissuade her of it. “So, yeah, you can replace stuff, just like you can replace ponies. But that doesn't mean you should have to. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't do everything we can to protect other ponies and their stuff. And it doesn't mean that a whole town of stuff isn't worth a heck of a lot. And if I had to do all that again... take that risk again to protect the whole town? You bet I'd do it. I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't. If I was that selfish.”

Rhyme's mouth flapped uselessly for a few seconds as she tried to parse what she was hearing. “I... you... that's not... how would you... NGH!” She pressed a hoof against her head as she let out a loud, frustrated groan. “Excuse me for a moment.”

As the little filly stormed out of the room, Icy briefly wondered if that had ended better than the last time she'd been in Nursery Rhyme's care. However, the steady, dull, rhythmic sound of her nurse banging her head against a wall made clear that, no, it ended just about the same.

As if to distract from the noises, Sunny looked up and caught her daughter's eye. “That was some debating, Sweetie. Still, you do know that I could never replace you, right?” Icy was tempted to point out that the whole point she'd been making was that she both could and couldn't when Sunny continued, “and that I'd happily have everything I own obliterated if it meant not losing you.”

Icy sighed, a smile rising to her lips as she dismissed her quibbles. “I know, Mom. Thanks.”

The next morning, Icy was out in the town, just wandering among the bustling activity as the ponies around her dismantled the protections they'd been building and tended to whatever damage had been done. Icy wasn't going anywhere, in particular, just letting her hooves take her where they would while her thoughts did the same.

It had been an interesting morning so far. Icy herself hadn't exactly broadcast what she'd done in the forest to the whole town, not wanting to take up the spotlight like that. And, while her mother had no such issues with having a whole town's worth of attention on her, it seemed she respected Icy's unspoken preference for not making a big thing of it, as she hadn't made any such announcements either, despite her clear pride in her daughter.

Still, what she’d done had begun to get around to a degree. It made sense since she knew that Lance and Archer would have debriefed the rest of the team and the town's leadership... well, Archer would have debriefed them with Lance providing appropriate nods and gestures, at least. And neither the rest of Iota Force nor the ponies in charge would have any reason to withhold the information, at least among those aware of Iota Force's existence or, at least, of the number of combat-ready children in the town. Heck, knowing Truffle's preference in terms of volume, it was a wonder that they hadn't heard about it up in Canterlot.

She hadn't yet run into Truffle, though she was keeping an eye out for him. She didn't have a problem with talking to him, but she needed to brace and position herself so that the good-natured clap on the back he'd inevitably give didn't knock her onto her belly or break the braces around her wings.

The others, though, had all either run into her or actively sought her out, each with their own reaction to what they'd heard she'd done. Alula had told her how excellently she'd performed, even going so far as to actually smile at her. It wasn't exactly a Pinkie-level beam, but Icy appreciated it nonetheless. Scootaloo had expressed her sympathy for having her wings hurt and bound, but nevertheless gave her a grin and a respectful hoof-bump, declaring her performance awesome before dashing off to keep helping with the town-wide work.

Dinky, meanwhile, had seen Icy and immediately clamped her in a hug that Icy was half-convinced she'd need to be surgically removed from. Through the torrent of consolations, well-wishes, gentle interrogations about how she was doing and general concern and sympathy, Icy had eventually managed to get across to her that she was fine and unhurt and, after a lot longer reassuring the empathetic little filly of that fact, managed to reclaim her chest enough to move.

There had been other encounters with ponies acknowledging her efforts, from the occasional grateful nod from a pony who had presumably heard what she'd done, to Princess Twilight seeking her out specifically to give her a royal attagirl, to Pinkie promising to give her pride of place at her “The Town Got Saved, Brackets: Not by Me or the Other Elements This Time!” party the next day.

The latter case was what was occupying Icy's mind at that moment, as she tried her hardest to think of a way to get out of being the centrepiece of the party. Her initial thought had been to politely refuse, but Pinkie hadn't given her a chance before dashing off once she'd informed Icy of her plans and Icy doubted she'd have either the opportunity or the guts to bring it up later. Unfortunately, she wasn't having any luck figuring out another way out of it. The best she'd come up with was freezing herself into an igloo without an entrance and isolating herself but, even if she could make such a barrier that didn't cut off her air supply, doing so with her damaged wings would probably not be a good idea.

Plus, even if such a barrier did stop Pinkie, which Icy doubted, it certainly wouldn't stop Nursery Rhyme from busting through and smacking her for putting her well-being at further risk.

“Hey, Icy!”

Icy jumped a little as she was startled out of her thoughts by the familiar voice of Archer. Blinking herself still again, she turned around to see the blue filly approaching her with a small smile. She shook her head as she waved. “Hi there, Archer! How are things with you?”

Archer chuckled as she came up alongside Icy, joining her as she walked. “Oh, I'm fine, nothing to report. But, well, I'm not really the one who should be answering that question, am I? How are you doing?”

Icy smiled a little at the concern, even if Archer's tone didn't suggest she had any worry or doubt at all that Icy was doing okay. “Not too bad. Got my wings restrained, but other than that...” she trailed off with a shrug.

“Yeah, noticed that. Shame,” Archer said, gesturing at the bandages and braces.

Icy shook her head, flexing her back muscles a little. “It's not too bad. The bandages aren't too tight and the braces aren't uncomfortable at all. They're resting just right on my back, so I barely feel them on it or in my wings. It's actually a bit more relaxing than having them resting free.”

Archer nodded. “Oh, cool. Still, if I'm honest, I wasn't really asking about how your body's doing. I mean, yeah, it's good to know and all, but I wasn't exactly sweating about it, you know? You're a tough filly and Rhyme's a dang good medic, so I figured you'd be okay. I'm talking more about how you're doing up here,” Archer tapped the side of her forehead with a knowing look. “I mean, yeah, you're still tough, but after... you know, having your whole problem shoved in your face, you doing okay?”

Icy looked away, a little embarrassed by Archer's assessment of her resilience and not at all certain she agreed. Still, after a moment, she nodded. “Yeah, I think... I think I'm doing alright. Haven't really been thinking about it much... which I guess is a good sign.”

Archer nodded. “Yeah, probably. Still, it's worth checking. Did Rhyme give you a psych evaluation?”

Icy shook her head. “No, but she's scheduled one in a couple of days with a proper psychiatrist. When I asked, she said that her big concern was making sure that I was physically fine before dealing with my brain and that she'd leave that to a specialist.” She cleared her throat and looked away uncomfortably. “Also, she said that any kind of test on my mind would involve a search party, so...” she trailed off with a half-amused, half-awkward smile.

Archer shrugged. “Well, guess you got more guts than I do. Always made my appointments with the shrink himself. Figured it wasn't worth whatever she'd say after the first time she checked my bow was still working and told me my brain was fine.”

Icy giggled a little at the idea before what Archer said caught up with her. “Wait, you've had to see a psychiatrist before? Why'd yo-” she cut herself off, realizing how rude a question that was in the middle of asking it. Still, she couldn't deny that she was curious – she'd seen Archer lose her cool a little a couple of times, sure, but she still had a hard time imagining the ever-relaxed filly ever needing professional help. Even when she'd screwed up and got a tornado hurled at the group, she hadn't seemed too stressed. Still, Icy shook her head, trying to dismiss the curiosity for fear of offending her friend.

Fortunately, it didn't seem like that was a danger from what she'd already said, as Archer shrugged with an easy smile. “Oh yeah, you have no idea. I got my problems too, you know? Plus, let's face it, our line of work ain't always fun and games, is it?” She paused in thought for a moment before adding. “Well, I mean, it's normally pretty fun, but I wouldn't call it a game most of the time, at least.”

Icy hummed – she had to admit, that was taking things more seriously than she normally expected of Archer. Still, she couldn't help but find the idea of the bowmare having severe enough issues to need therapy a little weird.

In fact, she was having such a hard time imagining it that she didn't notice at first that Archer had turned a corner, only realizing it when she turned to regard her friend and found her about five metres away. She blinked herself back into the moment before turning around and dashing after her, catching up after a moment. Still, it did bring another question to mind. “Hey, where are you... are we going?”

Archer glanced at her, having either not noticed or not minded that Icy had lost her for a moment. “Oh, I was just heading down to the lakeside. Figured you might want to join me now you're okay with it.”

Icy thought for a moment... and the image of her floating helplessly under the water's frozen surface, her lungs burning and her limbs hanging uselessly below her rushed into her mind's eye, making her stop in her tracks and squeeze her eyes shut, trying to force the image away. “Um... are you... could we not... er...”

She opened her eyes to see Archer had stopped as well, looking at her with surprise, concern and a hint of guilt. “Oh m... sorry, I just thought... you know, since you'd pushed past your fear, I thought you'd be a bit more okay with... you know...”

Icy sighed, though she did give Archer a shaky smile to show there were no hard feelings. “Well, I did, but... I really don't think that's how phobias work. I mean,” she thought of her recent experience, a shudder wracking her body, but not quite as powerfully or painfully as she'd expected, “I do think it helped, but... it didn't make it go away.”

Archer nodded, looking to the side as she registered this and thought about it. “Well, we don't have to head over there if you don't want to.”

Icy gulped, thinking for a moment. “Well... we can always go in that direction and stop before we get there. I mean... it'd probably be an idea to see how I'm going with that, so... let's just go with it.”

Archer raised a skeptical eyebrow but began moving again as Icy did. “Well, if you're sure.”

Icy nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Sorry about that, it's just...”

“Nah, it's all good,” Archer said with a sympathetic shrug. “I get it. We all got our own problems, nothing to feel bad over.” She chuckled as she looked up and to the east, out towards the Everfree. “Least your issues don't make you wanna fl- er destroy the town.”

Icy giggled, though a hint of discomfort seeped through it as she thought about the filly they'd encountered. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I don't know what was wrong with her, but it must have-”

“I do.”

Icy nearly tripped over her own hooves in surprise when Archer interrupted her, sounding so casual in her certainty that Icy had to take a moment to ensure that she'd heard right. “You do? Really?”

Archer nodded before tilting her head to the side, silently weighing up the notion. “Yeah, like... ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure it's CMCD.”

Icy thought for a second, trying to parse the initials. “Cutie Mark Crusader Dentists?”

“No, that's a different kinda torture,” Archer replied without missing a beat. “Still, you're half-right.”

Icy nodded as she thought. “So, I'm guessing the CM stands for Cutie Mark, then?”

“Yep,” Archer replied, looking into the middle distance. “Cutie Mark Control Disorder. No one knows what causes it but some ponies... not a lot, just one in a few thousand at most, but some ponies have their Special Talents kinda... supercharged. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but always have it stronger even than most ordinary ponies and that's saying something. Sounds pretty useful, right?”

Icy frowned a little as she considered the idea. “Well... I guess, but... if it's a “Control Disorder”, then...”

Archer pointed a hoof at Icy with a slightly grim smile. “Got it in one. You get a bit more of a Talent – sometimes a lot more – but you lose the ability to turn it off. I mean, nopony can turn it off completely, I know. Most ponies occasionally find 'emselves thinking about it or using it when they didn't mean to, right?”

Icy nodded, remembering the occasional times her mother would send a magical probe into the sky or take an instinctive step to the garage where her glider was stored if there was something slightly off about the sky or the weather, even when they were living in a town with entire teams of pegasi to deal with such things.

“Well, with CMCD, it's on a whole 'nother level,” Archer continued as the two came out into the marketplace, skirting around its outskirts despite there being far fewer ponies there than normal. “Depends on how bad the condition is, of course, but even the better ones usually have it flare up a lot. You find yourself working out how you could use your talent, your hooves going to do it before you even realize it or just... thinking in terms of your talent even if you try your hardest not to. You just can’t stop using it. Ain't fun.” She sighed before glancing to the east again. “Course, I never heard of somepony who had it on all the way all the time... before I met that Domino filly, at least, but I guess you learn something new every day.”

Icy scratched her head with a hoof. “You sure that was what's wrong with her? How could you tell?”

“The flank twitches,” Archer replied. “Bit of a giveaway. See, when the Mark flares up like that, it tingles something fierce and usually sends your flank shivering and twitching. Plus, the way she looked around, like it was instinct 'stead of anything she really wanted to do... seemed pretty clear she was being jerked around by her Mark, to me at least. Like I said, ain't impossible it's something else, but I'd put any money I had on CMCD from the flank twitches on their own.”

Icy nodded for a moment before pausing, thinking over what she remembered of their confrontation. “But... her flank was twitching all the time, wasn't it?”

Archer's eyes widened, not in surprise but simply to show the enormity of what she was talking about, and she nodded back. “Yyyyyep. Like I said, if it ain't the worst case on record, maybe in history, I'd be surprised. And depressed. Must be a nightmare for her and... well, I'm not saying it makes what she was trying to do okay or anything, but... I can kinda understand why she'd have gone crazy and wanted to level the town. That level of CMCD? Lucky she could even speak after being buried in unwanted thoughts and info.”

Icy sighed, not quite feeling the same level of understanding as Archer, but still able to imagine how horrible such a state might be. Although that did raise another question, now that she thought about it: “So, how do you know so much about this... stuff, if you don't mind me asking? Is it to do with your problem with...” she trailed off as she indicated her head, remembering Archer's words about how much she knew about mental weirdness and tampering.

Archer, however, just shook her head. “Nah, it's not that. Might have learned a bit of it from that, but not much. It does mess with the mind, but it's not a mental problem, it's a magical one. Plus, far as I know – and I know – there's no way to force CMCD on another pony, so it's not something I'd worry about too much. Least, not in that way. See...”

She stopped in place, making Icy have to stumble a little to come to a halt next to her. Archer didn't seem to notice, instead simply looking forward into the thin crowd filling the marketplace. She wasn't looking at any one point or pony, instead letting her gaze settle on the general area.

Icy was about to ask what she was looking for when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Archer's leg stiffen, bunching up the muscles of her hind half before she thrust a hoof out, pointing forward and to the left. “In 2... 1... now!”

Following Archer's hoof, Icy blinked in confusion as she looked out along the line the hoof was pointing. “Now what? What's there now? Or... then? When you said now?”

Archer sighed as she lowered a hoof. “When I said it, I had a perfect shot through the crowd right to Carrot Top's head.” She said with no audible emotion as her flank twitched slightly.

Icy's jaw dropped as she stared at the bow and arrow on Archer's haunch, watching as the twitches faded. “You mean you have... why didn't you...?”

“Never came up,” Archer said with a shrug. “But yeah, it's nowhere near as bad as it can get but... well, sometimes... a fair bit, actually, I can't stop myself noticing the perfect shot or calculating all the factors in hitting a pony. Least... usually, it's only to hit them.”

“What do you mean?” Icy asked, tilting her head. “What else would you do than hit them with a shot?”

Archer swallowed, clearly a little uncomfortable. “Well, there are some things, but that's not what I meant. I mean, normally, if I see the perfect shot or angle to hit someone, I know I could use an impact arrow and just hurt 'em or knock 'em about a bit. But, well... if the perfect shot's into somepony's eye, ain't no kind of arrow that'd mean that'd just hurt them.”

Icy flinched back, suddenly looking at Archer with surprised horror. “You mean... because of this... thing, you can't stop yourself wanting to maim or... or kill ponies sometimes?”

Archer's face scrunched up in disgust. “What?! Are you crazy? No! I'd never do that and I never want to. The idea of wanting that makes me wanna puke!” She sighed, her face relaxing as she looked off to the side uncomfortably. “I never want to... kill anypony. I just... sometimes can't stop myself noticing and figuring out how I could.”

Icy let out a shaky breath, grappling with the weight of what she was being told. After a moment, she realized how much worse she must have made it with her accusation and started sputtering, “Oh my Celes... I'm so sorry, I didn't mean... I mean, I didn't know, I...”

“It's fine, Icy,” Archer said, waving the apology away as she resumed walking. Even so, her tone suggested that, while she was as relaxed as ever, it was far more out of depressed resignation than comfort. “I did kind of drop it on you like that and I can see how you'd think that. But, yeah, it's... kind of a problem.”

Icy found herself nodding absently, even as her mind still struggled with the idea that sometimes, even the most easy-going ponies could hide as deep pain as anyone else. “I'm still sorry you have to go through that. Is it... I mean, are you...?”

“Yeah, I'm doing okay,” Archer said, her normal tone beginning to reassert itself. “Spent ages in therapy about it, still have to check in with a psych every couple months, but I've gotten used to it. Still hate it when it makes me see... some things, but I'm pretty over it. Plus, least it always lets me know how good I am, even if I don't want it to.”

Icy hummed in agreement before a thought occurred to her. “Oh, is that why you shot that arrow up back in the forest when you saw a Poison Joke petal coming?”

Archer raised an eyebrow, her mouth raising slightly. “You mean when I gave away our position and almost got us killed by a tornado? Heh, may have played a small part and… well, definitely wish I had that excuse, but no. No, I just figured I could knock it away so I did and I didn't think before I fired.” She shrugged, her smile taking on an apologetic aspect. “I messed up, I'm mare enough to admit it. And you don't need something messing with your mind to do something stupid, trust me.”

Icy gulped loudly, a little ashamed of having brought it up. “I guess. Sorry.”

Archer rolled her eyes, her mouth shifting to a good-natured smirk. “You know, if this is how much you apologize when you've just saved the town, I'd hate to hear you after a screw-up. Cheer up, Icy,” She waved a hoof at the town around them as they trotted out through the thinning streets. “The town's safe, you've pushed yourself past your fears at least a little and, right now, there ain't any maniacs or monsters threatening us. No reason to stay thinking about the mistakes of yesterday when today's looking to be a real good day, huh? Just relax and enjoy the moment.”

Icy smiled a little in return, even if hers was a little more hesitant. Not for the first time, she wished she could feel Archer's relaxation, even now knowing what lurked beneath it. She shook her head, trying her best to dispel her worries about what may yet come and how they'd deal with it. Sure, there were almost certainly going to be new problems later…

The colt smiled as he dropped the final ingredient into the beaker, the liquid inside turning from a murky brown to a pale, luminous green in a single moment.

“Perfect,” he said to himself as he swirled the mixture around, watching as the light from the magical lamp on his desk filtered through the solution mixed with the light the liquid itself gave off and played across his face in shifting waves. “Unless I'm much mistaken - and I’m not - my little serum should be most effective. Now that leaves only the matter of testing... however many months that takes.” He sighed. “A scientist's work is never done.”

He glanced over to the side of his desk, noticing the silence from it that hadn't been there the last time he'd listened for it. “Speaking of, it seems the disruption mixture has had quite the desired effect.”

He looked down into the cage, at the two dead mice lying battered next to the small bowl of clear liquid.

“Which means we can move onto the next stage of testing,” he said, smiling as he looked out of the cave mouth into the land beyond.

A filly strolled through the Everfree Forest, humming to herself as she kept her eyes on the path ahead. The sunlight streamed through the canopy above her, giving her a clear enough view of the forest floor that she didn't feel overly threatened by her surroundings.

She shrugged her shoulders, feeling the weight of her saddlebags as the gathered herbs and materials shifted around inside them. She knew her parents were still very wary of her wandering about in the forest, but she had confidence in both herself and in Zecora's guidance to keep her out of the most dangerous parts of the area. In time, she hoped that her mentor could teach her to be even a fraction as in tune with the forest as she was, but for the moment, she was happy to stick to the paths Zecora had declared the safest.

In any case, she was close to her hut now, and thus close to her next lesson. She had no idea what kind of potion she was going to learn or help with today, but she was eager to find out. So eager, in fact, that she almost didn't notice the next turn her path took, meaning she blinked herself back into the moment just before she stepped out into the clearing full of blue, spotted leaves.

She chuckled as she froze for a moment. “Those leaves of blue are not a joke,” she said to herself, remembering Zecora's advice. Still, she lingered for a moment. “Although... they kind of are, I guess. I mean, it's what they're called, right? I mean, how bad could they really be?”

She hummed for a moment as she looked out at the field of flowers. After a second or two, though, she shook her head, trusting in her mentor's wisdom and dismissing the whole thought.

“And... there we go!” The colt said as he stepped back from the huge, metal apparatus in front of him, placing down his welding torch and lifting his mask. “Well, as much as the materials available in this primitive century allow, at least. Still, it should suffice... just.”

He hummed, stroking his grey-streaked beard. “Of course, without the energy to power it, it's little more than an art piece.” He let out a long breath through pursed lips. “And I doubt even if I had all the materials in the world… or all points of time within it, I could simply make that energy. Which means I have to build another machine to extract it... plus more to make it easier to get into a position to.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes at himself. “Well, no time like the present! And I should know.”

As he stepped over to his nearby desk and began sketching up blueprints, he thought ahead to when the devices would be finished. Once that was done, all he had to do was get a hold of the energy he needed.

And I'm sure, he thought with a chuckle, I can find some ponies who'll be happy to donate it.

“15 down: Barrage a wound with soothing liquid until it fades into nothing. Five letters.” Magic Eye tapped his pencil against his chin. “Well, fades into would probably indicate the end of the word and fading into nothing means it might end with an 'o'. And I know the fourth letter is 'v' from 'transitive', so 'vo'... barrage, soothing liquid... Ah! Salvo!”

As he filled in the boxes with the letters, he shook his head. He was talking to himself again, which was a sure sign that he was itching for the challenge that this week's cryptic crossword just wasn't providing. With a sigh, he marked the page and turned to the rest of the Times, scanning the news stories for anything interesting.

After a couple of minutes, his eyes fixated on one particular story. “Hmm... well I'll be. I didn't know that jewel was for sale, let alone that they were negotiating for the purchase. Then again, they are nobles, so it's not as if it not being for sale would be an impediment. Still, it's something to keep an eye on. I doubt they themselves would prove much of a challenge to take it from, but I'm sure I could find some worthy opponents.” He grinned languidly as he began speculating on possible schemes and puzzles.

The filly cantered to a stop, resting a hoof on a tree as she looked back at the bright, beautiful forest behind her. However, she wasn't focused on the natural wonders around her, instead making sure there was nopony pursuing her. She was fairly certain she hadn't been followed and didn't think the colt who'd spotted her changing had thought it anything strange, but she was taking no chances.

After a couple of minutes, she relaxed a little as she thought over what she'd acquired in her short stay in Fillydelphia. Thirty-seven new Marks – not a bad haul, all told, and she was sure they'd keep her going for a little while, at least.

Nevertheless, she was already thinking about her next destination as her flank started to glisten.

...but Icy wasn't going to concern herself with them now. Instead, she just followed Archer as they wandered out from the residential area of town towards Ponyville Lake.

As the huge body of water came into view, Icy felt the fear rise in her throat once more, the image of herself almost drowning flickering into her mind, soon followed by the image of the crashing wall of water rushing towards her, with only ice between her and it. She braced herself for the paralysing terror to rush into her limbs.

And yet, to her astonishment, the terror was only enormous. She still felt her stomach scrunch up into a ball and her breath start quivering, but her legs kept moving, only slowing down a little. Before she could think to suppress the thoughts, she focused on the images lingering in her mind.

It was hard to even see past the fear to inspect the memories, let alone analyse them. But, while she had no idea how, it seemed as if the memory of yesterday on the river was helping a little more than it was hurting. She still felt the fear, both present and past, but there was a strange undercurrent of... control to it. She was no less scared but somehow, deep down, she had the slightest inkling that she was still in control of herself and that the fright that suffused her mind wouldn't... couldn't control her.

She shook her head as she came to a halt just next to the shore, watching as Archer swam out into the lake, her throat tightening at the sight but not consuming her mind with thoughts of danger. She hummed as she sat down, the dread in her belly settling down as she reached forward and gently, experimentally dipped the tip of her hoof in the lake.

In an instant, she felt the water swirling around her hoof tip, moving around and under and with it. And yet, there was something different about it, or at least how she was feeling it. It was still vast, still unpredictable, still powerful, but it wasn't... pulling at her, as she'd always felt. It was just... open. Ready for her. Inviting, but not insisting.

Icy gave a sharp, bemused laugh as she withdrew her hoof and closed her eyes, listening to the splashes of Archer and the feeling of the water in front of her. A strange sense of serenity settled over her, not dispelling the fear but blanketing it. She let out a sigh as a shaky smile edged onto her lips.

Out in front of her, she felt the water – the flowing, ever-changing water, every bit as massive and imposing as ever but far calmer, the energy and hunger no longer bubbling beneath, if it had ever been there at all. All that she felt was the gentle flow of the currents, the popping ripples flickering skittishly across its surface, and the little leaves and flecks of reeds drifting along on top of it and spilling gently onto the sand of the peaceful shore.

Prologue: Solid Facts and Liquid Ambitions

The filly stood perfectly still as she perched on the tree branch, watching what little she could of the ground and train tracks beneath her through the early morning mist.

This was, of course, by design – she had picked this spot to wait precisely because it would be where the fog was thickest, thus shielding her largely from view by anyone looking out of an oncoming train. It didn't leave her with much to look at, but this wasn't an issue, as the filly was absolutely confident and in tune with her surroundings.

Besides, she didn't need much to look at, as was proven when her eyes happened to fall on a small dent in the fence post next to the track, sending a flood of information into her brain:

The dent was a solid curve that stretched up along the post in a straight line until it abruptly ended at a right angle, meaning the post had been hit with the end of a cylinder, but the positioning of the dent was too low and at too steep an angle to have been made by somepony hitting the post, meaning the cylinder must have been free-falling and then ricocheted. Her eyes flicked around the post, quickly locating a long divot in the earth below, also shaped roughly like a cylinder, though this one didn't show either end, as the divot ran over a small dip in the ground, bringing the cylindrical gap to an abrupt end. However, by how much force the cylinder would have needed behind it to dent the wood and how that would have made it bounce, she could tell the exact length of the cylinder. Her eyes instinctively traced over the trajectory she now knew it to have taken and saw, indeed, a much shallower dent in the harder wood of the railway sleeper. However, the angle of that dent meant the cylinder must have also hit the rail, yet said rail was neither dented nor recently repaired or replaced. This, combined with how much the divot in the dirt had degraded due to the amount of moisture in it gave her the last piece of information to say that, approximately forty-three hours ago, a piece of copper piping exactly sixty centimetres long had fallen off the back of a train which, judging by how much the pipe's spinning had affected its movement, was going at seventy-nine miles per hour.

All this knowledge burst its way into her brain in a torrent that lasted less than a quarter of a second, and it only took that long because her eyes had to move to get the full picture. Not that she had actively tried to get said picture, nor did she especially want to – her brain just automatically saw the pattern in her surroundings and calculated every detail and variable in it without any conscious input from her.

She was used to it, of course, and barely noticed the increase in the headache she had been experiencing, without a break, for years or the tingling in her flank, where her namesake Cutie Mark of falling dominoes lay.

The sound of the train approaching brought Domino's head up, her eyes not bothering to try and peer through the fog but her ears pricking up sharply, instantly ascertaining the speed the train was travelling at. Of course, there was no guarantee it would stay at that speed due to the unfortunate fact that it had a driver and, therefore, was somewhat unpredictable, a fact that set Domino's teeth on edge.

She didn't blame ponies – or, indeed, other living creatures – for how much they disrupted the patterns in the world around them, but that didn't stop her from hating them for it. It wasn't their fault that they were, by nature, so fundamentally opposed to the nature of the world. It was just an unavoidable by-product of having a living will. A world without those with minds was entirely predictable – the rocks, trees and wind currents all dutifully followed the laws of nature and would never deviate from their preordained paths unless an outside force affected them, allowing Domino to totally understand everything that would happen without room for error.

Unfortunately, any being with any kind of consciousness was not only unpredictable themselves but made the world around them unpredictable by their very nature, since there was no way of knowing whether they would do something to affect the world and the forces in it. If there were living beings around, the world had infinite possibilities and no certainties, a fact that was like a corkscrew in Domino's mind, piercing it and twisting it around agonizingly.

Of course, none of this was consciously going through Domino's mind – the deluge of information that was constantly pouring into her head left little room for coherent thought and most of what she could manage was focused on her plan. However, the pain from a pony being involved with her surroundings was lessened by the fact that the pony was driving a train and, while ponies could do what they liked within the laws of nature, they couldn't break them. As such, the train could only speed up or slow down a certain amount as it approached, lessening the web of possibilities considerably.

Domino retreated into the tree's branches, pulling her rough cloak of sewn-together leaves closer around her to make sure that, no matter where the pony in the engine was standing, they would see nothing but an ordinary, if slightly more bountiful than usual for the time of year, tree.

Soon enough, the train reached the tree and Domino immediately leapt into action: she sat there, unmoving, and did absolutely nothing. At least, physically.

Instead, she opened her mind and her senses as much as she could, consciously increasing the observations, extrapolations and calculations that were normally involuntary, taking in every detail in the train below her – the exact distances, angles and movement of everything she could see and, from that, working out the exact positions of everything she couldn't.

After a few seconds, the train passed by and Domino nodded, knowing exactly what she needed to do.

Flapping her wings, she launched into the air, clutching the stone she'd picked up earlier and turning towards the area she'd arranged – the small tree she'd mostly dug up the roots of, the large plank she'd wedged under a boulder and the small rock she'd placed on the hillside.

Flying up a little, she sped into a loop, spinning around a couple of times before hurling the stone toward the tree's roots. She didn't see what happened to it afterwards, but she didn't need to – she'd already predicted exactly what would happen: the stone would knock away the exact part of the dirt that was key to stopping the tree's roots from losing their grip, making it fall onto the plank, which would lever the boulder up and send it tumbling down the hill.

The reason that she wasn't able to see that was that she was busy using the momentum from her loops to ram into the top of the tree she had just been perched in, bending it backwards a little. Once she impacted, she swung herself around, hanging off the tree's top and flapping her wings forward, doing everything in her power to keep it bent back as far as she could.

The sound of rumbling stone told her that her predictions had been one hundred percent correct – not that she'd doubted it, as there were no animals in the vicinity to introduce uncertainty. As she hung from the upper branch of the tree, she heard the boulder roll over the small stone embedded in the ground and launch off the hillside.

As she looked up, she saw the boulder falling towards her, but she didn't so much as flinch as it landed on the tree top she was holding down, impacting millimetres from her hoof.

Had the boulder been half a centimetre off centre from the tree, it would have simply rolled or bounced off it to no effect. However, Domino had arranged things so that instead, it brought the tree top down hard for a second, bending it back like a catapult until, after a moment, the angle of the wood got steep enough that the boulder rolled off, removing the weight and sending the tree rocketing back into a straight position.

This, of course, also had the effect of launching Domino forward along the tracks at fantastic speeds. It wasn't strictly necessary to have done so, as she was a perfectly competent flyer on her own, but this would save her a full ten seconds over following the train entirely on her own power – a clear gain well worth the half-hour's work setting it up.

She twisted herself around from the tumble she'd been thrown into, quickly levelling off into a glide as she followed the tracks. She soon saw, through the thinning fog, the back end of the train, now motionless. This, she hadn't been entirely certain of, much to her irritation, but it was by far the most likely outcome of her disrupting the station's signal box.

Of course, the actual sabotage was a simple affair with a definite outcome – the more complex or precise a machine or setup, the less work was needed to incapacitate or destroy it. However, while she was almost certain it would take the engineers at the station at least twenty minutes to fix, making sure that the train would be delayed here and giving her enough time to do everything she needed, there was always the outside possibility that either the engineers would find some bizarre and illogically effective fix or patch or that the train driver would simply ignore the signal failure and drive on through.

Mind you, doing so would not only be illegal and cost the driver his job, but also incredibly dangerous, risking massive destruction and even death for very little gain, so it wasn't as if the driver ever would do so. But he could and that was the maddening thing about it.

Still, the train had stopped, allowing Domino to glide over to the third car from the back and drop down into a dive. Her eyes flicked to the side, making sure no ponies on the platform were either in a position to see between the carriages or could get to one in time to stop her. Seeing none, she dropped into the space between the cars, positioning her dive so that the pillar of boxes in the fourth car from the back would block the guard inside from seeing her.

It was, of course, possible he'd abandoned his post for no reason and walked over to the door enough to see her, so she was prepared to pull out of the dive and abandon the whole operation if so, but as she fell into a position to see through the window, it was clear he was in almost exactly the same place he had been.

Still, she wasn't going to risk that changing, so she dived down below the window and landed silently on the platform next to the door, keeping her head below the window's sightline.

She looked up at the door to the third-from-last car, thankful that she'd seen that the train had guards only every two carriages and that this was not one of them. A quick, silent poke to the door confirmed that it was locked, but that was no problem.

She pulled a thin pick from her saddlebag and rammed it through the keyhole. She wasn't about to pick the lock, as she didn't need to. She simply registered the tactile feedback as the pick ran along the lock's tumblers, instantly gauging the positions and resistances of each. That done, she withdrew the pick and pulled out one of the many generic keys in her bag. She knew exactly which key she needed and exactly where it had fallen in her bags, so she soon inserted it in the lock and gave it a gentle whack with her hoof, knocking all the tumblers into position and allowing her to turn the key and open the lock.

That done, she turned away from the door – she couldn't open it at the moment without giving herself away to the guard and couldn’t escape with what she needed even if she could, so she simply left it at unlocking the door. However, that still left the door at the other end of the carriage and she couldn't fly around the sides of the carriage – anypony on the platforms would be able to see her if she did. Furthermore, she couldn't fly up at a steep enough angle to keep herself hidden from the guard, so that left only one option.

She jumped down between the cars and fell below the train's wheels. After taking a moment to make sure there were no ponies standing on the train tracks for no reason, she started crawling forward beneath the car. It was nerve-wracking, the infinitesimal possibility that the train would start moving and kill her weighing on her mind the entire journey. However, this did not occur and she soon jumped up again on the other side of the carriage.

One more lock jostling later, everything was in position for her to finally perform the theft she'd been preparing for.

Everything, that is, except for the train and her, but the latter was easily fixed and the former almost certainly would be without her.

She was in luck, too. Or, at least, she would have been if she believed in luck – when other living beings weren't involved, she knew for a fact that the world operated on strict rules with no room for the involvement of a concept like luck. And when others were involved, that meant she had no luck at all.

However, there was an aspect to the situation that was useful – the many stacked boxes at the end of the next car completely blocked any view of that car's entire right corner. It didn't stop anyone inside from seeing the entirety of that car's interior and all but a tiny sliver of the adjoining car's, but it did give her enough room to flap her wings and climb into the air without being spotted, whereupon she quickly rose over the car and out of sight.

Once at a good height, she turned herself lazily in the air and flew out over the tracks until she reached the large bend in the tracks where her operation would begin in earnest.

However, until then, she found a small cloud to sit on and wait. While she sat, she spent the time going over the movements and variables in her head – how she'd need to move depending on the speed the train was moving, how much it might speed up or slow down in the time she was acting and what she could do if, for whatever reason, either guard was away from their post. She dearly hoped the latter wouldn't happen and didn't see why it would, but once again, the fact that it could was like a lemon-soaked cut in her senses, painfully poking her with its possibility.

Still, she shook her head as she heard the train approaching. Swallowing, she flapped off the cloud and swooped down along the train's path, too high to be seen as anything more than a bird, a fact she was thankful to her childhood body for.

Of course, she was nowhere near as fast as the train, so it soon caught up with her. However, that had been largely what she'd been counting on, along with her ability to go fast enough that she could land on the train without injury.

As such, she dived down towards the door she'd first unlocked just as it was going into the bend in the tracks, making sure to fall into the same area as she had before to remain unspotted.

However, once she landed, she paused for three-tenths of a second, both to stabilize herself and to wait for the cars to turn so that that same blocked area of sight would cover the door in front of her.

As soon as it did, she dashed forward, ramming the door open with her muzzle before catching it with one of her forehooves as it stepped to thrust her forward and then pushing it shut as her rear hoof kicked off the ground just in front of it. All told, the door was open for less than a second and she didn't even slow down as she went through it.

Of course, this was largely because she couldn't afford to – the car she was in and the next one back were turning onto the bend and would only remain on it for another six-and-a-half seconds. This was close to the upper limit of what she could work with, meaning that the driver was going as fast as they could, presumably to make up for lost time, but it was enough.

The filly sprinted down the carriage's central passageway, conscious of exactly how fast she was going – seventy miles an hour for the train in one direction and ten for her in the other, meaning she was moving backwards at sixty miles an hour. She didn't have any particular feelings about these statistics, they simply were.

This was all in the back of her mind, of course, as she was largely focused on the huge crate that was coming up on her right, allowing her to flare her wing out enough to grab the string around it and yank it off its perch and onto her back. The crate, easily bigger than she was, looked like it would immobilize her with its weight, if not out-and-out crush her. And yet it was even lighter than the wood it was built of, let alone what was inside it.

Of course, this didn't affect Domino's movements or her confidence – all it did was confirm exactly how many items were inside it, a number she was already ninety-nine-point-five percent sure of. The only thing the extra weight did was cause her to speed up so she could use the additional wind resistance and a slightly protruding corner she ran past to straighten the box on her back.

Soon enough, she was up to the second door of the carriage. Unfortunately, while the weight of the box on her back wasn't a consideration, its size was, as it meant she had to open the door far wider than previously to fit it through. As such, she waited for another half a second – she was cutting it fine, but it meant the rocking of the two cars would make for a maximized blind spot from the next car.

Once that was done, she burst through the door, throwing it open and almost wide. However, just before it could move to the point where it would be completely open, she leapt up, twisted around and rammed a rear hoof into it. This had the effect of both slamming it shut and allowing her to kick off the door and towards the wall, gaining height as she did. She twisted again in midair, having to put all her strength into the movement to make up for the extra wind resistance of the box on her back.

However, she managed to get her hooves out in front of her just in time to spring off the wall, planting her hooves at the ideal possible angle to gain maximum height and distance, as well as enough of a curve that she could turn again before she hit the wall. After one more wall-kick, she was on top of the carriage, getting her hooves underneath her before landing and sprinting along its surface.

She ran along the cars, leaping over the gaps between them as they came and monitoring her speed carefully. Because of this, she reached the end of the last car just as it was coming to the top of a small incline, turning downwards so the rear window was facing up at a shallow angle.

She threw the box into the air before dashing to the side and leaping up, grabbing the string around it with her hooves before extending her wings into a glide, the box beneath her. She immediately angled herself to the left so she'd be blocked from the view out of the rear window for the single second it took for the train to move down the slope enough and for her to move close enough to the ground that she was out of sight.

That done, she angled her wings up to slow herself down, gradually coming to a halt before dropping the crate gently on the ground and landing on top of it, panting heavily.

She didn't feel proud at having accomplished so much in under thirty seconds and, while she did feel somewhat exhilarated, it was purely a physical sensation from the activity. She didn't even feel especially fulfilled, as the presence of other ponies in the equation meant there was an unpredictable factor in it that she could not entirely account for, meaning she couldn't have been blamed for the operation's failure and, by the same token, couldn't entirely take credit for its success.

However, she did smile, as now she had the tools she needed for her main goal. She peered through a small hole in the wood of the crate to see her prize – weather rockets. Each one was packed with enough Pegasus magic to make them lighter than air, such that, were there just a few more, the crate would need to be strapped down to avoid floating away. And, despite how out of vogue they were among weatherponies due to how tricky they were to use, they were extremely powerful even if one didn't have Domino's awareness. To her, they were, quite literally, lightning in a bottle, along with windstorms, blizzards, flash fogs and, most pertinently for her plan, rain.

She looked up at the town nearby, wincing as she did. She'd picked it simply because it was closest to the perfect spot to take the train, so she didn't particularly care for its name or details. However, her ever-'helpful' memory soon supplied the name 'Ponyville', even through the discomfort of looking at an entire community of living minds. Every angle of every structure, building and path should have made for clean and distinct webs of interaction, cause and effect. Instead, so many living ponies in close proximity made it impossible to predict even the slightest breeze, their unrestrained choices turning nice, simple 'will's, 'would's and 'has's into a jumbled, muddy mess of 'might's, 'could's and 'may have's.

Still, her eyes were drawn to the river running through it and winding into the untamed forest beyond.

A small smile poked its way onto her face as, for the first time in minutes, a coherent thought flicked through her mind.

Town full of ponies? Soon fix that.