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Post by Gez on Sept 12, 2013 11:26:06 GMT -5
"Back!! Back, y'hear!" Applejack snapped as she reared up, kicking her hind legs towards the stonebacks. A stoneback circled around tried to slip past her. Thankfully she had a second pair of eyes as Fluttershy alerted her from above.
Turning on the heels of her hooves, she whipped around and pulled a rope from beneath her chestnut brim. "Oh no 'ya don't 'ya no-good varmint!" Quick as a flash, the animal was taken down, planting itself face-first in the mud. Thank her stars AJ was a decent cattle rustler.
But that was just one. Only one stoneback among an army of dozens. Applejack and Fluttershy were doing fine keeping them at bay, but the was no hiding the fact that they were both getting tired. But she couldn't let anyone down - she had to keep going even if deep down she felt like everything wasn't fine.
"Fluttershy," She called to the pegasus as she bucked another one square in the face. "Ya holdin' up okay?" AJ was worried about her friend, although she knew now that yellow mare had more guts than most gave her credit for.
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Post by Nightbow on Sept 16, 2013 9:39:44 GMT -5
[47/summer, afternoon]
"Look out!"
The yellow pegasus watched from a safe distance up in the air as Apple Jack planted the giant head of the freak armadillo into the ground. While this stoneback was currently disarmed with its huge alligator jaw down in the dirt, its kin did not seem to shy away from the little ponies. We should have stayed behind the border, Fluttershy told herself for the eighth time.
She wished more desperately for each minute that she could understand the creatures, but her attempts to approach the enraged animals had been futile. The poor things, whilst not even Fluttershy could imply were cute, were clearly misunderstood. What was happening? Was this Queen Eclipse's doing? She couldn't bring herself to harm them.
"AJ, they're too many!" As the orange earthling bucked one of the creatures in the face, another one circled her. The pegasus' heart raced as she plunged down at the second stoneback, flinging her wings to her sides to intimidate it.
The stoneback just got even more irritated, and Fluttershy had to force herself to poke her hooves into it's yellow eyes. "I'm so so sorry."
The sun was sinking and the shadows grew longer. The element of loyalty would have to realize its limit. They couldn't keep this up all night long.
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Post by Nightbow on Oct 11, 2013 16:46:04 GMT -5
["The element of loyalty"? I must have been tired when I wrote that last post.]
As soon as Nightbow believed that she and the musician was out of reach, sight, sound and smelling distance of the ancient creature she too hurried her steps along the path, covering the hoofprints of her partner in crime.
But near the edge of the forest she had to come to come to a complete stop so hastily that she bumped down on her rump. Rushing into view was - she couldn't believe it - a whole pack of stoneback, barring their way to freedom.
She almost broke into cry then. What in Equestria had they done?
Nightbow got up from her hindquarters and fenced at the air, the creatures at a dangerously close distance. She all but picked up on the shouts (or a shout and a squeak) of two ponies already battling the leathery crocodile-armadillos.
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Post by Person on Oct 13, 2013 14:51:18 GMT -5
Rocknote's eyes met the herd of dangerous beasts of the past and he screeched to a halt, examining the battlefield of sorts laid out before them. He noted the positions of the stonebacks, as well as that of the two ponies combating them. He quickly turned to face the artist he'd been running with.
"Decision time." Rock said seriously with a firm tone, "We have two choices here. One: help the ponies here hold back the stonebacks until they retreat or are eradicated, or two: use them as a distraction to get around the monsters and run safely into the sunset."
Neither choice sat well in Rocknote's stomach, but they had to do something. He figured if he let 'Bow choose, he could make a more educated choice as to which was properly better.
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Post by Nightbow on Oct 17, 2013 7:35:51 GMT -5
Nightbow trembled, already knowing what her answer would be. She swallowed down on the tears that stung at her eyes, trying to escape and trickle down her cheeks. Then she took a deep strengthening breath and looked RockNote in the eyes. He was willing to do this, but be apparently cared about her. By giving Nightbow the choice, he put the unicorn's safety before the others.
"We can't leave them," she croaked. How could she live with herself if she did? What about Moss, was she dino chow by now? She had been bad and now she had to pay the price for it. Nightbow sighed. She had not expected experiencing her marvellous creatures so close-up and personally.
From a nearby thicket she grabbed a sturdy stick by her teeth before launching into battle. At least she wasn't going to go unarmed. It was surreal, fighting something that should be dead, extinct by pony hooves. Destructive, most definitely.
Before one of the stoneback could take a bite out of the orange earthling, Nightbow jabbed her stick into its eye. She then used her telekinesis to try and fend off another with some pebbles.
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Post by Person on Oct 30, 2013 14:50:54 GMT -5
"We can't leave them,"
Rocknote nodded firmly in response to Nightbow's answer. He looked to the small horde of intimidating creatures. Hopefully if everypony worked together, they could overcome the threat, but it seemed more than a simple task. He followed Nightbow's example and grabbed a nice, long, sturdy stick before plunging into the group.
An unfortunately inattentive stoneback to the left of Rock immediately took a stick to the face as Rock began making his way toward the orange and yellow ponies on the other side of the herd. He bucked his back legs out into two stonebacks directly behind him, stunning them at least, he figured. Slow but steady, he began to move forward through the crowd.
"I think we'll have a better chance of getting through this if we stick together, Bow!" Rocknote shouted through the stick in his teeth at the purple unicorn, quickly addressing a monster slowly approaching in his left with a swift kick to the side.
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Post by Nightbow on Nov 11, 2013 11:01:23 GMT -5
Nightbow tried to shoot RockNote a look over her shoulder, huge stick swinging over a stoneback's head: I hear ya. Her alarmed, desperate expression narrowed into a determined frown as she backed up from the creature closest to her, and deeper into the horde. Soon she was back to back with Rock, watching the stallion's back as he watched hers.
They were halfway through to the mares now. Bow reared and threw a flailing kick with her forehooves to the right, then turned with stick in mouth to fend of a particularly nosey stoneback. It caught onto the monster's fangs and got stuck vertically in the frightening gap of its mouth - and Nightbow found herself disarmed.
The stick groaned under the massive pressure of the stoneback's jaws and the unicorn screeched in response, stomping violently at the ground to mark her distance from the animal before it would snap.
Curiously, Nightbow noticed, the stoneback seemed to mislike the sensation of quivering ground. Its reaction was subtle, but enough for her to catch on.
"Stomp! Stomp at the ground!" Prompted Nightbow loudly, repeatedly slamming her hooves down one after another. She started bucking so that all four hooves continuously shook the earth and to her satisfaction the creatures kept their distance, hissing with agitation and possibly confused fear.
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Post by Person on Nov 14, 2013 21:25:44 GMT -5
[I'm free! now I can post!]
Rock kept whacking the monstrous creatures back whilst the two made little progress toward the two mares. Pressed up against her, he noted that they were indeed faring much better now that they stuck together, but it was obvious neither of them were fighters. He took a swipe at a stoneback nearing the pair from the side, knocking it onto it's back, then another low swing at one approaching his front. The second, slightly smarter, jumped to avoid the blow and came down with force on Rock's makeshift weapon, splintering it into pieces the size of the average pencil. He grabbed at these and threw them at the stoneback, striking it's eye with a single lucky shot. The monster reared back and roared in fury. The rest were approaching fast.
"Stomp! Stomp at the ground!
The red stallion hastily adapted to Nightbow's new strategy, which seemed to be having a good effect. Now this was something he could do; he pounded on things for a living, so this was near his area of expertise. He coordinated and timed his pounds so that they droned on as a constant reverberation of the ground around them.
"It works!" Rock exuberantly commented, despite the fact that both of them could easily observe as much with their eyes. "If we keep this going, we might be able to stomp all the way over to the others moving at more than a snail's pace..."
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Post by Person on Mar 30, 2014 18:52:24 GMT -5
[Is anyone opposed to the idea of concluding this thread with the assumption that they make it to the ones fighting the stonebacks, assist them in warding off the beasts and then RockNote goes to his gig, passes out during the afterparty, and Nightbow may accompany him or not?]
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Post by Nightbow on Mar 31, 2014 2:58:53 GMT -5
[Am I wrong in thinking that AJ and Fluttershy were supposed to join the party? I can't remember how that was supposed to happen, but I'm pretty certain I decided that Nightbow would join them.]
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