Chapter 26 – Off the Edge

Breeze leaned into his chair as the two racers switched places, his hooves dropping from the controls as he breathed heavily from the precise control that move took, 'Ho man, I didn't think I'd have to use my Air Flash like that.' he thought to himself, 'The controls kept up but I almost didn't. This team is good, they have synchronicity that Dashi and I don't. It was almost hard to keep up with.' Suddenly he lurched when Rainbow moved to the side, and when he looked up, the large Sunik ship had also begun firing on them. He growled his frustration, "Can't I get a moment's peace?" he grumbled, and once again grabbed his controls. He returned fire the best he could, his exhaustion causing him to miss a few shots but all in all they did pretty well.

"You're going to have to do better than that!" Rainbow called out, and suddenly the large ship began advancing on them. With a quick move and precise timing, she dodged several shots and moved to the far side of the track, squeezing through a ring as she did. She only noticed that she had ended up behind the samurai ship as the racer came into view, "Oh, sweet Celestia!" she said to herself and watched as the racer turned its attention to her, letting several shots from Tris slam against its shield to fire on her, "Hey!" she called out as she tried to dodge, "What did we do to you?" The shots that came from the samurai ship distracted her enough that she didn't see the much larger Sunik racer come up behind her, and push against her. Thanks to it doing so, the wing of the Rainbow Trail connected with the hull of the Sunik ship, and tossed the smaller ship into a spin. This action caused both the samurai ship and the Silver Blitz to stop firing and watch as she spun out of control, and off the side of the track. With some quick decisions making, Rainbow fired off the thrusters on one side of the racer, stopped the spin, and pointed up, quickly firing off both sides and giving it every bit of power her ship could produce, she stopped the decent and rocketed up the sides of the chasm, catapulting her racer several feet above the track before landing and again continuing the race, but now behind the much larger ship and two others. "He…pushed us off the edge." she said and was quickly warned by her gunner.

"Juke left!" he said, and Rainbow followed his instructions, a large yellow bolt of energy sailing by her. She knew what that meant, Boar was behind her, and aiming for her.

"Him again?" she asked as she turned and saw the ram style ship. She moved again, swerving side to side as she tried to dodge the shots that would most likely kill them. "I can't shake him." she told herself, and looked forward, "And the Sunik ship is taking up nearly all of the lane in front of us." She then felt a small jar from her side and looked to her HUD as she noticed her shield energy disappear. "OH NO!" she called out, "He hit our shields."

"I noticed!" Breeze said and kept returning fire one of the shots landing directly into one of the barrels of Boar's ship as it began to glow white, and it exploded, the barrel bending outwards.

"Maybe I can make it past him on the side." Rainbow told herself and began moving towards the gap.

Suddenly, Breeze could hear his guns fizzle as their charge disappeared, "Uh, Rainbow Dash?" he asked, and turned to see what she was doing, "What are you…"

"I can make it!" she said as she pushed the racer to get where she wanted to go.

"But I…" he said as he looked back to Boar, and watched the last barrel on Boar's ship begin to glow white, only to become masked by the yellow light of the shock bolt. "SHIT!" he called out and focused, his magic erupting from his horn before forming a shield around both himself and Rainbow Dash. Then the shot went off, and slammed right into the jets of the Rainbow Trail, once again causing the two to spin into the ravine.

"RAINBOW DASH!" the team called out as they watched the racer fall into the abyss for the second time. Writch growled at the scene.

"That's it!" she said and began to storm off.

"Where are you going?" Tusks asked in surprise.

"I'm done waiting to get that guy caught." she said as she stormed off, "I'll do it the old-fashioned way!" The group looked to each other, each with confusion on their faces.

It took some time, but Rainbow could begin to hear somepony's voice, a very familiar voice as they spoke to them, "Dashie?" he said, and then she opened her eyes. Breeze was there. The darkness around him almost made him invisible, but there he was. "You ok Dashie?" he asked.

"Ugh." she groaned as she lifted her hoof to her head, "What happened?"

"Boar hit us with his Linear Arc Canon." Breeze said, then she could see it, the scrapes and the singes all over his fur, "Luckily I used my magic to create a barrier between us and the electricity, I didn't even know I could do that."

Only now could she feel the pain, it was slight but she could still feel it, the most was in her left front leg but somehow none was in her wings. The pegasus flinched at this feeling, as she stood, she kept her most painful hoof from touching the ground and looked around. She was still in the cockpit of the Rainbow Trail, the controls for her wings hanging there lifeless but nearly untouched, "Looks like the safety design for those wing controls worked." she said and flapped her wings before gingerly placing her hoof to the ground then rubbed her stomach, "The cushioning for the seat helped but it still hurts." she said, and then looked to him, "And thanks for the barrier. We'd have been toast if not for that."

"No problem Dashi." he said and turned to push against the glass of the racer, easily lifting it up. Waiting until Rainbow exited the racer, he gently let the glass close, then he turned to assess the damage. "Not good." he said. The Rainbow Trail looked like it could have been better, still straight with a single bent wing, and what looked like a broken jet. The entire side had been gouged up and damaged and now balanced precariously on what looked like a small ledge that somehow held it up, leaning against the wall.

"Can she still fly?" he heard his partner ask.

"I don't know." He said, "But not up the wall, we barely made enough power last time and with a wing and a jet wrecked it's a no go."

"Careful." they heard from around the corner, "I think they fell somewhere {snort} around here!"

"Why are we doing this?" a female voice asked.

"Because we need the parts, {snort} and I'm sure they won't…" a male Treeopon said as he turned the corner of the ledge, a ledge barely able to fit the two of them as they walked side by side. Rainbow Dash and Breeze both turned to the two as they appeared. "Uh, hi." was all the male could say.

"You two are alive?" the female asked, she was a few inches shorter than the male, and much prettier as well, her smooth face only soiled by the burns on her fur.

"Who are you?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"We got dropped by Boar during the opening, right after the funneling." the female said "I'm Uza, and this is Prin."

"Wait, you mean the bottleneck in the track?" Breeze asked. Both Treeopons nodded in shame. "Sorry about that, man, I'm Breeze and this is Rainbow Dash."

"Oh yeah, {snort} the second-place winners of the qualifiers." Prin said, "Let the {snort} success get to your head huh?"

"PRIN!" Uza nearly shouted and glared at him. That was when Breeze saw the shiny ring on her left hand, a nice small diamond that glittered when any light hit it, but the color of the gem itself was orange a hot fire orange.

"Whoa!" the unicorn said, "You proposed with a Nova Star ring?"

The two Treeopons turned to the pony, both surprised until Uza turned and blushed, "Yeah." Prin said, "Just a few days ago actually {snort}."

"Dude, those gems are expensive, how'd you find one so big?" Breeze asked.

"I got my sources!" the proud Treeopon said.

"Nice." The pony said and was interrupted by his partner.

"Congratulations, but I think we have more pressing things to worry about." she said, "I can only carry one of us out, Treeopons are a bit too big for me to safely carry, especially with a hurt leg."

"I have some medical training thanks to Prin's clumsiness." Uza said and slowly made her way up to the ship. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings a bit, as she flew from the machine to the ground where Uza stood. The female Treeopon looked over the hurt leg without missing a beat.

"And I still can't teleport. It's like my own magic just said, 'Nah, you don't need it', and walked away." Breeze said.

"What about your Air Flash?" Rainbow asked as the Treeopon squeezed in places on her leg, "Ow." she said as Uza squeezed a particularly tender spot.

"Not enough, too high and it looks like there aren't any ledges or hoof holds I can use on the way until we fix our racers, we're stuck." he said.

"Do you guys still have your {snort} HUD?" Prin asked.

"Don't know, all systems went dead thanks to Boar's Linear Arc Cannon." the unicorn said.

"A what?" Prin asked.

"Linear Arc Cannon. It's a…" Breeze began.

"I know what it is, and you're telling me that Boar is using one instead of a Stun Bolt gun?" the Treeopon asked.

"Well, yes and no. He's hiding the Arc shots with a Stun Bolt, timed it perfectly as well." the unicorn continued.

Prin thought a minute, "How long did you know about this?" he asked.

"Boar used it on us in the qualifiers, that's why we had to play it safe at first." Rainbow Dash said.

"And how did you figure it out?" Prin added.

"My brother used to work on the tech of the Genesis Ark, he recognized it by its charge color." Breeze admitted.

This got Prin to place his hand to his chin in thought, then he made his way to the Rainbow Trail, and dove into the back of it, with his arms.

"What are you…" Rainbow began, and the racer roared to life.

"Check the console feed." The Treeopon said, and Breeze entered into the cockpit, turning the feed on. What is showed was Boar, standing there in handcuffs and what looked like officials surrounding him and his gunner. But what surprised him the most was Writch, a rod in her hand that had wires coming from the back of it, several of them leading into the gun that Breeze had destroyed with a lucky shot.

"Boar, what do you have to say for yourself about your cheating?" the news reporter asked, but she was shooed away by the officials. "Looks like we're still going to be waiting here until Boar's vacant spot in the winners' circle can be filled, so to the three racers that Boar knocked out of the race, if you downed racers can hear me, get your engines started, and race your way to the finish line."

The feed went dead, static filling the screen, "Wait, we still have to race?" Breeze asked.

"I thought we'd get help before we had to keep going." Rainbow Dash asked.

"Not in the Terranuil Race, you need to prove yourselves to the whole world." Uza said.

"But we can't get out." Breeze said.

"Actually, if we combine the power {snort} of both of our ships, we'll easily make it to the {snort} top, then we can duke it out to the finish line, {snort} an old fashioned one on one." Prin said.

"How are you going to get our two ships together?" Rainbow asked.

"There's a platform we landed on big enough {snort} for the two of us to rest on while I {snort} work, we just have to get your ship to {snort} it, carefully." Prin said, "And I know just how to do it."