Chapter 41 – A Break in the Action

"How many of these things are there?" Rainbow asked as Breeze once again scared a Golawk that was chasing them.

"I don't know." Honor replied, "But even my patience is getting tested with this." He slid into the next gate just as the one that was chasing their racer veered off in fright from the blasts Chivalry had landed.

"And I'm running out of bolt charge." Tris said as she and Syls narrowly clipped the edge of the gate.

"Somepony's going to get hurt on this course." Breeze said as he focused on another one trying to intercept them at the front of the next gate. It quickly turned from its path to move away from what frightened it.

"Maybe we can broadcast Fluttershy's voice over the coms?" Rainbow asked, "She has a way with animals."

"Not these ones." Fluttershy said as she placed herself in front of the camera, "I've never met one in person. It would take me too long to learn their language."

Syls growled at their situation, "Is there anything we can do?" she asked, and relaxed as the ones chasing them veered off.

"Whatever you did, do it again." Honor said.

"I didn't do anything." the Dryskian said and turned back to the track. The way forward was clear, not at all what she was expecting. "Usually in movies, this is where something much scarier appears." she said.

"If you jinx us, I'm gonna…" Rainbow began to ask, only to be interrupted when the ground disappeared from underneath them. The three of them called out in horror as the three racers plummeted, Rainbow quickly turning upward and letting her boosters fire off at max thrust to slow here decent. Honor and Syls followed suit, their own thrusters slowing their descent until they gently touched the ground. "Now, where are we?" the pegasus asked.

"Skittle Head?" Syls asked suddenly.

Rainbow sighed a bit, "What?" she asked.

"What's a Jinx?" the Dryskian asked.

"I believe it is a term used to symbolize the turn of good luck into bad, correct?" Honor explained, "Either way, it is a good thing we were not attacking each other before we made our way down here, but for our bolt charges to be depleted like this…"

"Does anypony have a light?" Breeze asked.

"Hold on." Syls suddenly said, and somehow the seams on her racer began to glow, "I had my team install light strips after I saw how amazing the Rainbow Trail looked when Skittle Head did her little boosting trick. But this way I don't have to fall asleep."

The light emitted from the light strips gave a decent amount of light, illuminating the surrounding area in white light, "Nice." Rainbow commented.

"Maybe it would be a good idea to have our racers produce light as well." Chivalry said.

"I guess headlights would be a good thing if we have to race on the dark side of Dryskis." Breeze said and looked around, nothing but walls of stone, but nothing he saw actually looked natural to him, "Does this look right to you?" he asked.

"Well, the cliffs on the last two tracks looked carved too. Maybe it's just the way this planet is?" Rainbow commented.

"Wait, the last track didn't look carved." Syls said as she moved forward a bit.

"You didn't practice in those cliffs like we did, we could actually see the walls as they curved up like they had been carved for a different purpose." Breeze said.

"Carved?" Chivalry asked as she and her pilot moved with the Dryskian.

The three racers crept up slowly, the pilots now focused as the gunners spoke to each other, "Yeah." Breeze said, "Carved like it was some kind of wall or something."

"And what about the track before, when you two went careening into the chasm?" Tris asked.

"Same, but while we were finding a way out, we stumbled across a cave with paintings inside." the unicorn explained.

"What kind of painting?" Tris asked, her voice both curious and nervous as to what they had seen.

"One like this." they all heard Rainbow Dash say, and they turned their heads to view a much larger depiction of a dark serpent fighting a golden dragon. The area around them seemed devastated, destroyed by the fighting, and the serpent was obviously losing. It had been thrown onto its back as it hissed to the dragon that had its mouth open and had begun to breathe fire at the serpent. "Just much smaller."

Suddenly the three of them heard laughter, a burst of creepy child-like laughter as it echoed through the caves off to their right. "Hello?" Syls asked through her coms.

"This is getting creepy." Rainbow Dash said.

"I don't like this." Tris said, "What do we do?"

"Might I suggest we get back to the race?" Charity asked.

"Oh, ponyfeathers!" Rainbow said suddenly, "I almost forgot about the race. We're probably so far behind right now."

"But that hole in the ground basically spanned the entire track, how has no one fallen down to join us?" Syls added in.

"Hey guys, got any info on what's happening up there?" Rainbow asked, and quickly found the toms down, the picture showed nothing but static and a disconnected picture, "What?" she asked, "But, we were down more than double the distance in the chasm, and we could still get at least the news."

"Must be something down here interfering with our communications, what are we to do now?" Honor asked.