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// 45 - Clash of Colors// Story: Ponyfinder: Roots of Stone// by David Silver//------------------------------//

Fast shook herself with a metallic rattle as she looked over her readied band of adventurers, plus Tabitha. "Tabitha, stay within sight, but not much closer or farther than that. Do not approach, even if it looks like we're in trouble. You'll get yourself killed. Worst case scenario, we botch the whole thing, and you get out. You go to the city like you were originally planning and don't even--"

"No." She crossed her arms under her chest, glaring at Fast defiantly.

Paul pointed to the east. "You can and you should. We're the adventurers, so we get to do stupid things sometimes, that doesn't give you a ticket to throw your life away."

She shook her head, tangled red hair fluttering. "No. I've waited my entire life for something amazing to come along, and here it is. I'm not letting any of you out of my sight. I'm sorry, your highness, but my loyalty won't be broken that easily."

A soft snort emerged from Fast's helmet. Her helmet was directed at Tabitha, but she was quiet for a moment. Tree advanced with a little smile. "Tabitha, dude, we're doing this for you."

"Then don't." She put her hands on her hips instead. "Forget it, as long as I can come with you."

Fast sat down on her haunches. "What about your farm, your life?"

"Hard work, dull work, and no future. Besides, the orcs came once, they can come again. I'd just be waiting for them to come take my things, maybe do terrible things to me while they're there." She rolled a hand at Fast. "I ain't as stupid as I look. The farm's worthless. Forget it. Where are you headed? Somewhere important, I bet."

Tree cocked her head at Tabitha. "Dude... The orcs are still in the way. If we go around them, they might catch on and come after us anyway, right Fast?"

Fast nodded firmly. "Exactly so. This fight will proceed, for the farm, or simply to move on safely past it. So, regardless of how you feel, you must stay back." She rose to her hooves. "Let's go. When the house is in clear view, you stop approaching, Tabitha. The rest of us, you all know what you're doing. Let's play this smart, hit fast, and cut the head clean off." She led the way, hooves kicking up dust with her clomping trot.

Maud approached Tabitha and circled around her before thrusting her head between the woman's legs and lifting. Tab shrieked in surprise, but was soon deposited on Maud's back as she trotted along smoothly with the burden. She wasn't large enough to serve as a proper mount, but Tabitha quickly caught on and kept her legs elevated as Maud whisked her along. "Thanks. You didn't have to."

"No, but I did." She raised a brow back at her passenger. "Do you want to walk?"

"No!"

"Then let's play the quiet game again. Loser gives the other a ride for an hour."

Tabitha paled and went silent.

With peace secured, they approached the farm in quiet. The plains provided no cover, for Fast's team or their green enemies. The orcs came into view and both could see one another easily. Maud double-backed and quickly set Tabitha down. "Stay."

"You talked," noted Tabitha.

Maud nodded. "You win." She turned away and rejoined the line of the others.

The orcs were coming with a rough cry among them. They were brandishing long blades, except for two that drew bows and took long-range pot shots that mostly fell far from the mark from the distance they had to cover. "Do you think they saw us?" asked Paul with a bit of a smirk. "Shall we meet them half way?"

"No need." Fast fiddled with her lance, making sure it's ready. "They're coming to us, and that's fine. Let them arrive winded."

Tree sat on her haunches and rubbed her hooves, glowing with soft green colors. "Want to see something righteous?" She struck down with one hoof. "Grasses of the green, slow down any that would bend your blades." Then her other hoof came down. "Plants of the plain, grow radical and powerful, show us puny animals how mighty you can be." Faint waves of green radiated from her before the grass shot up, tall and obscuring, as if they were in a center of a giant wheat field. The arrows became even more erratic as the archers couldn't even see the party anymore.

The cries of the orcs became audible, loud with frustration and fury, but the plants had slowed their approach terribly; they struggled to get to them with the distant sounds of their blades being put to work on the grass.

Paul laughed, throwing his head back a moment. "By the gods, that's some trick, but they're going to get through eventually, faster if their friend's a wizard or something."

Fast raised a brow. "Even if he is, every spell he uses against your trick, Tree, is one not scorching our hides. Very well done."

A familiar rush of flames engulfed the field as a fireball became faintly visible over the tall grass. "There's one." Fast smiled. "Let's hope they use a few more on this instead of us."

Tree rubbed a hoof along the ground. "Sorry, plant friends. It's for a good cause."

Then things went sour. Flames came rushing right down the middle of the party and jumped up into a great wall of fire and heat. The fire seemed cool on one side, but Maud, Paul, and Tabitha were caught in sudden intense heat. Acting quickly, Maud, spun and rushed for Tabitha, practically bowling her over to knock her onto Maud's back and run off.

Paul had to run out on his own, but he showed fewer scorches and burns than Tabitha.

Tree called out to them, "You alright?"

Paul waved it off. "We're fine. Get rid of this fire."

Tree pawed at the ground beside the wall, but didn't know what to do about it. "Um... Man..." Suddenly, it blinked away. They could see through the field of vegetation. It had burned a line straight through it, and set much of the grass along the hot side on fire. Their defenses had been breached.

Fast braced herself. "Nothing's changed. They're coming, and we're going to fight them. Their leader's more dangerous than I wanted to believe, be mindful and strike him the moment the opportunity allows."

Paul and Maud returned to the line, leaving Tabitha where she laid, possibly more stunned by being slammed into than by the mercifully brief encounter with the flames.

The sounds of the orcs were getting louder. One made it to the channel that was burned and began rushing at them. As they came, Maud glanced aside at Paul. "I used to only move fast when it was an emergency. Here, it's always an emergency."

Paul nodded lightly. "Yeah... I hear that. Thanks fer it. Ah know Tree Hugger has dibs, but yer kinda the big sister of the party."

Before Maud could inquire about that, the fight was upon them. The orc charged screaming into the clearing of plants, and he brought several friends right behind him.

Paul met the first to approach him with a powerful cleave, neatly disemboweling the charging assailant, but he didn't stop. Oozing his own entrails, the orc kept right on screaming, and brought his sword in a neat arc that saw a rough line of red across his left arm.

Fast's long weapon proved quite capable of receiving the charge. She drove her lance through the chest of one to find him pressing through it. He brought down his weapon to glance against her thick metal armor, then slumped against her, impaled and hanging.

Without warning, an arrow caught Tree between the shoulders. She squealed in pain, looking ready to bolt, but fighting it even as tears welled in her eyes. "Not cool..."

Maud made no attempt to lash at the orc as he came towards her. He sneered at her. "Afraid?"

"Oh, you do talk."

The orc replied with an overhand slash as if to remove her head and be done with it, but she flowed around the blade, brought up her hooves in two rapid strikes into his chest before driving her head forward, butting into him with bone shattering force. He fell back, his breathing a raspy wheeze, but he was still standing, and still furious. He swung at her drunkenly, fighting on pure rage alone. She stepped away from the attack. "You're already dead."

As if realizing the truth of it, the orc fell before her and stopped moving.

The forward charge had little chance against them, but they were only the fastest. An orc pair advanced, shields held high, blades in their other hands. They said something in their odd language before the more slender of the two shouted back towards the farmhouse. They stepped away from one another with malignant smiles.

"Forward!" called Fast, charging for one of them with lance at the ready. Her rush was interrupted with a sensation she would rather not be so intimate with. A small mote of flame drifted past the two and exploded into the field, consuming her and her friends in hungry fire. Her armor warmed dangerously, but began to cool itself quickly, not that this did much to the sears and burns already inflicted on her in an instant of exposure to the intense heat. "Damn it all, someone get that wizard!"

Cowering in the back, Tabitha got to see the fireball rush towards her, only missing by a few feet from cooking her to a crisp. It was a wonder to her that her new friends weren't so much as finely prepared bacon after such a thing, but they were still in it, mostly. Paul looked like he could barely stand, and fell to a knee, heaving and panting with awful marks.

As the others fought, she pushed to her feet and quickly moved up to Paul's side, taking one of his arms and throwing it over her shoulder before starting to drag him away. Every step was unfortunately slow and burdened, but she got him to the edge of the circle just before another ball of flame engulfed the battle. She cringed at it, but the fighting hadn't stopped. They hadn't lost, yet.

Paul grabbed her shoulder suddenly. "Miss... Ya saved me."

"Shhh." She smiled at him. "You're hurt real bad. Just lay down."

"Yeah yeah, least I'm here to complain 'bout it." He sank to the ground with a soft thump. "Thanks..."

With a roar of elemental fury, three small figures of dancing flame appeared around the orcs and began beating on them in concert with Maud and Fast's aggressive push, shoving them back and driving them into the ground. Tree Hugger thrust a hoof up. "Righteous!" The motion must have made her pull a burn as she winced. "Damn it..." She banished some of her growing wounds with a burst of green. "This isn't good."

Maud nodded even as she jumped over the fallen orcs and began rushing for the house and the spellcaster within or near it. She moved as only she could. It was time to end the battle, for one side or the other.