“Yes,
darling, that was simply marvellous.” Rarity agreed with an impressed look.
“It
wasn’t…my idea first.” Twilight admitted, looking embarrassed, “Those wolves
were duel monsters. Nightmare Moon must have summoned them as our first task. I
just worked out how to copy her.”
“Hey
if it worked it worked.” Applejack laughed, budging her with a smile. Twilight
nudged back, happy when she felt a little of the pressure that had been
weighing down on them lift, as if her theory was right and they had passed
their first trial.
“Oh
yeah, one down, four to go!” Rainbow laughed, weaving between the branches with
much more ease that she had before, while Pinkie Pie looked a little more bouncy
and Fluttershy actually smiled, looking a little reassured.
“Excuse
me, Princess Twilight?” Fluttershy asked shyly as they continued though the
forest, both Twilight and Rarity using a basic ‘candlelight’ spell to create
little balls of light that hovered just over their horn tips to light the way a
little better, “What’re the other Elements?”
“Yeah,
if Laughter helped us get past the first trial, the others might help with the
rest.” Dash agreed as she hovered above them.
“I’m
not a Princess, not really.” Twilight sighed, “I don’t know why Nightmare Moon
keeps calling me that. I mean I still don’t know how I managed to transform
myself last time, but it must have been a spell or something…” She paused and
took a deep breath and moved away from the subject, hating that she did not
know something, “There’s five Elements that are known,” She settled into
lecture mode, “Laughter is one of them, then we have Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness
and Generosity. I’m not sure how we could weaponize any of those though, I
think we’re probably going to have to just play it by ear a lot of the time.”
“Well
laughing at the wolves worked, so I bet we can work it out somehow.” Pinkie Pie
seemed unbothered by the uncertainty, an attitude that both bothered Twilight
and made her slightly envious. She knew she generally over thought things, it
was a part of who she was. She was not like a lot of other ponies who could
jump into something and change the plans. She had a weekly schedule and she
stuck to it like glue. This whole fiasco was ruining it but for once it was
okay, purely because her plans had been to celebrate the rising of the sun with
Spike, which she obviously could not do without a sun in the sky.
Sometimes
though she envied the ability of most of the other ponies she knew. They could
adapt and change their plans without feeling stressed or worried and act on a
whim. Twilight had to plan time to do things like that into her schedule. She
even had assigned ‘worrying’ times. She could not help but wonder if the mess
she was in countered as one of those and if she could move one up from further
in her timetable in order to reorder her week once this was over.
The
woods seemed a little less scary with the knowledge that they could frighten
off the creatures made from the darkness with a simple laugh and their pace
picked up, especially once they made it past the canopy of trees that cut the
river that trailed through the Everfree Forest off from the rest of Equestria.
Rainbow Dash let out a whoop and shot skyward, enjoying the open air. She
soared upwards, needing to spread her wings after being cooped up under the
trees for so long.
“Aren’t
you going to join her?” Twilight asked Fluttershy curiously, only for the light
yellow unicorn to shake her head.
“I
don’t need the sky like Dash does.” The animal loving filly replied with an
embarrassed smile, “I tend to stay a lot closer to the ground. I mean I can
fly, but…”
“You
don’t like to?” Twilight asked softly. Fluttershy shook her head, blushing
slightly and scuffing the floor with her right fore-hoof. “That’s okay, you can
help us to work out how to get across the river while Rainbow’s stretching her
wings.”
The
river in question looked placid but that did not mean anything. It could be
hiding a rapid current underneath that, could catch them as they tried to swim
across. If it did it would quite easily drag them under and they would never
make it to the other side, yet alone the Palace of the Two Sisters.
Rainbow
swooped overhead, doing a loop-de-loop which looked very pretty with the
rainbow trailing behind her, but was not helpful. Twiilght realised she was not
trying to be when Applejack let out a startled exclamation and a trio of black
pegasi shot past in hot pursuit, driving Rainbow further up into the clouds.
The
pale blue pegasus in question was hard pressed to keep the trio off of her tail
as she lost sight of her friends because of the cloud cover. She had no idea
where they had come from, but they were shockingly fast, almost as quick as her
and that was saying something. They were not as agile though and that was where
she had the advantage.
They
were dressed a lot like the Wonderbolts, except their jump suits were a dark
purple, their goggles were all the same shade except for the glass which was a
bright and slightly glowing purple and their head gear was black. What creeped
her out a little was the cutie marks emblazoned on the flanks of their
jumpsuits. A white pony skull with a wing extending from it made it quite clear
that they were not fooling around.
“Found
you.” One of them, the only mare of the group if she was right, crowed as she
appeared from below Rainbow, “Boys, she’s over here!”
Dash
did not give the other two a chance to arrive, doing a wingover and vanishing
into the cotton like clouds. The mare let out a frustrated noise and followed
her, calling out, “Rainbow Dash, we just want to talk...”
‘Which was why they tried to knock me out of
the skies.’ Dash thought sarcastically, staying silent, ‘There’s no way they should know my name
either. They have to be a trick or a summon, like those wolves...’
“Forget
her.” Rainbow’s train of thoughts got derailed when she heard one of the
stallions talking, “She’s long gone, probably back to the barrier out. Let’s go
deal with the others, especially the Princess.”
Oh no.
That was not happening. She was not allowing it to happen. Dash dove through
the cloud cover and emerged the other side in time to see her friends who had
been crossing the river carefully being divebombed by the trio of pegasi who
had been chasing her a few moments earlier.
“Hey!
Did I say you could ignore me?” Rainbow demanded before barrelling into the
mare who tumbled in midair, nearly sending both of them into the deeper waters
just a little further down.
“Who
said we wanted to ignore you?” The mare smirked as she righted herself, “We
want you on our side, Rainbow Dash, and we’ll do anything to get it.”
Rainbow
did not get a chance to ask what the hell she meant before one of the stallions
slammed into her, knocking her skywards, away from both the river and the mare.
“Rainbow!”
She could hear Twilight’s worried call and saw Fluttershy actually take off, as
if to help.
She
did not react to either. Instead she smirked at the triad of dark pegasi and
shot skywards, leaving behind a challenge of “If you want me, come and get me!”
The
trio of pegasi followed at such a pace that Rainbow was hard pressed to stay
ahead. It was exhilarating as much as it was scary and Dash caught herself
letting out a genuinely delighted laugh as she narrowly dodged a sideswipe from
the bigger of the two stallions.
The
dark pony in question yelped and dropped a couple of foot at the sound, making
Dash take in a sharp intake of breath. They were not ponies anymore than the
wolves had been. The pegasi chasing her were simply a product of the darkness
or something summoned by Nightmare Moon in order to stop their progress.
That
revelation cost her though and she let out a pained cry and tumbled nearly
twenty foot straight down as the bigger of the two stallions collided with her
deliberately. Before she could right herself the second stallion had slammed
into her and sent her rocketing sideways where she collided with the side of a
mountain before bouncing off of the solid rock and tumbling down, stunned by
the pain and dazed by the collisions.
It
was, shockingly, the mare who stopped her painfully colliding with the floor.
The false pegasus moved a cloud into Rainbow’s path. The pale blue filly landed
on it instead of the hard, rocky ground below.
“Y...You
helped me?” Rainbow stared at the mare in shock as she tried to pull herself to
her feet, wincing as her muscles protested and her injuries pulled.
“I
told you Rainbow Dash, we want you for our team.” The mare replied, “Which
means you’re no use to us dead.”
“What
team?” Dash snorted, preparing to take off again and flinching as her wings
snapped open but pain flared down her right side, “You’re not real.”
“Oh we’re
just as real as you are, Rainbow Dash. When Nightmare Moon told us that the
best flyer in all of Equestria was passing through we just had to meet you and
get you to join our team. Forget the Princess and those losers and come work
with us. We could be better than the Wonderbolts and we want you as our
captian.”
It was
too good to be true. Which was a shame because it sounded wonderful.
