As far as the eye could see, the Western Ocean was empty and clear. It barely bore any waves larger than a ripple. It was no wonder the inhabitants of Las Pegasus called it the peaceful sea.
Peaceful, thought Rainbow Dash, more like boring. She strained her eyes for any sign of a ship; a black speck on the horizon, maybe, or a telltale disturbance in the surface of the water. It was pointless, of course; whatever she claimed, Dash’s eyesight was no match for the Spitfire’s state-of-the-art radar system, which gave a half-hearted ping every few seconds but showed not a blip on its screen. There was no real need for a luxury sky-ship to have a radar system, but the engineer who designed it was a devoted adherent to the Canterlot design philosophy, which states that everything built must include every new and expensive accessory possible. Unicorns.
The ship was a miracle of modern magic. It floated in the air without any balloons or sails, only a few flaps on the side for steering. It was gilded with some sort of shiny metal and decorated with turbines and pipes that served no apparent purpose besides looking cool. Its builders never came close to making back their investment. They had hoped to sell pleasure cruises in Cloudsdale, completely failing to realize that a view from the sky isn’t much of a novelty for a Cloudsdale pegasus.
Dash kept staring at the ocean until she could no longer tell the sea and the sky apart, at which point she decided it was time to retire to her quarters. Commanding the Spitfire was hard work, anyways; she deserved a break. Once in her room, she flipped through idly through her collection of vinyl LPs before putting one of them on the record player and setting down the needle. Immediately the room was filled with distorted guitars and unnatural screams.
Knock-knock. Startled by the tiny sound, Rainbow Dash jumped to the player and ripped the needle off the record with a painful screech. “Come in!”
Derpy Hooves pushed open the door gently and walked in. “Oh, hi Rainbow Dash. I mean uh, Captain, sir. Are you busy? Sir?”
“Uh, no, uh, not really. What is it?”
“I just noticed a weird red dot on the radar and I thought maybe you might want to know—” Before Derpy could finish her sentence, Dash literally flew out the door, knocking her over without noticing. A couple seconds later, Dash's voice came in over the ship’s PA:
“All combat-ready pegasi, report to the main deck immediately! This is your captain speaking! I repeat, report to the main deck!”
Derpy wasn't sure if she would describe herself as “combat-ready,” but she lined up before Rainbow Dash along with a couple other pegasi, and waited while others gradually joined them. After a minute, there were 20-odd pegasi, a mix of ages from teenaged to adult, all of them refugees from Cloudsdale or Ponyville. If they hadn’t stumbled aboard the Spitfire, they would now be living under the iron hoof of King Sombra.
“All right!” said Rainbow Dash. She used her best drill sergeant voice, but she couldn’t hide her excitement. “We’ve spotted an enemy ship on the radar! We haven’t done this for a while, so I’m gonna remind you guys how it goes. This is gonna be another supply ship, maybe with a unicorn and a couple armed earth ponies to defend it. Soon as you see anypony like that, fly down and push them into the water. Grab as much food and supplies as you can and bring it aboard. We’ll take weapons too, but those are last priority. Got it?”
A joyful “Aye-aye, Cap’n!” rose from the crowd. Clearly Dash wasn’t the only one suffering from terminal boredom.
Rainbow Dash turned to Scarlet Sky, the ship’s pilot. “How long have we got till the enemy is in range?”
“I’d say about ten minutes…we should be able to see them on the horizon in one or two.”
“Oh,” said Dash. Turning to the crowd, she said “You guys can just kind of…hang out here until we get closer.” The gathered pegasi drifted out of their ordered line and started to talk eagerly amongst themselves. A ship! I wonder if this one will have nice food like the last. I’m getting tired of all this salted stuff. Hopefully there isn’t another one of those nasty unicorns aboard. Those boils didn’t go away for weeks! TMI, dude. TMI.
Derpy approached her friend. Dash was wearing her Element of Harmony again. She had been doing that more and more lately. It was weird. That wasn’t what Derpy wanted to talk about now, though. “Hey, Captain, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Derpy.”
“What's up with those noises you've been making at night? You sound like you're having nightmares.”
“What do you mean I make noises in bed? How would you even know that?”
“I’m sorry,” said Derpy, not sure what she was apologizing for. “They’re, uh, kind of loud…”
“What sort of “noises” are these, anyways?” demanded Dash. “How loud are they?”
“Um, I suppose, you could describe them, as, uh, screams…” said Derpy. “Or sobs, sometimes,” she added helpfully.
“Hold on. You’re telling me that I, Rainbow Dash, am screaming and crying in my sleep? And this is loud enough for ponies in other rooms to hear?” Dash did her best to keep her horrified shouting to a whisper.
Before Derpy could respond, a voice piped up, “Hey, um, Captain, sir, do you think we should do that thing now?” Dash looked over the side of the deck and saw a ship on the water below the Spitfire. It was a long, ugly black thing, with no sails; instead dozens of oars stuck out from its sides, pulling the ship forward and leaving a mess of foam and eddies in the surrounding water. On its deck was painted the emblem of King Sombra: a blue-green crystal surrounded by flames of green and purple. The emblem was half-hidden under some boxes that had fallen off from a neatly stacked pile behind it. The boxes were labeled in the strange northern alphabet, but Dash knew what they contained: precious food and materiel, bound for the besieged city of Las Pegasus. A solitary unicorn stallion stood on the very front of the boat, standing so still Dash at first mistook him for a figurehead before he arched his head to look at the Spitfire above.
“Attack!” roared Rainbow Dash, as she flew over the edge of the sky-ship and dove towards the craft below. The other pegasi followed, echoing her cry, except for Fluttershy, who remained on the deck.
Dash flew directly at the unicorn below. If she hit him at this speed, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from being thrown into the water. Dash had yet to meet a pony who could swim. As she approached, she saw the stallion had the shaggy fur, pointed canines and curved horn that marked a unicorn corrupted by dark magic. His coat was mostly white with some brown and black patches along his back, giving him a lupine appearance.
She could almost reach him when his horn started glowing green, and she felt a shock wave hit her, and her vision went black—
And what felt like an instant later, she was desperately hovering a couple feet above the water. She had been thrown back from the ship, but it was getting closer. She ached, but she didn’t think she was injured. If she was, well, it would have to wait. She tensed, getting ready for another go at the unicorn—
Her element. It wasn’t around her neck anymore. She glanced around wildly, then saw a red gleam bobbing up and down in the water. She flew for it desperately, and was rewarded with a drenched mane, a mouthful of seawater—and a gold chain between her teeth. She flew higher and looked at the ship. All of the pegasi that had come with her with standing on the deck, their ankles bound by a glowing green chain.
No no no. This is not OK. Dash charged at the unicorn again, who was still standing on the prow. He turned his head a little bit, glanced at Rainbow Dash, and let off another burst of energy.
Dash felt another shock, but this time she was prepared for it, and she let herself be pushed back without resisting. She charged again, this time as fast as she could. In seconds she could almost touch his horn.
She felt a wrenching pain in her chest, like a cold rusty dagger was being drawn through it, slowly. She felt herself fall, and she focused all her mental energy on staying aloft. Desperately, she pulled away from the unicorn, and the pain lifted a little bit.
I’m done with this. Dash turned sharply and flew straight up to the Spitfire, which was waiting above. She fumbled with her element until she got it around her neck again, then opened her eyes; she hadn’t realized they were closed. Before her hooves hit the deck, she ordered Scarlet Sky “Get us out of here as fast as possible. Now.”
“But,” he said, “isn’t everyone else still down there?”
“That was an order!” shouted Dash, sounding a little too hysterical for her own liking. The ship began to accelerate. Her brain still hadn’t fully processed what was happening. It was too busy trying to handle the pain. Everyone is gone. Flitter, Stormwalker, Derpy, all of them. It’s just like Cloudsdale.
Me and Sky are the only ones left now.
Oh, wait.
A unicorn filly with a pale violet coat and blonde mane was stomping towards Dash, a look of hatred in her eyes. “So the Element of Loyalty is abandoning her friends?!”
Please no. “Um, look, Dinky, now is not really the time,” said Dash. “You should probably…take a nap or something.”
“My mother is on that ship!” continued Dinky. “And so are your friends and crew-members! You can’t leave them!”
That filly’s shrieking is going to permanently damage my ears. “Yeah, I care about everyone. It’s all going to OK. We’re going to get them back…” Dash reached forward to give the distressed filly a hug.
“Hey! I need an adult!”
“What did you just say—”
“I’m an adult,” offered Sky.
“You’re Rainbow Dash,” said Dinky. “You’re supposed to be fearless and loyal. I was a member of your fan club! Rainbow Dash doesn’t run away and leave her friends to be imprisoned by the enemy.”
“Yeah, well I just did. If I try and fight that unicorn down there, I’m going to end up dead or captured like the rest. It’s not worth it.” Dash had an uncomfortable feeling that Dinky had a point. She was engaging in very un-Rainbow-Dash-like behavior. But just because she represented loyalty didn’t mean she had to sacrifice herself in vain.
“So all it takes to stop the great Rainbow Dash is a single unicorn? Is that it?” Now she was just mocking her.
“Hey kid, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s racist little fillies,” said Dash. “I’m not any happier about what happened then you are, but that doesn’t mean I can do anything about it. OK?”
Dinky quieted down for a moment. Relieved, Dash turned to the pilot. “So, where are we exactly? And where are we going?”
“We’re at 41 degrees, 3 minutes north and 14 degrees, 1 minute east, headed east-northeast.”
“Um, OK, but where are we?” asked Dash. “And where are we going?”
“We’re several miles west of the White Tail Woods, and that’s where we’re going. I assume you don’t want to wander aimlessly across the sea much longer.”
“Don’t make assumptions like that,” snapped Dash. “But yeah, landing would probably be a good idea. I’ve had about enough of this sea air.” There was silence for a moment. Well, not silence. Actually, Dinky was crying. Loudly.
“Look, kid, you need to be strong,” said Dash. “It’s what your mom would want. You’re won’t get her back by sniveling, will you?”
“Well, how are you planning on getting her back?” That was an excellent question. Dash wasn’t sure.
“Well, um, I hear the ponies that have been fighting Sombra are active in the White Tail Forest. They’re the same ones that are cutting off Las Pegasus from support by land. That’s why he has to send these ships down from Vanhoover. That ship is going to Las Pegasus, so they’ll probably keep everyone there. We’ll meet up with the partisans in the Forest and can travel to Las Pegasus and stage an awesome stealth attack and free everypony!” Well, Dinky should like that plan. God, what’d that unicorn do to me? I feel like I’m going to throw up.
Dinky stopped crying. “See, that’s the kind of thinking I expect from Rainbow Dash.”
“Yeah, it’ll be so awesome…” Dash fell to the ground with a thump. There was silence for a moment, this time for real.
Sky turned to Dinky. “I think Rainbow needs some time to recover. Why don’t you give her a break, OK?”
Dinky sat down. “Do you really think we’ll get my mom back? And everyone else?”
“I haven’t known her all that long,” said Scarlet Sky, “But I refuse to believe Rainbow Dash would ever give up on her friends.”
Author's Note
Thus begins Rainbow Dash's heroic adventure! Silly filly thought she could stay away from the war. Makes you wonder what happened in Cloudsdale that scared her so much. You don't normally see Rainbow Dash avoiding a fight.
Yes, Dash is a "sir." Can you really imagine referring to her as "ma'am"? I certainly can't.
