The Valhalla Cascade: The Arrival

Chapter 2

One week later

I

Rainbow Dash shuffled along on her crutches, the fact that she now moved at roughly the same pace as Tank but she was finally out of that hospital room. It was still going to be another long week before the speed heal spells finished regenerating her wing bones, still, being able to go for a walk was ok for now.

Dash smiled, it was a good day to be out and about. The sun was finally shining brightly now Celestia wasn't spending all her time patching up the rift, Most of the rubble had been cleared from Ponyville and nothing was threatening to bleed her dry.

Wait.

What?

Where had that last thought come from? She stopped and furrowed her brow in concentration. But the thought had gone. Maybe amnesia should be expected from traumatic events such as these but why did everyone have to get it at the same time?

“Not everyone” Dash muttered to herself. “Celestia knows something then again she always knows more than she lets on. Maybe there’s some clause about that in the godhood contract.” It had been Applejack, being the Element of Honesty that had first noticed the odd mannerisms of the Princess, she wasn't lying as such but it was there. Reminded Dash of a parent not wanting to explain exactly where the old family dog had gone to a young colt or filly.

Speaking of young children Dash noticed two things simultaneously. Firstly a mother sporting one of those ridiculous mane-styles that you only found in Canterlot was hurrying her children away down the street whilst throwing Rainbow an incredibly dirty look. Secondly there was an incredibly exited Scootaloo inbound.

Dash managed to pop some painkillers into her mouth just in time before the orange missile leapt off its scooter into a flying hug;

“RAINBOW DASH!”

As expected Scootaloo’s enthusiasm trumped her common sense and Dash batted tears from her eyes as she landed painfully on her back.

“Scoots” Dash grunted “Broken bones remember.”

Scootaloo backed off sheepishly “Sorry Rainbow I was just happy to see you, been kind of lonely.”

Dash slowly pulled herself back up, wiggling her still bandaged wings. Nothing broken. “Lonely?” Dash asked “What about Applebloom and Sweetie Bell?”

“Big Mac took Applebloom to Manehatten to stay with Babs and her family. Sweetie bell was attacked by vampire bats and in bed.”

“Vampire bats? I didn't think they went after ponies. Anyway there are plenty of young ponies in Canterlot to talk to, or are they avoiding you like the plague as well?”

“How did you know?”

“Same problem, These Canterlot wimps aren't tough like we are; the rift business has got them all freaked and they blame us.”

The two wandered randomly around. It was nice to just see the city all quiet and empty. Back in Ponyville the two had often enjoyed early morning activities. Scootaloo liked to practice her flying when there was no one around to see. It was surprisingly fun trying to teach Scootaloo, though frustrating at times, all the enthusiasm in the world couldn't make up the fact that the Filly’s wings were borderline under-formed.

It was whilst RD was pondering this fact of life that she came to a sudden realization. “Scootaloo where are we?”

“Canterlot?” she replied looking puzzled

“Then why are we standing on a cloud?”

Suddenly like a fog being lifted from her mind Scootaloo realised that they were in fact standing on a cloud about 800m above the surface of the city. Scootaloo started hyperventilating. It occurred to Dash that she’d probably never been up this high before. “But, but, but, but….HOW!?” Scootaloo squeaked.

“I don’t know,” Dash said patting Scootaloo reassuringly on the back “But since we’re up here it looks like it’s up to you to get us down.”

“WHAT!” the filly voice reaching a painful pitch

“Think of it was impromptu practice” Rainbow smiled “Just push the cloud down to ground level.  Not like I can do anything” she continued indicating her wings.  “This is probably just some left over magic stuff from all the spells flying around recently.”

Though only slightly reassured Scootaloo quickly became engrossed in her task; random magic burst were not unheard of after major spells so RD’s story fitted just fine. Anyway, Rainbow wasn’t fussed so why should she be?

As they descended Dash caught a flicker of movement at the edge of her vision. She didn't consciously register the shape she glimpsed but immediately put one of her damaged wings over Scootaloo protectively.

II

Elsewhere there was hard-core science in progress. A monolith slab of rock levitated above a chunk of the mystery rubble. The slab was obsidian black and carved with hundreds of arcane symbol’s and runes. The floor beneath it was also the same black material.  The room was packed with glass tank of water lead and liquid mercury. Twilight looked up from a Geiger counter to see the eternally unkempt mane of Starstream appear over the top of a tank, closely followed by the familiar sweep of Doctor Whooves mane.

Though Twilight had only known the blue unicorn for less than a week she felt that they were quite good friends now but then again he was pretty much instantly likeable to everybody. Nice to the point of shyness he had been personally recommended to Twilight by Luna. He was actually extremely talkative on subjects he enjoyed. Combined with his love of books Twilight wondered if he was in fact some long lost cousin of hers.

“Ready to go?” she asked the two colts as they came into view.

“Yep. I've always wanted an excuse to break out the neutronium smasher!” Starstream grinned manically “This is going to be awesome!” She may of liked the Starstream but Twilight couldn't help but wonder just how mentally stable he was. Then again the Doctor seemed equally exited and he was sane, right?

Turning to the matter in hand the ponies trotted behind a protective screen and pulled on goggles and massive, oversized ear defenders. The Doctor repeated for the tenth time that day that they should keep their mouths open when the slab hit. Blown out eardrums were pretty painful in equines, what with the large ears in comparison to the head.

3

2

1

WHUMP!

Twilight swore she could feel every cell in her body vibrate as the compression wave blasted through her. The sound the ultra-dense material made as the two blocks smashed together was utterly indescribable. Around them the formerly still tanks where furiously bubbling as they were subjected to a barrage of sub-atomic particles.

Once the world has stopped spinning the Doctor turned to Starstream and the two beamed like idiots. “Tell me,” Doctor Whooves asked “How did you ponies even get a hold of pure neutronium?”

“Luna helped; I spent three weeks on the moon fiddling with modified telekinesis fields and collator dishes. Anyway, it’s Sci-fi, I’m good with Sci-fi.”

Twilight collapsed into a chair to start looking through the readings from the sensory equipment, it was a pain not being able to use magic on the rubble. This was going to be a long day.

III

Atop the castle’s high tower two of the other Princesses tried to relax. Celestia had her nose in a massive book whilst Cadence tucked into a bowl of fruit. This tower was off limits to non-alicorns, somewhere for the Princesses to escape to when they were tired of being princess-y all the time. The only disturbance all day had been the single low boom of Twilight and Starstream’s neutronium crusher. Thankfully that lab was been extensively soundproofed.

“What are you reading auntie?” Cadence asked between bites from an apple.

“It’s a tome on ancient pre-equestrian mythology. There has to be something in here related to what happened two weeks ago.” Celestia replied flicking over a page.

“Tia’!” Cadence exclaimed “Please try to relax. You've been working nonstop for over two weeks now. We’re supposed to come up here to get away from princess stuff.”

“I am relaxing Cadence” Celestia sighed, “it’s a very interesting book regardless. Did you know that Dragons originally didn’t have wings? The first alicorn Prometheus granted her best friend the wyrme Kaz’dakan the power of flight to save his life when the two battled an invasion of something called Xenomorphs.”

“Is that why dragons don’t develop wings until their teenagers?”

A short while later there was a flutter as Luna landed on the on the tower balcony. “Greetings.”  She said sitting down on her dark blue couch. “I have been looking in on the experiments of Princess Twilight. Things seem to be going well.”

Cadence raised an eyebrow at Luna. “Um what happened to your face?”

“My face?”

“You have a huge black eye.”

“Oh….um… I tripped.”

“Oh a likely story” Cadence joked in a teasing voice, “I bet you have some secret colt-friend who smacked you!”

“STARSTREAM WOULD NEVER DO THAT!”  Luna suddenly yelled. A dead quite fell over the room as Luna realised what she had just said. Celesta slowly lowered her book and stared at her sister, barely able to keep a straight face.

“Cadence was joking sister.”

“OHH...erm……”

“So you and Starstream……..”

“Wait….that’s not what I……..”

“Yes it is. So how long has this been going on?”

“I dost’ not want to talk about it.”

“Cadence is the Alicorn of Love. Don’t make her drag this out of you.”

“You know Tia,” Cadence added “I could just go ask Starstream himself.” Face bright red Luna teleported from the room. Cadence and Celestia burst into laughter. “Starstream can barely talk to women unless science is involved, and she’s even worse at social things. How in all of Equestria did either of them manage that?”

Celestia went to reply but at that moment a massive explosion ripped the quite day asunder.

IV

Twilight raced back into the lab as smoke poured from the doorway.  Starstream and the Doctor blundered into her.  “What happened!” she yelled over the crackle of flames. The equipment inside the lab had caught fire and the flames were spreading quickly. Coughing violently Star stream ignored Twilight and cast a spell back into the room. With a sharp crack a tiny white light shot out of his horn freezing the room over.

V

A few hours later Cadence sat by a rather distraught Luna. Nobody had been hurt in the explosion but Starstream had been forced to freeze the room to prevent the equipment inside causing another far more serious explosion. Unfortunately the flash freeze had destroyed any of the results from the experiment hat hadn’t been burnt in the fire. Luna had been pretty shaken up; having your sort-of colt friend nearly blown up was traumatic even for a goddess.

Luna suddenly let out a squeak and pointed across the room.  Cadence swore and leapt across the tower room to the fruit she had been eating earlier. One of the Apples had the word “JACK” carved into it in block capitals.

“I don’t know who or what you are Jack but nobody hurts Twilight or Luna whilst I’m around.  This just got personal.”