Chapters Rainbow Dash: Dimension Jumper
It was the big day. Rainbow Dash was competing in the biggest race of the year, and all the pressure in Equestria was on her shoulders, especially with the other racers she was going against. To say she was having mixed feelings about the race would have been an understatement. She was feeling scared yet confident... excited yet nauseated... tired yet energetic. Her emotions were waging a war inside of her head, and it was driving her crazy.
She paced awkwardly up and down the entry tunnel to the arena. She could hear the assorted conversations of the crowd, along with the occasional cheers for various racers. She would often hear them scream and shout out names such as Spitfire, Fleet Foot, Soarin or Rapid Fire, but only occasionally would she hear her own name being shouted out. She hoped that a few of her friends from Ponyville had come out to support her, but the only one that had flown up to the arena with her was Fluttershy, and you really had to be listening carefully to hear her cheering.
It was starting to get really close to the beginning of the race, and Rainbow didn't really want to leave the comfortable shadow of the entry tunnel just yet. She wasn't worried about the race as much as the amount of ponies watching her, seeming like they were all just waiting for her to make a mistake. The feeling was terrible, and she finally understood why Fluttershy didn't want to help out with the big tornado that they'd created to get water to Cloudsdale. She started sweating as the realization of what she was about to do sank in. Her teeth started chattering a bit, and she started getting antsy.
"Hey Rainbow Dash. Good luck out there, but don't feel too bad if all you see of me is my flank." Spitfire called out, walking down the tunnel. Rainbow gathered herself quickly, hoping that her idol hadn't noticed her having a mini panic attack. "Thanks, but expect to see me waiting at the finish line for you ." she replied jokingly. "Oh, it's on, rookie." Spitfire returned with a laugh as she exited the tunnel, walking towards the starting line.
It was now or never. She couldn't pull out of the race now, but she didn't want to face the crowd if she messed up majorly for everypony to see. She kept pacing the hallway, hoping somepony would come along and force her to make a decision soon. The stress was getting to her, and since she only had a couple of other ponies as real competition, she should be the least stressed. Fortunately, the time to make a decision was forced on her sooner than she had expected.
"2 minutes until the race begins! All racers report to the starting line immediately!" a voice boomed out over the intercom.
"That means you Rainbow Dash" she thought to herself. She took a deep breath in, and closed her eyes for a second. When she opened her eyes, she zoned out all the other ponies in the stands and all the other distractions around her, and walked out from the shadow of the tunnel towards the starting line.
The light blinded her temporarily as she walked slowly across the arena. She tried not to focus on anything outside of the course, for that was the only thing that mattered for the next 10 minutes or so. As she approached the starting line, she took herself down onto her knees and closed her eyes for a few seconds, trying to get 'in the zone' beforehoof.
"Fast... quick... first place... Dash..." she thought to herself, drowning out everything around her. Nothing could distract her from her immediate goal. She almost didn't know they had started counting down the beginning of the race. She heard the announcer counting down over the microphone, "Race begins in 10... 9... 8..."
"Oh pony feathers" Rainbow thought to herself as she rushed forward to take her place at the starting line. "6... 5..." She got in her 'ready stance' and spread open her wings. "3... 2..." Focusing on the course ahead of her, she went into complete tunnel vision, and nothing else existed. "1... *BOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Rainbow bolted off of the starting line. She knew this course like the back of her hoof, so she went to work on it. The course consisted of 5 sections.
The first section was the Agility section. She would have to fly her way through rings of clouds aligned in an awkward pattern. This was by far the easiest section, but that's probably why it was first.
The second section was the Slalom section. If you've ever seen the Equestria (or Olympic) Winter Games, it's basically the same thing, but in the air. Racers would fly up at an angle until they'd reach a pair of flags at a certain altitude, signaling that the second section would be starting there. It's slightly harder than the first section, but still fairly easy.
The third section was the Weather section. Similar to the exercise that pegasi were put through at the Wonderbolts Academy, Rainbow would have to navigate certain obstacles while also handling extreme weather. This would be considerably harder than the first two sections, and could also serve as a great equalizer in the race.
The fourth section was the Reflex section. This section would be rather deceiving. If a racer looked straight ahead, they would see a clear path to the finish, but they wouldn't see the numerous projectiles and surprises waiting to pop up from nowhere. This section could easily be a game-changer if anypony didn't pay attention to what all their senses told them.
Finally, the fifth section was, literally, straight forward. It was a 10,000 meter sprint to the finish line. This would be the last chance for anypony to catch up if they were behind. And, of course, the first racer to the finish line wins.
Anyway, Rainbow Dash got a great jump off of the starting line. She was about a body length away from first place as the group of racers entered the first section. This being one of Rainbow's best attributes, she paced herself a bit and glided through each ring with ease, coming out of the first section, in a solid 3rd place. A couple of other racers weren't so lucky. Ten racers had started at the line, and when Rainbow got a chance to glance back, there were eight still racing, and two that seemed to have hit rings and spiraled into the grandstands.
"Well, I guess that means less competition then" she thought as she approached the second section: Slalom. She flew directly up at the recommended angle, glanced over and noticed that the racer in 2nd place, Rapid Fire, was starting to slow down the farther up they flew. Rainbow took advantage of this opportunity, and used her momentum to pull up side-by-side with Rapid Fire as they approached the flags.
The 1st place pony, Spitfire, was about a full second ahead of her two adversaries behind her, and reached the flags as Rainbow Dash started to pull ahead of Rapid Fire by just a nose. She sped down the slalom section, completing about a quarter of it by the time Rainbow and Rapid Fire reached the flags.
Rainbow knew what she was doing, and tried not to go too fast through the slalom. Instead, she focused on making sure she made no mistakes, and got through the section as smoothly and freely as she could. In doing so, she allowed Rapid Fire to, once again, pull a slight bit ahead of her. This was a rather long race, after all. No real need to expend all of her energy in the first few sections, when she would need it later on.
Spitfire reached the end of the slalom section, still holding a solid 1 second lead over Rapid Fire and Rainbow Dash behind her. She took a quick second to glance back as she continued on to the next section, forgetting that the Weather section started immediately where the Slalom section ended. As she glanced back, a strong wind blew her off to the side by a good 3 meters.
Seeing this moment of opportunity, Rapid Fire and Rainbow Dash sped forward, catching up to Spitfire as she was able to recover and get back on course. It was now a three wide, neck and neck, battle for the lead as the racers continued through the Weather section.
Wind, rain, snow and hail came from all different directions as the three leaders flew forward. They were flying in an almost perfect line, Rainbow Dash being on the right, Spitfire on the left, and Rapid Fire in the middle. Rainbow Dash noticed herself edging ahead slightly. She quickly adjusted back to where she was in line with the other two leaders. Weather was a tough element, and she knew that she would be better off facing it alongside two Wonderbolts.
About halfway through the Weather section, a large lightning strike occurred overhead, and for a split second, Rapid Fire lost concentration, and jerked his head up towards the source of the lightning. In another split second, there was a strong gust of wind that blew him upwards, causing him to lose control and spiral backwards for a few meters. He regathered himself quickly, but by the time he had started flying forward again, Rainbow Dash and Spitfire were too far ahead for him to catch up. He knew immediately that he had lost this one, but figured Bronze was still something to be proud of.
With Rapid Fire knocked back, it was just Spitfire and Rainbow Dash left at the front. The two leaders had a short "break" from the intensity after going through the Weather section, and took the time to pace themselves a bit and watch out for any projectiles or surprises coming up. Rainbow Dash took a second to glance over at Spitfire and see if she could read her expressions. Was she getting tired or did she still have enough energy to compete until the finish? By the time she saw it, it was too late for her to dodge it.
Rainbow snapped her head around to her right as she heard a speeding projectile, appearing to be made of cloud material, coming straight for her. She wasn't fast enough, and the projectile slammed into the side of her body, pinning her wing to her side. She had gotten caught off guard, and this was the worst section to be caught off guard in.
Spitfire saw the incoming projectile and dodged Rainbow as she veered off course. "Looks like I've got this one in the bag now" she whispered to herself, confidently.
Rainbow Dash struggled away from the projectile's strong influence, and saw Spitfire making her way through the Reflex with ease, almost as if she had eyes in the back of her head, or something absurd like that. Rainbow shook herself off and flew forward, trying to catch up to Spitfire before she reached the 10,000 meter sprint. The sprint was where she was planning to make her dash to the line, but she knew how fast Spitfire could go, and she knew where she would have to be if she wanted to win the race. With this in mind, she pulled out all the stops and bolted forward through the Reflex section.
Spitfire reached the end of the section with ease, and turned around the sharp corner before the sprint. She paused for a second to look back and see where Rainbow Dash was. Most of the time, that would be a big mistake , but when she looked back and saw that she had a good sized lead, she took her second, and flew straight for the finish line. "Can't catch me this time, rookie" she said to herself with a smirk.
Rainbow got to the end of the Reflex section as fast as she could, but once she rounded the corner for the sprint, she could see Spitfire, at least 2,000 meters ahead of her. "Oh for the love of Pete..." she muttered to herself, as she took off in a dead sprint. There was next to no chance that she would catch up in time, but there was no way she was going to win if she didn't fly like her life depended on it. She sped forward as fast as she could go, gaining on the mare infront of her, slowly but surely. She was within 1,000 meters of Spitfire now, but she still only had 4,000 meters to catch up to her before she crossed the line.
Without intention, Rainbow started noticing a cone of air forming around her as she sped closer and closer. "Wow" she thought, "first time this has ever happened during a race. Guess I can only go faster now." She was closing in on the lead with every passing second. She was 8 body lengths away from the lead when Spitfire got to the last 1,000 meters of the sprint.
The cone forming around her started getting smaller and smaller, and soon enough Rainbow would either shoot through the mouth of the cone and perform a Sonic Rainboom, or be halted immediately and spat backwards in an out of control spiral. The air pressure around her was getting to her head, and she almost slowed down. Her speed allowed her to pull up right next to Spitfire with 100 meters left before the finish line. Spitfire looked over at Rainbow and her jaw dropped open.
Rainbow was almost there. She could smell the finish line, and the trophy. She couldn't slow down now. Gritting her teeth, she pushed forward, gaining a little bit more speed, when the cone around her finally...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
She shot forward with a speed that she had only felt a couple of times before, causing her eyes and mouth to be forced closed. Her adrenaline was pumping like mad as she rocketed through the air. She loved it, all of it! Surely she had won the race with that little speed boost. Only... something wasn't right... the crowd had gone silent. Every other time she'd done a Sonic Rainboom, the crowd had gone ballistic. Why were they so quiet now? She did her best to force her eyes open just enough to see around her. What she saw confused and terrified her beyond belief.
She was no longer at the arena. Heck, it wasn't even daytime anymore. The sky was pitch black, and there was no light anywhere around her, aside from the scattered assortment of lights zipping by below her. This wasn't Equestria. "Wait, WHAT THE HAY?! " she shouted, halting her flight in mid air.
Big mistake.
Noticing that she had come to a complete stop, and she couldn't get her wings to flap, she fell straight down, towards the unforgiving ground below. She flailed her limbs around frantically, trying to regain control of her fall, before she crash landed into the (what appeared to be) trees below her. It was no use. She closed her eyes, and patiently awaited the fate that was to greet her.
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!
Rainbow fell straight through the top layer of leaves and smacked into five, very large and strong, branches on her fall down, before finally crashing into the ground at the base of the tree. "Oh..." she moaned "that was one heck of a fall." She just laid there for a second, hoping that if she rested, she'd be fine. From her own observations, the worst she had were a few cuts and bruises. Nothing to worry about.
She looked up at the structure standing infront of her, noticing a light popping up in one of the windows on the upper floor. Immediately frightened, she froze, not daring to move in case whatever was in there could hear her. She waited for something else to happen. There were sounds of commotion coming from the window... and as quickly as they came, they stopped. Suddenly, bright lights came out from the windows on the bottom floor, and Rainbow could just make out the faint shadow of some creature, fumbling to put on a garment of some sort. It looked frighteningly familiar to her, as if she'd heard of creatures with similar features in stories.
The front door flew open, and in the doorway stood... "Oh no... no... no, not that. Anything, but that" Rainbow pleaded with her eyes. Surely this couldn't be true, she must be hallucinating. She had hit her head a couple of times, but no matter how many times she attempted to blink away the figure before her, it wouldn't go away. Standing in the doorway was the most fearsome mythological monster known to pony: the human.
Rainbow Dash: Dimension Jumper
So, before I even go into who I am, you must know that prior to waking up in the middle of the night to see a cyan pony lying on the ground at the base of the tree in my front yard, I was not a brony. I had friends that were always trying to convince me to watch the show, but I always refused, because I had no time to get addicted to something else. Frankly, they were starting to drive me crazy with all the time they'd spend telling me why I should watch it, and I was starting to hate the show because of it. I'd never seen any of the episodes, any of the YouTube videos, and I'd certainly never heard of any of the characters. My first thought when I saw a cyan pony with a rainbow colored mane and tail lying in my front lawn, was, "Ok, I know beer isn't exactly healthy for me, but I thought it was smoking that caused people to hallucinate. This can't possibly be real!"
It started as a fairly average day. I woke up later than usual, which just meant that I was late for being late. I dragged myself out of bed, put on my work clothes, grabbed an energy drink from the fridge, and walked out to the truck. The drive to work was probably my favorite part of the day.
I always enjoy when I get to drive around to places. It gives me the chance to blare the radio as loud as possible, and jam out to my favorite songs. It's a lot of fun, and since I live in a rather small town, nobody really cares about noise and stuff like that. Everyone's houses are far enough apart from each other that we're free to have parties and get-togethers just about whenever we please, even late at night.
Anyway, I arrived at work late again that morning, and my boss gave me the usual, "Hank, if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times..." yada yada yada... If he really wanted to fire me, he would've done it by now. He knows just as well as I do that if he fires me, he won't be able to find another employee like me.
You see, even though I show up late to work just about every other day, I'm one of the smartest, hardest working employees there. That's not so as to say that I'm incredibly smart, it's just that the other employees make me look that way a lot of the time.
I took my lunch break around noon, which was rather early for me. I usually tend to clock out for lunch around 1pm or so, but since I wasn't able to grab something quick to eat on my way out the door that morning, I decided to break a little earlier than usual. I went out to my truck, and lowered the tailgate so I could lay my food on it like a table. It was still a little wet from the fast drizzle that had come down a few minutes prior. I'll never understand the weather around where I live.
Anyway, I was eating my lunch out on the tailgate, staring up at the sky for a good while, since there wasn't much else to look at. The dark clouds were still looming overhead, but they were getting blown away pretty quickly. As the sun started to peek back out from it's temporary hiding place, I noticed a faint rainbow start to form. I was never a huge fan of rainbows, but I enjoyed looking at them, and it was always cool to spot one whenever they came around. Unfortunately, they were always really hard to see, and I usually had to squint to make them out.
It seemed that as quick as I saw the rainbow, it disappeared. Out of curiosity, I looked at my watch for a second, and realized that I should probably head back inside and work. My shift wasn't over until 7pm, and I would probably be better off doing some decent work to try and distract myself from the time.
It couldn't come soon enough, but I finally got done with work. It was unusually exhausting, but thankfully, I wouldn't have to drag myself out of bed to go back to it tomorrow. The place I work at closes on Sundays, so I take those days to just sleep in and stay up late.
I made my way back to my truck, and started driving out of the parking lot. Normally there's not a lot of people on the road, but there's always something interesting that happens about once or twice a month that drivers would have to watch for. Whether that be a high speed chase, or a drunk alcoholic deciding that he's sober enough to make it or whatever else you can think of, there's always one or two occasions of something happening, so I took my time as I got back on the road.
When I got home, I didn't really feel like doing much of anything. I wasn't really hungry, just really tired. As soon as I walked in the door to my house, I threw my work bag down on the couch, made my way up to my room, stripped off my work clothes, and climbed into bed in my underwear. I was just exhausted, and I really had nothing in particular that I wanted to do, so I just drifted off to sleep. It was a good, long sleep. I rested peacefully until a loud noise woke me up.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
I jumped violently in bed. The sheets had lifted off of me momentarily, and floated back down on my face. I'm ashamed to say that this caused me to spaz out like a tipped cow. When I finally calmed down, I yanked the sheets off of my face, and groggily looked at the clock. It read 12:27am. I'd been asleep for almost four and a half hours. Dismissing this discovery, and momentarily forgetting about what woke me up in the first place, I laid my head back down on my pillow, and began trying to fall back asleep. It was working too. Everything was going great, until...
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!
"What the hell?!" I said aloud. Whatever was out there making crashing noises, sounded like they were in my front lawn. I had to go check out the source of the commotion. Now fully awake again, I flicked my light switch and threw on an old white shirt before making my way downstairs. In the darkness of my living room, I dug around in all my dirty laundry on the couch, trying to find my bathrobe. I should have known that this attempt would be in vain, so I admitted defeat and went to turn on the lights.
"Gah!... I'll never get used to how bright those lights are." Ignoring them for a second, I searched the surface of the couch, and found my bathrobe underneath all of my dirty 'workout clothes'. Upon excavating it, I threw it on as fast as I could and made my way to my desk. Whatever was out there, probably wouldn't be staying there for long. With my bathrobe now on, I grabbed the flashlight and my pocket knife (for security measures), off of my desk and made my way to the door. I put my pocket knife in the side pocket of my bathrobe, and held the flashlight in my hand. "Hopefully whatever it is isn't hostile" I thought to myself. My reflexes were terrible at this time at night, and if I were forced to put up a fight, I wouldn't last long.
My hand grasped and turned the doorknob, flinging the door open. Stepping out onto the porch, I clicked my flashlight on, to scan my yard for anything suspicious. "Let's see... stump... old wheelbarrow... empty barrels... pony under my tree... stack of used tires... chainlink fence... Wait a second..." I pointed my flashlight back at the tree. My jaw fell to the floor at the sight of what was there.
Looking back at me, with it's rose rimmed eyes, was a cyan colored pony... no... pegasus ... with a rainbow colored mane and tail, a rather artistic looking scar on it's flank, and scrapes, cuts and bruises all over it's body. Out of curiosity, I looked up at the tree. Several branches were either broken and hanging by a limb, or completely severed from the tree, and had fallen onto the branches below it. I whistled in acknowledgement of the incident.
I looked back over at the pony, who had remarkably managed to pull itself back up on all fours and was staring me down. I stared back at her in amazement. This was one strong pony. "Hope I don't find that out the hard way" I thought. She took a second to secure a firm position, dug her hooves into the dirt underneath her, and unfurled her wings to, what I hoped was, their full span. The look in her eyes as she looked into mine was menacing, and I had a feeling things were going to escalate.
"Come any closer, and see what happens." she said, a fire burning in her eyes.
The human, who appeared to be a male of it's species, had a rather confused look on his face, as if he didn't know who I was, or what was going on. He just kept staring at me, seeming to be hesitant and fascinated at the same time. It seemed as if he had never seen a pony before. After a few more moments of him just standing there, wondering what was going on, I relaxed and folded my wings up against my side. I didn't know whether or not humans needed to blink, but this one sure as sugar wasn't. "Haven't you gotten an eye-full already?" I asked impatiently.
"What... in the world... are you...?" he asked, deliberately. This was gonna take forever if he kept up at this pace. I figured, I'll just tell him what all happened, ask him to show me somewhere I could rest, and be on my way. After all, I couldn't stay in this place with a random human gawking at me for hours on end. I'd never get home that way.
"sigh hay out of me. "...and would you stop looking me up and down like I'm some kind of alien?! For Pete's sake, I know you know what I am!"
He stopped for a second, and put a hand up to his face, rubbing, what I thought was, his chin. Then a look of realization popped up on his face, followed by a look of curiosity. "Did you say your name was... Rainbow Dash?" he asked.
I just looked at him with a look that hopefully said, "Really? How dense are you?" I sighed, and answered, "Yes, my name is Rainbow Dash." He went back to rubbing his chin. "And you said you're from... Equestria?" He was starting to pluck my nerves like guitar strings.
"Yes, I'm from Equestria. Look, can you help me or not, because I really don't want to be here for much longer."
"That's what I thought you said" he muttered under it's breath. What happened next caught me completely off guard. He lunged forward, grabbed me with both hands around my neck, and pinned me up against the tree, shoving his face in close enough to mine that we were touching each other's foreheads. The look he gave me was that of complete annoyance.
"Is this some kind of joke? How many times do I have to tell you?! I'm not interested in getting addicted to something else right now! Stop trying to get me to watch that stupid pony show! I mean, isn't it enough that it's all you ever talk about, but now you had to go and pull this pathetic charade?! Let me move on with my life! No means NO!!" he ranted. What was he talking about?
"What? I don't even... Wha...? Get off of me!" I said, struggling to get free. Realizing I still had mobility of my front legs, I extended them forward putting them on his shoulders, and started trying to push him away.
"Don't play dumb with me! I know it's you in there! You can't make me do something I don't want to do, so quit trying already! This has gone far enough!" he shouted back in my face. Ok, was this guy senile or something? Nothing he was saying made any sense.
"I don't know what you're talking about! Get off of me!" I shouted again. This time, able to get my back legs free. I used the tree to my advantage, raised my back legs and shoved the human away from me. He flew backwards off of me, and fell to the ground, lying on his back, gasping for breath. I used this to my advantage, and stood over him, putting my face right in his face so we were looking each other dead in the eyes, just like how he had done to me. Quickly realizing that the tables had turned, his eyes widened in shock.
Snarling, I said with an intensity that I usually never felt, "I'm gonna make this clear, right now! If you value your life, don't EVER real . Did my hooves feel fake to you? Did the fur you grabbed around my neck feel fake to you? I'm 100% real, got it? I don't care what you are, or what your problem is, if you EVER won't hesitate to take you out!"
As I was saying this, the look of annoyance and rage that had occupied his eyes not moments before, quickly melted away, replaced by a look of pure fear. He knew immediately that he had crossed a line, and that I was no pony to be messing with. If it weren't for the way I was raised, I would've stomped a hoof down on his face and given him a black eye for good measure, but he wasn't struggling, and seemed to understand that I wasn't in the mood for any of his 'games'.
I just stood over him for a little while longer, staring into his eyes, daring him to oppose me again. After a while he regained control of his breathing, looked at me and said, "Ok, I get it. I won't attack you again. Can you let me up now?" Geez, the way he said that, I was very tempted to smack him, but I calmed down, and stepped back so he could get up.
He picked himself up off of the ground and dusted himself off. "Look, I thought you were somebody else. You're not exactly something that's considered 'scientifically possible' around here. I just thought you were a prank from an old friend of mine who wanted to piss me off. I'm sorry. Truce?" He stretched out his hand in a gesture that suggested he wanted to shake.
After the way he had treated me, I was so tempted to just leave him there. I wanted to just fly off and leave him there gawking. I would have too, but something reminded me that I needed to find a way back home, and this was the only human I had met since crash landing in this world. Reluctantly, I gritted my teeth, brought my hoof up to meet his hand, and shook. "Truce"
He looked a bit more relaxed now, but I wasn't letting my guard down again. Looking back over at me, he said "So... it's pretty late. I've got some room on the couch if you need someplace to sleep until morning. I'll do my best to help you with your problem, then, if you still want my help."
Well, it's not like I had a second option. "Fine. That's fine." I muttered.
He made his way back over to the door and led me into his house. He started gathering a bunch of clothes off of, what appeared to be, the couch, and dropping them on the ground next to a lamp. Disappearing upstairs for a moment, he went and grabbed a blanket, and a pillow and laid them on the couch where all the clothes he'd just moved used to be.
"Ok, this should be enough to get you through the night. There's a sink in the kitchen if you get thirsty, and, I'm not sure how you prefer to do your business, but there's a small bathroom around the corner if you have to 'go' at any point. I'm gonna be sleeping upstairs if you need me. Anyway, I think that's it. I'll see you in the morning." With that, he turned around and climbed the stairs up to his room.
I set up the pillow and blanket before heading over to the kitchen and getting some water. I didn't realize how thirsty I was. After nearly drowning myself, I walked back over to my 'bed' and laid down to sleep. As soon as my head hit the pillow, and my eyes closed, I was out. I was more tired that I thought I was, apparently. I slept well too. I woke up the next morning, feeling refreshed and relaxed, which was a good thing, because when I woke up, all I could comprehend was that there was smoke filling the room, and it smelled like something was burning.
Rainbow Dash: Dimension Jumper
"I came as quickly as I could." said a frantic Twighlight Sparkle, as she burst through the doors to the Canterlot Royal Throne Room. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and the rest of her friends awaited her at the foot of the throne, all with concerned looks on their faces. Fluttershy in particular was really red and puffy in the region around her eyes. She must have been crying for a while, and had just stopped before Twilight had barged in.
Celestia walked forward to meet her faithful student. "So, I take it you know why I've called you here, Twilight." she said.
"Well, the letter you sent me was a bit vague, but from the general message, I understand that Rainbow Dash has disappeared ?" said Twilight, a confused look forming on her face. She glanced behind Celestia to look at her friends, all of whom dropped their heads in unison. Looking back at her teacher, many questions began to form inside her head. Celestia nodded, seeming to understand her student's befuddlement.
"Yes, that summarizes all we know of what happened, but I think, if she's in any condition to, Fluttershy can explain the details to you better than any of the rest of us can." Celestia said, looking back at Fluttershy to make sure she was recovering nicely. Immediately at the mention of having to remember the final events of the race, Fluttershy broke down into tears once more. Her other three friends came to her side in an attempt to comfort her.
"Maybe we should let Fluttershy calm down a bit more first. To be honest, I don't really want to talk about what happened either." Rarity chimed in. Fluttershy glanced back up at her with a thankful look in her eyes.
"Very well" said Celestia. "It is getting rather late, after all. We should all take some time to rest and recover. We'll talk about this tomorrow." With that, Applejack and Pinkie Pie helped Fluttershy back to her hooves, and the remaining five of the mane six headed from the throne room to separate bedrooms to sleep away whatever mixed feelings they were having.
Luna walked down from the throne to her sister's side. "You don't seem to eager to talk about said events either. Are you as bothered by this strange occurrence as the rest of us are?" Celestia walked to the balcony and stared up at the sky for a short while. Her train of thought was quickly losing control of itself as she wondered what could have possibly happened.
"Yes... I'm worried for Rainbow Dash's saftey as much as everypony else." Celestia said as her sister joined her on the balcony. "I have an idea as to what happened to her, but it's extremely unlikely that such a thing would occur. I just hope that whatever happened to Rainbow Dash can be resolved, easily and painlessly."
Celestia was tossing and turning in her sleep all night long. She was having a terrible nightmare that wouldn't allow her to wake up. She was only allowed to continue sleeping and watch the frightening images unfold before her.
The dream started at the arena, right in the middle of the big race. Rainbow Dash had just turned the corner before the 10,000 meter sprint to the finish line. She took off after Spitfire, in a blaze of speed. Gradually, the cone of air started forming around her as she flew faster and faster, until she was right alongside Spitfire. The cone of air finally spit her through and she performed a Sonic Rainboom as she crossed the finish line. Then, as soon as she crossed the finish line, she vanished into thin air. The crowd gasped, and went completely silent. Spitfire, who had been blown off course by the explosion, flew across the finish line next and whipped her head around in every direction, searching for the pony who had bested her. As all the other racers crossed the finish line, a large commotion broke out in the grand stands and everypony seemed to be in an uproar.
The dream shifted.
Celestia was now floating above some strange land, completely unfamiliar to her. The sky was pitch black, indicating that it was the middle of the night. All seemed calm and peaceful. Then, there was a thundering BOOOOOM
The dream shifted.
Celestia was standing behind a large tree, looking up at an equally large structure standing before her. There were lights on inside the windows, but there didn't seem to be anyone home. Walking around to the other side of the tree, she soon saw why there was no one inside. Rainbow Dash was conversing with... "Oh my... is that a human ?" Rainbow Dash seemed to be unaware of the narrowing eyes on the human's face. Catching Rainbow by surprise, the human lunged forward and pinned her against the trunk of the tree. "Noooo!!!" Celestia screamed, although there was no possible way that the two could hear her. Celestia rushed forward towards the human and attempted to shove it off of Rainbow Dash, but just as she got close enough to touch it, the vision dissolved, and she stood alone in utter black darkness.
Without any obvious sequence, small images of different scenarios involving Rainbow Dash and the world she had been transported to began popping up in a slow, circular orbit around Celestia. As every new image popped up, she could hear different voices and sounds coming from each image. There were a few images that grabbed her attention, and greatly concerned and scared her.
One was of a room full of smoke with a glow of orange-yellow light coming from behind the smoke clouds. From this horrid image, she heard Rainbow Dash exclaim, "You ARE knew it!!" Then, as that image dissolved, a new image faded into existance behind Celestia. It showed red and blue flashing lights accompanied by a really loud siren sound and an unfamiliar voice. "Sir, license and registration, please" the voice said. As the image faded away there was a sound of someone or something loading a gun. This image confused and frightened Celestia and she began breathing heavily as a new image formed off to her left.
This image was the most disturbing one out of all the rest of them. There was no sound except for the blowing sound of a slight breeze. The image was of a dark, deserted alleyway. Out of the corner of the image, Rainbow Dash ran down the alleyway, breathing hard, frantically looking around for an escape route. Unfortunately, she came quickly to a dead end. Seeing no immediate path to freedom, she turned back to the way she'd come.
This was the first time Celestia had the chance to notice, Rainbow had bandaged up her left wing. That was probably why she wasn't simply flying away.
An oddly shaped shadow appeared from the direction Rainbow had entered the alleyway. Knowing that she was trapped, Rainbow began backing up towards the dead end, still facing the figure that was creeping towards her. The look on her face was that of sheer horror. "Please, leave me alone! I haven't done anything to anypony! I'm just looking for a way back home!" Rainbow pleaded. The shadow kept creeping closer and closer. "Please , let me go in peace! Please !! I'm not supposed to be here! Just let me go!!" Rainbow's voice started raising in alarm. The image cut immediately to black, and what could be heard just before the image faded entirely was a blood curdling shriek.
Celestia jolted upright in her bed, cold sweat dripping down her regal face. Everything she'd seen terrified her beyond words. All of what she'd just seen was too coincidental to be a simple dream. Rainbow Dash was in grave danger, and somehow she'd come across one of the most deadly creatures known to pony. Her odds of still being alive, by Celestia's calculations, were slowly dwindling. She needed help, and she needed it right away!
Princess Luna burst through the doors to Celestia's bedroom. "Sister, are you alright?"
"We don't have much time. Rainbow Dash is in more peril than we could have initially imagined. When Twilight and the others wake up, we need to inform them of the situation." Celestia said hastily. Luna stepped in front of her sister as Celestia began walking towards the door.
"Sister, I saw just as much of your dream as you did, and it scares me just as much as it scares you, but we have to be deliberate about how we approach this." Luna said, attempting to calm Celestia. "Twilight and her friends will surely want to know any information available about Rainbow Dash's situation, but we should try to under-exaggerate her situation. We're all still recovering from the events that transpired today, and the full news of this vision you've had will likely make everypony even more distraught and frantic."
Celestia halted herself at the door. Her sister was right. With the state everypony was in, the situation needed to be handled carefully. They needed to retrieve Rainbow Dash from whatever Hell she was in, without causing psychological harm to anypony else in the process.
Turning back to face Luna, Celestia agreed. "Alright. We'll let Twilight and her friends know in the morning. We'll give her the basic summary of the situation, and let Rainbow Dash explain the details to them once we return her to Equestria." **If * we're able to return her to Equestria*, Celestia thought to herself. She wasn't going to fool herself into thinking everything would be just fine. There was a distinct possibility that Equestria might lose the Element of Loyalty because of this.
"You need me to do what , Princess?" asked a confused Twilight. All remaining members of the mane 6 were gathered in the throne room again along with the two princess sisters. From what it looked like, none of them had slept all to well. Applejack was squinting her eyes as if the light coming in through the windows was burning them. Fluttershy had the same puffy, red look to her eyes, indicating she must have cried herself to sleep. Pinkie Pie appeared normal enough, but she wasn't bouncing around as much as she ususally did, and seemed to have very little energy. Rarity... ok, well Rarity didn't really match the others. She always looked like she'd gotten a good night's sleep.
Princess Celestia repeated to her student, "I need you to go into the library and look for a GPS Locator spell." Twilight still looked confused. Clearly she'd never heard of a GPS spell. Celestia had to remember that she was immortal, and that GPS spells were disregarded several hundred years ago. Of course Twilight had never heard of them.
"I need you to find a spell that may allow us to locate Rainbow Dash." Celestia said, rephrasing her request so that her student would understand. "And do try to find a spell rather quickly, please."
Twilight nodded, grinning at the opportunity to do some research. "I'll get right on it, Princess." She joined her friends as they all headed towards the library. The throne room doors closed behind them, leaving Celestia and Luna alone, again.
"Hopefully, they'll find the spell soon." Luna said, looking up to her sister.
Celestia's mind rushed with the images she'd seen in her dream last night. The fire, the flashing lights, the dark alleyway; it all pointed to the idea that Rainbow Dash was in more trouble than she could handle alone. And that shadow that chased Rainbow down the alleyway; who did it belong to? What world had Rainbow teleported to, and why was it so hostile? Regardless of any of this, Equestria needed the Element of Loyalty back, and Rainbow Dash needed to be returned to where she belonged.
Celestia nodded, "Yes, I sincerely hope that they find the right spell very soon. The more time we spend looking for a solution, the less time we'll have to find Rainbow Dash before... before it's too late."
