The Dark Zoner

Training and Court Orders

When Rainbow Dash made it to the Starlight training grounds in Canterlot, she was met with a sour cerulean face. An old scarred face.

“Sorry, I’m late.” Rainbow chuckled lightly and rubbed the back of her head.

“’Sorry‘? Are you kiddin’ me, Rainbow? You’re at least an hour late! What in the world were you doing that made you late by an hour?” Starry Lights complained. “You may be the Starlight General’s daughter but that means nothing here!” The older pegasus paced back and forth in a strict military fashion. He glanced up at his niece without breaking his pace. “Well? Explain yourself!”

Rainbow winced as her uncle’s stare burned into her eyes. “I was with my friends…?” He gave a loud ‘humph!’, “In Ponyville…?”

“Ponyville? That’s at least a five hour trip from here on hoof!”

“I took the train…!”

“You have a lot of your father in you. Too much if you ask me!” Starry shook his head in shame. “I can’t believe you two are part of the Starlight bloodline, if you didn’t have fur the color of the sky and rainbow manes, I’d have thought you two be some other ponies.”

Rainbow was used to her uncle’s rough words. She knew that it didn’t mean that he hated her and her father, it was just that he was born during a strict and hard time. Starry was just that ‘tough-love’ type of person, if he didn’t yell at you, it meant that he didn’t care. Not meaning that she’s ever seen him not yelling.

The big differences between Starry and Reiner, besides the obvious physical aspects, is that Starry is a hard worker that got to where he is whilst Reiner was basically born with his talents. Starry was in no bad shape at seeing his younger brother being gifted, he wasn’t petty. After all, war didn’t care about luck or cheaters, it only mattered if you took all of the advantages that you could get.

“I’m here to teach you swordplay, not to baby-sit you. Celestia knows I’ve done plenty of that when you were a toddler! Can‘t believe Cotton disapproved of my babysitting methods…!” Starry said the last part to himself. “If she’s old enough to talk she’s old enough to run a flight course on ‘er own….”

She was sure that she wasn’t supposed to hear those two things that he said but ignored it and smiled obliviously. “I’m ready when you are.”

“I’ve been ready the moment you were born!” The old colt complained, “It’s you who’s not ready.”

“Nuh uh! I’m ready—!” Just as she said this, a dagger flew past her, barely scratching her cheek and taking a few strains of her hair with it.

“Right…!” Starry rolled his eyes. “You may have Reiner’s…gifts, but you obviously haven’t been working on them.” He glared at her, “I bet you’ve been working solely on that Rainboom, haven’t you? Skipping the low-tier skills and working only on the high-tier ones.”

Rainbow’s blush only confirmed his beliefs. “I can’t believe you, even Reiner isn‘t that foolish. Well, better starting on the basics now than never.”

Starry guided his brash niece over to a bunch of dummies made of hard logs.

“I want you to hit them.” He sighed when Rainbow gave him a confused look. “With your sword, you know, the one that Reiner gave you for achieving the rank of Star Cleaver?”

Rainbow still looked at him funny but did what he said, she leaned her head over her side and pulled the blade out of its sheath. She walked over to one of the dummies and started to peck away at it. From an outsider’s view it would look like she was mimicking a chicken or turkey, bobbing her head up and down.

When she thought that she was getting the hang of it, she started to ‘peck’ harder, making loud smacking noises. She looked reminiscent of a chicken looking for worms in the dirt.

A few passerby Starlight trainees were laughing to each other when they saw sight of their fellow warrior.

Starry groaned as he watched a few of the pegasi fly or walk by.

“Hey turkey, eh, Rainbow Dash!” The scarred pegasus yelled out to her. “You’re doing it wrong.”

“How was I supposed to know? You just said ‘hit it’ and that’s what I did!” Rainbow complained when her uncle moved her aside.

“Well, I’m showing you now, aren’t I?” He mumbled with his own blade in his mouth.

Instead of swinging his head up and down, he was swinging it side to side. Rainbow wasn’t really impressed until he started to run through the maze of dummies, slashing at each multiple times without stopping. He raced back in a blur of multiple colors before sheathing his blade.

He looked at Rainbow’s slack jaw expression with mild interest. “Are you going to stand there gawking or are you going to listen?”

Rainbow had trouble with the first dummy, her neck cramping ever so often that it made it hard for her to continue swinging it for too long. It took her a couple of tries to finally get the hang of it. Slashing and running was a whole lot easier than just standing there swinging since she didn’t need to swing that hard to cut.

It wasn’t as good as the way her uncle did it but it was better than how she started out. Her drill sergeant of an uncle forced her to repeat this for four hours plus another two for being late.

It was safe to say that she was exhausted by the time she finished and got home. She pushed herself against the door to her home before collapsing on the floor when she got inside.

Rainbow Dash shuddered when she remembered her uncle saying, “That wasn‘t too bad, soldier. After a few more of these warm ups, I can get you on to the real stuff.”

“Good evening, Rainbow—Oh, I forgot that you were with Starry Lights.” Her father chuckled and bent down to look at his daughter, eye to eye.

“No more…!” She complained.

“Well, that’s not normally like you.” Reiner laughed at her writhing in agony. “Where’s the great Rainbow Dash who wants to follow in her father’s hoof-steps?”

“This is like flight school all over again!”

“I thought you liked flight school?”

“When I was on the track team! Not when I was taking classes!”

“Gee, I thought you failed twice because you wanted to stay in school a bit longer. Didn’t you have a crush on that one colt, wasn’t he like the team captain or something?” Reiner reminisced in happiness.

“Yeah, but he had a filly-friend and Uncle Starry scared the living daylights out of him, anyways.”

“Hey, you two, stop yakking and come in the kitchen! Your dinners are getting cold!” They heard Cotton yell out from the other room. “We’re having honey-glazed carrots and baked sweet potato! Roasted-nut muffins for dessert!”

Rainbow Dash practically vanished as she blurred into the kitchen, the thought of food made her forget her aching muscles.

“Oh, Dash.” Her father laughed as he followed suit at a slower pace.

XOX

“That damned filly…!” Twilight muttered under her breath as she trounced back to Neighrun on hoof. The eerie dark Everfree forest didn’t hinder her at all. It was basically her second home next to the castle that she was born in.

She was in no rush to hurry home so she took her sweet time getting there, an occasional manticore or phantom flew by pass her, the giant monsters seemingly ignored the Zoner.

Twilight felt sorry for those creatures, her brother and sisters. They were mindless and only ran on instincts, unlike her. Sentience was one of the more difficult and time consuming gifts that Princess Luna could bestow on her creations, a trait that she had no choice but to skip in order to mass produce the other creatures.

And, due to the conflicts, most of her brother and sisters were aggressive towards ponies since they instinctively had to protect themselves. Fighting off Celestian ponies was so ingrained into their genes that they would even attack Lunar ponies unless they were tamed.

They also seemed to have developed a taste for ponies, at first, it was because they couldn’t leave the corpses there to fester and scavenged it but slowly it became a treat for them.

She couldn’t say what the taste of horsemeat would taste like but she could imagine since there were a number of pony blood that managed its way onto her palate in the past hundreds of years.

And, no. It was not because she ran around biting ponies like some kind of vampire. It just happened that years of fighting usually covered her in so much blood that some got into her mouth.

As Twilight was walking, she didn’t seem to take notice of a puffy pink mane in the shadows following her.

XOX

Celestia’s Sun rose bright and early. The light filled up Rainbow Dash’s half-cloud half-oak room. There were a few pictures hanging up on her walls. A few were featuring a pegasus with orange blazing mane, Spitfire, the Captain of the Wonderbolts, one of Dash’s favorite athletic fliers.

Some of the other pictures were of some of the lesser Wonderbolts and even of her father, Reiner. Hanging on her door was a young child’s drawing in crude crayon of an azure pegasus in golden armor, covered from head to toe with his mane sticking out, a striking flurry of colors.

Next to the crayon Reiner was a smaller version of him with a similar but oversized armor and there were at least four giant blades, twice the filly‘s size, held on her back. She even had a bow and arrow, too.

That little pony was her.

“-Yawn-!” Rainbow stretched her forelegs into the air as she sat up in her cloud bed. She looked out of her window to see a small canary sitting on a branch outside, chirping happily.

It was a normal day but nice nonetheless.

She slowly headed into the personal bathroom next to her closet in her room. She spurted a rainbow-colored shampoo into one hoof before lathering it into her mane then dunked her entire head down into the pool of water in her tub. The pegasus repeatedly dunked her head for a few moments and when she found that the soapy residue was gone, headed to the sink.

Rainbow hated brushing her teeth, the taste of the white paste made her want to vomit but her parents bought blue gel this time and it wasn’t too bad. She did like the perky clean feeling after, just not during.

After making sure she looked presentable in the mirror, skipping bathing entirely, she headed downstairs for breakfast.

The smell of fresh pancakes filled her nostrils as she reached the end of the stairs. It was blueberry! There was a flash of prism colors that jumped into one of the cushions near the table. Rainbow slammed her rump on the pillow and hungrily dug into the stack of pancakes that laid before her eyes.

She didn’t even look up as she chomped down as much of the doughy mixture as if her life depended on it. When she finally looked up, her face was smeared with syrup and pieces of blueberry jam. She saw Cotton and Reiner looking at her with frozen faces.

There was a few seconds of frozen silence.

“Awesome pancakes, mom!” Dash broke the silence with a huge syrupy grin. Her white smile was caked with blueberry guts and apple syrup.

Cotton’s muzzle continued to hang open until she shook her head. “Dash, that’s very improper behavior for a lady such as yourself!” Her mom chastised her as a wet cloth hovered near her face in a pink glow. Rainbow frowned and tried to dodge the offending object.

She managed to dodge it for the most part until she turned to look in another direction and another cloth appeared and smacked her hard in the face.

“Oooh!” Rainbow Dash groaned as her mother finished cleaning up her face. “Mom!”

“I honestly don’t understand where you get that, missy.” Cotton huffed as she turned to look at her husband. The male pegasus was neck deep in his stack of pancakes, it looked as if the pancakes had swallowed his head. Later, there was a loud obnoxious slurping sound as the pancakes were shrinking until they filled into Reiner’s mouth.

Cotton frowned as her husband turned to look at her, with his pancake-filled cheeks puffing out, and asked with a muffled “Wad dud Ah duh? (What did I do?)” His act of innocence made her even more furious as another wet cloth came and smacked Reiner square in the face, this one came so hard that it knocked him to the floor and missed most of the stains on him.

She did not really bother to clean her husband up. Her daughter was someone she had to take care of and watch over, that was her duty as a mother. It was not, however, her duty to watch her husband like he was some newborn colt. There was nothing in the wedding promises that included that, not even in the fine prints!

Reiner stood back up, swallowed his food, sighed loudly, then said in a calm voice, “Can I have more pancakes? I love them!” He smiled in an idiotic way and looked at her.

Rainbow Dash gave a similar smile, nodding her head furiously. “They’re awesome, mom! Your pancakes are 20% cooler than plain, old, regular pancakes!”

Cotton sighed but she inwardly took the compliments before going into the kitchen to make more pancakes.

As she watched her mother’s flank disappear behind the doorway, Rainbow leaned beside her dad and said, “I can see why you married her! She’s a radical cook!”

“Heheh,” Reiner chuckled. “Yes, your mother is something special.”

“When I find that pony I want a trophy wife like mom!” Rainbow declared proudly.

“Rainbow, now don’t talk like that. ‘Trophy wife’ is such a fierce term. I want you to find somepony special that you love and want to marry.” Reiner shook his head when he thought about what his daughter had declared, he asked, “And, shouldn’t the term be ‘trophy husband’? Not wife?”

“It’s okay, I got it all figured out, the pony I want is someone who stays home, soft, shy, a great cook, and cute. See, calling him ‘husband’ is too strong so I think it’s better to call him the ‘wife‘!”

Reiner sighed and patted his daughter on the head, “Just don’t let your mom hear you saying things like that, you might make her angry. She might blame me for that or something.”

“I mean who wouldn’t want someone like mom? She the best mare in the world!” That’s Rainbow Dash to a T, loyal to a fault, although, sometimes a bit too brash.

Just as she said this, Cotton came back with a new fresh batch of pancakes.

“Oh, Dashy! That’s so nice of you to say that!” Her mother beamed at her proudly before placing the large stacks of pancakes on both of Reiner‘s and Rainbow‘s plates.

Reiner sighed a thankful release, his wife didn’t hear their daughter’s sexist remark. His ears were safe from disapproval for the time being.

“You two eat so much.” Cotton said offhandedly. “I wonder where you two put it all?”

“Easy, when you’re the best you eat the most!” Rainbow momentarily stopped eating to explain to her mother and bumped her chest with her hoof, with pride.

Reiner shook his head at her, his daughter is so energetic, so athletic, so…cocky! She means well but sometimes it off-puts others. “She means to say that we, as pegasi, especially Starlight Pegasi, use up a lot of energy since we fly around a lot and have the need to consume a lot of calories.”

“In other words, the best of us eat the most!”

“Oh, Rainbow Dash…,” Her mother smiled tenderly at their daughter. She raised a hoof and patted her on the head.

After Rainbow and her father were done cleaning their plates, Reiner was called to a meeting with Princess Celestia. It seemed like she had something important to speak about with her Starlight General while Rainbow Dash headed for her daily training with her uncle.

She trotted carelessly along Canterlot Castle, occasionally bumping into a few of the staff ponies, since she wasn’t watching where she was going. Her mind was a bit cloudy and unfocused as she thought about the past few days.

Evil Twilight, deceitful father, sergeant bloodthirsty uncle…what’s a young filly like her to do about all of the drama?

She bumped into another pony, this time hard! She and the other pony fell back and landed on their flanks. Both held their heads in their hooves in pain.

“Watch where you are going, you clumsy fool!” A whiny yet familiar voice roared. Rainbow Dash looked up with a frown and replied, “Oh, it’s you.”

The blue unicorn looked at Rainbow Dash, aghast. “You? How dare you speak of The Great and Powerful Trixie as if she were some hogwash apple farmer?” The white maned unicorn didn’t seem to notice Rainbow grit her teeth when she said this. “Show some respect to someone of higher standing, you worm!”

“Of course, how can I forget The Great and Powerful Trixie? You are, after all, the greatest -cough-pain-cough- magician in all of the Sun Kingdom!” Trixie puffed out her chest in pride, seemingly not noticing the pegasus’s mocking tone. “Part of the Princess Celestia’s grand court of powerful and talented generals! Why, I think I shall bow down to that rock you are standing by, since your majesty is so strong and…adhesive.”

“Why, yes, Trixie’s power is very adhesive!”

“Like crazy glue under a waste basket…!”  Rainbow muttered under her breath as she puffed her hanging rainbow mane out of her eyes.

“Oh, yes, Trixie remembers now!” Trixie started saying. “The Great and Powerful Trixie was called into court by Princess Celestia. Apparently, she’s called her entire court to the war room, especially your father, Reiner Dash, since a great deal seems to concern him.

Well, I must be going. I know that Princess Celestia can’t but need my assistance in combative planning. Ta ta, Starlight Daughter.” It seemed that Trixie forgot to speak in 3rd person at that last part.

Rainbow Dash was tempted to actually follow the blue unicorn and spy on the generals and war advisors and see what they were talking about but was too lazy to go through with the idea. Besides, Starry was going to skin her worse than a bunny in hunting season.

XOX

“Rainbow…?” Starry asked with a bit of annoyance. He looked around for his niece in the castle’s courtyard. He then looked back at the giant maze behind him, “Did she get lost in the maze…? I told her to wait for me before hiking.” His torn ears folded down in confusion. “Is she that brash…? …Yes, she is.”

The scarred blue pegasus turned around and headed into the maze. A few young mares were walking by and saw the older pegasus trek into the maze. “Isn’t that Starry? Where do you think he’s going?” Another fawned, “Wouldn’t it be dreamy to get lost with him in the maze?” The three mares paused for a second and looked at each other.

Moments later, the mares ran into the maze after Starry Lights.

XOX

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is present!” Trixie came up to the grand hall leading into Celestia’s chambers.

The two black and white furred pegasusi guards looked uneasily at each other before proceeding to open the doors for her.

It looked like Trixie was a bit late since a dozen of other ponies were already in the room, chatting away. A few took the chance to look at the opening doors to glance at Trixie before looking back at Reiner and Celestia.

Trixie spoke proudly, announcing her arrival and thanking everyone for waiting for her. Many ponies ignored her theatrics. Her abilities and position within the court gave her great authority but her demeanor garnered very few respect from her peers. Although, they all agreed that she was an invaluable asset all the same.

“—Is a dire choice…!” One of the talking stallions stomped a hoof hard into the hard marble surface.

“We can’t continue these acts, it is unbecoming of ponies!”

“Fight as monsters against monsters!” Another voice interjected.

Trixie sat there with a small frown but stay uncharacteristically quiet. She needed to understand the situation to a degree before voicing her opinion.

Reiner sighed after shaking off everypony’s words.

“Enough!” Reiner yelled out, losing every inch of calm in his voice. He coughed in relief as they all quieted down. “I assume this is not just a mere war assembly, is that not right, Princess Celestia?”

The white alicorn merely smiled, a tender smile. “It is true.” She said, to everypony’s gasp. “I called everypony here to discuss something that I feel we need to deal with.”

“Is this about the she-whore, Zoner of Twilight?” Trixie finally spoke up, bringing all eyes on her. Many cringed, even Celestia herself, when she said that forbidden word. She smiled as she took the attention and saw the recognition fall over Princess Celestia’s eyes, almost forgetting the tingling sensation in her beating chest.

“Yes and no…,” Celestia spoke in a voice of fine silk. “Yes, I feel that the war has been going on for too long but the other side does not seemed content on stopping except for the occasional ‘peace treaties’. The Zoner is a particularly heavy issue.”

“Reiner is not doing a very good job, it’s his duty to hold the she-witch at bay, neigh, even push her back! But I see nothing of the sort!” An old red earth pony with long thin mustaches said. His brown eyebrows were covering his eyes but they could sense the contempt from his face.

“Sir Gerald, we know that the Zoner killed your son but we cannot hold Reiner accountable for such a tragedy. ‘Tis the tides of war.” A blue unicorn, who looked much younger than most in the court, said with a poetic voice. “The beauty of life and foulness of death is one and the same. We all know where we stand in life in this chaotic world.”

“Oh, please, Blazing Tides! Stop with your nonsensical speeches. We’re in it to win it! It’s the same with them Lunars, we just gotta push harder and faster until they’re all dead!” Another earth pony, who stood taller than most of them, said in a gruff voice. His coat was a dark brown, almost black.

“My unit is meant for the sole protection of the entire borders of our great country of Equestria and our great Princess. We are only ponies and are not perfect, though we strive constantly to get closer to it each day, and that includes threats besides the Zoner, Twilight Sparkle.” Reiner said after getting tired of listening to the others’ petty squabbles. “Many lives are often wasted but for the greater good of our people. That is our duty, all of our duties.” He stared down everypony with a stare that challenged an opposition.

Everypony was quiet for a moment. His words were cold but true.

“Some duty!” Trixie finally said, shaking her head. “Trixie and her squadron of elite unicorns had to deal with a scourge of cockatrice that were rampaging the border town of Hoofmore! All Starlights were none to be found! We unicorns took great lengths to revive the townspeople of their stone prisons.”

After she said this, everypony started getting into more arguments, ranging from mundane such as ‘Who ate my carrots?!’ to serious like ‘I held my husband’s disembodied head hours after he promised to return to our anniversary!’

Celestia shook her head and raised her hoof above her head, silencing everypony once more. “This is enough for today. It’s getting late and I believe we should continue this discussion until next week. Everypony may go back to their previous engagements.” Just as Reiner was nearing the door, Celestia spoke in a low voice, “Except for you, Starlight General.”

Celestia turned her head to the right and looked at the cloaked pony in the corner of her vision. “And, you too.” The cloaked pony stopped, hesitantly. They were shaking with fear at being found. Their cyan muzzle took a big gulp. “Rainbow Dash, I can’t believe you snuck into this meeting. Are you that eager to be a Starlight General?”

Celestia ordered all of the guards and staff, besides Rainbow and Reiner Dash, out of her throne room. “My little pony, this is a grave misdemeanor to eavesdrop in a confidential war meeting.” The white alicorn sighed, heavily. “But this isn’t the only reason why I stopped you two. It has to do with your involvement with Twilight Sparkle.”

Both Dashes looked appalled and shocked, the older one even looked a bit nervous. “I’m glad to see you two made it back safely from that dreadful encounter in Neighrun Castle. But you are taking things too far, Reiner. Trying to assassinate my sister was reckless, even incorrigible. I may be your princess but I can’t control everything you do, just don’t try that again.”

After the small lecture, Princess Celestia let the two Starlights go. Reiner glared at his daughter as they walked alongside one another in the hall. “Really, Rainbow? You left your uncle to spy on us? You need to stop playing around.” He said with a bit of frustration.

“I wonder how’s Uncle Starry doing right now?” Rainbow asked nonchalantly, out loud. “Oh my gosh! Uncle Starry!” Her eyes became the size of dish plates as she darted out in a flurry of colors into the royal garden.

XOX

“Where in the blazing daisies did that filly go?” Starry muttered in annoyance. He saw a light red mare wave to him in the corner of the large maze. As he got closer he noticed the mare fall down, unconscious. One of her legs were twitching. “Isn’t that the fifth time I saw this mare?” He asked to himself out loud. ‘I’m not that scary, am I?’

After taking a few more turns, he finally found his way out. He gasped in shock as he saw a panting Rainbow Dash laying on her back in front of the exit.

“Why, Dash!” He started yelling out loud.

“Really, Uncle Starry, I—” Rainbow Dash started to stand up and tried to think of a good excuse to give her uncle.

“I can’t believe you found your way out better than I had expected. I’m proud!”

“—Yeah…? That…Sure, let’s go with that…?” Rainbow Dash accepted her luck and took the credit.

Chapter End