A Ghost of What Might Have Been

Rainbow dash, the ever fashionably late, as Rarity liked to call her, was well. Late. Super, fucking late. She pushed her speed, nearly making a sonic boom over the capital before she nearly collided with one of the Royal Guard Reapers, the RGR glanced at Rainbow Dash with a look that bordered on respect and contempt for the mercenary in equal parts..

“What’s up Rainbow Dash? Twilight’s already inside and Applejack is down in the passenger and cargo holds with Curse, and Dagger.” The Royal guard looked smug as if this was an easy job, though she wasn’t doing it out of rudeness…Rainbow Dash *Supposed* the Reapers at least had a good reason to be smug, Rainbow Dash herself could not stand the lancers herself.

“Did Twilight say if I was supposed to go with her, or AppleJack?” She asked the Reaper before the reaper twitched her wings in a version of a shrug, causing her to dip slightly in the air.

“Dunno, I’ve been flying air patrol for a good hour or so…Twilight went by herself, so you might check on her.” She offered, before making a lazy circle of the ship. “We heard some noises coming from the Crew Compartment but figured it wasn’t anything too important since it wasn’t one of Miss Sparkle’s big spells.”

Rainbow Dash nodded as she dropped down to the deck, and began to go the way of the crew compartment, Stopping on the bridge, viewing the odd dead dude….and the shiny bug thing with a hole in it’s chest. Incompetent guards! That blast of magic *Had* been something important! If Rarity had only hired the wonderbolts to….Ugh! She began to trot loudly down the crew compartment hatch, following after the way she had hoped Twilight had gone.

Twilight for her part had not seen any more Changelings, but…plenty of the sad looking dead bodies of drained ponies, their coats grey and old, their flanks curiously blank…It was then that she saw the first scene of what the Changeling had been talking about simmering hate…two ponies, un-drained lay under a draped tarp, hoof marks and bite marks showing the fight they had gotten into, the crew obviously having attempted to hide it from the passengers, before the changelings had..what? Attacked? Swarmed? What an odd---

She heard the rapid fire staccato of running hooves, and she whirled around in the compartment, bracing herself for another attack, seeing the blue blur before it’s owner registered in her mind, then RD and Twi were down, a tangled mass as Rainbow Dash had not applied enough break. Twilight felt a painful THUNK as her shoulder hit the wall. “Rainbow! Get off me!” She said in annoyance as Rainbow Dash pulled back and away, rubbing the back of her short, rainbow maned head. “Sorry Twi…”

Twilight rubbed her shoulder with a hoof, it wasn’t broken, just..hurt. “It’s fine Rainbow, Your late.” She teased her friend. Twilight shook her head slowly. “Here is all I know is that those bug things are called changelings, and they kind of want me.” She said with a smirk. Rainbow Dash didn’t quite react to that…. “What about you?”

“Oh, well, you know me, I don’t really think about these things too much, Let’s keep going though…maybe we’ll find your answers down the hall.” ‘Ranbow Dash’ said, her rainbow colored tail twitching. “Maybe we’ll find out that they aren’t so bad.” She said with a chuckle.

Rainbow Dash glared at the two bugs that were infront of her. They had ambushed her as if they knew she was coming. “We saw you…” One hissed raspily. They had her tied up and webbed in Goo that she had run head long into. As soon as she had run into the hallway, three of them had seemingly melted from the shadows, springing the goo trap, and almost in eerie harmony, the third had run off as Rainbow dash stopped, a flash of blue light and the bug was running down the hall! “We saw you coming in her mind, when we touched it…You will not interfere, blue bird.” It said as it watched Rainbow Dash struggle…