This...was a pretty shitty idea.
Yes, even Rainbow Dash, the most boneheaded egoist in all of Ponyville could agree to that. In fact, she, herself, was calling this supposedly "radical" idea shitty. But the point was made.
As of right now, there was a rather large crater in the middle of the Everfree forest. Every tree within fifty meters of "Ground Zero," as it was to be called, was completely flattened, making the damage appear more severe than it already was. Considering how severe it was already, that was quite the feat; the earth was cracked, extending deep into the forest. Several animals, even the fiercest of predators, had run off, fearing for their lives.
The pegasus herself should have been thankful for that fact, seeing as she was in just as bad a condition. Her wings were snapped, the bones bent at odd angles. Her front right hoof hit the ground so hard that it was actually cracked, and her left hind leg was broken in two places. Several of her ribs were cracked, and she knew that at least one of them was broken; she had nudged a single foreleg to her chest and felt a nice burning pain.
Great. Just perfect. She groaned in a mix of annoyance and regret. She didn't feel a twinge of guilt (after all, she was the only casualty), but she did know that she wasn't going to try...whatever she tried again.
"I don't even remember what I was trying!" She mumbled to no one in particular. In the middle of her pained struggle, she did hear a light tapping of hooves on the ground. She jerked her head around, trying to find the source of the sound. "Who's there?" She yelled as she tried to stand, only to gasp in pain upon putting her front hoof on the ground. She growled, muttering "Damn it!" under her breath.
She shut her eyes, the pain gripping her. The image of Pinkie Pie flashed through her brain...
I'll get you for reassuring me that my own shitty plan was a good idea! Rainbow then made a rather stupid face, as she realized that she was essentially blaming Pinkie for her own idiocy. She put her good hoof to her face, groaning. Fuck. Can't blame anypony else. Why can't I blame anypony else?
"Damn it." She groaned. Of course, the first response she heard was a nice little response to said expletive. That is two say, three words.
"Watch your tongue!" The light tapping of hooves got louder as the pony started walking upon the downed trees. "I'll have you know that I do not appreciate such foul language in my presence!"
Rainbow's pupils dilated. She recognized that voice. You've got to be fucking kidding me.
"I just heard a bang and saw an explosion. I wasn't expecting to hear somepony's dirty mouth, too."
The voice. That annoying Celestia-damned voice. "Son of a-"
"And who might you..." The hooves were now in Dash's line of sight. She could see the blue body of the unicorn that was just above her. There was a cape, slightly ruined, and a hat, slightly damaged, complete with a messy, albeit still healthy, mane. Her eyes were a deep purple, and her mouth was kept down by an annoyed scowl. "Oh...Oh Celestia."
"You?" Despite herself, Dash found herself shouting.
"Me?" The unicorn recoiled in return, as through to return Dash's dismay.
"Oh for fuck's sake! Of all the ponies to be found by, why'd it have to be you?"
"I'll have you know that I am a perfectly capable pony, thank you very much!" The unicorn harrumphed. "After all, only you should be fortunate as to have landed in the hooves of the Great and Powerful Trixie!"
Dash's eye twitched, and it was now that she believed that Celestia was not an omnipotent god.
After all, no decent god would knowingly bring this kind of punishment upon her.
"...I hate everyone."
[Act One: I Deeply Resent This]
Chapter One
Twilight noticed that there was something odd today. It just felt...off. Of course, when she looked into the sky, she could see a large series of rings that led to no particular place within the Everfree forest, but that would not have been any call for alarm.
"Rainbow's probably off doing a trick again." She sighed.
"Uh...Twi?" Applejack stared at Twilight, her sandwich held in her hooves as she raised an eyebrow. "What're yah doing?"
"Hm?" Twilight blinked emptily, only to turn back to Applejack. "Oh! I was just wondering what happened to Rainbow." She put her chin on the table. "I haven't seen her since the morning."
"Mornin'? Yah mean before she went to take a nap?" Applejack took a nice chunk out of the sandwich with a bite.
"I don't know. It would seem odd that she'd take a nap immediately after saying 'good morning.'" Twilight rested her head on her hoof.
"It's not outta the question." Another bite, and the sandwich disappeared, crumbs falling to the plate immediately. "She's a hell of a mare, but she's lazy. Very lazy." Applejack raised an eyebrow. "If anythin', she's probably sleeping over the Everfree, probably just a hundred or two miles away. It would only take 'er about twenty minutes to get back here, and that's if she's bein' sluggish."
"I hope so, Applejack." Twilight pushed her plate away, uninterested in her food, as she turned her head skyward. Her eyes held a bit of sadness, and her mouth fell into a frown. "I really hope so."
[]
Rainbow woke up again. This time, however, she didn't feel the ground beneath her. In fact, she could see that it was just two feet below her. The sky was dark, with stars dotting it, and an orange light illuminating her face. She shifted a bit on the...thing she was on, looking around. She moved her right hoof, before realizing that it was, in fact, a bit heavier than it was earlier. She looked over to it, realizing that, indeed, it was wrapped in a nice amount of medical magic, made to resemble plaster.
"It was the best I could do." A certain blue mare said. "I may be 'great' and 'powerful,' but I'm not a medical doctor."
Rainbow Dash shifted, looking down to realize that, yes, she was on a cot. Sitting across from her, on the other side of a burning fire, was Trixie. "What the-"
"Don't start this again." Trixie groaned. "We already had the 'IT'S YOU' shenanigans from earlier. I mean, geez, you fainted after that."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "It wasn't because of that. That's for sure." She put her good hoof to her chin. "I'm pretty sure."
Trixie smirked. "Yeah. Sure. Just like you were pretty sure," She emphasized "pretty," just to mock the poor mare "that you could beat me at my own game."
Rainbow frowned deeply. "Oh, of all ponies to find me in the middle of the forest, why did it have to be you?"
Trixie grinned, taking in Rainbow's resentment with a fair bit of amusement. "It had to be me because only one pony is great and powerful enough to-!"
"Shut up."
Trixie had to stifle her own laughter. She failed, miserably, and burst out in laughter, annoying Rainbow Dash to no end. "Oh, Celestia, this is going to be fun."
Rainbow glared. "Oh, because now you can stroke your huge-ass ego?"
"No." Trixie responded, flatly. "So I can take your own ego down a notch."
Now this made Rainbow Dash laugh, or, at least, attempt to laugh. Instead, she started, let loose a pained squeal, and attempted to giggle without laughing again. "Oh, this is priceless! You think that my ego's anything compared to yours?"
"Self-proclaimed 'Best flyer in Ponyville,' nay, 'Equestria?'" Trixie smirked. "That explains why you landed several hundred miles away from town. In my neck of the woods."
"Your neck of the woods?" Rainbow rolled her eyes again. "These are just woods."
"Highly dangerous woods that I, Trixie, was capable of living in and eventually making a residence within?"
"A residence?" Rainbow looked behind her, just in time to smirk again. "You mean this hunk-of-shit wagon?"
"Hey!" Trixie growled. "I worked hard to steal that!"
"Steal it? You stole it?"
Trixie caught herself. "Uh..." Trixie blushed, a sheepish smile stretching across her face as she looked to the ground. "I found it in the woods. And fixed it up. A little. With a rock." She grinned, clearly embarrassed. "It was a rush job." She stood up regardless. "But it is proof that I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, am capable of repairing all kinds of damage! Do not worry, dear Rainbow Dash!"
Rainbow closed her eyes with pure incredulity, as she pressed a hoof to her nose. "What the fu-"
[]
"ck!" Pinkie said on impulse, as though she were finishing a word that somepony else had started. She had a smile on her face as she jumped up to the cloudhouse in the sky. With the power of physics-defying trampolines, and a bit of unicorn magic, it wasn't hard to make her way up to the place that Rainbow Dash called home.
"Hello~?" She yelled to nopony in particular. Indeed, all that she got in return was an empty echo. She shivered, hoping that she'd get some kind of response. "Anypony home?" She walked slowly, the softness of the outer cloud giving way to the home's own hard floors. If she were more focused, she probably would have complimented the firmness of the fluffy cloud.
Firm fluffy cloud. Pinkie giggled to herself. Twilight would call that an oxy-moxy-gen-moron! The bizarre tangent aside, she couldn't help but feel more than a little nervous. She checked every room, making sure that Dash was sleeping in some odd place. If that failed, maybe she'd find some clue as to where Rainbow went.
Several minutes later, the house was destroyed. Well, not really, but it would be hard to say otherwise. Everything was pulled out and spread across the floor. The bed was unmade. The bathtub was actually flipped upside-down. The refrigerator in Dash's kitchen, once filled with TV-dinners, was now officially emptied, the contents strewn across the floor to spoil over the course of Celestia-knows-how-long.
But there was no sign of Dashie. Pinkie put a hoof on her chin. If she's not here...then where did she go?
From outside, somepony shouted. "Any sign of her?"
Pinkie ran out, actually knocking a few bits of Wonderbolts franchise out of the front door and to the ground. "I couldn't even see a bit of rainbow mane!"
Twilight frowned. "Thanks." She turned away, displeased. She noted to herself that earlier, it was just a feeling, but now, she knew for sure that something was definitely wrong.
[]
The sky was pitch-black, dotted only by the occasional star. It was a new moon, and not a single ray of light illuminated the forest. The fire had died out hours ago, and Rainbow was left lying on the cot, awake and alone. She could only think silently as the sky turned, the beating of her heart being the only sound in the darkness.
She wasn't pleased. "Of all the places to land," She looked to the crater just a few meters away from their apparent campground. "Why here?" She tapped her chest lightly, as though to test her ribs for injury.
Instantly, she shot her hoof away from herself. The pain was intense, almost as though someone had stabbed her. Given the nature of the injury, that wouldn't have been too far from the truth. She groaned, and tried to sleep once more.
\/
She had completely failed to sleep throughout the previous night. Her head was ringing, her eyes were open, and her chest...her chest was still stinging. She growled, low expletives escaping her muzzle. She was desperately resisting the urge to kill somepony.
"Good morning, Rainboooow~!" Trixie danced onto the scene with mushrooms floating around her. "I hope you slept well?"
That urge was getting stronger. "Fuck off, Trixie." She growled, teeth clenched as she tried to rise out the bed. The attempt was, oddly enough, successful. She flapped her wings once, just to find that, yes, they were fully healed. "What the-"
Trixie knew that a question was coming, so she answered Rainbow preemptively. "Your wings were easier to heal than your ribs." Trixie said, starting a fire with a spark from her horn. "Those will take about two weeks. That being said, you still can't fly. It'll be another month until you can go and attempt suicide again." As she explained, the fire had quickly grown, and was now ready for cooking. She pulled up a stolen pan from the wagon, sliced several mushrooms with her magic, and threw everything over the fire.
Rainbow grumbled in bemusement. "If that was so damn easy for you, then did it take a week when I was in the hospital?"
"Did you land on your wings and completely decimate them in that accident?"
"...Maybe." Said a sheepish Rainbow Dash.
"Exactly!" Trixie smiled. "Now, as a performer and your caretaker, it is my solemn duty to make sure that my great and powerful self get-"
"Don't." Although her wings were now officially healed, she still didn't get any sleep the previous night. "Damn it. My head feels like shit."
"I was quiet last night." Trixie said, not looking away from her food for a second. "So you can't blame me."
"I wasn't going to." Rainbow shot back. "Pain tends to hurt. Just so you know."
"Well, yeah. Unfortunately, there weren't any herbs for that sort of thing." Trixie flipped a mushroom, putting it onto a slab of wood. "I couldn't find any." She turned around, handing it over to Rainbow. "Breakfast?"
"I'll call bullshit on that one." Rainbow ignored the food. "You so could have found some. Just wanted me to suffer..." Rainbow got out of the bed, and then fell to the ground with a nice, soft thud. She gasped in pain, before whimpering pitifully.
"That's a bad idea, Rainbow. You shouldn't have done that." Trixie lifted the pegasus back onto the bed quickly. "And please, eat the mushrooms. Those'll help you heal faster. Trust me, I know." The smug smile was back on her face within seconds. "Of course I know."
"Shut up, Trixie." Dash growled, turning her back towards the performer.
"Just trying to help, you know." Trixie shrugged. "Just because you want to curse me out for helping you won't make me stop." Her smirk broke out into a full-blown grin.
"'Help me' my ass." The pegasus rolled her eyes. "You're just reveling in the fact that I'm helpless and dependent on you."
"Maybe, maybe not." Trixie shrugged, placing the food next to Rainbow, regardless of her consent. "Trixie does not need to see you helpless in order to feel good about herself." She looked up and down across her injured body, and at the magical binds on her limbs. "Though it certainly makes things more peaceful." Just for good measure, she leered, taking advantage of the moment to make Rainbow feel even less comfortable than she usually did. "In fact, it's kinda kinky."
Rainbow's face burst into a violent blush. "Uh...I'm not ga-"
"Sure you aren't. And I'm queen of Equestria." Trixie laughed heartily, only for Rainbow to grumble under her breath about not being a fillyfooler.
Trixie made a mental note to herself that Rainbow Dash was typically full of shit.
[]
Twilight flipped through her mental notes, which was basically shorthand for "thinking a lot." She put a hoof to her chin, tapping it repeatedly as she sat in the library. An open book, read halfway, lay in front of her, with a very faint imprint of her head in it, and the faint light of the candle by her bed was the only source of illumination.
It was very lonely in this empty library, as Rainbow Dash hadn't come to pick up another book.
"Something terrible happened to her, didn't it?" Her voice was quiet, light. She was certain that she was the only one who heard it.
"To who?"
So of course she wasn't the only one who heard it.
Twilight shot her head up, turning it quickly towards the staircase. "Oh...hey Spike."
"Twilight, it's four o'clock in the morning." Spike was groggy. He rubbed his eye with a claw, still dress head-to-toe in his pajamas. "Why in Equestria are you still reading books at this hour?" He took a longer glance at the book, noticing a certain important fact. "I take that back. Why aren't you reading books at this hour? It's still at the same page that it was when I went to bed." He stepped down, yawning for a few seconds before finally regaining at least a little of his lucidity.
"I..." Twilight took a deep breath, resting her head back on the book. "...I can't sleep." She looked at him. "I'm worried."
"About what?" Spike was next to her now, putting a single claw on her back.
Twilight looked at him directly. "Rainbow."
Spike rolled his eyes raising the claws in exasperation. "She's probably fine! Everypony else is saying that she is."
"'Everypony else' also thought that Queen Chrysalis was supposed to marry my brother." Twilight said mockingly. "I'm still worried, Spike. Really worried." As she continued her tirade, Twilight rolled onto her side, curling up into a fetal position. "What if she's dead?" Her eyes widened at the thought. "What if she died and we didn't do a damn thing about it?"
"Twilight, calm down." The young dragon raised his claws non-threateningly. "She'll turn up soon."
"Turn up as a corpse, maybe." She said, her voice low. "If she's in the Everfree, she's definitely dead by now. Hydras. Timberwolves. I don't know, maybe there's even a Basilisk in there."
Spike sighed, putting a claw on her shoulder. "Look, if it'll make you feel better, we can go looking for her later, okay?"
Twilight turned a bit, her left eye meeting Spike's. "You mean it?"
Spike smiled out of relief. "It's what friends are for, right?" He walked off. "Look, it's probably not as bad as you think. It almost never is. Remember that time with Smarty pants?"
Twilight sighed, deciding to finally calm herself down. She replied just loud enough for him to hear. "I...I understand." She looked to the moon through her window. The sky was clear, and she could see every single star in the sky "But what if you're wrong this time?"
[]
Rainbow Dash groaned. Trixie grunted. The cart rumbled and squeaked, and the sun shined. Not much else could be said as they trekked through the forest, the dirt grinding under the cart's wheels. Trixie's legs were wobbly, and sweat was dripping from her mane, thanks to the sheer amount of work that she was performing.
I'm so glad that I don't care anymore. She smirked. I think it's better than dying. "Are you alright back there?"
"Fuck you!"
"I'll take that as a yes." Trixie rolled her eyes. "If I had a shot for every use of the word 'fuck...'"
"I get it. I say 'fuck' a lot. Well, excuse me, princess." Rainbow crossed her forehooves...well, as well as she could with one of them in a magical cast and with an injured chest. Which is to say, not very well. "I think that getting grievously injured compensates for my 'uncomfortable' fucking manner of speech."
"It's also obnoxious as all hell." Trixie sighed. "I mean, I am annoying, but you take it to a new level."
"A new level? The hell does that mean?"
Trixie thought fast. "It means that I'll dump your body on the road if you don't shut up quickly." Rainbow stopped, grumbling under her breath. "Carry on."
And Trixie did, for several miles. Every other mile would consist of Trixie blabbing about her months outside, and how her great and powerful self had defeated the mysterious dangers of the Thousand-Acre-Wood known as the Everfree. And with every other mile, Rainbow did one of three things in response:
1)Complain
2)Listen diligently
3)Fall into lunacy, mostly just to annoy Trixie
In fact, let us take exhibit A:
"I was alone, after Ponyvillle cast me out! Stranded, with a murderer, I crept silently in the underbrush, when Aha! Suddenly, in the distance, there was cottage with a light on! Hope! I went towards it, but my leg! Ah! It was caught in a bear trap!"
As of this moment, the third option had been selected. Rainbow opened her jaw, and spoke. "The end of Wallaburg is a plentiful example of sickening blooswaggle and then eventually ponies become urkel."
Trixie's bullshit story stopped. "What does that even mean?"
"It means that I don't believe you, and that you should shut up."
Trixie growled in response, saying "Look, If you're just going to whine and spout nonsense the entire way, I could just drop you off right here and let you be chewed upon by Timberwolves! How does that sound, because that sounds very nice to Trixie!"
Rainbow replied swiftly. "But you haven't yet. And you barely even know me. Why go through the trouble of saving my ass?"
Trixie's smug smile faltered for a split second, before returning full-force. "Because otherwise, I would not have a worthy adversary to crush once you recovered."
"What about Twili-"
"Who?" Trixie turned, showing her rather crooked smile to Rainbow. The smugness was gone, replaced entirely by something a little...stranger.
Rainbow cringed "Are you oka-."
“I'MPERFECTLYFINELETSJUSTKEEPGOINGTOANEARBYCAVE.." Her teeth ground against each other as she desperately attempted to retain a little bit of civility and/or sanity. It wasn't working. She wound up wearing a very broken and crooked smile for several hours.
And so, the rest of Rainbow's trip was spent shaking in fear, and whimpering in pain.
[]
In a crater, a lone Changeling Queen rested. Her mane, holes adorning it ever-so-commonly, was spread across the ground, with her head resting upon it. She looked to the sky, staring blankly with annoyance and...was that disappointment?
"Enough power to defeat Celestia, and it wasn't enough." She said. "Three weeks, and I'm still complaining about this." She rolled over, curling herself up. The holes in her legs had grown, with many of them several inches wider than they were during her failed attack. And there were new holes growing in her body, with several dozen tiny holes growing in her exoskeleton just below her kneecaps. "And only three weeks after feeding I'm losing strength." She sighed. "Surviving the blast must have taken more of his power than I thought."
She looked back to the sky, with the empty moon floating above. "Maybe it was inevitable. If the princess of the night were awake...perhaps this was the better fate." She sighed deeply. No need to wax philosophy now; she needed to find food fast.
In the distance, she saw a campfire. Instantly, the Queen's eyes widened. Food! She tried to fly, only for her wings to flap uselessly. She grimaced; her body was too heavy for her pitiful, bug-like wings to lift her right now. "Damn." Slowly, she rose, her atrophying legs stumbling as she did so. "Please, let them have emotion..."
She started her way, slowly walking to the light in the darkness.